The Gentiles’ Spiritual Kings and Queens Reestablish Israel - Book of Mormon Isaiah

The Gentiles’ Spiritual Kings and Queens Reestablish Israel

Just as Isaiah’s theology of the fulness of the gospel is closely woven into his historical narrative and prophecies, so it is with the Book of Mormon. Unless we define the theology embedded in these sacred writings, we will mistake what is possibly their key message for Latter-day Saints.

Isn’t it the Gentiles’ ultimate rejection of the fulness of the gospel that causes it to turn back to the house of Israel, reversing the house of Israel’s former rejection that turned it to the Gentiles? Paul warns the Gentile saints against harboring any sense of entitlement (Romans 11:18–22).

Even the very definition of what constitutes the fulness of the gospel is at issue. Although the Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the gospel (Doctrine & Covenants 42:12), where do you pinpoint it? It is not in the basic principles of the gospel taught by Book of Mormon prophets.

In essence, the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ is identical with God’s everlasting covenant, which promises exaltation and eternal life. That condition lies far beyond the remission of one’s sins through the atonement of Jesus Christ that comes from living the gospel’s basic principles.

Doctrine & Covenants 66:2
Blessed are you for receiving mine everlasting covenant, even the fulness of my gospel, sent forth unto the children of men, that they might have life and be made partakers of the glories which are to be revealed in the last days.

Doctrine & Covenants 39:11
Thou shalt preach the fulness of my gospel, which I have sent forth in these last days, the covenant which I have sent forth to recover my people, which are of the house of Israel.

Doctrine & Covenants 14:10
I must bring forth the fulness of my gospel from the Gentiles unto the house of Israel.

Epitomizing the fulness of the gospel in the Book of Isaiah and Book of Mormon is a theology of proxy salvation that operates all the way from Jesus’ atonement for humanity’s transgressions to kings of nations, leaders of armies, and heads of families who minister to their dependents.

That theology of proxy salvation gained prominence in God’s covenant with King David and his heirs, in which the king answers to God for his people’s disloyalties to God in order to obtain their divine protection against a mortal threat. Jesus’ atonement functioned under that principle.

All proxy salvation—spiritual or temporal, on higher or lower levels—follows this same pattern of the Davidic Covenant. It lies at the root of patriarchy and defines what it means to be a king. Otherwise, what use is a title of “king” if a person doesn’t know what it means to act as such?

2 Nephi 6:2
I, Jacob, having been called of God, and ordained after the manner of his holy order, and having been consecrated by my brother Nephi, unto whom ye look as a king or a protector, and on whom ye depend for safety.

Like Nephi, the brother of Jared functioned as a king to his people, interceding with God on their behalf and taking their burdens on himself. It wasn’t that the brother of Jared didn’t say his daily prayers but that he forgot to call on God on behalf of those whose lives depended on him.

Ether 2:14–15
For the space of three hours did the Lord talk with the brother of Jared, and chastened him because he remembered not to call upon the name of the Lord. And the brother of Jared repented of the evil which he had done, and did call upon the name of the Lord for his brethren who were with him.

Book of Mormon instances of proxy salvation, such as Helaman’s serving as “father” to two thousand “sons” and King Mosiah to his sons, show the fulness of the gospel in action. Whether before or after Jesus’ coming, it is the same. That none of their sons were slain proves the point.

The clearest example of proxy salvation in the Book of Isaiah is King Hezekiah’s intercession with God when an Assyrian army of 185,000 men besieges Jerusalem. God’s dual promise to protect Hezekiah and his people links his intercessory prayer to a price God requires to be paid.

Isaiah 37:18–20
O Jehovah, the kings of Assyria have indeed destroyed all peoples and their lands, committing their gods to the fire. For they were no gods, but mere works of men’s hands, of wood and of stone, and so they could destroy them. But now, O Jehovah our God, deliver us out of his hand, that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone are Jehovah.

Hezekiah’s deathly illness in the midst of the Assyrian siege—in token of his willingness to pay the price of his people’s deliverance—won God’s assurance that he would protect him and his people against this mortal threat under the terms of God’s covenant with his ancestor David.

Isaiah 38:5–6
Thus says Jehovah, the God of your father David:
    I have heard your prayer and seen your tears.
I will add fifteen years to your life.
    And I will deliver you and this city
    out of the hand of the king of Assyria;
I will protect this city.

Isaiah 37:35–36
I will protect this city and save it,
    for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.
Then the angel of Jehovah went out and slew
    a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp.
And when men arose in the morning,
    there lay all their dead bodies!

Isaiah defines this theology of proxy salvation—in which the king pays the price of his people’s disloyalties to God in the face of a mortal threat—in the same messianic passage that prophesies Jesus’ atonement for his people’s transgressions under the terms of the Davidic Covenant.

Isaiah 53:10–11
Jehovah willed to crush him,
    causing him suffering,
that, if he made his life an offering for guilt,
    he might see his offspring and prolong his days,
and that the purposes of Jehovah
    might prosper in his hand.
He shall see the toil of his soul and be satisfied;
    because of his knowledge,
and by bearing their iniquities,
    shall my servant, the righteous one, vindicate many.

A king’s bearing his people’s iniquities—answering for their disloyalties to God—means living a higher law than a person does whom God saves from sin. When Nephite government transitioned from kings to judges, the people realized the burden their king had carried on their behalf.

Mosiah 29:38
They relinquished their desires for a king, and became exceedingly anxious that every man should have an equal chance throughout all the land; yea, and every man expressed a willingness to answer for his own sins.

And yet, as Jehovah/Jesus’ coming to the earth draws near, God again invites kings or proxy saviors to answer for the disloyalties of his people of the house of Israel. Their new converts to the gospel will face many mortal threats as they gather out of exile amidst worldwide calamities.

Isaiah 49:22–23
Thus says my Lord Jehovah:
    I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles,
    raise my ensign to the peoples;
and they will bring your sons in their bosoms
    and carry your daughters on their shoulders.
Kings shall be your foster fathers,
    queens your nursing mothers.

Will Latter-day Saints—the Ephraimite Gentiles—be equal to the task of acting as spiritual kings and queens to the house of Israel? Will they ‘have care for the house of Israel” and “be like unto a father to them” under the terms of the Davidic Covenant (Mormon 5:10; 2 Nephi 10:18)?

2 Nephi 10:7–9
When the day cometh that they shall believe in me, that I am Christ, then have I covenanted with their fathers that they shall be restored in the flesh, upon the earth, unto the lands of their inheritance. And it shall come to pass that they shall be gathered in from their long dispersion, from the isles of the sea, and from the four parts of the earth; and the nations of the Gentiles shall be great in the eyes of me, saith God, in carrying them forth to the lands of their inheritance. Yea, the kings of the Gentiles shall be nursing fathers unto them, and their queens shall become nursing mothers.

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Avraham Gileadi, Endtime Prophecy: A Judeo-Mormon Analysis. A masterwork of scriptural enlightenment that disabuses reader’s minds of precepts of men that have crept into LDS and Judeo-Christian religion and that reveals what the scriptures actually say about our day. Hebraeus Press, 2018: 458 pages. Softcover $27.95; E-Book $13.95; MP3 $13.95.

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