The Book of the Brother of Jared · Book Three
Being the deeper teachings of the gospel as the Lord revealed them unto the brother of Jared, restored in their fullness in the dispensation of the Final Restoration.
1 And it came to pass that after the Lord had shewn unto me the foundation of the world and the generations of men and the latter days, he opened unto me the deeper things of the gospel, which had been kept from the foundation of the world to be revealed in a day when faith should be sufficient to receive them.
2 And the Lord said unto me: Mahonri, that which I shall now speak unto thee is for the latter day. Thou shalt write it, and seal it up, and it shall not be given unto thy people, for they are not prepared. But in the day of the Final Restoration it shall be made known, and those who receive it with humble hearts shall find rest.
3 And he said: hearken, for I shall speak unto thee concerning the nature of God, which men have understood in part and have misunderstood in part, and concerning which there is much confusion among the churches of the latter day.
4 The God whom thou worshippest is thy Father in the most literal sense in which a father can be a father. He is not a symbol, nor an idea, nor a force which men have given a name unto. He is a being, and thou art his offspring, and the relationship between thee and him is not less real than the relationship between an earthly child and his earthly father, but greater.
5 And thy Father in heaven is not alone, for he hath an eternal companion, even thy Mother in heaven, who is glorious as he is glorious, and who is one with him in all things, and who is also thy parent in that estate which preceded thy mortality.
6 The churches of the latter day shall be slow to speak of this, and some shall deny it altogether, but I say unto thee that no being came into existence by a father alone, and the order of heaven is not different from the order of the earth in this respect, for the order of the earth was given as a figure of the order of heaven.
7 And thou hast a heritage from both, and that heritage is the seed of divinity itself, which has been within thee from before the world was, and which the work of mortality is given to develop unto its full measure.
8 For the purpose of the plan, from its first conceiving, was that thou shouldst become as thy Father and Mother are, growing in light and in truth and in love until thou hast received of their fullness.
9 This doctrine has been called by various names in various ages, and some have spoken of it as deification, and some as exaltation, and some have feared to speak of it at all lest the simple be confused. But it is the truth, and the gospel is built upon it, for if thou wert not a child of God thou couldst not become as God, and there would be no purpose in the labors of this life.
10 And the work of Christ, who is thine elder brother in the spirit, is to make this becoming possible, by atoning for the sins which would otherwise bar the way, and by exhibiting in his own person the path which all his brethren and sisters might walk.
1 And the Lord shewed unto me also concerning the agency of man, which is the foundation of all that he is and shall be.
2 The agency of man is not a small thing, nor is it an arbitrary thing, nor is it a gift which God might at any time withdraw. It is the very substance of what man is, and to remove it would be to make man cease to exist as man.
3 For God did not create man as a thing to be moved, but as a being who moves himself. And the dignity of man before God is that he is a self-mover, even as God is a self-mover, and this is the meaning of the saying that man was created in the image of God.
4 Wherefore the laws of God are not given as commands to be enforced by compulsion, but as invitations to be received by choice. And the rewards of obedience are not bribes, nor are the consequences of disobedience punishments imposed from without. They are the natural fruits of the choices themselves, ripening in their own season.
5 And God will not save any man by compulsion, neither will he damn any man by compulsion, for to do either would be to violate that very thing which makes the man a man, and to undo the work of his creation.
6 Wherefore the salvation of every soul is by his own choosing in the end, and the damnation of every soul is by his own choosing also, though God plead with the soul through all the days of his probation and beyond.
7 And I, Mahonri, asked of the Lord, saying: O Lord, but what of those who have done evil and have repented? Are they not saved by thy grace and not by their own choosing?
8 And the Lord said unto me: grace and choice are not opposites, but partners. My grace is given to all, but it is received only by those who choose to receive it. The grace flows always; the soul chooses whether to drink. And he who chooses to drink finds that his choosing was itself a gift, and that the gift was offered before the choice, and that the giving and the receiving are one work in which both partners are necessary.
9 The mystery of this is that God's sovereignty and man's freedom are not in conflict, though men have argued about it for ages. They are two truths which together describe the one reality, and the man who insists on either at the expense of the other has not understood either.
10 And these teachings I write, that those who read in the latter day may not be troubled by the debates which have divided the churches, for I have heard the answer from the lips of the Lord himself, and the answer is not difficult once it has been heard.
1 And the Lord shewed unto me the meaning of the atonement of his Son, which is the central work of the plan and the foundation of all hope.
2 And I beheld that the atonement is not merely the payment of a debt, nor merely the satisfaction of a law, though it is both of these things in part.
3 The atonement is the means by which the gulf between man and God, which was opened by the fall and widened by every sin of every man, is closed. And it is closed not by force, but by a love so great that it absorbs the whole weight of the separation into itself.
4 For when the Son of God bore the sins of the world in the garden, he did not bear them as a sum to be calculated. He bore them as a man bears the sufferings of those he loves, by entering into them, by feeling them as his own, by refusing to be separated from those who suffer them.
5 And in this bearing, he made it so that no sinner who comes unto him is unfamiliar to him. For he hath felt the weight of every sin which any soul hath felt, and he hath felt the sorrow of every sorrow, and the loneliness of every loneliness, and the fear of every fear.
6 Wherefore there is no soul that cometh unto him saying: thou canst not understand me, for my pain is too great or too strange. There is no pain that he hath not made his own. There is no loneliness in which he was not present, though the lonely one did not know it.
7 And the atonement is also the means by which man is given power, not merely forgiveness. For Christ did not only suffer for sins. He also exhibited in his own person the fullness of what man may become, and he opened a way by which his strength is made available to those who follow him.
