My God and your God

Last month our mission President challenged each of the missionaries to read the Book of Mormon from beginning to end by Dec. 31, 2016.  Our purpose is to look for and underline any reference to Christ or the atonement.  We are to record all the names used to describe Christ.   I began by recording the names in the front blank page of my Book of Mormon. In a matter of a few short chapters I realized there wouldn’t be enough room there, so I began recording them on an additional piece of paper. 

 

I have read the Book of Mormon many times and yet I am amazed how many times our Savior is referred to in the Book of Mormon!  I have read as far as Alma 34 and have found only three pages without a specific reference to Him! 

When I got to 2 Nephi 10:3 I found the first use of the name “Christ” to refer to our Savior.  At that point I became interested in recording not only the names used but the reference where the name was used for the first time in the Book of Mormon. 

I began to do a little research and discovered that others had had the same curiosity. There are over 100 different name-titles for the Savior in the Book of Mormon.  John W. Welch [“Ten Testimonies of Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon” in Doctrines of the Book of Mormon , ed. Bruce A. Van Orden and Brent L. Top, Deseret Book, 1992] wrote “Of these 

names…many were used exclusively by one author, while others were used almost universally.”

 On a website dedicated to building faith in Jesus Christ through the Book of Mormon, bookofmormoncentral.org, I read “The writings of major Book of Mormon prophets reflect a personalized understanding and testimony of Jesus Christ.  This is evident in part by the unique names that they used to describe him……Lehi is the only author who refers to Christ as “a prophet”, while his son Nephi alone uses the name “Beloved Son”…….It may be that Lehi’s calling as a prophet allowed him to identify personally with Christ on that level and that Nephi’s position as a “beloved son” of Lehi helped him to readily understand Christ’s sonship.”

As I have pondered these thoughts and the names on this list I have made, I am profoundly moved by two thoughts.  Enoch says in Moses 6:43 “The Lord which spake with me, the same is the God of heaven, and he is my God and your God.”  First, the names I have listed as I have read testify so beautifully of the universality of the Savior’s atonement and love for all of mankind everywhere.  Second, at the same time, our personal experiences in mortality, our circumstances and our learning and growth in the gospel allow us to have a personal, unique relationship with the Savior.  He knows, loves, and will succor each of us in a very individual, intimate way.  I add my testimony to that of the Book of Mormon that the Savior is the God of all mankind and is my God and your God, in His name, Amen.