A
Book of Mormon prophet by the name of Alma (a.k.a. Alma the Younger)
was teaching his wayward son Corianton about how the resurrection
restores us to the things we've chosen by our desires and actions in
life when he said this:
"Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness. And now, my son, all men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal state, are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; therefore, they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness." (Alma 41:10-11)
Why the Prophets Warn Good People About "The Gall of Bitterness"
I believe that when Mormon and Moroni were compiling the Book of Mormon, they designed it for people who they knew were likely to read it and need its teachings while still in mortality. So what do Book of Mormon prophets mean, warning an avid student of the scriptures such as myself, right here and now, about a "carnal state" or a "gall of bitterness?" Why did the prophets of old believe I - someone who does care about the will of God in my life - need to learn about these things? I don't believe I have done anything that needed to go before a bishop - at least nothing that hasn't already been thus resolved. Certainly I believe in God and am doing the best I can to live my faith - most of the time.
What I do have going on in my life, though, is frequent "spiritual lows" that bring misery and make it feel like the gospel has stopped working in my life. I personally believe that these are brief stints I have suffered in my own "carnal state" or "gall of bitterness". This is what it feels like to "[be] without God in the world", if only temporarily. I tend to think of this as the definition of the "gall of bitterness".
By this definition, all of us, whether members of the Church or not, believers or not, have experienced life without God in the world, or life in this natural state, this gall of bitterness, from time to time. By this definition, all of us are "wicked" on some level - even without having done anything terribly wrong. By this definition, "all [of us] have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
Words like "gall of bitterness", "gulf of misery", and even "hell" sound like serious things - things that are permanent, things that will happen at the last day. But when we understand that these words describe things you and I have already experienced right here in mortality, we put ourselves into a position to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ in a new way. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the message that He died so these things wouldn't be permanent. He died so that we could experience a little bit of heaven too, right here in mortality! The scriptures don't just describe fiery torment in hell; they also describe the great joys of knowing the life-changing love of God! That's a salvation from the gall of bitterness - from "hell" - that we can experience right now! (see Alma 34:31-32)
What the "Gall of Bitterness" Really Is
When members of the Church read things like "gall of bitterness" or "carnal state" in the scriptures, we typically think of either people who are sorely in need of repentance - of the kind that requires confession before the bishop - or we think of people who openly and freely, knowingly violate the commandments of God with abandon. When we think of people who are without God in the world, we think of people who do not believe in Him.
But this "gall of bitterness" is, in fact, merely the "natural state", the one we default to when our spirituality is lagging.
What "Carnally-Minded" Really Means
Nephi referred to this "gall of bitterness" in his own way:
"Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal." (2 Nephi 9:39)
Again, "carnally-minded" is a term we can read too much into. This expression naturally conjures up images of people indulging in pornography or some such thing. But there's being "spiritually-minded" with "spiritual goals", living and working by the aid of spiritual power, and there's everything else - the state in which most of us live, maybe even most of the time. That's all it means to be "carnally-minded". This is not cause for despair or self-loathing; this is cause to keep trying and trust our Savior to take care of the rest.
The Truth about "Hell"
There is another word that preachers have since ancient times wrongfully used to condemn, scare, and even manipulate or intimidate believers into shaping up. That word is "hell".
Yes, the scriptures use imagery of fiery torment to describe the suffering of people who end up there. No, it isn't a giant furnace, and though the punishment is "eternal", the time frame is not - or it least it doesn't have to be. The other thing we may not realize is that, just as we experience the whisperings of the Spirit of God and occasional feelings that He is near, even so we occasionally feel things like guilt, shame, regret, alienation from God - the true meaning of the word "hell". In other words, if you've ever felt these things, you know what hell is already. As a former roommate of mine used to say, "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt!"
Not totally unlike Dante, I believe "hell", this figurative place, has multiple levels. There are rooms and levels for every kind of sin - murders and kidnappers, people who commit sexual sin, thieves and liars and so forth. But for the vast majority of us, there's a large atrium or great and spacious building, as Lehi and Nephi called it - a place for people who have gone spiritually lukewarm. (see 1 Nephi 8,11) This is a rather benign-looking place where even those who've merely had a momentary lapse in their commitment to Christ go. I don't think there's ever been a mortal being who hasn't visited this place during his or her life. There's having a personal relationship with Christ - walking the strait and narrow - and then there's the wide path that leads to destruction - the one all of us in our well-meaning weakness eventually follow to some degree or another. This place dwarfs the rest of all hell combined - several times over. We come to this place in our lives because it's easier to have the worldly pleasures that are to be found in this opulently appointed atrium than it is to move the spiritual mountains and make the sacrifices the Lord requires of us.
