You Know Not the Immensity of the Heavens

"The Light of Christ," Ensign, April. 2005, 8–14

Most members of the Church take a basic understanding of the Holy Ghost. Almost have experienced its promptings and understand why the Holy Ghost is called the Comforter.

They know "the Holy Ghost … is a personage of Spirit" (D&C 130:22) and a member of the Godhead (see A of F 1:ane).

But many exercise not know that there is another Spirit—"the low-cal of Christ" (D&C 88:7)—another source of inspiration, which each of united states of america possesses in mutual with all other members of the human family. If nosotros know about the Lite of Christ, we volition sympathize that at that place is something inside all of us, and we can entreatment to that in our want to share truth.

The Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ are different from each other. While they are sometimes described in the scriptures with the same words, they are two different and distinct entities. It is of import for yous to know about both of them.

The more nosotros know about the Calorie-free of Christ, the more we will understand about life and the more nosotros will have a deep dear for all mankind. We will be better teachers and missionaries and parents, and better men and women and children. Nosotros volition take deeper regard for our brothers and sisters in the Church and for those who do not believe and have not however had conferred upon them the souvenir of the Holy Ghost.

The Light of Christ is defined in the scriptures as "the Spirit [which] giveth light to every man that cometh into the earth" (D&C 84:46; emphasis added); "the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed" (D&C 88:13; see also John 1:four–9; D&C 84:45–47; D&C 88:6; D&C 93:ix).

And the Lite of Christ is also described in the scriptures as "the Spirit of Jesus Christ" (D&C 84:45), "the Spirit of the Lord" (two Cor. 3:18; run into too Mosiah 25:24), "the Spirit of truth" (D&C 93:26), "the light of truth" (D&C 88:vi), "the Spirit of God" (D&C 46:17), and "the Holy Spirit" (D&C 45:57). Some of these terms are too used to refer to the Holy Ghost.

The First Presidency has written, "There is a universally diffused essence which is the lite and the life of the globe, 'which lighteth every homo that cometh into the world,' which proceedeth forth from the presence of God throughout the immensity of space, the calorie-free and power of which God bestows in different degrees to 'them that ask him,' according to their faith and obedience."¹

Regardless of whether this inner light, this cognition of right and incorrect, is chosen the Light of Christ, moral sense, or conscience, it can directly us to moderate our actions—unless, that is, we subdue it or silence it.

Every spirit child of our Heavenly Father enters into mortality to receive a physical torso and to be tested.

"The Lord said … they are the workmanship of mine own easily, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his bureau" (Moses vii:32).

"Wherefore, men are gratis according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose freedom and eternal life, through the neat Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, co-ordinate to the captivity and ability of the devil" (two Ne. 2:27).

Therefore, we know that "every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency [the words free bureau do not appear in the revelations] which I take given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his ain sins in the day of judgment" (D&C 101:78; emphasis added).

We are admonished to "quench not the Spirit" (1 Thes. 5:nineteen). Thus nosotros tin see that "[all] are instructed sufficiently that they know skillful from evil" (2 Ne. 2:5; see also 2 Ne. 2:27). They have their agency, and they are accountable.

This Spirit of Christ fosters everything that is proficient, every virtue (see Moro. 7:sixteen). It stands in bright, indestructible opposition to anything that is coarse or ugly or profane or evil or wicked (see Moro. 7:17).

Censor affirms the reality of the Spirit of Christ in man. It affirms, equally well, the reality of skillful and evil, of justice, mercy, honor, courage, faith, love, and virtue, as well every bit the necessary opposites—hatred, greed, brutality, jealousy (see 2 Ne. 2:11, xvi). Such values, though physically intangible, answer to laws with cause-and-effect relationships as certain every bit whatsoever resulting from physical laws (see Gal. 6:seven–nine). The Spirit of Christ can be likened unto a "guardian affections" for every person.²

The Spirit of Christ can enlighten the inventor, the scientist, the painter, the sculptor, the composer, the performer, the architect, the author to produce neat, fifty-fifty inspired things for the blessing and good of all mankind.

