“Even as Our Father Lehi Saw God Sitting Upon His Throne”

Brant Gardner

The joy we feel with the infusion of the Holy Spirit is a taste of the eternal nature, of the fullness of Joy. Alma makes that explicit in his vision of God on his throne, and the longing to be there. This is also indicative of the degree to which his heart had been cleansed by this time. Had there been any of the carnal man left, that part of him would have shied from the presence of God.

Textual: Alma makes a direct reference to Lehi and a vision that we have recorded in 1 Nephi 1: 8-13. We cannot tell whether Alma’s source is the small plates or the large plates, as he would have access to both, and there is great likelihood that this vision was also recorded on the large plates. We know that the full version was written by Lehi (1 Nephi 1:16) but know that what we have is not the full version. Regardless of the specific source, it tells us that Mormon read extensively in his records. It also tells us that this reference to Lehi’s vision expects that his readers know that Lehi had such a dream. That tells us that this dream was most likely included in Mormon’s abridgement of the Book of Lehi, and is one of the incidents lost with the 116 manuscript pages.

Multidimensional Commentary on the Book of Mormon

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