God’s word is sharper than a two-edged sword

The power of the word of God has been described as “sharper than a two-edged sword” in several passages in the Doctrine and Covenants (see D&C 6:2; 11:2; 12:2; 14:2; 33:1). A weapon having two sharpened edges would be more effective at cutting than a sword with only one sharpened edge. God’s word is described as being even sharper than such a weapon. Like “the still, small voice, which … pierceth all things” (D&C 85:6), the word of God can quickly enter the inner depths of a person’s soul.

Elder Orson Pratt (1811–1881) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles further explained the imagery of the sword and how it illustrates the power of the word of God: “A message of simple truth, when sent from God—when published by divine authority, through divinely inspired men, penetrates the mind like a sharp two-edged sword, and cuts asunder the deeply-rooted prejudices, the iron-bound sinews of ancient error and tradition, made sacred by age and rendered popular by human wisdom. It severs with undeviating exactness between truth and falsehood—between the doctrine of Christ and the doctrines of men; it levels with the most perfect ease every argument that human learning may array against it. Opinions, creeds invented by uninspired men, and doctrines originated in schools of divinity, all vanish like the morning dew—all sink into insignificance when compared with a message direct from heaven” (“Divine Authority—or Was Joseph Smith Sent of God?” Orson Pratt’s Works on the Doctrines of the Gospel [1945], 1:1).