The invocation is addressed to “God, the Eternal Father.” The Nephites understood the distinction between the Most High God as Father and Yahweh-Messiah; therefore, this prayer addresses the Father and invokes the proper authority: “the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ.” Our ability to approach God comes through Christ’s atonement without which we could not be cleansed of sin. In our sinful state, we could never approach God’s purity.
Earlier passages in the Book of Mormon present Yahweh as Father; but after his appearance, he is referred to only as the Son with a single exception of Mormon 9:12: “Behold, he created Adam, and by Adam came the fall of man. And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son; and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man.” The differentiation between the God the Father and Yahweh-Messiah the Son appears in the sacrament prayers.
The presentation of the sacrament is essentially a petition—hence, “we ask thee.” There are two elements of the petition. The first concerns the physical symbols and the second those who participate in the ordinance. The officiator requests God “to bless and sanctify this bread.” Sanctifying it makes it holy, a sacred substance. The bread is not changed into Christ’s body. It has simply acquired new meaning.
Second, for the participants, the transformation of meaning also alters the effect of eating. While eating food benefits the body, eating the sacrament blesses “the souls of all those who partake of it.” It is spiritual nourishment. In the Old World, the Savior connected the bread with the miracle of manna in the wilderness, adding to it his commentary on the water/wine that forms the second part of the sacrament’s emblems:
I am that bread of life.
Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. (John 6:48–58)
Although the same connection is not explicitly spelled out in the Book of Mormon, it seems reasonable to believe that the institution of the sacrament in the New World would be bolstered by the same symbolism as in the Old World, since both communities shared these references. The sacrament does not connote an earthly meal that sustains physical life, but rather heavenly nourishment that will provide us with heavenly life.
The next phrase is the core of the blessing: a reminder that we “eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son.” This language echoes the Savior’s description in 3 Nephi 18:7: “And this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you.”
The promise to “witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son,” is also foreshadowed in 3 Nephi 18:7: “And it shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me.”
Accepting the sacrament establishes a covenantal relationship between the partaker and God. The covenant is that the partaker assumes the “name of thy Son.” The taking of a name is serious business in the ancient world. It is more than simply calling ourselves Christians. It implies that we adopt the attributes of that person. This is not a covenant of mere identification but a covenant of action.
The actions implied by the name-covenant are spelled out in the next clause: “and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he hath given them.” Remembering is not only a simple act of memory, but the active understanding that we are to embody Christ’s attributes. Evidence that we remember him properly is that we obey his commandments.
Covenants consist of both a promise and a blessing. Here is the blessing that comes to those who remember and keep the commandments: “that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen.” The Savior made the same promise when he introduced the sacrament at Bountiful: “And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you” (3 Ne. 18:7).
History: There is no essential relationship between the Nephite sacrament blessings and those known from the Old World. The developing evidence of the sacrament prayers and performances indicates that there is probably no single traceable original New Testament form. Rather, there were probably multiple different forms in different locations. The best explanation for the commonalities among the diversity of Old World sacrament prayer forms was early Jewish prayer-forms.
Text: This is the end of a chapter in the 1830 edition.