Make Up My Jewels

There are four scriptures in which the Lord says the phrase “make up my jewels.”   In the book of Malachi we read, speaking of those who fear the Lord, “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him” (Malachi 3:17).  The Savior quoted the same passage when He was among the Nephites in 3 Nephi 24.  Then we have two other references to this Malachi passage in the Doctrine and Covenants.  Speaking, it seems, about the time when He will come again, the Lord said, “For I, the Lord, rule in the heavens above, and among the armies of the earth; and in the day when I shall make up my jewels, all men shall know what it is that bespeaketh the power of God” (D&C 60:4).  This was given in Jackson County, Missouri, and the other reference to this phrase was given two years later as the Lord spoke about the problems in Zion: “Yet I will own them, and they shall be mine in that day when I shall come to make up my jewels” (D&C 101:3). 

So what exactly does it mean for the Lord to make up His jewels?  These passages seem to indicate that we are the jewels of the Lord, or at least that is what He is trying to make us into.  Just as “we are the clay” and the Lord is “our potter… the work of [His] hand” (Isaiah 64:8), just as our salvation and immortality is the work of the Lord according to Moses 1:39, the Lord is trying to turn us spiritually into jewels.  The real process for making polished gemstones involves heating which will “improve gemstone color and clarity” so perhaps we can think of it as the refining fire (see here).  This is the message that Malachi gave in that same chapter quoted above: “For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap.  And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver” (3 Nephi 24:2-3).  The Lord wants us to be pure and polished, and He is the one that does the refining.  In another passage the Lord said, “And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin” (Isaiah 1:25).  Being made into jewels involves purging out our sins and iniquities so that we can be pure before the Lord.  And that may not be a pleasant process.  The verse in D&C 101 was given in the context of the great sufferings of the Saints in Jackson County, and the Lord commented saying, “They must needs be chastened and tried, even as Abraham, who was commanded to offer up his only son” (D&C 101:4).  Making us into jewels involves experiencing the painful, trying moments like Abraham and having the faith of Abraham to get through them.  

The references seem to suggest that when the Lord comes to “make up [His] jewels” it will be at the time of the Second Coming.  If we don’t let Him refine and mold us before then, we will not be jewels but dross, “which the refiners do cast out, (it being of no worth) and is trodden under foot of men” (Alma 34:29).  But if we do let the Lord make us into a “polished shaft,” then we will be full of righteousness will be “as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels” when He comes again (Isaiah 49:2, 61:10).  And the Second Coming will be a glorious day for all the jewels of the Lord.