In this life, "hell" is nothing more than the "natural state", the gall of bitterness. As Latter-Day Saints like to say, we are here "to learn by our own experience to know the good from the evil".
Whether in this life or in the next, this "natural state" is only here to associate evil with its consequence for as long as it takes us to repent and come unto Christ.
In the next life, "hell" takes on a bit more serious role, but even then, it is only reserved for those who completely rejected the influence of God while in mortality, who rebelled against Him and everything that is good in His sight, who reached a point where they only ever sought evil - "they have no part nor portion of the Spirit of the Lord...evil has taken possession of their houses..." (see Alma 40:13). These are they who have gone "off the deep end", spiritually speaking, and allowed themselves to stay that way. I won't go into it, but you can read up on it in Alma 40. By Alma's definition, in the next life, "hell" seems to apply only to a very narrow sample of humanity. That leaves a lot of room for the vast majority of us to have hope!
In the meantime, when we reach this "gall of bitterness", as I myself too often do, we may ask ourselves: "How did I get here? How did my life get like this?"
Sin: The Entryway into the Gall of Bitterness
There's another term we tend to read too much into: "sin" or its synonyms, "wickedness" and "iniquity". When we think of "sin" or "wickedness" or "iniquity", we think of really bad sins - stealing, lying, cheating, coveting, envying, committing sexual sin etc... We think of people who need to see the bishop. The world tends to think of the word "sin" as a vehicle for delivering scorn.
But "sin" is not a reason for God or anyone else to shake their finger at you and say, "how dare you?!" At least that's not God's approach (or that of his true disciples) to the sinner anyway. (see John 3:16-17, John 8:3-11, John 13:34-35) Sin is no more or less than the smallest, most recent thing I said, thought, did, or even wanted, that put distance between me and my Savior. Sin is choosing to justify when sacrifice unto obedience and trusting in the Good Shepherd's care was the alternative. Sin can be nothing more than letting ourselves get spiritually lukewarm. (see Revelation 3:15-16 for what I mean by that) When we define sin in this way, we make sin practically inevitable for all mortal beings. By this definition, among mortal beings who are still learning what the Lord can do for them, a state of sin is in fact, regrettably, quite normal - not at all a reason for us to give each other, or ourselves for that matter, such a hard time.
Be Reconciled to God
Another statement we find in the Book of Mormon that is easy to read too much into is this one from king Benjamin:
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord..." (Mosiah 3:19)
We don't like to think of ourselves as being "enemies to God". But we do have to acknowledge that we experience times when we can't feel His Spirit, or times when it's hard to get Him to answer our prayers or supply us with the power necessary to obey - even times when the reasons why we continue in the faith become frighteningly scarce. This is because we entered a natural state, rather than the state of happiness Alma the Younger was talking about. This is because we entered into the gall of bitterness. This is what Alma the Younger meant when he told Corianton, "wickedness never was happiness!"
This is what Moroni meant when he wrote: "...despair cometh because of iniquity." (Moroni 10:22)
But again, the Lord's approach to us when we're in this natural state is not one of condemnation or enmity. Instead, He sends us the enticings of His Holy Spirit; He sends us prophets and apostles - His ambassadors - to teach us about the Atonement of Christ, which offers us the means back into His presence - back into the right "spiritual state." He has given us the scriptures, which can jump start our spiritual engines when they stall.
In the course of fulfilling his calling, the apostle Paul told the people of his time, in behalf of the quorum of the Twelve:
In one of his many powerful sermons, the prophet Nephi issued a series of warnings to serious sinners - things that, thankfully, most of us probably don't need to worry about. But then, right in the middle of this list, he added something that ought to get the attention of even the most innocent of sinners. In so doing, he gave us a clue for how to find our way out of the gall of bitterness:
Why, in the middle of warning liars, murders, thieves, adulterers, harlots and idol worshipers, would Nephi say a thing like, "Wo unto the uncircumcised of heart?" What does this mean?
