When Christ was born in Bethlehem, it was an event long foretold and heralded
with much anticipation. Though many Christian churches believe
that the gospel taught by Jesus was a revolutionary set of ideas
initiated in the meridian of time, as members of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we know that from the beginning,
prophets anticipated his coming and his mission. His gospel was
understood by prophets and believers in dispensations from the
time of Adam.
When we look for witnesses, they
are plentiful. Jesus said, “Search the scriptures; for… they are
they which testify of me” (John 5:39).
Indeed, Jacob taught us, “Behold,
I say unto you that none of the prophets have written, nor prophesied,
save they have spoken concerning this Christ” (Jacob 7:11). Nephi
said of his father, Lehi, “And he also
spake concerning the prophets, how
great a number had testified of these things, concerning
this Messiah, of whom he had spoken, or this Redeemer of the world”
(1 Nephi 10:5, emphasis added).
We see that testifying of Jesus Christ
— his reality, his mission, his atonement, his coming — was the
privilege and focus of the prophets from the beginning. This was
the essence of their teaching, and any appearance to the contrary
misses the meaning or is a problem with the text.
Indeed, the atonement and mission
of Jesus Christ is the gospel, and every other good thing that
we love about the gospel flows from this central reality. He told
his disciples when he preached in the New World, “Behold I have
given unto you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have
given unto you — that I came into the world to do the will of
my Father, because my Father sent me” (3 Nephi 27:13).
Elder Bruce R. McConkie said,
This
lesson focuses particularly on the testimony of three of those
witnesses — Isaiah, John the Baptist, and John the Beloved, but
they are representatives of all the prophets who understood that
their mission was to bring people to believe that Jesus is the
Christ.
Purposes of Messianic Prophecies
Elder McConkie
expresses three reasons why Messianic prophecies have continued
among all the righteous peoples of the earth.
He wrote:
First, “Messianic prophecies enabled
those who lived from the beginning down to the time of his coming
to have faith in Christ and thereby gain salvation.”
“Everlastingly and always salvation
is in Christ,” Elder McConkie notes,
and righteous people have known and understood that. Some describe
coming to spiritual understanding or returning to God as a wheel
with many spokes — all leading ultimately to the center. In other
words, whatever people believe, as long as it inclines them toward
a moral life, is acceptable.
This is not true. The only way to
enter God’s presence and be with him again is through Jesus Christ.
It is equally important for people who lived before Christ’s coming,
as it is for us to have a testimony of this truth.
Second, “Messianic prophecies enable
those who lived at the time of and after the coming of Christ
to believe that it was he of whom the prophets had spoken so that
they too might be saved.”
Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of
the Messianic prophecies. He is the anointed and chosen one. It
is not anyone else. It is not someone who is yet to come. It is
not any other person. It is not any idol — whether it be materialism,
or your own will, or easy gratification, or entertainment. The
prophecies through the ages serve as multiple witnesses to this
central fact of existence. Jesus is the Christ, the only way to
be saved.
It is not a point that is debatable.
If one were basing a belief in Christ
only on the number of the witnesses of his divinity and mission,
you would be hard-pressed to deny his role as the Son of God.
Third, “Messianic prophecies reveal
the manner and system of prophetic utterance and fulfillment so
that the prophecies relative to the Second Coming may be understood,
thus enabling men to prepare for that great day and the salvation
that attends it.” [2]
We cannot be prepared for the Second
Coming or the eternities without understanding and believing in
the mission of Jesus Christ.
One member of our ward said, however,
that it wouldn’t be enough to only think that some distant time
in the future would be joyful because she had a testimony of the
Savior. What mattered to her was that her testimony of Jesus Christ
lifted and transformed the present. It is our witness, reinforced
by the witness of others that Jesus is the Christ, that makes
life here and now abundant and hopeful, our trials endurable.
Isaiah’s Testimony
When Christ visited the righteous
people of the Americas,
he quoted extensively from Isaiah and said, “And now, behold,
I say unto you, that ye ought to search these things. Yea, a commandment
I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great
are the words of Isaiah” (3 Nephi 23:1).
In the Old Testament, there is no
prophet that testifies more clearly or beautifully of Christ’s
mission than Isaiah. The verses in Isaiah 61 used for the lesson
are the merest sampling of Isaiah’s Messianic testimony.
What is particularly significant
about them, however, is the Savior used these verses to proclaim
his identity in the synagogue at Nazareth.
Christ had been teaching in the towns round about, and then returned
to Nazareth, his former home. On the Sabbath day,
he attended the synagogue listening to the reading the law and
the prophets. In these services, men were appointed to read, and
now he was recognized as a teacher, eligible to assume the reader’s
place.
