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1 Nephi 4:11-13 

11 And the Spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property.
12 And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands;
13 Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.

There is a titanic struggle going on in and for this world, and the combatants in the struggle are myriad and they are fully engaged. From our perspective, there are at least three major questions at issue: (1) How can people be happy while on this earth? (2) How can we be assured that we may ultimately return to our Father in Heaven? (3) Who (Satan or The Meek) will ultimately inherit this beautiful earth?

Of those questions, most people tend to be most interested in the first—and that often to the exclusion of the other two. Often that question is just about wanting an assurance of health, wealth, and pleasure. For that reason, the question is often turned upside-down so that it reads: “How could God allow such bad things?” Thus altered, the question becomes the great and unanswerable dilemma and hovers over human society like a shroud of darkness. Many who ask the question in that way get frustrated and angry, or else they just stop thinking about God altogether.

To other people who look forward to leaving this world with an anticipation analogous to that of a child looking forward to Christmas, the upside-down question is moot because it doesn’t ask anything that is ultimately most important. In their minds, the pivotal question is the second one: “How can we be assured that we may ultimately return to our Father in Heaven?” and the real issue is about the adventure of having enough experiences along the way that we will understand the important things while we are here.

The third question, “Who (Satan or the Meek) will ultimately inherit this beautiful earth?” is enormous. Its answer is already known, but that does not preclude the battle, which has raged throughout our existence. The answer includes the whole panorama of the patterns of our eternal development, and encompasses the eternal biography of each one of us. More recently it focuses on the political and cultural balances and counterbalances of human history.

Heavenly Father’s intent is that the maximum number of his children who are born into this world will receive the blessings of the gospel while they live here. It has to do with sealing powers that guarantee that the earth will not be wasted at his coming.

The righteous include the greatest of our Father’s children— the noble and great ones like Abraham, Joseph Smith, and others like George Washington. A partial list is given in D&C 138:38-56.

The people on Satan’s side are not slouches either. Among them are Cain, who was “Perdition” before he was born (Moses 5:22-25), and the leaders in Jerusalem who took it upon themselves to kill the Savior and sought to destroy his Kingdom.

There were others of the same ilk who came shortly thereafter, who infiltrated the Church so they could destroy it from within. Jude warned against such people, suggesting that they were in league with “the angels that kept not their first estate” (Jude 1:3-6).

There have always been people like that whose aim is to thwart the purposes of God. If Laban was a practitioner of the kind of pagan rites Ezekiel described, then he and those associated with him were engaged in covert activities designed to supplant the worship of Jehovah. The fruit of their intrigues would soon bring about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the captivity of the whole Jewish nation. Lehi’s duty was not only to save his own family and establish a nation in the new world but also to preserve the worship of Jehovah as it had been practiced in the Jerusalem Temple services. This was not a trifling matter, and God’s assurance, “It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief,” is apparently rooted in a much greater and more far-reaching concept than only the thousand-year history of the Nephite people.

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1 Nephi 4:8-9 

9 And I beheld his sword, and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof; and the hilt thereof was of pure gold, and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine, and I saw that the blade thereof was of the most precious steel.

When Nephi found Laban drunk and lying by the side of the road, in the gutter, the first thing he tells us is that he removed the sword from its sheath and examined it. That is just what one would expect a boy to do. It was an extraordinary ceremonial sword— designed for beauty rather than for the rigors of war. The hilt was pure gold, but it was the blade that impressed the boy the most—“ I saw that the blade thereof was of the most precious steel.”

Nephi’s describing the blade that way may tell us more about Laban, and about Laban’s relationship with Lehi, than any other information we have.

