The Words of Eternal Life

"Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." - John 6:68

The Lord Jesus Christ has been empowered by the Father to seal individuals up to eternal life. This process is called having your calling and election made sure. Peter was, in one sense, referring to the Savior's promise of eternal life when he said that the Savior had the words of eternal life. That his statement is also true in a broader sense is evident when you consider that the only way an individual obtains and fulfills that promise is by following the other words of Christ.¹ The Lord said that "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life."²

The Lord revealed to us the process of obtaining the words of eternal life:

And I now give unto you a commandment to beware concerning yourselves, to give diligent heed to the words of eternal life. For you shall live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God. For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And the Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world; and the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world, that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit. And every one that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit cometh unto God, even the Father. And the Father teacheth him of the covenant which he has renewed and confirmed upon you, which is confirmed upon you for your sakes, and not for your sakes only, but for the sake of the whole world. (D&C 84:43-48)

The Father is the one who possesses the words of eternal life. That collection of his word is delivered through Jesus Christ³ (and optionally through angels and men) to us line upon line to the degree that we receive it. As we infuse those words into our spirit by receiving them, and then subdue our bodies to obey them, we rise to another plane of existence. When followed to the end, this process always ends with eternal life.⁴

Codex of Heaven and One Eternal Round

The word of God is not a divine quote book of things that God happens to have said by chance. The course of God is one eternal round.⁵ What does this mean? Our phase of the plan of salvation, beginning with the fall of Adam and ending with Christ turning over the subdued creation to Heavenly Father, is a set of circumstances that can be viewed as a station in an automated factory. Every widget that comes across the belt is subjected to the same exact process. In this case, the robot is God, and the current Heavenly Father will be replaced by his successor, Jesus Christ, at the end of this round, who will do exactly what his Father did before him. Consider the following verses. "Listen to the voice of the Lord your God, even Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, whose course is one eternal round, the same today as yesterday, and forever."⁶ Why is "he" the same today, yesterday, and forever? Well, whoever is in his role does the same thing in our course (our phase of the plan of salvation) without deviation. There is no other way to bring matter in a pre-existent state of organization to matter in the state of exaltation. As we are told, the plan is pre-defined:

For God doth not walk in crooked paths, neither doth he turn to the right hand nor to the left, neither doth he vary from that which he hath said, therefore his paths are straight, and his course is one eternal round. (D&C 3:2)

And again,

I perceive that it has been made known unto you, by the testimony of his word, that he cannot walk in crooked paths; neither doth he vary from that which he hath said; neither hath he a shadow of turning from the right to the left, or from that which is right to that which is wrong; therefore, his course is one eternal round. (Alma 7:20)

Nephi explains this process duplisitically:

For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come; wherefore, the course of the Lord is one eternal round. (1 Nephi 10:19)

Nephi's reasoning fits ancient times of old in the earthy scope as well as pre-existent times, and times to come on earth as well as times to come after earth.

The ascent of Gods is iterative. Each iteration of what we know as the creation is the same. Jesus said that "...the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise."⁷ Joseph, remarking about this verse, said,

What did Jesus do? Why, I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. My Father worked out His kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that He may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt Him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take His place, and thereby become exalted myself. (HC 6:306)

So the Son treads the path of the Father. This is why Jesus could be told everything he would have to do as the Savior. This is how Satan knew ahead of time that Adam and Eve had to partake of the fruit as "on other worlds." Having proven that future iterations are repetitive, we must still show that past ones were as well. Abraham wrote,

...the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all. (Abraham 3:19)

Commenting on this verse, Joseph remarked:

[Suppose we have] two men on the earth, one wiser than the other, [that] would logically show that another who is wiser than the wisest may exist. Intelligences exist one above another, so that there is no end to them. (HC 6:476)

He explained,

If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son?. If Jesus had a Father, can we not believe He had a Father also? (HC 6:476)

This is why the Lord's course is one eternal round.

With this definition of "one eternal round" in mind, it becomes clear that the word of God is a finite set of words that compose God's law in our present scope of existence. They are not only non-arbitrary, but they are pre-defined, like an instruction manual for this phase of the creation. The words that the Father speaks and that the son is given to speak are exactly the same in every iteration of creation. This is why Joseph could speak of the revelations being a "transcript from the records of the eternal world."⁸ The record of the eternal world is the codex of the word of God for our phase of this iteration of creation. Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost is the record of heaven. God's word to us consists of excerpts from that record.⁹

Besides the scriptural references to the eternal round, we have another evidence for the heavenly codex concept in a teaching from Joseph Smith. He taught that God had the foreknowledge to know exactly what to reveal to men:

The God of heaven understanding most perfectly the constitution of human nature, and the weakness of men, knew what was necessary to be revealed, and what ideas must be planted in their minds in order that they might be enabled to exercise faith in him unto eternal life. (Lectures on Faith 4:2)

