I’m an introvert with an advocate personality. So I was pretty reserved in grad school seminars until a fellow student went off about how people shouldn’t have kids, and I launched into a lecture about how I’m the seventh of ten children of really great parents.
My parents made sure the scriptures were read early and often in their home, but it was up to me to decide whether I would love the scriptures. I learned that the Book of Mormon is true shortly before I served in the Canada Winnipeg Mission. But It took me awhile to learn to love the scriptures. Not until I was teaching Dora, a Lutheran woman in her sixties, did I really want to know what they said and meant.
That desire didn’t leave when I returned to BYU, so I changed my major from engineering to ancient near eastern studies and started a series of courses in Biblical Hebrew. I learned that the Bible was way more complicated than I had thought, and I doubted I could master the complexity. When I took a course on early Church history I decided I had to master that, so I switched my major and set my sights on a PhD in early American history. Along the way I wrote an MA thesis about who joined the Church in the 1830s and why. I wrote my dissertation on a little-known 1737 fraud by which the sons of William Penn evicted the Lenape Indians from their homeland.
I started teaching in the history and religion departments at BYU-Hawaii, then in 2002 got the chance to join the Religious Education faculty at BYU in Provo and become an editor of The Joseph Smith Papers. That combo was enticement enough to leave Hawaii, where I thought I would miss the land but ended up missing the people. A decade later I taught the Bible (go figure) to great students at the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies.
Before that I had been serving on committees tasked by the Church Historian and Recorder with planning a new history of the Church. When I got home from Jerusalem I was invited to join the Church History Department in Salt Lake City to be the managing historian of that project. For the next six years it was my humbling privilege to work with devoted and talented people to produce Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days. More than one million people are reading it online and more than 400,000 print copies have been sold.
In 2018 I got my other dream job back: professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU. I was also named the editor of BYU Studies, where I had formative experience as a student intern a long time ago.
The best thing about me is my wife and children, but they forbade me to say much about them here. Hannah Salvesen is my daughter, and I’ll share lots of links to the great stuff she produces. Thanks to Hannah and Scott Salvesen for building this site and advising me patiently about all things related to the world wide web.
In his inimitable way, BYU philosophy professor Truman Madsen related an anecdote during a presentation he gave at the Yale Divinity School. He told of a conversation with some Catholic priests, very learned Jesuits who expressed their inability to conceive of God as an intimate father intent on raising mankind to fully share in his glory and status. Brother Madsen said he told them it was hard for Latter-day Saints to conceive of God as anything other than a concerned father whose work and glory is to exalt all of his willing children.
What does that have to do with section 93? It’s about the nature of God as Father, Christ as Son, and it parents as well as chastises Bishop Whitney and the members of the First Presidency, saying they need to be better parents.[1] The Lord explains why he gave the revelation in verse 19: “I give unto you these sayings that you may understand, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fulness.”
The Lord’s use of the word fulness tells us that we have in Section 93 a revelation about exaltation. Fulness is used occasionally in the Book of Mormon and early revelations to describe the gospel, but in section 76, the first of the revelations to describe progress beyond simple salvation from sin and death, the word bursts onto the page nine times. In Section 93 we hear it fifteen times, and sometimes enriched as in “fulness of truth” (26) or “fulness of joy” (34). Section 93 is an introductory text on how to come into the Lord’s presence and become like him.
Section 93 adds intelligence to section 88’s impressive catalog of synonyms that include light, life, law, power, and glory—most memorably in section 93:36: “The glory of God is intelligence, or in other words, light and truth.” We worship “The Father,” the organizer of eternal elements and intelligent beings whom he designs to inherit his attributes and with them his “fulness of joy.” We worship a God who did not create us ex nihilo, or from nothing, but rather from eternally existing element and intelligence (33-35). We worship a God whose work is to frame worlds and inhabit them with his children to provide them a sphere in which they can act independently, truly free to do their father’s will or their own.
We worship God by choosing of our own free will to receive the intelligence, or light and truth he offers us, to keep his commandments and therefore receive more truth, more light, more intelligence, until we know all he knows and have become all he is. We worship our Heavenly Father by becoming like him. To emulate him is the highest worship we can offer him. In section 93, Christ holds himself up as the example. “He received not of the fulness at first, but received grace for grace.” He obeyed His Father and grew by degrees of glory “until he received a fulness” (12-13). In section 93, Christ declares that we have similar potential for growth and godliness (20).