I believe Nephi was warning people who just flat don't care about right and wrong or about God's laws - people whose "houses" have been possessed by evil. For most people who are likely to read the scriptures, being "uncircumcised of heart" can merely mean we let a moment of forgetfulness cause us not to notice a scenario where right and wrong applied. Getting out of the gall of bitterness, or getting out of the natural state requires doing exactly the opposite: becoming "circumcised of heart".
Becoming Circumcised of Heart
So what exactly is a circumcision of heart, and how do I get one?
If we read both Nephi and Paul, we can understand that there are two definitions of a circumcision of heart, or as the Savior called it, purity of heart. Nephi's definition was a decision or commitment to care about obeying God's laws and at least try to keep them - even if we aren't perfect at it. Paul's definition gives us a change that all of us must undergo before we can return home to our Heavenly Father. It is something we should aspire to experience in this life, and it carries my message both in this article and in my next one. In teaching the Colossians, Paul gave them this thorough definition of the circumcision of heart:
Two Metaphors: Circumcision of Heart and Being Born Again
In teaching Nicodemus this same thing, Jesus made reference to the connection between baptism and being spiritually born again:
Why do the prophets use circumcision as a metaphor for describing being "born again?"
This surgical procedure, commonly used for religious reasons under the law of Moses at the time, is one that leaves the patient feeling very tender until he heals. When we have been "born again", or when we have received a fresh circumcision of heart, we find ourselves able to feel spiritual things again - able to feel tender things, even deep, inexpressible joy! The operation of the Holy Ghost is restored. This is because every ugly thing within us, ranging from spiritual laziness to utter abomination has been cut away, leaving us pure of heart and emotionally tender. This constitutes an exit from the natural state, a departure from the gall of bitterness, and the Lord's return into yours and my little individual worlds. Just as the Savior promised, "Blessed are all the pure in heart, for they shall see God!" (see Matthew 5:8, 3 Nephi 12:8)
Baptism in the Bible
Baptism in Latter-Day Scripture
Living Without God in the World vs. Being "Born Again" - The Sharp Contrast!
The people of king Benjamin, following his speech about the natural man being an enemy to God, having "seen [themselves in their] own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth" were privileged to experience just such a circumcision of heart:
"...the fear of the Lord had come upon them. And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men. And it came to pass that after they had spoken these words the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience, because of the exceeding faith which they had in Jesus Christ who should come, according to the words which king Benjamin had spoken unto them." (Mosiah 4:1-3)
"And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy." (Mosiah 4:20)
We see evidence that this was in fact a circumcision of heart in their later reference to having "no more disposition to do evil" and gaining a "desire to do good continually". (see Mosiah 5:2)
Alma the Younger, who had "gone about to destroy the Church" and was brought to repentance, experienced a remission of his sins. Note the sharp contrast which he felt - that all of us feel - upon leaving the "gall of bitterness" behind and entering the joy of salvation, receiving this remission of sins:
"And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto [you] that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy." (Alma 36:17-21)
A Law and a Blessing, Becoming Poor in Spirit
Just as the Savior gave his all to make Himself available to us in this way, we have to give our all to have Him. Giving all we have to this is, well - downright hard! It takes a great deal of trust in the Lord's promises and in His good care to spend down our emotional and spiritual reserves trying to do what He has asked of us, all the while wondering how far we have to fall before He'll catch us.
It doesn't help that, here in the gall of misery, most of us have seen the Lord's promises seem to fail us at times. We forget that the reason for this is the same reason why we're in this ugly state in the first place: somewhere along the line, we quit giving our all! We quit pleading with the Lord for His help with our struggles, quit trying to pull Him into our lives! We quit doing what is necessary to have Him! Unlike the forces of evil, the Lord will never try to force us to choose Him! The Lord's warning to early Latter-Day Saints applies:
"I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." (Doctrine and Covenants 82:10)
In teaching Corianton, Alma the Younger put it this way:
"Now, the decrees of God are unalterable; therefore, the way is prepared that whosoever will may walk therein and be saved." (Alma 41:8)
For those willing to spend down their reserves trying to live the gospel - and plead with him to come and start working with us before we reach rock bottom (willingness and pleading are critical ingredients!) - the Lord's promise is sure:
"Yea, blessed are the poor in spirit who come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (3 Nephi 12:3, compare Matthew 5:3, emphasis added)
The Way Out of the Gall of Bitterness
Another word members of the Church stumble on, in a spiritual sense, is "repentance". We tend to think of repentance as getting red marks wiped off our record in heaven, or making right the things we've done wrong, or even as a process for obtaining forgiveness for a single wrongful act. This understanding is only a very small part of the whole concept of repentance. As long as we hold onto this definition of repentance, we'll continue to think we only need to "repent" if we've done something wrong.
