In the Book of Mormon, we read concerning the people of Nephi beginning to “wax proud” due to an increase in their improved financial positions. An increase in their “flocks and herds, and their gold and their silver, and all manner of precious things,” led them to become “lifted up in the pride of their eyes.” As a result, the record states that they “began to wear very costly apparel.”[1] Our minds might quickly be drawn into a vision of a people who were adorned with the finest of material, even clothing fit for a king. And while this was very likely the case, maybe Alma had another meaning for the phrase, “they began to wear very costly apparel.”
God tells us to “put on the whole armor of God” which is described as truth, righteousness, preparation, faith, salvation, and the word of God. [2] Elsewhere we are encouraged to “clothe [ourselves] with the bond of charity…which is the bond of perfectness and peace.”[3] And in Zechariah, Joshua the high priest has his “filthy garments” removed from him and he is clothed with a “change of raiment” worthy of an audience with the Lord.[4]
“Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.”[5]
So, what of the “very costly” apparel of the Nephites? Who pays the price for the new identity they are forging for themselves? Ultimately, the wicked among the Nephites, and elsewhere, will pay the full price of their apparel, and the cost will be their own salvation. Alma, concerned about their “destruction,” attempted to bring them to the knowledge of their “awful situation,”[6] and “reclaim them” by “pull[ing] down…all the pride and craftiness and the contentions which were among his people.”[7] Can you picture in your mind Alma symbolically attempting to strip the people of their costly apparel, tearing down the false identity they have made for themselves? He spends the whole next chapter helping his people remember who they truly are, opposed to who they have made themselves become. He does this by explaining the condition of their garments (clothing, or how they have chosen to represent themselves) in that last day, saying,
“ye will know at that day that ye cannot be saved; for there can no man be saved except his garments are washed white; yea, his garments must be purified until they are cleansed from all stain, through the blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem his people from their sins.”[8]
I bare witness that the apparel worn by the wicked among the Nephites is far too costly to ever be worth its appeal. For the Lord has said,
“For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent…But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I…”[9]
That we may all be clothed with the armor of God and with the bonds of charity is my humble prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
“For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent…But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I…”[9]
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