The Lord told the brother of Jared He never showed Himself
to any man before; however, no one has ever had the faith he had. Seeing the
Lord, he told the brother of Jared he saw men were created in His image.
The Lord told him the body he sees is a spirit. He was
appearing as He would appear in the flesh.
Moroni again breaks into his abridgment. He reminds us he “could
not make a full account of these things which are written” (Ether 3:17). He
wanted us to understand Christ appeared to the brother of Jared while a spirit.
His likeness was the same when he appeared to the Nephites.
The Lord ministered to the brother of Jared as He did to the
Nephites. This was done so he would know he was God.
“Moroni informs us that the Lord ministered to the brother
of Jared as he ministered to the Nephites (see Ether 3:18). The verb to minister means ‘to serve or
to supply with’ and seems to connote more than just conversing or preaching.
Moroni does not spell out the exact manner in which the Lord ministered to the
brother of Jared, but he does provide us with some clues. Moroni draws a
parallel with the ministering of the Lord among the Nephites. We know from the
book of 3 Nephi that Jesus taught the people, healed them, and administered
ordinances to them such as the sacrament and ordination. Thus we may infer that
the Lord also administered ordinances to the brother of Jared, some of which
were sacred and not to be revealed.”[1]
Because of his knowledge, the brother of Jared saw the
finger of the Lord. “[H]e fell with fear; for he knew that it was the finger of
the Lord’ (Ether 3:19). He no longer had faith; he know had knowledge. “And
now, behold, is your knowledge perfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that
thing, and your faith is dormant; and this because you know, for ye know that
the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that it hath sprouted up,
that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin
to expand” (Alma 32:34).
With his perfect knowledge, he could not be prevented from
seeing the Lord.
“And there were many whose faith was so exceedingly strong,
even before Christ came, who could not be kept from within the veil, but truly
saw with their eyes the things which they had beheld with an eye of faith, and
they were glad.
“And behold, we have seen in this record that one of these
was the brother of Jared; for so great was his faith in God, that when God put
forth his finger he could not hide it from the sight of the brother of Jared,
because of his word which he had spoken unto him, which word he had obtained by
faith.
“And after the brother of Jared had beheld the finger of the
Lord, because of the promise which the brother of Jared had obtained by faith,
the Lord could not withhold anything from his sight; wherefore he showed him
all things, for he could no longer be kept without the veil” (Ether 12:19-21).
The brother of Jared was commanded not to share this with
anyone. The records could not be available until after He completed His earthly
mission. “And the Lord commanded the brother of Jared to go down out of the
mount from the presence of the Lord, and write the things which he had seen;
and they were forbidden to come unto the children of men until after that he
should be lifted up upon the cross; and for this cause did king Mosiah keep
them, that they should not come unto the world until after Christ should show
himself unto his people” (Ether 4:1).
The brother of Jared was told to write and seal up the
record of his vision. He was also commanded to write “them in a language that
they cannot be read” (Ether 3:22).
We read about this when Ammon met with King Limhi.
“And again, they have brought swords, the hilts thereof have
perished, and the blades thereof were cankered with rust; and there is no one
in the land that is able to interpret the language or the engravings that are
on the plates. Therefore I said unto thee: Canst thou translate?
“And I say unto thee again: Knowest thou of any one that can
translate? For I am desirous that these records should be translated into our
language; for, perhaps, they will give us a knowledge of a remnant of the
people who have been destroyed, from whence these records came; or, perhaps,
they will give us a knowledge of this very people who have been destroyed; and
I am desirous to know the cause of their destruction” (Mosiah 8:11-12).
“From the time of Nephi (ca. a.d. 35), there were two copies
of the record of the great vision of the brother of Jared: the original, ‘in a
language that . . . cannot be read’ (Ether 3:22), and ‘the interpretation
thereof’ by Nephi in the Nephite language (Ether 4:5; see vv. 1–2). Moroni
possessed both records and added a third copy by writing or copying the words
of the vision upon ‘these plates’ (Ether 4:4), that is, the gold plates. He
most likely used Nephi’s translation as his master copy because he was familiar
with that language and not with the language of the brother of Jared. For the
same reason, Moroni probably also turned to Mosiah’s translation of the book of
Ether to make his abridgment.”[2]
And behold, these two stones will I give unto thee, and ye
shall seal them up also with the things which ye shall write.
So that the record could eventually be translated, the
brother of Jared was given two stones to place where he hid his sealed record.
We know these two stones as the Urim and Thumim.
In 1829, the Lord told Joseph Smith, “Behold, I say unto
you, that you must rely upon my word, which if you do with full purpose of
heart, you shall have a view of the plates, and also of the breastplate, the
sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Jared
upon the mount, when he talked with the Lord face to face” (D&C 17:1).
After commanding him to seal the record, the brother of
Jared received a vision of “all the inhabitants of the earth which had been,
and also all that would be” (Ether 3:25). He saw everything from his time to
the end of the earth.
“Moroni described the sealed portion more specifically,
saying it contained the vision shown unto the brother of Jared … The Lord
commanded the brother of Jared to write the things he had seen and to seal them
up until the Lord’s own time … After the Lord’s people had all dwindled in
unbelief and there were none left but Lamanites who had rejected the gospel,
Moroni was to seal up the plates again (see Ether 4:3–5).
“Moroni told us that the sealed part should not go forth
unto the Gentiles until they had repented ‘of their iniquity, and become clean
before the Lord.’ He wrote further that when ‘they shall exercise faith in me
[the Lord], saith the Lord, even as the brother of Jared did, that they may
become sanctified in me, then will I manifest unto them the things which the
brother of Jared saw, even to the unfolding unto them all my revelations, saith
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of the heavens and of the earth, and
all things that in them are’ (Ether 4:6–7).”[3]
The Lord told the brother of Jared, “I will show [the sealed
record] in mine own due time unto the children of men” (Ether 3:27).
[1] A
Third Jaredite Record: The Sealed Portion of the Gold Plates, Valentin Arts,
Journal of Book of Mormon Studies
11/1 (2002): 51 (emphasis in original).
[3] Other
Ancient American Records Yet to Come Forth, Monte S. Nyman, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10/1
(2001): 57.
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