In German, the word "umkehren" means "to turn about" or "to do an about-face".
What is this change, this about-face we're to make, exactly? It is this: I've had enough of the mess I keep making of my life; I'm ready for the Lord's help. I know I need Him, and want to sacrifice to have Him! I want to be the kind of person I can only be with Him supplying the incentive, the wisdom and the power!
Repentance means changing our mindset from one of not paying too much attention to right and wrong so long as we don't do anything super terrible to one of being sensitive to the small things we do - or don't do - each day that put distance between us and our Savior. Repentance should not be driven so much by the realization of "oops, I've done something I shouldn't have" as by the realization of "lately there's been this rift between me and my Heavenly Father". The realization of that rift catches all the same foibles, but it does something that a realization of wrongdoing can't do: it gets us thinking about our personal relationship with our Savior again. Repentance means we do an about-face, point ourselves in the direction of the Lord, and get walking! We continue on that path until we reach Him again, not allowing the countless things with which we mortals can so easily be distracted get in our way.
Sheri Dew speaks in General Conference - "a casual commitment to Christ will not carry us through..."
So often, in our process of repentance, we struggle against a specific weakness in the hope of repenting of a specific sin and obtaining forgiveness for it. I would posit that repentance is not "sin-centric", if I may call it that. Rather, it is "Savior-centric". Repentance is more the process of learning to come unto Christ than it is the process of making right something we've done wrong. The making right and the overcoming of weakness are, in fact, merely byproducts of the process of coming unto Christ, the reward for being willing to make this oft-times grueling, joyful journey!
I love how Paul describes the attitude change that constitutes repentance:
Repentance is the process of learning how to obtain and then frequently ride a very special kind of "spiritual bicycle" - a metaphor from a parable that refers to being "born again". In my next article, we'll talk more about the Parable of the Bicycle and how it teaches us that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ gives us access to the powers of heaven, access to joy, love, peace, and freedom beyond mortal ability to imagine - right here in mortality!
Also of Interest
What's in the Book of Mormon? A Broken Heart and a Contrite Spirit
"Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness. And now, my son, all men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal state, are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; therefore, they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness." (Alma 41:10-11)
Why the Prophets Warn Good People About "The Gall of Bitterness"
I believe that when Mormon and Moroni were compiling the Book of Mormon, they designed it for people who they knew were likely to read it and need its teachings while still in mortality. So what do Book of Mormon prophets mean, warning an avid student of the scriptures such as myself, right here and now, about a "carnal state" or a "gall of bitterness?" Why did the prophets of old believe I - someone who does care about the will of God in my life - need to learn about these things? I don't believe I have done anything that needed to go before a bishop - at least nothing that hasn't already been thus resolved. Certainly I believe in God and am doing the best I can to live my faith - most of the time.
What I do have going on in my life, though, is frequent "spiritual lows" that bring misery and make it feel like the gospel has stopped working in my life. I personally believe that these are brief stints I have suffered in my own "carnal state" or "gall of bitterness". This is what it feels like to "[be] without God in the world", if only temporarily. I tend to think of this as the definition of the "gall of bitterness".
By this definition, all of us, whether members of the Church or not, believers or not, have experienced life without God in the world, or life in this natural state, this gall of bitterness, from time to time. By this definition, all of us are "wicked" on some level - even without having done anything terribly wrong. By this definition, "all [of us] have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
Words like "gall of bitterness", "gulf of misery", and even "hell" sound like serious things - things that are permanent, things that will happen at the last day. But when we understand that these words describe things you and I have already experienced right here in mortality, we put ourselves into a position to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ in a new way. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the message that He died so these things wouldn't be permanent. He died so that we could experience a little bit of heaven too, right here in mortality! The scriptures don't just describe fiery torment in hell; they also describe the great joys of knowing the life-changing love of God! That's a salvation from the gall of bitterness - from "hell" - that we can experience right now! (see Alma 34:31-32)
What the "Gall of Bitterness" Really Is
When members of the Church read things like "gall of bitterness" or "carnal state" in the scriptures, we typically think of either people who are sorely in need of repentance - of the kind that requires confession before the bishop - or we think of people who openly and freely, knowingly violate the commandments of God with abandon. When we think of people who are without God in the world, we think of people who do not believe in Him.
