Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke to the Church Educational System personnel last Friday. I wanted to share a few excerpts from his talk that I thought were meaningful and very applicable in our day.

“Be not afraid, only believe” (Mark 5:36).

…“The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most certain, the most secure, the most reliable, the most rewarding truth on earth and in heaven, in time and in eternity. I ask you to teach that nothing, not anything, not anyone, not any influence will keep this Church from fulfilling its mission and realizing its destiny set from before the foundation of the world. Ours is that failsafe, inexorable, indestructible dispensation of the fullness of the gospel.

“…The momentum that began in upstate New York two centuries ago, will continue to roll forth, unabated and undeniable –Daniel’s stone cut out of a mountain without hands. That scriptural kingdom will be triumphant and it will prevail. Unlike every other era before us, this dispensation will not experience an institutional apostasy, it will not see a loss of priesthood keys, it will suffer a cessation of revelation from the voice of Almighty God.

“Individuals will apostatize. They may turn a deaf ear to heaven. But never again will this dispensation collectively do so. What a secure thought that is. What a day in which to live. What a way to cut through fear or faint-heartedness.”

(Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Address to Religious Educators, Friday, February 6, 2015. I transcribed this quote from the video. The text is not yet available. I hope I got it right. The punctuation may be different, but the words, I think, are pretty accurate. When the printed talk is available you can check the accuracy.)

Excommunication

Excommunication is a true principle included in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Although it may not seem immediately intuitive to say this, excommunication is not a bad thing, at least not when we understand it as more than simply an unfeeling effort to deprive someone of his or her membership. The Lord Himself teaches it and abides by it. He also revealed it to His prophets in every dispensation and expected them to abide by it. There are sound reasons for and specific blessings that stem from excommunication.

Excommunication Taught in Every Dispensation

The principle of excommunication has been taught in every dispensation throughout scriptural history. Jehovah told Moses, “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book” (Exodus 32:33). During His mortal ministry, the Savior taught that those who “become a transgressor…shall be cut off” (JST Mark 9:42). The apostle Paul explained that the Corinthian Saints were to “put away from among [themselves] that wicked person” (1 Corinthians 5:13).

When Alma first encountered sin and rebellion in the Church, the Lord told him, “whosoever will not repent of his sins the same shall not be numbered among my people,” then added, “and this shall be observed from this time forward” (Mosiah 26:32). Two to three decades later, Alma’s son found that within the Church “the hearts of many were hardened, and their names were blotted out” while at the same time “many withdrew themselves from among” the Church (Alma 1:24).

When the Savior ministered among the people of the American continent, he spoke of those who would not repent. He counseled them to “not cast him out from among you, but ye shall minister unto him and shall pray for him unto the Father” nevertheless “if he repent not he shall not be number among my people, that he may not destroy my people” (3 Nephi 18:30-31). Moroni recorded that the members in his day “were strict to observe that there should be no iniquity among them; and whoso was found to commit iniquity, and three witnesses of the church did condemn them before the elders, and if they repented not, and confessed not, their names were blotted out, and they were not numbered among the people of Christ” (Moroni 6:7).

In our dispensation, at least four times in the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord teaches the principle of excommunication. A declaration of our beliefs, canonized by a unanimous vote on August 17, 1835 states, “We believe that all religious societies have a right to deal with their members for disorderly conduct” and can “excommunicate them from their society, and withdraw from them their fellowship” (Doctrine and Covenants 134:10). While we must acknowledge that excommunication is an unpleasant and unhappy occasion, it is nonetheless a necessary principle of the gospel.

It is abundantly clear that those circumstances that brought about a need for excommunication in dispensations past are prevalent in the Church today.

Something that is not often acknowledged by people who are excommunicated, or by those who support them, is the persecution they inflict on the faithful members of the Church. In Alma’s day, it “was a great trial to those that did stand fast in the faith” and they, unfortunately, had to bear “with patience the persecution which [was] heaped upon” the faithful (Alma 1:25). Joseph Smith explained, “Renegade ‘Mormon’ dissenters are running through the world and spreading various foul and libelous reports against us, thinking thereby to gain the friendship of the world” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, “Beware the Bitter Fruits of Apostasy,” p. 322). Members today will experience the same circumstances and have the same need to bear with patience the persecution.

Sound Reasons for Excommunication

At first glance, it may seem contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ to excommunicate a member. It may even appear as an unloving practice. After all, we are encouraged to invite everyone to come unto Christ, become His disciple, and join His Church. After doing that, why would we want to take away a person’s membership? In reality, excommunication is a principle of the gospel that shows God’s love for all of His children. It is an indication to the one excommunicated that his or her behavior has gone beyond the bounds of what is appropriate for those who want to be disciples of Jesus Christ and faithful members of His Church. It is a way to admonish us according to our sins when we are unwilling to repent (see Mosiah 26:39). It is, or should be, an alarming wake-up call to the person, and to those who sympathize with the person, that his or her behavior as a member is seriously out of order. Excommunication can be seen as a last resort to save us from the ingeniously deceptive grasps of the adversary and the eternal consequences of a rebellious disposition.