When Nephi was older, he became an accomplished metal worker, but at this time he was “exceedingly young” (1 Nephi 2:16)—probably only 13 or 14 years old.{1} That is old enough for a boy to be well acquainted with the weapons used by military personnel in a garrison city, but a bit young to have sufficient metallurgy skills to be able to recognize “the most precious steel,” especially if such steel was rarely seen. It is more likely that his description of the sword came not from his knowledge of steel but rather from his prior knowledge of the sword itself. If the sword was an ancient ceremonial sword, it was also a most precious family heirloom, and if Nephi were a member of the family, the boy would probably have been more aware of that sword than he was of any other item in the treasury. Now, our question is: In 600 B.C., what was “the most precious steel”?

The Iron Age is usually considered to be from about 1000 to 500 B.C.—that is, from about the time of King David’s reign to a hundred years after Lehi left Jerusalem. There is archaeological evidence of iron before 1000 B.C., but it was not until then that the Greeks started to use it for their weapons. After that, iron weapons and iron tools became more common.

The advantage of iron over bronze was that an iron blade was almost unbreakable. However, ancient smelting techniques could only produce wrought iron, which was very strong but not hard enough for a sword to hold a sharp edge. It was not until just after 670 B.C. that Egyptians learned how to use the process of case-hardening to improve the edges of their tools and weapons. Seventy years is long enough for the Egyptians to have shared either the technology or the advanced weapons with their Jewish allies.

Case hardening is a way of working carbon into the surface of the iron by placing the blade in a sealed jar along with some material containing carbon, usually animal hide or bone, and keeping it red hot until the bone or hide became carbon. During this process a small quantity of the carbon gases infused into the surface of the hot iron, in effect transforming that surface into steel. After the appropriate time the iron was quenched to cool it. The result was a weapon with a high-carbon surface that would keep a sharp edge, with an interior that was still strong iron.

Given the military alliance that Judah had with Egypt, we can be sure that the typical sword for a Jewish military commander would have been made of case-hardened Egyptian steel. But we can also be safe in assuming that such swords had become rather common among the Jewish military. Swords made this way were excellent fighting weapons, but they were not “the most precious steel.”

The famous, beautifully patterned Damascus steel, which, because of its name, is often associated with the ancient world, was not invented until about the ninth century A.D., just before the beginning of the Crusades. So Damascus steel could not have been what Nephi was talking about.

It is unlikely that Nephi would have described a case-hardened blade made in Egypt as “the most precious steel,” when in fact it was not. The most precious steel literally fell from the heavens, and was considered to have been a gift from the gods.

Such steel has a high nickel content and comes to the earth as a meteorite. Because of its scarcity, origin, and extraordinary quality, steel made from meteorites was reserved for implements whose purpose was sacred—either ornamental or ceremonial. A full-size sword blade made of such exceedingly rare material would certainly have been described as “the most precious steel,” and its hilt, most appropriately, would have been made of pure gold.

Throughout the Book of Mormon, from the time that Nephi obtained it, the sword of Laban had a special place in Nephite history. It was part of the royal regalia of the kings, and was occasionally wielded by them in battle—perhaps in somewhat the same way that the Ark of the Covenant was carried with the ancient Israelites when they went to battle (2 Nephi 5:14, Jacob 1:10, Words of Mormon 1:13). The sword was prized among the most sacred regalia of the Nephite people (Mosiah 1:15-16).

The sword was kept by the prophets after the Savior visited America. Moroni kept it with himself after his father was killed. Much later, when Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Mormon, the Lord promised him that the Three Witnesses could see the plates and other sacred things. He mentioned the Urim and Thummim, the breastplate, the Liahona, and the sword of Laban (D&C 17:1). That promise was fulfilled.

