"I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise."
Our God is sovereign: omniscient and omnipotent. But He is not arbitrary. He is the Lawgiver, and obedience pleases Him, but His proscriptions and prescriptions are never to indulge a whim. Instead they each teach principles of living like He lives. Even the most mundane physical rule has a spiritual underpinning, as Joseph Smith taught in Section 29, because learning to exercise control over temporal or physical matters teaches us to prioritize the spiritual purposes, the things of eternal importance, the meaningful over the self-gratifying.
In this section, where the previous establishment of the United Firm to put professional and resource-rich men in a committed corporation to profitably run Church companies in competition and cooperation with other vendors and service-providers in the world was confirmed, more commandments concerning its operation were received. And what was the nature of this commandment? For the parties involved to take the management of the company on as a covenant, not merely as a contract. None of them know ahead of time that their investment in a press, metal type, paper, and a suitable building will be wasted within days of its first run of the "Book of Commandments" because a mob will burn it all to the ground. None of them know ahead of time that missteps here and there will eventually make the firm's affairs unmanageable, and it will become bankrupt. None of them know ahead of time that their personal investments--some more substantial than others in terms of absolute dollars--will be lost and that they will each barely escape poverty despite being in the service of the Lord. But God does, and He also knows how the exercise will bring them each to greater ability to minister and to greater oneness with Him, with each other, and with tests that will teach them to strip themselves of pride. They each will learn something they could have learned through no other way than by failing at a task they were given in the same way Roger Federer speaks of growing the character it requires to be a champion by refusing to let self-doubt enter in after failing nearly half of the points he tries.
Each commandment--be it a concise formulation of a general moral truth like the 10 commandments, or a specific prompting to minister to a specific person in the scope of your calling--comes from a God of cause and effect, from a God of relationships, not just power. He teaches through His guiderails, and as we heed His warnings, our behavior moves from mindless compliance, to comprehension of His purposes to eventual similitude. We grow through obedience to become more like Him.
It's hard for me to overstate this point: He has a certain character, and while its higher than our comprehension can attain, it IS comprehensible enough. He has enabled our capacity for reason sufficiently to be able to follow Him, not just in blind obedience, but logically "following" how, and sometimes even why one choice leads to its outcome. He doesn't want puppets, or even really followers--He wants children who choose to inherit all He has--His power and His joy, which glory comes from the work of Salvation. We can know, as we can know that one plus one equals two, that obedience to His commandments bring blessings. There is a mathematical certainty to complying with the orders of a Being of perfect love and justice: He always keeps His word. Every act of obedience therefore obtains its natural consequences, two of which are always a growth in liberty and a closeness of the Spirit. And every act of disobedience similarly brings its natural consequences, including a restriction of freedom and a distance from the Spirit.
But please keep in mind that this God is not an ethereal essence orchestrating compliance for its own sake. This is a Father in Heaven who is teaching us to be like Him, and therefore obedience--the first law of heaven--is never truly as transactional as its own inevitable cause-and-effect nature suggests on the surface. No, this Father of ours cares about our relationship with Him and with His Son. He is bound by His word, and by the principles of righteousness that He embodies to maintain accordance with His own principles, even if He has the theoretical power to choose something counter to them. He does not cease to be God. So this cause-and-effect which is as infallibly operative as the Being who ordered it so, is also only ever subordinate to a greater and deeper "law" of mercy and love. He binds Himself to us in covenants, not just in transactional exchanges of this reward for that action. He wants us to learn, through our obedience, how to be ONE with Him, with each other, with His Son, who succors us when we are weak, and who lifts our hands which hang down and strengthens our feeble knees. He wants us to obey, and then, when we fail, he wants us to RETURN to obtaining that promise through repentance--through repair of the damage in the relationship. We may have no promise after we break His commandments and sin, but on His side, He may still act in mercy, and in fact commands us to repent and accept His covenantal blood to cover our guilt.
There's a reason this Section speaks of binding. It's the language of slavery, of scientific laws, and of voluntary commitments to each be all-in, becoming a new unit where once there were two separate entities. Binding is the language of marriage, and marriage is the most frequent symbol Christ uses to characterize His relationship to His covenant people. He will never leave us behind, and is always ours. Up to us whether we will choose His offer, repent, and keep our covenant with Him. Let's keep our promise.
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