The legal nuance of the plan of salvation

As I get older my relationship with the gospel has been embracing the ages I have experienced.
In the first, juvenile and combative, I armed myself in a candid and sincere way with desperate reasoning to face the theory of evolution (and dogma of evolution) that caused me so much discomfort.

legal nuance plan salvation — the Spanish back in 1978

Lost that intellectual combat by abandonment of my part, I retreated the wounds as I could and I continued with my discipleship. I accepted that I did not know anything and I clung to what I did know,

the truth of the Book of Mormon as the main support stone.

I asked this dispensation to clarify the detailed origin of man and that this necessarily coincided with the version of Darwin, which did not happen.

The next age were those of ideas in an environment of awakening to a democracy, the Spanish back in 1978. The simplicity of the gospel betrayed me as a young man of simple thought in the face of the complexity of the Marxist dialectic or the backwardness of religion in general in a world where everything moved at a vertigo speed.
I expected the gospel to update and renew its archaic language and to postulate itself as an alternative to the ideas of my time. However, his language continued to be that of apparent simplicity.

A world of knowledge

Already more into adult life, he sought complex answers in the simplicity of the scriptures to the tangled questions of a world full of knowledge. I looked in the folds of the doctrine, some vestiges of foreign civilizations, read all about deep doctrine, I thought I understood the role of the big bang in the plan of salvation, and how the elementary particles testified of God.

I asked the gospel to increase my wisdom in the world. But the wisdom of the world changes constantly and the scriptures remained the same.
In all these ages I used my complete soul, (I am passionate in this) I escaped with bruises and some other success. But of all these battles I learned to lose without dying, to consider defeat as a lesson and pain as revelation.

Now I look with a smile and sometimes laugh all these times and at no time I have the feeling of having lost the opportunity to learn something.

The cats of my neighbor

Now, that I am in conflict with the proliferation of cats that my neighbor promotes in the neighborhood, I recognize myself in those puppies that I find frightened when I see myself suddenly in the patio. They see me running and hiding from the terrible reality that I must represent for them. In those times, I had to be tender for everything that scared me.

The gospel of Jesus Christ was not restored to detail the origin of man, or to fight against the current Caesar, or to opt for the big bang of Gamow or the stationary universe of Hoyle. All these demands of knowledge are seasonal, correspond to the ages of man. The Gospel of Christ, as well as the Universe are not empathic with our tastes, they do not participate in our intellectual tides and their ebbs but they are in solidarity with our condition. In fact, in the case of the Savior, the link that unites us is still condescension towards us.

The cause of man

There is something now that I realize, as if it were a soft hum that has always been there, but of which I was not conscious because of the ambient noise. And this is the juridical nature that crosses all the work of God in all dispensations.
In the book of Mosiah we find the last words of a wise man, King Benjamin. I want to clarify why I will give so much importance to his words and what I have been taught now in my present age.

This man fought for his people and threw the Lamanites out of the land of Zarahemla. He is a man of action and therefore knows the cost of peace.
His story captures Mormon’s attention and he decides to include it in his compendium. For me that is a guarantee because Mormon selects very well who he cites and the contents of his plates.
Benjamin is a liberal king with his people because «… I myself have worked with my own hands in order to serve you, and not be overburdened with tributes …» (Mosiah 2:14). I consider that by saying myself, it includes the burden of the state.
It assumes that the initiative, management and distribution of wealth belongs to the people, «And you yourselves will also help those who need your help …» (Mosiah 4:16) and secure these ideas through a social contract when «… King Benjamin He considered it prudent, after having finished speaking to the people, to take the names of all those who had covenanted with God to keep his commandments. « (Mosiah 6: 1)
His son is called Mosiah as his grandfather and that suggests to me the continuity of a project that has been latent in time. the constitution of a free people. Mosiah culminates this work constituting the people as sovereign, since the laws and judges that are chosen are based on it. «Therefore, choose judges, by the voice of this people, that you may be judged according to the laws» (Mosiah 29:25). We see the birth of an embryonic state constituted in separate powers.

The vision of an enlightened man

Therefore the vision of King Benjamin’s plan of salvation is for me the vision of a complete , enlightened man , with a correct conception of society, and if I am urged by a renaissance of his century (Mormon sums it up by saying that he was a holy man) And is more able to launch the legacy beyond his death and achieve success through his son.

Now with this reference on Benjamin I will present the main idea of what I call the cause of the man who exposes in his speech.

In chapter two, at the beginning of his speech, Benjamin masterfully teaches the insignificance of man, who does not even own the dust that composes it. On three occasions he qualifies us as debtors, in two he mentions the existence of guilt and speaks of a demand for justice against man. This purely legal backbone of his discourse is hidden at first sight, but he composes an axis around which his words branch out to the people.
In chapter three, there is the foundation of his teaching. The revelation of an angel about the plan of salvation, and being this revelation prior to the discourse, we can verify the impact of the words of the angel in Benjamin.

The legal nuance of the salvation plan

The received revelation speaks about the coming of Christ, his atonement and conditions. Atonement comes from the Latin expiare prefix ex suggests exit to the outside, take something or someone out of a situation, in this case the guilt. The root pius, means that this man is removed from this painful situation in a respectful way with the law and pious before God. In this revelation three times we speak of judgment.

But the key to everything is in verse 10. The whole plan of salvation and the atonement of Christ has an objective and converges on that verse. And I think those words are essential to understand Benjamin.

«And on the third day he will rise from the dead; and behold, he comes to judge the world; and behold, all these things are done to bring down a just judgment upon the children of men. «

These are the backbone intentions of your plan . The cause of man, rescue him from his fallen state, from his condemnation. It is a matter of legal situation, it is the solution to your sentence of perpetual death. His office as a lawyer before the Father in our defense before the law.

All the things the angel relates are for one purpose: that we have a fair judgment.

The high priority

In none of my ages did I have the opportunity to be conscious of this idea in a sensible way despite having read his speech on many occasions. Because it is difficult to feel under condemnation if we do not listen to Benjamin and «… [we open your ears that ye may hear, and your hearts that ye may understand, and your minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to your view» (Mosiah 2: 9)

Before the people of Mosíah built cities, roads, they were skilled in all art and industry. Before any of its citizens asked about the origin of man, by the evolutionary model of the Universe, before looking for the particles that form the dust. As I say before all this knowledge of his people or of any other, it is necessary a body of laws, of magistrates that place man before the law of men.

A law that makes man free because the lights of civilization do not usually come from slavery. The development of the just law promotes equality between men and knowledge. It facilitates free exchange, an aspect that both shapes us and humans.

The priority of the heavens

The angel who spoke with Benjamin, showed him the priority of the heavens. They did not open to explain the composition of the atom, nor to solve the questions of my ages. It is not the primacy of saving us from illness, nor poverty. Its urgency is not to establish the predominance of an economic or political theory.

They came to bring a fair trial, because otherwise we would be lost and condemned to death and hell in the sense taught by Jacob (that great prophet not sufficiently read) in 2 Nephi 9. And from that situation there is no hope in the health, in knowledge, in progress, in the development of nations, in the happiness of its inhabitants.

Solving the legal situation of the human being before the heavens expelled because of the fall, is a priority over any other issue. To defocus the purpose towards other issues, would be to disperse our attention and resources on secondary issues. Once the spigot of freedom is open, the lights come.

Because from slavery all light seems foreign to the condition of the observer.