The Sons of Levi Will Offer Sacrifice Again in Righteousness

Note: The following essay was authored by Scott S. Mitchell, a principle contributor to this website.

Mormons believe that on May 15, 1829, John the Baptist appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and conferred the Aaronic Priesthood.  According to Joseph Smith, the angel declared that this priesthood, which Mormons teach is the say-so to deed in God'due south proper noun to practise such things as baptize, "shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer once again an offer unto the Lord in righteousness."  (See Doctrine and Covenants 13.)  The words allegedly spoken by John the Baptist allude to a prophecy concerning the coming of John the Baptist and Jesus, spoken by the terminal prophet in the Old Attestation, Malachi.  Biblical scholars believe the Malachi was written quondam afterwards 515 B.C.:1

1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.

2 But who may bide the day of his coming? and who shall stand up when he appeareth?  for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:

3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silverish:and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as aureate and silver, that they may offering unto the Lord an offering in righteousness."

(Emphasis added.  See Malachi 3: 1-3. )  This essay hypothesizes that New Attestation and Book of Mormon scriptures demonstrate that the above-quoted prophecy was fulfilled some two,000 years ago during the Kickoff Century A.D., and was non a prophecy applicable to the last days in which nosotros alive.  If this hypothesis is correct, it casts considerable doubt on the proposition that John the Baptist indicated to Joseph Smith in 1829 that the event was still in the futurity.  This essay is express to a discussion of the authenticity of "the sons of Levi" prophecy contained within the purported words of John the Baptist contained in Doctrine and Covenants 13 (likewise as its appearance in Doctrin and Covenant section 124:39).  Other essays accost the authority to baptize more often than not, equally well every bit the historical evidence relating to whether John the Baptist  indeed appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and restored the Aaronic Priesthood.  See Why the "Lines of Priesthood Potency" Concept is Missing from the Book of Mormon, and How Authorisation was Obtained to Establish the First Known Church of Christ and  The Restoration of the Priesthoods: True or Revisionist History? , elsewhere on this website.

The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke leave no doubt that the person described in Malachi 1:1 as "my messenger," who during his mortal life would go before the Lord to prepare his way (to exist distinguished from the "messenger of the covenant," who was Christ), referred to John the Baptist.  Jesus said so.  (See Matt. 11:one-14 and 17:x-13; Mark 1:1-viii and 9:11-13; Luke vii:xix-27.)  Also, Zacharias, filled with the Holy Ghost, said this about his baby son John on the day the latter was named and circumcised:  "And thou, child, shall exist chosen the prophet of the Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give cognition of conservancy unto his people by the remission of their sins . . ." (Run into Luke 1: 76-77.)  John the Baptist'southward then went on to spend his life preparing the Jews to hear and accept Jesus by preaching repentance and baptizing.  The prophecies about his mission in life were not describing a 1-minute advent to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to pass forth the authority to baptize; they were describing John'due south momentous mortal life and mission.  As John awaited his impending beheading in prison, Jesus said of him, "Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women in that location hath not risen a greater prophet than John the Baptist . . ." (Meet Matt. xi: 11 and Luke 7: 28)

In the same prophecy in Malachi about the coming of John and Jesus, however, words are found about the sons of Levi being purified and offering an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.  The sons of Levi prophecy is therefore placed in the same time frame as John the Baptist's and Jesus's earthly missions.  Since the New Testament writers were always careful to bear witness how Malachi's prophecies were existence fulfilled in their fourth dimension,2 we should await to the New Testament to come across what information technology has to say with respect to the sons of Levi being purified and offering an offering in righteousness.

In social club to know where to expect for this information in the New Testament, one must starting time understand who the sons of Levi were and what they did.  The Levites had originally been the only tribe who voluntarily rallied to the Lord's crusade when Moses returned from talking with the Lord on Mount Sinai.  (Run across Exodus 32: 26-28.) In the Mosaic Law that was given to Israel, the Lord selected the tribe of Levi, from which the brothers Moses and Aaron were descended, to thereafter exist the intermediaries between Israel and their God.  The male descendants of the Israelite tribe of Levi were the but people who could become priests or high priests, and even then it was also required that they be descended from Aaron. Those who could assist these priests or high priests also had to be descended from Levi in the worship system of the nation of Israel.   The priests officiated in the temple rituals wherein atonement was made for the Israelite's sins, while the rest of the Levite men who weren't descended from Aaron were assigned duties to act as judges, scribes and musicians, and to continue the tabernacle, and later the temple, continuously operating.  The sanctuary-related duties included tabernacle or temple upkeep, gathering tithes and all materials continued with the offering of sacrifices, blistering shewbread, hauling wood and water, and working as gatekeepers.  All priests and Levites began their service with elaborate purification and sanctification rituals, and being set apart by the laying on of hands.  In short, under the Law of Moses, the men of the tribe of Levi were the religious leaders of the Israelites, and those of whom purity and righteousness were most expected.3