David Whitmer recalled that when Moroni came to the Three Witnesses, the angel also showed them “a table with many records or plates upon it, besides the plates of the Book of Mormon, also the sword of Laban, the directors (i.e., the ball which Lehi had) and the interpreters.”{2}

Two months before his death in 1877, Brigham Young described that cave. He explained that his purpose for telling this story was “so that they [these facts] will not be forgotten and lost.” He wanted Latter-day Saints to know and remember what had happened to the plates of the Book of Mormon. The following paragraph is the account of Joseph’s returning the plates to Moroni as Brigham Young reported that Oliver Cowdery told it to him:

This is an incident in the life of Oliver Cowdery, but he did not take the liberty of telling such things in meeting as I take. I tell these things to you, and I have a motive for doing so. I want to carry them to the ears of my brethren and sisters, and to the children also, that they may grow to an understanding of some things that seem to be entirely hidden from the human family. Oliver Cowdery went with the Prophet Joseph when he deposited these plates. Joseph did not translate all of the plates; there was a portion of them sealed, which you can learn from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. When Joseph got the plates, the angel instructed him to carry them back to the hill Cumorah, which he did. Oliver says that when Joseph and Oliver went there, the hill opened, and they walked into a cave, in which there was a large and spacious room. He says he did not think, at the time, whether they had the light of the sun or artificial light; but that it was just as light as day. They laid the plates on a table; it was a large table that stood in the room. Under this table there was a pile of plates as much as two feet high, and there were altogether in this room more plates than probably many wagon loads; they were piled up in the corners and along the walls. The first time they went there the sword of Laban hung upon the wall; but when they went again it had been taken down and laid upon the table across the gold plates; it was unsheathed, and on it was written these words: “This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and his Christ.” I tell you this as coming not only from Oliver Cowdery, but others who were familiar with it, and who understood it.{3}

It seems clear from its history that the sword of Laban had significance far beyond its being a beautifully crafted work of art. Ownership of the sword apparently signified overriding kingship and priesthood authority.

It seems reasonable to suppose that the sword did not became that sacred all of a sudden, at the time Nephi first acquired it. The plates contained records that went back beyond the time of Joseph and his great-grandfather Abraham, and “before the days of Abraham” (Helaman 8:18-20). The sword may have done also. It may also have been sacred to Joseph’s most ancient forefathers. Nephi had been promised by the Lord that he would be a ruler and a teacher (king and priest) to his people. It may be that part of the fulfillment of the promise was when Nephi obtained the symbols of kingship and priesthood that characterized one who held that authority—the regalia of the ancient kings and priests—the sword and clothing that Laban had worn and profaned that night.
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FOOTNOTES

{1} For the question of Nephi’s age, see my comment on 1 Nephi 1:4, reign of Zedekiah .

{2} Martin Harris saw the same things. Cannon in Nibley, LDS Stories, 96; Jensen, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:266, 275, 270.

{3} Oliver Cowdery described this experience to at least two people: The one quoted is Brigham Young (Journal of Discourses, 19:38-39); the other is David Whitmer in Stevenson, Reminiscences, 14-15.

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1 Nephi 4:6-8

6 And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.
7 Nevertheless I went forth, and as I came near unto the house of Laban I beheld a man, and he had fallen to the earth before me, for he was drunken with wine
8 And when I came to him I found that it was Laban.

What was Laban doing that night, dressed in the sacred clothing (probably of his kingship and priesthood) and carrying the royal regalia of the house of Manasseh? Nephi may have known or surmised when he said to Zoram that they must carry the plates to “my elder brethren,” and Zoram supposed he spoke “of the brethren of the church”(1 Nephi 4:24-25). The members of Laban’s “church” were “the elders of the Jews” (1 Nephi 4:26-27), probably those same apostates whom Ezekiel called the “ancients of the house of Israel.”

Ezekiel was in Mesopotamia, but had a vision about what was happening back home (Ezekiel 8:1-18).. In his report of his vision, he condemns the “ancients of the house of Israel (v. 11-12), and later refers more specifically to the “house of Judah.” (v. 17) We may read the “ancients of the house of Israel” to include men from tribes other than just Judah. If the leaders of the house of Manasseh were one of those tribes, then Laban may have been among those leaders Ezekiel was condemning for worshiping pagan deities in Jehovah’s Temple.