There is an abrupt transition at verse 40 to pragmatic instructions, and the conclusion of the revelation “descend[s] from the heavens into the everyday concerns of Joseph and his friends. The Lord scolds them for not keeping order in their families.”[2] This part of the revelation is not disconnected from the lofty preceding verses. All of them tell how to raise children and why. God organizes life and provides His children a setting in which they can act freely. He endows them with light, truth, or knowledge to act upon independently, leaving them free to obey or disobey when “that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers” (39).
In section 93, Joseph received God’s theology of parenting and a pragmatic commandment to go and do likewise (40). Moreover, since the glory of God is intelligence, there is a commandment to worship by learning, by obtaining knowledge as a means to the end of exaltation. Exalting knowledge comes by obedience to God’s light and truth. “He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things” (28).
Professor Madsen cited section 93 as a profound solution to several theological problems:
How can there something come from nothing? Answer: The universe was not created from nothing. “The elements are eternal.”
How can Christ have been both absolutely human and absolutely divine at the same time? Answer: He was not both at the same time. Christ “received not of the fulness at the first, but continued…until he received a fulness.”
If man is totally the creation of God, how can he be anything or do anything that he was not divinely pre-caused to do? Answer: Man is not totally the creation of God. “Intelligence was not created or made, neither indeed can be. Behold, here is the agency of man.”
How can man be a divine creation and yet be “totally depraved”? Answer: Man is not totally depraved. “Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.”
What is the relationship of being and beings, the one and the many? Answer: “Being” is only the collective name of beings, of whom God is one. Truth is knowledge of things (plural), and not, as Plato would have it, of Thinghood. “Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.”
How can spirit relate to gross matter? Answer: “The elements are the tabernacle of God.”
Why should man be embodied? Answer: “Spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy.”
If we begin susceptible to light and truth, how is it that people err and abuse the light? Answer: People are free; they can be persuaded only if they choose to be. They cannot be compelled.
The Socratic thesis that knowledge is virtue (that if you really know the good you will seek it and do it) is mistaken. It is through disobedience and because of the traditions of the fathers that light is taken away from mankind.[3]
That is impressive even for Joseph Smith, the twenty-seven-year-old farmer/revelator whose history casually contextualizes section 93 by saying, “on the 6th [of May 1833] I received the following.”[4]
Most everyone drank in the 1820s and 1830s, Joseph Smith included.[1] Distillers in his upstate New York neighborhood made corn whiskey and sent 65,277 gallons of it and 69 tons of beer to market on the Erie Canal the year after Joseph’s first vision of God and Christ.[2] Newspapers in the towns near Joseph’s home advertised cheap alcohol, printed recipes for making beer, and sold the ingredients. One scholar aptly described Joseph’s America as “the alcoholic republic.”[3]
Joseph’s father confessed in a patriarchal blessing to his son Hyrum in 1834 that he had been “out of the way through wine” sometimes in the past, but “Joseph Sr.’s drinking was not excessive for that time and place.”[4] Nearly all males drank and many women and children. Members of all social classes drank. They drank morning, mid-day, and evening, at funerals and parties, militia musters and church socials.
“The thing has arrived to such a height,” one widely-quoted temperance advocate noted, “that we are actually threatened with becoming a nation of drunkards.”[5] America’s desire for alcohol and the rise of temperance generated diverse opinions that led Joseph Smith to ask questions. Between 1831 and 1836, the cry for abstinence gained momentum. In 1833, in the middle of this controversy, the Lord clarified revealed where the Saints should stand relative to alcohol consumption.
Americans consumed enormous amounts of meat. Authorities often condoned this practice in winter but worried that too much consumption could result in over-stimulation. All authorities agreed that use of all stimulants, in which they included herbs, meats, coffee, and tea, could lead to over-stimulation and therefore disease. The most radical authorities, especially Sylvester Graham, thought that foods much more tasty than a Graham cracker (named for Sylvester) were very dangerous. He urged complete abstinence from coffee, tea, meat, spices, and condiments. Granting that coffee and tea were stimulants, other authorities thought Graham’s position too extreme and believed that healthy people could consume these drinks in moderation without causing disease.
