It was foretold in this vision that the Bible record
would be clear and untarnished in the meridian of time, that in its beginning
“it contained the fulness of the gospel of the Lord,” with both Old and New
Testaments going “from the Jews in purity unto the Gentiles” (1 Nephi
13:24–25). But over time, through both innocent error and malicious design,
many doctrines and principles, especially those emphasizing covenantal elements
of “the gospel of the Lamb,” were lost—and sometimes were simply willfully
expunged—from “the book of the Lamb of God” (1 Nephi 13:26, 28). Unfortunately,
these missing elements were both “plain and precious” (1 Nephi 13:28)—plain, we
presume, in their clarity and power and ability to be understood; precious
surely in their profound worth, gospel significance, and eternal importance.
Whatever the reason for or source of the loss of these truths from the biblical
record, that loss has resulted in “pervert[ing] the right ways of the
Lord, . . . blind[ing] the eyes and harden[ing] the hearts of the
children of men” (1 Nephi 13:27). In painful understatement, “an exceedingly
great many do stumble” (1 Nephi 13:29). Honest women and men are less informed
of gospel truths and less secure in the salvation of Christ than they deserve
to be because of the loss of vital truths from the biblical canon as we have it
in modernity (see 1 Nephi 13:21–29).
But in His love and foreknowledge, the great Jehovah, the
premortal Christ, promised Nephi, and all who have received Nephi’s record,
that
after the Gentiles do stumble exceedingly, because of the
most plain and precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept
back . . . I will be merciful unto the Gentiles in that day, insomuch
that I will bring forth unto them, in mine own power, much of my gospel, which
shall be plain and precious, saith the Lamb.
For, behold, saith the Lamb: I will manifest myself unto thy seed, that they shall write many things which I shall minister unto them, which shall be plain and precious. . . .
And in them shall be written my gospel, saith the Lamb, and my rock and my salvation (1 Nephi 13:34, 36).
This promised record, now known to the world as the Book
of Mormon, along with “other books” that have now come forth by the revelatory
power of the Lamb,
shall make known the plain and precious things which have
been taken away from [the Bible]; and shall make known to all kindreds,
tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the
Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; and that all men must
come unto him, or they cannot be saved.
And they must come according to the words which shall be
established by the mouth of the Lamb; and the words of the Lamb shall be made
known in the records of thy seed, as well as in [the Bible]; wherefore they
both shall be established in one; for there is one God and one Shepherd over
all the earth (1 Nephi 13:39–41; emphasis added).
Surely the most plain and precious of all truths lost
from the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, are the clear, unequivocal, and
extensive declarations regarding the coming of Christ and the eternal,
essential covenantal elements of His gospel that have been taught beginning
with Adam and continuing in each dispensation of time. Thus, the highest and
most revered purpose of the Book of Mormon is to restore to Abraham’s seed that
crucial message declaring Christ’s divinity, convincing all who read its pages
“with a sincere heart, with real intent” that Jesus is the Christ (Moroni
10:4). (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Rending
the Veil of Unbelief,” in The Voice of My Servants: Apostolic
Messages on Teaching, Learning, and Scripture, ed. Scott C. Esplin and
Richard Neitzel Holzapfel [Provo Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young
University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010], 144-46)
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