Whereas tithes were nerveless past the sons of Levi from the Jews to support the priests and Levites (see Numbers 18:21-32 and Hebrews 7:5, ix),  those aforementioned tithes were likewise meant for the textile support of the stranger (foreigner), the fatherless and the widow.  Deut. 26: 12-13.  The sons of Levi were non to simply look out for their own welfare, but were to affirmatively take care of the less fortunate amongst them.  That they might not have been doing so in Jesus's time is suggested past his parable of the Skilful Samaritan, wherein a priest and a Levite, who would be near expected to assistance the beaten man on the route, showed no concern for him and passed him by.  (See Luke 10: 31-32.)  According to the words God spoke to Malachi, Israel had been sliding into unrighteousness, apparently to a significant extent considering of their leaders' failure to exemplify true devotion to God and man.  This is the trouble Jesus would come to rectify.  He said,

I will come well-nigh to you lot to judgment; and I will exist a swift witness against the sorcerers, and confronting the adulterers, and against false swearers, and those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that plough aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.

(See Mal. 3: five.)

Who Were the Righteous Sons of Levi in Jesus' Time?

The New Testament tells of iii sons of Levi who were contemporaries of Jesus, who appear to have offered extremely righteous offerings to the Lord'due south cause.  The first was the same Zacharias, a priest in the temple, and the begetter of John the Baptist.  According to Luke 1:6, he and his wife Elizabeth, arguably a prophetess in her own right who was besides of the tribe of Levi, "were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."  Zacharias's natural spirituality and business for his people are shown past Luke's business relationship of his prophetic utterance, wherein he recognized his people's calling to serve God without fear "[i]n holiness and righteousness earlier him, all the days of our life."  (See Luke 1:74-75.)

Information technology is also possible that Zacharias was martyred in the temple for his devotion to the Lord's crusade, which if true, would take been the ultimate righteous sacrifice.  In Matthew 23:35 and Luke 11:51, Jesus refers to the death of Zacharias, who was slain betwixt the altar and the temple.  Many biblical scholars–indeed, the apparent majority–have speculated that this refers to the slaying of Zechariah (the Hebrew form of Zacharias), who many centuries earlier was indeed stoned to decease inside the temple courtyard, betwixt the outdoor altar of sacrifice and the inner sanctum Holy of Holies, equally described in II Chronicles 24:20-22.  The physical description of that event fits perfectly the Jesus's description.  The problem with this estimation is that this earlier Zechariah was the son of Jehoida, (meet Two Chr. 24:20), non the son of Barachias that Jesus mentioned in Matt. 23:35.  In that location is some other Zechariah in the Old Testament, whose father'southward proper noun "Berechiah" would be "Barachias" in Greek, and he is the prophet after whom the Volume of Zechariah is named.  Still, the Bible contains no record of him having been martyred, and indeed, as a gimmicky of Ezra and Nehemiah, he lived in a time when the Jewish religious leaders were rebuilding the temple under foreign protection and non endangered by anyone from without or within.

The bulk of biblical scholars who have written about this consequence maintain that the best explanation is that the text in Matthew is in mistake, and that Jesus did not actually say "son of Barachias" when identifying the Zacharias to whom he was referring.  Rather, the thinking goes, Matthew mistakenly inserted the proper name Barachias for the actually correct name of Jehoida because he dislocated i previous Zechariah from centuries earlier with another more famous and more recent Zechariah from centuries before.  Indeed, this view is bolstered by the fact that unlike Matthew'southward version, Luke'southward version of Jesus's words about Zacharias'due south martyrdom inside the temple perimeter, in Luke 11:51, contains no reference to Zacharias'south father's name.  It is also bolstered by the obvious fact that no New Testament writer contemporaneously recorded such a noteworthy event as having occurred at all.

