Posted on 12/24/2011 8:59:19 AM PST by Saundra Duffy
During the time my family and I lived in Europe, we visited the Frederiksborg Castle in Denmark, where many of the Carl Bloch paintings of the Savior are displayed. The paintings are crowded into a small room, sometimes called the King’s Oratory. There is a glass partition on the floor in front of the altar.
As we viewed the paintings, our family members took turns explaining what was happening in each one. We progressed from the birth of the Lord through His temptation by the devil and His preaching and healing. When we got to the Crucifixion I said, “And this is when He died.”
The two youngest children insisted, “No, He’s alive.” I stooped down to ask them to use their quiet voices and to explain more about the Crucifixion. That’s when I saw what they were seeing. From their angle, we could see on the glass partition the reflection of one painting superimposed on another painting. One was the painting of the Lord on the cross, and the other was the painting of His Resurrection. In both paintings His arms are stretched out, in the one on the cross and in the other as He is leaving the tomb. When I first saw the paintings imposed one on the other, it startled me. In that moment the images seemed to match perfectly. It seemed as if I were looking at the Savior’s spirit leaving His body on the cross.
Upon closer inspection I discovered the illusion, then enjoyed looking at each painting separately—The Crucifixion and The Resurrection. But the memory of the two paintings superimposed is imprinted on my mind. In a single view, they encapsulated the Lord’s condescension and His transcendent glory. And in one moment, the reality of the Crucifixion and of the Resurrection was confirmed by the Spirit in my heart and soul.
This experience has come to my mind over the years when I have studied and pondered three aspects of the Lord’s condescension: the reality of His condescension, the breadth and totality of His condescension, and the continuing blessing of His condescension for us today.
The Reality of the Condescension The condescension of the Lord Jesus Christ generally refers to His leaving His high and holy station in heaven and coming to live as a man on earth to accomplish the Atonement and Resurrection. Jesus came to live where mankind lives and as mankind lives so He could raise mankind to live where the Father lives and as the Father lives. Because He descended to earth to lift us to heaven, each one of us can have the “perfect brightness of hope” (2 Nephi 31:20) of progressing into the kingdom and presence of God.
President John Taylor (1808–87) said of the condescension of Christ, “It was further necessary that He should descend below all things, in order that He might raise others above all things; for if He could not raise Himself and be exalted through those principles brought about by the atonement, He could not raise others; He could not do for others what He could not do for Himself.”1
Nephi’s vision may be the best scriptural summary of the Lord’s condescension, to the degree a summary is possible (see 1 Nephi 11:14–33). His description of the condescension includes the Redeemer’s coming to earth; His being baptized by John; the Holy Ghost descending upon Him; His going forth among the people with great power; their casting Him out from among them; His calling of twelve apostles; His providing for angels to come down from heaven to minister unto the children of men; His healing the sick and afflicted with all manner of diseases; His casting out of devils and unclean spirits; and His being judged by the people, lifted up upon a cross, and slain for the sins of the world.
The Lord’s coming to earth was essential to the Father’s plan. There had to be a Savior, a Redeemer, a Great Mediator. Jesus told the Father, “Send me” (Abraham 3:27) because He loved God our Eternal Father and because He loved us. He explained to the Nephites, “I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me” (3 Nephi 27:13).
The Breadth of the Condescension The wonder of the Lord’s condescension is most meaningful when we contemplate how far He descended. The irony of the Jews’ rejection of Him pierces more deeply when we contemplate who He had been for them before He came to earth.
For example, before the Lord Omnipotent came to earth, He was known as “the Creator of all things from the beginning” (Mosiah 3:8; Helaman 14:12). Contrast that with the Jews’ query, “Is not this the carpenter?” (Mark 6:3). The Creator of all things became a carpenter.
Similarly, consider the contrast between “Shepherd” and “Lamb.” In the Old Testament the Lord was called the “Shepherd of Israel” (Psalm 80:1). Isaiah described Him as the One who gathers His lambs with His arm (see Isaiah 40:11). In His earthly life, that lamb-gathering Shepherd became God’s Lamb, sacrificed for Israel and for the whole world (see John 1:36).
