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3 Nephi 18

That Ye Do Always Remember Me — The Sacrament and the Covenant of Presence

3 Nephi 18: Jesus institutes the sacrament. He commands his disciples to bring bread and wine; he takes the bread, breaks and blesses it, gives it to the twelve, and has them give it to the multitude until all are filled — 'this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you... that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you.' He gives them the wine likewise, 'in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you.' To do these things is to be 'built upon my rock'; to do more or less is to build on sand, and the gates of hell stand open. He charges them to watch and pray always, lest the devil tempt them and lead them captive — for Satan desires to sift them as wheat; to pray always to the Father in his name; to pray in their families; to meet together oft and forbid no one from coming to their meetings, but to pray for all. He sets the example: 'I am the light; I have set an example for you.' He commands that none partake of his flesh and blood unworthily, yet that even the unworthy not be cast out but ministered to and prayed for, that they may return and be healed. To the twelve he gives power to give the Holy Ghost, touching them one by one. Then a cloud overshadows the multitude, and he ascends into heaven. The chapter is the institution of the sacrament — the bread and the cup, the perpetual covenant of remembrance, the promise that those who always remember him shall always have his Spirit — and the close of the first day of the Lord's ministry, sealed with the gift of the Holy Ghost and his ascension into heaven.

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Where we are

This is the chapter where the risen Lord gives his people the ordinance they will keep until he comes again — the sacrament of the bread and the cup — and binds it to a promise that is among the most precious in all of scripture: if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you (v. 7). The whole chapter turns on that exchange. The sacrament is, at its heart, a covenant of remembrance, and the reward of remembrance is presence — the abiding companionship of the Spirit of Christ. The Lord who has just spent a day teaching, healing, and blessing the children now gives them the means to keep him with them after he ascends: a simple meal of bread and wine, eaten in remembrance, that opens the door to his Spirit. The chapter is the institution of the sacrament and the close of the first day of the visit — and it ends, fittingly, with the gift of the Holy Ghost and the ascension of the Lord into heaven.

Begin with the ordinance itself, because its simplicity is part of its meaning. Jesus has the disciples bring bread and wine (v. 1); he took of the bread and brake and blessed it, gave it to the disciples, and had them give it to the multitude until they were filled (vv. 3–4). And he names what it is for: this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you — the body they had just touched, the prints of the nails still fresh under their fingers — and it shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you (v. 7). Then the wine, likewise: ye shall do it in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you... that ye may witness unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you (v. 11). The structure of both is identical, and the heart of both is the same word: remember. The bread is the body, the wine is the blood, and the eating and drinking are remembrance — a remembrance that is also a witness to the Father, a covenant testimony that we do always remember him. And the promise attached to the covenant is the same both times, repeated for emphasis: ye shall have my Spirit to be with you.

This is the deep logic of the sacrament, and it is worth dwelling on. The ordinance is not magic; the bread and wine are not transformed into something else; the power is in the remembrance and the covenant. When the disciple eats the bread and drinks the cup in remembrance of the body and blood of Christ, he is witnessing to the Father — making a covenant promise — that he will always remember the Lord. And to the soul that keeps that covenant, that always remembers, the Lord gives the thing the soul most needs: my Spirit to be with you. The word study below opens up the cup; but the chapter's central teaching is this exchange — remembrance for presence. The whole problem of the human heart, as the Book of Mormon has shown again and again, is forgetting: the people forget God in prosperity, forget the signs, forget the deliverances, and the forgetting is the fall. The sacrament is God's answer to forgetting — a weekly, embodied, covenant act of remembering, built into the rhythm of the disciple's life, that keeps the Lord before the mind and so keeps his Spirit in the heart. Always remember me, and I will always be with you — that is the covenant of the sacrament, and it is the antidote to the forgetting that destroys.