The testify that the New Attestation Zacharias was the martyr Jesus was referring to consists of iii different arguments:  First, Zacharias' father is not named in scripture, and therefore no reason exists to discount the possibility that he was the Barachias to whom Jesus was referring.  To echo a father-son name combination was as mutual among the Jews every bit it is now.  For example, Jesus' stepfather Joseph was the son of Jacob, see Matt. 1:16, repeating an ancient blueprint of Jacob/Israel and his son Joseph.  And, the name Berechiah (Barachias in Greek) was popular amongst the Jews, existence the name of seven different men in the Old Attestation.4

Second, the context of Jesus referring to Zacharias'south martyrdom is that of Jesus imputing to the unrighteous scribes and Pharisees all slayings of righteous men from get-go to finish.  He says, ". . .That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the claret of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar."  (Emphasis added, encounter Matt. 23:35.)  Thus his showtime case is Abel, Adam's son, and his next, and terminal, example is Zacharias.  Perhaps this wouldn't make sense if he was referring to a Zacharias that had lived over seven centuries earlier, like Zechariah son of Jehoida, or five centuries before, like Zechariah son of Berechiah, unless the last notable religious martyrdom was seven centuries earlier.

Third, the perception that Zacharias the father of John the Baptist had been slain in the temple for failing to disclose the location of his son John during Rex Herod's massacre of infant males, described in Matt. two:16-18, was a common notion in early on Christianity.  The account is institute in theProtevangelium of James, an counterfeit book deemed by most mod scholars to have been written during the mid-2nd Century A.D.  This business relationship was and so popular that 150 separate Greek manuscripts containing it have survived to this day.  The primeval of these is a papyrus document dating to approximately 300 A.D.,five but the story was discussed by the early Christian scholar Origen, who lived between from 184/185 to 253/254 A.D., thus demonstrating the story's early on emergence.  Early on Christian scholars who believed Jesus was referring to John the Baptist's father as the slain martyr included Origen, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Theophylact.6  Joseph Smith appears to have agreed with this view, every bit an unsigned editorial appearing in the Times and Seasons when he was editor teaches information technology as established fact, and now appears on page 261 of Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. 7

Whatever determination the reader reaches on this complicated field of study, it appears indisputable that Zacharias the male parent of the John the Baptist was indeed a righteous son of Levi who contributed much to the Christian cause in Jesus'southward fourth dimension.

A second righteous son of Levi was John the Baptist himself.  He spent his life lone in the desert wilderness eating coarse food and wearing uncomfortable wearable.  He never drank wine or participated in celebrations.  He never married.  He urged moral integrity and liberty from materialism. He preached of the coming Messiah, and urged all to be baptized for the remission of sins to prepare themselves for his coming.  His bulletin was not well received by the scribes and Pharisees, who rejected his baptism and questioned his authority.  He publicly denounced the adultery of King Herod, which was an act of enormous courage, and every bit a consequence, he was imprisoned and eventually beheaded.  (See Matt. 3:1, 7-12, 4:17, 11:xiii-14; Mark i:3, half-dozen:14-29, ix:12-xiii, Luke 3: ii, xi-fourteen.)  Every bit mentioned in a higher place, Jesus'south tribute to him attested to his stature amidst the sons of Levi, for there had never been any prophet greater than he.

The third righteous Levite of Jesus's time was Joses (the Greek course of Joseph) Barnabas, who receives much less attending than he should.  Acts 4:36-37 introduces him to usa in this fashion, after relating that the early Christians in Jerusalem had all things in common:

36 And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus,

37 Having land, sold information technology, and brought the coin, and laid it at the apostles' feet.  (Accent added.)

This Levite was and so highly thought of  past the apostles that they gave him a special surname by which he was known throughout the rest of the New Testament.  His name thereafter appears 28 times, and he becomes 1 of early Christianity's towering figures, recognized as a great church leader, prophet and teacher.  This author believes Barnabas receives special mention in Acts 4, among those who were sharing their belongings in common with the other early Christians, precisely because he was a Levite.  He thus appears to be the first man after Christ's resurrection who was descended from the line of religious leadership among the Jews, with temple duties of his own, to not only catechumen to Christianity, just give himself and his possessions to that cause with all his heart.  Since the apostles concentrated so heavily on trying to convert the Jewish religious leadership to Christ, information technology must have been specially gratifying and encouraging to see Malachi's prophecy existence fulfilled so spectacularly before their eyes.

