Chapter 10 

Noah-His Sacrifice-God's Covenant with Him-Melchizedek-His Priesthood-Its Powers-Instances thereof Recorded in the Bible, in the Book of Mormon and in Latter-days-All Power of the Priesthood the Result of Faith in Christ and Impossible without the Atonement-The Power of the Priesthood the Power of God-The Glory of God in the Immortality of Man-Christ the Word, the Creator.     

After the waters of the flood had subsided, we are told, Noah and his family came forth out of the ark:     

"And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour: and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease."-Gen., viii, 20-22.     

The details of this act are given us somewhat differently in the inspired translation: it is there written:     

"And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar; and gave thanks unto the Lord, and rejoiced in his heart. And the Lord spake unto Noah, and he blessed him. And Noah smelt a sweet savour, and he said in his heart, I will call on the name of the Lord, that he will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; and that he will not smite any more every thing living, as he hath done, while the earth remaineth; and that seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night may not cease with man."     

Thus, we discover that the first act after the destruction of the world by a flood was a recognition of the great expiatory principle of the atonement, which was to be made by the Only Begotten Son of God, as revealed by the angel to Adam. And as God recognized Adam's and Abel's offerings, so He also recognized that of Noah: and as a result, the Patriarch obtained great promises, in which the people of all ages, then to come, would be interested. For "God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I will establish my covenant with you, which I made unto your father Enoch, concerning your seed after you. And it shall come to pass, that every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, and of the cattle, and of the beast of the earth that is with you, which shall go out of the ark, shall not altogether perish: neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you, which I made unto Enoch, concerning the remnants of your posterity. And God made a covenant with Noah, and said, This shall be the token of the covenant I make between me and you, and for every living creature with you, for perpetual generations, I will set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember my covenant, which I have made between me and you, for every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant, which I made unto thy father Enoch; that, when men should keep all my commandments, Zion should again come on the earth, the city of Enoch, which I have caught up unto myself. And this is mine everlasting covenant, that when thy posterity shall embrace the truth, and look upward, then shall Zion look downward, and all the heavens shall shake with gladness, and the earth shall tremble with joy; and the general assembly of the Church of the First-born shall come down out of heaven and possess the earth, and shall have place until the end come. And this is mine everlasting covenant, which I made with thy father Enoch. And the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will establish my covenant unto thee, which I have made between me and thee, for every living creature of all flesh that shall be upon the earth."-Inspired Translation, Gen., ix, 15-24.     

We will now turn to Melchizedek, of whom it is written in King James' translation:     

"And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all."-Gen., xiv, 18-20.     

This passage is given with greater completeness in the inspired translation, where it appears as follows: "And Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; and he brake bread and blessed it; and he blessed the wine, he being the priest of the Most High God; and he gave to Abram, and he blessed him, and said, Blessed Abram, thou art a man of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and of earth; and blessed is the name of the Most High God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand. And Abram gave him tithes of all he had taken."     

In this action of Melchizedek, in administering the bread and wine, by virtue of his priestly office, is there not a representation of the body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as also indicated by the Messiah Himself when He partook of the passover with His disciples? For Melchizedek was a great High Priest, of the same order and like Priesthood as was held by the Son of God. So great, indeed, that "before his day it was called the Holy Priesthood, after the order of the Son of God; but out of respect or reverence to the name of the Supreme Being, to avoid the too frequent repetition of his name, they, the church, in ancient days, called that Priesthood after Melchizedek, or the Melchizedek Priesthood."-Doc. and Cov., Sec. 107, Par. 3, 4, p. 383.     

Paul, also, in reasoning on this subject in his epistle to the Hebrews, chapter vii, writes:      

"For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace; without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham: but he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises. And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better."     

To make the matter still plainer we transcribe the third verse from the inspired translation:     

"For this Melchizedek was ordained a priest after the order of the Son of God, which order was without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life. And all those who are ordained unto this priesthood are made like unto the Son of God, abiding a priest continually."     