But this "gall of bitterness" is, in fact, merely the "natural state", the one we default to when our spirituality is lagging.
What "Carnally-Minded" Really Means
Nephi referred to this "gall of bitterness" in his own way:
"Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal." (2 Nephi 9:39)
Again, "carnally-minded" is a term we can read too much into. This expression naturally conjures up images of people indulging in pornography or some such thing. But there's being "spiritually-minded" with "spiritual goals", living and working by the aid of spiritual power, and there's everything else - the state in which most of us live, maybe even most of the time. That's all it means to be "carnally-minded". This is not cause for despair or self-loathing; this is cause to keep trying and trust our Savior to take care of the rest.
The Truth about "Hell"
There is another word that preachers have since ancient times wrongfully used to condemn, scare, and even manipulate or intimidate believers into shaping up. That word is "hell".
Yes, the scriptures use imagery of fiery torment to describe the suffering of people who end up there. No, it isn't a giant furnace, and though the punishment is "eternal", the time frame is not - or it least it doesn't have to be. The other thing we may not realize is that, just as we experience the whisperings of the Spirit of God and occasional feelings that He is near, even so we occasionally feel things like guilt, shame, regret, alienation from God - the true meaning of the word "hell". In other words, if you've ever felt these things, you know what hell is already. As a former roommate of mine used to say, "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt!"
Not totally unlike Dante, I believe "hell", this figurative place, has multiple levels. There are rooms and levels for every kind of sin - murders and kidnappers, people who commit sexual sin, thieves and liars and so forth. But for the vast majority of us, there's a large atrium or great and spacious building, as Lehi and Nephi called it - a place for people who have gone spiritually lukewarm. (see 1 Nephi 8,11) This is a rather benign-looking place where even those who've merely had a momentary lapse in their commitment to Christ go. I don't think there's ever been a mortal being who hasn't visited this place during his or her life. There's having a personal relationship with Christ - walking the strait and narrow - and then there's the wide path that leads to destruction - the one all of us in our well-meaning weakness eventually follow to some degree or another. This place dwarfs the rest of all hell combined - several times over. We come to this place in our lives because it's easier to have the worldly pleasures that are to be found in this opulently appointed atrium than it is to move the spiritual mountains and make the sacrifices the Lord requires of us.
In this life, "hell" is nothing more than the "natural state", the gall of bitterness. As Latter-Day Saints like to say, we are here "to learn by our own experience to know the good from the evil".
Whether in this life or in the next, this "natural state" is only here to associate evil with its consequence for as long as it takes us to repent and come unto Christ.
In the next life, "hell" takes on a bit more serious role, but even then, it is only reserved for those who completely rejected the influence of God while in mortality, who rebelled against Him and everything that is good in His sight, who reached a point where they only ever sought evil - "they have no part nor portion of the Spirit of the Lord...evil has taken possession of their houses..." (see Alma 40:13). These are they who have gone "off the deep end", spiritually speaking, and allowed themselves to stay that way. I won't go into it, but you can read up on it in Alma 40. By Alma's definition, in the next life, "hell" seems to apply only to a very narrow sample of humanity. That leaves a lot of room for the vast majority of us to have hope!
In the meantime, when we reach this "gall of bitterness", as I myself too often do, we may ask ourselves: "How did I get here? How did my life get like this?"
Sin: The Entryway into the Gall of Bitterness
There's another term we tend to read too much into: "sin" or its synonyms, "wickedness" and "iniquity". When we think of "sin" or "wickedness" or "iniquity", we think of really bad sins - stealing, lying, cheating, coveting, envying, committing sexual sin etc... We think of people who need to see the bishop. The world tends to think of the word "sin" as a vehicle for delivering scorn.
