Before we proceed, I want to go back to verse 10 of chapter 31.
And he said unto the children of men: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father?
The Lord commands us to follow him, and Nephi’s question at the end of verse ten is so relevant! How do we actually “follow Jesus?” Well, we need to get our heads out of the physical realm and into the things of the spirit. You are more than the sum total of your physical body’s parts. The actuating part of you is spirit. Consequently, it isn’t enough to immerse your physical body in water to follow Jesus. The outward ordinance isn’t what saves you. That LDS children’s song that says, “I know when I am baptized my wrongs are washed away?” Umm...nope. By itself, water baptism does nothing but get you wet. Baptism must be accompanied by the same condition of heart that Christ had or we cannot honestly say that we are following him. Repentance requires all of our actions be done with the same condition of heart as Christ’s. Our spirit needs to be in the image of his spirit.
So let’s take a closer look at what that image looks like:
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.
For extra credit on this one verse, I am going to recommend this blog post. There is so much being communicated in verse 13, but I’ll try to make my commentary here as brief as possible. Nephi is trying to explain to us what being “baptized in the name of the Son” looks like. He is trying to describe the condition our hearts should be in, in order for us to honestly say that we are following our Savior. It is only when we meet the same conditions Christ met that we experience the same result—the Holy Ghost.
I do want to spend a little bit of time in the latter part of verse 13 because it is my opinion that this is one place where mainstream LDS belief deviates the most from what we find in scripture regarding the doctrine of Christ.
It has been my experience that most members of the LDS church think that the gift of the Holy Ghost is conferred upon a person at the time of confirmation following one’s baptism—that confirmation makes the Holy Ghost accessible to you. This is not the case. Not necessarily, anyway. And because every member of the church goes through the ordinance of confirmation, members of the church assume that they, and all other members, have access to this gift, to at least some degree, based on their righteousness at any given time.
You will notice that nowhere does Nephi mention or discuss anything resembling the LDS ordinance of confirmation when he talks about receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. He does, however, mention a “baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost,” and we can draw upon modern LDS temple symbolism to help us understand this better.
The baptism of fire occurs when you are forgiven of your sins. It is a cleansing process that is analogous to the “washing” that happens in the initiatory portion of endowment. You are pronounced clean, every whit, by heaven, and this is a necessary prerequisite for what follows.
The baptism of the Holy Ghost happens when a portion of God’s spirit is imparted to you. It is analogous to the “anointing” that happens in the initiatory portion of endowment ceremony. This cannot come to you without you first being cleansed of your past sins because God’s spirit will not dwell in unholy temples. It enables you to receive progressively greater measures of glory, truth, light, and knowledge.
The “baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost” changes a person “...from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.” (Mosiah 27:25-26) This change is called by other names in scripture: being reborn, being born of God, having a mighty change of heart. Whatever it is called, you “can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God” without it. “Nowise” means “to any degree,” and so an extremely important question to ask is “have I been born of God?”
Hallmarks of this change are found sprinkled throughout scripture: a change in your disposition where you no longer desire to do evil, but to do good continually; an increased understanding of Jesus Christ and his gospel; a physical sensation of the flesh being “consumed”; freedom from the guilt of past sins. Two hallmarks are named at the end of verse 13: the ability to speak with the tongue of angels and the ability to shout praises to the Holy One of Israel.
The source of these hallmarks will feel external to the individual. That is because, while submission is up to the individual, this change is not. I hope that this is clear. If you have had this happen to you, it will be. A person who has had this change doesn’t have to try to convince himself that he has been forgiven of his past sins. He also doesn’t have to wonder if his disposition has been changed. The internal change is so dramatic that the individual can easily recognize that it was not something he had any part of. It is truly a gift given by the Father.