The Three Nephites
Three disciples who asked to remain on earth until Christ comes — and were changed to do so
The Question Jesus Asked
After Christ had appeared to the Nephites at the temple in Bountiful, taught them, healed them, and chosen twelve disciples, he asked those twelve disciples what they desired of him after he returned to the Father. Nine of them answered: they wished to come speedily into the kingdom after they had lived to the age of man. Jesus told them they were blessed, and that after seventy-two years they would come to him in his kingdom.
Three of the disciples did not speak their desire, because they were afraid. Jesus knew their thoughts and called them to him. He told them that he knew they desired the same thing that John, the beloved disciple in Jerusalem, had desired of him — that they should not taste death, but should live to bring souls to him. And he said to them: “Blessed are ye because ye desired this thing of me; therefore, after that ye are seventy and two years old ye shall come unto me in my kingdom; and with me ye shall find rest” (3 Nephi 28:3). Then he changed what he had said: they would never taste death at all — not until the judgment day of Christ — and then they would be changed in a moment and received into the kingdom.
What They Became
3 Nephi 28:7–9
“Ye shall never taste of death; but ye shall live to behold all the doings of the Father unto the children of men, even until all things shall be fulfilled according to the will of the Father, when I shall come in my glory with the powers of heaven. And ye shall never endure the pains of death; but when I shall come in my glory ye shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye from mortality to immortality; and then shall ye be blessed in the kingdom of my Father. And again, ye shall not have pain while ye shall dwell in the flesh, neither sorrow save it be for the sins of the world.”
Mormon, who compiled the record, struggled to describe what state they were in — whether it was mortal or immortal, he could not say. He knew they had been changed in some way: they could not die, they experienced no pain, they could not be held by imprisonment or fire or pit. They went forth among both Nephites and Lamanites ministering and baptizing, and “the Holy Ghost did fall upon many, and they were ordained by the power and authority of God” (3 Nephi 28:18). They eventually ministered to all the scattered nations of the earth.
Their Purpose
The Lord gave them the commission directly: “Ye shall minister unto this people, and shall have all power that I shall give unto them. And ye shall minister for him whom I have chosen. For he is the one of whom I have spoken, and he shall baptize with water; and after that cometh the baptismal of fire and of the Holy Ghost.” Their mission was ongoing and total: to continue gathering souls to Christ across the entire lifespan of the earth.
Mormon notes that the three had appeared to him, that he had ministered unto them, and that whether they were in the body or out of the body he could not tell — but God knew. He knew they were holy, sanctified, and their garments were made white through the blood of the Lamb.
Their names are not given in the text. What is given is the desire that drove them — to remain and bring souls to Christ — and the transformation that followed. They asked to be instruments of salvation without limit of time, and they were changed so they could be exactly that. The three unnamed disciples became, in their translated state, a testimony that the same power that conquered death for Christ reaches also into the lives of those who give themselves fully to his purposes.
Key Scriptures
- 3 Nephi 28 — The three disciples’ desire; their translated state; their ministry
- D&C 7 — John the Beloved’s parallel commission, translated to tarry