Consider this difference. Before Jesus came to earth He was called “the Father of heaven and earth” (Mosiah 3:8). On earth He was mistaken as “the son of Joseph” (John 6:42).
When the Israelites were finally ready to enter the promised land, it was Jehovah who stopped the River Jordan and made it stand in its place so His people could cross on dry ground (see Joshua 3). Contrast His power in performing that miracle with His humility when, as Jesus of Nazareth, He was immersed by John in the same River Jordan (see Matthew 3:13–17).
In ancient Israel, Jehovah spared thousands and thousands of firstborn sons on the night of the Passover (see Exodus 12). When He came to earth in the flesh, Jesus rasied from the dead the only son of a widow (see Luke 7:12–15).
The Lord saved thousands. The Lord saved one.
For those of us who live after the Savior’s life and suffering on earth, the hymn “Jesus, Once of Humble Birth” (no. 196) reminds us that Jesus came to earth in humble circumstances but will return one day in power and glory:
Jesus, once of humble birth, Now in glory comes to earth. But the Lord’s faithful followers who lived before His life on earth could have sung of His condescension with the same hymn, only reversing the order of the concepts in each couplet:
Once in glory o’er all the earth; Now He comes of humble birth. Once in heaven did He reign, Now He suffers grief and pain. Once, the Lord, the great I Am; Now a meek and lowly Lamb. Once His chariot was the cloud; Now upon the cross He bows. Once in glory He appeared; Now He groans in blood and tears. Once their King He was known; Now rejected by His own. Once exalted to a throne; Now forsaken, left alone. Once the great Anointed Heir; Now all things He meekly bears. 2 And each Christmas we sing in the last verse of “Silent Night”:
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth; Jesus, Lord, at thy birth. 3 But we would be correct, too, if we sang, “Jesus, Lord before Thy birth.” Long before.
Consider the Psalmist’s attempt to describe how far the Lord descended:
“The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens.
“Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high,
“Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!
“He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;
“That he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people” (Psalm 113:4–8).
The Lord Omnipotent, who reigneth, who was and is from all eternity to all eternity, descends from His most lofty position to the very lowliest—raising the poor out of the dust and the needy out of the dunghill.
He descended below all, that all might be raised with Him and the Father.
The Lord Still Condescends to Lift Us Another aspect of the Lord’s condescension that helps us exercise faith in Him is this: His mercy, grace, loving-kindness, and long-suffering bless us today, tomorrow, and forever. Because He experienced the condescension of mortality, He knows how to bless and succor us. “Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:17–18; see also Alma 7:11–13).
Can we have faith enough in Him and in the inclusiveness of His love to believe He hears and answers and helps us, even us, in our lowly, dingy, feeble state? That He still reaches to those who are spiritually in-the-dust poor and spiritually dunghill-filthy?
The Lord continues to do for mankind the things He did during His earthly ministry that were part of His condescension. He, Himself—or by angels or authorized servants on earth—preaches the gospel, administers ordinances, performs miracles, and heals the afflictions of people today. He continues to be mindful of us. He is mindful of us as a people. But most miraculously He is still mindful of us individually. In some marvelous way, and though He is not physically present with each of us, He still feels the tug on the hem of His garment from a humble handmaiden in the midst of a multitude. He still hears the cry of the blind, perceives the longing of the sincere publican, calls common men to be His servants, tells the repentant sinner to go and sin no more. He still pleads our cause universally and individually before the Father. He still calls us by name and invites us to arise and come forth unto Him. He still condescends from His high and holy place to lift us.
The gift of His grace, His love, and His condescension blesses us all. Many of us have felt that divine strength and support in our lives. I have felt it many times, but perhaps none more so than in the following experience.
One day during my service as bishop, I felt burdened, even overwhelmed, by the troubles and trials of the ward members. It seemed that every single one was suffering. In every home there was some kind of pain, heartache, sorrow, or worry. I knelt to pray, but as the sum of all the troubles accumulated in my mind, I sank from an upright kneeling position to a position of being stooped over, all the way to the floor.
