“This Had Overcome His Natural Frame and He Was Carried Away in God”

Joseph F. McConkie, Robert L. Millet

The story of Ammon and Lamoni affirms religious trances as a legitimate revelatory device. Lamoni, as already noted, came forth from his trance testifying that he had seen the Redeemer and then prophesied relative to the Savior’s birth and the necessity of all mankind believing on his name.

The testimony of his servants was that while they were in this state of physical insensibility, angels instructed them in the principles of salvation and their obligation to live righteously. Indeed, they experienced a change of heart and no longer had a desire to do evil. Such is the state in which the power of God overcomes the “natural frame” and one is “carried away in God.”

The test of the legitimacy of the religious trance, like that of tongues is the efficacy of its purpose. Its genuineness must be ascertained by the same standards that determine the verity of revelation in all other forms-that is, by the asking of such questions as: Does it teach faith in Christ, repentance sacrifice, obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel, and loyalty to the Lord’s current and constituted Church and his anointed servants?

Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 3

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