ERIC D. HUNTSMAN: Matthew 24 is the most fulsome account we have of what’s called the “Mount of Olives discourse,” where Jesus talks to His disciples about the pending destruction of Jerusalem and His eventual return.

I think the timing of this discourse is very important to His disciples. He needed to prepare them somehow. All of their messianic expectations were about to be dashed. Many of them may still have been clinging to the contemporary view that the Messiah was going to be a political and military deliverer. What He knew was in a few days He would be dead and in a tomb, and His disciples would be very, very confused. So I think it was very important that He let them know that the glorious restoration of Israel and a time when He would actually rule and reign as king would happen, but that it was not now.

RICHARD D. DRAPER: He does not give them a date, but rather He gives them a series of circumstances. Therefore the Second Coming is tied more to occurrence than it is to actual dates: when you see these things, then know that I am at the door. Verse 6: “And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled” (Matthew 24:6). It’s interesting. What the Lord is saying is, wars are going to continue. They’re just simply endemic; it’s part of the ugly history of humankind, and don’t expect them to lighten up in the last days. In fact the Lord will say they’re going to get worse. They’re going to get meaner, they’re going to get uglier, they’re going to get more broad. But keep your faith up because I’m still in charge.

Verse 14: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then the end will come.” It doesn’t say that we’re going to have any conversions in those nations. Conversion is not necessary. Nonetheless the gospel must be preached with sufficient force; only then will the Lord come.

ERIC D. HUNTSMAN: One of the things that makes Matthew 24, this account of the Mount of Olives discourse, so much more extensive that the Markan or Lukan versions, is that these prophecies that all three share in common are followed by specific teachings in the Gospel of Matthew. I like to call them “parables of watchfulness.” And I love this verse 27: “As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall the coming of the Son of man be.” The image is that when lightning flashes so brightly on one side of the sky that you see it all the way across, that’s how public the final return of Jesus will be.

JOHN TANNER: It’s at this moment of greatest distress for the followers of righteousness, when all seems to be lost, that one of Jesus’ own prophecies of His coming in glory will be fulfilled, the one in Matthew 24.

GAYE STRATHEARN: Yeah. “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30).

KENT BROWN: In this connection—and the sight will appear somewhere on the Mount of Olives—even the touch of His foot will rend the mount asunder. As you know, Jesus first comes to Bethlehem in obscurity. This time no one will miss Him. As John reminds us, “every eye shall see him” (Revelation 1:7).

RICHARD DRAPER: No man knoweth the day or the hour. But Paul is onto something, right, Paul knows that somebody may not know the day or the hour, but he says to the Thessalonian saints, Ye are not the children of darkness, you are the children of light, and therefore you be prepared to the day, for it will not overtake you as a thief (see 1 Thessalonians 5:4–5). And then Joseph Smith, or the Lord, picks up on that in Section 106. He says to the Latter-day Saints, you be the children of light, and I promise you that day will not overtake you as a thief (Doctrine and Covenants 106:5).

Amos 3:7: The Lord God will do nothing but what he reveals his secrets to the servants the prophets. And that being the case, then we can be assured that the saints will not be taken unawares, that the Lord’s going to tell his prophet, the Lord is going to tell his saints.

However. It is obvious through those parables that the one thing that the Lord does want to stress is that when we know the day or the hour, it’s going to be too late to prepare. The parable of the ten virgins; the cry to come, the bridegroom’s on his way. And what happens, either we’ve got our lamps full of oil, or we don’t. And if our lamps are not full of oil, we are not going to be prepared for the day.

GAYE STRATHEARN: Any who study the signs of Jesus’ Second Coming understand that along with the preaching of the gospel to all nations, along with the gathering of Israel, there will also be a gathering of armies that fight against believers. The scriptures indicate that this battle culminates with armies amassing here at the Hill of Megiddo for the Battle of Armageddon.

ROGER KELLER: This final battle appears to be a worldwide battle between good and evil. It is a religious battle, but it’s not going to be religious between various religious sects or that sort of thing. It will be much like the final battle that those at Qumran envisioned between the forces of God and the forces of evil, where God would ultimately conquer.

ALISON COUTTS: In Zechariah, there’s this fourfold attack on the children of Israel. There’s the capture, plunder, the ravishing of women, and the exile of 50 percent of whoever’s left after all the destruction. And this is a metaphor for how it will be in, in this last great battle. This will be a war of souls as well as a war—a physical war.

ROGER KELLER: It will be world-encompassing. Nobody will be left out. Babylon is a symbol for everything that is negative. All of that will vanish; all of that will be destroyed. But it will be a terrible last battle that will include members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They will not be immune from the pain and suffering of that battle.

JOHN TANNER: One of the things about these apocalyptic scriptures is they can cause us to fear, and they can cause a lot of people to speculate. Sometimes I find both of those things somewhat unprofitable to my own religious worship. I think they’re given to us to help us warn us about the things that will come, and that’s a merciful thing for the Lord to do.

It’s important to know when calamities come, that these have been foreseen, that these are part of the Lord’s overall plan for this world. We don’t know tactically what’s going to happen in every battle; we don’t know all of the details. But we do know in broad terms some things that will happen in the winding up days of this dispensation.

GAYE STRATHEARN: When Jesus descends in the clouds, with fire and great glory, when His feet touch the earth again, here on the Mount of Olives where He walked thousands of years ago, then He will usher in the great and peaceful millennium.

ANDREW SKINNER: In fact with very vivid and famous language the prophet Isaiah describes the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. Here are his words: “With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: . . . And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. . . . They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:4–9).

GAYE STRATHEARN: That really is something to look forward to, isn’t it.

ANDREW SKINNER: It truly is.

SUSAN EASTON BLACK: Jesus coming in clouds of glory. The Second Coming of the Savior will be a worldwide event, long sought for by Christians since the death of Jesus Christ really. When He comes, this amazing millennial reign. Who will be with Him? The righteous, they will come with Him. Even the righteous who are still in their graves will rise up. It will be a wonderful time for the righteous. It will be a wonderful time for parents who will be able to raise children who will grow up unto salvation.

JOHN TANNER: There’s a sort of symmetry  in the way the Lord designs history, isn’t there. You begin with a paradisiacal state, and we’re movingtoward a paradisiacal state, only much more exalted, because we’re not just coming back to the beginning, we’re coming back to something even greater. We’ll come back not just as single, solitary individuals. The winding efforts, the, the work of the millennium, our work now is a family work. It’s a scene of generations; it’s a stitching of things together, and the Lord, Christ, will bring to the Father the kingdom that is a kingdom of families bound by covenants.

VIRGINIA H. PEARCE: I believe there is a sense of loneliness in every human heart, and separation, that we don’t talk very much about. But if you look at the way we behave, we’re acting to fill that loneliness. Everyone does. You know, will money make me feel less hollow, is there one person out there I can love and then I will never feel lonely again? Will my children if I have enough of them and they’re good enough, will they make me so I will never be lonely again? No. No. We are lonely animals. That is the nature of the mortal condition. Because we are separated from God. And so when we talk about the final winding up scene, I think the unfathomable part about it will be that that will be gone. That we will be back in His presence, and we will feel complete, we will feel whole, we will feel safe, we will feel part of everyone. We will all be just awash in this heavenly love of God, and the Savior. That’s what He is about, is bringing the whole human family into that circle. I think when we use the word encircled in His arms, that’s all of us together. The whole human family who confess His name and partake of that will be reunited in love in a way that we can only imagine now.

RICHARD HOLZAPFEL: It seems that God’s intended will from the beginning was this family, this eternal family, would come to earth to experience life in all its possibilities, and thus enriching their journey to become like Jesus. And Jesus as the firstborn, the preeminent Son of God, chose to fulfill the will of God, knowing that by fulfilling God’s will He was bringing about the immortality and eternal life of humans, both men and women, everyone who’s ever been born, who’s now living and who will yet live. And thus as God of the Old Testament, He announced his law, His covenant. He promised Israel their redemption. Now the ultimate fulfillment of that promise was in His own birth when He came as the Son of God, God’s unique, loving Son, and it’s through Him, through Jesus of Nazareth, that God’s love is truly manifest.

GAYE STRATHEARN: The mortal footsteps of one man from the meridian of time, even Jesus of Nazareth, were really just a continuation of steps begun in the infancy of the universe. Before the foundation of this earth was laid, God’s family put their faith in the firstborn of the Father, as the central figure in a plan designed to exalt God’s children.

JOHN TANNER: And “they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light upon them nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Revelation 7:16).

JUAN HENDERSON: Without the Savior, the plan of the Eternal God our Father in Heaven would be completely frustrated. Unless the Savior loosed the bands of death so that we can be resurrected like He is and live eternally, and without His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, which frees us if we repent from our sins. But not only that, it changes us into true disciples of Christ, where we put off the natural man. Without the Savior’s role in that, we wouldn’t even be able to stand in the presence of God. If we choose, we can follow the Savior and do the things that He’s invited us to do, and return to be with him forever and ever.

RICHARD HOLZAPFEL: His original intent was to bring us back as a family. And he chose Jesus of Nazareth, His firstborn son, the Lord God Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the resurrected Lord, to accomplish His will. And so we stand in amazement that He chose to fulfill completely and finally God’s ultimate will to bring us back into His presence, that we may worship Him. And in that is God’s love manifest, that He died for us while we were yet sinners.

KENT BROWN: Notice Jehovah in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New, the firstborn Son becomes the first fruits of the Resurrection. And because the resurrected Jesus speaks openly of His glorious return, since that time hundreds of millions have been watching for Him. Jesus the Christ will reign during a millennium of peace and proselytizing, at the end of which every soul will have received an opportunity to accept Him or reject Him as the Son of God and Savior of the world. It is then that Satan and his minions are finally cast into outer darkness, and the earth receives its celestial glory. It is then that the earthly Jesus’ words, His prayer in Galilee, is finally, completely fulfilled: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”

On the other hand, the time period that we traditionally think of as the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Medieval period, was a time when deeply religious men and deeply religious scholars were working to try and interpret and understand and articulate their theology and their faith in God in very interesting ways. And in that sense I don’t actually consider it the Dark Ages at all.

MILTON BACKMAN: The Restoration in one sense began when Joseph Smith went into a grove. He was not yet fifteen years of age. And he knelt in prayer, and he was trying to determine which church to join, because he knew he was a sinner. And he asked others, What must I do to be saved? In fact for three years he was seeking and searching, investigating, and he could not find a satisfactory answer. So he went into a grove, believing the admonition of James: “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God” (James 1:5). And he knelt down in prayer.

First thing he actually learned was that the power of evil is real and strong. He felt he was nearly destroyed. And then he was relieved, and he saw a light, a brilliant light. And in that light he saw two glorious personages. And he one time said: “Who exactly resembled each other in features and likeness” (History of the Church 4:536).

During this vision, he learned that Jesus is the Christ. That was one of the great truths unfolded, the Atonement of Jesus, that He was the Redeemer and the Savior of the world. And then he also learned at this time about the Second Coming, that Jesus was going to come. So he learned about the Second Coming, he learned a great deal about the Savior of mankind, and he learned about the reality of the apostasy, that the authority was not upon the earth, the doctrines were not upon the earth.

So this vision was just a remarkable vision which introduced to Joseph Smith and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

SUSAN EASTON BLACK: You think of young Joseph Smith, a young lad growing up in a home where his father is a farmer. He’s out there in western New York, a place called Palmyra, Manchester area. And to even indicate that the Father had appeared to him as well as the Son. Extraordinary. I don’t believe that Joseph Smith when he came out of the grove literally grasped that the Restoration was a process, and that this was the opening scene.

MICHAEL D. RHODES: There are several Old Testament prophecies that talk about speaking from the dust, things coming from the dust. And they certainly make it clear that this has reference to that coming forth of the Book of Mormon, preceding the Second Coming of Christ. “I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven” ” (Psalm 85:8, 11) And nice imagery there of revelation coming up from the ground below as well as revelation coming from on high.

PAUL Y. HOSKISSON: We realize that the Book of Mormon is one of the signs of the times. Its coming forth heralds the beginning of the latter days and the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This of course was talked about—the coming forth of the Book of Mormon—in several prophesies in the Old Testament.

