In
companionship study we have been reading Sheri Dew’s newest book about
President Nelson and it was talking about the
restoration of the priesthood and quoted D&C 13.
1 Upon you my fellow
servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds
the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of
baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken
again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto
the Lord in righteousness.
The
phrase, “which holds the keys of the
ministering of angels” stood out particularly to me this go around. It is
not something we discuss much about but often use it as a WOW factor for
teaching the young men and talk about how that is to be ministered to by angles
and to be a ministering angle. Bishops now this phrase might have greater
meaning to them now that they control the wards ministering efforts. All that
being said; that was not what struck me.
In my morning reading of the Book of Mormon I was
reading in two of my favorite chapters in 2 Nephi 31-32 which focus on the
Doctrine of Christ which is one of my most focused-on subjects of the last decade
of my life. In 2 Nephi 31:31-14 it reads:
13 Wherefore, my
beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of
heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent,
repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take
upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your
Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then
cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with
the tongue of angels, and shout
praises unto the Holy One of Israel.
14 But, behold,
my beloved brethren, thus came the voice of the Son unto me, saying: After ye
have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing
to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels, and after
this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known
me.
In 2 Nephi 32:1-3
it reads:
1 And now,
behold, my beloved brethren, I suppose that ye ponder somewhat in your hearts
concerning that which ye should do after ye have entered in by the way. But, behold,
why do ye ponder these things in your hearts?
2 Do ye not
remember that I said unto you that after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could speak with the tongue of angels?
And now, how could ye speak with the
tongue of angels save it were by the Holy Ghost?
3 Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost;
wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast
upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all
things what ye should do.
So
my question is, “How could John the Baptist restore the Aaronic Priesthood and
the ‘keys of the ministering of angels’
if he wasn’t also restoring the Power to give the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
My
first thoughts afterwards were that how interesting if John the Baptist who during
his mortal life was only permitted to perform the baptism of Water was given
the restoration role of giving all parts of Baptism meaning, water, Spirit, and
fire. How could he give the keys of the ministering of angles unless he had the
power to give the gift of the Holy Ghost. Note in both excerpts from 2 Nephi
that it consistently uses the word “receive” to signify how you are baptized by
the Holy Ghost and Fire. Some might argue that the Baptism of Spirit and the Receiving
the Gift of the Holy Ghost are two separate things, but that does not appear to
be the case to me here.
I
think it really boils down to the preceding words of ‘Keys of.’ The Bishop which
is an Aaronic Priesthood office is the one who gives permission for the ordinance
of Laying on of hands to be performed. Even though if he is a literal descendant of Aaron, he could hold the position without holding the Melchizedek Priesthood.
It is interesting that then it would be true that the keys to access to the
gate are held in their entire in the Aaronic priesthood, but the authority is
only partly so which is a different way of looking at things.
That
being said; it would stand to say that John the Baptist did indeed restore all
the 'keys' for entry into the gate of all three types of baptism. He even declared who had authority to perform the baptism of Spirit just as a bishop does today.
As
an aside our evening scripture study with the kids happened to be one of the illustrated
scripture stories from the new testament and had a picture of Jesus in front of
an alter with a sacrifice on fire. It once again related the Fire part of
baptism back to Christ where being born by Blood, spoken to Adam by Christ in
the Book of Moses, correlates to the baptism of Fire spoken of in multiple
place by Christ.