But "sin" is not a reason for God or anyone else to shake their finger at you and say, "how dare you?!" At least that's not God's approach (or that of his true disciples) to the sinner anyway. (see John 3:16-17, John 8:3-11, John 13:34-35) Sin is no more or less than the smallest, most recent thing I said, thought, did, or even wanted, that put distance between me and my Savior. Sin is choosing to justify when sacrifice unto obedience and trusting in the Good Shepherd's care was the alternative. Sin can be nothing more than letting ourselves get spiritually lukewarm. (see Revelation 3:15-16 for what I mean by that) When we define sin in this way, we make sin practically inevitable for all mortal beings. By this definition, among mortal beings who are still learning what the Lord can do for them, a state of sin is in fact, regrettably, quite normal - not at all a reason for us to give each other, or ourselves for that matter, such a hard time.
Be Reconciled to God
Another statement we find in the Book of Mormon that is easy to read too much into is this one from king Benjamin:
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord..." (Mosiah 3:19)
We don't like to think of ourselves as being "enemies to God". But we do have to acknowledge that we experience times when we can't feel His Spirit, or times when it's hard to get Him to answer our prayers or supply us with the power necessary to obey - even times when the reasons why we continue in the faith become frighteningly scarce. This is because we entered a natural state, rather than the state of happiness Alma the Younger was talking about. This is because we entered into the gall of bitterness. This is what Alma the Younger meant when he told Corianton, "wickedness never was happiness!"
This is what Moroni meant when he wrote: "...despair cometh because of iniquity." (Moroni 10:22)
But again, the Lord's approach to us when we're in this natural state is not one of condemnation or enmity. Instead, He sends us the enticings of His Holy Spirit; He sends us prophets and apostles - His ambassadors - to teach us about the Atonement of Christ, which offers us the means back into His presence - back into the right "spiritual state." He has given us the scriptures, which can jump start our spiritual engines when they stall.
In the course of fulfilling his calling, the apostle Paul told the people of his time, in behalf of the quorum of the Twelve:
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are
of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath
given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of
reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God
did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)
I find his use of the word "be" instructive.
Sin really does change who we are and what we become, and, to fix it, our Savior really does have to change us - at least to some degree - into what He is, what He has become. To purchase the power to do that, He really did have to take upon himself our sins and infirmities and be counted among the wicked until He had paid the price in full.
Paul offered the saints of his time a way out of the gall of bitterness and spiritual apathy - a way to feel that these "old things are passed away!" That "way" is Jesus Christ himself!
To put it in Lehi's words:
"Behold, [Christ] offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered." (2 Nephi 2:7, emphasis added)
So, where do we start?
Nephi's Clue for Leaving the Gall of Bitterness Behind
Sin really does change who we are and what we become, and, to fix it, our Savior really does have to change us - at least to some degree - into what He is, what He has become. To purchase the power to do that, He really did have to take upon himself our sins and infirmities and be counted among the wicked until He had paid the price in full.
Paul offered the saints of his time a way out of the gall of bitterness and spiritual apathy - a way to feel that these "old things are passed away!" That "way" is Jesus Christ himself!
To put it in Lehi's words:
"Behold, [Christ] offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered." (2 Nephi 2:7, emphasis added)
So, where do we start?
Nephi's Clue for Leaving the Gall of Bitterness Behind
In one of his many powerful sermons, the prophet Nephi issued a series of warnings to serious sinners - things that, thankfully, most of us probably don't need to worry about. But then, right in the middle of this list, he added something that ought to get the attention of even the most innocent of sinners. In so doing, he gave us a clue for how to find our way out of the gall of bitterness:
"...wo
unto the deaf that will not hear; for they shall perish. Wo unto the
blind that will not see; for they shall perish also. Wo unto the uncircumcised of heart, for a knowledge of their iniquities shall smite them at the last day. Wo
unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell. Wo unto the
murderer who deliberately killeth, for he shall die. Wo unto them who
commit whoredoms, for they shall be thrust down to hell. Yea, wo unto
those that worship idols, for the devil of all devils delighteth in
them." (2 Nephi 9:31-37, emphasis added)
Why, in the middle of warning liars, murders, thieves, adulterers, harlots and idol worshipers, would Nephi say a thing like, "Wo unto the uncircumcised of heart?" What does this mean?