The chapter then surrounds the ordinance with the disciplines that sustain the remembering life: watch and pray always (vv. 15, 18), lest the devil tempt and lead captive — for Satan desireth to have you, that he may sift you as wheat (v. 18); pray always... in my name (v. 19); pray in your families (v. 21); meet together oft and forbid no one from coming (vv. 22–25). And it gives a crucial teaching about who may partake and how the unworthy are to be treated: suffer not any one... to partake of my flesh and blood unworthily (v. 28) — for to do so is to eat and drink damnation — and yet, ye shall not cast him out... but ye shall minister unto him and shall pray for him, that he may return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them (vv. 30, 32). The line is finely drawn: the unworthy are not to partake of the sacred ordinance, but neither are they to be cast out of the community — they are to be kept, ministered to, prayed for, because ye know not but what they will return. The church is to guard the ordinance and keep the sinner, never driving away the soul that might yet come home. And the chapter ends with the gift of the Holy Ghost — Jesus touches the twelve one by one and gives them power to give the Holy Ghost (vv. 36–37) — and then a cloud overshadows the multitude, and he ascended into heaven (vv. 38–39). The first day of the Lord's ministry ends as it must: the ordinance given, the Spirit conferred, the Lord ascending — and his people left with bread and wine and the promise that, if they always remember him, he will always be with them.

The chapter has three movements.

  1. The sacrament instituted (vv. 1–14). Jesus blesses and gives the bread and the wine, in remembrance of his body and blood, as a witness to the Father that his people always remember him — and the promise: if they always remember him, they shall always have his Spirit; to do this is to be built on his rock.
  2. The disciplines of the remembering life (vv. 15–25). Watch and pray always, lest the devil sift you as wheat; pray always in his name; pray in your families; meet together oft and forbid no one from coming; he is the light and has set the example.
  3. The unworthy, the Holy Ghost, and the ascension (vv. 26–39). Guard the ordinance from the unworthy, yet keep and minister to them that they may return; he gives the twelve power to confer the Holy Ghost, touching them one by one; a cloud overshadows the multitude, and he ascends into heaven.

The verses to carry are these. Verse 7 names the covenant — that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you. Verse 22 names the open door — ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when ye shall meet together. And verse 30 names the kept sinner — ye shall not cast him out... but ye shall minister unto him and shall pray for him. The chapter exists to institute the sacrament — the bread and the cup of remembrance, the covenant whose reward is the abiding Spirit — and to close the first day of the Lord's ministry with the gift of the Holy Ghost and his ascension.

The sacrament instituted: remembrance for presence (verses 1–14)

And this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you. And it shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you. — 3 Nephi 18:7

Jesus institutes the sacrament with deliberate simplicity. He has the disciples bring bread and wine (v. 1), the multitude sit on the earth (v. 2), and then he took of the bread and brake and blessed it, gave it to the twelve to eat, and had them carry it to the multitude until they were filled (vv. 3–4). The actions are plain — take, bless, break, give — the same actions of the Last Supper in Jerusalem, now repeated on the far side of the world. And he names the meaning: this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you (v. 7). The phrase which I have shown unto you is poignant and specific — these are the very people who, hours before, had thrust their hands into his side and felt the prints of the nails (3 Ne. 11:14–15). The bread is in remembrance of the body they had touched, the wounded, resurrected body of the Lord they had personally handled. For them, the sacrament would never be abstract; every time they ate the bread, they would remember the body whose wounds were still warm under their fingers.

And then the heart of it — the covenant and the promise. It shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you (v. 7). The sacrament is a testimony to the Father — a covenant witness, made not merely to oneself or to the community but to God, that we do always remember. And the reward of the covenant is the most precious gift available to a mortal: ye shall have my Spirit to be with you. The same words are repeated exactly for the wine: in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you... that ye may witness unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you (v. 11). The doubling is deliberate; the Lord wants the promise burned into memory. This is the deep mechanism of the sacrament: remembrance offered to God as a covenant witness, and presence — the abiding Spirit of Christ — given in return. And the whole thing answers the deepest disease of the human heart, which the Book of Mormon has diagnosed over and over: forgetting. The people forget God in prosperity, forget the signs, forget the deliverances, and forgetting is the fall. The sacrament is God's standing remedy — a regular, embodied, covenant act of remembering that keeps the Lord before the mind and so keeps his Spirit in the heart. Always remember me, and I will always be with you. And Christ seals it with the rock: if ye shall always do these things blessed are ye, for ye are built upon my rock (v. 12); whoso among you shall do more or less than these are not built upon my rock, but... upon a sandy foundation (v. 13). The ordinance, kept simply and faithfully, is part of the rock; changed, added to, or subtracted from, it becomes sand. The sacrament is to be kept as he gave it, in remembrance, for the abiding Spirit — and so kept, it builds the soul on Christ.

