It Is the Spirit that Quickeneth
Book of Mormon Notes - Saturday, February 24, 2024, 3 Nephi 20
Jesus held another sacrament meeting with His disciples and with the multitude, but this time he provided bread and wine miraculously. Because the faith of the Nephites at the Temple in Bountiful was so great, Jesus could perform this miracle.
This miracle was somewhat reminiscent of the Lord’s first recorded miracle at Cana when He changed the water into wine. It is also somewhat reminiscent of Jesus Christ’s miracles when he fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, and the four thousand with seven loaves and a few small fishes. But in all three of those previous miracles, the Lord changed or multiplied substances that were already there. In this miracle among the Nephites, Jesus did not request that His disciples bring Him anything beforehand. No abread or wine had been brought to him by the disciples or by the multitude. But Mormon records that Jesus truly agave unto them bread to eat, and also wine to drink.
Where did this miraculous bread and wine come from? Did angels bring it to Him? We don’t know. What we do know is that just as the Lord was able to send manna, living water, quail, and whatever else was needed to the ancient Israelites, the Lord was able to give bread and wine miraculously, as if from thin air, to the ancient Nephites at the Temple in Bountiful.
This was the second time in just a couple of days that the Lord administered the sacrament to His disciples and to the multitude. Jesus taught them again the symbolic meaning and purpose of this sacred and miraculous ordinance:
And he said unto them: He that eateth this bread eateth of amy body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wine drinketh of my blood to his soul; and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled. (3 Nephi 20:8)
It appears that the Nephites were so full of faith and understanding at this point that they required no further explanation. In contrast, we remember the reaction of the Jews when Jesus taught them the same thing in the synagogue of Capernaum:
I am that bread of life.
Your fathers did eat amanna in the wilderness, and are dead.
This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
I am the living abread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bbread that I will give is my cflesh, which I will dgive for the elife of the world.
The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye aeat the flesh of the bSon of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my aflesh, and drinketh my bblood, hath eternal life; cand I will draise him up at the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, adwelleth in me, and I in him.
As the living Father hath asent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall blive by me.
This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. (John 6:48-58)
Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life and the Living Water. Jesus taught:
It is the aspirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63)
No wonder Jesus invites us to live by His word and not by bread alone:
And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. (Deuteronomy 8:3)
But he answered and said, It is written, aMan shall not blive by cbread alone, but by every dword that proceedeth out of the emouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)
And I now give unto you a commandment to beware concerning yourselves, to give diligent heed to the words of eternal life.
For you shall live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God. (D&C 84:43-44)
Unlike bread that satiates hunger only for a moment, and unlike water that quenches thirst only for a moment, the Bread of Life and the Living Waters fill us with the Spirit of God unto Eternal Life:
Now, when the multitude had all eaten and drunk, behold, they were filled with the Spirit; and they did cry out with one voice, and gave glory to Jesus, whom they both saw and heard. (3 Nephi 20:9)
The same pattern of prayer, the ordinance of the sacrament, the shedding forth of the Spirit of God, and instruction from the Lord was at work during this second sacrament meeting among the Nephites. Is it any wonder than that we follow this same pattern in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints almost every week? It has roots in the Passover meal that the ancient Israelites observed to remember their miraculous deliverance from the plagues and persecutions of Pharaoh. But Jesus also fulfilled the purpose of the Passover meal and instituted the sacrament just prior to fulfilling His Divine mission and Atonement. The Passover meal became the sacrament, and the sacrament symbolized Jesus Christ’s Atoning Sacrifice:
Now the first day of the feast of aunleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the bpassover?
And he said, Go into the city ato such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My btime is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples.
And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the apassover.
Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve.
And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?
And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.
The Son of man goeth as it is awritten of him: but woe unto that man by whom the bSon of man is betrayed! cit had been good for that man if he had not been dborn.
Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said.
aAnd as they were eating, Jesus took bbread, cand blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my dbody.
And he took the acup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, bDrink ye all of it;
For this is my ablood of the new btestament, which is shed for many for the cremission of sins.
But I say unto you, I will not adrink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I bdrink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom. (Matthew 26:17-29)
When I think of this pattern that continues today in the Church of Jesus Christ, and when I remember the original institution of the sacrament by Jesus Christ among His original apostles, I consider that everything that the Lord taught, and that the Spirit teaches us after partaking of the bread and the wine (or water) points us to what the Lord accomplished in Gethsemane, on the Cross, and by His Resurrection. The Lord taught other things, and the Spirit teaches us other things, but everything in the Gospel is inextricably connected to Jesus Christ and His Atonement. In the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith:
The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.
What else did Jesus Christ teach the Nephites after His miraculous distribution of the sacrament? He finished the commandments that His Father had given Him. There is so much in these teachings of Jesus to the Nephites that volumes could be written about them. But let’s resume our study of Jesus’ teachings in the next post.