Mormon apologists are probable to respond to the points higher up by arguing that just because some sons of Levi offered righteous offerings in Jesus' time, doesn't mean they won't practise so once more in our own latter days, and therefore, the words reportedly spoken to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery by John the Baptist remain unimpeached.  This response ignores some enormously important facts, still.  First, Jesus fulfilled the constabulary of Moses, and pointedlyended its existence. (Meet Three Nephi xv:ii-viii.)  The part of the sons of Levi was strictly a creation of the Law of Moses; they had no role or purpose in Christ'south church.  All were equal in Jesus' new church, regardless of heredity.  And Jesus never indicated in the Book of Mormon, which contains the fulness of his gospel (run into 3 Nephi xx: 28, xxx), or in the Bible, that the sons of Levi, or the hereditary priesthood of Aaron, would play any hereafter role whatsoever in his church building.   For this reason, in Christ's new church in the Old World  and in the Americas, there were no burnt offerings, or beast sacrifices, collectors of donations, temples, hereditary priesthood of Aaron, or Levites.

Thus the reported words of John the Baptist to Joseph Smith regarding the sons of Levi contemplate the futurity fulfillment of a prophecy that had already been fulfilled, and which could have no time to come fulfillment.  The Police of Moses had ended, and was never to be restored.  And with its end, the converted sons of Levi would only exist known as Christians, like everybody else.  Whether this casts dubiousness on the veracity of Joseph'south merits that John the Baptist spoke the words to him currently constitute in D&C 13, the reader volition estimate for herself.

Why Jesus Quoted Malachi's Words Concerning future Levites to the Nephites

Nevertheless, an important question remains, and requires discussion hither.  In speaking to the Nephites, Jesus quoted the aforementioned concluding ii chapters of Malachi as are plant in the Old Attestation.  That means the words of Malachi iii:iii, which are quoted at the outset of this essay prophesying that the Lord would "purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness" were said to the Nephites after Jesus's resurrection.  The question thus naturally arises, whether these words portend some post-Christ emergence of the sons of Levi to make righteous offerings unto the Lord as they did under the pre-Christ law of Moses.

In studying this question, it'due south helpful to understand that it wasn't unusual for Jesus to elucidate previous prophecies in a way they wouldn't be understood without his assistance.  He had washed and then in Palestine, proclaiming to the Jews in the synagogue that he himself was the fulfillment of the famous prophecy of the Messiah's mission found in Isaiah 61:i-two.  (See Luke iv:16-21.)  He had apposite and expounded upon all the prophecies apropos his own crucifixion and resurrection to the ii men on the road to Emmaus, and to his eleven apostles, fifty-fifty though the prophecies were already fulfilled.  (See Luke 24:25-47.)   To the Nephites, he had explained his ain participation in giving the constabulary of Moses to the Israelites, and that he himself was the man Moses said would come later on and lead the people equally Moses had.  (Meet 3 Nephi 15:three-5 and 20:23.)  And, in an instance very analogous to his reciting to them an already-fulfilled prophecy in Malachi which they'd never heard before, he said he had spoken of them to the Jews, informing them that he had other sheep which were not of the Jews' fold, and they too would hear his voice and be gathered into the same fold equally the Jews.  (Come across 3 Nephi 15:xvi-24.)  Clearly, Jesus commonly quoted already-fulfilled prophecies to his people on both continents, and to the Nephites, two of those prophecies were unknown to them.

In understanding the presence of Malachi iii and 4 in three Nephi, it's besides helpful to remember what has already been demonstrated in a higher place in the first function of this essay. We've seen that Jesus fulfilled and brought to an end the Law of Moses in his church building on both sides of the ocean, and had not retained within it any mention of, or duties for, high priests, priests or Levites under from the quondam organisation.  There were priests in Christ'southward new church, only their duties were but to teach, baptize and bless the sacrament, none of which they did nether the police of Moses.  Indeed, the whole idea of a select genealogical line of men performing ritual propitiation for the collective Saints had been discarded in Christ's church in favor of all men and women becoming individually responsible for availing themselves of Christ's atoning sacrifice.  Believers were to give to the poor, or to the church, non because a group of men from one tribe came collecting, only considering they, of their own initiative, felt moved to practice so.

Information technology's likewise vital to remember that Jesus had declared during his ministry in Palestine that the last words of the Malachi prophecy he quoted to the Nephites had already been fulfilled.  The coming of Elijah ("Elias" in the New Testament) earlier the great and dreadful day of the Lord had come to pass within the last few years.  When asked by Peter, James and John during his ministry why the scribes taught that Elias was to come earlier the Lord, Jesus had responded:

Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how information technology is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought. . .