Verse 4: “And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust” (Isaiah 29:4).

The Hebrew here also has another meaning here, that I think is really quite important. When we look back in the Old Testament to the Hebrew word behind this familiar spirit, ov, it’s talking about a spirit that is speaking from the dead. Certainly the Book of Mormon has a familiar spirit. When you read it for the first time it’s familiar. It’s something that you recognize. And I think that’s true both of our Bible and our Book of Mormon. These are the ancient prophets who’ve long been dead and who have been buried, who are speaking to us from the earth, out of the dust.

JOHN TANNER: It’s significant that the very last words that Jesus speaks here on the Mount of Olives to his disciples prior to his ascending to heaven prophesy of the sign that shall occur before he comes again in great glory: Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

This is like a prophecy he gives prior to his crucifixion: For “the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations” (Matthew 24:14). Not until He comes again will this come to pass.

MICHAEL RHODES: v’daber alechem komar adonai yahweh hinneh ani loqeha et baneh yisra’el miben hagvoyim asher halekusam v’qibas’ti otam misaviv v’habeti votam el ad’matam: v’asiti otam l’gvoy ehad…. “Say to them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will take the children of Israel from the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them together from those nations, and bring them to their own land. And I will make them one people” (Ezekiel 37:22). Fulfilled beautifully as we see the gospel of Jesus Christ preached throughout the world, primarily using the Book of Mormon as a tool to gather together scattered Israel from all over the world.

“Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand”(Ezekiel 37:16–17).

KERRY MUHLESTEIN: Ezekiel 37 is wonderful because of its prophecies about the coming forth of the stick of Judah and the stick of Joseph. As Latter-day Saints sometimes I think we read this a little bit simplistically, and we do ourselves a disservice when we talk to our Christian friends and our Jewish friends about it with a simplistic understanding. Because if you read the context, and you read it carefully and understand what it’s about, it’s primarily about tribes. We like to think about the sticks as being sticks that they rolled scrolls around. And I think that there is something to that, but the primary meaning is that the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Joseph, who have characteristically throughout their history been at war as the kingdom of the south and the kingdom in the north, or the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel—or at least there’s been tension between them—that as the Second Coming comes about, they will come together.

And so when he talks about the sticks coming together, he’s primarily talking about these two tribes coming together. And yet in the midst of that there’s this wonderful little second meaning. And so many prophecies, especially people like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel intend a double meaning to their prophecies. The second meaning is the instrument that will bring about the two tribes coming together.

PAUL HOSKISSON: There were several writing systems that were current at the time. They could write on parchment, they could write on vellum. The Babylonians wrote on clay. And they also had what are later called a diptych, that is a wooden board that has a depression in it, and it’s filled with wax, and then you could take notes on it. It was really something to take notes on. And when you’ve taken your notes and finally transferred it to something more permanent, you just smooth out the wax, and you could use it over and over and over again. And he’s talking about, take two of these tablets that you have to write on and, and let’s write down something. Let’s take one of them for Joseph—for Ephraim, and one of them for Judah. And we know that those are referring then of course to the Old Testament and probably the New Testament coming from the house of Judah, and the Book of Mormon coming from the house of Ephraim. And it’s a very remarkable prophecy that he makes there. Of course what the Book of Mormon is supposed to do, as it continues there in chapter 37, when it comes forth, it’s supposed to unite the two houses, it’s supposed to bring them together with correct doctrine and correct understanding, and knowing who Jesus Christ was and the Messiah.

ANDREW SKINNER: Speaking of a latter day gathering of Israel, the prophet Jeremiah said in the name of the Lord God Israel: “Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them, . . . and I will bring them here again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely: . .  And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, . . . and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul” (Jeremiah 32:37–41). This prophetic statement conveys the idea not only of a spiritual gathering, but also of a literal physical gathering to this land that was promised by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob long ago.

CAMILLE FRONK OLSON: To me the gathering of Israel, and the promise, and how important that is to the Lord, all comes back to the great Abrahamic covenant. In that covenant the Lord promised Abraham that through his children, Abraham’s children, all the families of the earth would be blessed, would be taught the gospel. And those who would believe in that gospel would be brought into that covenant. That promise of the Abrahamic covenant is the thread that weaves all through all the Gospels, all these books of scripture, every dispensation. And the reminder is that once you know that you are a child of Abraham, that you have come into that covenant, there’s that remarkable responsibility and opportunity that Jeremiah prophesied, that he would take fishers and send them out to fish the men and women of the world. The whole idea that once we know we are a son or daughter of Abraham, is that remarkable opportunity to go out and help others come to find it. That grafting into the tree, Jesus Christ, the tree of life in Lehi’s dream, that grafting in, coming to Christ, and being sealed to him, being part of his family is the promise of the gathering of Israel. He has not forgotten his children. As Isaiah talked of him that He has engraven us in the palms of his hand. He will not forget us. And the gathering is a powerful evidence that that covenant is real.

ANDREW SKINNER: When I came years ago to the city of Jerusalem, it was in the process of being reconstructed. It’s not nearly the way that it is now. And I was walking through one of the plazas in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, and I saw older men walking with hands behind their backs, women pushing babies in carriages, and children playing in the plaza. And I thought of this particular passage: “Thus saith the Lord; I am returned to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of Hosts the holy mountain. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof” (Zechariah 8:3–5). And I am quite sure that after the destruction of the first temple in 586 B.C. and the destruction of the second temple in 70 A.D., and even with the challenges that were thrust upon the newly established state of Israel in 1948, no one could have ever predicted so accurately what the Lord would bring about in His own due time, and He has, and I’ve seen that.

And I learned a valuable lesson. You’re always better off to trust in the promises of the Lord than to put your faith in secular scholarship. Because scholarship couldn’t have predicted what we literally see unfolding before our very eyes right now.

NOEL B. REYNOLDS: The gathering has both a literal and a spiritual dimension to it. And certainly the Jewish view of it has pretty much always been focused on the literal gathering of those who are of the blood of Israel. It is the case that because of this literal understanding, that throughout history people throughout the world have been acquainted with the idea that God can have covenants with people on earth which He will fulfill.

CAMILLE FRONK OLSON: “And then shall the remnants, which shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth, be gathered in from the east and from the west, and from the south and from the north; and they shall be brought to the knowledge of the Lord their God. And the Father hath commanded me that I should give you this land, for your inheritance” (3 Nephi 20:13–14)—so telling of another promised land and another inheritance. And then it goes on to tell them that as the seed of Abraham, that the Father has raised me up to you first and sent me to bless you in turning every one of you from your iniquities, that then you can go out and bring others.

President Kimball made reference to that as he talked about those who come to Christ in the land of Mexico. Mexico will become a land of inheritance for them. And those in Sweden will make the land of inheritance Sweden. Suggesting again, wherever there are God’s people who have made the covenant, wherever a temple can be built, we have a land of inheritance, we have a powerful reminder of God’s presence, where He will teach, protect, and direct them to receive the fullness of the gospel.

NOEL REYNOLDS: In the final analysis, this is about the beliefs and the faith of individuals. And so we see that all the gathering images finally come down to this point: that for every human being, the question is, will they repent, and will they believe in the Holy One of Israel? And if they will, they will be gathered in.

KENT BROWN: These gates, now blocked up, on holidays and at times of prayer would have filled with worshipers coming in and out. They would come out these gates, step on to these steps, which are still original. And they would have come down past the man born blind. For it’s here that Jesus finds this man and heals him. You remember the story, that He takes mud and anoints his eyes, sends him down the hill to the Pool of Siloam, and he comes back seeing.

I believe that this miracle contrasts with the prior miracle in John’s Gospel, wherein Jesus heals a man on the other side of the temple grounds who’s been ill for 38 years. That man rejected him; this man, born blind, accepted him.

I think that’s the conundrum that faces everyone of course. How do I respond to this Jesus? And that will be the case until the Second Coming.

Go to Episode 7, Part 3.

As their resurrected Master ascends into heaven, the apostles are left with an angelic assurance that He will return in glory. The promise of the triumphant return of Jesus Christ resonates throughout the early Christian world, and prompts the ancient hymnist to declare, “Speak to me, Lord and Friend, and reveal to me, Son of the Most Beloved, the time of your coming, when you will appear at the end” (Hymn on the Second Coming of Jesus). Though some question the reality of a literal Second Coming, LDS scholars find in ancient and modern revelation the confirmation of Christ’s glorious return, and of the establishment of His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

KENT BROWN: The Mount of Olives. What a significant place for biblical history. So many important events have occurred here. Towering above the east side of Jerusalem, it has been the scene for a number of important historical events.

ANDREW SKINNER: To this mountain King David fled from his rebellious son Absalom.

KENT BROWN: Yes. And from here, the prophet Zachariah proclaims the Messiah.

ANDREW SKINNER: And of course the New Testament tells us that this mountain became a refuge as well as a place of instruction for Jesus and the disciples.

KENT BROWN: Jesus in fact teaches His parable of the virgins from here, and from somewhere above us, He looks out over the city and weeps.

ANDREW SKINNER: And of course on that fateful evening after the Last Supper, Luke records that Jesus came out, as He was wont, and came the Mount of Olives and His disciples followed him.

KENT BROWN: It seems only fitting that the resurrected Jesus, after spending forty days with His disciples teaching them, ascends to His Father from here.

ANDREW SKINNER: And I think that the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ from this mountain then is the fulfillment all of the sacred and secular history that occurred here.

DANIEL PETERSON: At the conclusion of His forty-day ministry, Jesus took His disciples to the Mount of Olives, just outside and overlooking Jerusalem. And there He spoke to them for the last time, to equip them for what they would face. I don’t think they had any idea really what they would face.

One of the questions that was on their minds at that point was: would He restore the kingdom to Israel at that time? They thought possibly this was the fulfillment of their messianic hopes, the Second Coming they’d heard about. He’d died, He’d resurrected, He was back; maybe this was it—the kingdom was going to be restored to Israel.

ROGER KELLER: The apostles believed that the coming of the kingdom, because of Jesus’ Resurrection, was imminent. There were basically three signs that the Jews looked for, for the coming of the new age. One was the resurrection of the dead, which had clearly happened in Jesus and also others. The second was the coming of the Messiah. And the third was the return of the Spirit. Now in the book of Acts, that is yet to come. But these three signs of the coming of the new age are clearly here. And so it was perfectly legitimate for a Jewish audience to wonder about the nearness of that near age—new age that they had been expecting.

DANIEL PETERSON: In fact that wasn’t to be the case. It was going to be much delayed, much more than they could have imagined. He told them that they had much to do. They would be endowed with power, they would receive the Holy Ghost, and they would preach the gospel, not only in Jerusalem and Judea, but in Samaria, and even unto the ends of the earth. They had a great deal to do, but they’d been equipped to do it now by forty days of training. At that point, He leaves them, I think quite unexpectedly. He simply ascends into the sky.

ROGER KELLER: And then as they are standing there, two men appear and say: “Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus which was taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

This statement from what had to be angelic messengers, has created an expectation that has permeated the church, the Christian community, across the last 2000 years, and raised a variety of questions about what it means for Jesus to return.

GAYE STRATHEARN:  The Old and New Testaments are replete with prophecies concerning the signs of the time. These signs must be fulfilled before the Messiah comes in His glory. For centuries, scholars and clergy alike have pored over these prophecies, trying to determine the exact date of His coming. In doing so, however, there is a thread that many have missed, a hint in the teaching that suggests a grander, more complex plan, that includes both an apostasy and a restitution. As Paul teaches the Thessalonians, who are wondering if the Second Coming is near at hand: “That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first” (2 Thessalonians 2:3).

RICHARD HOLZAPFEL: The King James Version uses the word falling away in the famous Thessalonian passage. But the Greek word there—and often translated, particularly in Romance languages as “apostasy,” which means a rebellion from within.

CECILIA M. PEEK:  The Greek term that we translate as “apostasy” comes from the word apostasia, or apostasis. And it’s a very interesting word. Stasis, the root of it, is used in classical Greek historiography to refer frequently to civil war, and it almost always describes dispute, rebellion, conflict. But what it usually implies is conflict within a Greek city/state or within a specific group.

