The following quotes are from George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl, Commentary on the Pearl of Great Price (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1974)
The importance of proper exegesis
Generally it must be borne in mind that every word should be understood as it was commonly understood at the time that the Bible was written. Much minute inquiry, in fact more than most people are prepared to give, is needed in order to avoid errors arising from a violation of this rule. (p. 36)
To understand the Bible, even the plainest translation, all these things are necessary as helps, and yet, without the Spirit of God to lead them into all truth not all of these helps are sufficient; so numerous and so vast are the difficulties to be encountered in ascertaining the true meaning of the Bible. (p. 38)
The meaning of, and importance of, “Faith”
First of all, let us consider the importance which this message attaches to faith. While theologians of the world either give the preeminence to works, like the Catholics, or like Protestants, give to faith a secondary place in their system, here comes a young man and declares: "Faith is the first principle of revealed religion, and the foundation of all righteousness." He gave to faith its right place as the very beginning of the new life, the foundation of the structure. Where had he learned this? There is not a theological school within the sphere of our knowledge which has discovered this great truth. Men for centuries had been exhorted to repent first and then try to believe, as if it were possible to produce repentance without faith, or, men were instructed to do good, as if works could be meritorious without faith. Not only is faith placed in its right place, but the definition of it is given strictly in harmony with ancient revelations. Faith is declared to be the only principle from which obedience and success can flow. In relation to God faith is, indeed, a confession of our weaknesses and utter inability for everything that is good; and yet, as to success in all things pertaining to our exaltation and glorification, it is omnipotent. (See Doctrine and Covenants, Lectures on Faith.) Now, from where did the youthful Prophet gain the knowledge of this discovery? It is taught in the Bible, but is not understood? Who had pointed out this great philosophical truth to him? Who but God.
Nor is this all. In the message delivered through Joseph the Prophet, faith has been established on the only sure foundation ever given: The Word of God—REVELATION. This was done at a time when almost everybody thought revelation was a thing of the past. No theologian in the whole wide world had discovered the great secret that faith must be based upon communication from God, given not only to people who belong to antiquity, but to the individual who is required to believe. Let everybody honestly investigate the real cause of the weakness of faith as it exists among men. How is it that, notwithstanding all preaching, faith is almost extinct on earth? It is this, that people are required to believe only that which God said in ages past. This is the real cause. We are so constructed that we cannot by any force of will take the same lively interest in what happened thousands of years ago as what happened today; nor can we realize in the same way what happens to others as that which immediately concerns ourselves. Hence, naturally, all the preaching about what God revealed formerly has only a weak impression comparatively, and it does not take the effect it should. The faith it produces is something as powerless as faith possibly can be. In order to produce this, preachers are under the necessity of resorting to all sorts of sentimental anecdotes, death scenes, war scenes, dreams, etc., or even to drums and tambourines. Revivalists know the effects of these artificial methods and prefer them to the simple tale of Him Who died on Golgotha—a proof of the poverty, spiritually, of the prevalent systems. Now, how is this changed by the simple announcement: "God has spoken!" This at once stirs the whole world and the whole hell and something definitive comes out of that. It produces either faith or condemnation. Where faith is the result it is a strong faith. What gave the former-day Saints the power to endure all for their religion? What gave the Prophet and his fellow martyrs power to endure all hardships and death at the hands of enemies? This assurance: "God has spoken." Such faith this assurance will always produce. How had Joseph the Prophet come to discover this fundamental truth? No Catholic, no Lutheran, no Protestant, no Presbyterian, no Methodist, no Baptist, was in the position of teaching Joseph this truth; none but God. (p. 63)
The Meaning of, and Importance of, “Repentance”
The cry to Repent has been a clarion call sounded to every generation of God's children. All the patriarchs and prophets have made repentance their special message, and whether their words come to us through the revelations of old or the seers of our own time, they bring a command of God. To repent is a direct order coming from Him Who presides over all, and not through an ambitious priest who presumes to act as His vicegerent. Repentance from evil is the natural move of those who understand God's holy purposes. To turn from pride and humble oneself before Him is the mark of a true believer. It matters not who one is, we all have need to repent. There is only One Who is good, only One Who has no need to repent. That One is our Father in Heaven.
Repentance is a moral endeavor of the heart, not a vagrant conclusion of the mind. It is a resolve of the conscience, not a calculation. It is not a weatherglass that indicates the high and low of our spiritual devotion, nor is it a mechanical proposition. It is not machine-made, having no thought or feeling. A man may seek to apply stern mathematical rules to his behavior; he may add restraints and take away life's pseudo-joys and follies, or multiply his philanthropies. But in the end, and not withstanding his intents, his arithmetic will not prepare him for life in the kingdom of God which is immortal.