A strong witness to this principle is found in observations about the words of both angels and prophets. We find that angels, whenever they appear, speak scripture. Why is that? Why does God choose to repeat himself ? Why does Christ himself quote scripture when he appears, as he did to Joseph, the Nephites, and all through his mortal ministry to the Jews? It is because the scriptures are not the work of the writers. Inasmuch as they are the word of God, they are merely quotes from the record of heaven. In other words, Jesus, angels, and prophets are all citing the same "book." For this reason, we get almost identical scriptures given by prophets who never interacted with each other. Jesus gives the same sermon to both the Jews and the Nephites. Micah and Isaiah speak of the "mountain of the Lord's house." Mormon and Paul give almost the exact same observations about faith.¹⁰ This pattern goes on and on:

And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. (Matthew 3:10)

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

And again I say unto you, the Spirit saith: Behold, the ax is laid at the root of the tree; therefore every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down and cast into the fire, yea, a fire which cannot be consumed, even an unquenchable fire. Behold, and remember, the Holy One hath spoken it. (Alma 5:52) Therefore, I would that ye should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, that you may be brought to heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of him who created all things, in heaven and in earth, who is God above all. Amen. (Mosiah 5:15)

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. (Malachi 4:1)

For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. (1 Corinthians 12)

For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned. (1 Nephi 22:15)

For behold, to one is given by the Spirit of God, that he may teach the word of wisdom; And to another, that he may teach the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; And to another, exceedingly great faith; and to another, the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; And again, to another, that he may work mighty miracles; And again, to another, that he may prophesy concerning all things; (Moroni 10)

Opponents would claim that these scriptures are examples of plagiarism. They are right, but not in the way they intend. The words are all taken from the same source-the record of heaven.

The idea that God's word consists of an explicit codex that is the same from eternal round to eternal round and consists of everything necessary for salvation ought to give us pause. It ought to add to the significance of what God has already said to us, say, in the scriptures. It ought to add to the distinction that we can make between the words of God and the words of men, and show that they are not interchangable or even comparable due, if for no other reason, to their genesis.

However, there is a deeper difference, which makes more significant the need for God to know what words are necessary for us to secure eternal life. Let us consider the effects of the word of God on the soul.

Effect of Word on the Soul

Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."¹¹ Jesus did not say that the words bring life. He said they are life. He also said they are spirit. That which is spirit is light and truth. "For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ."¹² When we seek, obtain, and absorb the light and truth that is the word of God, our being undergoes a change. It is infused with light and truth. It is infused with the spirit of Christ. It becomes the oracle of God in us. It allows us to become part of God and God part of us.

Our spirit is an access point for supernatural influence, whether good or evil. God's influence comes through the Holy Ghost. Satan's comes through the flesh. The access point for both is our spirit. When we hearken to the word of God, our spirits become Holy, and this can sanctify the flesh. When we hearken to the devil, our spirits become sullied and are overcome by our flesh. Hence Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."¹³

Quickening is the effect of God's spirit through our spirit on our flesh. The purpose of this life is for us to subdue our bodies to the influence of God's word through our spirit.

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, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)

The spirit can exalt the body if the body is subdued to the spirit by bringing the flesh to the level of glory enjoyed by the spirit prior to this life. The spirit, beginning life as more refined matter, can serve as an injection point for the word of God into the flesh, which is made of fallen material and is of a lower glory than the spirit. Death is the effect of the devil's influence through our bodies on our spirits. When we succumb to the devil's temptations to our flesh, we bring down our spirits to the fallen degree of our bodies. This process is illustrated in those disembodied spirits who, during life, embraced their carnal addictions and thus find themselves, in spirit, suffering from the carnal desires that plagued them in the flesh. There are only two types of beings: the quick and the dead.¹⁴ The quick are those who are actuated by God's word. The dead are those who are not. Thus, "to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."¹⁵ Spirits good and bad infuse their qualities upon us when we embrace them. Evil spirits act upon our flesh to imprint their devilish desires upon our spirits, which exercise control upon our bodies. The medium of this effect is the word of the evil one or his imps. The spirit of God acts upon our spirits to imprint the mind and will of God upon us, empowering us to use our spirits to do the same to our bodies. The medium for this effect is the word of God. The word of God sanctifies us as we infuse it into our soul. These two warring influences provide us opposition in all things. To win the war, we must hearken to God's word.

And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction. (1 Nephi 15:24)

Jesus asked the Father to "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."¹⁶ He also declared the apostles "clean through the word which I have spoken unto you."¹⁷ Jesus described how his word purifies us as we have faith in it.¹⁸

Quickening and sanctification, two synonyms for the same process, is gradual. Two analogies used in scripture to describe this process are leavening and grafting. God's word is like leaven in dough. The bacteria infused in leavened dough multiply and take over the whole lump of dough. Despite the initial paucity of leaven, if the process is continued under the right conditions, it will eventually take over the entire lump. Grafting occurs when God imbues in us a portion of his word. The hope is that the graft will change the entire tree to produce the same type of fruit as the graft produces. The graft changes the tree into itself. Christ is the true vine, and in order to be saved we must be grafted into him. No one can be saved until and unless they become like Christ. They must be able to say, as Christ did, I am in the Father and the Father is in me. When we are grafted into him, his word flows through us and is found in us. We bear fruit. The juice of grapes is the color of blood. We drink the blood of Christ symbolically in the sacrament. Blood flows through the umbilical cord to a baby. As the word flows through us and is found in us, we are sanctified by the blood of Jesus. While justification is the forgiveness of our sins, sanctification is the process of becoming like God in heart, mind, and strength.