In my prayer I poured out my soul, saying things like this (names have been changed):“Father, Mary is expecting a baby out of wedlock. She is no more than a girl herself. What will she do? How can she do it?”
“And her mother,” I cried. “Mary’s mother is heartbroken and devastated. How will she go on?”
The name and face of another ward member came to mind. “What about Roger? He has multiple sclerosis. The doctors say he is going to die. What will his wife and sons ever do?”
“And in the Smiths’ home. Their son is so crippled. They have taken care of him night and day for 35 years. How can they go on?”
And there were others. In every case, the answer came clearly and powerfully that God was very aware of each individual. He knew the unwed teen. He knew her mother. He had a plan for the husband with multiple sclerosis and for his wife and sons. And for 35 years, night and day, the Lord had watched over the crippled son and his family.
As each person appeared in my mind, the undeniable witness came, in words too sacred to repeat, that the great plan of happiness and the Atonement were active and efficacious in each life. One by one the burdens of these brothers and sisters were lifted from my soul. The Holy Spirit imparted feelings of comfort and reassurance as if to say, “Bishop, let the Lord take these burdens. Rise up. Do the best you can. Things will work out for these people. You’ll be fine, too. Go be their bishop. The Lord will be their Savior.”
I discovered that I had returned to an upright kneeling position. Little by little the load had been lifted. I knew with a sure conviction that the Savior knew each person. His suffering and death thousands of years ago had atoned for them. But just as certain and much more immediate was the sure knowledge that He bore their present burdens. His love was complete, His power comprehensive, and His intercession current.
Conclusion May we remember the Lord—who He is, what He has done, and what He has promised to do. Before and after He was a baby in Bethlehem and a carpenter in Nazareth, He was and is the God of Israel and the God of the whole earth. He was and is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Holy and Only Begotten Son of the Living God. He was with the Father from the beginning. He is in the Father and the Father in Him; and in Him has the Father glorified His name (see 3 Nephi 9:15). May we remember and believe that He has all wisdom and all power in heaven and in earth (see Mosiah 4:9). And may we have faith that He yet condescends to help and lift the least and the last, even you, even me.
Now just WHAT did we 'add' to your precious 'bible'??
Our blessed Joseph received MANY things from god and wrote them down; but he SURE didn't put them in your BIBLE!
And so WHAT if he was told that your BIBLE may have translation problems?
At LEAST when GOD helped him correct some misteaks, it was called the JST and was recieved by many as the TRUTH!
But don't ask me why NONE our Living Prophets® in SLC has EVER said the JST is SCRIPTURE. God OBVIOUSLY has not seen fit to give that information to them... yet.)
--MormonDUpe(No; I DON'T know why those EX-mormons, the ex-RLDSers, now Community of Christ folks, use it as Scripture.)
I do not understand why you posted this to begin with.
If your motive had been to spread Christmas cheer, you could have done that.
Instead, you wanted to bludgeon others on Christmas day. You knew this would be met with a sharp response by Christians.
What a sad way to live, Saundra. Because now you want to silence those that are speaking the truth. You do not believe in truth. You believe only in what your mind tells you to believe. You do not want others to seek truth. What a small view of knowledge you have. You seek to silence anyone who disagrees with you. I pity you for your mistrust.
I sincerely hope that in 2012 your eyes will open to the true Christ that is found only in the Holy Bible and you will leave the false prophets of Mormonism.
I will pray for you.
Many answers to this. It was only a few years ago mormons attempted to "hose the pigs" and drive anyone off the RF that didn't bow to the incessant mormon posts.
Sorry SD, this isn't like your mormon chat rooms where Christians are regularly banned - yes, Christians - you know those people you want to be affiliated with - banned on mormon boards.
Your very bleats here show that mormonism is not Christianity.
It appears to me that the posts by mormons on this thread illustrate the juvenile mind-set of some members.
You can imagine yourself back in third grade. This is just what the mormon corporation wants...mindlessly swallowing the Kool-Aid and hiding heads in the sand.
Why do seemingly smart mormon people refuse to do any homework when it comes to their faith? I read up on what the atheists are saying then go on to see if there is any truth it.Why are Mormons afraid to test their faith?are they afraid of what they might find?
