Joseph’s Repentance

by Autumn Dickson

This week we find Joseph in an early difficult lesson. Martin Harris had faced mounting pressure from his family to abandon Joseph, and Martin wanted to show the early manuscript to his family to gain support. Joseph asked the Lord multiple times despite receiving no’s, and the Lord finally told him to do what he wanted. Martin took the manuscript and lost it. Joseph was devastated and experienced a season of repentance.

There are some very poignant details that can teach us very direct lessons about the atonement of Jesus Christ and how it works in our lives. It also includes details that teach us about repentance and progression.

Nothing need be lost

First detail. It teaches us about the atonement.

I want to draw your attention to the fact that nothing was really lost.

Doctrine and Covenants 3:1 The works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught.

In this verse, the Lord was teaching Joseph that nothing was truly in danger. A long time ago, the Lord had prepared the way so that nothing truly needed was lost. Nephi had repeated some of Lehi’s information because the Lord knew that Lehi’s information would be the portion of manuscript that was lost.

What’s the implication here?

In my mind, I believe the Lord is trying to tell us that if we utilize His atonement, nothing really needs to be lost. In one example, if you’re excommunicated and rebaptized, your record shows your original baptism date and not the date of the second time you were baptized. This is exactly what the atonement of Jesus Christ is about.

When you make a mistake (even a mistake big enough to require excommunication) and combine it with true repentance, Christ’s atonement does something really special. It doesn’t just cleanse you. It takes the sin and turns it on its head. Look at Joseph’s story.

He lost the manuscript. What was the end result after true repentance? He was still the prophet that restored the gospel. We still have The Book of Mormon with all of the crucial details we needed previously. Joseph was cleansed and left with only the lesson he needed in order to be prepared to live with Heavenly Father again. The only lingering “consequence” was that Joseph learned better, grew stronger and wiser, and was protected from bigger consequences in the future.

This is the essence of the atonement of Jesus Christ. It cleanses us, but it also leaves us with the best of the best. That was the entire point of the Plan of Salvation. We could come down here and learn all the necessary lessons, gain all the necessary strength, develop all of the Christlike attributes, and Christ’s atonement would ultimately take care of all of the negative consequences.

No negative consequence will follow us permanently. Sometimes we may still have to fight lingering guilt. Maybe sometimes we’ve developed an addiction or formed a weakness that we’ll fight for the rest of our lives. However, none of it will follow us permanently. If we continually use the atonement of Jesus Christ, then it will actually just help us accumulate further strength.

Nothing need be lost. No opportunity, no blessing, no period of time is truly lost to us when we connect our lives with Christ’s atonement. Even the worst of sins can be flipped on their heads and turned into valuable lessons and strengthening experiences. The atonement leaves us with the good.

The definition of sin

The concept of repentance and what it truly is has expanded since I’ve started preparing these messages. I suppose the same has happened with the definition of sin. The concept of sin hasn’t exactly “expanded,” but it’s been made clearer in my mind.

Let’s look at Joseph’s heart again. We can’t judge exactly where his heart was, but we do know a couple of things. We know that Joseph loved the Lord. We knew that he wanted to do what was right by the Lord. We also know that he was deeply grateful to Martin and recognized what Martin had done for him. Joseph’s recognition of Martin’s support and his desire to please Martin wasn’t evil; in fact, it was the opposite. Those are usually marks of a good person.

And yet, the Lord allowed Joseph to believe he had lost his soul for a while. Why? Perhaps Joseph took his own guilt too far, but I have a different theory.

The “type” of sin I’ve most often pondered on over the past couple years is the sin of the heart. When we’re being ungrateful, using people, being selfish, and seeking our own ends at a high expense. I have learned just how significant it is that the Lord wants us to simply be good people who contribute to the atmosphere of heaven. I think this was a perspective I needed to focus on in my life so that I could let go of perfectionism and focus on the most important types of growth.

However, perhaps it’s time for me to shift my own focus just a bit.

Sin does include times when we disobey God even when our hearts are still primarily good.

Joseph would walk a fine line throughout his life. There would be no ceasing on the part of the devil to claim his soul. When it came to this particular sin of Joseph’s, it was not a horrible reflection on his heart. Yes, he was putting Martin above God and that’s an important lesson, but I don’t think I would classify Joseph’s heart as evil. And for me, this has been important to understand.

We know that progression continues after we die. We know that we will still have to work towards perfection as we reach the other side. Perhaps our hearts are good and we will know how to live in harmony with others around us, and this is an extremely important portion of being prepared to live in the Celestial Kingdom.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that preparation for the Celestial Kingdom extends beyond that. Perhaps there are paths of progression that we don’t fully understand yet, and it will require us to walk a line as fine as Joseph’s. When it comes to this type of sin, perhaps we don’t need to be crying out, “Oh I’m this terrible, horrible person!” but we do need to understand the gravity of obedience and its ability to keep us safe.

Plain and simple obedience protected Joseph. His heart was good, and this was crucial to the Celestial Kingdom but so was plain and simple obedience. He needed that obedience to survive the process of exaltation, and so do we!

Your heart can be good and pure, but if you’re not prepared to try and be obedient to all of His commandments, then you’re not going to be fully prepared for the Celestial Kingdom. There are aspects of the kingdom that we don’t understand; only God does. If we’re not ready to follow His words very closely, we’re never going to achieve the progression we need to reach our full potential.

That kind of obedience includes adherence to the words of the prophets even when we feel like their advice isn’t a big deal. It means following our temple covenants, including the covenant we made to wear our garments. There are lots of commandments that don’t necessarily pertain directly to having an evil heart, but they are still extremely significant to our safety.

Let me give you a physical example of this.

The Lord told the Saints that Zion would be built in Missouri. He then told the Saints to not move there all in a rush. He said that He would lead who moves and who stays, and He would direct the timing of them heading down there. The Saints ignored this, rushed to Missouri, and there was a major conflict.

The Saints had good hearts. They wanted to live in Zion. They wanted to build Zion. There is nothing evil about this desire in their hearts, but the truth of the matter remains. They didn’t follow the Lord closely enough to be obedient, and it cost them their ability to stay safely in Zion (the earthly equivalent of the Celestial Kingdom) and build it. There is a spiritual lesson here. If we can’t follow the Lord in obedience, we will not be prepared to receive all that He has even if our hearts are in a good place. The Lord knew something they didn’t about their journey, but they ignored Him. Their hearts were good, but it wasn’t enough.

I am not preaching perfectionism. Don’t turn it into perfectionism. The Lord took me on this whole learning journey where I learned the significance of the heart of the matter so that I could personally step away from perfectionism.

Now that I’m really thinking about it, this is still about the heart. Your heart needs to be good and turned outwards towards others, but it also needs to be so firmly planted in the Lord that obedience to His simplest commands comes naturally. You trust that He knows what He’s talking about, and you follow it.

I testify of a Heavenly Father who forgives. I testify that Christ suffered so that we could come here to gain everything we need and walk away with all the good things if we choose to follow Him. I testify that there is a purpose to obedience, that it protects us and allows us to walk that fine line all the way towards our exaltation. I testify that Christ’s standards are high because He loves us.

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives. Autumn was the recipient of FAIR’s 2024 John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award.

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