The Uttermost Farthing

Yesterday I wrote about the Savior’s admonition to “agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him,” and I’ve been pondering what He meant in the subsequent reasoning He gave.  To the Nephites He gave the directive, followed by this language: “lest at any time he shall get thee, and thou shalt be cast into prison.  Verily, verily, I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence until thou hast paid the uttermost senine. And while ye are in prison can ye pay even one senine? Verily, verily, I say unto you, Nay” (3 Nephi 12:25-26).  At face value, this is suggesting that we should be agreeable with and peaceable towards our potential adversaries so that they don’t capture us and throw us in prison.  In other words, we should not be adversarial and confrontational towards others so that we don’t incite them to do us harm or punish us.  But is that all that this is trying to teach us? 

               As I’ve looked at how prophets and apostles have used this teaching (particularly the Matthew version about paying the uttermost farthing), it is clear that they view the prison here spoken of to be a spiritual prison in which sinners are punished.  For example, Joseph Smith said, “Your friends who have been murdered for the truth’s sake in the persecutions shall triumph gloriously in the celestial world, while their murderers shall welter for ages in torment, even until they shall have paid the uttermost farthing.”  Speaking of living the law of chastity, President Packer said, “Anything other than this violates the commandments of God. Do not yield to the awful temptations of the adversary, for every debt of transgression must be paid ‘till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.’”  On another occasion he also said, “Do not despair or count as forever lost those who have fallen to the temptations of Satan. They will, after the debt is paid to ‘the uttermost farthing’ (Matt. 5:26) and after the healing which attends complete repentance takes place, receive a salvation.”  Elder Delbert Stapley said, “Referring to those who are cast into prison he declared: ‘Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.’ This statement of our Lord, which is associated with his teachings on moral and behavior patterns, affirms that those who are guilty of serious sins after receiving a knowledge of God's commandments shall be cast into prison until they pay the uttermost farthing for their sins.”  All of these references presume that the prison and the uttermost farthing/senine spoken of here by the Savior can be interpreted as the punishment that the unrepentant receive for their sins.  Though the counsel when taken in the context of earthly adversaries may have some wisdom for us, I believe the real message that the Savior wanted to give us is about the adversary, who, will “lead away the souls of men down to hell” and “bindeth them with his strong cords forever” (1 Nephi 14:3, 2 Nephi 26:22).  Christ was warning His followers about the power that Satan could have over us to put us in a spiritual prison, where we would have to pay our debt in full. 

            This interpretation of the scripture, though, begs the question of what it means to “agree with thine adversary” when that adversary is the devil himself.  Surely we don’t want to “agree” with him like we normally think of the word.  Perhaps we can understand it to mean that we don’t let him obtain his goal of making us angry and bitter and contentious; instead we remain agreeable and peaceful and devoted to the Lord even when he is seeking to incite us to wickedness.  He seeks to “rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good,” but we must remain committed to peace and that which is good just as the Savior was when He was reviled (2 Nephi 28:20).  The word “agree” also means “to come to one opinion or mind; come to an arrangement or understanding; arrive at a settlement,” and so another way to understand this phrase is that we come to an immediate agreement regarding our relationship with the adversary. In other words, we decide once and for all that we will not give into his temptations, that we will not follow his way, that we will not forsake the Lord.  But if we waffle, if do not “choose this day whom we will serve,” if we do not come to a firm agreement with regards to the adversary as to where our loyalty resides, then we give him the opportunity to seize us and at a point of weakness spiritually cast us into prison.  It may be that the Lord was telling us to decide once and for all that we will choose “liberty and eternal life” and not choose the “captivity and death” that the devil will give us if we do not agree for good that we are committed to the Lord (Mosiah 2:27).