So it seems to me that the earliest uses of the term apostasy, which are closely related to this, seem to suggest not so much pressure from outside the Christian community, as increasing misunderstanding and dispute and confusion within the Christian community.

JARED LUDLOW: Isaiah warns that people would draw near to God with their lips, but their hearts would be far from God ( see Isaiah 29:13). Amos talks about a famine of the word of God, and that people would lack that spiritual nourishment that’s necessary (see Amos 8:11).

And so as Jesus came and taught and continued the teach about some of the similar ideas, we really get a notion that it was known that there would be these problems and issues among the early Christians.

RICHARD HOLZAPFEL: The apostasy occurs really on two levels. One, the unintended consequence of the simple fact that the gospel spread so quickly, so fast, without the proper communication lines, without the ability of the apostles—the central leadership at Jerusalem— to meet together often to answer the questions that plagued the church. They just didn’t have a chance to continue meeting on the important questions. So there the apostasy occurs as a natural consequence of rapid growth without central control, and simply over time you’ve got a problem: how do you communicate?

But the second, and this is the most insidious, is the fact that Jesus and the apostles prophesied that within the flock of God there would be those who would seek preeminence, authority, power. And it seems to be these people are the ones who really break down the authority, challenge the apostles themselves, challenge those that have authority, and start to teach doctrines that are not countenanced by the Twelve.

JARED LUDLOW: And particularly in the writings of John, this becomes very clear. In 2^nd John for example, one of the issues that John addresses is the false belief that some early Christians had that Jesus did not really come in the flesh, that He only seemed or appeared to be in the flesh, a teaching that we sometimes refer to as docetism. And he says that those who believe this are deceivers and antichrists.  And in 3^rd John he also addresses the issue of authority, where some individuals within the congregation are usurping authority and not recognizing the true authority of others.

CECILIA PEEK: I mean there’s a very interesting reference in one of John’s letters, where he addresses a congregation of Christians, and says—he refers to them as not having been willing to receive him. And John was quite certainly the senior apostle by that time. So it suggests certainly the idea of falling away, but it’s not a kind of slipping casually away, it’s an act of rebellion away, and it probably began—the Greek at least implies that it begins—in a kind of intra-church conflict.

NOEL B. REYNOLDS: Paul’s letters and other letters mention—I’ve counted just informally twenty-four different occasions when the writer of the letter, one of the apostles, accuses a branch of the church of apostasy, and for quite egregious things in many of these cases. Only once do these New Testament letters record that the branch or the members so accused repented and changed their ways. In fact Paul and the other apostles saw very, very bad things happening. Paul tells us at one point: All Asia has turned against me.  By that he means the churches there in what we would call Turkey, many of which were the leading early churches from the first missions. I think these are serious things that we often overlook as we read the scriptures. We don’t see the import of this, for the kind of apostasy that’s taking place, right in the 1^st century.

KENT BROWN: A 2^nd century Christian historian, Hegesippus by name, seems to describe the unfolding apostasy when he writes about the church in Jerusalem. “They used to call her a virgin for she had not yet been corrupted by vain teachings. But Thebouthis, because he was not made bishop of Jerusalem, began secretly to corrupt her. From these sprang false Christs, false prophets, false apostles, those who divided the unity of the church by speaking injurious words against God and against his Christ.” As Hegesippus and others seemed to grasp, twilight has passed, and the dark night of apostasy is upon them.

RICHARD HOLZAPFEL: We have the biblical texts, the New Testament texts, living out in the story of the apostles and the prophets during the 1^st century, and then those decades, those years just right after them, shortly after the apostles, shortly after Peter and Paul, a number of texts—for example the Shepherd of Hermes, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocrypha of James. These texts also tell us about discussions going on. And certainly they all reveal that it’s a common subject, something that’s well known, it’s discussed, it’s debated, and there’s also insights. For example, in James, about the idea that the spirit of revelation, the spirit of prophecy, is dying out in the church. We have a bunch of current literature—a series of types of books that are not canonical but contain some historical bedrock to help us understand what was the discussion, and one of the discussions was, what is going to happen to the church.

ALISON COUTTS: One of the Nag Hammadi scrolls is called the Apocalypse of Peter. And this talks about the apostasy in general. And it says poignantly, “For many will accept our teaching in the beginning, and they will turn from them again, by the will of the father of their error, because they had done what he wanted. And he will reveal them in his judgment. But those who became mingled with these shall become their prisoners, since they are without perception.” He talks in the Apocalypse of Peter about people, people being blind and deaf. And I think that is a direct reference to the apostasy.

DANIEL PETERSON: Discussions and disputes and controversies over the nature of Christ and over his role in salvation, over his relationship to the Father, have continued for centuries. One of the most important events in the history of Christendom was the Council of Nicea in the year 325 A.D., in which people were debating essentially whether Christ was fully divine, or of some subordinate nature—very high, but still subordinate and of a different nature from the Father. The dispute in some ways was a dispute over only a single letter in the Greek language, the letter yota, or letter I. Was Christ homoousios—of the same substance or nature as the Father, or was he homoiousios—of a similar but different nature or substance than the Father. The ultimate resolution of the council was that Jesus was fully divine, because if He were not fully divine He could not fully save us as we were meant to be saved.

MILTON V. BACKMAN: After the death of the apostles, there was not a replacement of the church leadership. So the early Christian church no longer continued with the same organization and the same beliefs and the same authority. Even though the church was not upon the earth, the people were blessed with the light of Christ, and they were blessed with the scriptures. So He left them guidelines that would enable them, if they applied them, to inherit the kingdom in the hereafter that they desired.

ANDREW SKINNER: There were many brave souls, many men and women who recognized that Christianity was on a wrong trajectory, on a wrong path. The efforts of these early reformers, those who gave their all to reform the church, to put the scriptures in the hands of commoners, to make sure that all understood what Jesus was trying to teach and the ordinances He was trying to establish, none of that was in vain.

Martin Luther, for example, paid homage to the efforts of John Wycliffe. These were valiant souls who attempted to do what eventually burst forth in the Protestant Reformation. One of the greatest of these men, a great genius if you will, a man who was filled, in my opinion, with the Spirit of God, was William Tyndale, who made a concerted effort to take the original Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and the original Hebrew of the Old Testament, and to give us a version of the Bible that eventually evolved into what we now know as the King James Version. For his efforts, he was burned at the stake. He gave his life so that we could have this Bible.

Go to Episode 7, Part 2.

JOHN W. WELCH: He says, I was going to leave, but let’s stay and do some more. Here in Bountiful, even the lame and the blind were there. An extraordinary event, an accident if you will. They didn’t know He was going to be there. But of their own free will they had come that day, summoned to the temple, wanting to know what they should do next.    He called them forward, and had them come up, there at the temple. Now they didn’t put people’s names on a prayer roll, they had them come right to the temple, front and center, and Jesus healed them one by one (see 3 Nephi 17:5–9).

MARCUS H. MARTINS: He asked the multitude to bring their children to Him. And so the multitude opens, you know, a little circle around the Savior. They bring all their children, and they place the children at Jesus’s feet.

JOHN W. WELCH: Jesus then—and this is often overlooked—offered a very solemn prayer on behalf of the parents. And words cannot express what it was that He prayed in their behalf (see 3 Nephi 17:21).

MARCUS H. MARTINS: He prays using marvelous words, we’re told, such beautiful words, such majestic and powerful words, that the words of His prayer could not even be written.   And after that, He weeps. Which is a very interesting reaction from a resurrected being, a member of the Godhead. Here is the God of Israel, the God of the whole earth, and He is weeping. And He says it is because of the faith of the people.    And then He takes the children, blesses them one by one again, and after He finishes blessing the children, He tells the multitude to behold their little ones. And then as they do that, the heavens open, and angels come from heaven, glorified beings, and they circle the little children and minister to those children (see 3 Nephi 17:20–23).

And the multitude saw this. Mormon doesn’t tell us if they could hear what the angels were ministering to the Christ, but what we know is that two days later, on the third day of the Savior’s visit among the, the Nephites and the Lamanites, He opened the mouth of the little children. Even babies spoke, and they spoke, according to Mormon, marvelous words. And they said that it was such great words that they taught—and it’s very significant also that the children told those words to their parents, instead of to their fathers. And the words were so marvelous that they could not be written. And Mormon specifically states that even babies open their mouth (see 3 Nephi 26:16).

Now, I don’t know if they had any—it was an effect of the ministering of those angels, but it certainly shows that in the kingdom of God, children are not an afterthought. They are not second-class citizens. They are at the center of miracles and great words.   It’s a very touching scene, and it gives us a little bit of insight about what goes on in the Savior’s heart when He considers the faith and the purity of His people.

MONTE NYMAN:   This is probably one of the favorite chapters of many people as they read the Book of Mormon. It shows His love and respect for the little ones, and how we too must have love and respect for them. The enormous responsibility we have as fathers, mothers in Israel, this 17^th chapter might be an epitome of the love that Jesus has for us as His children, whom He adopts spiritually, as we learn in Mosiah 5 and 7, as His children, if we will come unto him.

JOHN W. WELCH: He had children brought to him. In the Old World and in the New. Because it is only if we become as little children that we can put off the natural man and have the atoning blood of Christ fully effective in our lives.

KENT BROWN: For those who don’t believe in a physical Resurrection, they really have to stand against this wall of witnesses that comes against them. People who say, “We saw him.” And it seems to me that it’s almost an impossible job. You really do have to be dishonest to the texts, dishonest to the records that are there in front of us.

JOHN S. TANNER: I see this as a story of growth. It’s a story of change. We see apostles who had been fearful when Jesus was arrested, but who become emboldened, and will go to the whole world.

JUAN HENDERSON: When He came, He appeared to the apostles. He told them that they were to wait for the Comforter, or the promise of the Father that would come upon them, before they would actually start their mortal ministry. And so the apostles were gathered together in the Upper Room. They heard the sound of a rushing mighty wind come upon them (see Acts 2:2). The Spirit of the Lord descended upon them, and then after that, they went out and they—Peter preached a powerful sermon on the risen Lord, and that how they all needed to repent and come unto him (see Acts 2:14–39).

JOSEPH FIELDING MCCONKIE: Every time they bear their testimony, they bear testimony to two things. One is the, the fact that Jesus was the Suffering Servant, that He had to die. They have to explain the cross. And now they’ve got confidence in that message. And the other is the reality of His Resurrection. They are competent witnesses. The whole paradigm of how you teach the gospel grows out of this.

JUAN HENDERSON: Peter and John went into the temple. And there was a man that was on the stairway there, and he was lame from birth. And he was asking alms of people that were going in. And he stood—he laid there daily. And then he asked alms of Peter, and then Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ . . . rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6). And Peter reached forth his hand, as if to know it was done, and he pulled him by the hand and pulled him up. And all of his bones in his legs and feet straighten up, and he began to leap for joy at the miracle that had been performed. You couldn’t do that unless you knew the power source that was in you at that time.

JOSEPH FIELDING MCCONKIE: So now here’s Peter, and the position he’s in is he goes out and he teaches, and he says, I testify to you that Jesus is the Christ. And these are the hands that I placed in the wounds in His side, and with which I embraced him. And I’m here to testify to you that it was real, that I embraced the resurrected Christ as I had embraced him in His ministry, and I know him. These are the hands that felt, these are the eyes that saw, and these are the ears that heard (see . And so this becomes so profound. It becomes so real. It is the power that is in their testimony. It’s the realness of it. And then this event becomes the best attested event in all of earth’s history, as far as support things are concerned.

KENT BROWN: We saw him. We saw him, and, and we touched him. We have seen him eat. We have, we have embraced him. There’s something physical and palpable and inviting in all of this, to all of us, that, that Jesus is real. He’s alive. And that’s my witness, that He is alive, that He lives today.

GAYE STRATHEARN: Paul’s words to the Corinthian saints encapsulates the renewed hope that burns in the hearts of the early disciples. In the two Marys and Salome when they discover the stone has been rolled away, in Peter and John when they rush to the tomb and find it empty, and in the hearts of millions the world over when on that morning the angel utters perhaps the most important words in all of history. “He is not here: for he is risen” (Matthew 28:6).