In Genesis, inspired translation, chapter xiv, it is also stated regarding Melchizedek:     

"Thus, having been approved of God, he was ordained an high priest after the order of the covenant which God made with Enoch, it being after the order of the Son of God; which order came, not by man, nor the will of man; neither by father, nor mother; neither by beginning of days, nor end of years; but of God. And it was delivered unto men by the calling of his own voice, according to his own will, unto as many as believed on his name. For God having sworn unto Enoch and unto his seed with an oath by himself, that every one being ordained after this order and calling should have power, by faith, to break mountains, to divide the seas, to dry up waters, to turn them out of their course, to put at defiance the armies of nations, to divide the earth, to break every band, to stand in the presence of God; to do all things according to his will, according to his command, subdue principalities and powers; and this by the will of the Son of God, which was from before the foundation of the world. And men having this faith, coming up unto this order of God, were translated and taken up into heaven. And now, Melchizedek was a priest of this order; therefore he obtained peace in Salem, and was called the Prince of peace, and his people wrought righteousness, and obtained heaven, and sought for the city of Enoch which God had before taken; separating it from the earth, having reserved it unto the latter-days, or the end of the world, and hath said, and sworn with an oath, that the heavens and the earth should come together; and the sons of God should be tried so as by fire. And this Melchizedek, having thus established righteousness, was called the king of heaven by his people, or, in other words, the King of peace."     

From the above it would seem that this people possessed the power of Translation, and that they "obtained heaven, and sought for the city of Enoch which God had before taken," or which was before translated.     

The principle of power also over the varied creations of God, above spoken of, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood after the order of the Son of God, has, by faith, been manifested to the world in the lives and actions of numbers of the servants of the Most High. The power of Enoch, wherein he caused the earth to tremble, whilst mountains fled at his command, and rivers were turned out of their course, has already been referred to. By this power, exercised in mighty faith, Melchizedek stopped the mouths of lions and quenched the violence of fire; by it the waters of the Red Sea were divided by Moses, and the children of Israel passed through dry shod; by it Elijah and Elisha smote the waters of the Jordan and crossed on dry land; by it Daniel escaped the ferocity of the lions, and the three Hebrew children were delivered from the fiery furnace.     

By this same power in the Messianic dispensation the Apostles were delivered from bonds and imprisonment; by it Paul shook off the viper that had fastened upon his hand; by it Philip was caught away by the Spirit of the Lord after he had baptized the Ethiopean eunuch; by it John was preserved when he was cast into a cauldron of boiling oil, that it did not hurt him; by it the dead were raised, the lepers cleansed, the sick healed, devils cast out, and other mighty works performed by Jesus and His disciples; and by it Christ broke the bands of death and became the resurrection and the life, the first fruits of them that slept, the conqueror of death, the Savior of the world and Redeemer of mankind.     

Again, on this continent, one of the Nephite Prophets, Jacob, the son of Lehi, records: "We truly can command in the name of Jesus, and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea." (Jacob, iv, 6,). By faith the brother of Jared, who held this power, said unto the mountain Zerin, Remove; and it was removed; by it Alma and Amulek caused the walls of the prison in Ammonihah to tumble to the ground; by it Nephi and Lehi wrought the surpassing change upon the Lamanites that they were baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost; by it Ammon and his brethren wrought so great a miracle in the conversion of the Lamanites; and by it also the disciples of Jesus who tarried amongst the Nephites showed forth the power spoken of in the following passage:     

"Therefore they did exercise power and authority over the disciples of Jesus who did tarry with them, and they did cast them into prison: but by the power of the word of God, which was in them, the prisons were rent in twain, and they went forth doing mighty miracles among them. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding all these miracles, the people did harden their hearts, and did seek to kill them, even as the Jews at Jerusalem sought to kill Jesus, according to his word; and they did cast them into furnaces of fire, and they came forth receiving no harm; and they also cast them into dens of wild beasts, and they did play with the wild beasts even as a child with a lamb; and they did come forth from among them, receiving no harm."-4 Nephi, i, 30-33.     

