PROVO, Utah -- The best thing about the Book of Mormon is that it is true, said Robert J. Matthews Nov. 12.
Speaking to more than 800 people gathered on the BYU campus for the 28th annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, the former dean of Religious Education at BYU offered a keynote address on the "Power of the Book of Mormon.""It is a true record and it is true doctrine and the truth has a certain power all its own," he told the capacity audience. "The Book of Mormon is a source of eternal gospel truth. We ought to devote ourselves to the message of the Book of Mormon."
During his address -- one of 20 offered during the two-day symposium Nov. 12-13 on "The Book of Mormon: the Foundation of Our Faith," -- Brother Matthews called reading the scriptures a "magnificent obsession."
"I first gained a conviction in my soul about the Book of Mormon when I was 18 years of age and was reading it every day," he said. "I did not know anything about archaeological evidences, styles or patterns of writing, Hebrew language or customs, biblical prophecies, or geographical locations. I have never doubted the Book of Mormon, and when I seriously began reading it I felt something good working inside of me that told me the Book of Mormon was right and was not just another book."
Brother Matthews explained, "Learning of external evidences and internal complexities, while very interesting, has increased my knowledge, but not measurably increased my testimony."
His testimony, he added, came from the Spirit, not from his education.
During his address, Brother Matthews examined a few distinctive teachings of the Book of Mormon: some teachings that Church members would not know at all without the Book of Mormon -- some teachings that are alluded to in the Bible but that would not be understood without the Book of Mormon:
Jesus visited ancient America. "Without the Book of Mormon, we would not know that Jesus, after His resurrection, visited a branch of the House of Israel in the Western Hemisphere," said Brother Matthews. "That is a basic message of the Book of Mormon, which also provides a summation of His teachings."
Jesus visited only Israelite nations. There are other significant dimensions to the extra-biblical visits of the resurrected Jesus to the Nephites and the lost tribes of Israel, he said. "We learn from the Book of Mormon that such an explicit and profoundly real visit of Jesus -- to show His resurrected body -- is an event that occurred only to the House of Israel, and that He did not visit non-Israelite groups in that manner."
The depth and intensity of the Fall of Adam. "The fall of Adam and Eve (and all mankind) is taught in the Bible, but not with the detail, clarity, depth, repetition, severity and intensity as is done by the Book of Mormon," said Brother Matthews. "It is only from the Book of Mormon that we can learn the doctrine concerning the fall, and read precisely of the beneficial consequences, and how extensively and severely that the fall of Adam touched every human being. Furthermore, the Book of Mormon provides the clearest declaration of what would have been the fate of every person if there had not been an atonement by Jesus Christ."
The "very points" of doctrine. "The Book of Mormon contains the 'very points' of Christ's doctrine (1 Ne. 15:14)," he said. "But we can't use these points if we don't know what these points are and where they are located."
The Law of Resurrection. "The Book of Mormon declares emphatically that Jesus was resurrected from the dead with the same body that He lived in while on earth. It likewise declares that all mankind will be similarly resurrected," testified Brother Matthews.
The Law of Restoration. "The terms resurrection and restoration are often found together in the same passage, because resurrection from the dead is part of the larger plan of restoration. Restoration is actually the more definitive term, because it requires that in the resurrection a person receives the same body which was his or her mortal body."
Brother Matthews concluded his remarks by explaining that of all the teachings of the Book of Mormon, the most important is that it is a "witness of Jesus Christ."