The disciplines of the remembering life (verses 15–25)

Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation; for Satan desireth to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. — 3 Nephi 18:18

Around the ordinance, Christ places the disciplines that sustain a life of remembering — and the first is watching and praying. Ye must watch and pray always, lest ye be tempted by the devil, and ye be led away captive by him (v. 15); and again, ye must watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation; for Satan desireth to have you, that he may sift you as wheat (v. 18). The image of being sifted as wheat is vivid and sobering — it is Christ's word to Peter at the Last Supper (Luke 22:31), and it pictures the devil winnowing the soul, shaking and tossing it violently to separate the wheat from the chaff, hoping to find the disciple all chaff and nothing solid. Against this constant sifting, the disciple's defense is watching and praying — vigilance and communion with God, kept up always, not occasionally. The remembering life is not passive; it is a watchful life, alert to temptation, anchored in prayer, because the adversary never stops trying to sift. And the prayer is to be always... in my name (v. 19), with the promise that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive... it shall be given unto you (v. 20) — the same open invitation of the sermon (ask, and it shall be given).

And the disciplines extend from the individual to the family to the gathered church. Pray in your families... that your wives and your children may be blessed (v. 21) — the remembering life is to be lived in the home, the family gathered in prayer. And the church is to meet together oft (v. 22) — regular gathering being essential to the life of remembrance. But the most striking instruction about the gathered church is its openness: ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when ye shall meet together, but suffer them that they may come unto you and forbid them not; but ye shall pray for them, and shall not cast them out (vv. 22–23). The meetings of the church are to be open — no one is to be turned away from coming, even those who are not members, even those who are unworthy. They are to be welcomed, prayed for, not cast out. This is a profound principle of the church's posture toward the world: the doors are open, the welcome is wide, no seeking soul is to be forbidden. And Christ grounds it in his own example: I am the light; I have set an example for you (v. 16); I have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see; even so shall ye do unto the world (v. 25). As Christ welcomed all the multitude to come and feel and see — none of you should go away — so the church is to welcome all the world to come. The Lord who turned no one away has set the pattern: the church holds up the light and forbids no one to come to it.

The unworthy, the Holy Ghost, and the ascension (verses 26–39)

Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out from among you, but ye shall minister unto him and shall pray for him unto the Father, in my name; and if it so be that he repenteth and is baptized in my name, then shall ye receive him. — 3 Nephi 18:30

The chapter then addresses a delicate question: how to handle the unworthy in relation to the sacrament. Christ commands the twelve that ye shall not suffer any one knowingly to partake of my flesh and blood unworthily, when ye shall minister it (v. 28) — for whoso eateth and drinketh my flesh and blood unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to his soul (v. 29). The sacred ordinance is to be guarded; the unworthy are not to partake, both for the protection of the ordinance and for the protection of their own souls. But — and this is the finely balanced mercy of the chapter — guarding the ordinance does not mean rejecting the person. Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out from among you, but ye shall minister unto him and shall pray for him (v. 30); ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them; and ye shall be the means of bringing salvation unto them (v. 32). Here is the whole pastoral wisdom of Christ. The line runs not between the worthy who are welcome and the unworthy who are expelled, but between the ordinance, which is guarded, and the person, who is kept. The unworthy may not partake of the sacrament — but they are not to be driven away; they are to be ministered to, prayed for, kept in the community, precisely because they may yet return, and the patient ministry of the church may be the means of bringing salvation unto them. The church guards the holy and keeps the sinner. It never gives the sacred to the unworthy, and it never gives up on the soul. This is the opposite of the censorious spirit that drives people away; it is the shepherd's heart that keeps the wandering sheep near in hope of its return.