Money is the god of such a man; he would fain purchase the Lord's blessings and thereby make common merchandise of God's most precious gifts. Using that formula of life, his solution of its problems is wrong, just as wrong as is the answer one receives who takes paper and pencil and thereby attempts to prove the Gospel true. It cannot be done!
God, our Father has put us here upon the earth and enjoined that we do His bidding. A keener awareness of His loving kindness and His holy will, "a fuller and freer recognition of His power and His presence in all the experiences of life," should turn us from pursuing life's vanities and thereafter seek only those heavenly treasures that "maketh truly rich."
Repentance is a step forward and upward in the progress to our Eternal Home; it is proof that our footsteps are firm, and a witness to our integrity. Repentance, be it remembered, is a mandate from God.
To forsake one's sins, with that added determination to do them no more, is repentance. Repentance means to amend or resolve to amend one's life as a result of contrition for what has been done or omitted to be done.
Notwithstanding our divine parentage and our birthright, too many, too often, day by day perform their allotted tasks forgetting God's wisdom and guidance. We have no time or thought for else than the world and the things of the world. The burdens we carry, the imposts life lays, its pursuits and pleasures, are the gods that fill the pantheon of our hearts. Pantheon means a peoples' aggregate gods, or a temple dedicated to all their gods. We use that expression, meaning, that place where we honor most the things we love best. If we love the things of the world more than we love the things of God, we turn our hearts into pagan temples, and worldly goods into objects of reverence and adoration. (pp. 155-56)
[Moses chapter 6] VERSE 48. Because that Adam fell, we are. Having commenced to fulfil his God-given command to cry repentance unto the people, Enoch journeyed throughout the land and recounted to all those who listened to his voice, the creation of Adam, the first man. He also reminded them of a fact they well knew: that a multitude of men had followed Adam, the father of all, in settlement of the earth.
Enoch continued in his discourse to prove the necessity of repentance not only for Adam, but for each and all because every descendant of the First Man had inherited the misery and woe of their father. He showed the folly of attributing to Adam each and every sin and evil to which mortal man is heir. For Enoch drew forth from their innermost hearts that if it were not for Adam's transgression they would not be numbered among the living; not part of that "host of men" God hath brought in upon the face of the earth. (v. 44.)
Continuing further, Enoch made mention of death which is a separation of the spirit and the mortal body. Such death also came by Adam's fall.
VERSE 49. Men have become carnal, sensual, and devilish. In the very beginning when Adam and Eve were guests in the Garden of the Lord, Satan intruded upon their privacy and with excuses and pretexts offered them high honor and rich reward if they would transgress God's holy law. They fell to his blandishments and brought misery and suffering into the world. Ever since that time Satan has plotted to do the same thing with Adam's posterity. With flattering words and sophistries that please men's pride and satisfies their whims "he tempteth them to worship him."
We may not immediately grasp its full significance, but nevertheless it is true that it matters little to Satan just what men believe so long as they do not believe in and worship God in the Name of Jesus Christ. That was a fact in Enoch's time as it is now. The Gospel of the Only Begotten Son was declared to Adam and his children by the voice of God and by angels sent down from heaven. Belief in God, repentance from sin, baptism in water, and reliance upon God's grace, were taught definitely in manifold ways.
Satan rages at the very Name of Christ; he is the avowed enemy of the Anointed One; Christ is the friend of man; Satan will do anything to destroy that friendship. Therefore, he goes among "the children of men" seeking to make them miserable as he himself is miserable. (Alma 13:1-9.) One of Satan's choicest bits of propaganda lies in tempting men to seek happiness in doing iniquity. So much has he succeeded in deceiving the unwary that "men have become carnal, sensual, and devilish, and are shut out from the presence of God." Carnal, means fleshy, or of the flesh; sensual, devoted to the pleasures of sense and appetite, voluptuous, sometimes lewd; devilish, resembling, characteristic of, or pertaining to the devil. To be shut out of God's presence, means, to be deprived of His holy word, His wisdom and counsel; to be left alone without His guidance.
That the reader may more fully understand the awful condition into which Satan has lured the children of men, after we quote Nephi, the son of Helaman—than whom there never was a greater prophet of God than he—we will refer such inquirers to the appended list of words spoken by other great men concerning the subject at hand; these words are equally true of Enoch's time:
"O how foolish, and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world! Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity; and how slow they are to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom's paths! Behold, they do not desire that the Lord their God, who hath created them, should rule and reign over them; notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards them, they do set at naught his counsels, and they will not that he should be their guide." (Helaman 12:4-6.) (pp. 190-91)
