Rock

The Book of Mormon contains Christ’s Gospel. It also contains His rock and His salvation. What is the rock contained within it? The better translation of Christ’s colloquy with Peter would have included the Lord identifying Peter not as a rock but as a seer stone. And upon the stone or seership would the Lord build His church [see also CEPHAS]. The Book of Mormon is more a Urim and Thummim than a book. It is a tremendous source of subject matter upon which to ponder, oftentimes drawing a veil at critical moments while inviting the reader to ponder, pray, and ask to see more. Used in that fashion, the Book of Mormon can open the heavens and make any person a seer. The words of a prophet are best understood by another prophet. If one can come to understand the Book of Mormon’s words, he or she can become a prophet (or more correctly, a seer) before whom scenes of God’s dealings with mankind — past, present, and future — will be put on display. Another way to interpret the rock is found in Eighteen Verses (p. 49), which discusses the meaning of 1 Nephi 1:3. The meaning of the rock — Ma’at — before Lehi (who wrote in Egyptian and would therefore understand meanings) was the stone of judgment, the symbol of truth, which signifies “reality,” on one hand, and “light,” on the other. Facsimile 2, figure 4 in the Book of Abraham, for example, shows the image of the Horus Hawk atop a rock and on the heavenly boat.¹ Mankind has its own symbolic meanings associated with a rock. One of the clearest is Christ’s declaration that His names include the title “Rock of Heaven.” In vision, Enoch saw and heard the Lord declare: I am the Messiah, the King of Zion, the Rock of Heaven (Genesis 4:20).² “The ‘rock’ upon which we build is the Father, Son and holy ghost. There is abundant evidence of other ‘gods’ and of ‘goddesses.’ It is beyond dispute that the ‘image of God’ includes both male and female. It is inescapable, therefore, that the God we worship includes a Father and a Mother. However, we are only to seek after the Father, Son and holy ghost as the ‘rock’ upon which our salvation is to be built.”³