Mormon Identity BORN AGAIN 2

Episode 17 Mormon Identity BORN AGAIN 2

[MUSIC BEGINS] NARRATOR: Welcome to Mormon Identity, a 30-minute talk radio program that addresses Church topics important to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our host is Robert L. Millet, professor of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. [MUSIC ENDS] ROBERT MILLET: We welcome you to this edition of Mormon Identity. I am Robert Millet. I am associated with the Department of Ancient Scripture at BYU, and with me today is Professor Brent Top, the chair of the Department of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. Welcome Brent. BRENT TOP: Thank you. ROBERT MILLET: We have talked already for one segment on the matter of being born again, and we made some progress, Brent, but I think we want to visit again and talk about both some doctrinal matters and some very practical matters of how I know, how I can tell when I am beginning to be born of the spirit. Maybe it would be well for us to understand the principle that Jesus set forth so clearly that no person can enter the kingdom of God until they are born again. BRENT TOP: I love the account in John chapter three, and may be the context in setting the stage for the verse that we are most familiar with, was that here was Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees coming unto Jesus without wanting to be known or recognized for that, but he really wants to know what he needs to do to be saved in the kingdom of God, and Jesus says to him “You have to be born again.” Nicodemus reacts and says, “Well that is dumb,” This is the Brent Top translation. ROBERT MILLET: This is kind of the new living message here. BRENT TOP: Yeah, yes, he is saying, how can that be? How can I go into my mother’s womb and be born again? And that is very typical of Pharisaic way of reading the scriptures. It was very literal, and everything is a literal interpretation, and so he did not catch the figurative nature of it, and so Jesus teaches him again that he must be born again in a spiritual sense. In verse five, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Then the Savior very clearly teaches him that this is a spiritual process when he says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit,” and then he says again, reiterating it and putting an exclamation point on that, the Savior then said, “So marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.”

ROBERT MILLET: That is marvelous. You know, the prophet Joseph Smith in discussing Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus referred to verses three and five. Jesus said it first as you read, Brent, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, and then in verse five “Except a man be born of the water and of the spirit, he cannot enter. The Prophet Joseph said that it is one thing to see the kingdom of God and another thing to enter into it. He said we must have a change of heart to see the kingdom of God and subscribe, and the phrase he used, and we will talk about this, subscribe the articles of adoption to enter therein. Let’s talk about the easier one first though, Brent. You must have a change of heart to see the kingdom of God. What do you think of there? BRENT TOP: Well, I like to think of the word “see” as much more than visual or a vision-type process, because if you think in our own lives when we, when somebody is talking to us or we are getting instructions to something and we’ll say “Oh, I see.” ROBERT MILLET: Now I see. BRENT TOP: Now I see, and it has nothing to do with our eyes, and I think Elder David B. Haight said it best when he said, “We see God when we perceive God, when we begin to comprehend God and his workings with man.” So I like to think of seeing that way. ROBERT MILLET: You know, as a young missionary you could often tell, I could often tell when people were beginning to see the kingdom of God. They begin, and you know as a mission president, former mission president, that when the people begin to recognize the missionaries as important people, when they begin to recognize that the message is very significant for their lives, these all are examples of seeing the kingdom. They begin to realize this is pretty important stuff. So, to see the kingdom of God, we begin to recognize the message. We begin to appreciate the applicability of it to my life. To enter, Joseph Smith said. So, you have to have a change of heart to, as it were, recognize or appreciate the kingdom of God, but then we must subscribe the articles of adoption to enter therein. Adoption, what do you think of on articles of adoption, Brent? BRENT TOP: That we become his sons and daughters, and you think about that phrase, that term is often used. Alma uses that term that we should become begotten sons and daughters unto God, meaning that it is a process by which we are adopted into his household and family again, anew, where we have claim upon all of the blessings of the father that we become joint heirs with Jesus Christ. You have to be in the household if you are going to have the inheritance.