But I say unto you lot, That Elias is come already, and they knew him non, only take done unto him whatsoever they listed.  Too shall too the Son of man suffer of them.

Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

(The foregoing quotation combines Marking 9:12 with Matthew 17:12-xiii, as the verses from both accounts pertain to the aforementioned incident.)

This was the second time Jesus had declared John the Baptist to exist the fulfillment of the Malachi prophecy regarding the coming of Elijah-Elias:  Earlier in his ministry, Jesus had resolved what was to scriptorians of his day a scriptural mystery, explaining this about John the Baptist:

For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before they face, which sell prepare they way before thee.

Verily I say unto you, Among them that are built-in of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist:  even so he that is least is the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

And from the days of John the Baptist until now  the kingdom of sky suffereth violence, and violent take it by force.

For all the prophets and police force prophesied until John.

And if ye volition receive information technology, this is Elias, which was for to come.

He that hath ears to hear, allow him hear.

(See Matt. eleven:10-15, italics added.)  The words of Jesus in the last two verses of this quote, which I accept placed in italics, indicate that he perceived the interpretation of the Elijah prophecy would be surprising to his audience.  What they considered a famous only yet-unfulfilled prediction had already come to pass without their knowledge.  They had no mode of knowing that a prophecy foretelling the return of Elijah would be fulfilled by someone known past the proper name of John, but like we, today, would not be able to immediately empathize Malachi's words near Levites, spoken centuries before Christ, to indicate in that location would be no Levites in our ain latter-day time. (Interestingly, however, a comparison of the lives lived by Elijah and John reveals they were remarkably similar–single, living alone in the desert, eating unconventional food, wearing crude clothing, ever calling Israel to repentance and offending the monarchy.  Whether they were actually two iterations of the same being, made possible by the fact that Elijah had been taken into sky without tasting death, nosotros take insufficient information to determine.)  In today's language, Jesus was essentially maxim, "And if you have organized religion enough in my words to have as true what I'm telling you, John the Baptist is the prophesied Elijah.  He who seeks enlightenment on this matter, pay attention to my explanation."

Therefore, the prophecy in Malachi quoted by Jesus to the Nephites, wherein a future righteous offer by the sons of Levi was foretold, was part of a larger prophecy that Jesus, while in Palestine, had twice indicated was already fulfilled.  Merely why would Jesus quote an already-fulfilled prophecy to the Nephites, especially when he knew we in the last days would read that prophecy and perhaps misapprehend its significance?

As I run into it, there are three interrelated answers.  First, every bit 3 Nephi 26:ii-five demonstrates, Jesus wanted "future generations" to read those words and be reassured that all his prophecies would eventually be fulfilled in due time,

even unto the swell and terminal 24-hour interval, when all people, and all kindreds, and all nations and tongues shall stand before God, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil–

If they exist practiced, to the resurrection of everlasting life; and if they evil, to the resurrection of damnation . . .

Indeed, that was the overall bulletin of Malachi iii and 4.  Originally, information technology was directed to the 5th Century B.C. Jews who were losing patience waiting for His prophecies to exist fulfilled.  They had even complained that wicked people had prospered, and had received no visible sign of God'southward displeasure.  Evildoers had found wickedness profitable, and information technology now seemed  useless to stay faithful while the corrupt continued to thrive (run across Malachi 3:14-15 and three Nephi 24:14-15).  Just the Lord's overall message through Malachi, five centuries before Christ, was timeless; it  practical non only to the Jews and the Nephites, but to all future generations.  The Lord's people should continue observing the tenets of their electric current religion, and He would think their faithfulness and in some future mean solar day advantage them while destroying the wicked:

And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Host, in that solar day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them as a homo spareth his own son that serveth him.

Then shall ye render and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

For behold, the day cometh that shall burn equally an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the solar day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

But unto yous that fear my proper name, shall the Son of Righteousness ascend with healing in his wings; and ye shall get forth and grow upwardly as calves in the stall.

And ye shall tread downward the wicked; for they shall be ashes nether the soles of your anxiety in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts.

(Run across Malachi 3:17-4:three and 3 Nephi 24:17-25:3, italics added.)The overall message had nothing to do with how long into the hereafter the sons of Levi would operate in Israel, and we should not permit ourselves be unduly distracted by an allusion made to the sons of Levi in one poesy, or an allusion to more tithes being needed to fill up the storehouse in some other.  It was an admonition to all generations to not lose patience with the Lord's timetable.