On this occasion, he chose to read
from Isaiah, quoting the first two verses, closed the book and
then sat down. Readers could also make commentary, so expectant
eyes were probably upon him. The scripture He had quoted was one
recognized by everyone as specifically referring to the Messiah,
who was so greatly anticipated. Instead of detailed commentary,
his only words were a declaration, “This day is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:21).
His clear, unapologetic pronouncement
that he was the Messiah offended them greatly, but rings in our
ears with joy. Who among us is not the brokenhearted, the captive,
the blind or bruised? “He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” he announced.
Where there is aching need, he has
come to fill that need, to bind the wounds no mortal bandages
can assuage. He is the compensation for our losses, which sometimes
seem so great that no compensation could be possible. This is
a wounding world, and none of us emerge without scars and pain.
Our lives involve dashed expectations, unfulfilled hopes, disappointing
weaknesses, debilitating sins that sometimes seem to hang on us
like a chain. He is the balm, the liberator, the constant friend,
the one who springs us from debtor’s prison from which there seems
to be no relief.
The phrase “delivering the captives”
also refers to those in spirit prison, bound by ignorance, who
can be set free through learning the gospel. It refers to those
whose minds are bound by falsehood and oppressive philosophies.
It points to the prison of self-absorption and worthless, guilt-ridden
impulses which bind us.
Jesus Christ has willingly stepped
forward to bear our burdens and make them light. Isaiah prophesied
it, and Jesus proclaimed it in an echo of what was once said in
the premortal world, “Here am I send
me.” “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”
I will bind, bless, heal, compensate,
lift, assuage, teach, expand, fill with joy, he says. This is
our Savior.
The Testimony of John the Baptist
The testimony of John the Baptist,
is significant because he has a special role as a forerunner of
Christ. John’s mission was to overthrow the kingdom of the Jews
that had apostatized from the truth. Isaiah, Malachi, and Nephi
all prophesy of his coming to prepare the way. (Isaiah 40:1-11;
Mal. 3: 1-6; 1 Ne. 10: 7-8). That John
understood Christ’s mission in greater depth than we would see,
relying on the New Testament alone, is clear from the JST verses
Luke 3:4-9.
Of particular note is John’s mention
of his bringing salvation unto the heathen nations and preparing
the way to preach the gospel unto the Gentiles. John understood
clearly that Christ was not just the Messiah of the Jews, though
he would come to them first, but of the whole earth.
The Testimony of John, the
Beloved
John, the Beloved, was first a disciple
of John, the Baptist, and was present at the baptism of Jesus.
His testimony recorded in John 1:1-14 is surely, in part, a reflection
of the teachings of the Baptist. They reflect some of the many
roles that Christ plays in the eternities.
“In the beginning was the Word”
(John 1) or “In the beginning was the gospel preached through
the Son. And the gospel was the word, and the word was with the
Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was of God. The same
was in the beginning with God.” (JST John 1,2).
John teaches us that from the premortal
world, Christ was the divine Son of God. He was with the Father
in a unique relationship as Firstborn. In addition, he was “of
God.” In other words, he was God even then — before his mortal
experience. The Word, with a capital letter, is synonymous with
Christ. The gospel (the word) is Christ’s atoning mission as he
perfectly fulfilled the will of His Father.
Jevohah preached
the gospel in the premortal world.
Jehovah, the premortal name of Jesus Christ, is the God of Old Testament
times. It was Jehovah who asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, who
gave the 10 Commandments to Moses on Sinai, who spoke to the brother
of Jared, who made covenant with the Israelites. Jesus Christ,
was perfectly fulfilling the will and direction of the Father
in all this. In the scriptures, when the word LORD is written
in all caps, that is another name for Jehovah.
“All things were made by him” — Elder McConkie
wrote, “There is no finite way to envision the extent of the worlds
created by Christ at the behest of his Father. Count the grains
of sand on all the seashores and saharas
of the world, add the stars in the firmament for good measure,
multiply the total by like sums from other worlds, and what do
we have? Scarcely a dot in the broad expanse of an infinite universe
— all created by Christ.” [3]
Modern
revelation says, “By him, and through him, and of him, the worlds
are and were created” (D&C 76:24). Paul said, “God… hath…
spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all
things, by whom also he made the worlds” (Heb. 1:1-2).
“In him was life; and the life
was the light of men” (John 1:4) Additional insight about
Christ as the light is given in D&C 88: 7-13.