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1 Nephi 4:19 

19 And after I had smitten off his head with his own sword, I took the garments of Laban and put them upon mine own body; yea, even every whit; and I did gird on his armor about my loins.

After describing the sword, Nephi tells us that he removed all of Laban’s clothing and put them on himself. Nephi makes it very clear that he did not simply take Laban’s outer garments and put them over his own in order to disguise himself. Rather, what he writes is that “I took the garments of Laban and put them upon mine own body; yea, even every whit; and I did gird on his armor about my loins.” The implication is that Nephi removed his own clothes and replaced them with everything Laban had been wearing—even every whit. Given the nature of the sword of Laban, it is reasonable to suppose that his clothing had the same ceremonial and symbolic significance as the sword. If that were so, that would certainly account for why Nephi was concerned that he let us know that he put on all of Laban’s clothing. His phrase, “upon mine own body,” implies that included Laban’s undergarments.{1} If that is so, then when Nephi had finished dressing himself he was wearing the royal and priesthood birthright apparel of the prince of the family of Manasseh, of Joseph, and of Abraham. At that point Nephi was dressed in accordance with the Lord’s promise that he should be made a king and a priest

After that, Nephi writes, “I did gird on his armor about my loins.” Later he writes that the “sword,” as well as the “armor,” was “girded about my loins” (1 Nephi 4:21).

That is one of the hundreds of incidental statements in the Book of Mormon that demonstrate that its author had a first-hand knowledge of what he was talking about—the kind of knowledge that Joseph Smith, with his back-country New England education, could never have guessed correctly.

The word translated as “armor” in the Old Testament “properly means ‘girdle belt,’ an important part of a soldier’s defensive armor.”{2} The full battle dress of an ancient Israelite soldier consisted of a “girdle belt” that protected his loins and held the sheath of his sword, a helmet, a shield, and perhaps also a breast covering of mail.{3} That description would fit perfectly with Nephi’s account. The belt would be necessary to carry the sword’s sheath, and would account for Nephi’s later words, “the sword girded about my loins.” So Nephi’s description of what he did with the armor—that is he fastened it around his loins—is correct.

If Laban had been dressed in his full military uniform, he also would have had on a helmet, and he would have been carrying a shield. However, since Nephi mentions neither of those things, we can be comfortable in understanding Laban’s “armor” was only the protective belt that carried the sword.{4}
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FOOTNOTES

{1} For a discussion of the royal clothing see Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, First edition, p. 265-67, 483-95; Second edition, p. 189-91, 397-98.

{2} “Weapons and Implements of War,” in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, 5 vols., Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1990), 4:825.

{3} “Weapons and Implements of War,” in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, 4:820-25.

{4} The Nephites continued to call the “girdle belt” their armor. When Captain Moroni “fastened on his head-plate, and his breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins” (Alma 46:13).

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1 Nephi 4:3 

3. Now behold ye know that this is true; and ye also know that an angel hath spoken unto you; wherefore can ye doubt? Let us go up; the Lord is able to deliver us, even as our fathers, and to destroy Laban, even as the Egyptians.

Sometimes doubting has nothing to do with what we know. Rather it has to do with what we fear. And that, in turn, has a great deal to do with our integrity. When we know what the Lord has instructed us, but also know that it puts us in a fearful situation, we have two options: 1) to act upon our fears, notwithstanding what we know or 2) to act upon our knowledge, notwithstanding what we fear.

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1 Nephi 3:29 

29. And it came to pass as they smote us with a rod, behold, an angel of the Lord came and stood before them, and he spake unto them, saying: Why do ye smite your younger brother with a rod? Know ye not that the Lord hath chosen him to be a ruler over you, and this because of your iniquities? Behold ye shall go up to Jerusalem again, and the Lord will deliver Laban into your hands.