However, Jesus' purposes in reciting the Malachi verses to the Nephites are even better understood past scrutinizing the words I have placed in italics in the above excerpt.  These words had a particularly pointed significance for the Nephites (and, every bit we shall run across, for the observant latter-solar day reader).  They spoke specifically of the Lord destroying the wicked past fire, then arising and appearing to the righteous with healing in his wings, and the righteous beingness protected from evil thereafter.  In the last 33 years, the true-blue Nephites had had their ain trust in the Lord's promises tested severely, to the point of endangering their own lives.  They had been threatened with expiry if the sign of Jesus' nascency didn't occur by a sure date.  They had then had to fight against the fearsome Gadianton robbers, who had previously successfully prevailed against all who got in their way.  And then, form distinctions had arisen in the church, offense had become rampant, their authorities had been taken over by antichrists and dissever apart, and their prophets had been slain.   Simply after his followers had continued true-blue through these perils, the Lord had intervened.  He began by destroying all of the wicked.  He literally burned virtually of them upwardly, as Malachi had prophesied, destroying their cities past fire, and those not burned were drowned or crushed in earthquakes.  Not one of them remained.  Thereafter, the risen Lord had come up to them from the heavens, and with "healing in his wings" had healed all their sick.  He had ushered in a new era in which those who had remained faithful would now exist protected, like "calves in the stall."  When Jesus repeated the ancient words from Malachi to the Nephites, he was telling them, "These words were addressed to God'due south followers in all times.  You yourselves are witnesses that God was mindful of you, despite your separation from the Jews,  and that he protected the righteous from the wicked, whom he burned past burn down."

Regarding future generations reading Malachi's words in the latter days, these verses are merely equally precisely tailored to our time as they were to the Nephites.It is specifically prophesied that in the final days in which nosotros at present alive, the Lord will protect the righteous and destroy the wicked by burn. Notation the correspondence of words from this prophecy past the starting time Nephi, and those quoted higher up from Malachi:

For the time cometh chop-chop that Satan shall have no more than power over the hearts of the children of men; for the twenty-four hours soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the cometh that they must be burned.

For the time shortly cometh that the fulness of the wrath of God shall be poured out upon all the children of men; for he will not endure that the wicked shall destroy the righteous.

Wherefore, he volition preserve the righteous by his ability, even if it so be the fulness of his wrath  must come, and the righteous exist preserved, even unto the destruction of their enemies past fire.Wherefore, the righteous need not fright; for thus saith the prophet, they shall be saved, even if it so be as by fire.

(Run across 1 Nephi 22:15-17.)

Summary

We therefore conclude that teachings from LDS Church history and the Doctrine and Covenants suggesting the sons of Levi will at some futurity betoken resume their ancient practice of making offerings are in error.  Just the prophecy was fulfilled, whether everyone recognized its fulfillment or not.  At least iii sons of Levi righteously dedicated their lives to Christ in Jesus' day.  Those who witnessed the lives of Zacharias, John the Baptist, Joses Barnabas and perhaps others we don't know of, were inspired by those righteous men, and emulated them.

FOOTNOTES

one. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Michael D. Coogan, ed. (New York:  Oxford University Printing, 2010), p. 1351.

two. In add-on to the previously cited scriptures in Matthew 11, Marking 1 and Luke 7, other New Testament writings demonstrating the fulfillment of Malachi'southward prophecy of the coming of Elijah in Mal. four: five-half dozen are establish in Matt. 17: ten-12, Marking ix: xi-13 and Luke 9: 19.

three. New Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Ronald F. Youngblood, Gen. Ed. (Nashville, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995), pp 761-62, 1026-xxx, 1257-58.

4. Ibid., p. 174.

5. Come across Wikipedia article "Gospel of James."

6.  See, e.g, extract fromMeyer'due south New Testament Commentary on Matthew 23: 35 at the biblehub.com online website.

vii. Lynne Hilton Wilson, "The Confusing Case of Zacharias" in Religious Educator 14, no. two (2013) 107-123, besides available online.  Though Wilson attaches great weight to the fact that the authorship of the Times and Seasons article cannot be determined, and thus should not be attributed to Joseph Smith, this writer does not consider the question of authorship to exist dispositive of the outcome even if Smith did write it.  Joseph Smith was often in error, as the rest of us are when we devote bereft time to studying and researching complicated questions of scriptural exegesis.

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Source: https://osaywhatistruth.org/2018/02/14/the-righteous-offering-of-the-sons-of-levi-2000-years-ago/

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