Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel

By Every Name

The titles of Christ, and what each one is for

Scripture never settles on one name for the Savior, and the variation is not decoration. Each title states a relationship, a function or a claim — and several of them are the sharpest doctrinal statements in the canon, hiding in plain sight as terms of address.

Isaiah 9:6; Mosiah 3:8; Revelation 1:8; John 8:58; Alma 5:4845 min4 sections

The Condescension of God

1 Nephi 11, Philippians 2, and how far down He came

An angel asks Nephi whether he knows the condescension of God, and Nephi says he does not. The answer he is given is not a definition but a series of pictures — a virgin, a child, a ministry, a cross — and the Greek of Philippians 2 supplies the verb the whole doctrine turns on.

1 Nephi 11:13–33; Philippians 2:5–8; D&C 88:6; Mosiah 3:5–845 min4 sections

The Doctrine of Christ

2 Nephi 31–32 and 3 Nephi 27, where the gospel is stated in the plainest terms the canon contains

Twice the canon stops and says, in effect: this is the doctrine, and anything more or less than this is not of me. Nephi says it at the end of his record and the Savior says it Himself at Bountiful. Between them they define the gospel as five things, in an order, with an endpoint.

2 Nephi 31–32; 3 Nephi 11:31–41; 3 Nephi 27:13–2245 min4 sections