Jesus of Nazareth, by Anthony Sweat. Used with permission.

I am an artist and paint scenes related to the Restoration and the Savior’s life and ministry. Recently I finished a painting I entitled Jesus of Nazareth (see facing page).

Admittedly, this painting and its title intend for the viewer to double-take. It is purposely different than the typical iconic long-robed, long-haired, Euro-centric depictions of the Savior. Mine is an attempt at a portrait of Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth informed by academic research and consultation with scholars based on how an average Jewish man in first-century Judea might have appeared.[1] I am the first to say that we don’t know what mortal Jesus looked like, but research suggests that Jewish men in first century Roman Judea were often middle height with honey or olive-colored skin and shorter black hair and beards. They generally wore a simple tunic to the knee, with a striped, decorative clavi running vertically.[2] My image incorporates these elements, with the addition of Jesus standing in front of a winepress hewn in the natural Nazarene hillside bedrock with which he likely worked.

When I dropped off the painting at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, one of the people doing the art intake asked to see it. I turned it around and showed it without any commentary on the painting. The intake person’s first inquisitive question was, “Who’s that?” If I had answered, “Paul” or “Joseph, Mary’s husband,” I would likely have been met with an agreed smile. Instead, I said, “It’s a painting of Jesus.” With an incredulous and somewhat confused look, the person directly (and somewhat hoping to correct me) responded, “Well, that’s not what Jesus looks like!” I couldn’t help but push back a bit and with a friendly smile, but making the point, said, “Oh, I didn’t know you knew what he looked like!”

I relate this story because it’s central to my thesis explored in this chapter. How do we know the Lord? Not what he looks like (that’s not the point herein), but what he is like—his character, priorities, doctrines, and commands? Through our own personal study of scripture, stories we have heard, talks we have read or listened to, classes we have attended, songs we have sung, movies we have watched, art we have viewed, or causes we care about, we have all come to our own personal ideas of who Jesus of Nazareth is and what he teaches, commands, and promises. The central question is, is our conception accurate? Is it what Jesus really looks like, metaphorically speaking? Some in today’s world seem to have invented a Jesus who is all about love and kindness—whose eternal anthem is “all you need is love.” No strict commands, no sharp rebukes, no required ordinances, no corners and edges to his persona. A Christ who, as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland summarized, simply “pat[s] us on the head, make[s] us giggle, then tell[s] us to run along and pick marigolds.”[3] A kindly and smiling Savior who, as C. S. Lewis taught, is “not so much [like] a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven.”[4]

On the other hand, others—past and present—have conjured a Christ who is perpetually disappointed and angry, a Christ who grudgingly and tiringly forgives (just this one last time!), and who sends pain and problems our way because of our lack of perfect diligence and obedience. Think of the good and striving soul in your local congregation who yet concludes, “I got fired from my job because I haven’t been praying three times a day” or the person who is convinced God loathes them because they struggle with pornography. “God won’t ever forgive me for doing this again,” they say. Is that an accurate summary view of Jesus’s true nature and character? Love and anger aren’t the only two character traits where people directly differ about deity. Other ends of spectrums have to do with agency and divine intervention, with one end viewing Christ as a distant cosmic Creator who has no involvement in the day-to-day aspects of our mortal decisions and temporal concerns, while others view Christ concerned with every daily detail, down to whether they should have two or three eggs for breakfast.

While each of these perspectives have their reasons and perhaps aspects of truth, we sometimes adopt our Christly conclusions at the expense of the best available information. Spiritually, we can be like low-quality scientists who only highlight data that supports our premise while ignoring other or more recent studies that might undermine our conclusions. Or, as social-media analogy, we conveniently TikTok Jesus into twenty-second vignettes and thus conclude we understand the depth of his inexpressible divinity. Yes, God created us in his own image, but if we are not careful, we can create God after our own likeness. Since eternal life hinges on coming to truly know “the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [he] sent” (John 17:3), then we need to learn about the Lord as a whole, and learn as much as we can. We need to get to know the Savior’s revealed voice, and the Doctrine and Covenants may be our best text to do so.

