101 Reasons why I Believe Joseph Smith Was a Prophet of God
Evidence Sixty-eight
Joseph Smith and One More Look at the Baptismal Covenant in Mosiah 18:8-10©
It interests me how reading one thing on one subject often stimulates thinking about another aspect of the same subject according to one’s interests and projects. It happened to me again today. The subject is the baptismal covenant as it is given to us from Alma in Mosiah 18. The text reads:
8) And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light; 9) Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—10) Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?
A covenant is typically defined as a mutual promise between two people. Indeed, Joseph Smith said, “it requires two parties to make a covenant, and those two parties must be agreed, or no covenant can be made.”(1) When Latter-day Saints speak of covenants with God, the traditional view is that it is a mutually agreed upon “two-way” promise between God and man.” Several brethren have taught that the stipulations of the covenant are determined by God and we exercise our agency to agree to those stipulations.
What interests me about this version of the baptismal covenant is that it goes beyond this traditional view of a covenant. Most covenants are “bilateral,” that is, they are between an individual and God. However, my reading early this morning suggested that this iteration expands the covenant beyond the commitments between God and man, to impose obligations on those accepting God’s stipulations, to the wider covenant community. That is to say the individual member takes on the obligation to “bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light ... and ...mourn with those that mourn ... and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.”(2)
The distinction between a simple bilateral covenant and this more complex community compact is stunning when you think about it.(3) First of all, there is neither a clearly delineated bilateral or community compact version of the baptismal covenant in the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible is baptism designated as a covenant! It is considered so by some by inference only. This is interesting because in Nephi’s great visions early in the Book of Mormon he sees the Bible come forth in the Americas and it is missing some important “plain and precious things” which have been “taken away” from it. One specific he mentions is that “many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.”(4) But, back to my point. I suggest this community compact is not only more complex than the traditional bilateral covenant, but it is also more sophisticated, indeed more expansive and elevated in terms of the obligations it imposes on the recipient and the impact it is intended to have on the covenant community. God does not just want us to be a witness of him, serve him, and keep his commandments; he also obligates us to care for the community of Saints.
It is evident that Joseph Smith understood well the importance of the communal nature of this covenant. Two years later he told the Church,
On the 27th [April 1832] ... It was my endeavor to so organize the Church, that the brethren might eventually be independent of every incumbrance beneath the celestial kingdom, by bond and covenants of mutual friendship, and mutual love.(5)
Seven years later he contrasted two types of principles which maintain human relations. First, he spoke of the gospel principle of love and contrasted it with the principles of government which maintain relationships by law and eventually coercion, when necessary:
There is a love from God that should be exercised toward those of our faith, who walk uprightly, which is peculiar to itself, but it is without prejudice; it also gives scope to the mind, which enables us to conduct ourselves with greater liberality towards all that are not of our faith, than what they exercise towards one another. These principles approximate nearer to the mind of God, because it is like God, or Godlike.
Here is a principle also, which we are bound to be exercised with, that is, in common with all men, such as governments, and laws, and regulations in the civil concerns of life. This principle guarantees to all parties, sects, and denominations, and classes of religion, equal, coherent, and indefeasible rights; they are things that pertain to this life; therefore all are alike interested; they make our responsibilities one towards another in matters of corruptible things, while the former principles do not destroy the latter, but bind us stronger, and make our responsibilities not only one to another, but unto God also.(6)
Where is any of this to be found in the experience and environment of a New England and New York farm boy whom many accuse of only being interested at this time of his life in “money digging,” that is, searching for treasure with his psuedo-spiritual gift of seership? He was twenty-four years old when the Book of Mormon came off the press in March 1830. If he were making up this book to palm off on an unsuspecting world, what in that world would have impelled him to concoct Alma’s baptismal covenant? What would be his motive? It is righteous and good, and noble, and elevated. Where did a twenty-four-year-old of his time get this?(7) If it was genuinely in his heart as it is in Alma’s, that certainly contradicts the generally held anti-Mormon notion that he was a ne’er-do-well black heart, a corrupt fraud and deceiver.
And there is more. Noel Reynolds a retired BYU professor, in a recent article, shows how this passage, as are many others in the Book of Mormon, is expressive of the Biblical concept of hesed. Hesed is a Hebrew term regarding God and his interaction with his children, the meaning of which is so broad that it is difficult to find an adequate synonym, or even a collection of synonyms to express it. Indeed, according to Reynolds, it calls “to mind the entire complex of moral qualities associated with God and his righteous people in covenant Israel.”(8) Regarding Alma’s statement in Mosiah 18 and the Biblical concept of hesed, Reynolds wrote:
[W]e do see the divinely sanctioned covenant structuring a community that expects each to help others as their means and abilities would allow, including the redemption of captives–in this case, the redemption of fallen people from the captivity of the devil.... In every respect, Alma’s description of the moral implications of the covenant reflects the classical Old Testament notion of hesed that was expected of Israelites under the covenant of Abraham....(9)
So, Reynolds adds one more example of The Book of Mormon as truly one “marvelous work and a wonder,” among many that continue to accompany the Restoration of the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But, even without Reynolds’s persuasive arguments about hesed in the Book of Mormon, Alma’s description of the baptismal covenant stands as a witness of the complex, elevated and deeply spiritual nature of the book in which it is found. Reason compels us to ask if young Joseph Smith was capable of imagining, let alone articulating such a covenant; one that is entirely consistent with both ancient covenants and concepts. In my opinion, the likelihood that he knew of these things in his farmland homes of the northeast approaches zero.
Thank God for Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, and faithful scholars.
Let’s think together again, soon.
Notes:
1. Joseph Smith, in B. H. Roberts, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols., Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1963, 1:313, hereafter cited HC.
2. Mosiah 8:8-10. There are more stipulations that fit the traditional mold of a bilateral covenant between the individual and God, where one promises to “stand as a witness of God at all times and in all things, and in all places, and to “serve him and keep his commandments.”
3. This distinction was encountered in today’s early morning reading in Noel B. Reynolds, “Biblical hesed and Nephite Covenant Culture,” BYU Studies Quarterly 60, no 4 (2021):167-69.
4. 1 Nephi 13:26. Equally interesting is the motive attributed to those who took those things out of the Bible. “And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.” (1 Ne. 13:27.)
5. Joseph Smith, HC 1:269, emphasis added.
6. Joseph Smith, HC 3:304, March 1839, emphasis added.
7. And this is only one of many such like things, not only in the Book of Mormon, but also in the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. It brings to mind D&C 67:9 where the Lord is taking on critics of Joseph Smith’s revelations and asserts “For ye know that there is no unrighteousness in them, and that which is righteous cometh down from above, from the Father of lights.”
8. Reynolds, “Biblical hesed,” 152.
9. Reynolds, “Biblical hesed,”168-69.