By 1800, the influential doctor Benjamin Rush had persuaded many authorities that all disease could be traced to over-stimulation, and therefore all illness could be treated by so-called “heroic” methods of releasing the patient’s excess energy. Joseph Smith’s brother Alvin died in 1823 after a doctor’s dose of mercurous chloride blocked rather than purged his digestive system. Joseph Smith and most Latter-day Saints had little confidence in the fledgling medical profession and its heroic practices. In the days of primitive diagnostic techniques before diseases were well understood, an 1831 revelation to Joseph Smith taught Saints that “whosoever among you are sick, and have not faith to be healed, but believe, shall be nourished with all tenderness, with herbs and mild food, and that not by the hand of an enemy” (D&C 42:43). This counsel matched most closely the relatively innocuous naturopathic practices of Samuel Thomson, and many Latter-day Saints followed his advice until advances in medical science increased their confidence in professionals late in the nineteenth century.[6]
The world into which the Lord revealed the Word of Wisdom was quite different from our own. Advances in medical science have provided much more certainty about the dangers of consuming many of the substances that were thought by many in Joseph Smith’s world to have medicinal value. Moreover, his contemporaries were in the process of reconsidering their certainty about the value of alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, meats, fruits, and some herbs. There was no prevailing view to which everyone subscribed, even inside the Church. There were more questions than answers.
Outspoken temperance crusaders added tobacco to their list of noxious substances in the 1830s, and it became as warmly debated as alcohol. Was tobacco a powerful medicine capable of curing all kinds of afflictions or a noxious weed that was loathsome to the lungs? Was it filthy habit or a socially acceptable pastime? Uncertainty about these questions may have been the immediate catalyst for Joseph Smith’s reception of the Word of Wisdom.
Nearly two dozen men gathered for school in a second-story room of Newel and Ann Whitney’s Kirtland, Ohio, store on February 27, 1833. “The first thing they did,” according to Brigham Young, “was to light their pipes, and, while smoking, talk about the great things of the kingdom, and spit all over the room, and as soon as the pipe was out of their mouths a large chew of tobacco would then be taken. Often when the Prophet entered the room to give the school instructions he would find himself in a cloud of tobacco smoke. This, and the complaints of his wife at having to clean so filthy a floor, made the Prophet think upon the matter, and he inquired of the Lord.”[7]
With one of the elders for his scribe and perhaps one or two others present, Joseph Smith, in a nearby room, received the revelation known as the Word of Wisdom. Besides answering the immediate question of whether the brethren should smoke or chew tobacco, or “the filthy weed and their disgusting slobbering and spitting” as one colorful account put it, the revelation clarified several other issues that were being debated by Joseph’s contemporaries.[8]
One of the most unusual aspects of the word of wisdom is that although it came in answer to pressing questions in 1833, its primary purpose is to forewarn future saints of conspiracies to undermine their agency. Notice the doctrinal basis of the revelation. It assumes, as an earlier revelation to Joseph Smith said, that “the spirit and the body are the soul of man” (D&C 88:15). Whereas some Christians think of the body as evil and look forward to leaving it behind at death, Latter-day Saints regard the body as godly and look forward to a literal, glorious resurrection. They believe God and Christ are perfectly embodied and that through the process of birth, earth-life, death, and resurrection, men and women are being created in their image. To preserve the soul and its agency to act for itself, the Lord forbade drinking strong drinks and also wine, unless it was for the sacrament.[9]
The revelation instructs people how to act relative to distilled (“strong”) and fermented drinks, domesticated and wild animals, tobacco, hot drinks, grains, herbs, fruits, and vegetables. These are all things God has made and given mankind to use. The revelation tells us how to use them in ways that please God. “All these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving,” for example, speaking of herbs and fruits (D&C 89:11), or “they are to be used sparingly,” speaking of meat and poultry (D&C 89:12). A seldom noted aspect of stewardship in the Word of Wisdom is the repeated command to use what God has provided “with thanksgiving” (D&C 89:11–12). The repeated emphasis is on righteous use, not abuse. God created this earth and its life-sustaining abundance to be used by wise stewards who thankfully acknowledge him, not abused by the ungrateful or gluttonous.
The Word of Wisdom more than a simple health code. It is a covenant. Elder Boyd K. Packer testified that “while the Word of Wisdom requires strict obedience, in return it promises health, great treasures of knowledge, and that redemption bought for us by the Lamb of God, who was slain that we might be redeemed.”[10]
Some critics of the Word of Wisdom assert that because it addressed the circumstances of Joseph Smith’s world, it must not be real revelation. That is silly, since it assumes that a revelation that answers timely questions is somehow suspect. What good is an irrelevant revelation? Another simplistic assumption is that the Word of Wisdom mimicked the prevailing idea of Joseph’s time. There was no prevailing idea, no single opinion. Then as now there were many competing ideas, debate rather than consensus.