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, as attested by disciples in the Old World, is also confirmed by thousands of witnesses in the New World. Each testifies of the Savior’s triumph over death as they touch His wounds and are blessed, one by one, by hands still bearing the marks of the crucifixion. As the Christian world awaits His Second Coming, each of us is left to contemplate the day when we too will meet the Risen Savior—the day when every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.

Go to Episode 7.

CECILIA M. PEEK: The fact that we see their doubts, and recognize, I think, their doubts as part of the human experience of developing faith, is a critical part of the Gospel accounts. Because it indicates a kind of humility on their part, a kind of willingness to demonstrate that they struggled at times. But also suggests and hints at really the veracity of these accounts. We’re not covering things up; we’re not making this a perfectly finished and ideal representation of our belief. This is how we struggled—how we came to believe. This is how it happens. And this sounds true.

GAYE STRATHEARN: There is something special about the New Testament, as we see Jesus on a day-to-day basis. I think that there’s something important to see Him in the Mary side of Him, the somebody who is most definitely the Son of God without doubt. The passage in John where He goes out and He gives the Bread of Life Sermon, and what a great, great, sacramental discourse. And then at the end it’s got these very poignant statements. It says, And the multitudes left him. Because He wasn’t going to feed them, and so they weren’t interested in Him just teaching them. And then He turns to His apostles and He says, Will you leave me also? (See John 6:67.) And I think, what a poignant moment, right. And then Peter, bless his heart, steps up: “Lord, to whom will we go?” for “we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:68–69). But I just feel the pathos of that moment. Even the Son of God, it must have hurt Him to be disappointed, to have the people turn away when He’s given everything for them.

And again, I, I have to come back to myself. You know, if I was there on that day, how would I have responded? Would I have been one of those people who walked away, or would I have been like Peter? I hope dearly that I could have been like Peter, but I don’t really know, right. And so to place myself in that position and to read about the Pharisees and ask, are there ways that I am sometimes a Pharisee? Are there some times that I’m like Thomas? I know for 2000 years Thomas has been remembered for the “Doubting Thomas” part, but I love the passage in John 11 where he says Jesus is going to go up to Bethany, and He knows that it’s dangerous. And Thomas says, Let us go with him also, and if we need to die with him, we’ll die with him (see John 11:16). You know, that part of Thomas, that’s the part that I’d like to remember is that commitment to the Savior. And I want to be like Thomas, I want to be like Peter, I want to be like those apostles who stayed with the Lord, and had ups and downs spiritually without doubt, but ultimately they gave their lives, both living and in death, to the Savior.

“To whom also he shewed himself alive, after his passion, by many infallible proofs, being seen by them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).

KENT BROWN: Luke mentions the forty days that the disciples, the eleven, spend with Jesus. Part of that we know is spent in Galilee. We know that part of it was spent in Jerusalem. It’s right at the opening of his book of Acts. If one reads across too quickly, one misses it. But in a sense it stands at the midpoint in in his two works. He writes the Gospel of Luke, and he writes the book of Acts. And here it is almost dead center in the middle of all of this.

I see these six weeks as one of the most important training sessions, one of the most important teaching experiences that the Savior ever went through with these men. And I see this as significant for their continuing ministry, because everything now that Luke will narrate in the book of Acts as it runs along, really grows out of this moment. This is the time when Jesus gives His final instructions before His ascension. And He does so over this long period of time.

KERRY MUHLSTEIN: You’ll see a transformation in the apostles here. The apostles, right up unto His death, as they’re growing and progressing spiritually, I believe, are still coming to understand who the Savior is, and that they’re going to be without Him, that the burden of the kingdom is theirs. And after the crucifixion and then the Resurrection, they become new men. I think a key part of this process of the apostles becoming new men is that forty-day ministry, where now they understand what really the Resurrection means, where now they really understand that their time with the Savior is ending.

KENT BROWN: Some people have trouble with the forty-day ministry, as Luke mentions it, as he opens the book of Acts. Because if Jesus isn’t resurrected physically, what is He doing around these eleven apostles? And it seems to me that that becomes the point at which I separate from others. I believe in the physical Resurrection of Jesus, that He stayed around for this forty-day period, training, educating, bringing these apostles up to speed on the doctrines of the kingdom, and the procedures He wanted them to follow. And if I don’t believe in the Resurrection, then I don’t believe in the forty-days. But if one believes in the Resurrection, the forty-days makes sense.

If apocryphal literature is several steps removed from accepted scripture, one more step takes us into the world of legend. Here one does not find truth in individual stories, but in trends or in themes. Oral tradition is persistent, and can give clues about events in veiled and unexpected ways.  And in terms of local folklore, one of the most common claims heard from London to Tibet is: “Jesus was here.”

One should not be surprised with evidence that the resurrected Jesus visits other lands and other peoples. During His mortal ministry, He proclaims to opponent and disciple alike, “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd” (John 10:16).    Although it is not clear how many other sheep Jesus intends to visit, one record stands apart as an independent witness of His literal Resurrection.

TERRY BALL: The title of the Book of Mormon is, “The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ.” The Book of Mormon was prepared by ancient descendants of Israel, and hidden up to be brought forth at a time when another witness of Christ would be needed. It tells of Christ’s ministry amongst the people here in the New World, another group of sheep that had been separated. It tells of His teachings, of His covenants, of His dealings with those people, and especially of His ministry after His Resurrection among the people. So it’s another testament of Jesus Christ’s Gospel. It fulfills the law of witnesses, that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:28; see Matthew 18:16).

JUAN HENDERSON: The Bible is the first witness of what the Savior has done in Jerusalem. The Book of Mormon comes forth as a second witness that testifies that what the Savior did in Jerusalem and His Resurrection is actually true.

JUSTIN SU’A: Now the zenith of the Book of Mormon, or the crowning jewel, takes place when Christ does come, the advent of Jesus in the Americas. Nephi prophesies of this in 1 Nephi 12:6. He said, “I saw the heavens open, and the Lamb of God descending out of heaven; And he came down and showed himself unto them.”

JUAN HENDERSON: The people came out and they gathered around the temple. They heard a voice that they could not identify. It was a spiritual voice that penetrated to their hearts. And after the third time they were able to tune into it. And it was a voice coming out of heaven, and they looked at the heavens and they saw the Savior come down. They thought He was an angel. And then when He stood upon the ground, He said, “Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world” (3 Nephi 11:10).

JARED LUDLOW: And then He goes on to say that He has fulfilled the Atonement: “I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning” (3 Nephi 11:11).   And so one of the first things He mentions to them is His fulfillment of the Atonement, His submission to the will of the Father, and that that would be a tremendous blessing to them and of course to us today as well.

“And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words the whole multitude fell to the earth; for they remembered that it had been prophesied among them that Christ should show himself unto them after his ascension into heaven” (3 Nephi 11:12).

JUSTIN SU’A: Christ gives them an incredible invitation, an invitation that I could imagine touched their hearts, and to this day touches the hearts of millions who read. He says: “Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world” (3 Nephi 11:14). This incredible invitation that the Lord gave to the people of Nephi. “And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come” (3 Nephi 11:15).

MARCUS H. MARTINS: And for me, perhaps one of the most important parts of that account of the visit of the Savior is the fact that, here is another testimony, this time from two thousand and five hundred people, who not only heard Him but actually touched him and kissed His feet, and bathed His feet with their tears.

JUAN HENDERSON: They all came forth and felt the nail prints in His hands and in His feet, and if you give each one 15 seconds, it would equate to about 11 hours. That’s if someone didn’t stop and was overcome by the presence of the Master.

JUSTIN SU’A: This teaches us the essence of Jesus, how much He loves us and how much He wants us to get to know Him, and shows that He is accessible to those who want to come and get a personal experience with the Savior. This teaches us that the Savior not only cares about us in general, but He also cares about the one—each one of us individually.

MARCUS H. MARTINS: When the Savior addresses them, the first thing He does is to introduce Himself to them. He tells His name. But He also identifies himself as the God of Israel and the God of the whole earth. Nephi, the prophet of that time, being in the middle of the multitude, Nephi comes and likely prostrates himself in front of the Savior, and kisses the Savior’s feet. And then when the Savior commands Nephi to arise, His first order of business is, He tells Nephi, I give you authority to baptise this people once I have left (see 3 Nephi 11:21). That sort of tells, or indicates to us, the preeminent role of ordinances in the kingdom of God.

ROBERT MATTHEWS: He called the Twelve, and He did it by the laying on of hands, one of the ordinances. He talked to them about baptism and told them how to baptize and how not to baptize, another one of the ordinances. He instituted the sacrament, again an ordinance. If we look at it carefully, we begin to see what was Jesus interested in. He was interested in the scriptures, He was interested in people understanding His Resurrection, and He was interested in ordinances.

And the Lord said unto him: I give unto you the power that ye shall baptize this people when I am again ascended into heaven. And again the Lord called others, and said unto them likewise; and he gave unto them power to baptize” (3 Nephi 11:21–22).

JOHN W. WELCH: Toward the end of the first day that Jesus spent with the Nephites at the temple in Bountiful, He looks around at the multitude, and with His divine perception, He’s able to understand that many of the people cannot comprehend the things that He’s been teaching. All things have become new; it’s a whole new world for them. All of what they used to do is now obsolete, and they have to build an entirely new world and a new relationship with each other and with God.

Go to Episode 6, Part 3.

Eyewitness accounts of those who touched the risen Savior just days after His crucifixion and burial, sustain the belief of a physical union of Jesus’ body and spirit. Whether He is on the road to Emmaus or teaching at the temple in the New World, the appearance of Jesus Christ declares His triumph over death as He invites all to come unto Him.

JOHN S. TANNER: For believers, it’s the Resurrection—an event that might have taken place here—that is the crowning event of Jesus’ ministry. It sets him apart from all those who have come before. There’d been preachers; there’d been prophets; there had been healers; but none of them had the power to lay down their life and take it up again. It was the Resurrection that provided the founding doctrine for all Christianity. Without it, Christianity would be a series of beliefs, and it would have inspiring stories and an inspiring message about how to live a good life, but it wouldn’t be Christianity as we know it.

ANDREW SKINNER: But you know, John, with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we possess the message for eternities. It is the center of everything we believe in. It’s the lynchpin of our faith. And yet ironically it’s from mainstream Christianity and some New Testament scholars that much of the skepticism we see emerges.

GAYE STRATHEARN: But all this doesn’t change the witness of some women from an obscure Roman province, that on a beautiful spring morning much like today, 2000 years ago, something happened that had never happened before.

JOSEPH FIELDING MCCONKIE: What is resurrection? Now it’s an interesting thing that the word resurrection is not found in the Old Testament. And in the entirety of the Bible, you and I can read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and we’ll never get a definition of resurrection. Now this is where the restored gospel becomes so marvelous. You go to Alma for instance, and Alma’s the one that tells you that resurrection is this inseparable union of body and spirit. Now as simple as that is, it, it becomes the foundation upon which every other gospel truth rests.

RICHARD D. DRAPER: The most indigestible lump in the theological pudding of the ancient saints is the idea of a corporeal or a bodily Resurrection of the Lord. By the 4^th century the tension actually resolves itself, unfortunately in the direction of a non-corporeal resurrection. And these scholars therefore absolutely deny the corporeal Resurrection of the Lord, that it was apologetics.

Generally the explanations fall into 3 categories, okay. The first one centers on the power of the personality of the Lord. So charismatic was He that the early disciples simply could not get over the fact of His death, and, as a result, internal tension, group tension, and so on created a sort of a neurosis. The outcome of that was a kind of broad-based hallucination in which they believed that they had seen Jesus.   The second comes from the idea that Jesus actually didn’t die on the cross, but rather He was resuscitated in the tomb, made His appearances and then left the scene.  The third one, interestingly enough, follows the Jewish scenario, that is to say the one we find in Matthew 28, where the Jews paid the guards to say that Jesus’ disciples came and stole the body and then the disciples circulated these stories about the Resurrection.

