Revised on 4-30-2021:
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 Nephi 32 is Nephi’s attempt to clarify some things he taught in chapter 31, and reading it fills me with so many thoughts and emotions that I considered not even making an attempt at a blogpost. I don’t know that I can do my feelings justice on this chapter, so I just want to give the reader fair warning that any of the next few posts that discuss chapter 32 will in no way be complete. It is highly likely that they will be revised from time to time as I find better ways to communicate more clearly the things in my mind and heart.
In verse 1, Nephi says that he “supposes” something. He doesn’t know this thing for sure, but he has every reason to present it as a possibility. That something is the idea that his brethren “ponder somewhat in [their] hearts concerning that which [they] should do after [they] have entered in by the way.”
It is interesting to me that the Hebrew word for “way” is דרך (de•rech)—which is the same word for “path.” Nephi is talking to a specific group of people in this chapter. He is talking to those who have, through their sincere repentance and by God’s grace, undergone that mighty change of heart and who are in the strait and narrow path. If you have not yet received that change of heart, what he goes on to say will neither make sense to you nor help you. Even if you have, you might not get it. That’s why he provides clarification.
The reason why Nephi supposes what he does is because he knows that the transition from a proclivity towards physical things to a proclivity towards things of the spirit can be somewhat of a challenge.
Progress along the path can be stalled for several reasons. First and foremost, being reborn can be such an incredible and overwhelming experience, it will be easy to think that you are “saved” by experiencing that one event. You will be tempted to go no further. It has been my experience that being reborn opens up such a newness of possibility that it can be difficult and overwhelming to determine what to do at that point. It is also very easy to be distracted by physical things that interested you before your rebirth, to the point that little to no forward spiritual movement is made along the path. It is also difficult to break away from false traditions. You can also be misled. Nephi’s question at the end of verse one calls on us to evaluate why we might be experiencing any lack of progress on that path—an inherently difficult thing to do because we won’t necessarily know what progress on the path looks like.
It has been beyond helpful for me to remember what put me on the path in the first place. It was information—information that gave me reason to believe that any new actions based on that information would yield an outcome that brought my character closer to that of Christ.
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?
Remember that a person initially arrives at the state in which he can receive the Holy Ghost by fully and honestly submitting to God and by being cleansed and forgiven of their sins, “relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.” (2 Nephi 31:19) Consequently, a person can only continue to enjoy the gift of the Holy Ghost by maintaining that state. This state of perfection can only be maintained by our reconciliation to any new information the Lord may impart to us. It is in this state that we are able to “speak with the tongue of angels” and we are able to have greater and greater amounts of information given to us. Nephi asks us, specifically, to remember that there is an association here—the reception (and retention) of the Holy Ghost invariably leads to speaking with the tongue of angels. For anyone who truly has the gift of the Holy Ghost, speaking with the tongue of angels should be commonplace.
So, do you speak with the tongue of angels? And if you don’t, can you claim to have received the Holy Ghost? And if you can’t, have you actually had a baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost? If you haven’t, you can “in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.” (Mosiah 27:26) Remember, “nowise” means “to any degree.“
Harsh, but true.
At this point, it will be helpful to understand what it means to “speak with the tongue of angels.” I believe that Nephi gives us some clues as to what that means back in chapter 31:
For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding. (2 Nephi 31:3)
“Plainness” is the manner after which the Lord works among the children of men. This is so critical. The Lord gives “light unto the understanding.” He speaks unto men “unto their understanding.”
This is what he does. This is what his angels do. They communicate knowledge and information plainly to people to bring them to the point of increased understanding about God and what is required to be more like him.
Some people believe that speaking with the tongue of angels is accompanied by an actual spoken language that is different from any used here in this world. Personally, I haven’t experienced that, and I don’t feel inclined to take a strong position against the claim on its own, but I will say that if you are babbling some foreign language without a noticeable, accompanying increase in the knowledge of God, in you or others around you, odds are you aren’t speaking in tongues. You are just babbling.
God doesn’t save us by causing us to babble. He doesn’t even save us by granting us the ability to speak foreign languages. He saves us by teaching us what it takes to become more like him, and we can only become more like him as we reconcile ourselves to the information he gives us. You speak with the tongue of angels when you understand this information in plainness. You don’t have to do mental gymnastics to try to figure out what God is trying to teach you. The mysteries of God are made plain to you.
People can only speak with the tongue of angels when they have demonstrated a willingness to open their ears and understand what God is trying (and will try) to communicate to them. It is that willingness that opens the channel to receive a greater understanding through the Holy Ghost. That is why angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost and why you can only speak with the tongue of angels after you have received 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.