The Voice of the Lord

When I was younger, I remember seeing my dad’s Bible sitting on an end table. I picked it up and opened it and to my surprise it had some verses printed in red. I asked my dad why some text was red while the rest was not. He said something like, “The red ones are where Jesus spoke directly. They are his words.” It’s hard to wow a kid with scriptures, but I was immediately interested. I turned page after page hunting for all the red text I could find. Of course, in the Gospels is where I found the most, but this experience led me later to ask, What if we did a red-letter Doctrine and Covenants? One key reason why we study the Doctrine and Covenants is because the Doctrine and Covenants contains more of the direct words of Christ than any other book of scripture, by far. Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “If asked which book of scripture provides the most frequent chance to ‘listen’ to the Lord talking, most individuals would at first think of the New Testament. The New Testament is a marvelous collection of the deeds and many of the doctrines of the Messiah. But in the Doctrine and Covenants we receive the voice as well as the word of the Lord. We can almost ‘hear’ him talking. . . . Thus, in many ways the Doctrine and Covenants is the modern equivalent of the thundering directness of Sinai.”[5]

Hearing the voice of the Lord is one of the major themes permeating the revelations compiled in the Doctrine and Covenants. In fact, the preface to the Doctrine and Covenants in section 1 frames the entirety of the revelations within that context. The second verse of the preface to the Doctrine and Covenants sweepingly clarifies that “the voice of the Lord is unto all men” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:2). In verse 11 the Savior states that “the voice of the Lord is unto the ends of the earth, that all that will hear may hear” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:11). If you go into your scripture app, open Doctrine and Covenants and simply search “hearken” or “listen” or “my voice” or “the voice of the Lord” and you will see its repeated emphasis. Here are a few others from the first forty-five sections of the book—a noncomprehensive but more representative one: 18:35–36; 25:1; 27:1; 29:1–2, 7; 33:1, 6; 35:1; 38:6, 22; 39:1; 43:21–25. Notice how often he says it in the other hundred sections!

In Doctrine and Covenants 41:1, as an example, look how important the Lord says listening and hearkening to him is, and how his character covers multiple ends of spectrums: “Hearken and hear, O ye my people, saith the Lord and your God, ye whom I delight to bless with the greatest of all blessings, ye that hear me; and ye that hear me not will I curse, that have professed my name, with the heaviest of all cursings.” In Doctrine and Covenants 101:7 the Lord lays much of the blame of the loss of Zion in Independence, Missouri, to the Saints there who “were slow to hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God.” On the other hand, in Doctrine and Covenants 108:1 the Lord tells Lyman Sherman, “Your sins are forgiven you, because you have obeyed my voice in coming up hither this morning to receive counsel of him whom I have appointed.” Punishment for not hearkening to his voice in one case, reward for doing so in another.

The Lord’s voice in the Doctrine and Covenants is often more loving than we can express, and more terrible than we may like to admit.[6] Jesus is God and his voice will be heard and obeyed, yet he won’t compel and he respects agency. The Lord in the Doctrine and Covenants loves his people and abounds with compassion but doesn’t hesitate to call us out to repentance. The Savior is dually forgiving and condemning. The Doctrine and Covenants invites us to truly get to know all aspects of him and his divine will. To do so, it is necessary to let go of our preconceived notions that might not reflect his expansive persona, drop our simple societal summaries that don’t align with his global will, and stop seeking to pigeonhole him into small spaces when his power fills the cosmos.

Rediscovering Jesus

This is in essence what Phillip Yancey, a Christian journalist and author, did with the New Testament Gospels and which he summarized in his impactful and award-winning[7] book The Jesus I Never Knew. Yancey grew up a Christian but became disillusioned with the various, simple, and sometimes competing summaries of the Savior he had heard throughout the years. At one point he decided to try and drop everything he had learned about Jesus and instead approach the New Testament Gospels as though he were an investigative journalist getting to know the Savior for the first time. What did he discover? Yancey was “thunderstruck by what” he read, summarizing, “The Jesus I got to know in writing this book is very different from the Jesus I learned about in Sunday School. In some ways more comforting; in some ways more terrifying.”[8]

How does the Jesus of the Doctrine and Covenants compare to our preconceived notions of Christ? Think if you were in a gospel doctrine discussion covering section 24 and someone claimed, “Jesus wouldn’t ever curse anyone.” Now go and read verses 4, 6, 15–16 and see if that statement is accurate.