This Spirit can prompt the farmer in his field and the fisherman on his boat. Information technology tin can inspire the teacher in the classroom, the missionary in presenting his word. It tin can inspire the educatee who listens. And of enormous importance, it can inspire husband and married woman, and male parent and female parent.

This inner Light tin warn and guard and guide. But it can be repulsed by anything that is ugly or unworthy or wicked or immoral or selfish.

The Light of Christ existed in you before yous were born (see D&C 93:23, 29–30), and it will exist with you every moment that you live and volition not perish when the mortal part of you has turned to dust. It is ever there.

Every man, adult female, and child of every nation, creed, or color—anybody, no matter where they live or what they believe or what they practice—has inside them the imperishable Light of Christ. In this respect, all men are created equally. The Light of Christ in everyone is a testimony that God is no respecter of persons (run across D&C ane:35). He treats everyone equally in that endowment with the Light of Christ.

It is important for a teacher or a missionary or a parent to know that the Holy Ghost can work through the Light of Christ. A teacher of gospel truths is not planting something foreign or even new into an adult or a child. Rather, the missionary or instructor is making contact with the Spirit of Christ already there. The gospel will have a familiar "ring" to them. Then the didactics will come up "to the convincing of [those who will listen] that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations" (Book of Mormon ).

During His mortal ministry, Jesus taught His gospel and put in identify the foundation upon which His Church would be built. The foundation was built of stones of doctrine which can neither be seen with mortal optics nor felt by touch; they are invisible and intangible. They will not weather away or crumble. They cannot be broken or dissolved or destroyed. These stones of doctrine are imperishable and indestructible.

These stones of doctrine existed "before the earth was" (D&C 124:38), "from before the foundation of the world" (D&C 124:41). Christ built His Church upon them.

Jesus spoke of "the stone which the builders rejected" (Matt. 21:42). So the shadow of apostasy settled over the globe. The line of priesthood authority was broken. Only flesh was non left in total darkness or completely without revelation or inspiration. The idea that with the Crucifixion of Christ the heavens were closed and that they opened in the Outset Vision is not true. The Light of Christ would be everywhere nowadays to attend the children of God; the Holy Ghost would visit seeking souls. The prayers of the righteous would not go unanswered.

The conferring of the gift of the Holy Ghost must await the restoration of the priesthood and the dispensation of the fulness of times, when all things would be revealed. Temple piece of work—ordinance work—would then be revealed. And then those who lived during the many generations when essential ordinances were unavailable, when baptism was not available, would exist redeemed. God never abandons His children. He never has abandoned this earth.

When the fulness of His gospel was restored, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-twenty-four hour period Saints was built upon the same foundation stones of doctrine.

Because we learn most everything through physical senses, instruction intangible doctrines which cannot exist seen or felt becomes very difficult. Jesus, the Main Instructor, taught these doctrines, and they can be taught in the same way today. It is my purpose to show you how He, the Master Instructor, taught them.

You tin come up to understand spiritual truths as clearly as if these stones of doctrine were as tangible equally granite or flint or marble. Marble volition yield to the hands of the sculptor and then that others can encounter what he sees hidden within the shapeless stone. In like manner, you can teach others to run into—that is, to understand—these intangible, invisible stones of doctrine.

The style the Savior taught, and the way you can teach, is both uncomplicated and very profound. If you choose a tangible object as a symbol for a doctrine, you can teach just every bit He did. A teacher can associate the doctrine with an object already known, which can exist seen with concrete eyes.

Jesus compared organized religion to a seed, the tiny mustard seed, which tin be seen and touched. He told how if the seed is nurtured, it tin can grow and flourish and become a tree. (See Luke xiii:19.)

He compared the kingdom of heaven to an everyday object that can be seen. "The kingdom of heaven," He said, "is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind" (Matt. 13:47); and He said, "The kingdom of sky is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field" (Matt. thirteen:44).

