“But unto him that keepeth my commandments I will give the mysteries of my kingdom, and the same shall be in him a well of living water, springing up unto everlasting life” (D&C 63:23). This verse, and ones like it, are a central part of Restoration scripture. The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price are full of invitations to learn deeper mysteries from God. These invitations are found throughout the Bible as well, though they are perhaps more frequent in the New Testament than the Old.1 To me, these invitations are evidence that the Lord is always trying to draw us deeper into covenant relationship and that the particular invitations extended in the scriptures are ever more important in the last days. As far as I can tell, there are two main parts to these invitations, and I’ll try to examine both of them here.
Action and Knowledge
“But unto him that keepeth my commandments I will give the mysteries of my kingdom.” This first bit is important. It emphasizes that action must precede knowledge. It goes further than this by proclaiming that a certain way of being (keeping the commandments) leads to a certain kind of knowledge (mysteries of the kingdom) and implying that there is no other way to get this knowledge.
This claim—that you have to act or be a certain way before you can know certain things—contradicts the modern, scientific, and educational assumptions we typically make about knowledge. Science assumes that the most important forms of knowledge are the ones that everyone can see and agree on regardless of background or current life. The Lord is here reminding us that an approach to knowledge based on this assumption will not be able to comprehend the mysteries of the kingdom.
This is not to say that the endeavor of science is evil or that it will necessarily lead us away from God. Instead, it is a recognition that interacting with God is fundamentally different from scientific observation. It is more like entering into a marriage than conducting a chemical experiment. The intimate knowledge that is available—the quiet mysteries that are unraveled—inside a marriage requires a certain kind of faithful action. My attitude and way of being matter a great deal. The same is not true for a chemical reaction. I can mix a baking soda and vinegar together when I am happy or sad and I will get the same result.
What this is telling us is that dealing with God is more like dealing with a person than with an object. And God’s commandments are instructions that explain how to build a relationship with Him.
Living Water
I believe this is what is meant by the term “living water.” Christ is water because He sustains eternal life. But He is living water because He reacts to different people differently, the same way other living things do. This reactiveness, or the ability to truly respond to each other, makes it more difficult to integrate with another, but also can make the integration sweet above all that is sweet.
When we have positioned ourselves close enough to Christ and excavated a hole deep enough to catch the groundwater, we will find what we need. But the final test, when the bucket comes up, filled to the brim, is what we see when we gaze into its reflective surface. Do we see Him as He is? Are we like Him? Are we ready to know as we are known?
If his image is graven on our countenances in that moment, then the living water will fill us. The knowledge of the Lord will flow in and through us, round about us. Bucket after bucket, from all eternity to all eternity.
This is the end state of keeping the commandments. They take us to the right place at the right time with the right tools to encounter God. But they also turn us into the kind of people who can sustain an encounter with God. Who can be enough like the Lord to enter into a permanent relationship with Him.
For a smattering of examples, see 1 Nephi 10:19; Alma 12:10; D&C 42:61; Moses 1:4; and Matthew 13:10-12; or for an academic take on how Restoration scripture is structured around this idea, see this article