"Verily, verily, I say unto you, as I said unto my disciples, where two or three are gathered together in my name, as touching one thing, behold, there will I be in the midst of them—even so am I in the midst of you. Fear not to do good, my sons, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward. Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail. Behold, I do not condemn you; go your ways and sin no more; perform with soberness the work which I have commanded you. Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not. Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet; be faithful, keep my commandments, and ye shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Amen."
In closing remarks to a revelation that opened addressing Oliver and his doubts and questions most directly, Joseph Smith in Messianic voice now begins a passage in which the Lord is addressing the both of them together. The "you," for the first time in this Section becomes unambiguously the subject pronoun of the second person plural. It's as if this is the moment that the Lord wants to turn the corner from letting Oliver know both that he is singled out for praise and individualized messages, and letting Joseph know that he is now not alone in the ways he very recently was. Joseph and Oliver were "disciples" together, and the Savior was with them in the same very real way He was with His ancient apostles.
And they could take courage from that--from knowing God was literally on their side in the things they were sowing--they could only reap good if they kept on this path of discipleship--putting the Lord's work first, seeking to know His will through prayer, revelation, and the translation of previously unrevealed scripture. Even more explicitly, the ensuing verses let them know that opposition will mount, but that they are protected in His flock, and built upon His rock.
Two things strike me in this stretch of passage:
1.notice how quickly the metaphors pile up. The Lord is using language familiar to them both, but not telling the full story. He could have relayed more of the Good Shepherd who sacrifices Himself for the sheep, who goes after the 1 and leaves the 99, who keeps predators out. He could have relayed more about the sand that the foolish man built on, about how His higher laws led to Him, the rock of salvation, as He did for three full chapters in Matthew's Sermon on the Mount as Oliver and Joseph knew it. It was enough for them to hear the references keyed up, and the entire content of the sermons were alive in their minds. The Lord taught them through intertext--through allusion and metaphor, through allowing their own minds the space to actively fill out the meaning of the message, through giving their hearts a chance to sit in the feeling of a full sermon without interminable, dry explanation. The Master evokes, and our righteous desires to orient our hearts and minds--and ears--toward His voice, provides the meeting of the will, and the oneness in Spirit.
2. Again, look closely at the vocatives--at the evocative nicknames He seasons His allusions with. He combined Oliver and Joseph into a plural "you" as this passage opened, but as we move on, He calls them "sons," a "little flock," and alludes to them as heirs--those who "shall inherit the kingdom." Each moniker is unnecessary to the propositional content of each message, but adds tenderness and intimacy. The point both men to the love and connection with a Higher Being--inspiring them through a call to their divine nature as "sons" of God, all while encouraging them to think of their inheritance as not conditioned upon their blood kinship, but on their behavioral choices--doing good, fearing not to do good despite the opposition of the world. Notably, the Church--which is traditionally thought of as the "flock" that the Great Pastor shepherds--is a year out from organization at this point. Joseph knows that it's about to be restored, but the Lord is telling him now that there is, in fact, a little flock of two that He is carefully guarding and tending.
Finally, in one more evocative stroke of didactic mastery, the Lord drops a phrase that can't have failed to register with these two earnest seekers after Gospel knowledge. The context was very different the last time Jesus spoke such similar words as in the string: "behold, I do not condemn you, go your ways and sin no more." Peter Paul Rubens, famous baroque painter whose work is featured above, depicts the famous scene from the Gospel of John at the beginning of chapter 8 in which a woman taken in adultery (and not the man she was having adultery with), is brought before Jesus while He was teaching the people. Ignoring the Pharisees who had sought out the provocative confrontation, and who thought of themselves as the authorities in these matters, Jesus continued writing whatever pedagogical aid on the ground that His previous teaching task had Him engaging in. He then refused to engage in their insistence that the woman be stoned, but rather convinced the crowd to take note of who would throw the first rock, asking that he who was without sin to cast it. The Pharisees, embarrassed by the crowd, shrunk from their Law of Moses duty--even as they understood it--but missed the point: there WAS one without sin in that meeting, and He didn't cast a stone. The woman, grateful and shocked to be left alone rather than executed publicly, hears the Lord's last words to her--the same that Oliver and Joseph record: go and sin no more.
We shouldn't supposed the two friends guilty of anything so serious as sexual sin--we need not suppose them guilty of anything at all--but the warning in the midst of the encouragements to be careful not to sin would not have failed to ring loudly in their minds in all its intertextual seriousness. They must be worthy of their revelatory work at all times, and if they did that part, they could trust that the Lord would take away all reasons for fear, and leave them with its twin opposites: faith, and love.
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