Sabbathought: What Is the Gospel? --- Not What You Thought!

Multiple times in the scriptures the Lord speaks of "my gospel", and "the fulness of the gospel", and "this is my gospel." In each place the definition or description is something different from what we thought it would be. When the Lord speaks of His gospel it is simpler, cleaner, neater, more concise, more profound than what we make up instead. It is better.

On many occasions I have asked gospel classes to fill in the blank in this statement from Elder Boyd K. Packer: "The purpose of the Church is not activities and programs. The purpose of the Church is: _________." A variety of answers gets suggested. "Love" is a common response. "Service" is too. "Freedom", some say. . . . "Salvation." "Families." "Joy."

No one would argue that these suggestions are not part of the big picture. But Elder Packer is right when he says that "The purpose of the Church is ordinances." Think of it: What is it we as a Church do for each and every member that is essential to their happiness and salvation in families? Something that is so essential that we even do it for the dead!

It is the ordinances. The ordinances of the temple. You can't be saved without them. They are the Lord's lesson plans for who He is and how to become like Him. "And without the ordinances . . . and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh;

"For without this [power of godliness] no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live [in His presence]." And the means, the vehicle to the power of godliness, is the ordinances. This is the gospel journey.

Someone said in a moment of fine-tuned inspiration that when Truth leaves the field, it is not error that takes over, but sentimentality. The scriptures teach us that "Truth is knowledge" of things as they really are, and really were, and really will be. If we say we have the Truth we are saying we have the knowledge. The knowledge of the gospel. Of the Truth. This is the gospel journey, authored by Him who said, "I am the way, the Truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

The ordinances all center in Him and His Atonement. He is the way. His ordinances are the means. This is the temple. This is the gospel plan, the gospel path. That path starts with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and proceeds from there. In our day, the seed of this truth is first planted through the Book of Mormon. (But only if we plant that seed . . . and nourish it with much care so that it gets root. See Alma 32.)

Elder Bruce R. McConkie's doctrinal commentary on Luke 20:1 gives us this significant insight on the phrase "preached the gospel":---

"How often the gospel authors remind us that Jesus was not just teaching ethical principles such as love, honesty, and charity. Rather, he preached the gospel, which means that he commanded men to accept God as their Father, believe in Christ as the Son, manifest faith in the atoning sacrifice of the Son, repent of their sins, be baptized by immersion for the remission of sins, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then (after all this!) endure to the end by keeping all the commandments, including the practice of love, honesty, charity, and every true ethical principle."

Can you see in this trenchant paragraph what the gospel is? Can you see what it is not? It is not a mere system of ethics. The ethics --- love, honesty, charity, and so forth --- are the fruits. But you don't get fruits by focusing on fruits. You don't go climbing up a ladder to pour living water on the branches and buds and fruits of the tree. You put the water where it is needed, where it can do the tree and its fruits the most good. You put it at the roots.

The gospel roots produce gospel fruits. For most of us, the ladder of success is leaning against the wrong tree. And the ladder is in fact not really necessary, unless a pruning is needed. It is simpler than that, cleaner, neater, easier, more concise. You pay attention to the roots. That is where the water and time and attention is needed. And the roots are the revealed gospel.

Elder J. Thomas Fyans said a generation ago: "Our roots spring from Palmyra, not from Cambridge [or Athens, or Madison Avenue, I would add]."

Do you see it? Do you see that the real story --- God's story, the Godspel, the gospel, the good news is easier and better than the fictional account we have invented out of the precepts and philosophies of men?

We have much more to say on this. For it is our true context. Our true battleground. It is where we belong. It is what we each knew a hundred years ago in the premortal life. And everything we teach as the gospel here must trace its roots back to those lessons we learned at the feet of the Lamb back in premortality.

Do these words, these terms and expressions make sense to you? Do you see that unless we use the right words, we shall not know the plan?

I learned this week that the word nice has a root meaning the opposite of what it means to us in common usage today. Someone taught me, quite accurately, that Jesus never told us to be nice. He told us "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." He knew that, especially in the stern days of today we would be in battle mode. "We Are All Enlisted", as Elder Holland so boldly and profoundly taught to the priesthood two weeks ago.

The word nice. You know that science comes from Latin sciere, to know. In Latin, ne-sciere means not to know, and is where we got the word nice from. It originally meant foolish, wanton, silly, simple, ignorant. As John Ayto points out, its meaning has changed over the centuries from stupid to pleasant. A dramatic change. I show this because we should know something, not just "be nice". The gospel just goes so much deeper than that.

We put our trust in the gospel as it is revealed by prophets in the scriptures, by prophets in our midst, and by the spirit of prophecy in our hearts. Anything else will give us a false idea. And we shall end up with the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture. And such can never save.

The words read and riddle are from the same family, the same genealogical root. Whenever we read anything we are matching, interpreting, working out black marks on a page---we are solving a riddle. Thus it is with the scriptures and the gospel. Many times it is not given in plainness. It has to be pondered and worked on. Soon, as part of the pondering / solving process it becomes easier, familiar, and a delight. And with Nephi we begin to delight in plainness.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do. And:

"What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods" (Thomas Paine).

We have work to do to solve the riddle of what the plain simple gospel really is, and, having found that pearl of great price, to be loyal to it in the face of the confused story offered us by the world, and sadly embraced by us because we show indifference to the real story. Are we making sense here?

More on all of this later. Let me know if this is helping.

God bless you.

Steve