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They are afraid of what they will find. Mormons want Mormonism to be true more than they want the truth. It is constantly pounded into their head to not look too deep or they will ‘lose their’ testimony.
And for most, leaving Mromonism comes at a very great price - loss of family, almost all your friends, social circle, sometimes job and housing as well. Because the cost is so great, and they have been brainwashed to believe if “Mormonism isn’t true, nothing is”, they would rather rely on the ‘good feelings’ than really seek the truth. That is why getting them mad enough to actually read the sources to prove we are lying works so well. It gets them out of the comfort zone and to actually read the LDS sources that the LDS filters for them.
Wow..that's a surprise!!
Young people, in their early twenties, people in college, or newly married... these are the people that break away from the traditions of family and faith. They strike out on their own in the cold, cruel world. Often, they fall on their faces. It can take them years to find themselves, to learn how to stand on their own two feet. They struggle to learn the universal truths of life. They find love, faith, happiness, marriage, and start families of their own. They take risks and learn how to become their authentic selves. For many of them it can be difficult. But it is a process of growth and change. They learn and become better, stronger individuals. They learn about the true meaning of life and faith. They learn who they are and what their life’s purpose will be.
That some people choose to remain in darkness because of timidity doesn’t surprise me.
But, I will say, if I could grow up and become who I was meant to be... and at the end of the day say, “Yes, I’m a Christian.”, I will say it was worth it.
My hope is that everyone can do the same. But, I won’t help them hide, because they’re weak.
Life is painful. They need to accept that.
I am the only member of my family who grew up and became a Christian. I married into a Christian family, but my birth family was not Christian. My own parents mocked my Christian faith, but I ignored them.
Christ felt much more pain than I have ever had to deal with when He was tortured. He felt much more pain than I ever will when He died on the cross. He did that for me, when I am the least deserving of it.
No Mormon has suffered more than Christ has. My sympathy for them has its limits, when they choose to ignore discernment and truth and when they lie about my Savior.
You really don’t want to miss this post!
What was it like when you first started doubting the Mormon church?
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I lost a lot when I CONVERTED to Mormonism - my best friend from childhood couldn’t be freinds with me (it was too hard on him to see me in Mormonism), my family disowned me (my grandfather quit speaking to me altogether) and I was kicked out of the house) for joining Mormonism, but I had taken comfort that Mormonism was my “new family” and I had a lot of new LDS friends. Part of what they do is isolate you from your non-LDS friends(and sometimes family) by becoming your only social circle.
Even though (or perhaps because) of the cost of JOINING Mormonism in my life, I really believed Mormonism was true. All my LDS friends and given me the ‘well sometimes we must suffer for the truth (in that case Mormonism)’ and ‘your family is just Satan trying to keep you from the one true church’ support lines. And I bought it. I loved Mormonism, looking back I can see part of that was it fed my pride (one true church, becoming gods, etc). Being a new convert, I had a lot of new friends, new social circle, LDS boyfriend and I really had believed I found ‘the true church’. I had a very strong testimony and for many years that never faded.
Now to your question. Like most Mormons, I had a lot invested in my ‘testimony’ of Mormonism. I was living in Zion (Utah), attending BYU, all my friends were LDS, my fiance was LDS, all but one person at my job was LDS, I loved being Mormon and I was good at it. Mormonism could change my behavior (”Choose the Right”) but it couldn’t change my heart.
So, when I started researching to be able to apologize (traditional definition) for Mormonism, I was not expecting to find out that the ‘antis’ were telling the truth. When I started to see that things like Smith had guns, polygamy was denied long after it was an open secret in Mormonism, that there was a ‘strengthing members committee’ who filtered info, that the Temple rites were changed because of a Satanic ritual abuse scare (Pace Memo), and doubts started to creep in, I was devastated.
And I kept being devestated over and over again with every doubt that came up, every time I found out that the ‘antis’ were right about something, or a quote they used wasn’t out of context. At first, I was puzzled and asked questions and tried to get answers from my ‘priesthood leaders’ but their advice was just to ‘pray’ and only read Mormon material, and caution not to ‘think myself out of the Church’. That wasn’t going to make the facts I had learned go away.
