This series is cross-posted with the permission of Book of Mormon Central from their website at Pearl of Great Price Central

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This carefully conceived scene, executed in grisaille to decorate the top of a niche containing a portrait of Adam, is part of a set of large altarpiece panel paintings in the Joost Vijdt chapel in the Cathedral of St. Bavon at Ghent, Belgium. The portrayal of Abel lifting up the lamb “prefigures both the sacrifice of Christ and the Eucharist.”[1] The contrasting choices of Cain and Abel with respect to their covenantal obligations typify the account of the parting of the ways of righteousness and wickedness that begins in Moses 5. Of those who follow the way of wickedness, Jude wrote: “Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain.”[2]

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Relating the themes of opposition and agency that are portrayed in the story of Cain and Abel, Hugh Nibley frequently wrote about “the inescapable choice between Two Ways.”[3] This ancient doctrine “proclaims that there lie before every human … two roads between which a choice must be made. The one is the road of darkness, the way of evil; the other, the way of light. Every man must choose between the two every day of his life; that choosing is the most important thing he does. … He will be judged by God in the proper time and place. Meantime he must be free, perfectly free, to choose his own way.”[4]

In this essay, we will outline the five celestial laws of the New and Everlasting Covenant, first revealed in the days of Adam.[5] During periods of darkness, the ordinances associated with these laws were generally withdrawn from the earth, however their shadows have persisted in religions and cultures the world over.[6] Nowhere in scripture are these teachings better preserved than in the Book of Moses. Not only do we find each law there in proper sequence, but also, in every case, we discover stories that illustrate their application, both positive and negative. Indeed, it seems as if the telling of the stories of Moses 5-8 were deliberately structured in order to highlight the contrast between those who accepted and those who rejected the laws of heaven.[7]

The Five Celestial Laws

Specific teachings about the five celestial laws are to be had in the temple. Elder Ezra Taft Benson elaborates:

Celestial laws, embodied in certain ordinances belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ, are complied with by voluntary covenants. The laws are spiritual. Thus, our Father in Heaven has ordained certain holy s...