"Covenants and Sacrifice"
President Henry B. Eyring
Old Testament - CES Symposium - 1995
And just a little later in the story, I again found my theme and with it my answer to the puzzle of what to do about the harshness some of my students had found in the God of the Old Testament. It comes in Hosea 6:6, the very place to which Jesus in his earthly ministry had sent his listeners to read more than once. Here it is. I hope you can feel something of what I felt nearly thirty years ago when I read it in a classroom.
Again, the Lord, speaking as the husband, says what it is that he expected from covenant Israel, which he has likened to a faithless wife. In verse 5 before it, we have another description of punishment, and then another shift in verse 6, which for me was like a light appearing:
“Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth.
“For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”
If I could go back again to that group of students of mine, I would see every classroom day throughout the year as the opportunity for them to know a little better Jesus Christ as he is. He is the God speaking through these verses in Hosea. The exactness, the demand for perfect fidelity, combined with the willingness to reach out with mercy, apparently almost endlessly, are not in conflict. They do not create a paradox. Jesus Christ, the God of the Old Testament, shares his Father’s desire that all of us might have eternal life, to live the life that God lives. To do that we must become like him—perfectly faithful, clean without blemish. He knows that standard is not reachable for us, unless we do all that we can do and then rely on his mercy in faith.
If I could go back again, I would try to help my students see the stern justice of God and his mercy as twin evidences of his love. I would teach them this: what he offers us in every covenant with him is the opportunity to learn to love as he loves, so that we may become, through the Atonement, like him and thus able to inherit eternal life. I would try to help them feel the Savior as unchangeable, the same God who speaks to them through the Old and NewTestament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and through his living prophets. He is not exacting one place and forgiving another. He is always both because he loves us and knows what we must have to receive the gift he offers us.
Read/Download the full talk HERE.