JOHN S. TANNER: There’s been a great deal of attention focused in on the disparities in the Gospels’ account of the Resurrection.

ANDREW SKINNER: Questions like, was there one angel or two at the tomb, was Peter alone when he saw the resurrected Lord or was he with another apostle, the Apostle John? These kinds of questions have caused some New Testament scholars to regard the evidence for the Resurrection as “confused and fragile.” And I suppose that if we only had the New Testament accounts, some of that confusion would be understandable.

JOHN S. TANNER: Right, but if we add the modern revelation, if we add the Book of Mormon, if we add the Doctrine and Covenants, if we add the testimony of modern prophets, then the evidence for Jesus’ literal, physical Resurrection as a glorified being is just overwhelming.

ANDREW SKINNER: I like the words of one profound student of the scriptures, who said, “There is no more fact or event in history of which he is more sure than the physical, bodily Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.” And that student just also happens to be a prophet of God, Ezra Taft Benson.

RICHARD D. DRAPER: We have very, very good evidence from the early church that there really was a historical event that happened here.         For example, there are those who actually saw and heard the Lord. The two men on the road to Emmaus, the ten disciples. Paul says that there were actually 500 brethren that saw Him at once. And then of course we have Paul himself that sees the Lord.

But there is another class of witnesses, and these are those who not only saw and heard the Lord, but also those who touched Him. The women at the tomb, who were sent to tell the apostles, meet the Lord on the way. And it is interesting that they fall down and they touch the feet of Jesus and they worship Him. But the Greek is very strong there. The word is kratao, which means to seize or grasp. This wasn’t a little polish or a brush. They touched the Lord; they clung to the Lord.

And then of course we’ve got Thomas himself, you know—unless I touch the wounds I will not believe. So when the Lord shows up, what does He say? Here I am, there’s the wound in the side; there’s the hands. So Thomas also has tactile witness.  But interestingly enough, one that we often miss, and it’s due to a translation problem, is Mary of Magdala. The King James text of course has Jesus appearing to her at the tomb, and, apparently, the way the King James text version goes, is that she made a move toward Him and Jesus says, “Touch me not; for I’m not yet ascended to my Father” in Heaven (John 20:17). The grammar of the Greek suggests that there’s a better translation. We’ve got a present imperative coupled with a negative, which means, “Cease doing what you are now doing.” And with her, the Greek word is not kratao, to seize or grasp, but rather it is hopto, to embrace. I believe what Jesus is doing is saying, I must be about my Father’s work. This is a very tender moment, but you must cease embracing me now so that I can go and do what the Father wants me to do.

And therefore, the women, Thomas, perhaps the other apostles, and Mary, have a threefold witness. They knew, because they had seen the Lord. And what’s the aftermath of that? Take a look at Peter, who goes forth in boldness. And what is the central message? We preach unto you, Christ crucified and Christ resurrected from the dead. That is the message.

JOSEPH FIELDING MCCONKIE: The two greatest stories in earth’s history, as far as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is concerned, would be the story of Christ’s birth, the reality of the— His divine sonship, and the reality of His Resurrection, which is the crown on His ministry and that illustrates that He is indeed God’s Son. And in both instances women play a prominent role as special witnesses of those events.

VIRGINIA PEARCE: I love the interchanges between the Savior and the women in the New Testament. The whole history of women on this planet is pretty convoluted, and we’ve gone through some difficult times in terms of who we are and how we’re to be treated. And even though here we have a book that has also survived through hundreds of years, it still is impossible to erase that love and respect. He’s never condescending, He is gentle, He is firm, He is respectful. He teaches them every doctrine that He teaches the men. There’s no difference for Him, and why would there be? This is someone who is the God of this world, who came to save everyone.

ALAN K. PARRISH: One might ask, why, why is He concerned almost more as to the treatment, the understanding, the loving of the women, than He is to the Twelve? My own conclusion would have to be that whether in our law and custom or in ancient Israel, a man’s responsibility for his home—in this case His mother and others near and dear to him, seems to dominate. They’re the ones then— the women are the ones that are instructed to go and tell Peter and the rest of the brethren what had happened. And then they come and witness that Christ’s body is gone.

VIRGINIA PEARCE: All of the exchanges with women—Martha, Mary, and then finally the exchange at the tomb, as He appears to Mary first in His resurrected state, and asks her to convey the message. I just—I don’t know whether it’s possible for men to understand what that does for women, the kind of dignity without patronizing that it gives us, each of us.

JUAN HENDERSON: The apostles were gathered together in Jerusalem. And at this time, many things had happened. Peter had denied Christ, and Jesus had been crucified. And so they were all huddled together in one place.

RICHARD ANDERSON: In a setting such as that, the apostles were still together, counseling, trying to rebound—think through what on earth had happened. And the disillusionment of all of their dreams and plans. Because they didn’t fully understand the prophecy and how it would be fulfilled when Jesus said He would leave them.

CECILIA M. PEEK: In basically every one of the Gospel accounts, it is women who first discover the empty tomb and first encounter the risen Jesus.

JUAN HENDERSON: Mary and the other women had gone to the tomb, and the tomb was empty.

ALAN K. PARRISH: And in their going, at first—disappointment— He isn’t there. But angels are, and those angels give them such reassurance and such confidence. It must have been a beautiful, beautiful moment and experience. And then the instruction to go and tell the brethren.

MICHAEL RHODES: They go back to the disciples; they tell them, and the apostles simply find this unbelievable. They laugh at the women.

CLYDE WILLIAMS: This has never happened before. They’re still trying to shed the old notions of a millennial Messiah who’s going to come in a triumphal way, and still trying to bring together this notion of a Resurrection.

MICHAEL RHODES: But at least Peter and John then run to the tomb. And John is faster than Peter. You know, Peter’s the older man; he can’t keep up. They arrive at the tomb. But John, recognizing Peter as the senior apostle, waits. And Peter catches up, out of breath, you can kind of imagine. He looks in the tomb, and as he looks in the tomb, details like the grave clothes are carefully folded in place there where Christ was.

JUAN HENDERSON: And I really think that this was the beginning of them starting to believe what Jesus had said, just an inkling of light.

CECILIA M. PEEK: Another example of this kind of beautiful detail that we get, is the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who are walking along, recalling the recent events and sorrowing over those events. And then Jesus Himself appears to them, though they don’t initially recognize Him.

CLYDE WILLIAMS: We learn something about resurrected beings here. A resurrected being does not have to appear always in full glory. He can come—in this case—I don’t think—they don’t recognize Him, cause He’s got on some kind of a cloak and pulled it around His face. I think He’s talking with them and discussing, and of course they’re surprised He doesn’t seem to know about the events, so He’s playing on a bit with them here.

CECILIA M. PEEK: Eventually He, after having some conversation with them, suggests that He’s going to go off. They invite Him to come in with them, and they continue this exchange. They seem quite surprised, they say, where have you been, how can you not know of the events of recent days? And of course He is the main participant in the events of recent days and knows very well what has happened, and is gradually bringing them to the point where they will fully realize what had happened as well.

CLYDE WILLIAMS: They’re intrigued with His discussion and His knowledge of the scriptures. And then of course when He breaks the bread with them and serves it to them, they see who He is—they recognize Him, rather, as the Savior, and He disappears out of their midst.  What touches me in terms of this witness of this Resurrection is that they didn’t say, As He was opening unto us the scriptures, did not our heads within us swell, as He opened to us the scriptures. It was, Did not our hearts within us burn, as He opened unto us the scriptures. They felt something. It was not just what they saw, it was what they felt that really touched them and was a witness. Sometimes we think we have to see to know. They felt something, and they knew even as much by what they felt. That’s important for us. We tend to sometimes dismiss those spiritual promptings. They didn’t, and that’s important.

JOHN S. TANNER: Peter will later say that:“We have not followed cunningly devised fables,” but we are sure witnesses, we are “eyewitnesses of his majesty”(1 Peter 1:16). Now He’s probably talking about the transfiguration there. But they are eyewitnesses, they’re sure witnesses. And one of the things that they get to be witnesses of, and it’s very important they do, is of the physicality of the Resurrection.

CLYDE WILLIAMS: When the Savior appears to the disciples, of course their reaction at first is with fear. They’re terrified. They think they’re seeing a spirit. Clearly they still don’t yet quite comprehend this full notion of a resurrected being. And we don’t fault them, because this has never happened before. But to help ease their fears, Luke records—and it’s so significant—that He asks them to come forward and to feel His hands and His feet.

JUAN HENDERSON: He wanted to reassure them that He was the same Christ that was with them for the 3 ½ years in His mortal ministry, to let them know that He was a resurrected body, a resurrected Savior.

CECILIA M. PEEK: And to further underscore the very physical reality of His resurrected state, He even eats something in front of them, to demonstrate that He still has a body. And He says very explicitly: “A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 24:39).

MICHAEL RHODES: These ten apostles—Thomas is missing at this point—can now literally say, I know that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. I touched him; I saw him; I saw him eat. And then a week later, the apostles are together again, and Thomas is there this time. And Thomas had said, Unless I put my fingers in the holes in His hands and thrust my hand into the hole in His side, I will not believe. And Christ appears and He says, Come on, Thomas (see John 20:25–27).

Go to Episode 6, Part 2.

These people are scared. They’re afraid that Jesus, if He’s not the Son of God, must be using the powers of evil forces to work the miracles that He is working. And one of the requirements for being a member of the Sanhedrin was the ability to differentiate between what they called white magic and black magic. Good miracles, good signs, which were things that Moses himself had done, which obviously were legitimate. But then there were black magic acts, and things that should not happen.

I was reading in King Benjamin’s speech in Mosiah chapter 3. And interestingly, in the words of the angel, prophesying to Benjamin about the coming of Jesus Christ, he says that He would go forth “working mighty miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight and the deaf to hear, and curing all manner of diseases” (Mosiah 3:5). We think that’s a good thing. But the reaction that was prophesied was that even though He shall do these things, “even after all this they shall consider him a man and say that he hath a devil,” that He’s doing these things by the power of Satan. “And therefore they shall scourge him, and crucify him” (Mosiah 3:9).

JOHN F. HALL: When He was produced by the Sanhedrin before Pilate, John says He had been proven to be—so presumably proven in the court of the Sanhedrin—a malefactor.  Now malefactor is an English word that just means a general wrongdoer. But it comes from a Latin word, malefikium, which is a specific crime, a specific legal charge, namely a charge of practicing magic. And if we look at the text of John’s gospel, the word that’s found there is kakopoios. Kakopoios is the Greek word for malefikus, which is translated “malefactor,” but means in fact someone practicing magic.

JOHN W. WELCH: At that point, Pilate entered into the judgment hall again and called Jesus to Him and said, All right, let’s raise the final accusation. Are you the King of the Jews? This phrase, King of the Jews, was a title that had been given by Augustus Caesar to Herod. And so it was a politically charged term. Jesus doesn’t ever say, Yes, I am the King of the Jews, He just says, I’m a king, but my kingdom is not of this world. And Pilate seems to be quite satisfied with that.

At that point, Jesus answered and said, “Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” (John 18:37).

At this point, Pilate, who is hoping to find some witness, some truth, to know how to judge this case, says, Well, “what is truth?” This is a difficult case. And he decides that finds no basis for an accusation against Jesus, goes back out to the Jews, and says, “I find in him no fault.” And the Greek word here is, no legal cause of action, against Him.

JOHN F. HALL: And he follows up that statement by doing something that had extreme significance in Roman law. He washed his hands. The washing of the hands we often take as a sign of declaring Christ’s innocence. In Roman law it was a simple procedure by which a presiding magistrate would say that the case before him was not in his jurisdiction.

JOHN W. WELCH: It’s the chief priests, a very small group of very powerful Sadducees, who are the constant players moving this along. It is not the Jews as a people. In fact most of the Jews in Jerusalem welcomed Jesus, accepted Him. It was only a few days before at Palm Sunday that they welcomed Him as their Messiah, shouting, Hosanna, “save us now.” So it’s not the Jews who are killing Jesus. It’s just a few who are pushing this through. And as Peter will say, ignorantly so.

