3 Nephi 16:1-5

Chapter 16

Jesus will visit others of the lost sheep of Israel—In the latter days the gospel will go to the Gentiles and then to the house of Israel—The Lord’s people will see eye to eye when He brings again Zion. About A.D. 34.

After telling the Nephites they were the other sheep referred to in Jerusalem (see John 10:16), he told them there were other sheep that are not in this land nor the land of Jerusalem.

“And the God of our fathers, who were led out of Egypt, out of bondage, and also were preserved in the wilderness by him, yea, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, yieldeth himself, according to the words of the angel, as a man, into the hands of wicked men, to be lifted up, according to the words of Zenock, and to be crucified, according to the words of Neum, and to be buried in a sepulchre, according to the words of Zenos, which he spake concerning the three days of darkness, which should be a sign given of his death unto those who should inhabit the isles of the sea, more especially given unto those who are of the house of Israel” (1 Nephi 19:10).

“And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (2 Nephi 21:12).

“And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee” (1 Kings 11:31).

The Savior was referring to the lost ten tribes. “And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes” (2 Kings 18:18).

“But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate” (Zechariah 7:14).

“And it shall come to pass that the Jews shall have the words of the Nephites, and the Nephites shall have the words of the Jews; and the Nephites and the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of Israel; and the lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and the Jews” (2 Nephi 29:13).

“After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto us; and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north” (D&C 110:11).

They had not yet heard His voice, nor had He appeared to them.

He had been commanded by the Father to minister to them so that they will hear His voice and become part of His fold.

“During his visit to the Nephites, the Lord again referred to the lost tribes of Israel when he declared, ‘I shall go unto them [his “other sheep”], and . . . they shall hear my voice’ (see 3 Nephi 16:1–3). When those records come forth, we will have a third witness to the divinity of Christ. The Lord revealed that another purpose of that record will be to combine with other records to show ‘unto them that fight against my word and against my people, who are of the house of Israel, that I am God, and that I covenanted with Abraham that I would remember his seed forever’ (2 Nephi 29:14; see Abraham 2:8). Doctrine and Covenants 133:30–32 teaches that the lost tribes will bring their ‘rich treasures’ to Ephraim and will thus receive a crown of glory. While these treasures could refer to the records of the lost tribes, they could also include the genealogical records that will be brought to the temples of Ephraim and enable the lost tribes to receive their ordinances, the crowning ones being their endowments and sealings for themselves and their dead ancestors.”[1]

He commanded the Nephites to write all His sayings after He is gone. “And after it had come forth unto them I beheld other books, which came forth by the power of the Lamb, from the Gentiles unto them, unto the convincing of the Gentiles and the remnant of the seed of my brethren, and also the Jews who were scattered upon all the face of the earth, that the records of the prophets and of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are true” (1 Nephi 13:39).

“Wherefore, he shall bring forth his words unto them, which words shall judge them at the last day, for they shall be given them for the purpose of convincing them of the true Messiah, who was rejected by them; and unto the convincing of them that they need not look forward any more for a Messiah to come, for there should not any come, save it should be a false Messiah which should deceive the people; for there is save one Messiah spoken of by the prophets, and that Messiah is he who should be rejected of the Jew” (2 Nephi 25:18).

The record will be made available to the Gentiles.

“And after the house of Israel should be scattered they should be gathered together again; or, in fine, after the Gentiles had received the fulness of the Gospel, the natural branches of the olive tree, or the remnants of the house of Israel, should be grafted in, or come to the knowledge of the true Messiah, their Lord and their Redeemer” (1 Nephi 10:14).

This fullness will be brought to them through the Gentiles.  They will be scattered through the Earth.  This knowledge will be brought to them so they will know Him.

“And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up mine hand [IE covenanted] to give it to your fathers.

“And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed.

“And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed” (Ezekiel 20:42-44).

“Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.

“I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness” (Micah 7:8-9).

“[T]he 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.”[2]

“And then will I gather them in from the four quarters of the earth; and then will I fulfil the covenant which the Father hath made unto all the people of the house of Israel” (3 Nephi 16:5).

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[1] Other Ancient American Records Yet to Come Forth, Monte S. Nyman, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10/1 (2001): 58.

[2] “Saving Christianity”: The Nephite Fulfillment of Jesus’s Eschatological Prophecies, Heather Hardy, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 23 (2014): 32-33.