Listen to the voice of the Lord your God, even Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, whose course is one eternal round, the same today as yesterday, and forever. (D&C 35:1)
Behold, I am God; Man of Holiness is my name; Man of Counsel is my name; and Endless and Eternal is my name, also. (Moses 7:35)
Many years ago, the Lord showed me, in vision, the idea that the literary device of a chiasmus was indicative of God’s dealings with man throughout the entirety of human existence on this earth. I made a blogpost about it quite some time ago. The structure of the chiasmus presented there is extremely rudimentary. Without question, there are details that could be filled in at many levels. It was, however, like so many other things the Lord has taught me, a necessary piece in the infinitely larger puzzle of discovering who and how God is.
The structure I presented “on paper” is very angular, very finite, and, consequently, very limited in its expression of my understanding of God’s actual dealings with mankind. In the verses above, God describes himself as “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,” yet he also says that his “course is one eternal round” and that his name is “Endless and Eternal.”
The chiastic structure sheds light and importance on those events that fall within the certain period of time demarcated by a beginning and an end, but I think that there are improvements that could be made to better represent God’s dealings with mankind. We would, more correctly, turn the straight lines of the chiasmus into semi-circles that mirrored each other, and then change the resulting circle, defined by a center point, into a spiral, defined by an axis, that extended into a third dimension.
God is able to bring about his eternal purposes because he acts according to laws that were established from before the foundations of this world. This is true for laws that have effects within mortality, and it is also true for laws whose effects extend beyond mortality. Indeed, God’s eternal purposes would have been frustrated from the beginning had he not understood and made provisions for the fulfillment of the laws required to ensure the continuity of his plans.
20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—
21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated. (D&C 130)
Here on earth, we don’t understand, or even know about, these laws, at first. However, our becoming like God is dependent upon our discovery of and adherence to these laws. If we desire the same blessings that God enjoys, including the kind of life he lives, we are required to take upon ourselves his character, which is to live the same laws he lives for the same reasons, and we cannot expect the same blessings he has if we don’t.
9 Will I accept of an offering, saith the Lord, that is not made in my name?
10 Or will I receive at your hands that which I have not appointed?
11 And will I appoint unto you, saith the Lord, except it be by law, even as I and my Father ordained unto you, before the world was? (D&C 132)
For honest seekers of truth, engagement in God’s work will begin as a seed—small, and at an intimate and individual level, but it will also invariably lead them to discover the laws that facilitate the continuity of God’s character and purposes throughout His creations. The fulfillment of these laws is necessary in order for God’s purposes to roll forth, uninterrupted.
May God’s servants, increasingly, be made more aware of these laws and humbly submit to them, that they may put all things in this world under their feet.