Then came the fear, that I was falling victim to the antis and their lies, that my testimony was suffering. I didn’t want to go through all that loss again, like when I joined. I went into a spiritual crisis mode.
About that point, I remember praying “Heavenly Father, I want to know the truth, regardless of the cost, even if it means giving up Mormonism”. I was in so much pain, confusion, anger, but I had to know what the truth was so I kept going.
When I first went ‘inactive’ (stopped going to church, quit my ‘calling’), I really thought I would resolve my testimony and factual issues and go back, but the more I read, the more I realized I couldn’t trust my LDS leaders to tell me the truth, I had uncovered to many lies and half-truths. I had seen the sources. I prayed a lot, I wanted those ‘warm fuzzy feelings’ back, I didn’t want to lose my friends, my LDS family, my fiance, my schooling, or my job. But the more inactive I became, the less of a ‘testimony’ I had, the more it cost me until I had no choice but to move back to California.
It was then that I had to decide if I really believed in Mormonism any longer. I was reading a few ‘anti’ Mormon Christian books (What Mormons believe, Mormon Mirage type things) that the Christian bookstore owner in Provo had given me and I kept, mainly with the idea of correcting them. I read them, with pen in hand, “correcting” them and arguing with them, in essence. At the end of one of them, it presented the doctrine of Salvation by Grace with several Bible verse (basically a tract). By this point I had already been working as a ‘listener’ for the local AWANA group and had heard many of these verses and the gospel of grace but it really hadn’t sunk in that I needed it. One night, as I was finishing one of these books, I prayed for a ‘testimony’ (burning in the bosom) if what the antis were saying was ‘true’, same pattern I learned in Mormonism. This time the answer was that Mormonism was false, and what I had been hearing was ‘true’. The difference this time, was I had sources and Bible references in context, I wasn’t just relying on feelings (although now I see it as still a very Mormon thing to have done). That was the night I accepted Christ, and turned my back on Mormonism.
Amen, PYW
Ironically, most Mormons are intellectually and spiritually lazy. Probably a result of them being spoonfed everything.
Wow, great post and Amen!
Thank you. I consider that high praise coming from you. ;)
Young people, in their early twenties, people in college, or newly married
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And these are the exact people Mormons target for missionaries. When I was training to be an LDS Missionary, we were told that we needed to read the paper and search out those going through ‘life changes’ - high school graduation, college, engagements, marriages, new babies, deaths - and find them because they would be ‘more receptive’ to ‘the Gospel’. Even their proselytizing efforts are based upon deception and finding ‘easy marks’. It is no coincidence that their only real convert growth (only real growth at all) is in third world countries with high illiteracy and no (or little) internet - mostly South America. And even there, they join then leave (over 75%) within the first year but the LDS still counts the numbers so they don’t really care if the members there are inactive because there isn’t a lot of money coming in from tithing. Here in the US however, they are desperate to keep members, because they want the $$$.
Now... what is really, really sad about that is that a church's true goal should be SAVING SOULS FROM HELL.
This just reminds me further that it is a profit-making scheme.
And it makes me angry.
We just recently joined a new church. We've been attending for awhile. The children were baptized this summer by their uncle when we went to visit him on vacation. And then we joined our church near us, here.
The church knows us, because we've been going and attending Sunday School. The children are involved in activities.
After we joined, no one "ramped up" the attention to hit us harder and "get us working!" They're just happy to have us with them. And that's the way it should be. It's a Christian fellowship of brothers and sisters united in faith in Christ. It truly is that simple and pure.
Amen, greyfoxx39.
This thread is interesting. I hope you bookmarked it.
awww. :)
Exactly. Mormonism is all about getting members, not leading people to Christ which is just one more proof they aren’t Christians. The last church we attended (for several years) didn’t even HAVE membership rolls.
That’s a very interesting story. I’m always fascinated in how people are drawn into Mormonism but more importantly, how they left....
Have you been contacted by the church since you left, have they bothered you?
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