ERIC D. HUNTSMAN: When Caiaphas had been interrogating Jesus, he had asked Him directly, Art thou the Son of the Blessed? (Mark 14:61)—a way of asking if He was the Messiah. And Jesus has said, Thou sayest. Perhaps one of the reasons the Jewish authorities were anxious to see the Romans execute Jesus was not just to pass the buck, but because it would better accomplish their purpose of proving that Jesus was not who He claimed to be, that He was not the Son of the Blessed.

A passage in Deuteronomy said, Cursed is any man who’s hanged on a tree (Deuteronomy 21:23). Stoning would not have shown that Jesus was cursed, but if He were crucified, hung on a cross, they could claim to everyone that He was in fact rejected by God.

Now we are free.

GAYE STRATHEARN: Crucifixion has a long history. It was used by many civilizations in the ancient world. We know of the Assyrians under Shalmaneser III. We have examples in relief of him doing crucifixions. In that instance, it was impaling of people alive, and that was the form of crucifixion. We know that Jews at some point used it against other Jews. But it’s probably the Romans who perfected this and made it an art form of putting people to death.

Crucifixion was chosen because it was a long, slow, painful, horrific death. The Romans could easily have put people to death in a much cheaper way of doing it: beheading them, doing other things. But they chose crucifixion particularly for those who were seen as traitors, thieves, and things like that. It was also meant to be a very, very public form of death. Besides the fact that they’d be left for however long it took for them to die in public areas, that they would have to carry their cross. Now that might mean the cross itself, but it probably means the crossbeam that they would have to carry.

Before they were crucified, the Romans would scourge people, which means that they would whip them with little pieces of bones in the whips. And the idea of this was that they would have open flesh wounds all over their backs and their sides, so that even when they’re up on the cross, they’re feeling that kind of pain, as well as the pain that is associated with the crucifixion.

Now we know that from lots of literary sources about crucifixion, but the reality is, archaeologically we’ve only found one individual that we know was crucified. And that comes in 1968 in a place north of Jerusalem. They found some bones of a person, where the actual nail was still in the bone. And it goes through the calcaneus, which is the heel bone, and that is nailed to the cross. And the way that the nail was here, would indicate that we have the vertical beam, and probably the feet are placed either side of that and then the nail was put through the largest bone that we have in the foot to give it support. Now, something happened with this and the nail bent, so when they took the person down off the cross, they couldn’t get the nail out. And so the nail is still in the bone, and that’s how we know that they were crucified.

PAUL Y. HOSKISSON: All of these things about crucifixion are in the back of the minds of the writers of the New Testament when they’re talking about Christ’s crucifixion. But the symbolism here I think is really important. When we look at 3^rd Nephi, chapter 27 verse 14, it brings out the symbolism of the cross here: “And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up on the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me.”

The symbolism of the cross of being lifted up is a symbol of us being lifted up to eternal life. And we don’t always talk about that aspect of the symbolism of the cross. We tend to concentrate more on the ugly details and the despicable nature of the cross.

I want to say something else too about crucifixion. We know from reading a passage in Josephus that you could survive crucifixion. Josephus talks about his three friends that he saw crucified. And he goes to the Roman general and asks, Can I take them down? The Roman general says, Well of course, take them down. And in spite of the best of care, Josephus says, two of them died. But one survived. Crucifixion is not immediately fatal.

And I think that’s a key element of what’s going on here. Because nobody really killed Christ, as Abinadi explains in Mosiah chapter 15. Christ can’t be killed. He’s part the Father. But He can die. And therefore He chooses to die; He’s not executed. But the execution, or His choice of death, has to be in some manner that people who are not believers, looking on it, will say, Oh He’s been executed, He’s done, that’s over with now. But the believers who are looking on at this will say, as the Roman centurion did, This is the Son of God. He dies of His own free will. He offers Himself on the cross. He’s not killed on the cross.

To me, it brings it full circle back to Adam. Because Adam in his agency freely chose spiritual death to be able to create mortal life. Jesus freely chooses of His own accord mortal death to create spiritual life. So even though the crucifixion is rather ugly and has a long history, it ends up being a very beautiful symbol, and the way that Christ can show that He’s offering Himself freely for us.

JOHN S. TANNER: Outside the city walls of Jerusalem, there stands the place of Roman execution called Golgotha. It was deliberately situated near a busy thoroughfare, just like today, so as to provide a grim reminder to any who passed by what would befall them if they dared oppose Roman authority.

On that Friday morning 2000 years ago, Jesus is nailed to a cross and placed between two common thieves. With most of the apostles in hiding, it was left almost exclusively to the women to witness what would happen to Jesus in the final hours of His mortality. And what they hear and see, even down to the smallest excruciating detail, is a fulfillment of prophecy.

GAYE STRATHEARN: The gospel accounts are going to make some specific references that the things that happen in association with the crucifixion are specifically to the fulfilling of scripture.

Now Matthew is going to do that in terms of the parting of the garments and the casting lots of the garments as a fulfillment of scripture. Now that’s something we would expect from Matthew. Because Matthew throughout his gospel goes out of his way every time Jesus does something significant to say, Thus is it fulfilled in scripture, or thus it is to fulfill something that a certain prophet as said. And we would understand that because his audience is a Jewish audience, and to help them see the connection between Christ of the New Testament and the Messiah of the Old Testament.

But what’s interesting to me though, is that we’re going to have Mark and John in going to do similar type of things. Mark is going to make reference that, the fact that Jesus is crucified among thieves is a fulfillment of prophecy. Now what’s interesting to me about that is, Mark is writing probably to a Roman audience, an audience that would not be familiar with the Hebrew Bible and the prophecies and things like that, but Mark still makes the point that he wants to show that this is the fulfillment of prophecy.

Likewise, John is going to do the same thing when he talks about Jesus, that He’s on the cross says, “I thirst,” right?. And John again specifically makes mention that this is the fulfillment of prophecy. Now John’s audience may or may not have been aware of the messianic prophecies, but we still have these situations, that they want to make it very, very clear that this isn’t new, this isn’t unexpected. This is the fulfillment of prophecy.

JOSEPH FIELDING MCCONKIE: And so now as this great work and labor is done, He commends  His whole ministry into the hands of His Father. And the final expression that Jesus Christ makes on the cross is, “It is finished.” And Joseph Smith, in the Joseph Smith Translation—and we have this in our footnote for Matthew chapter 27, has that readsaying, “Father, it is finished, thy will is done.” And then he yieldeth up the ghost.”

And so what it does is tie the story together from beginning to end. That’s where in a very real sense His Messiahship begins, when He stands and says to the Father in that pre-earth council, I will go and do thy will. I have now completed that assignment, I have accomplished thy will. And so it just is, it just binds and ties the whole plan of salvation together, this whole system of “whom shall I send,” and “I have now completed that work and labor.”

CAMILLE FRONK:  With sundown just a short time away, and a concern therefore for having the body of Jesus buried before the commencement of a Sabbath, a man by the name of Joseph of Arimathea, a small town outside of Jerusalem, pleaded with Pilate to care for the body. It appears that Joseph was a councillor, perhaps even a member of the council, the Sanhedrin. And there to accompany him is Nicodemus, another member of that council—ones that most likely were not part of any trial the night before.

Joseph had a tomb for a wealthy man, and he and Nicodemus were there just a short period of time it appears, to wrap the body in the grave clothes, and put what little ointment could be applied.  Typically, that was what the women would have done. And there is evidence that there were women from Galilee who were watching there at the cross, and followed Nicodemus and Joseph to the tomb to see where the body was lain.

Apparently there wasn’t time for the typical ritual of preparing the body for burial. And these women couldn’t come back the next day because it was the Sabbath. If that next day was the Passover Sabbath, it’d be then the next day is the weekly Sabbath, it would be another couple of days before they could arrive to the tomb.  And the first thing on Sunday morning, they come to the tomb to see if they could, then it appears, anoint the body in the way they would have wanted to previously. We don’t know much about those women of Galilee. We know a name of Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of Joseph and James. These women came back on Sunday morning with all these—this ointment, to make that body smell as sweet as long as possible. And found the tomb was empty.

JOHN S. TANNER: I think sometimes both students and tourists have thought, you have to come to the Holy Land or come to Jerusalem in order to really have an appreciation for the New Testament and for the Savior. But of course that’s got to be untrue. This—He’s the Savior of all time, all the world of the poor who will never have a chance to be here. But in the most important way, every person can come to the Savior, can come to Jesus, by coming there with heart and faith, by scripture study and by prayer. He Himself said, “I stand at the door, and knock; if any man . . . open the door, I will come in and sup with him” (Revelation 3:20). And so that’s a great promise, it’s a great promise to all believers, that you don’t have to be there at the Last Supper, you don’t have to be there in the events of His ministry, or come here to the Holy City. You could actually have Him come into your heart, into your life.

Christ’s final week in mortality is marked by His teachings at the Last Supper, His suffering in Gethsemane, a hearing at Caiaphas’s palace and a trial before Pontius Pilate, and, finally, crucifixion at Golgotha. Here He utters His last words in mortality. “It is finished. Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit” (John 19:30). These events stand at the pinnacle of His mortal ministry, and lead to His ultimate triumph over physical and spiritual death in the resurrection.

Go to Episode 6.

There are two basic things to notice about this. The first is the intensity of  the suffering which now descends upon Him. And he, He says to the three that He is sorrowful even unto death. The weight of our sins, our mistakes, falling on a sinless man, in such enormity, brings Him to the point at which He wishes that He could push this away.  He leaves them there, He goes farther into the garden and prays. And this is the second part. Each one of the synoptic gospels repeats his actions in the imperfect tense in Greek, which is the tense of customary action: he used to do this, she used to do that. And it also has to do with iterative action, repeated action. So that we read that Jesus went forward and fell and prayed, went forward and fell and prayed, went forward and fell and prayed.

This series of repeated actions that the verbs convey to readers indicates the intensity of the suffering He’s going through. He doesn’t just pray once. He must have straightened Himself up and trying to relieve Himself in some way, went forward and prayed again. This is a scene which is compelling to me, and tells me just in the way that it’s written, that Jesus suffers deeply, unfathomably at this moment, for you and for me.

CECILIA M. PEEK: Luke gives us one very moving detail about Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane that none of the other gospel writers shares, though we do have confirmation of it, both from the Book of Mormon and from the Doctrine and Covenants. And this is what Luke says: Kai genomonos en agonia, ektenesterone pros ao heto. Kai agenoto hohedros, al tu hose thromboi haimatos katabainontes epi taingain. Which translated means “and being in an agony, he prayed the more earnestly: and his sweat was as great drops of blood dropping down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

There are a couple of gift phrases there. One is the Greek term agonia, being in an agony. It comes actually from the Greek word agon which typically would be used to refer to an athletics contest. And so some scholars have taken Luke’s description of His sweat being as it were great drops of blood, to simply suggest this building anxiety that an athlete feels before a competitive confrontation—which is an interesting interpretation.

LDS students of the scriptures believe that it really was blood, and non-LDS scholars treat this phrase that Luke uses—and the key word here is hos—and it’s whether he means it adverbially or adjectivally. That is to say, is he saying it was in fact as drops of blood, or that it was like great drops of blood? And without any additional input, there would be no way to know certainly which of the two types of uses of hos Luke meant there. But we have additional restoration scripture, both in the Book of Mormon, in Mosiah where he says that Christ bled from every pore, and then more specifically in the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord Himself speaks, describing in the most explicit and clear terms He uses anywhere in scripture, His own experience of suffering through the Atonement.

And He describes that suffering in these terms: “Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit, and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink. Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook, and finished my preparations unto the children of men” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:18).

If there’s any doubt at all what Luke meant, Christ clarifies it, that He in fact bled from every pore.

MARILYN ARNOLD: The Book of Mormon expands our understanding of the infinite nature of the Atonement. It’s interesting to me that  the term infinite atonement, appears only in the Book of Mormon, only Book of Mormon speakers use that phrase. In fact the word infinite appears in the Bible only three times, and those three times are in the Old Testament, and none of them refers to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. So this is a new idea that expands this, what the Atonement is, by calling it infinite.