ROBERT MILLET: That is a good way of putting it. Articles of adoption would appear to be the same thing as the first principles and ordinances of the gospel, which allow us to be adopted into the family of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, if we are not originally a member of a family, the only way, legally, of getting into that family is being adopted into it. The beauty of this analogy is, what does an adopted child then have access to? Well, it is as though he or she had actually been born into that family. BRENT TOP: Exactly right. And I think that is what he is saying, is that we want to become his children, not just as spirit sons and daughters. We all are, no matter how we pursue our

lives, but how we would become choice, preferred daughters and sons that we are following the pattern that our Heavenly Father has set out for us. ROBERT MILLET: I think one of the very powerful statements in all of scripture is where Alma the Younger has had his experience where he is struck down by the angel as he and his partners are out trying to wreak havoc on the Church of God and this language from Mosiah 27, beginning in verse 23, “And it came to pass after they had fasted and prayed for the space of two days and two nights, the limbs of Alma received their strength, and he stood up and began to speak unto them, bidding them to be of good comfort: For said he, I have repented of my sins and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit. And then this language, “And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind,” same, similar language of Jesus to Nicodemus, “All mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness,” and here is what you mentioned Brent, “being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters;” and then Alma goes on to say by this means that we become new creatures. We will be right back. ROBERT MILLET: Welcome back to Mormon Identity. I am Bob Millet. Professor Brent Top and I are discussing the matter of being born again. We have discussed this in one other segment entirely, and now we are talking more about it. Brent, we are talking about being born again, and maybe there is a tendency as we read scripture, particularly the Book of Mormon for members of the Church to conclude that their experience must be something dramatic. If I could give just a personal illustration, one of the first years I was teaching at BYU, a young woman, a very outstanding young woman, came to my office after class and asked if she could speak with me. Now this was just a lovely young girl and just as pure, you could tell inside as out, and she began to weep. And I said, “What is it?” She said, “I am ashamed”, and I worried that perhaps she had something serious to confess. I said, “You need to talk to your bishop.” She said, “No, not that, I am just embarrassed. I don’t think I have ever had an experience like Alma.” BRENT TOP: Neither have I. ROBERT MILLET: I thought, you know, I thought there are a number of ways I could respond. I could say, “Really, you have made it this far in the Church and you have not had that experience?” Or I could have said, “Well, don’t worry about it; it will come. Give yourself a few days.” But it occurred to me that, and I told her this: it may well be that you do not need the same kind of experience Alma had because, for one thing, you are not out fighting against the Church and you do not have to have a major change in your heart. And I think there is a principle here, Brent, that I would like for us to say something about, and that is the scriptural examples are often quite dramatic. BRENT TOP: And I think they are there for a reason, and that is recording those spiritual highlights of the history of God’s dealings with his people, and we have numerous examples in the scriptures where men and women have been born again, experience the baptism of fire and change from their carnal state to a state of saintliness and righteousness in very dramatic ways. In the New Testament you can think of the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus. That is pretty dramatic conversion. You also can think of the saints in Acts chapter two at the day of Pentecost. There, again, a remarkable spiritual outpouring that