That by reason of transgression cometh the fall, which fall bringeth death, and inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten; that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory; (Moses 6:59)

The way we allow the leaven to spread throughout us, or the graft to change the kind of fruit we produce, is to seek and hearked to the word of God. The process progresses to the degree that we seek and accept his word. The more we accept and do, the more we get:

And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full. (Alma 12:10)

This process occurs as individuals seek and declare the word of God: "And Alma went forth, and also Amulek, among the people, to declare the words of God unto them; and they were filled with the Holy Ghost."¹⁹ The Lord himself followed this process during his mortal ministry. Being born as devoid of God's word as any man,²⁰ he followed the word he received line upon line and precept upon precept until it could be said of him: "For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him."²¹ Those who faithfully seek, obtain, and heed God's word will be visited by the Father and the Son:

Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)

Though this scripture indicates a physical visit from these two beings, it also conveys the sanctification process that occurs as the mind and will of God, which is a fullness of his word, become infused in his spirit. This enables him to say, as did Jesus, that he is in the Father, and the Father in him.²²

In order to achieve Zion, the word must be found in us. We have to have become like God. Thus, "when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."²³ The lack of seeking, heeding, and living God's word is cited by God as the reason that Zion has not yet come again.

..._when men should keep all my commandments_, Zion should again come on the earth, the city of Enoch which I have caught up unto myself. And this is mine everlasting covenant, that when thy posterity shall embrace the truth, and look upward, then shall Zion look downward, and all the heavens shall shake with gladness, and the earth shall tremble with joy; And the general assembly of the church of the firstborn shall come down out of heaven, and possess the earth, and shall have place until the end come. And this is mine everlasting covenant, which I made with thy father Enoch. (JST Gen 9:21-23)

Rejecting God's word, which includes not seeking it in the first place, brings penalties. The most harmful of these is that, while embracing God's word makes our spirits (and by association, our flesh) holy, rejecting it "quenches" that connection with God, severing us from his sanctifying process.

Behold, will ye reject these words? Will ye reject the words of the prophets; and will ye reject all the words which have been spoken concerning Christ, after so many have spoken concerning him; and deny the good word of Christ, and the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and quench the Holy Spirit, and make a mock of the great plan of redemption, which hath been laid for you? (Jacob 6:8)

Those who reject God's word lose the light and truth that they previously acquired, until the spirit of God is not found at all within them.²⁴ We see that those who are in this state of spiritual atrophy are capable of the grossest sin. King Noah, for example, not only rejected a true messenger of God, but murdered him by fire.²⁵ Jesus said that the reason that some sought to kill him was that his word was not found in them. "I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you."²⁶ Thus Alma tells us that

if our hearts have been hardened, yea, if we have hardened our hearts against the word, insomuch that it has not been found in us, then will our state be awful, for then we shall be condemned. (Alma 12:13)

The sheep hear the voice of the true shepard. However, if the word does not abide in us:

• We will not recognize true messengers: "And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not."²⁷

• We will not understand the scriptures: "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word."²⁸
• We will not hear the voice of the Spirit to us: "He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God."²⁹
• We will not heed the word of God: "Now Satan had gotten great hold upon the hearts of the people of the city of Ammonihah; therefore they would not hearken unto the words of Alma."³⁰

The word may not abide in us because we do not seek it. Perhaps it does not abide in us because we have replaced his word with the words of men, or some other idol. Maybe it has fled from us because we have refused to heed it. Sometimes, we avoid God's word because we know we are acting contrary to the light and truth we have received, and we do not trust that he knows better than us what will bring us happiness:

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. (John 3:19-21)

When we do seek and heed the word of God, we can count on several things:

• We will see God's hand in their life: "And thus the work of the Lord did commence among the Lamanites; thus the Lord did begin to pour out his Spirit upon them; and we see that his arm is extended to all people who will repent and believe on his name."³¹
• We will be asked to do hard things.³²

• We will work miracles in God's name: "And there were great and marvelous works wrought by the disciples of Jesus, insomuch that they did heal the sick, and raise the dead, and cause the lame to walk, and the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear; and all manner of miracles did they work among the children of men; and in nothing did they work miracles save it were in the name of Jesus."³³
• We will have power in their preaching: "And as Enoch spake forth the words of God, the people trembled, and could not stand in his presence."³⁴
• We will be hated by the world: "I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."³⁵

We need to let God's word "sink down into [our] ears."³⁶ We need to obey God's command to cleave to his word: "And I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good, that ye shall live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God."³⁷ When we do so, we will find the words of eternal life in ourselves.