Jacob 4:14

Liken:

I would like to liken this scripture to us. However, to liken first we must understand what it is actually saying; we need the context, the history, the words of modern prophets.

Jacob: The brother of Nephi, who Nephi consecrated as a priest unto the people. Timeframe: His brother Nephi had just died (1:9), and under the reign of Nephi II the people had become wicked – pride, riches and concubines (1:15-16). Jacob gathered the people at the temple to call them to repentance. Chapter 4 begins his writings to their posterity, persuading them to come unto Christ.

But behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble.

Analysis:stiffnecked – pride, believing that they could do it themselves, no help necessary.

despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets and sought for things they could not understand – desired to be looked upon (pride) because of their stiffneckedness, and desired more than necessary. Dean Larson in the October 1987 Conference Report said about this: “They were apparently afflicted with a pseudosophistication and a snobbishness that gave them a false sense of superiority over those who came among them with the Lord's words of plainness.”

looking beyond the mark – beyond the simplicity and beyond Christ. Phillipians 3:14 states that, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Christ is the mark. Elder McConkie said the interesting thing about the Jewish apostasy at the time of Christ was that, “It grew out of one of the most resolute attempts ever made by men to live what they assumed was the will of Jehovah . . . That is to say, they took the plain and simple things of pure religion and added to them a host of their own interpretations; they embellished them with added rites and performances; and they took a happy, joyous way of worship and turned it into a restrictive, curtailing, depressive system of rituals and performances. The living spirit of the Lord's law became in their hands the dead letter of Jewish ritualism.”

Are we seeing a correlation between the Jews in Israel and Jacob’s people? Jacob had just spoke to his people calling them to repentance for that very thing. The writings of Jacob don’t tell us that the Nephites had stopped obeying the Mosaic law, they hadn’t stopped performing the rituals, the sacrifices. They all gathered at the temple to listen to him so we can imagine that they were all active in their respective religious spheres/callings. The problem was that they had sought to understand some point of doctrine that was not plain. They were studying David and Solomon. They had taken up the doctrine of polygamy without the sanction of the prophet. Thereby, their “wives” were not wives but concubines. They had searched for riches, like those of David and Solomon, but had done so with the wrong intent.

Now Jacob was not speaking to these particular Nephites in this occasion, but writing to their children. Could it be that he was foreseeing a little bit into the future thinking that not all the people he had preached to would repent and their children would continue in their ways? I think his purpose was the same in both his preaching and his writing; to teach them to put Christ first. It didn’t matter that they kept the law, that they performed the rituals and the sacrifices, that they were active, that they went to church, that they accepted and did their callings etc, if they looked beyond the mark.

As Jacob says earlier in that same chapter, speaking about the ancient prophets, “Behold, they believed in Christ and worshiped the Father in his name, and also we worship the Father in his name. And for this intent we keep the law of Moses, it pointing our souls to him . . .” (4:5). 2 Nephi 11:4 states that, “all things which have been given of God from the beginning of the world, unto man, are the typifying of him (Christ).” Everything.

What does the tree and something on a tree mean in the Old Testament? It is cursed. How does that typify Christ? He was the one cursed for us, in our stead, on the tree. The snake held up on the branch in the wilderness equals the beast cursed of God being cursed. Christ.

The scattering and gathering of Israel? Reminds us of the way that we are scattered from God because of disobedience and that through God’s servant, Christ, we will be gathered again.

The Melchizedek priesthood? Originally it bore his name and both are without beginning of days or end of years.

The Book of Mormon emphatically tells us that the point of the law of Moses was to lead us to Christ. Lets not miss the mark or look beyond it by loosing that focus. The Book of Mormon also leads us to Him.

I testify that it is only through Christ that we are saved. It is His enabling grace at FIRST that gives us the power to do anything. By the law no flesh is justified . . . and redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth. (2 Nephi 2:5,6)