When the destruction among the Nephites happens at Christ’s
death, there is a curious contradiction between the people’s cries of mourning
and regret and the Lord’s words about where the fault lay.
The people say one thing and Christ says another.
24 And
in one place they were heard to cry, saying: O that we had repented before this
great and terrible day, and then would our brethren have been spared, and they
would not have been burned in that great city Zarahemla.
25 And in
another place they were heard to cry and mourn, saying: O that we had repented
before this great and terrible day, and had not killed and stoned the prophets,
and cast them out; then would our mothers and our fair daughters, and our
children have been spared, and not have been buried up in that great city
Moronihah. And thus were the howlings of the people great and terrible. (3
Nephi 8:24-25)
The people exclaim
that if they had repented and not stoned the prophets, their brethren and
families would have been spared. It
is as if they claim it is their fault and that innocent others were destroyed
in punishment for that guilt.
Christ has something
different to say.
2 Wo,
wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole earth except they
shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his angels rejoice, because of the
slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen!
3 Behold,
that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof.
. . .
5 And
behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the
inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from
before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come
any more unto me against them. . . .
12 And
many great destructions have I caused to come upon this land, and upon this
people, because of their wickedness and their abominations.
13 O all
ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now
return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?
(3 Nephi 9:2-3, 5, 12-13)
Christ, on the other hand, tells them the people slain had
been wicked and those who were spared were more righteous, although they still
needed to repent.
I think this shows us several things. First, people tend to attribute
responsibility to themselves for the destruction of their family members, even
if those who were destroyed were wicked.
(“If we would have repented, these family members would have been
spared.”) We know from the D&C
that parents are responsible for the guilt of the children if the children are
not taught right, but when those who sin do it in full knowledge of their rebellion,
it is another story. To the
survivors it can feel like a punishment when it is actually more of a deliverance. So when Jesus says those who had been
spared had been more righteous, He absolves them of the guilt they don’t
deserve to feel, though He still tells them they need to turn to Him and
repent.
I think Satan would love people to feel responsible for sins
they didn’t commit because then he can destroy their peace. Jesus, on the other
hand, wants us to be free from guilt. He put the responsibility where it really
belonged so they could be free of undeserved guilt, and He also extended the
invitation to repent of their sins so they could become free from deserved
guilt.
It is also interesting to see who is mourned in the city of Moronihah
and who is left out. They mourn
for their mothers, fair daughters, and their children, but there is no mention
of fathers, wives, or fair sons, so it is possible those were saved.
It is peculiar that mothers, fair daughters, and children
were killed because usually we’d think of these groups as being some of the
tender and innocent. But because
of Christ’s statement about the destruction falling on the iniquitous and
abominable, we must conclude that He was just and they were corrupted. I could speculate a good long time on
why the families were divided along those particular lines, and I can think of
at least three plausible scenarios about how this happened, but ultimately it’s
not terribly important. The
important thing was that it shows us that the Lord has the power to save or
destroy very specifically, even with large disasters.
Other observations can be made about what Christ told the
people about the destruction. A
lot of cities are listed that were destroyed, but there were also a lot of cities
we’ve heard of in the Book of Mormon in other places that were not mentioned in
the list, so we can probably assume that the damage to them wasn’t so horrific
that all the people died in them too.
There is also a range of severity in the destruction and
condemnation. Zerahemla and Moronihah had great destruction, but they also had
people associated with them that remained alive to mourn the loss of those who
died there. There is no such thing
recorded of the other cities – Moroni, Gilgal, Onihah, Mocum, Jerusalem,
Gadiandi, Gadiomnah, Jacob, Gimgimno, Jacobugath, Laman, Josh, Gad, and
Kishkumen.
Also, all of the cities mentioned have it noted of them that
the inhabitants were slain “that the blood of the prophets and saints shall not
come any more unto me against them,” but the cities of Laman, Josh, Gad, and
Kishkumen come in for especial condemnation for 1) casting out and stoning the
prophets and those sent by God to declare unto them concerning their wickedness
and abominations (3 Nephi 9:10) and 2) casting ALL of them out so there were no
righteous among them (v11) and they were destroyed so that the blood of the
prophets and saints “might not cry unto me from the ground against them.” (v11)
So, some cities just had the righteous blood come up to God, but the extra wicked
cities had righteous blood crying to
God against them. To me this implies degrees of violence, one perhaps being abuse
and injury, but the other implying murder, much like Abel’s blood cried to God
against Cain. It also seems like
most of the cities still allowed the righteous to stay among them, but the
extra wicked cities kicked them all out.
The Lord mentions that prophets and others had been sent to
those cities Laman, Josh, Gad, and Kishkumen to declare their wickedness to
them, which makes me think those cities had no local people to tell them. They
needed imported prophets and warnings. I wonder if those were cities formed by
Gadianton robbers for the purpose of having their own special enclave, or
whether the robbers had just taken over a place and gradually got rid of
everyone who dared to warn them of their perfidy. Kishkumen could
easily be a city of just Gadianton robbers, since it is stated elsewhere that
cities were named after their first founder.
Jacobugath also comes in for special condemnation because in
addition to the blood of prophets and saints, they also 1) committed murders,
2) had secret combinations, and 3) destroyed the peace of the people and the
government of the land. It is very significant that He calls their wickedness
“above all the wickedness of the whole earth” (v9). This is probably because the secret combination
created such a synergy of coordinated, corporatized evil greater than just individuals
and it affected the whole land by destroying the credibility of government and
causing the government to be destroyed. (Yet another reason to avoid secret
combinations or group-organized evil…)
The way the Lord says multiple times that He destroyed these
places “to hide their iniquities and abominations from before my face” is a
great reminder that even if we think our sins are secret, the Lord can still
see them. We can’t hide them from the Lord; apparently only death does
that. And even if they are hidden
from the Lord for His relief, they still exist and have to be repented of and
had to be atoned for. And it
reminds me that as Christ is the one who atoned for all of our sins and even
the worst of what these people did, He would not let them continue to go on in
it indefinitely. He removed them from life to stop them. And we see that He had warned them all,
even the worst of them.
After all the tale of destruction has been told, I love that
Christ says to those who remain, “Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards
you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who
come unto me.” (3 Nephi 9:14) Maybe
they didn’t feel like they had more chance to repent and all this destruction
was a punishment, but Christ still extended mercy in the middle of it. Their lives were extended and that was
a mercy. The invitation to repent and return was given, and that was extended
mercy. They were not beyond help.
I’ve noticed and Elder Bednar pointed out in the recent
Christmas devotional that Christ saved a bunch of Christians among the Nephites
simply by being born, but I think it could also be said that He saved a bunch
of Christians through the signs of His death as well. We don’t have the accounts of all the circumstances whereby
those who were saved were guiding to remove them from danger in those natural
cataclysms while the wicked from the same families were destroyed. But it is
evident that His death saved many, not just spiritually, but temporally. With every major event of His life,
Christ was the means of saving those who believed in Him, and His second coming
will be another event of salvation for the righteous.
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