The Word of Wisdom sorts out and clarifies the strengths and weaknesses among the variety of opinions. Forbidding the ingestion of nearly all alcoholic beverages as well as coffee, tea, and tobacco, the revelation ran counter to the mainstream culture. It was consistent, however, with an emerging medical opinion regarding meats, herbs, fruits, and vegetables. The revelation did not give Joseph Smith, his followers, or family members what they wanted to hear. Many of the men in the church used tobacco. Emma Smith took coffee and tea. Joseph liked whiskey.[11] They all consumed more meat than was needful.[12] The revelation was not what they wanted to hear. It was the wisdom they needed to hear.
Section 90
There is nothing in the historical records to tell us what problem(s) section 90 resolved—nothing but the revelation itself.[1] In such cases it is extra important to read it carefully. It is full of financial instructions. It is safe to conclude that Joseph was concerned about the expensive commands the Lord had given to buy land in Missouri, establish a storehouse, print the revelations, and gather Israel to Zion.
The revelation was given, at least in part, to answer Joseph’s prayers for forgiveness, mentioned in verse 1, which also says that prayers of Joseph’s brethren that have reached the Lord’s ears. It seems that those brethren were Sidney Rigdon, who had been serving as Joseph’s counselor, and Frederick Williams, who just a few weeks earlier received a revelation through Joseph that he was “called to be a Councillor & scribe unto my Servent Joseph.”[2] The Lord refers “again” to these “brethren” by name in verse 6.
Section 90 blesses those who bear the keys of the kingdom, the authority to exercise the priesthood to govern the church of Jesus Christ. It grants them the oracles—the revelations to govern the church—and commands the saints not to take them lightly.
The revelation takes the next step in forming what section 81 called the “presidency of the high priesthood,” or what became known by 1835 as the First Presidency.[3]
The Lord forgives Sidney Rigdon and Frederick Williams and makes them equal with Joseph in holding the keys of the kingdom. Verse 9 nevertheless clarifies that Joseph presides over his counselors, who preside over the earth and are commanded by the Lord to spread the gospel and gather Israel in anticipation of His coming.
Beginning in verse 13, the Lord gives the Presidency their day to day duties: To finish revising the Old Testament, to preside over the church and the school of the prophets (see section 88), to receive revelations as needed, to study and learn all they can, and to preside over and set the church in order.
Verses 13 through the end include the kind of revelation needed to set the church in order. Here the Lord micromanages his affairs with specific instructions about a variety of people, property, and finances. Joseph and his counselors are reproved and instructed for their pride and directed to be better. The church is to provide a home for Frederick Williams, who had consecrated his farm to obey the same revelation that called him to be a counselor to Joseph. Joseph’s parents are to live on Frederick’s farm, Sidney to remain where he lived, and the bishop to find an agent both faithful and wealthy enough to help pay the church’s debts.
The Lord refers to the United Firm’s covenant (section 82) in verse 24, which is itself a covenant. In verse 25 he counsels Joseph’s father to conserve his financial resources by not assuming responsibility for more people than he can afford in his advancing years. Vienna Jacques, a converted Bostonian who had gathered with the saints and consecrated her considerable wealth, is promised an inheritance in Zion for her faithfulness.
No so with William McLellin, whom the Lord rebukes after he forsook two mission calls and circumvented the law of consecration to purchase two lots on Main Street in Independence, Missouri (see sections 66, 75, and 85).[4] The Lord also reproved church leaders in Zion who were badgering Joseph to come to Missouri to live.
Ten days after the revelation, a council of high priests convened. Joseph ordained Sidney Rigdon and Frederick Williams “by the laying on of hands to be equal with him in holding the Keys of the Kingdom and also to the Presidency of the high Priesthood.”[5]
The pressures of Zion building Zion weighed on Joseph. One can hear sub-textually that Joseph did not know how to resolve some pressing problems, but the Lord did. He coached Joseph how to cope, strategize, delegate, prepare, and press forward. The revelation reassured Joseph that the keys were his forever and he would receive revelations as needed. Section 90 treated Joseph’s anxiety, uncertainty, and stress. Zion, “shall not be removed out of her place. I, the Lord, have spoken it” (D&C 90:37). If the Lord was so cool and confident in Zion, Joseph could be too. He would need that reassurance. Things in Zion were about to get much worse.
Section 91
There was a hot debate among member of the British and Foreign Bible Society in the late 1820s. Some members advocated that the Society should include in its Bibles the Apocrypha—“the dozen or so books not found in the Hebrew canon but that were included in the Greek version of the Old Testament.”[1] Other members of the Society thought they were “adulterating the Scriptures, by circulating the lies and fables of the Apocrypha along with the words of eternal life.”[2] That debate had been ongoing among Christians for centuries. Joseph did not know whose argument was best.