Maybe someone thinks, “I just don’t think God is as freely forgiving as some say.” But in studying the pages of the Doctrine and Covenants this person may be surprised to find how repeatedly and quickly—even unexpectedly—the Lord grants forgiveness. A revelation to Emma Smith? “Thy sins are forgiven thee” (25:3). A section on the last days and millennium? It begins with “your sins are forgiven you” (29:3). The elders want to know which way to travel on a journey? “Your sins are forgiven you” (60:7). Establishing the First Presidency? “Their sins are forgiven them” (90:6). Readers of the Doctrine and Covenants find the Lord on dozens of occasions speaking forgiveness[9] as his “bowels are full of compassion” (101:9).

Or perhaps you’re studying Doctrine and Covenants sections 33–35 and another optimistically claims, “The Lord has a positive outlook on the good state of the world.” Then you read these verses:

• “Declare my gospel unto a crooked and perverse generation” (33:2).
• “My vineyard has become corrupted every whit; and there is none which doeth good save it be a few” (33:4).
• “And there are none that doeth good except those who are ready to receive the fulness of my gospel” (35:12).

These are just a few examples of how the Doctrine and Covenants brings to light the actual living Lord’s character and teachings. We must get past a convenient Christ[10] and get to know the real restored Redeemer as revealed in the pages of the Doctrine and Covenants. As an example, Professor Steven Harper writes of one revelation: “Section 52 draws the battle lines for a culture war. Missouri, it says, is the place the Lord chose for the Saints’ inheritance. In 1831, however, Missouri was inhabited by people the Lord called ‘enemies’ (verse 42). The Lord’s straightforwardness makes some readers squeamish. It doesn’t sound to them like their idea of Jesus Christ. If so, just keep reading the scriptures until the sentimental image of Jesus is replaced by the actual Christ whose voice dominates the Doctrine and Covenants. He sees things as they are and will be and speaks the truth. He knows who are his friends and who are his enemies. He demonstrates this knowledge in section 52 and elsewhere in the Doctrine and Covenants. We come to know him by hearing his voice.”[11]

Getting to Know Jesus—a Scriptural Pattern

How do we hear the Lord’s voice and thus get to know him more truly and deeply? We can approach the Doctrine and Covenants in the same way that Phillip Yancey approached the gospels. We try to put down our preconceived notions of Jesus—temporarily suspending our conclusions—and come to read the Doctrine and Covenants afresh to hear the revealed will word, character and commands, and peace and promises of the Lord in the latter days. To help readers do this, I suggest a four-part pattern of study that I have used with Brigham Young University students as we have deeply studied the text of the Doctrine and Covenants to better come to know and understand the Lord. This four-part pattern is based on Doctrine and Covenants 19:23, where the Lord says to Martin Harris, “Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me.” This powerful verse provides four distinct categories to help us organize our better coming to the know the restored voice of the Lord:

1. Learn of me = Who is he? What is revealed about the Lord’s character and nature?
2. Listen to my words = What is he teaching? What are the major doctrines and truths?
3. Walk in the meekness of my Spirit = What is he telling us to do? How is he asking us to act and live? What are his commands, directives, and warnings?
4. Peace in me = What is he divinely promising? What are the results the Lord assures?

Marked section of the Doctrine and Covenants based on four categories of Learn, Listen, Walk, Peace.

Although there are many useful ways to study a scriptural text, this four-part pattern from Doctrine and Covenants 19:23 provides a broad and useful framework to approach each individual section of the Doctrine and Covenants. It gives the reader something specific to look for as they are seeking to better know the Lord of the Restoration and come to their own conclusions of who he is and what his divine doctrines are based on what the actual text says. This is key: we must base our conclusions on what we are repeatedly finding in the text itself—taking the data as a whole so to speak—making notes of the verses within a section that support it. If we can begin with a fresh set (either digital or printed) of the Doctrine and Covenants, we may even desire to keep a notebook with each of these categories as a header where we can make notes of all the verses we find that fit therein, and color code each of these four categories as we mark each section. In the example below (see image 2), Learn (character) is marked in purple, Listen (teachings) is marked in blue, Walk (commands/warnings) is marked in red, and Peace (promises) is marked in green. Scan the QR code to see a color marked version of this section:

