Taking the Name in Vain

Six verses that treat misuse of the divine name as a question of authority rather than of profanity — and then extend the same rule to anything received from above.

What this page maps. Modern revelation, reported as the text gives it. The section speaks in a first-person divine voice. Dates, places, and occasions are not in this wiki’s source text and are not stated; who is meant by “many there be who are under this condemnation” (D&C 63:62) is not named in the verse text and is not named here.

Account

The self-naming that the warning hangs on

The warning is introduced by a self-identification: “Behold, I am Alpha and Omega, even Jesus Christ.” (D&C 63:60). The formula “Alpha and Omega” stands at eighteen distinct frozen verses in the corpus and is one of the corpus’s most repeated titles, so no connection is registered from it here; what makes this instance load-bearing is its position — the name is stated, and the next verse restricts who may use it.

The restriction, and its stated ground

“Wherefore, let all men beware how they take my name in their lips—” (D&C 63:61), and the reason follows in the next verse: “For behold, verily I say, that many there be who are under this condemnation, who use the name of the Lord, and use it in vain, having not authority.” (D&C 63:62).

The last two words are the passage’s distinctive move. The offence is not defined by irreverence or by the setting of the speech but by a missing warrant — “having not authority” (D&C 63:62). Under that definition a use could be solemn, sincere, and still be vain.

[Textual] — paraphrase / allusion. () - D&C 63:62: “For behold, verily I say, that many there be who are under this condemnation, who use the name of the Lord, and use it in vain, having not authority.” - Exodus 20:7: “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”

Divergences reported: the commandment is a second-person prohibition with a sanction attached (“the LORD will not hold him guiltless”, Exodus 20:7); the revelation is a third-person description of people already under condemnation, and it supplies a criterion the commandment does not state — the absence of authority (D&C 63:62). Case differs inside the shared run (“the LORD” against “the Lord”), and the commandment’s “thy God” has no counterpart in the revelation’s clause. Registered as allusion rather than shared phrasing: the two verses share the vocabulary of the commandment and its subject but no run of four words verbatim, since “in vain” is separated from “the name of the Lord” in the revelation by three intervening words. The decalogue’s own restatement inside the Book of Mormon, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” (Mosiah 13:15), stands nearer to the commandment than the revelation does and is disclosed, not paired; that block is mapped on Abinadi.

The rule extended beyond the name

The passage’s last verse widens the same principle from the name to everything received from above, and states two conditions on speaking it: “Remember that that which cometh from above is sacred, and must be spoken with care, and by constraint of the Spirit; and in this there is no condemnation, and ye receive the Spirit through prayer; wherefore, without this there remaineth condemnation.” (D&C 63:64).

Between the two stands a corporate consequence: “let the church repent of their sins, and I, the Lord, will own them; otherwise they shall be cut off” (D&C 63:63).

Significance

The passage is short and its interest is in its definition. Where a decalogue commandment names an act and forbids it, this text names a deficiency — authority the speaker does not hold — and locates the offence there. The consequence is that the same words could be lawful in one mouth and vain in another, which is not how the older commandment is worded.

The extension at verse 64 is the second thing worth noticing: the criterion moves from the name to any revealed material, and the safeguard offered is not silence but manner — “spoken with care, and by constraint of the Spirit” (D&C 63:64). How a speaker would know the constraint had been given is not stated in the verse, and this page does not supply an answer.

Key references

D&C 63:60 — the self-naming the warning follows
D&C 63:61–62 — the warning, and authority as the criterion
D&C 63:63 — the corporate consequence
D&C 63:64 — the rule extended to all that cometh from above

The Order of Revelation · Church of God · The Law of the Church · Common Consent · Sign-Seeking · Index · Connections

Sources

Doctrine and Covenants section 63, verses 60–64 (verse text only; headnotes excluded). Exodus 20 quoted alongside it; Mosiah 13 quoted inside a disclosure.

Every quote is verbatim from the frozen source text, cited to its exact reference and checked character-for-character; no quote crosses a verse boundary. One connection record is registered on this page, [textual] and submitted asserted_by: wiki. Phrase distributions are counts of distinct frozen verses in the corpus, derived by script at the time of writing on the stated basis.