After the brothers “went down to the land of our inheritance,” which probably suggests their country estate, they and we did gather together our gold, and our silver, and our precious things” (1 Nephi 3:22). They took these to Laban in hopes he would trade them for the brass plates. Again he called them thieves and robbers, and this time he sought to execute them on the spot. Laman was the oldest son and those precious things should have belonged to him.

Now they had been told by an angel that Laman and Lemuel had not only abdicated their birthright blessings because of their iniquities, but they had also lost in favor of the younger brother whom they despised. It is true that the Lord will give us every opportunity we need to succeed, but it is also true that he will not force us to accept the blessings he offers us.

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1 Nephi 3:17-18 

17 For he knew that Jerusalem must be destroyed, because of the wickedness of the people.
18 For behold, they have rejected the words of the prophets. Wherefore, if my father should dwell in the land after he hath been commanded to flee out of the land, behold, he would also perish. Wherefore, it must needs be that he flee out of the land.

This knowledge is representative of the source of Nephi’s freedom and his strength. Because he knew Jerusalem would be destroyed, he could not be enticed by its beauty, power, or riches. Because he knew that the wickedness of the people would be the cause of the city’s destruction, and his father had been warned to avoid that fate, Nephi could not be enticed by those people’s approbation or intimidated by their criticism, hatred, or threats. This knowledge made him free to follow God’s instructions and confident in God’s help.

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1 Nephi 3:16 

16 Wherefore, let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord; therefore let us go down to the land of our father’s inheritance, for behold he left gold and silver, and all manner of riches. And all this he hath done because of the commandments of the Lord.

Faithful is used here with precision. Even though faith (pistis) has lost its covenant connotation and has come to mean belief without evidence, faithful has kept its original meaning. To be faithful (pistos) is to do what we say we will do—that is, to keep our part of the covenant. The word Nephi uses here is “commandments” rather than covenants, but it was a covenant, nonetheless. God had given the instruction and Nephi understood that with that instruction had come a promise of assistance. The brothers had promised to obey. Therefore, to be faithful, they must do as they had promised.

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1 Nephi 3:9-15 

9 And I, Nephi, and my brethren took our journey in the wilderness, with our tents, to go up to the land of Jerusalem.
10 And it came to pass that when we had gone up to the land of Jerusalem, I and my brethren did consult one with another.
11 And we cast lots—who of us should go in unto the house of Laban. And it came to pass that the lot fell upon Laman; and Laman went in unto the house of Laban, and he talked with him as he sat in his house.
12 And he desired of Laban the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass, which contained the genealogy of my father.
13 And behold, it came to pass that Laban was angry, and thrust him out from his presence; and he would not that he should have the records. Wherefore, he said unto him: Behold thou art a robber, and I will slay thee.
14 But Laman fled out of his presence, and told the things which Laban had done, unto us. And we began to be exceedingly sorrowful, and my brethren were about to return unto my father in the wilderness.
15 But behold I said unto them that: As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us.

The boys “cast lots—who of us should go in unto the house of Laban…. the lot fell upon Laman; and Laman went in unto the house of Laban, and he talked with him as he sat in his house (v. 11). Laban’s response was to disregard Lehi’s claim and to accuse the boy, “Behold thou art a robber, and I will slay thee.”

There is a fundamental principle illustrated here. Laman and Nephi each acted according to their father’s instructions, but each understood the importance of their mission differently. Laman thought he had fulfilled his responsibilities by only an attempt to succeed. Nephi thought their responsibilities included successfully completing the task they were assigned.

The questions whose answers illustrate the principle are these: Why did the brothers respond so differently? and Why did Nephi have such confidence in the outcome of his mission? The answer has to do with the nature of free agency.

