The Gospel in Words: 'Rebellion'

"But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone." (Jeremiah 5:23)When we think of "rebellion," we most often think of it in a warlike context. Americans, for example, will think of the Whiskey Rebellion. Others think of specific rebellions by armies or factions of armies against regularly constituted authority. Indeed, the primary definition of rebellion is "organized armed resistance to the ruler of one's country; insurrection, revolt" (Oxford English Dictionary).While rebellion in the ordinary sense is to make war against the sovereign, in the scriptural sense rebellion is to be disobedient, bitter, to turn away from, to be stubborn against the sovereignty of Heavenly Father over us. In this sense, rebellion is "obstinately resisting authority; stubbornly perverse, insubordinate, to treat as of small value or treat or view with contempt; to scorn or disdain" (OED).The Hebrew words that have been translated into rebel or rebellion mean to be bitter, to be disobedient, apostasy, to turn away, backslide.Willfulness is an inherent component of the sin of rebellion. "Now they did not sin ignorantly, for they knew the will of God concerning them, therefore they did willfully rebel against God" (3 Nephi 6:18).A notable example in scripture of rebellion is the story of Saul. Saul was commanded to "go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not." After the battle, the prophet Samuel came to Saul. Saul told him that he had "performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of this sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" Saul said that he had spared "the best of the sheep and oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God." It also turns out that he spared the king. Samuel told Saul that the Lord "rejected him from being king" because he, the Lord, has greater delight in obedience. For "to obey is better than sacrifice." "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry" (1 Samuel 15:1-23). Similarly, Ananias and Sapphira were stricken when they "kept back part" (Acts 5:1-11).We are rebellious when we say, in effect, I will retain sovereignty over myself and not submit entirely and completely to the sovereignty of God. Rebellion is not just in big things, as with Satan and Saul, but in keeping vestiges of ourselves and failing to completely yield our will to his will.King Benjamin taught that "if ye should transgress and go contrary to that which has been spoken that ye do withdraw yourselves from the Spirit of the Lord I say unto you, that the man that doeth this, the same cometh out in open rebellion against God; therefore he listeth to obey the evil spirit, therefore the Lord has no place in him" (Mosiah 2:36-37).