The Lord has a standard He wants His disciples to live up to. He calls them laws or commandments. In modern revelation he defines commandments as directions, saying, “I give unto you a new commandment, that you may understand my will concerning you; Or, in other words, I give unto you directions how you may act before me, that it may turn to you for your salvation” (Doctrine and Covenants 82:8–9). While He allows for weaknesses and mistakes as we learn to follow His directions, He has limits to the things we can do. Brigham Young said it best when he taught, “It is given to us, as agents, to choose or refuse…but we are agents within limits; if it were not so there would be no law” (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 224). Excommunication does not usually happen unless a person has been warned of their behavior and taught what is expected.

In the Old Testament, Jehovah said he would “blot out” the names of those who sinned against Him. The phrase “blot out” comes from the Hebrew word “machah” which carries the connotation of separating someone who has develope a “warlike” spirit (see Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, “machah,” H4229). This is usually the case with those who apostatize. They tend toward a “warlike” attitude both before and after they have been excommunicated. The Prophet Joseph Smith put it this way, “Those who have associated with us and made the greatest professions of friendship, have frequently been our greatest enemies and our most determined foes; if they became unpopular, if their interest or dignity was touched, or if they were detected in their iniquity” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, “Beware the Bitter Fruits of Apostasy,” p. 322).

Blessings that Stem from Excommunication

There are at least four specific blessings that result from excommunication. First, it is a clear signal to people that they have a solemn need to repent. It provides an opportunity for sinners to transform their behavior to more fully resemble the directions, laws, and principles taught in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Second, excommunication protects the innocent and unwary. It provides a way for other members to escape deception. Those who may have sympathized with or who perhaps even began to follow the teachings and behaviors of the one excommunicated can now see clearly to avoid taking an erroneous path themselves.

Third, excommunication protects the integrity of the Church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a good name and reputation. If it is to be attractive to those who do not belong to it, it must be kept clean and worthy of that name and reputation. On more than one occasion the Lord declared , “Behold, mine house is a house of order…and not a house of confusion” (Doctrine and Covenants 132:8; 88:119; 109:8). The Prophet Joseph Smith once said, "So long as unrighteous acts are suffered in the Church, it cannot be sanctified, neither can Zion be redeemed" (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, p. 187).

Fourth, when Church leaders fulfill their responsibility to keep the Church clean, peace and prosperity among Church membership are realized. Once Alma followed the directions given him by the Lord to excommunicate the unrepentant, he was able to “regulate all the affairs of the church; and they began again to have peace and to prosper exceedingly in the affairs of the church, walking circumspectly before God, receiving many, and baptizing many” (Mosiah 26:37).

We can experience the same blessings in our day as Church leaders fulfill the difficult, yet necessary, responsibility to regulate the affairs of the Church, which sometimes involves excommunication.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God

Perhaps the most important truth we can learn in this life is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Nothing else in life really, ultimately, matters if we don’t have a testimony of this one truth.

Since that is true, it would seem reasonable that one of the paramount things Jesus would do during His mortal ministry would be to testify and show, in every possible way, that He was the divine Son of God, the promised Messiah who would save the world from sin and spiritual captivity.

When I read the New Testament with this one idea in mind many, if not all, of the stories in the four gospels make more sense. This is a perspective, or a skill if you will, I have used as I study the stories recorded in the New Testament. I read the stories and ask myself: How do the events and words in this story testify to me of the divinity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of the world? What do I learn about Him and His divine nature?

New Testament Examples

In Matthew 1:1–16 a lineage is provided. Then in verse 17, Matthew talks about their being 14 generations from Abraham to David, from David until the carrying away into Babylon, and from Babylon to Christ. I think it is significant to note that there are only 13 generations listed from Babylon to Christ. So why did Matthew include the genealogy and then conclude it with a miscalculated summary?

Immediately following his declaration of three sets of 14 generations, Matthew told of the birth of Christ. It was as though he was trying to tell them something about this special baby. Indeed, he was trying to help the Jews connect their ritualistic sacrifices with the birth of the Son of God.

The number 14 had tremendous spiritual significance to the Jews. At a certain time of the year during their annual celebration, the children of Israel spent eight days making sacrifices (Numbers 29:12–34). On each day, the number of sacrifices would change, except the sacrifice of 14 lambs. And those lambs were to be the firstborn and without blemish, as deliberate foreshadowing of the promised Messiah, the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh.

Matthew was, in essence, saying to the Jews of his day, “You sacrifice 14 lambs each day once a year at a holy meeting each year to remind you of the coming of Jesus Christ. This baby who is born of Mary is the fulfillment of those prefiguring sacrifices.”

Once I saw this insight, that seemingly out of place genealogy made more sense and became more than a list of generations from Abraham to the birth of Christ. It became a testimony of the divine Son of God condescending to take upon Himself flesh and blood.

As another example, in Mark 11:12–14 and 19–26, we read the story of Jesus cursing a fig tree. This seems so contrary to His divine nature. After all, this was one of His creations. It seems so wasteful, especially in light of the fact that it wasn’t even time for the fig tree to bear figs (Mark 11:13). So, why did the Lord do this?

The next morning, the disciples were captivated by the swiftly-withered tree. It was certainly a great way to get their attention. They were ready to listen to whatever the Lord had to say and he did teach them of doubt and belief and of prayer and forgiveness. But it seems less than satisfying that the Lord would go to such great lengths only to provide an enchanting object lesson.

In reality, this was one of many, many ways the Lord tried to teach about who He was. He was telling them, and showing them, that He was the Son of God, who had power over all things, including to save them.