Continuing His words, the Savior, He told the Nephites He
had not received a commandment from His Father to tell the Jews about the
Nephites. Earlier, Mormon wrote, “I am Mormon, and a pure descendant of Lehi. I
have reason to bless my God and my Savior Jesus Christ, that he brought our
fathers out of the land of Jerusalem, (and no one knew it save it were himself
and those whom he brought out of that land) and that he hath given me and my
people so much knowledge unto the salvation of our souls” (3 Nephi 5:20).
He also had not received a commandment to tell the Jews
about the ten tribes. What He told the Jews was, “I have yet many things to say
unto you, but ye cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).
He told them, “And other sheep I have, which are not of this
fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be
one fold, and one shepherd” (John 10:16).
We learn it was because of their unbelief and the fact they
were so bullheaded, He was commanded not to say anything more than this.
“While acknowledging the difficulty of the prophecy as
given, the Jesus of the Book of Mormon here indicates that his words in the New
Testament can only be understood if taken in their plain sense: his sheep
include those who have actually, physically, heard his voice. Earlier in the
text, he explains that stiffneckedness and unbelief kept his Old World hearers
from this truth (3 Nephi 15:18), and in 3 Nephi 16:4 he offers two different
methods whereby those at Jerusalem could still receive knowledge about these ‘other
sheep’—and by extension about the timely fulfillment of his eschatological
prophecies as well—either by asking the Father in Jesus’s name or by eventually
receiving the Nephite record of his postresurrection visit to them.”[1]
The Savior was commanded to tell the Nephites they were separated
from the Jews because of their sin. “For thou didst separate them from among
all the people of the earth, to be thine inheritance, as thou spakest by the
hand of Moses thy servant, when thou broughtest our fathers out of Egypt, O
Lord God” (1 Kings 8:53). It is for this reason, they were not told of the
Nephites.
It is for this reason, the other tribes were separated from
them and why they weren’t told anything about them.
“It may seem a strange claim that Jesus’s Old World
prophecies were fulfilled on the other side of the world, in a manner that
would have been impossible for his original audience to verify; but Jesus
speaks in the Book of Mormon of a similar misunderstanding when he tells his
Nephite disciples that ‘ye are they of whom I said, “Other sheep I have, which
are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and
there shall be one fold, and one shepherd”’ (3 Nephi 15:21;17 cf. John 10:16).
This identification of the Nephites as Jesus’s ‘other sheep’ demonstrates that,
so far as the Book of Mormon is concerned, Jesus prophesied on at least one
occasion in Jerusalem of events that would transpire in the New World, even
though his original hearers could neither understand nor even imagine the
prophecy being fulfilled in such a manner.”[2]
The Jews did not understand His words about the Gentiles
receiving the gospel through them. “But he answered and said, I am not sent but
unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). He would only
manifest Himself through the Holy Ghost. “And it came to pass after my father had
spoken these words he spake unto my brethren concerning the gospel which should
be preached among the Jews, and also concerning the dwindling of the Jews in
unbelief. And after they had slain the Messiah, who should come, and after he
had been slain he should rise from the dead, and should make himself manifest,
by the Holy Ghost, unto the Gentiles” (1 Nephi 10:11).
The Nephites have now heard His voice and seen Him. They are His sheep. “Behold, I say unto you,
that the good shepherd doth call you; yea, and in his own name he doth call
you, which is the name of Christ; and if ye will not hearken unto the voice of
the good shepherd, to the name by which ye are called, behold, ye are not the
sheep of the good shepherd” (Alma 5:38).
They will be numbered “among those whom the Father hath
given me” (3 Nephi 15:24). “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and
him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).
[1] “Saving
Christianity”: The Nephite Fulfillment of Jesus’s Eschatological Prophecies,
Heather Hardy, Journal of Book of Mormon
Studies 23 (2014): 31-32.
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