I believe Nephi was warning people who just flat don't care about right and wrong or about God's laws - people whose "houses" have been possessed by evil. For most people who are likely to read the scriptures, being "uncircumcised of heart" can merely mean we let a moment of forgetfulness cause us not to notice a scenario where right and wrong applied. Getting out of the gall of bitterness, or getting out of the natural state requires doing exactly the opposite: becoming "circumcised of heart".
Becoming Circumcised of Heart
So what exactly is a circumcision of heart, and how do I get one?
If we read both Nephi and Paul, we can understand that there are two definitions of a circumcision of heart, or as the Savior called it, purity of heart. Nephi's definition was a decision or commitment to care about obeying God's laws and at least try to keep them - even if we aren't perfect at it. Paul's definition gives us a change that all of us must undergo before we can return home to our Heavenly Father. It is something we should aspire to experience in this life, and it carries my message both in this article and in my next one. In teaching the Colossians, Paul gave them this thorough definition of the circumcision of heart:
"In
[Christ] also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are
risen with him through the faith of the
operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being
dead in your sins... hath he quickened together with him, having
forgiven you all trespasses..." (Colossians 2:11)
In
other words, the circumcision of heart is the death of the natural man -
a new birth in Christ, a change of heart and a transformation of soul
that comes about by the exercise of the first principles and ordinances
of the gospel, which are:
"...first,
Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by
immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the
gift of the Holy Ghost." (Fourth Article of Faith)
Two Metaphors: Circumcision of Heart and Being Born Again
In teaching Nicodemus this same thing, Jesus made reference to the connection between baptism and being spiritually born again:
"Jesus
answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a
man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus
saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the
second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered,
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. That which is
born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit." (John 3:3-6)
Why do the prophets use circumcision as a metaphor for describing being "born again?"
This surgical procedure, commonly used for religious reasons under the law of Moses at the time, is one that leaves the patient feeling very tender until he heals. When we have been "born again", or when we have received a fresh circumcision of heart, we find ourselves able to feel spiritual things again - able to feel tender things, even deep, inexpressible joy! The operation of the Holy Ghost is restored. This is because every ugly thing within us, ranging from spiritual laziness to utter abomination has been cut away, leaving us pure of heart and emotionally tender. This constitutes an exit from the natural state, a departure from the gall of bitterness, and the Lord's return into yours and my little individual worlds. Just as the Savior promised, "Blessed are all the pure in heart, for they shall see God!" (see Matthew 5:8, 3 Nephi 12:8)
Baptism in the Bible
Baptism in Latter-Day Scripture
Living Without God in the World vs. Being "Born Again" - The Sharp Contrast!
The people of king Benjamin, following his speech about the natural man being an enemy to God, having "seen [themselves in their] own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth" were privileged to experience just such a circumcision of heart:
"...the fear of the Lord had come upon them. And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men. And it came to pass that after they had spoken these words the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience, because of the exceeding faith which they had in Jesus Christ who should come, according to the words which king Benjamin had spoken unto them." (Mosiah 4:1-3)
Notice
that they met Nephi's, Paul's, and the Savior's definitions of a
circumcision of heart: "the fear of the Lord had come upon them", and
they "received a remission of sins" that their "hearts [might] be
purified". Later in his speech, king Benjamin emphasizes the great joy
which they experienced because of this circumcision of heart:
"And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy." (Mosiah 4:20)
We see evidence that this was in fact a circumcision of heart in their later reference to having "no more disposition to do evil" and gaining a "desire to do good continually". (see Mosiah 5:2)
Alma the Younger, who had "gone about to destroy the Church" and was brought to repentance, experienced a remission of his sins. Note the sharp contrast which he felt - that all of us feel - upon leaving the "gall of bitterness" behind and entering the joy of salvation, receiving this remission of sins:
"And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto [you] that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy." (Alma 36:17-21)
A Law and a Blessing, Becoming Poor in Spirit
Just as the Savior gave his all to make Himself available to us in this way, we have to give our all to have Him. Giving all we have to this is, well - downright hard! It takes a great deal of trust in the Lord's promises and in His good care to spend down our emotional and spiritual reserves trying to do what He has asked of us, all the while wondering how far we have to fall before He'll catch us.