they were, as they were born again. Then in the Book of Mormon, we are so familiar with Alma. Where speaking of King Benjamin’s people in Mosiah chapter five, where they have that remarkable experience, and King Lamoni and his wife. So there is a tendency for us to think that is the way. That is the only way that spiritual rebirth comes, and I think what we need to say, like you were saying to the young woman, the process isn’t the same, but the results must be the same. That is what Alma is saying. If you are going to be born again, the end product is the same, but how you get to that point is going to be much different and probably much more personalized to us. ROBERT MILLET: I think we could each read Alma chapter 36, which is Alma’s description to Helaman of his experience, and we could tease out the principles of spiritual rebirth that every one of us have in our own lives, and yet the nature of our change may not be as dramatic at all. BRENT TOP: One of our colleagues and friends, Dr. Larry Dahl, a retired member of the Church History and Doctrine Department at BYU, shared with me a great analogy years ago in talking of this concept of the difference between the process and the results. He said there is a difference between walking into a totally dark room and turning on the switch and all of a sudden illuminating the whole room, or the very gradual sunrise, but the end product is full illumination. I think that is a good analogy of this. We are seeking after that spiritual illumination that comes from being born again, whether it is a quick turning on the switch or whether it is the gradual sunrise. The end product is what we seek. ROBERT MILLET: Exactly. Elder Bruce R. McConkie, in a 1976 devotional at BYU, entitled “Jesus Christ and Him Crucified” said this, and I think we’ll like this. He said, “Being born again is a gradual thing, except in a few isolated instances that are so miraculous that they get written up in the scriptures. As far as the generality of the member of the Church are concerned, we are born again by degrees, and we are born again to added light and added knowledge and added desires for righteousness as we keep the commandments. We will be right back. ROBERT MILLET: We welcome you back to Mormon Identity. I am Bob Millet joined by Brent Top of the Department of Church History and Doctrine. Brent, I just quoted from Elder Bruce R. McConkie in 1976 address that he delivered in which he talks about being born again being a process. What are your thoughts? BRENT TOP: Well, you know, that statement that you just read is one of my favorites, but a few years earlier, Elder McConkie taught the same concept to students because, I think the students at BYU, because they are often confused that if it is not dramatic, then it is not as valid or not as powerful, and Elder McConkie said a person may get converted or we could say born again in a moment or miraculously, but that is not the way it happens with most people. He says with most people that spiritual rebirth and the accompanying remission of sins that comes with it is a process. Now I like this next part that Elder McConkie says, “It goes step by step, degree by degree, level by level, from a lower state to a higher, from grace to grace, until the time that that individual is wholly turned to righteousness.” He says, “And the process goes on and on until it is complete until we become, literally, as the Book of Mormon says, saints of God, sons and daughters of God born again unto God instead of the natural man that are enemies of God.” I love that.

That it is not only a process, but it can happen over and over and over again from a lower state to a higher state. ROBERT MILLET: I am reminded of the October 1989 Ensign article that President Benson wrote, entitled “A Mighty Change of Heart.” He made that point again. He said, “These experiences in the Book of Mormon and the New Testament, though they are real and powerful, they really are the exception more than the rule and for every instance like that, there are so many other instances in everyday life that where the change that we are talking about, the spiritual change is slow and almost imperceptible. Let’s now turn our attention to listing some examples. We certainly cannot be comprehensive, but we can talk about some different ways that the scriptures speak of people being born again. Do you want to start us off? BRENT TOP: Well, I like to use the examples in the Book of Mormon. Here we have just been talking about they are not all in dramatic ways, but some of the principles that we learn that can be applied to our lives are associated with those that did come in dramatic ways. One of the things that I really, really like from Enos, when he was spiritually born again is when he says, “I know that God could not lie because my guilt was swept away.” I think that King Benjamin teaches us that as well. As one of the indicators, or one of the ways that we know we are born again, is that our guilt is swept away. That we are no longer troubled and in constant turmoil by our sins, that we feel that peace of conscience is what the scriptures speak of. ROBERT MILLET: You know when Alma has his experience, it is interesting when he calls upon the name of Christ and undergoes his mighty change, he does say whereas before, he was just ensnared, captured by the knowledge and understanding of his sins. He did not say, “I could not remember my sins anymore;” “I could remember my pain no more,” which I think is a very significant difference. BRENT TOP: Absolutely. ROBERT MILLET: I don’t think we are given to understand, necessarily, that you will forget your sins forever more, in fact that memory may serve a very useful purpose in the future. BRENT TOP: In fact, even when I do remember my sins, I tend to recommit them sometimes, so I think that is why I need to be born again, and again, and again. So I think that no longer troubled by it, that I don’t dwell on it. I am not continually experiencing what Isaiah talks about. That to the wicked is like a troubled sea that casts up its muck and mire continuously. When we are born again we do not have that. I remember my sins. I feel bad for them, but God has given me a peace to know that I am at least on the path going after the things of God. ROBERT MILLET: You know, I am reminded in this regard; I am reminded of a passage in the New Testament that has become a favorite of mine. First John chapter three verse 20. John writes this, a very simple verse but has profound implications. “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things.” That idea of, I think he is saying really if we tend to have an overactive conscience that we find ourselves unable to let our

