5 We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.
As mentioned in the previous post about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we are expected to follow the laws and commandments that Jesus laid out during His earthly ministry. So this begs the question, what essential teachings did Jesus leave with us during His mortal lifetime? The New Testament of the Bible tells us of many of the teachings of Christ during His mortal ministry, through the perspectives of some of His closest disciples and followers.
Before diving into some scriptures, I want to define two of the words in the fourth Article of Faith. First is the word principle. According to dictionary.com, a principle is "a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived." Another definition they give is, "a fundamental doctrine or tenet." So a principle is an essential truth.
The next word I want to define is "ordinance." This is defined as "an established rite or ceremony," but also as "an authoritative rule or law; a decree or command." So within the Gospel setting, an ordinance is an essential ceremonial act.
Now to the scriptures to explore the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel...
Jesus taught, as recorded in Matthew 7:13-14, "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
In John 3:5, Christ also taught us an important lesson about one of the essentials steps to obtain eternal life, or life in the presence of our Heavenly Father. He told an inquiring man that "...Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
From these two scriptures we learn that there is a strait (narrow) entrance to the kingdom of God and that in order to enter through that gate we must be baptized by water and by the Holy Ghost. But before we get baptized, we must show that we are ready to be baptized. We can show that we are ready by living the first two principles of the Gospel: faith and repentance.
The essential truths of faith and repentance are the prerequisites to being baptized and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Faith in Jesus Christ is the first of these two principles. We need to believe that we can repent. We need to believe that Jesus is real, that He suffered and died for our sins, and that He is a resurrected being. Once we have that faith, we will have a desire to align our lives with the teachings of Jesus. Only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ can we repent.
Repentance is a process by which we recognize our sin, turn away from it, make attempts to repair the damage of our sin, ask for forgiveness for our sin (both from those we hurt and from our Heavenly Father, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ), and commit to not repeat the sin. The enabling power of the Atonement can help us through this process. When we repent, we feel a calming peace and a fleeing of guilt.
When we show our faith in Jesus Christ and repent of the things in our lives that are inconsistent with His teachings, we are ready for baptism. Baptism is the first ordinance of the Gospel. Jesus was our example in the manner of baptism. When Jesus went to be baptized, he traveled from Nazareth to Bethabara to be baptized of a specific man: John the Baptist. If you look on maps.google.com and do a search from Nazareth, Israel to The Baptismal Site (Bethany beyond the Jordan), Jordan you get results such as the following:
So for Jesus to go out of His way to be baptized by John, He traveled about 125 km, which is about 78 miles. That is at least a 4 day journey by foot, assuming 20 miles a day. Why would Jesus go that far to be baptized? Authority. That is why.
Jesus knew that baptism was, and is, a requirement for the kingdom of heaven. He knew that for a baptism to be valid in the eyes of Heavenly Father, it had to be performed by someone with the proper authority. This is the priesthood authority. I will write a post about the priesthood at a later time, but if you want to read more about it, you can look here and here. John the Baptist had the authority to perform baptisms.
If someone is performing baptisms without the authority of the priesthood, it is like some person who is printing counterfeit tickets to a concert and giving them out to people. They may look just like the original, but when the ticket is scanned, it will not register as a proper ticket. Likewise, if we receive baptism by someone who doesn't have the priesthood authority, it is like they are trying to give passage to the kingdom of heaven without any right to do so.
Another important part of baptism is the form of the baptism. John the baptist was baptizing in the River Jordan, "because there was much water there." When he baptized Christ, it says that Jesus "went straightway out of the water." From dictionary.com (or any other dictionary that gives origins of words), we see that the Greek origin of baptize is baptÃzein, which means to immerse (plunge into liquid). Since Christ is our perfect example, we should do things in the same manner that He did them. Christ was baptized by immersion, meaning He was placed completely underneath the water, and then lifted back out. This is symbolic of death and rebirth from a life of sin (though Christ had no sin, but we surely do).
Baptism by immersion, from someone with the authority of the priesthood, is the "strait gate" referred to in the scripture near the beginning of this post. Once we have been properly baptized, we are eligible for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost is distinct from feeling the Holy Ghost. Anyone can feel the Holy Ghost when they are learning about eternal truths. It is one of the Spirit's roles to testify of all truth. The difference between the Spirit telling us when we have learned something that is true and the gift of the Holy Ghost is that with the latter we are promised that we can have the Spirit with us always. When we are baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, we make a promise that we will always remember Jesus Christ, we will take His name upon ourselves, and keep His commandments. As we do this, we are promised to always have the companionship of the Spirit. This constant companionship will help us to make correct choices. It will be a comfort to us and a strength in hard times. Having the Spirit with us will help us to complete the fifth step, which is not actually found in the fourth article of faith: endure to the end.
In 3 Nephi 15:9 Christ says, "Behold, I am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life." What is the point of doing all of the first four steps if we don't continue to follow Christ throughout our lives? If we simply enter in the gate and stop, we won't arrive at the mansion that lies beyond. We must continue to keep the commandments and repent until the end of our lives to show Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ that we really want to return to live with them.
In summary, we must follow the four steps in the fourth article of faith as well as endure to the end to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I know that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can become clean from our sins and be pure. The priesthood power that is necessary for a proper baptism has been restored to the earth and we can each make the choice to follow Christ's example by being baptized.
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