With Learning Comes the Law, and with the Law Comes Accountability

   I have often stated it this way: Nothing taught is nothing learned. If you do not teach someone something, you cannot expect them to learn it.
   Tonight, I see how this is much the same thought the scriptures offer.
   From a book of scripture I use, that many of you may not, we have, "(W)here there is no law given there is no punishment; and where there is no punishment there is no condemnation. (2 Nephi 9:25 in the Book of Mormon)
   Consider the word "law" to equate with "taught." If you teach someone that they should do something, this is giving them a law that they should do that thing. And, the scriptures on this are multiple. I will cite but one more, and if you wish to view others, you may drop to the bottom of this article.
   "(F)or where no law is, there is no transgression." (Romans 4:15)
   Children are born without the law. It is not until after birth that the parents begin to teach them. Indeed, in the first few years, little is taught, but rather the mother nurtures and cares for the child without teaching much right from wrong. But one might suggest that by the time they are, say, eight, they have been taught much, and become accountable.
  But, note this: The parent teaches the child not just until age 8, but through the teenage years. And, the child is learning not only from the parent, but from experience. Those things that are right and those things that are wrong are being weighed in the child's mind -- especially in the  teenage years, which can be a time of rebellion. Thus, it can be after a youth has gone the wrong way, that he or she reflects on what he or she has done and determines whether to continue down that path for the rest of life.
   A person might repent or change or go corrupt after his or her youth, but much of the die is set as he or she emerges from those years. It is in those years where values -- ranging from choice of political parties to belief on premarital sex -- are established that linger through the rest of life. From that point of life on, often the person will not be taught, but will cling to the values he or she chose forever.
   As the scripture says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)
 
  Note: From the footnotes in the Book of Mormon for 2 Nephi 9:25, we find a number of scriptures that reflect the thought discussed in this blog.
   "(B)ut sin is not imputed when there is no law. (Romans 5:13)
   "And if ye say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. (2 Nephi 2:13 in the Book of Mormon)
   This next one I like because He says if He had not spoken to them, they would not have had sin. Speaking to them equates with teaching them. So, this is much the same as saying, "Nothing taught, is nothing learned."
   "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin." (John 15:22)
   "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent." (Acts 17:30)
   "(B)ut sin is not imputed when there is no law." (Romans 5:13)
   "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (James 4:17)
   "Now, how could a man repent except he should sin? How could he sin if there was no law? How could there be a law save there was a punishment? (Alma 42:17 in the Book of Mormon)
    In addition to these scriptures, one could point to the story of Adam and Eve, and how they were given a law (not to partake of the forbidden fruit) and how it was not until that law had been given that sin entered into the world, and that we had the fall.