Nephi's Grace

During the past two semesters I've been at BYU, I have been taking courses on The Book of Mormon. As such, I've almost finished reading it again (for more times than I can count).

One thing especially that has stuck out to me as I've read it this time is just how much I have been able to connect with Nephi on a deeply personal, deeply spiritual level. The Second Book of Nephi has become perhaps my favorite book in the Book of Mormon because of that. 

To me, the theme of 2 Nephi is summed up in a single, beautiful word: grace. Nephi spends probably the most time discussing the grace of the Savior than any other prophet in the Book of Mormon, and I have come to the conclusion that the more one relied on the Savior, the more beautiful that word grace becomes. Nephi's writings stand as an irrefutable witness that Jesus is the Christ and that through His grace we can be sanctified and cleansed from sin. 

In 2 Nephi 2, we read of Lehi's discourse on the fall of Adam and Eve and the promised Messiah who would come to save us from our sins. 

In 2 Nephi 4, Nephi shares a psalm he wrote criticizing himself, and we see how Nephi saw himself. He did not see himself as the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe caricature we picture from Arnold Friberg's paintings (pictured right). Here he calls himself a wretched man who was prone to temptations. Here we see a Nephi who spent the majority of his life lamenting his sins and angry at his brothers for what they had done to him, nevertheless, he know in Whom he had trusted.

In 2 Nephi 9, Jacob's great sermon on the infinite and eternal nature of the Atonement is recorded. We learn what brings about repentance and grace, and on whom we must rely. 

As Nephi quotes Isaiah, we read how the Lord's grace reaches out to scattered Israel. We learn of the love that the Lord has for His people, even when they rejected Him. 

In 2 Nephi 25 we learn that "it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do... wherefore the law hath become dead unto us, and we are made alive in Christ because of our faith; yet we keep the law because of the commandments." (2 Nephi 25:23, 25). We learn to rely on grace, knowing that we need it to be saved. We learn that grace only comes through Christ, and that all He asks in return is to follow Him, be reconciled to Him, and keep His commandments; in short, appreciate what He has done for you, even though there is nothing on earth you could ever do to adequately thank Him. 

In 2 Nephi 27-30, we learn how Christ will reach out to us in the latter days so that we can receive His grace. He promised to send latter-day scripture to His Saints, ending the long night of apostasy and preparing the world for His second coming. We learn that all who come to Him, whether Jew or Gentile, will receive His grace and be sanctified. 

Finally, in Nephi's last speech given before His death, Nephi gave us what he felt was the most important doctrines we needed to know. And grace surrounds his teachings. 

In 2 Nephi 31-33, we learn what we must do to accept the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ into our lives. By making sacred covenants with Him, by being baptized, we allow that grace to change us and sanctify us so that we can stand in the presence of the Lord. 

Perhaps the greatest testimony Nephi gave of the grace of the Savior can be found in a single verse, a verse that I now repeat as my own testimony of the saving grace that flows from Gethsemane and Calvary for all the world to see. 

"I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell." (2 Nephi 33:6, emphasis added).