sins go and forgive ourselves, maybe we ought to know that God is brighter and more powerful, and grander than we are and knows best that it is time to let it go and move on. BRENT TOP: Yes, absolutely. You know, I think one of the other great indicators that we see in the scriptures, and certainly in the words and teachings of the living prophets that would be an indication of how we are born again, and how we can recognize, even if it comes to us in a slow almost imperceptible manner, like the Lamanites, who had received the Holy Ghost and had been born again and knew it not, 3rd Nephi chapter nine. I think we will recognize some little things, such as we are more concerned about other people. We recognize those opportunities for compassion and service. We become more attune to God’s children as well as our own predicament. ROBERT MILLET: Isn’t it interesting that after Alma and the sons of Mosiah had had their experience, where is it that the sons of Mosiah want to go? They want to go back to the Lamanites, and there is that beautiful passage in chapter 28 of Mosiah that they wanted so desperately, the very thought of any soul being lost, as it were, spiritually just, they could not stand that thought. BRENT TOP: They could not bear that any human soul should perish. ROBERT MILLET: That is right. That notion of a deep sense of compassion, a deep sense to serve, I think we even begin to notice in our reverence for life in general. BRENT TOP: Absolutely. ROBERT MILLET: I think a person that is born of the Spirit has more difficulty going out and just shooting a bird. I think they feel more prone to reverence life and to reverence nature. So, yes, these are all illustrations of the kind of things that flow from gaining a remission of sins, from having our heart touched and feeling greater compassion and understanding for people. We will talk more about other indices of being changed and being renewed in the Spirit when we come back. ROBERT MILLET: Welcome back to Mormon Identity. This is Bob Millet. I am joined with, in this discussion of being born again, by my friend, Brent Top. Brent, we have talked about different ways of knowing that we are being born of the Spirit or that we have born of the Spirit, such as receiving forgiveness. Even John says in 1st John chapter five, verse one that the gaining a testimony that Jesus is the Christ is an example of being born of the Spirit. You have mentioned becoming more compassionate, more people-oriented. What I like is the idea that the scriptures teach, such as in Mosiah chapter five, when the people of King Benjamin have heard that magnificent address, their comment is fascinating. “We have no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually.” It seems to be a change that is coming from the inside out. You know, it is not just behavior modification. It is not just, “We’ve got a whole lot more will power now.” It is that there is strength and a power that has come to them from the Lord that literally changes them from the inside out. BRENT TOP: I think there is a great example of that, that we see every time a missionary comes home from the mission field where they become somewhat shocked by the worldliness and the secular nature of our society.

ROBERT MILLET: [LAUGHING] Even their parents. BRENT TOP: Yeah, and in fact their parents are not living up to what they had imagined, and I think it is because, say, they are so totally devoted to God and His ways that all of the sudden the things of the world are such a stark contrast to them, that they don’t want it. And for example, I think we see to a degree that we are born again in the things that we desire as far as music or movies. We do not need to have a rating on the box because our hearts are changed to the point where we would not be drawn to some of those things. I think that is what you mean that we are changed from the inside. Our desires are changed. Hopefully, we have already changed our deeds, but our desires are changed and that when we desire righteousness, we are not totally perfect, but we want to be a lot better than we are. ROBERT MILLET: I remember Elder Oaks in his October 2000 address, that marvelous talk on becoming, where he said one of the ways we know we are becoming and not just doing anymore, but we are becoming is that we begin to, like the people of Benjamin, lose the desire for things. I think that means practically there are things now that I just cannot get away with that I did five years ago. My conscience does not let me, and I think that is a sign if we are making progress. I liked what you said, and I was reminded of this from President Ezra Taft Benson. He said, “Not only would such a person die for the Lord, but more important, they would live for him. Enter their homes and the pictures on their walls and the books on their shelves, the music in the air, their words and acts reveal them as Christians. They stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places.” Then he adds, “When we awake and are born of God, a new day will break, and Zion will be redeemed.” BRENT TOP: You know, I think that if, that is, that would be the fruits of that spiritual rebirth. It would be manifest in what we surround ourselves with and the path that we are pursuing, but it also, the very thing that President Benson is talking about there is, remember King Benjamin talks about those that are born again will have great views of things to come, and I have wondered what that means, not that we have prophetic gifts or predictive or seeric gifts, but I think that things of the spirit become so much more important to us, and we see the relative importance of the eternal and the spiritual things. ROBERT MILLET: Yeah, when I read we have great views of that which is to come, Brent, I think the Lord has granted unto us a grander perspective, the big picture. We see what matters and what doesn’t matter. BRENT TOP: And I think you see it. You feel it as well as see it, in that when you are born again the degree to which you are born again will be felt if you don’t say your prayers, if you don’t read your scriptures. You feel spiritually deprived. It is not like I am doing a checklist, I have got to read a verse so that I can say that I have read the scriptures every day. It is that we hunger and thirst after those spiritual things. ROBERT MILLET: I think that is a good point. It isn’t if I have missed my scripture study and I am lying in bed, it isn’t that I am feeling deep guilt, as much as I am feeling a missed opportunity. BRENT TOP: I missed something, exactly. Excellent.

