Written by the Father

After describing His gospel, the Savior said this to His Nephite disciples: “For behold, out of the books which have been written, and which shall be written, shall this people be judged, for by them shall their works be known unto men. And behold, all things are written by the Father; therefore out of the books which shall be written shall the world be judged. And know ye that ye shall be judges of this people, according to the judgment which I shall give unto you, which shall be just. Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am” (3 Nephi 27:25-27). We are to be judged after those things which are written, and one way to understand this is that an account of our actions will be recorded and used as a part of our judgment; that is the sense of the words to the hymn Do What Is Right: “Angels above us are silent notes taking Of ev’ry action; then do what is right!” John also recorded this from his vision, “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (Revelation 20:12). That suggests that there will be book written with our works from which we will be judged. President Harold B. Lee said this referring to these words from John: “The ‘books’ spoken of refer to the ‘records [of our works] which are kept on the earth. … The book of life is the record which is kept in heaven.’” The Prophet Joseph also commented on this verse from John this way: “The dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works; consequently, the books spoken of must be the books which contained the record of their works, and refer to the records which are kept on the earth. And the book which was the book of life is the record which is kept in heaven” (Doctrine and Covenants 128:7). So, there are books kept on earth—such as the records of the Church—that contain our works, and there is a book which is kept in heaven that also contains our works on earth. And, according to the Savior, that book or something like it is “written by the Father.” And let’s hope that the sins we have repented of are permanently erased from that book!

                I wonder if there is another way we might also understand this statement in 3 Nephi 27 about how all things are written by the Father. We know that Jesus is the personification of the word as John wrote and as modern scripture affirms: “Therefore, in the beginning the Word was, for he was the Word, even the messenger of salvation—The light and the Redeemer of the world; the Spirit of truth, who came into the world, because the world was made by him, and in him was the life of men and the light of men” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:8-9). Since He is the Only Begotten Son of the Father, it makes sense symbolically that as the Word, He was written by the Father. President Nelson said this, “[‘The Word’] was another name for the Master. That terminology may seem strange, but it is appropriate. We use words to convey our expression to others. So Jesus was the Word, or expression, of His Father to the world.” I love that idea—just as we send forth our messages through words to others, the Father sent forth His Message to us in the form of the Savior, the Messenger, the Word of the Father. And so to say that all things are written by the Father we might alternatively say, “He wrote the Son who created all things.” Interestingly, after John called the Savior “the Word” the apostle spoke of how that Word created all things: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1-3). The Savior is the personification of not just any word but the Word or Message from the Father. And so to say that we will be judged by that which is written may be the same as saying that we will be judged by the Word, even Jesus Christ.