It doesn't help that, here in the gall of misery, most of us have seen the Lord's promises seem to fail us at times. We forget that the reason for this is the same reason why we're in this ugly state in the first place: somewhere along the line, we quit giving our all! We quit pleading with the Lord for His help with our struggles, quit trying to pull Him into our lives! We quit doing what is necessary to have Him! Unlike the forces of evil, the Lord will never try to force us to choose Him! The Lord's warning to early Latter-Day Saints applies:
"I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." (Doctrine and Covenants 82:10)
In teaching Corianton, Alma the Younger put it this way:
"Now, the decrees of God are unalterable; therefore, the way is prepared that whosoever will may walk therein and be saved." (Alma 41:8)
For those willing to spend down their reserves trying to live the gospel - and plead with him to come and start working with us before we reach rock bottom (willingness and pleading are critical ingredients!) - the Lord's promise is sure:
"Yea, blessed are the poor in spirit who come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (3 Nephi 12:3, compare Matthew 5:3, emphasis added)
The Way Out of the Gall of Bitterness
Another word members of the Church stumble on, in a spiritual sense, is "repentance". We tend to think of repentance as getting red marks wiped off our record in heaven, or making right the things we've done wrong, or even as a process for obtaining forgiveness for a single wrongful act. This understanding is only a very small part of the whole concept of repentance. As long as we hold onto this definition of repentance, we'll continue to think we only need to "repent" if we've done something wrong.
Much
more than this, repentance is meant to fill an empty hole in our lives:
the place where the Lord himself belongs, in person!
As
a student of foreign languages, I find that the Spanish and German
words for "repentance" as found in the scriptures have connotations that
are instructive.
In
Spanish, the word "arrepentirse" means "to change". In a spiritual sense, the
meaning of "arrepentirse" is best represented by words from a familiar
children's song: "I'm changing who I am; I'm changing who I'll be." (see Scripture Power on lds.org).
In German, the word "umkehren" means "to turn about" or "to do an about-face".
What is this change, this about-face we're to make, exactly? It is this: I've had enough of the mess I keep making of my life; I'm ready for the Lord's help. I know I need Him, and want to sacrifice to have Him! I want to be the kind of person I can only be with Him supplying the incentive, the wisdom and the power!
Repentance means changing our mindset from one of not paying too much attention to right and wrong so long as we don't do anything super terrible to one of being sensitive to the small things we do - or don't do - each day that put distance between us and our Savior. Repentance should not be driven so much by the realization of "oops, I've done something I shouldn't have" as by the realization of "lately there's been this rift between me and my Heavenly Father". The realization of that rift catches all the same foibles, but it does something that a realization of wrongdoing can't do: it gets us thinking about our personal relationship with our Savior again. Repentance means we do an about-face, point ourselves in the direction of the Lord, and get walking! We continue on that path until we reach Him again, not allowing the countless things with which we mortals can so easily be distracted get in our way.
Sheri Dew speaks in General Conference - "a casual commitment to Christ will not carry us through..."
So often, in our process of repentance, we struggle against a specific weakness in the hope of repenting of a specific sin and obtaining forgiveness for it. I would posit that repentance is not "sin-centric", if I may call it that. Rather, it is "Savior-centric". Repentance is more the process of learning to come unto Christ than it is the process of making right something we've done wrong. The making right and the overcoming of weakness are, in fact, merely byproducts of the process of coming unto Christ, the reward for being willing to make this oft-times grueling, joyful journey!
I love how Paul describes the attitude change that constitutes repentance:
"...now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The
night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the
works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let
us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in
chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." (Romans 13:11-14)
Repentance is the process of learning how to obtain and then frequently ride a very special kind of "spiritual bicycle" - a metaphor from a parable that refers to being "born again". In my next article, we'll talk more about the Parable of the Bicycle and how it teaches us that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ gives us access to the powers of heaven, access to joy, love, peace, and freedom beyond mortal ability to imagine - right here in mortality!
Also of Interest
- Part I: What's in the Book of Mormon? Living Without God in the World: How and Why to Fix It (you are here)
- Part II: What's in the Bible? Becoming a New Creature in Christ (coming soon)
- Part II: What's in the Book of Mormon? Pressing Forward With Steadfastness in Christ
What's in the Book of Mormon? A Broken Heart and a Contrite Spirit
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