Free agency is a product of knowing truth. “Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.” (D&C 93:24) That is, truth is a knowledge of reality in sacred time. Sacred time is time as God experiences it, as opposed to linear time that we experience in this world. A primary function of the Holy Ghost is to teach us to understand our own reality in sacred time. To do that, the Spirit must also teach us how to define ourselves in terms of God’s love for us, and in terms of our love for other people. To the degree that we understand our own reality as love in sacred time, to that degree we are free to act independently within the sphere of that knowledge. Consequently, even though Laman and Nephi each acted according to their own will, Nephi experienced a freedom to choose that was far beyond anything Laman could have understood. We will see that as their story unfolds. Nephi was not always sure what he should do, but he knew he could trust God, and therefore was never unsure about the final results. Laman, on the other hand, was unsure about how to proceed because he did not trust God and therefore was not sure about the results.

Both were reasonably free to act, but to be completely free to act is not possible while we are in this mortal world. Such freedom would require that we not be constrained by any physical restrictions, cultural taboos, and social definitions of moral propriety. That kind of freedom does not exist here. No matter who or where we are, there are always limits on where and how fast we can move, and what society will permit us to do .But within those limits, both young men were free to act according to their own wills.

In this world, each of us is free to act according to our own volition—but only within the limits circumscribed by our physical ability and cultural taboos. However, there are also other restraints that limit our freedoms here. The most important is our sense of Self and the meanings we give to the rectitude of our intentions. It is that sense of right and wrong that informs and empowers our freedom to choose.

Freedom to choose can be a reality only when we can distinguish between our choices. If we do not know the consequences of our choices, then we cannot know which choice is best. If we do not know the consequences, then we can exercise no more real freedom of choice than someone who is blindfolded and is expected to choose by guessing. Freedom to guess and freedom to choose are not the same thing. Freedom to guess is being given the right to choose while being denied the correct criteria upon which to judge. That is only a pretended freedom. It may look like freedom—we may even accept it as freedom—but in reality it is a kind of slavery instead. When we know and trust God, the Holy Ghost gives us an assurance of the consequences, and therefore actually gives us the freedom to choose.

We are never subservient when we are obedient to the instructions of the Spirit, because the Spirit does not impose choices upon us. The Spirit magnifies our agency by giving us the freedom to be our Selves. Freedom to act and freedom to be one’s Self are quite different things.

Freedom to be one’s Self may be limited by severe external restraints. Most of them are cultural, social, or academic. To most of the people who now live or who ever have lived in this world, those limitations have been enormous, but to Latter-day Saints who have the scriptures and the gift of the Holy Ghost, they need not be. For us, the overriding limitation is probably our own lack of interest or else a desire that is not sustained by personal focus and dedication. The beginnings of freedom to be one’s Self are built upon personal integrity:

A) To be free one must have sufficient integrity to not be bribable. That is, to not be for sale for such prices as money, fame, power, popularity, or whatever else the world may use to bribe.

B) To be free one must have sufficient security to not be afraid. In the environment of this world, that could mean anything from a nation with a powerful defensive army, to a city with an efficient police force, to an individual secure in an honest neighborhood. On a personal level, it would mean one’s being so secure in his own sense of reality, that nothing could intimidate or threaten him into being or doing anything that is contrary to the law of his own being.

C) To be free one must have sufficient information to choose, rather than just to guess, then to act correctly. One is expected to study carefully, think rationally, and make intelligent choices about the things of this world. Then one can depend on the Holy Ghost to give additional insights.

The freedom to be one’s Self gives us enormous personal power—not the power to impose our will on anyone else but the power to choose according to our own desires. The root of this power is what the Savior described when he said,

27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27).

In the Beatitudes Jesus identified such people as “peacemakers.” Later, Mormon described them as “the peaceable followers of Christ. …because of your peaceable walk with the children of men” (Moroni 7:2-4).

For one to be at peace, one must have the power and freedom to act rather than to be acted upon. On this level, peace equates with freedom. Freedom with the power to be one’s Self. Both map to priesthood and sacral kingship. This equivalency works because peace, priesthood and sacral kingship can only be the fruition and fulfillment of the freedom to be one’s Self. Those same three principles that give one freedom in this world (when put into gospel language) are faith, hope, and charity.

