The Book of Mormon

2 Nephi 25:27

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~559–545 BC

1830 Edition

Wherefore, we speak concerning the law, that our children may know the deadness of the law; and they, by knowing the deadnes of the law, may look forward unto that life which is in Christ, and know for what end the law was given. And after that, the law is fulfilled in Christ, that they need not harden their hearts against him, when the law had ought to be done away.

Influences

2 Timothy 1:1 (KJV)
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,

Changes

Wherefore, we speak concerning the law, that our children may know the deadness of the law; and they, by knowing the deadness of the law, may look forward unto that life which is in Christ, and know for what end the law was given. And after that, the law is fulfilled in Christ, that they need not harden their hearts against him, when the law had ought to be done away.

Simple English

So we talk about the law. We want our children to know that the law is dead. When they know the law is dead, they can look ahead to the life that is in Christ. They will know why the law was given. After the law is finished in Christ, they won’t need to make their hearts hard against him. This is when the law should be done away with.

Paraphrase

We teach about the law so our children understand it’s dead now. Once they know the law is dead, they can look to the life that’s in Christ and understand why the law was given in the first place. After the law is fulfilled in Christ, they won’t harden their hearts against him when the law should be set aside.

Notes

25:24-30

"The Book of Mormon presents a very unusual picture of religious life between 600 B.C. and the coming of Christ. It claims that the ancient Nephites actually worshipped Jesus Christ and established Christian churches during this long period before Christ died and the New Testament was written. Bible scholars find it very hard to accept this claim, and they are even more puzzled when they learn that the Book of Mormon claims that the ancient Nephites also kept the Law of Moses at the same time. Between 559 and 545 B.C." -Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 206.

Contrast 2 Nephi 25:24-30 and 2 Nephi 31:18 with 1 Peter 1:10-12; 1 Corinthians 2:7-8; John 7:39; and Colossians 1:26.

Wesley P. Walters writes in his Master's thesis: "The transplantation of New Testament material into the Old disrupts the dispensations that God has established in the unfolding of redemption, and confuses the Old and New Covenants and their respective ordinances. The Book of Mormon is careful to point out that the American Hebrew colony 'kept the law of Moses'... Yet Christian baptism was said to be taught among the Nephites five hundred years before Christ... Furthermore by 147 B.C. a Christian Church is depicted as flourishing, of which people become members through baptism... to introduce the New Testament practice of baptism in the name of Christ into the Old Testament period is to confuse the Old and New Covenants and the ordinances connected with each. The Book of Hebrews is very specific that while the Old Testament was in force, the New clearly was not... To introduce the features of the New Covenant into the time-period when the Old Covenant was in force is to confuse the two covenants to the extent of rendering them both meaningless... The Book of Mormon, by injecting the New Testament material into the Old Testament period, completely disrupts the biblical pattern so carefully set forth in the Old Testament itself and so faithfully guarded by the New." -Wesley P. Walters, "The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon," (Master's thesis, St. Louis: Covenant Theological Seminary, April 1981), pp. 15-17.