Through the Atonement, mortals were released from both death and hell. They were released from the death of the body and the death of the spirit. And Jacob makes that point very, very plainly. This sacrifice is of the Son of God, infinite and eternal, no other being except a God  could perform this infinite Atonement. That therefore it is infinite, because  it is the sacrifice of the Son of God, infinite and eternal.

JOHN S. TANNER: No one goes through this life without accumulating some sins. And we need that Atonement every day of our lives. And I’m grateful that the Lord has through the sacrament allowed me every week to renew that commitment. I love the word willing in the sacramental prayer. Because it says, are you willing to take upon you this name? And I think, Lord, I’m willing. I may not have been perfect this week, but I recommit to my willingness to live the gospel. And the only way I can do that is because the Lord has sacrificed Himself. And the only way I can get there is because the Lord has enabled us to tie our strength to His strength, to have our abilities magnified by His abilities, because He’s not just forgiven us, He helps us become who we have the capacity to become, but only with His help. And I feel that every day too. This is too big for me sometimes, this is just too hard. How am I going to do it? And He has made that possible through His grace.

VIRGINIA PEARCE: And I believe there is such a wonderful synergy between my responsibility to do everything I can, and then His—not only responsibility, but His covenant promise to me that He will do what I cannot do. And that’s the grace piece.  He is not only willing to forgive me and take that pain away, but He is willing to bind up the wounds of those whom I have wounded. So there is just grace everywhere, everywhere, operating in our lives. Even as we strive and work and do in every way that we possibly can.

MARILYN ARNOLD: The prayer Jesus uttered in Gethsemane is very, very brief, but  it’s very, very moving. It touches us deeply. Because in this prayer, Jesus is pouring out His soul. He knows what ordeal He’s facing, and He’s pouring out His soul to His beloved Father. And we sense a lot of things in there that we could apply in our own lives I think, that this wonderful relationship that He and the Father have.

In Mark’s account of the prayer—and the wording is pretty much the same in all three accounts in the gospels. But Mark adds a word. He adds the word Abba. Jesus addresses the Father as Abba, Father. This is the intimate kind of relationship that He had with His Father. And some of us feel sometimes that the Father is so distant from us that we can hardly talk with Him; we’re afraid  and it is proper to use formal language. But to realize that He loves us, and that we can have this kind of tender relationship with Him.

And there He is asking the Father if He would release Him from this. But then He says, and that big word nevertheless—nevertheless not my will but thine, not what I will but what thou wilt.

CYNTHIA HALLEN: So He experienced the pain and the sorrow and the disappointment and the fear of failure and the hurt of rejection and the longing and the homesickness and the desire to be reunited with our loved ones, so that we will have joy and beauty for ashes. He did it literally, because He wants us to have not a fake substitute joy, not some kind of cosmetic or counterfeit happiness, He wants us to have the real joy of having the perfect love that He had, and the perfect love that our Heavenly Father has.

BRENT L. TOP: The Atonement of Jesus Christ is deeply personal, in that it transforms me. It changes my desires. It changes my nature. That is what the Atonement of Jesus Christ is. It redeems, it rescues, it lifts, it loves, it transforms us into new creatures.

KENT BROWN: One of the best known stories of course in the New Testament is that of the arrest of Jesus. The conspiracies, the plots, began months and months before. There was one that was hatched in Galilee against Him. Apparently the conspirators found each other when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand.

So finally the time comes. Judas leads a band of people to where he very much suspects that Jesus and the eleven are. Each of the synoptics say that Judas approaches Jesus to kiss Him. Both Matthew and Mark say that Judas did. Luke leaves it implicit. He doesn’t actually say that Judas kissed Him. I, I’ve wondered in my own heart whether Luke was so offended at this scene that he couldn’t imagine the betrayer kissing the Master.

When the arresting party arrives there, Jesus approaches them and asks them, “Whom do you seek?” They say, Well, Jesus of Nazareth of course. And then Jesus says, “I am he.” The expression here is the divine name, which stands in isolation from everything else that Jesus says, when He says, I am. And these people who apparently have come with some fear, wondering what might happen to them, begin to step back, and one steps on the foot of the person behind, and they all end up on the ground. It’s a bit of a comic scene, although it’s very serious of course.

After they’ve stood up again and recovered themselves, He asks them again, Whom seek, whom seek you? And they say, Jesus of Nazareth. And He again says, “I am” (John 18:4–8)

RICHARD ANDERSON:  When Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, the apostles fled in terror. They had been involved in the confrontation with the arresting guard, and particularly Peter was targeted by some people there as an enemy who had attacked one of the individuals trying to arrest Jesus. So the apostles felt that they were hunted men, and they did not disclose their location, although the apostles were still together, counseling, trying to rebalance, think through what on earth had happened, and the disillusionment of all of their dreams and plans. Because they didn’t fully understand the prophecy and how it would be fulfilled when Jesus said He would leave them.

KENT BROWN: So they arrest Him, bind Him, and now off they go, presumably down the Kidron Valley, walking down to a gate farther down on the east side of the city that they could come in, and then come up the long set of steps towards the High Priest’s residence.

JOHN S. TANNER: Following His arrest in Gethsemane, an exhausted Jesus comes back along the Kidron Valley, and then He has to climb these steep stairs up to the palace of Caiaphas, the High Priest. He’s followed by Peter afar off, and one other unnamed disciple. And there in the palace of Caiaphas, while Peter waits in the darkness, Jesus, the Eternal Judge, is Himself judged of men in an illegal nighttime hearing, wherein the verdict is decided well before the proceedings even begin. As Matthew explains the irony of this, some of His judges had met in this very same palace about two days before and consulted, that they might take Him by subtlety and kill Him (Matthew 26:4, 59).

ERIC D. HUNTSMAN: Although the gospel accounts paint a dramatic picture of the events that terrible night, when Jesus was brought first before the Jewish authorities and then the Roman governing authorities, we need to remember that they do not give us the kind of legal details that we really need to understand exactly what happened from a technical point of view. They are trying to paint a picture of the terrible realities of how the Savior of the world was misjudged and abused, and how all involved, both Jewish leaders and Romans, were involved in His wrong condemnation. We have actually very little evidence for how Jewish trials were done in the Second Temple period from contemporary sources. What we do have is a great amount of information, legal rulings, opinions, memories of how things were done, from a later source called the Mishnah, that was compiled about 200 A.D. It may in many instances reflect actual practice at the time of Jesus, but in some instances it may not reflect what actually happened.

Go to Episode 5, Part 3.

Throughout the mortal life of Jesus of Nazareth, every step taken and every word spoken lead ultimately to [the] Atonement. The raising of Lazarus sets in motion the last days of Christ’s earthly ministry. For the Christian world, the places and settings wherein Jesus takes His final steps toward the Atonement have become hallowed: the Upper Room, the Garden of Gethsemane, Calvary, and the Empty Tomb.

KENT BROWN: As Lazarus emerges from this tomb, Jesus in effect steps closer to His own, witnessed by both friends and foes. The raising of Lazarus becomes an undeniable sign that this man possesses power over death and life. For His friends, it is a joyous miracle, and the multitude will later sing, “Blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Luke 19:38). But for His enemies, these events, followed by yet another cleansing of the temple, form the final straw. “From that day forth, they took counsel together for to put him to death” (John 11:53).

KERRY MUHLESTEIN: You know, it’s an interesting [thing] that’s happened throughout history, that various groups want to blame others for the crucifixion of the Savior, and various people want to make sure that their group doesn’t get blamed.   And as you look at it, certainly there’s the populace that seems to play a role; there’s the Sanhedrin or the rulers of the Jews; the Romans actually put Him to death. It almost seems as if there’s so many people that are brought into play here that it’s clear that no one group can hold the blame here, and that we should be looking for blame.

RICHARD HOLZAPFEL: This passage in 1^st Corinthians chapter 15, which probably is the earliest account of Jesus’ suffering and death, predating the gospels, predating Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, Paul writes this: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received.” In other words, I’m not telling you something new; you already know this. I’m telling you a story that already had come to me. So I’m repeating this story that is well known, how that Christ died for our sins according to scripture. And that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day, according to scripture.

If we’re not careful, we might miss the nuance that Paul’s trying to give us here. He’s trying to give us the historical point:  He died, [was] buried, and was raised, but more importantly, it was according to scripture. It had been foreordained. It was known by the prophets and holy and wise men and women who lived during the Old Testament period. They knew the Messiah, the Lord God of Israel, was going to come and do this.

But then one other further nuance, and probably the most significant thing for Paul. Again, notice here it isn’t who’s to blame, it isn’t even like where did it exactly happen, or what day did it happen on. They’re  important to the story in the four gospels, but for Paul, it’s that Jesus died, according to the scriptures, for our sins. And that was the real question: why did the Messiah die?

So when we think about Gethsemane, we think about that He took upon Himself the sins of the world, began to suffer there, culminating on the cross. But when I want to talk about the blame game, I think about me. It’s the suffering for human sin, my sins, my transgressions. And as a result, the New Testament really does deal with that issue of why Jesus had to die, not so much who’s to blame.

JOHN S. TANNER: Let’s take a few minutes and kind of orient ourselves. I guess the first thing I’d notice as I look at this view is, there are a lot of hills. And we can see some of these hills, some of the most important ones, right here. In fact let’s begin with the Mount of Olives.

KENT BROWN: That of course is the most dominant hill here. And as you come off the slope toward the east, you come down through a little saddle, there’s a rise. We can think of Jesus starting about where that minaret is, down a little bit from that.

JOHN S. TANNER: And that’s the village of Bethany, right.

GAYE STRATHEARN: Yeah, Bethany’s the place, the home of Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus. This is where Jesus stays during that last week of His life. And so He’s going to make the journey every day from Bethany to Jerusalem, but then He comes back to Bethany, probably because John tells us that He loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

JOHN S. TANNER: And as we come further down, we have the Church of All Nations, really down near the bottom of the hill, Mount of Olives. And it’s there where there’s the Garden of Gethsemane. So it crosses the Kidron Brook right there to the Garden of Gethsemane.

Let’s start now, let’s move from the Mount of Olives up to Jerusalem.

KENT BROWN: You start with the walls of the old temple area. There’s actuallya gate that pierces the wall down here closer to the holy mount, called Dung Gate. You come up to Zion’s Gate. Right next to Zion’s Gate, outside the wall is the Dormition Abbey, the building with the great top. And it’s near there, isn’t it, that the Upper Room sits?

GAYE STRATHEARN: Yes. It’s the traditional site where Jesus came and met with His disciples for the Last Supper.

Jesus is very specific in choosing the Passover as the place for His institution of the sacrament. Really what He’s doing there is taking a very, very important celebration in Jewish law, and He’s using that to teach about Himself, and to institutionalize a remembrance of Himself as part of it.  The Passover as, as you’ll recall, is a remembrance of the time when Israel was in bondage in Egypt. Moses was there, and he was acting under divine guidance that he was to help the Israelites be released from Egyptian bondage. And so God goes through a series of plagues to try and get Pharaoh to let Israel go. The last of these plagues  would be the death of the firstborn—not just the firstborn of people but also of animals. So the Israelites are told that if they will take a lamb, an unblemished lamb, a firstborn lamb, and that they would offer it as a sacrifice, and take the blood of that lamb and put it in the lintel of the door, that when the destroying angel came he would pass over the Israelites and they would not be, be killed.

For 1500 years the Israelites have been gathering together in families and have been looking back, have been retelling that story as the great example of God’s deliverance of His chosen people. So when the Savior chooses the Passover, He’s making a very definite statement to His disciples  and all who would listen, right, that He is the Lamb, that He is the representation of that lamb that has been sacrificed for 1500 years.

Now when John the Baptist is going to introduce His disciples to Jesus and kind of get them, you need to follow Him, —he says, “Behold the Lamb of God.” And every Jew would have understood that in terms of the Passover. Christ is the Paschal Lamb. What He would do on the next day, as He was a sinless being, who was the Firstborn of the Father, the Only Begotten Son in the flesh, who would willingly offer Himself as a sacrament for all of those who would come unto Him, He becomes the Paschal Lamb. And so He uses that as the transition from what was happening in the old covenant to what would be understood in the new covenant.

