BOM Mosiah 16

1.

Today’s reading, Mosiah 16, suggests to me that it isn’t mere honest, sincere error that God punishes, but actual rebellion.

The wicked, says verse 2, are those who “would not hearken unto the voice of the Lord.”  (The would not here probably isn’t a simple past tense of the intransitive auxiliary verb will; rather, it’s the past tense of the transitive verb to will [something].)  In other words, they choose not to do so.

A wicked person, says verse 5, is in “rebellion against God” and is, thus, “an enemy to God.”

God wants to save the wicked, but they refuse to accept his salvation, “having gone according to their own carnal wills and desires; having never called upon the Lord while the arms of mercy were extended towards them; for the arms of mercy were extended towards them, and they would not; they being warned of their iniquities and yet they would not depart from them; and they were commanded to repent and yet they would not repent” (verse 12).

There is nothing here of the just but cold God that some seem to picture, who damns people for making mistakes, or for simply not measuring up to some standard or other of sufficient righteousness or some quota of required good deeds.  He wants to save all, but some refuse the offer.

2.

On another topic, notice the description of Christ in verse 9: “He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened.”

This makes the same point as John 1:4-5:  “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.  And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

That’s the King James Version.

But take a look at another translation.  The New Revised Standard Version, for example:  “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  Or the New International Version:  “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

The κατέλαβεν of verse 5 in John’s original Greek — translated as “comprehended” in the King James Version and as “overcome” by the NRSV and the NIV — is a form of καταλαμβάνω, which means “to lay hold of,” “to take power over.”  It can, thus, signify “defeating” something, but it can also describe “laying hold of something” with the mind or, in other words, “understanding something.”