Elder Bednar seemed to confuse everyone by saying that the mighty change of heart mentioned in Mosiah 5:2 "...is not simply the result of working harder or developing greater individual discipline. Rather, it is the consequence of a fundamental change in our desires, our motives, and our natures made possible through the Atonement of Christ the Lord” (Clean Hands and a Pure Heart, Oct. 2007 General Conference). This was Mormon heresy—to imply that there were important parts of salvation beyond the scope of our individual effort. Rather than ask questions, the majority of members seemed to sweep this statement under the rug. I believe there is a divine "division of labor"—things we do, and things only the Lord can do. Changing our behavior is something we can do ("deny yourselves of all ungodliness"). Changing our natures is something only God can do. While we must "work out our salvation," we also find many moments when the Lord has prepared gifts for us to take, free of charge.
Grace and Works in the Old Temple
I am slightly obsessed with the Old Temple, partly because there is so much we can learn from it about our modern Temples, and the gospel in general. It gives a 3D feel to abstract principles. If you follow the floor plan of the Old Temple, it seems that the pattern is sacrifice, reward, sacrifice, reward, sacrifice, reward. We surrender one thing, and God blesses us with another thing in return. Sacrifices occur at altars, rectangular stands or tables, in the Temple. The enormous Altar of Sacrifice is the first altar, the Table of Shewbread (also rectangular; see Mal. 1:7, 12) is the second; the small Altar of incense is third; the Ark of the Covenant may also represent an altar. We sacrifice at altars, but there are other articles of furniture in the Temple. To me, they seem to denote a response by God to our sacrifice.
For one who has just sacrificed a ram, lamb, ox, or pigeons on the Altar of Sacrifice, nine thousand gallons of water are provided in the Brazen Sea to wash blood and ash from skin and cloth. Both of these items are in the courtyard where all may see them.
Inside the building, we are first greeted by another altar, the Table of Shewbread. Bread is the quintessential food of civilization. It represents work. Adam was commanded to obtain bread by sweat. To cultivate grain and turn it into bread requires all the trappings of civilization. It requires knowledge of the seasons, in other words, a calendar, which implies written communication. It requires irrigation, which means settling in houses near rivers or lakes. It means plowing, which requires technology sufficient to build a plow, as well as domestication of livestock. It means sowing, continued watering, control of pests, harvesting, winnowing, storage in silos, grinding, leavening, and baking. These activities imply fire-based technology, metallurgy, and especially an economy, since those who do all this work need to eat something other than the grain they are cultivating to stay alive. An economy is a network of agreements about how labor will be expended to produce, distribute, and consume commodities; one man alone could not grow, tend, and harvest a massive field of grain. The Book of Mormon tells us measures of grain were used to determine weights of gold and silver, a good idea since grains are fairly consistent in size.
All these connotations are worldly, telestial in nature. Elder Oaks interprets the statement that “Satan desireth to have you, that he may sift you as wheat,” to mean that Satan wants to make us mediocre, wants to deactivate the miraculous operation of the Spirit in our lives, and rob us of our spiritual gifts thereby. “We had become weak like unto our brethren,” laments Mormon of his godless soldiers. To make bread is to toil with one’s face to the ground, eeking out mortal subsistence as a cog in the worldly economy presided over largely by Satan. To become bread is to be destroyed through becoming commonplace, relying on the arm of the flesh.
Work and toil are good for us, but do they get us to heaven? I believe the layout of the Old Temple gives us a hint about that. Just as there are twelve tribes in Israel, so there are twelve loaves of showbread on the Table. That represents each tribe sitting down together, and (I believe) learning etiquette, table manners. Sharing, saying “please,” “thank you,” “excuse me,” and so on, and their worldly corollaries of politeness towards God and man, are all implied.
We take the sacrament each week of our lives, which shows us how universal the command to repent is, and how long we must often spend on the plateau of what Elder Maxwell called “reasonable righteousness.” We are neither committing murder, nor are we walking on water. But please do not confuse this with permanence; there is a quantum bump coming our way, if we stay in this path of work.
Immediately after the Table comes the Menorah, a representation of the Tree of Life. While bread is a labor-intensive food, fruit is a gift of God. Trees bear fruit of their own accord; when it ripens, we pick it and eat it. To me there is one potential symbolism that is obvious—works and grace. But this tree, the Menorah, has no literal fruit on it. Instead, it has seven glowing lamps powered by olive oil. While Adam was commanded to toil for bread, Jesus was the source of what this oil symbolizes. He suffered in Gethsemane, literally “Oil Press.” The sheer pressure necessary in the process of extracting oil from olives is symbolic of the weight of our sins bearing down on Christ. Light itself is the fruit we pick from this golden tree. Lehi’s dream gives us a closer look at the Tree of Life, and he tells us that the fruit was “sweet above all that was sweet, pure above all that is pure, white above all that is white.” Lehi stooped down and ate freely, no fee, no toiling. Could Lehi have grown such a tree through any human means anyway?
It seems to me that the four main liquids associated with the Old Temple (water, wine, blood, and olive oil) are all related to grace, to the things God does for us that we cannot do for ourselves. It also seems to me that the solids associated with the Temple (flesh, bread, and incense) are mainly symbolic of our human efforts or works. Sheep and the other animals roasted on the Altar were bred, raised, defended, etc., through human efforts on farms or in pastures. Though the blood was part of the animal, its blood was shed as a proxy for the priest who slew the animal, vicarious and merciful intervention. Rather than die for our own sins, another takes our place. The blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled on everything in the Temple, legitimizing everything that happened there from that point forward. (Another ingredient, intangible though it is, gave legitimacy to the ceremonies, namely, a broken heart and a contrite spirit.)