Christ used every bit examples, as symbols, such ordinary things as salt (come across Matt. 5:13; Mark ix:49–50; Luke 14:34) and candles (run across Matt. 5:15; Marking four:21; Luke 8:16; Luke 11:33–36; Rev. 18:23), as rain (run into Matt. 7:25–27) and rainbows (see Rev. 4:three; Rev. 10:one). The four Gospels are full of such examples. Likewise the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Not bad Toll have dozens of similar references. They are everywhere. That is what a story or a parable is—a true-to-life instance used to teach a principle or a doctrine that is invisible or intangible.

1 fourth dimension in Matthew, ane time in Luke, three times in the Book of Mormon, and three times in the Doctrine and Covenants, the Savior spoke of a hen with her chickens (see Matt. 23:37; Luke 13:34; 3 Ne. 10:four–6; D&C 10:65; D&C 29:2; D&C 43:24). Anybody knows about hens and chickens, even piffling children.

Now religion is non actually exactly like a seed, nor is the kingdom of heaven exactly like a net or a treasure or leaven (see Luke 13:21) or "a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls" (Matt. thirteen:45). Just with these illustrations, Jesus was able to open the eyes of His disciples—non their natural optics just the eyes of their understanding (see Matt. xiii:15; John 12:forty; Acts 28:27; Eph. one:18; ii Ne. 16:ten; D&C 76:12, xix; D&C 88:eleven; D&C 110:1).

With the eyes of our agreement, nosotros see things that are spiritual. With our spirits reaching out, nosotros can touch things that are spiritual and feel them. And so we can encounter and nosotros tin can feel things that are invisible to the physical senses. Remember, Nephi told his rebellious brothers, who had rejected a message from an angel, "Ye were past feeling, that ye could non feel his words" (1 Ne. 17:45; emphasis added).

Paul wrote to the Corinthians that "God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. …

"Which things also we speak, non in the words which homo'due south wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:10, xiii–xiv).

In modernistic revelation, Christ spoke of "the light which shineth, which giveth you calorie-free [and] enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings" (D&C 88:11).

I do non know how to teach about the Spirit of Christ except to follow what the Lord did when He taught invisible, intangible truths to His disciples.

To describe the Light of Christ, I will compare or liken it to the light of the sun. Sunlight is familiar to everyone; it is everywhere nowadays and tin be seen and tin can exist felt. Life itself depends upon sunlight.

The Lite of Christ is like sunlight. It, too, is everywhere present and given to everyone equally.

Just every bit darkness must vanish when the calorie-free of the sun appears, so is evil sent fleeing by the Light of Christ.

In that location is no darkness in sunlight. Darkness is bailiwick unto it. The sun can exist hidden past clouds or by the rotation of the earth, but the clouds volition disappear, and the earth volition complete its turning.

According to the plan, nosotros are told that "it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things" (2 Ne. 2:11).

Mormon warned that "the devil … persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.

"[At present] seeing that ye know the light by which ye may gauge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully" (Moro. 7:17–18).

This Lite of Christ, which gives life, is inside you. The evil one volition attempt to obscure it. It can be and then clouded with confusion and so far every bit to convince you that it does not even be.

Just as sunlight is a natural disinfectant, the Spirit of Christ can cleanse the spirit.

Every soul, no matter who or where or when, is a child of God. Our responsibility is to teach that "there is a spirit in homo: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding" (Job 32:eight).

President Joseph Fielding Smith spoke of the teachings of the Holy Ghost and of the Spirit of Christ: "Every man can receive a manifestation of the Holy Ghost, even when he is out of the Church, if he is earnestly seeking for the low-cal and for the truth. The Holy Ghost will come up and give the man the testimony he is seeking, then withdraw; and the man does not have a claim upon another visit or constant visits and manifestations from him. He may have the constant guidance of that other Spirit, the Spirit of Christ."ⁱⁱⁱ

The Spirit of Christ is always there. It never leaves. It cannot leave.

