Tried so as by fire

This is a part of a larger section of the JST about Melchizedek.

34 And his people wrought righteousness, and obtained heaven, and sought for the city of Enoch which God had before taken, separating it from the earth, having reserved it unto the latter days, or the end of the world;

35 And hath said, and sworn with an oath, that the heavens and the earth should come together; and the sons of God should be tried so as by fire. (JST Genesis 14:34-35)

I was struck in particular by v35. In what ways might the heavens and the earth come together, and how does this try the Sons of God?

The context makes me think of the day when Zion will come down out of heaven to Zion on the earth, but that seems like it would be a glorious day, not one that would try the Sons of God as by fire.

And trying “so as by fire” evokes mental imagery of the second coming of Christ, but that time should be a reward for faithfulness, not necessarily a trial. So somehow my assumptions must be off.

It may be that heaven and the earth coming together describes the test of the latter days to live side by side among people of the world and still live God’s laws. So many times in history the Lord has separated the righteous from the wicked in order to preserve His people. But when the church is mixed among everybody else, living true to our faith is a challenge. It’s a test of our integrity and our charity. The more wicked the world is, the more it tests us. In order to stay faithful, we have to be fully committed to following the Lord. In the experience of living out that decision and letting the consequence follow, the wrong desires have to be consumed, almost as if it were burned out of us.

And too, the heaven and the earth coming together could just as easily describe continuing revelation.  Continuing revelation tests us as more of heaven’s ways are revealed to us. Can we meet the challenge to keep the commandments given? Can we choose the ways of heaven over that of the world? Will we choose to attain to more than the modicum of social niceness that the world calls goodness?

And it also may be that I still don't really know what this is talking about. But the above is what I think until I learn more.

Meantime, each of us has some aspect of our lives that is trying our faith. Let’s choose heaven’s ways over the world’s.

Alma shares extra info about Melchizedek

As Alma the younger is preaching to the people in Ammonihah, he takes some time to tell them about priesthood authority and also about Melchizedek.

17 Now this Melchizedek was a king over the land of Salem; and his people had waxed strong in iniquity and abomination; yea, they had all gone astray; they were full of all manner of wickedness;

18 But Melchizedek having exercised mighty faith, and received the office of the high priesthood according to the holy order of God, did preach repentance unto his people. And behold, they did repent; and Melchizedek did establish peace in the land in his days; therefore he was called the prince of peace, for he was the king of Salem; and he did reign under his father.

19 Now, there were many before him, and also there were many afterwards, but none were greater; therefore, of him they have more particularly made mention. (Alma 13:17-19)

This account is more than is in the Bible (excepting the JST about Melchizedek), but it still seems rather bald, and we have to read between the lines a bit.

Melchizedek was king over Salem, and his people were very wicked. This must have been very distressing to Melchizedek. But he could do something about it. After all, he was king.  And he had choices about what he could do.  He could either enforce the law and punish all his people, or he could preach repentance to them and hope they would listen.

He chose to preach repentance.  So he received the high priesthood and he preached… and happily, his people chose to repent!  (Yaaaaay!  Celebrations all around!)  And because they repented, the city was much more peaceful and the people all had peace in their lives, and things were so much better after that.

So why did Alma tell this to the people of Ammonihah?  I think he hoped they would realize that Alma himself was essentially trying to do the same thing Melchizedek did—preach repentance to the people instead of going out and enforcing the law immediately. He had given up the chief judge position specifically so he could do that.  He hoped the people would take the hint and humble themselves and repent.

It hit me that Melchizedek was also a type of Christ. Christ is the king over the earth, and He sees that all His people are wicked, and He could just enforce justice, but He wants to save His people.  So he, as high priest forever, walked among them and preached repentance (and he sends others to preach repentance as well). (So I guess Alma, in emulating Melchizedek, also is a type of Christ.)

