Ye Are Built Upon My Rock

The echo of the Sermon at the Temple / Worship of the Shalems continues: if the participants "do these things," they will be "built upon the rock."

Then Christ exhorts the participants to stay faithful, with light imagery employed in various permutations (remember that Nephi and Lehi allude to the Worship of the Shalems culminating in coming out of darkness into the light).

At the end, Christ goes to the Father: a cloud overshadows him and he ascends.

All three of these are images of being inside, seeing into or entering into the Holy of Holies.

In Remembrance of My Body

Both the bread and the wine are taken in "remembrance" of Christ.  Like Luke, therefore, 3 Nephi ties the bread and wine to the sons of Aaron and their eating of Frankincense-topped bread as a "memorial."

There Shall One Be Ordained

In blessing the sacrament, Christ tells his Nephite disciples that "one" among them will be ordained to break and bless bread.  Does this mean that the table-offering of bread in the Worship of the Shalems was the province of the high priest alone?  In Matthew 6 and 3 Nephi 13, it's Christ who performs this ordinance.  In Genesis 14, it's Melchizedek.

This Shall Ye Do in Remembrance

The echo of the Sermon at the Temple continues in 3 Nephi 18 with the sacrament of bread and wine.  Remember that Christ told his disciples that they would "minister" to others in connection with food, drink and clothing during the Sermon at the Temple.  In 3 Nephi 17 we saw angels (= priests) "minister" to the children, "encircling" (dressing) them.  Here the disciples distribute the bread and wine after Christ blesses it, an act again described as "ministering." 

1. The fact that in chapters 17 and 18 the disciples minister in the distribution of bread and wine and "angels" minister in the encircling with garments of glory ("fire") tends to support my inference that Christ's aside to his disciples in 3 Nephi 13 indicates not that only disciples are subject to the food, drink and clothing portion of the ordinance, but that they are being trained to minister in it to others.

2. This consistency strengthens my perception that we are reading in chapters 17ff a sort of repeat, or retelling, of the ordinance.

They Saw the Heavens Open

Chapter 17 begins a curious echo of the Sermon at the Temple.  The infirm and the children are brought forward (the poor in spirit, etc.).  Jesus conducts a group prayer (might these have been the words?).  Then we get a perfect vignette or summary of the Worship of the Shalems: the heavens open, angels descend in glory ("fire"), and they minister to the children by encircling them.  In particular, we know from 2 Nephi that "encircling" is an image of being clothed in heavenly garments.

I don't know why we have the apparent doubling.  Curiously, double visions are a characteristic of apocalyptic literature: the visionary has one vision, and then a second vision to explain the first.  This is exactly what we're given in 1 Nephi (8 and 11-14), and I wonder if we have the same phenomenon here.

Cast Out from Among Them

Members of the House of Israel who have not kept the covenants suffer the covenant punishment.  That doesn't justify the Gentiles, who are warned not to reject the "fulness."  Israel is promised that the "fulness" will be given back to them, and then rejecting Gentiles will receive the covenant punishment.

The Fulness of These Things

Given that I think the Nephites understood Christ's coming in terms of the Worship of the Shalems, both before and after its occurrence, I think this prophecy refers to the restoration of temple covenants.  This is what the "fulness" is, which occurs several times in this chapter.