This same power has also been abundantly manifested in these latter days in the midst of the Saints of God, in deliverances from evil, in escapes from enemies, in the quelling of mobs, in the stilling of the angry waves of the sea, in the healing of the sick, in the casting out of unclean spirits, and in many other miraculous manifestations of the power and goodness of God, and of the authority with which He has invested His servants who are endowed and clothed upon with the Priesthood, which is endless and after the order of the Son of God.     

Thus, through the atonement of Jesus, and the salvation and redemption brought about by that atonement these wonderful manifestations and deliverances have been accomplished by faith in God; and the Priesthood being after the order of the Son of God, and proceeding from Him, through the atonement, those who held this Priesthood possessed, according to their faith, the above mentioned powers; and without that atonement this power never could have existed, for men without that sacrifice could not have been brought into that relationship to God, by which they would have the right, the power and authority to act in His name, or to be His representatives to fallen humanity.     

In fact, the power manifested by the Priesthood is simply the power of God, for He is the head of the Priesthood, with Jesus as our President and great High Priest; and it is upon this principle that all the works of God have been accomplished, whether on the earth or in the heavens; and any manifestation of power through the Priesthood on the earth is simply a delegated power from the Priesthood in the heavens, and the more the Priesthood on the earth becomes assimilated with and subject to the Priesthood in the heavens the more of this power shall we possess. Hence Paul, in speaking on this subject, says:     

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."-Heb., xi, 3.     

The work of God and the glory of God is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man; as it is written: "For this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Pearl of Great Price.) The creation of man and the multiplication of man was one thing, the immortality and eternal life of man and his exaltation is another thing; and in the organization of the world, and in the calculations of the Almighty pertaining to this immortality and eternal life, it would seem that it was decreed that the Only Begotten Son was provided for the purpose of accomplishing this object; and hence Christ was the Lamb slain, according to the eternal purposes of God, before the foundation of the world.     

In relation to the creation of the worlds, as above referred to by Paul, John, in the commencement of his Gospel, somewhat after the manner of a preface or introduction, writes: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God, All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (John, i, 1-5.) Or to give the passage, in the wording of the inspired translation: "In the beginning was the Gospel preached through the Son. And the Gospel was the word, and the word was with the Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was of God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made which was made. In him was the Gospel, and the Gospel was the life, and the life was the light of men; and the light shineth in the world, and the world perceiveth it not." From the testimony of John, as given in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, we also extract the following:     

"And he bore record, saying, I saw his glory that he was in the beginning before the world was; therefore in the beginning the Word was, for he was the Word, even the messenger of salvation, the light and the Redeemer of the world; the Spirit of truth, who came into the world, because the world was made by him, and in him was the life of men and the light of men. The worlds were made by him: men were made by him: all things were made by him, and through him, and of him. And I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory, as the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the Spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh, and dwelt among us."-Sec. xciii, 7-11, p. 329.     

Paul, likewise, in his Epistles, more than once directs attention to this great truth. In writing to the Colossians he says:     

"For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist."-Col., i, 16, 17.     

And to the Hebrews he writes, that God "hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.-Heb., i, 2, 3.     

God revealed these things unto Moses; but his words in relation thereto are among the precious things that have been taken from the Scriptures by the iniquity of man; amongst those restored to us by modern revelation are the following words of God to that Patriarch with regard to the creation:     

"And by the word of my power have I created them, which is mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth. And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them which is mine Only Begotten. And the first man of all men have I called Adam, which is many. But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds which have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many also which now stand, and numberless are they unto man, but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them."-Pearl of Great Price.     

Footnotes     

1. Inspired Trans. Gen., xiv, 26.     
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2. Exodus, xiv, 21.     

3. 2 Kings, ii, 7, 8.     

4. 2 Kings, ii, 14.     

5. Daniel, vi, 16-23.     

6. Daniel, iii, 19-27.     

7. Acts, xxviii, 3-6.     

8. Acts, viii, 39.     

9. Ether, xii, 30.     

10. Alma, xiv, 26-29.     

11. Helaman, v, 43-49.     

12. Alma, xvii-xxvii.