   Another way Melchizedek was a type of Christ was in how it was said he was king over Salem and he reigned under his father.  Melchizedek was a prince who was also king, but he was a client king under his father.  In the same way, Christ is king, but He also reigns under Heavenly Father.

Coolness!  I love finding types of Christ I haven’t seen before!

Why did Alma discuss priesthood with the Ammonihah people?

It always seemed odd to me that while Alma was preaching to the very hardhearted people of Ammonihah, in between his calls to repentance he discoursed on the premortal foreordination of the priesthood and the purposes of the priesthood.  It almost seems like he is throwing pearls before swine.

Eventually I realized he talked about those things specifically to address their previous objections to him teaching them.  If you remember, they withstood Alma at the beginning on the grounds that 1) he was no longer the chief judge so he didn’t have civil authority over them and 2) they didn’t share his religious tradition, so he didn’t have religious authority over them.

Alma addresses these objections in chapter 13 by pointing out that

·      Priesthood authority was given for teaching the principles of redemption to the people (Alma 13:1)

·      Priesthood authority was given to the faithful because of their faith, good works (Alma 13:3-5) to enable them to enter the rest of the Lord (Alma 13:12).

·      Priesthood was given so that others would know how to look forward to the Messiah for redemption (Alma 13:2) (by learning from the symbolism associated with the priesthood and its ordinances) and be able to enter into the Lord’s rest (Alma 12:6).

·      Melchizedek was a king over a wicked people (who ostensibly didn’t share his religion), yet he preached repentance to them and they repented.  (Alma 13:18) (Melchizedek did not force them to repent with his civil authority; instead he preached and persuaded.)

This way, Alma establishes that priesthood authority encompasses not just those in the church, but those out of the church as well.

Melchizedek, child of faith

26 Now Melchizedek was a man of faith, who wrought righteousness; and when a child he feared God, and stopped the mouths of lions, and quenched the violence of fire.
27 And thus, having been approved of God, he was ordained an high priest after the order of the covenant which God made with Enoch, (JST Genesis 14:26-27)

That bit about stopping the mouths of lions and quenching the violence of fire is intriguing. When I ran across this today I began to wonder just what that meant and mulled over it a bit, trying to imagine what happened. I suspect that it is both literal and figurative.

Stopping the mouths of lions sounds like it could be like the story of Daniel who was thrown into the lion’s den but was unhurt because the Lord kept the lions from hurting him. Or did he wrestle them as David had when he delivered one of his sheep from a lion and a bear? It could also symbolize stopping cruel and violent people from saying bad things and confounding them with the truth. We have instances in the scriptures of Lehi confounding Laman and Lemuel with the words of God so that they dared not speak against him, and we have the story of Alma the Younger using the priesthood to strike Korihor dumb.

Quenching the violence of fire could have happened like the experience of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Or it could have reference to using fire-fighting techniques against a huge conflagration threatening his people. We don’t know. Symbolically it could have to do with stopping senseless forces of destruction. We have instances of that in the Book of Mormon when Nephi prayed that the famine among the Nephites would end.

Maybe it was something as simple as a prayer of faith that worked the victory over the lions and the fire. (Who has not seen the extraordinary things that a child’s prayer can do?)

Further commentary on this language (which occurs in Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews) can be found in William Gouge’s book A commentary on the whole Epistle to the Hebrews on page 129. (The link will take you right there and the highlighted text will show you where to read.)

Regardless, these characteristics are noted to illustrate how Melchizedek did very brave things as a child that others were afraid to do. The next verse tells us God approved of him because of it. Certainly doing brave things is good preparation for receiving the priesthood. Another characteristic those acts had is that they subdued violent aspects of nature. This teaches an oblique lesson that obtaining the priesthood requires subduing the natural man. Finally, we can surmise that Melchizedek didn’t do these things for his own amusement, but to save others. That attitude of concern and service is a important preparation for the priesthood and would be most pleasing to God.