The Origin of the Sacrament Prayers

I think it is instructive to consider where the Sacramental prayers that we have in the Doctrine and Covenants 20:77-79, and which we use verbatim in our meetings every week (with the replacement of water for wine), come from.  The text clearly comes from Moroni 4-5 since they are almost identical.  There are some grammatical changes but the words of the prayer on the wine are identical and the words of the prayer on the bread are identical except for an innocuous change from “hath given them” to “has given them.”  So where did they come from in the Book of Mormon?  Moroni stated that he was recording “the manner of their elders and priests administering the flesh and blood of Christ unto the church; and they administered it according to the commandments of Christ; wherefore we know the manner to be true” (Moroni 4:1). Moroni’s witness was that these were the words that Christ had commanded the Nephites to use.   

This recent book suggests a link between the Sacrament prayers and the description of Christ’s administration of the Sacrament in 3 Nephi 18.  After the Savior gave the Sacrament bread to the Nephites, He said, “And this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you.”  The Sacrament prayer similarly states, “that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son.”  Jesus continued: “And it shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me.”  The prayer similarly states that we “witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him.”  The Savior continued with the disciples, “And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you.”  The prayer on the bread has nearly the same language: “That they may always have his Spirit to be with them.”  Of the wine Jesus said, “Ye shall do it in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you, that ye may witness unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you” (3 Nephi 18:7-11).  The prayer on the wine uses nearly the same words: “They may do it in remembrance of the blood of thy Son, which was shed for them; that they may witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they do always remember him, that they may have his Spirit to be with them.”  Clearly the ideas of remembering the Savior and His body and blood, in order to have His Spirit with us, were taught by the Savior and incorporated into the Sacrament prayers for the Nephites.        

               One significant phrase in the prayer on the bread that is not contained in the Savior’s words in 3 Nephi 18 is “willing to take upon them the name of thy Son.” So where did this phrase come from? When the Savior later spoke to the disciples He said, “Have they not read the scriptures, which say ye must take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name?” (3 Nephi 27:5)  It is possible that because of this teaching the disciples included the phrase in the prayer on the bread to make sure they remembered the importance of taking His name upon them.  The Savior suggested, though, that this idea had already been taught.  Its first appearance in the Book of Mormon is in this passage from Nephi: “If ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ…” (2 Nephi 31:13)  Here Nephi not only spoke of taking the name of Christ upon us but referred to the need to witness it unto the Father, which is the exact language of the Sacrament prayer.  This may have been “the scriptures” that the Savior was referring to, and if so, we just might need to give some credit to the words of Nephi over 2500 years ago for how they found their way into the sacred Sacrament prayer we hear each week.