New information will come through messengers. Angels are messengers, and they speak by the power of the Holy Ghost. There are actually messages from God all around you. The “Holy Ghost” has power to make that new information accessible to you and to enable you to comprehend it. An angel can take many forms. A message might be delivered through a writer of scripture from ages long ago. It might be delivered by someone who plays a major role in your life or someone you meet in passing. A message can be communicated to you through your surroundings. It might be delivered by an actual angel or by the Lord himself. Whatever form the messenger takes, the information is communicated “by the power of the Holy Ghost.”
I feel strongly the need to very quickly address the fact that the mainstream LDS concept of the “Holy Ghost” is incorrect. I’m not to make a case for that in detail in this post. I will likely do that in another one. I will say that one can gain a greater and more correct understanding of the Holy Ghost by pondering on what is imparted to the individual when he/she receives the Holy Ghost, as well as temple symbolism in the names, signs, and tokens received in the endowment and figure 7 of facsimile #2 from the book of Abraham.
Going back to verse 3, let’s quickly define the word “wherefore.” It isn’t a word we frequently use nowadays, but it’s used twice in verse 3, so we might want to know what it means. “Wherefore” means “for which reason.” In common modern English, one might say, “that’s why.” Let’s break verse 3 down into parts and substitute “wherefore” with its definition:
Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; [that’s why] they speak the words of Christ.
The mechanism used to convey the words of Christ to us is the Holy Ghost. One role of the Holy Ghost is to communicate truth to us. The words of Christ are truth. The information we receive from and about Christ—the information that we must gain and reconcile ourselves to in order for us to move forward along the strait and narrow path—is truth and is the natural consequence of the Holy Ghost and its power.
[That’s why] 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.
Nephi is saying: “Hey, you know when I told you to feast upon the words of Christ back in chapter 31? I said that because that is what you should be receiving if you actually have the Holy Ghost. You should be receiving the words of Christ (or truth) as delivered to you by angels through the power of the Holy Ghost. And if you are feasting upon the words of Christ in this way, the words of Christ will tell you what you need to do to move forward on the path.”
At this point, I need to take issue, once again, with mainstream LDS belief and practice. I believe that there’s a reason why Nephi dedicates a whole chapter to clarifying the doctrine of Christ to people who should be making progress along the strait and narrow path, but aren’t.
The teachings of the church effectively sideline the Holy Ghost in the lives of its members. First, it is widely taught that members receive the gift of the Holy Ghost at confirmation. This leads members to assume that they have access to the Holy Ghost when they don’t. Second, members are taught that church leadership cannot lead the membership astray. This teaching is damning because it gives the membership no reason to verify what is being taught. It is cult mentality. Any message from God sent by any messenger should be transmitted by the power of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is something that dwells within the individual. It will authenticate any message from God by communicating additional knowledge about God to the individual, in plainness, and that knowledge will always be greater than what is already possessed because we should already be reconciled to the knowledge he has already given us. This information from God does not consist of shallow platitudes, or a repetition of institutional obligations prescribed by church leadership to its members, or a plethora of self-help quotes comparable to what you can find in books on the New York bestseller list—all of which, arguably, constitute most general conference addresses. Members are taught to look to church leadership when they should be being taught to entertain angels and other messengers by discerning who those messengers are and the truthfulness of their messages by the power of the Holy Ghost.
4 Wherefore, now after I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye ask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark.
We are in the dark by default, and we need to be brought into the light. If we are not brought into the light, we perish because we are not asking for the light (or knowledge) that saves us. How can you reconcile yourself to what you do not know?
Verse 5 is a nice little snapshot of Nephi’s admonitions:
5 For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do.
Describing this whole process and how it is perceived by the individual is extremely difficult to do. There is dimension to it and so describing it one way doesn’t do justice to all of the other ways in which it could be described, even if you are aware of each dimension. I certainly don’t feel like what I have written here does justice to what I have experienced. The best way to understand what Nephi is describing is to experience it yourself.
You can’t experience it for yourself if you think that you have been reborn when you actually haven’t. You can’t experience it for yourself if you assume that your rebirth is the end of your journey. It isn’t. Not by a long shot. You have to actively pursue more information. You have to learn how to sort that information into what is conveyed to you by the Holy Ghost and what isn’t. You have to act on what you think is conveyed to you by the Holy Ghost to test and to prove it, and sometimes you won’t want to. Even when you do, you have to learn how to evaluate whether or not your actions moved you closer toward an end that you are not even fully aware of. It is a harrowing journey and frequently causes many to fall by the wayside, and yet, for those who would lay hold to the word of God and walk this path, this is the process by which we are shown “all things what [we] should do.”
6 Behold, this is the doctrine of Christ...