It’s interesting to me that the earliest account of the institution of the sacrament is not found actually in the four gospels, but it’s found in 1^st Corinthians chapter 11. Now what had been happening in Corinth, there’d been problems with the sacrament, and so Paul is writing to them, trying to straighten some things out. And I just want to make a couple of notes here.

In verse 23 he says, “For I have received of the Lord that which I have also delivered to you.” Now that word received and delivered [are] technical terms. I am formally handing over to you that which I have formally received. And of course Paul wasn’t there during the events of the Last Supper, but he has learnt about it, should that be from the disciples or maybe even from the Lord Himself. And he goes through and he talks about what happened there, and verse 24: “And when he had given thanks, he brake it and he said, Take eat, this is my body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. And after the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do you as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Now one of the significant differences about Paul’s account than what we find in the four gospel is the word remembrance, that the partaking of the bread and the wine is in remembrance of what Jesus did. There’s only one place, and that’s in Luke, where He actually uses the word remembrance. Now what’s interesting to me about this, is when we go to the account in 3^rd Nephi, where Jesus institutes the sacrament amongst the people in the Americas, it’s very clear, in saying that this is done in remembrance. So the significant thing for me is, the earliest account of the sacrament that we have in the Bible, in 1^st Corinthians chapter 11, is actually in many respects closer to the 3^rd Nephi account than it is to the gospel accounts. This is one of those places again where I think that the Book of Mormon is helping us to understand and recognize the historical things that are going on in the early Christian church.

JOHN F. HALL: But the Last Supper was not only an occasion for teaching, though it was that. It consisted of an ordinance, a very sacred ordinance, that the Savior performed at least for the apostles—the washing of the feet. And you’ll recall that Peter objected to the Savior washing his feet. The Savior was far too important and loved of Peter to be allowed to wash his feet. And remember the Savior’ response? It was, Peter, if you don’t allow me to do this, you will not have part of me. And Peter then says, Wash my feet, so that I may be part of you.

Well, the ordinance as performed made those who received it Christ’s own. Their connection with Christ was sealed. They would be Christ’s through all eternity. What a tremendous blessing was given. And it’s in the context of that blessing that the Savior then gives the teachings that we find in the 17^th chapter of John.

ALAN K. PARRISH: Well, I think the intercessory prayer, more than anything to me, is Jesus praying earnestly to His Father that somehow those that He’s leaving behind, these great men and women, disciples of Jesus, would somehow have enough comfort and reassurance, protection and help, that they might in their service, their ministries, approach the oneness that the Father has. And I think the most urgent  and touching part of the prayer is the appeal, that they may be one as we are one, or like we are one. That oneness is the center I think of what He is praying about. Knowing no doubt the hardships that all of them would face. He had just referred to Peter, before the cock would crow on that great night, tragic night, he would deny Christ, or his acquaintance with Christ, association with Christ, three times. So Jesus knew the trials they would have. And yet His earnest prayer, perhaps that’s the main reason for it, that they would have the comfort, plus the oneness that would enable them to do what they needed to do in—as His apostles.

GAYE STRATHEARN: The events that begin here in Gethsemane are viewed very differently by Latter-day Saints than by much of Christianity today. For many Christians, Gethsemane is the place where Jesus prepared both spiritually and psychologically for His coming crucifixion. For Latter-day Saints, however, Gethsemane is the focal point for the Atonement, the place where the sins of the world crushed down upon Him who was without sin.

CECILIA M. PEEK: The process of preparing oil from olives is a fascinating one. They harvest the olives, and put them first into a massive stone basin, and roll over it a huge wheeled stone that is a crusher, and create from the olives something that is called mash. And already at that stage, when the olives are crushed into this mash, they are crushed beyond recognition. And the process is not completed yet. It’s at this point that they load that mash into wicker baskets and stack them, and then the olive press finally comes into play, where they press down on those, and out of that mash slowly they, they eke out, and there oozes out of the wicker baskets the first water and oil that comes out of the olives. And in fact  the first fluid that flows out is red like blood, and stains what it lands on. So the image of Christ’s suffering in a site that is called the olive press describes in fact His suffering and His bleeding.

Go to Episode 5, Part 2.

Oh, argument blasphemous, false and proud!

Words which no ear ever to hear in Heav’n

Expected, least of all from thee, ingrate,

Iin place thyself so high above thy peers.

Canst thou with impious obloquy condemn

The just decree of God, pronounced and sworn,

That to his only Son by right endu’d

With regal scepter, every soul in heaven

Shall bend the knee, and in that honour due

Confess him rightful king? (John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V, 809–818 )

ALISON COUTTS: Here we have exactly what we have in Abraham, that Satan wanted his own plan, wanted to forget about agency, wanted to bind the free.

MARCUS H. MARTINS: They were essentially expelled from the presence of God, and they were thrust out to roam the earth. And the Lord allowed them to be here and to try and tempt us. The only thing we can infer is that those of us who are alive here, we chose the Savior’s plan, which was the Father’s plan in the first place. We trusted that this was the way back, or the only way back to the presence of the Father, and that we trusted that Jehovah would indeed become our Savior, and that He would not fail in that mission when the time would come.

S. KENT BROWN: What can we say about the enduring question of the relationship between Jesus and Jehovah?

GAYE STRATHEARN: You know, during the centuries since Jesus walked on these very shores, many Christian scholars have struggled to reconcile the God of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New.

JOHN S. TANNER: I think that’s because too many people perceive that the one is exclusively a God of justice, and the other one is exclusively a God of mercy. Therefore they have a difficult time accepting that the two are really one, and that one is Jesus Christ.

GAYE STRATHEARN: Yes, many scholars maintain that it was only later Christians who kind of forced the connections between the two in order to justify their new religion.

S. KENT BROWN: You know, in the earliest literature, and from some surprising sources, I think we can confirm that Jehovah who feeds His people manna in the wilderness is also Jesus who feeds the 5000 with a few loaves and fishes not far from here.

ERIC D. HUNTSMAN: In a statement attributed to Joseph Smith, the prophet is reported to have claimed that the first miracle of Jesus was the creation. To paraphrase Elder Talmage, a miracle is not something which violates the laws of nature, but rather it’s the exercise of higher laws that we don’t understand, to achieve a desired aim. This goes along perfectly with the Logos Hymn, that said, Through the Word all things were created (see John 1:3).  But this idea is not unique to the Logos Hymn or the writings of John in early Christian texts. In fact, in some texts that were probably written earlier than the Gospel of John, the writings of Paul, there are references to Jesus being the Creator.

RICHARD D. DRAPER: One of the propensities of Paul is to take scriptures that apply to Jehovah in the Old Testament, and reapply them in the New Testament to Jesus Himself. Paul understood, as the early Christian community did, that Jesus was indeed the Jehovah of the Old Testament.

RICHARD HOLZAPFEL: It seems Paul’s quote there, or his allusion in the book of Romans chapter 10, actually simply is part of a larger discussion that the earliest Christians had talked about. You can imagine the surprise. The debate of course during Jesus’ ministry is: Is He a great teacher, is He some prophet sent by God, is He the successor of John the Baptist, or in fact is he the mashiakh, the Messiah, the Anointed One, whom God was sending? And here Peter announces He is the Messiah, but even more, He’s also the Lord.

CECILIA M. PEEK: In John, he records in chapter 8, verse 58, after a sort of extended dispute with the Pharisees and others, they challenge him and say, You’re not yet 50 years old, and you seem to be implying that you knew Abraham. And his famous response to this is, “Before Abraham”—and the Greek phrase there is genesthai, which can mean “before Abraham was” or “before Abraham was born” or “before Abraham came into being”—and then he uses this key phrase, he says, “I Am”, egô eimi. Which is the same phrase that is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament for Exodus chapter 3, verse 14, where the God of the Old Testament identifies himself to Moses as “I Am That I Am”, and that you should return to the children of Israel and tell them that I Am has sent you. So he seems to be suggesting there, with the use of that verb, that I am the God of the Old Testament, in other words I am Jehovah. And it seems clear that his audience interpreted his response in that way, because what John tells us is that immediately thereafter they took up stones to cast at him. In other words the implicit suggestion is that they were preparing to stone him for blasphemy because he was saying that he was Jehovah.

ANDREW C. SKINNER: I think in the pages of the New Testament we find a Jesus that is so filled with compassion that He can’t help Himself. If He sees somebody in need, His natural instinct is to go and provide assistance to that person. And yet it is to the woman at the well, as recorded in John chapter 4, that He reveals His true identity. You know, she’s impressed with Jesus’ ability to forecast the future, and it’s almost as though John reveals to us a step-by-step realization on her part of who He really is. And she ultimately says, you know, I know that the Messiah’s supposed to come. And in a stunning, stunning announcement, Jesus says, “I that speak unto thee am he (John 4:26)”

CECILIA M. PEEK: The story of the woman at the well is to my mind a very significant development of several of John’s central themes. Here He is addressing a woman who is a Samaritan, and so she is viewed by the more traditional Jewish community as being outside the boundaries. And yet Jesus approaches and addresses her. Beyond that, He also makes quite clear in His exchange that this is a woman whose life is, by the standards of the law, considered sinful. Christ advises her to go and get her husband, and she says, I have no husband. And Christ knows about her past, and articulates this to her. And she says, I perceive that you must be a prophet (see John 4:19). But even after He comes to understand the sinful and imperfect condition of her life—and not just of the life of a Jewish woman, but the life of a Samaritan woman, who was already outside the lawful boundaries in the Jewish mind, and further because of the life she is leading beyond those boundaries, Christ continues to associate with her and to address her, and to try to bring her along to faith.

And so when he says to her, “I Am,” in addition to asserting His status as the God of the Old Testament, it seems to me He is also saying something about His absolute presence. And I mean that both in a temporal and in a chronological sense, that right now, in this moment, all moments are present. “I am the totally present and totally current God. And your past and your future can all be decided in this moment of belief. Your past can be forgiven, your future can be assured if you will believe now.”

I think the Samaritan woman understood, and she makes this quite clear, because as she leaves to go inform others about him she says, I have met a man who “told me all things that ever I did; is this not the Christ?” (John 4:29). So I think the combination of His prophetic powers in response to her, and the assertion of his identity as I Am, certainly leads her to believe that this is the Christ.

CAMILLE FRONK OLSON: The early Christians understood that Jesus Christ was the God of the Old Testament. They understood that He had tremendous glory and power, even to creating the earth, that He preceded any other creation. And yet He divested himself of that glory to be born on the earth as a servant, that He could die for us and perform His atoning sacrifice.

RICHARD D. DRAPER: We have to do the same thing that we did in heaven. First we have to regain that testimony that we had. The second thing then is we have to live the precepts of the gospel so we get the spirit of God in our lives. And having that spirit, then we have to have the fortitude to do what we have done before. And what is that? To witness, to witness with all our hearts and souls that Jesus is the Christ, and He was the foreordained Savior, and in the meridian of time He came down and he did everything He promised He would do. And therefore He brought salvation, and it’s our job to witness that same salvation that is in Christ Jesus, today.

ANDREW C. SKINNER: You can tell that He loved the people. He walked through the villages. And there are a lot of people that probably are descendants of those that lived here in Jesus’ day. And you can imagine Him walking through the villages, and He loved them and He cared for them, and He just wanted to bless their lives.

ANDREW C. SKINNER: It is as though the Atonement is macro-salvation. It is salvation for the whole universe. And yet when you walk through the villages, you get a real sense that this is micro-salvation—that he’s interested in each individual person, their desires, their wants, their needs, their ailments. And what He does is He takes time to heal the specific ailments, as we said, but He also takes the time to heal the whole person. And each individual person then makes up the macro-salvation.

In the sincere quest to understand and come to know the historical Jesus, the mortal man, Latter-day Saints embrace the truths that Jesus’ history extends far back, before the foundation of the world—that prior to walking the roads of Palestine, He was Jehovah of the Old Testament—who, under the direction of His Father, “created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are” (3 Nephi 9:15).

Go to Episode 2