The Word of God

I keep  meaning to use Lehi’s Dream as an interpretive lens for the parts of the Book of Mormon we are reading now.  I had this bit about the Nephite journey ending in Jacob revealing the name of Christ-symbolically finding Christ–and another bit about Father Lehi dying and wondering if that was the end of his long journey through the dark wilderness or if it was just the beginning–but instead I keep coming back to the dream itself.

On Sunday a speaker quoted Paul on charity.  Paul says that revelation without charity is nothing.

And though I have the gift of ^aprophecy, and understand all ^bmysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

One interpretation of the Iron Rod/the Word of God is that it is revelation, not just scripture.  I think that is the best interpretation.  But the Word is another name for Christ.   Revelation is not just a guide to Christ.  It is an experience of him.

We tend to think of revelation as a set of instructions to achieve a goal.  Often it is.  But that is the least important part of revelation.  The main thing is the presence of God that fills you with light and love.

We think of the gift of charity as loving others, and it is, but that is secondary to experiencing the love of God where your love for them and their love for you overflow and bounce back and forth and mingle and you can no longer tell where one begins and the other ends.  The love for others is a result of that.

Perhaps the difference between the two different types of those who hold on to the Iron Rod is that the one group treats it just as a set of instructions for getting to the tree, and for the other group the Rod is the Tree, they experience them all over and over again in a cycle of enjoying to the end, and they fall down when they get to the Tree because they recognize Him.