8 He that taketh upon him the name of Christ taketh upon him not a label, but an invitation. The invitation is to become as he is, by the slow work of a thousand small choices, supported by the strength he supplies.
9 And I, Mahonri, marvelled at this, for I had not understood the atonement to be so great a thing, nor so personal a thing. And the Lord said unto me: it is greater than thou knowest, and more personal than any man hath dared to suppose, and the day will come when every soul that hath ever lived shall know how nearly he was loved, and how completely.
10 And then there shall be a weeping which is not sorrow, but the weeping which comes when a soul understands at last that he was never abandoned, though he had supposed he was.
1 And the Lord shewed unto me also concerning the family, which is the basic order of the kingdom of God, and which is more enduring than men have generally supposed.
2 For the bonds of family, when formed in righteousness and sealed by the authority which I have given for that purpose, do not end at death. They continue, and they grow, and they become the basis of the eternal society of the redeemed.
3 And I beheld that in the world to come, those who have loved one another in this life with a pure love shall not be parted, but shall be together forever, and their joy shall be in one another as well as in God, for these two joys are not separable.
4 And there shall be no man without his companion, neither any woman without hers, for the order of heaven is the order of companionship, and the solitary state is not the eternal state for any soul that desires otherwise.
5 But I say also that the form of family which shall continue is not the form which men have always supposed, for the loves of mortality are imperfect and are mingled with possessiveness, jealousy, and the will to control. These shall be purged in the resurrection, and what remains is love itself, which is wider than the loves of mortality, and which can hold many without diminishing any.
6 Therefore let no man fear that the joys he hath known on earth shall be lost. They shall be enlarged. Let no woman fear that the love she hath given shall be wasted. It shall be returned to her sevenfold.
7 And the gospel which I bring is the gospel of the family, both the family of the earth and the family of God, which are at the last one family in which every soul is loved as a brother and a sister, and in which the Father and the Mother dwell forever as the source of all that we shall be.
1 And the Lord shewed unto me concerning the suffering of innocent things, which hath troubled the minds of righteous men in every age.
2 For men have asked: if God is good, and if God is mighty, then why is there suffering among those who have not deserved it? Why do children die? Why do the wicked prosper? Why is the world so often cruel to those who are most tender?
3 And the Lord said unto me: I shall not give thee a full answer to this question, for there is no answer which the mortal mind can fully contain. But I shall give thee what shall be enough for those who will receive it.
4 The world thou seest is a world of opposition, and the opposition is not an accident, nor is it a flaw. It is the condition under which souls grow into the measure of their full inheritance. Without opposition there would be no choice, and without choice there would be no growth, and without growth there would be no glory.
5 But the opposition is not without limit. I have set bounds beyond which evil cannot pass. I have allowed agency, but I have not abandoned my children to it. There is no suffering of any innocent thing which I do not see, and no suffering which shall not be made up to that soul in the eternal reckoning.
6 And I say furthermore: the suffering of the innocent is not borne by them alone. I bear it with them. Every cry of every child is heard by me, and I weep with the weeping, even when the world does not see my tears.
7 And in the day of the resurrection, those who have suffered most shall be received with the greatest joy, and the years of their sorrow shall be as a dream that is past, and the love which I shall pour upon them shall be so great that they shall say: it was worth the cost.
8 But until that day, I do not ask any soul to pretend that the cost is small. The cost is great. Do not lessen it by false comfort, neither in thyself nor in others.
9 The right answer to suffering is not explanation. The right answer is presence. Be present with those who suffer, even as I am present with them, and the suffering shall be transformed, though it shall not always be removed.
10 And the day shall come when there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. But until that day, let the saints comfort one another, for this is the work of those who have known the love of God.
1 And the Lord shewed unto me concerning the wisdom of God, which is not the wisdom of men, and which men have often mistaken for foolishness because they have not understood it.
2 The wisdom of God is the wisdom of love, which is willing to be patient when the strong would compel, and which is willing to be humble when the proud would assert, and which is willing to lose when the world would have it win.
3 And the Lord said unto me: my ways are not the ways of men, but my ways are not contrary to the deepest wisdom which men can know. They are the fullness of that wisdom, which men have glimpsed in part and have practiced in part.
4 Wherefore when thou seest the love of a mother for her child, thou hast seen a portion of my love. When thou seest the patience of a teacher with a slow learner, thou hast seen a portion of my patience. When thou seest the forgiveness of a friend who hath been wronged, thou hast seen a portion of my forgiveness.
5 And I am not other than the best things which thou hast known. I am those things made perfect, and made eternal, and made the foundation of everything that exists.
6 Wherefore the way to know God is not to leave behind the loves and the kindnesses of the world, but to follow them upward to their source. He that loveth knoweth me, even if he hath not called me by name. And he that loveth not knoweth me not, even if he hath called me by name every day of his life.
7 And these are the deeper things of the gospel, which I have spoken unto thee that thou mayest write them and seal them up, that they may come forth in the day appointed.
8 And in that day let those who read receive them with quiet hearts, and let them not contend over them, for these things are not the property of any one church or any one tradition. They are the inheritance of every soul that will receive them.
9 And let the saints of the Final Restoration not be proud because they have received first what shall in time be received by all. Let them be humble, and grateful, and let them invite all who will to come and partake without distinction of nation or color or any other thing by which men have divided one another.
10 For the gospel is one, and the family of God is one, and the kingdom which is coming is one, and in that day there shall be no division, neither shall there be any boasting, but every soul shall know that he was loved equally and called equally and is welcomed equally by the Lord who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
11 Amen.