"Lord, to whom shall we go?" Charting the Course of the Church from here to the Second Coming: Part 9

New Wine, Old Bottles: Story as Old as Time

Imagine the utter shock of the Nephites as the Lord told them that their entire religious way of life was over.  

   Just like *that* (*Thanos Finger Snap*).

No more feasts or sacrificial lambs; no more burnt offerings and Levitical laws.

As Jesus peered into their jaw-dropping astonishment, He explained this was actually a good thing!  Ending the Law of Moses was according to prophecy.  It was part of His plan all along.

   And he said unto them:
   Marvel not that I said
   unto you that old things
   had passed away,
   and that all things
   had become anew.

   Behold, I say unto you
   that the law is fulfilled
   that was given unto Moses.

   Behold . . . the law in me is fulfilled,
   for I have come to fulfil the law;
   therefore it hath an end.

(3 Nephi 15:3-5)

A couple of important things the Savior points out here:

   1.  "All" things must become "new."
   
   2.  Old "laws" are "fulfilled."

   3.  The old laws are ended, but specifically they are fulfilled "in me" (meaning, Christ, from whom all laws flow and to whom all laws have an end).

This concept should not be new to any of us.  After all, the Lord famously told the Jews:

   Neither do men put new wine
   into old bottles:
   else the bottles break,
   and the wine runneth out,
   and the bottles perish:
   but they put new wine
   into new bottles,
   and both are preserved.

(Matthew 9:17)

See, I told you the Lord loved wine.

Our Old Bottles

What does this have to do with us?  What does it mean in 2021?

Well, I have good news and bad news:

   1.  Old Bottles/Old Wine.  The old bottles and wine represent the status quo. The old law.  The old way of doing things.  In other words, pretty much everything we're used to.

Can the Lord pour His new wine into the old bottles we've collected during the Restoration? 

   Well, could He cram Christianity into the synagogues?

What would happen if the Lord tried to fit His Marvelous Works and Wonders into our current churches? 
   
   Would it break them?

What would happen if the Lord tried to fill His celestial rites and truths into terrestial and telestial church-bottles?

   Would they explode? 

So we see the logic in not using "old bottles" (our hierarchies and machinery and systems) as we approach the Millennium. 

These old bottles are going to burst.  (I mean, we can already see the seams showing, can't we?) 

To be clear, our hierarchy and religious systems are not "new bottles."

For us, it's gonna be just like it was for the Nephites and Jews.

    2.  New Bottles, New Wine. 

So where are the "new bottles" the Lord is pouring wine into?

Well, which came first: the chicken or the egg?

Or, if you're the Lord harvesting grapes and making wine, which comes first: the bottle or the wine?

Suppose you'd labored all season and had a good harvest of grapes.  You juice the grapes (or whatever it is they do in Napa) . . . guess what?  You need something to put the wine in.

New wine without a container will just seep into the dirt and be lost.

So it's almost as if the Lord is waiting for a bottle to hold His wine. 

   And what could that bottle be? 

The Second Coming of Samuel the Lamanite

Why isn't our Church today the bottle into which the Lord pours his precious Cabernet Sauvignon?

Well, He tells us why, so there's no mystery:

   Behold, I say unto you,
   there were jarrings,
   and contentions,
   and envyings,
   and strifes,
   and lustful
   and covetous desires
   among them;
   therefore by these things
   they polluted their inheritances.

(D&C 101:6)

Speaking of covetousness, I want to share something that Hugh Nibley said.

I think Nibley was the greatest Mormon critic of his generation.  He defined being "on the edge of inside" before any of us had heard of Richard Rohr.

Nibley was a kind of outsider.  He wasn't a church leader.  He was edgy but he wasn't targeted by the Brethren because he minded his P's and Q's (most of the time).

I love this anecdote from Nibley's biography that gives us a glimpse into his character.  His daughter recalled:

   "Daddy answered a ringing telephone ... [and] I overhear his side of the conversation.

   ‘Yes, this is Mr. Nibley.'
   'Yes, Martha [Nibley's daughter] is at Provo High School.'
   'She what?'
   'She missed what?'
   'Seminary?'

   He holds the phone an inch farther away from his mouth and calls to my mother:

   ‘Dear? Is Martha taking seminary? I told her not to take seminary. Great guns, why is she wasting her time in seminary?!'"

(Boyd Peterson, Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life, Salt Lake: Greg Kofford Books, 2002, xviii.)

Hugh Nibley is a modern day Samuel the Lamanite

Do you recall the theme of Samuel the Lamanite's speech to the Nephites?  How they had set their hearts on riches?  How they prided themselves on a "righteousness" that would ultimately destroy them?

(No text of scripture I can think of is more a propos of our current situation in 2021 than the Book of Helaman.)

Let's take look at Nibley's version:

And the two marks of the Church I see are ― and have been for a long time ― these: a reverence for wealth and a contempt for the scriptures.

Naturally, the two go hand in hand.

We should call attention to the fact that these things we are doing are against the work of the Lord. 

There is one saying of Joseph Smith I think of quite often. If the heavens seem silent at a time when we desperately need revelation, it is because of covetousness in the Church.

“God had often sealed up the heavens because of covetousness in the Church.”

And now the Church isn’t just shot through with covetousness, it is saturated with covetousness. And so the heavens are going to be closed.

(Hugh Nibley, Eloquent Witness: Nibley on Himself, Others, and the Temple, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2008, page 87.)

I mean, Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.  That's pocket change compared to what we've sold Him for.

So Where's the New Bottle?

If you're wondering where these new bottles will be found, don't worry.  

   The Book of Mormon tells us.

In my next few blog posts we'll take a deep dive into the answers it provides.

   Stay tuned my friends!