Studying the entire text of the Doctrine and Covenants this way—organizing the content of each section under the four headers of Learn, Listen, Walk, and Peace—can provide a comprehensive view of who is Jesus of the Doctrine and Covenants. For BYU students’ cumulative semester assignment, they work on and complete a personal “Hear Him!” declaration that summarizes conclusions about the Lord’s character, teachings, commands, and promises into one page with supporting references. In end of semester comments, students repeatedly mentioned how insightful, powerful, and revealing this approach was to study and summarize the text of the Doctrine and Covenants to help them better hear the voice of the Lord and come to know him. You can see one of these examples, used with permission, by scanning the QR code below.

QR code to “Hear Him” declaration.

Hear Him!

Returning to where we began, how do we better come to know the real Lord—his true character, priorities, doctrines, and commands? The Doctrine and Covenants is a powerful text to help us in this essential, eternal-life quest. In 2022 President Russell M. Nelson challenged members to “ask the Lord to teach you how to hear Him better.”[12] At another time he taught, “As we seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ, our efforts to hear Him need to be ever more intentional.”[13]

This effort to hear the Lord needs to be more intentional for many reasons—one being the cacophony of competing voices and perspectives proliferated and consumed today through social media and the Internet—but also because if we are not careful we can “invent” a partial version of the Lord’s voice, will, and ways through ignoring, cherry-picking, or soft pedaling certain verses of scripture, whether intentionally or not. That statement isn’t an accusation, but an invitation for us all. It is an invitation for us to drink of the words of life freshly from the pages of the Doctrine and Covenants that give us more of the Lord’s first-person, direct, and recent words than any other book of scripture. This capstone[14] text helps us to get to know the Lord by hearing and hearkening to his voice so that we don’t walk in our way after the image of our own god (see Doctrine and Covenants 1:16) but instead hear the voice of the Lord and know him deeply so that “every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world; That faith also might increase in the earth; That mine everlasting covenant might be established” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:20–22). Such is the power of the abundant voice of the Lord as found in the revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Notes

[1] I am particularly grateful to Matthew Grey, my colleague in the Department of Ancient Scripture, for sharing his research and expertise with me on Jewish first-century appearance and clothing in Roman Judea.

[2] See Joan E. Taylor, What Did Jesus Look Like? (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018).

[3] Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Cost—and Blessings—of Discipleship,” Ensign or Liahona, April 2014, 7.

[4] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1948), 32.

[5] Neal A. Maxwell, “The Doctrine and Covenants: The Voice of the Lord,” Ensign, December 1978, 4–6.

[6] The Prophet Joseph Smith reportedly taught that God “is more liberal in his views, and boundless in his mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive, and, at the same time, is more terrible to the workers of iniquity, more awful in the executions of his punishments, and more ready to detect every false way than we are apt to suppose him to be.” History, 1838–1856, volume D-1 (1 August 1842–1 July 1843) [addenda], 4 [addenda], www.josephsmithpapers.org.

[7] The Jesus I Never Knew won the 1996 Gold Medallion Christian Best Book of the Year award, as indicated on its back cover.

[8] Phillip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 258 and inside cover.

[9] If you type in “forgive*” into the search bar on www.scriptures.byu.edu there are 47 results from that search. For a few examples of personal forgiveness from the Lord, see Doctrine and Covenants 31:5, 36:1, 50:36, 61:2, 75:8, 90:1,108:1, 110:5, 112:3.

[10] See Jeffrey R. Holland and Patricia T. Holland, “The Inconvenient Messiah” (Brigham Young University devotional, February 2, 1982), http://speeches.byu.edu.

[11] Steven C. Harper, Doctrine and Covenants Contexts (Springville, UT: Book of Mormon Central, 2021), Section 52, 121.

[12] Russell M. Nelson, “Choices for Eternity” (worldwide devotional for young adults, May 15, 2022), www.churchofjesuschrist.org.

[13] Russell M. Nelson, “Hear Him,” Ensign, May 2020, 89.

[14] President Ezra T. Benson called the Doctrine and Covenants the “capstone” of our religion. “The Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants,” Ensign, May 1987, 83.