Experimenting on the Law - Alma 31-35

​This week in our review of the Book of Mormon we’ll look at chapters 31 to 35.  Our focus will be on chapter 32 where Alma lays out a process to come to a knowledge of the truth.  The primary theme that we see in chapter 32 is the concept of experimenting on the God’s Word to come to a knowledge of the truth.  One of the ideas we see here in Alma 32 is that when we receive a blessing or a fruit for living the Commandments it is a confirmation that we have received truth from God.  But as we will see, positive things that happen in our lives do not always come from God.

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​The Process of Experimenting with God’s Word
When we look at the process of experimenting with God’s Word that Alma sets out in chapter 32 to find truth, it looks like this.

Process of Experimenting with God's Word

​Arouse faculties v27 V

Exercise of particle of faith, desire to believe v27 ​V

Give place for a portion of my words, planting a seed, not casting out by unbelief v27,28 ​V

Good Seed -Swelling motions (the Spirit) v28 V

Enlarge soul, enlighten understanding, delicious v28 V

Bad Seed not grow (stupor of thought) v32 V

Nourish a Good Seed v37  Nourish with diligence and patience, receive fruit from tree of life v41-43 Neglect, not nourish, not get root, cast off – failure to nourish indicates barren ground v38,39​ Don’t receive the fruit of the tree of life v40 V

Get root, Grow up v37 V

​Bring forth fruit v37

Critical Elements
When we look at this process of experimenting on the Word, we can reduce it down to five key elements.

Critical Elements

Planting a Seed V

Enlighten Understanding (good seed) ​V

Seed gets Root and Grows ​V

Nourish with Patience and Diligence the Seed ​V

Bears Fruit

Experimenting on the Law
We can now apply this process of experimentation of God’s Law-Word in the Torah.

Element	Action
Planting a Seed V	​Accept the idea that God’s Law-Word in the Torah may still be relevant.
Enlighten Understanding (good seed) ​V	See how God’s Law-Word in the Torah applies to Isaiah Spiritual Categories of Humanity, which is our basic model of the Gospel **
Seed gets Root and Grows ​V	​Our faith in God increases because our view of the Gospel expands.
Nourish with Patience and Diligence the Seed ​V	​We begin to actually live God’s commands in the Torah.
Bears Fruit	​We see blessings of material abundance and our posterity experiences successes.

Attributing Blessings to God
One of the points that John Rushdoony makes in his exhaustive treatise of biblical law – The Institutes of Biblical Law -is that blessings can only be attributed to God when we live His Law.  Another commentator who echos the same concept said - There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated— And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
 
That being said, positive events that happen in our lives can be attributed as good fortune or worldly skill or cleverness, which might be called as the “survival of the fittest”  These types of positive events cannot be associated with blessings of God unless we are living the laws of God.

When we look at the Law in the Torah, God promises blessings of temporal salvation that we see in Deu 28.  Moreover, God promises the companionship of the Spirit as we live His commandments.

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Isaiah's Spiritual Categories

Most High God/The Father

God of Israel/The Son

Seraphim/Joint-Heirs

Sons/Daughters/Elect

Zion/Jerusalem/Pure In Heart

Jacob/Israel/Believers

Babylon/The World

Sodom/Gomorrah *

Mahan *

Perdition

* Added by author.