And the chapter closes the first day with two final acts: the gift of the Holy Ghost and the ascension. Jesus... touched with his hand the disciples whom he had chosen, one by one... and the disciples bare record that he gave them power to give the Holy Ghost (vv. 36–37). One by one — again the individual touch, each of the twelve personally receiving from the Lord the power to give the Holy Ghost, the authority to confer the Spirit on others. This is the completion of the church's founding: the Lord has given the baptism (chapter 11), the doctrine (chapters 11–16), the sacrament (this chapter), and now the power to give the Holy Ghost — the full apparatus of his church, established with his own hands. And then the close: there came a cloud and overshadowed the multitude that they could not see Jesus. And while they were overshadowed he departed from them, and ascended into heaven (vv. 38–39). A cloud — the cloud of the divine presence, the cloud that received Christ at his ascension in Jerusalem (Acts 1:9), the cloud of glory — overshadows the multitude, and within it the Lord ascends. The first day ends as the Gospel ends: the risen Christ taken up into heaven in a cloud of glory, his church founded, his Spirit promised, his ordinance given. The people are left with bread and wine and the covenant of remembrance — and the promise that, though they can no longer see him, if they always remember him, his Spirit will always be with them. The Lord has ascended; but he has not left them comfortless. He has given them the way to keep him present: remember me, and I am with you still.

How the chapter is built

3 Nephi 18 is built around a single covenant — remembrance for presence — and Mormon structures the whole chapter as the institution and the safeguarding of that covenant. The center is the sacrament (vv. 1–14), and its repeated promise (if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you, given twice, for bread and for cup) is the chapter's heart. Around this center, the chapter arranges the supports of the remembering life: the disciplines that keep remembrance alive (watching, praying, family prayer, gathering, vv. 15–25), and the pastoral rules that keep the community healthy (guarding the ordinance, keeping the sinner, vv. 26–34). The architecture moves from the ordinance (the act of remembrance) to the disciplines (the life of remembrance) to the community (the church of remembrance) — concentric circles around the single promise that those who always remember Christ will always have his Spirit. And the chapter closes by sealing the church's founding: the gift of the power to confer the Holy Ghost, and the ascension. Mormon builds the chapter so that the sacrament stands at its structural center, framed by everything that protects and sustains it, because the sacrament is the answer to the Book of Mormon's deepest problem — the forgetting that destroys. The whole record has shown that people forget God and fall; this chapter gives the remedy, an embodied covenant of remembering, and surrounds it with the disciplines that keep the remembering alive.

And the chapter is built as the close of the first day of the Lord's ministry and the completion of his church's founding — structured so that, by its end, everything necessary is in place. Over the course of the descent (chapter 11) through this chapter, the risen Christ has established, with his own hands, the full apparatus of his church: the baptism (its authority, words, and manner, chapter 11), the doctrine (chapters 11–16), the sacrament (this chapter), and finally the power to give the Holy Ghost (vv. 36–37). The church is complete; the ordinances are given; the Spirit is conferred. And so the chapter — and the first day — can end with the ascension: a cloud... overshadowed the multitude... and he ascended into heaven (vv. 38–39). Mormon structures the ending to mirror the ascension at Jerusalem (the cloud, the rising into heaven), framing the Nephite ministry as a true parallel to the Galilean one — the same Lord, the same founding of the same church, on the far side of the world. The day that began with the descent ends with the ascension; the Lord who came down has gone up; and his people are left exactly as the disciples in Jerusalem were left — with the ordinances, the Spirit, and the promise of his presence. But Mormon gives the Nephite version its own tender seal: the promise of the sacrament, repeated and repeated, if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you. The Lord has ascended, and they cannot see him; but they have the bread and the cup, and the covenant of remembrance, and so they are not left comfortless. The chapter is built to send the reader away from the first day with the one thing that outlasts the visit: not the seeing, which has ended, but the remembering, which can go on forever — and with it, the Spirit, and the presence, of the Lord who ascended but did not leave.