Anybody everywhere already has the Spirit of Christ, and while the Spirit of the Holy Ghost tin visit anyone, the gift of the Holy Ghost is obtained "past obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel" (A of F one:3), by submitting to "baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; [and the] laying on of easily for the gift of the Holy Ghost" (A of F 1:4). It is not automatically present like the Spirit of Christ is present. This gift must exist conferred by 1 holding dominance (run into A of F 1:five).

That is what nosotros are commissioned to do, to foster the Light of Christ, which is within every soul we run into, and bring souls to the point where the Holy Ghost may visit them. And then, in due time, they tin receive, through the ordinance, the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is conferred upon every member of the Church.

Once a person has received that gift of the Holy Ghost and tin cultivate it together with the Light of Christ, which they already have, so the fulness of the gospel is open up to their understanding. The Holy Ghost can fifty-fifty work through the Low-cal of Christ.⁴

The Low-cal of Christ is as universal as sunlight itself. Wherever there is man life, at that place is the Spirit of Christ. Every living soul is possessed of it. It is the sponsor of everything that is good. It is the inspirer of everything that will bless and benefit mankind. Information technology nourishes goodness itself.

Mormon taught: "Search diligently in the low-cal of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay concord upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a kid of Christ" (Moro. 7:19).

Anybody knows virtually sunlight. When you liken the Spirit of Christ to sunlight, ordinary examples from your ain experiences may come to your mind. These examples are almost endless. These examples can be understood by little children or by adults, as the parables of Christ can exist understood. It should not be difficult to teach how revelation can come through Lite, even though we do not know exactly how inspiration works.

Man himself, with all his limitations, tin convey messages through fiber-optic cables. A single tiny fiber of drinking glass, smaller than a human hair, tin can carry 40,000 messages at the same time. These tin can then be decoded and turned into sight and sound and color, fifty-fifty motion. Man tin can practise that.

A laser beam, where there is no wire or fiber at all, can carry 100 billion bits of information in a second.

If man can practise that, why should we marvel at the promise that the Light of Christ is in all of us and that the Holy Ghost can visit any of us?

It should not exist difficult, therefore, to sympathize how revelation from God to His children on earth tin come to all mankind through both the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Ghost.

This Low-cal of Christ is everywhere in the scriptures. The Doctrine and Covenants is a very rich source of education on the Light of Christ. For example, it speaks of "the light of truth; which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. … He is in the dominicus, and the lite of the lord's day, and the ability thereof past which it was made" (D&C 88:6–7).

Ordinary teachers responsible to teach the doctrines and to show of spiritual things have within their own personal experience everyday things which can be likened unto things which are spiritual.

And so the Light of Christ tin can exist ignited past the Spirit of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. We are told that so "the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will ship in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John 14:26).

President Harold B. Lee explained: "That light never entirely goes out … [speaking of the Light of Christ] unless we commit the unpardonable sin. Its glow may be and then dim that nosotros can hardly perceive it, but information technology is there for us to fan into a flame that shall burn brighter with understanding and with knowledge. Except for that, we wouldn't be able to attain. Our missionary piece of work would come to null."⁵

If we understand the reality of the Light of Christ in everyone nosotros meet and in every coming together we nourish and inside ourselves, and understand the great claiming that we accept—the surroundings in which we live, the danger which sometimes besets us—we will have courage and inspiration beyond that which we accept known heretofore. And it must be so! And it will be then! All of this is a dimension of gospel truth that too few understand.

May you prayerfully and diligently endeavor to embrace the meaning of these principles, and then begin to utilize them. Equally yous do, and so follows the testimony that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true, that the Restoration of the gospel is a reality, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is "the just true and living church upon the face of the whole earth" (D&C 1:30). Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the But Begotten of the Father. And from Him emanates the Light of Christ to all mankind.

May you who are called every bit missionaries or teachers and you lot who are parents "feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell yous all things what ye should do" (2 Ne. 32:3). In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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Source: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2005/04/the-light-of-christ?lang=eng

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