Grace in the Sacrament
Just because we are getting gifts for free does not mean they were not paid for. Jesus died for us, and His blood was shed on our behalf. (He "trod the winepress alone.") We memorialize this sacrifice each week when we take the sacrament. The prayer on the bread binds us to “take his name upon us,” “always remember him,” and “keep his commandments which he has given [us].” In return for all this effort, we are promised to “always have his Spirit to be with [us].” Chewing bread is not unpleasant, but it requires work. We eat little pieces of bread, but imagine Jesus’ disciples eating a larger portion, part of a dry, unleavened pita loaf used in the Passover. After following His command to “eat,” the only thing I would be able to think about after trying to down that dry loaf would be liquid refreshment.
In the prayer on the water (wine was used by Jesus), we merely witness that we are willing to “always remember him.” In return, we are told that for simply thinking about Him, we “may have his Spirit to be with [us].” Our promise here is only to remember, without the harder works; His promise is not to always have His Spirit, but to simply have his Spirit. What happens when we are struggling to chew that dry bread? We have sweet, colorful, salubrious wine (or clear water) to ease the passage. What happens when our ability to take His name upon us and keep His commandments is weak? When we struggle, it is still easy to look in His direction, to remember Him, and even if we do not receive a fullness of His Spirit, we still get a portion. This means we have access to grace. Just as drinking wine or water makes eating dry bread easier, so grace makes our works possible, even enjoyable. Wine, if fermented properly, might have also soothed jangled nerves. As a community, we demonstrate our dependence on the Lord each week by partaking of the emblems of water and bread.
The good Samaritan poured oil and wine, an emollient and a disinfectant, into the wounds of the man on the roadside.
The Spring of Life
Water in the Old Temple may have appeared as food on the Table, but it is most prominently a cleansing agent there. Where does water come from? The sun heats the ocean, clouds form, pass over mountains, and fall as rain. Rain fills lakes and streams, and all civilizations are built around these bodies of fresh water.
What is round, filled with water, and is meant to contain an entire human being? The Egyptians might have answered “the eye.” It can see an entire person at once. “The womb” is another correct answer; each of us spends nine months before birth floating in water. The baptismal font, the Brazen Sea, is another answer to the riddle. Immersion in water, and reemergence, represent birth, bath, and burial. Like the sacrament prayers, the words of the baptismal ordinance refer to the mortals participating in the ordinance. The baptizer calls the one being baptized by name, refers to himself as a representative acting in the name of Jesus Christ, and performs the ordinance in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The one blessing the sacrament refers to self and others with the pronouns “we” and “they,” but still prays in the name of Jesus Christ, and refers to God the Eternal Father, His Son, and the Spirit.
In a sense, it is all grace; a roasted lamb commemorates Jesus’ sacrifice; we call to remembrance His body when we eat the bread. To participate in any ordinance at the request of our Father in Heaven is to be privileged to shed the sense of being lost, and to acquire the sense of having one’s ladder propped against the correct wall.
It seems to me that the liquids of prominence in the Old Temple are still rife with their original imagery. Incense has no ceremonial use in or out of modern Temples, but we can still learn from its use in the Old. On the Table were twelve stones of incense. I do not know if those specific twelve stones were burned, or left as reminders, but incense was burned morning and evening, as part of the daily prayers in the Temple. Zacharias was offering such a prayer when Gabriel appeared and announced that he and Elizabeth were healed of their infertility, and would have a son named John, a forerunner to the Messiah. The twelve stones (one for each tribe) imply that everyone is involved, even if the priest is the only one inside the building. In other words, we are sacrificing ourselves. Notice the difference between the first altar and the third; one is drenched in blood, smells of animals and smoke, is noisy and public; the other is private, small, orderly, with delicious scented, clean white smoke. The outer sacrifice is for sin; the inner sacrifice is giving all we have to God, after it has been cleansed from sin and is therefore worthy of acceptance. One sacrifice per sinner outside; one sacrifice representing everyone inside.
After the priest offers this incense, there is a reward, but it was only reaped one day of the entire year in the Old Temple, on the Day of Atonement. The priest went into the Holy of Holies to meet the Lord and find out whether all their sacrifices and ordinances were acceptable in His sight. I find it interesting that the Lord loves his children, but under the special circumstances of mortal probation, He only interacts directly with us when official business warrants it. Yes, the Father and the Son appeared to Joseph in part because they loved Him, and He felt that love buoy him up for the rest of his life. But the fuller purpose of that visit was not just to console a nervous teen about his salvation—they answered His prayer to reestablish their true church on the earth, a work that would affect billions. It seems to me that the Lord follows that pattern in the intimate manifestations to His servants. They are enfolded in light, love, and joy; they overcome the fall, and bask in the joy of His countenance. But there are formal, official reasons behind the loving kindness—and so, if we want to be close to the Lord, to have miraculous experiences, we must be on the Lord’s errand.
Adam was forcibly removed from God’s presence, and (probably) learned to love it by its absence. Only in his old age did Adam once again experience a direct visitation from the Savior, but that was when Adam prophesied about his posterity, down to the latest generation. If the Old Temple seems formal or stuffy, or outright bizarre, remember that in the process of contracting all this business, the Lord was required to appear, if only to put His stamp of approval and make the formality officially acceptable. “In the ordinances…the power of godliness is manifest.” I wonder if maybe the Lord uses the necessity of legalistic contracts and covenant-making to piggy-back opportunities just to spend time with us, to interact with His sons and daughters.