A) Faith (pistis) in the Savior is evoking all the promises of the Father’s covenant. Faith must be preceded by our knowledge that the covenant is binding on both ourselves and God. So ultimately, for us, faith is an exercise in our own integrity—the valid evidence that we will be faithful to our covenants—that there is no gap between what we say and what we do, with nothing in this world so attractive or desirable that it can be used as a bribe to derail our sense of Self.

B) Hope is living in the security that God will fulfil his covenants—that is, hope is living as though the covenants were already fulfilled—“having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life” (Alma 13:29). With such a hope, there is nothing in this world that can intimidate us to not fulfil our part of the covenants. Hope makes one meek before the Lord and invulnerable to intimidation by anyone or anything else. For example, one of the most exquisite expression of hope found anywhere in the scriptures is this from Moroni:

34 And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen (Moroni 10:34).

C) Charity is the pure love of Christ. It is the love one feels for another when one understands another as God understands them. Charity, light, and truth (knowledge in sacred time) are equivalents, and charity (the way one feels and acts when one has light and truth) is the greatest expression of the three. Charity makes one meek before the Lord and invulnerable to intimidation by anyone or anything else. By definition, people who have charity have access to all the correct information they need to make choices about their relationships with other people. They are also expected to study carefully, think rationally, and make intelligent choices about the things of this world, and can depend on the Holy Ghost is to give additional insights.

Given the experiences Nephi had already had, Nephi’s freedom was expanded by his understanding that God would enable him to fulfill his part of the covenants. Because of the covenants, Nephi understood that his mission was necessary in the eyes of God, and therefore he understood himself to be invulnerable. This power to understand changed the nature of his agency. The agency Nephi exercised was founded on his understanding of eternal truths and was expressed in his determination to obey because he chose to. For Laman, the agency he exercised was founded on his not choosing to know, and expressed in his reluctance to try again.

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1 Nephi 3:7-8

7. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things that the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing that he commandeth them.
8. And it came to pass that when my father had heard these words he was exceedingly glad, for he knew that I had been blessed of the Lord.

Nephi has carefully laid out for us the background of this statement. It reads like a rather simple but honest retelling of the story, but at its foundation there is something that he wants his children, and their children—and us—to understand. Nephi crafted his entire autobiography as a kind of epic poem, following the dynamic pattern of the cosmic myth. In that poem, we are now at the point in the chiastic pattern where the hero is given his assignment. If one reads it that way, one readily discovers the two major elements of the assignment. The first is in chapter 2 where the Lord promises Nephi that he will be a ruler and a teacher (that is, a king and a priest). The second is here, where Nephi expresses his trust that the Lord will give no assignment unless its ultimate fulfillment is included in the promise that the Lord will assist the hero in fulfilling his part of the covenant.

There is an implicit and often explicit covenant imbedded into every commandment given God. The promise is that God will counterbalance any obstacle that would otherwise prevent us from keeping our covenants. A vivid example is Abinadi’s warning to the priests of Noah. Abinadi had not yet finished his assignment, and he could not be prevented from doing so (Mosiah 13:3). In Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, we assigned the name of “invulnerability” to that important covenant. It does not mean one will not have problems or that the assignment will be easy. It means that God will override very thing and everyone that might prevent our keeping our covenants. After that, like Abinadi when he had accomplished what he was sent to do, it almost does not matter what happens.{1}

Nephi’s testimony is that he understands that. He tells us:

8 And it came to pass that when my father had heard these words he was exceedingly glad, for he knew that I had been blessed of the Lord (1 Nephi 8).

Lehi also understood the truth and power of God’s promise of invulnerability. He recognized that Nephi’s assurance was not just the expression of a boy’s unschooled trust, but that Nephi had in fact “been blessed of the Lord.”
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FOOTNOTE
{1} For a discussion of the “covenant of invulnerability” see Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, first edition, 285-89; second edition, 201-04.

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