ROBERT MILLET: Well, you know it occurs to me that the other thing, another indication of a person’s rebirth is the extent to which they begin to gain what I would call just a believing heart. I do not mean gullibility; so much as I believe teachability. The fact that they are eager to learn new things and that they are open and attentive. When you remember Nephi very early in the story in chapter two, he heard his father preach. He prayed that his heart might be softened, and he did believe all the words of his father. Now I think that is not unimportant. That is, he begins to have that believing heart. I am reminded of that passage in the Doctrine and Covenants, “Search diligently, pray always, be believing,” in section 90 verse 24, “and all things shall work together for your good.” So a believing heart, a disposition to believe. We hear the prophets when we have been born of the spirit, and we do not necessarily feel we need to say, “Well, I will have to check that out. I better go home and spend a week praying over that.” You just sort of sense, this is of God. BRENT TOP: Well, there is a very practical way that we can all relate to it. When you speak of a believing heart, we could also say a soft heart, as opposed to a hard heart, one that is scar- tissued with rebelliousness and disobedience. A soft heart, a new heart that God has given us is then more sensitive to the things of the spirit. ROBERT MILLET: You know to draw this to a close, Brent, let me just suggest one of the most important things. As we are growing spiritually, as our heart is being changed, as the spirit is working that mighty change upon us, it seems to me, and I am going to return to an idea that we touched on. It seems that we begin to acquire what the Apostle Paul called the fruit of the spirit. Do you want to say something about that? BRENT TOP: Well, I think that just like if I have fruit trees in my backyard, the tree and the foliage are beautiful, but they really don’t do me a lot of good unless it produces some fruit that can be ingested and enjoyed and is delicious to the taste, and I think the Apostle Paul is saying to us when we are born again that we will produce something or things will be produced in our lives. ROBERT MILLET: You know, to me it really means that the more we are being born of the spirit, the more people-centered we become, the more Christ-centered we become, people become important to us. People’s feelings become important to us. How people feel matters a great deal to us, and we realize that, as C.S. Lewis put it once, we begin as we reckon up the sins of the day, we remember and we recall those sins against charity, which are so almost imperceptible, subtle. But I think as we are growing in the spirit to acquire that fruit of the spirit, love, patience, long suffering, gentleness, meekness, self control, I don’t think we are troubled by road rage anymore. I think we are not as prone to chew someone out for this or that. We have control of ourselves. Well, it is a marvelous thing, as we have said before to grow in the realm of the spirit. It is marvelous to grow physically and to live on this earth, but to enjoy the cleansing, the purifying, the enlightening, and the enlivening influences of the Holy Ghost. This is a marvelous privilege, and the Lord has promised us that through him we can be born of him and that we can grow up in the Holy Ghost and one day acquire the fullness of all that God has prepared for those that love him. [MUSIC BEGINS]

NARRATOR: You have been listening to Mormon Identity. Thanks for tuning in. We hope you join us next time. [MUSIC ENDS]