Title pages of Joseph Smith’s Bible. Images courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org
Joseph’s version of the King James Bible included the Apocrypha. Section 90, revealed on March 8, 1833, told Joseph to finish his revision of the Old Testament before moving on to other pressing duties. The next day he asked the Lord whetherhe should read the Apocrypha and revise it along with the rest of the Old Testament. His history says, “having come to that portion of the ancient writings called the Apocrypha, I received the following” revelation.[3]
The Lord tells Joseph the he need not translate the Apocrypha, and he explains why. Much of it is true and already translated correctly. Much of it is not true, late additions, uninspired, and uninspiring. The revelation hinges on the therefore that begins verse 4. Because there is much truth and much else in the Apocrypha, let it be understood by the Spirit, which testifies of truth. That is the way to get the most from the Apocrypha.
Section 91 helps us understand the nature of scripture and of revelation. There have been many historical arguments and dogmatic positions taken relative to the Apocrypha. The revealed answer may be the least dogmatic. Rather than declaring the highly varied books of the Apocrypha absolutely true or false, the Lord focuses on truth and error within the texts. Nor does he seem worried about errors in or sufficiency of scripture, a term Latter-day Saints do not even use. He gives instead an infallible principle that can be applied to all texts and all subjects. The principle is that seeking truth in the light of the Holy Spirit will enable people to discern truth from error wherever they may be found.
Section 92
People live by the law of consecration and stewardship. When people say that early saints lived the United Order, they do not understand what it is—or was. United Order is actually a pseudonym for the United Firm, a group of several church leaders the Lord named specifically in section 82. “As a governing financial council, the firm was responsible for printing church publications, holding church properties in trust, assisting the poor, and operating general stores in Independence, Missouri, and Kirtland, Ohio, to generate funds for the church.”[1]
The Lord established the United Firm in 1832 (see section 82).[2] In 1833, the Lord called Frederick Williams to be a counselor and scribe to Joseph and to consecrate his substantial farm to the church. “Let thy farm be consecrated for bringing forth of the revelations and tho[u] shalt be blessed,” the Lord told Frederick.[3] Section 92 made Frederick a member of the United Firm.[4] The minutes describing what it means say that Frederick “should be received into the United Firm in full partnership agreeable to the specification of the bond” mentioned in Sections 78:11 and 82:11.[5] Section 92 instructs the members of the United Firm to receive Frederick and instructs him to be a “lively member.”
Joseph sent a copy of the revelation to the members of the firm in Missouri. They apparently raised some questions about Frederick’s role. He joined the firm, consecrated his farm, was ordained a counselor to Joseph Smith, continued to serve as a scribe, and was otherwise “lively” though soft spoken in building Zion. Joseph’s journal says, “Brother Frederick is one of those men in whom I place the greatest confidence and trust for I have found him ever full of love and Brotherly kindness. . . . He is perfectly honest and upright and seeks with all his heart to magnify his presidency in the church.”[6]
[10] Boyd K. Packer, “The Word of Wisdom: The Principle and the Promises,” Ensign, May 1996, 18.
[11] Joseph Smith address to the Mormons at Nauvoo on Last Sunday of April 1841, Reverend Julius A. Reed Collection, box 2, folder 15, Iowa State Historical Society, Iowa City, Iowa.
[12] Bush, “The Word of Wisdom in Early Nineteenth-Century Perspective,” 53, 63.
Samuel H. Smith, Journal entry describing Section 88, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.
Three months after receiving a revelation on priesthood that included a command to build a temple in Missouri, Joseph and a group of nine high priests gathered “assembled in the translating room in Kirtland, Ohio.” Joseph rose and taught them that “to receive revelation and the blessing of Heaven, it was necessary to have our minds on God and exercise faith and become of one heart and one mind.” He asked them each to pray in turn that the Lord would “reveal His will to us concerning the upbuilding of Zion and for the benefit of the saints and for the duty . . . of the elders.” Each man “bowed down before the Lord, after which each one arose and spoke in his turn his feelings and determination to keep the commandments of God.”[1]
The revelation began to flow, and by nine o’clock that night it had not ended. The brethren retired but returned the next morning and received the rest of the revelation. That is, they received the first 126 verses. The remainder came a week later on January 3.[2]
Like Section 84, Section 88 is thoroughly a temple revelation. Beginning with a promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ to the faithful, the revelation describes the purposeful creation of the earth and then tells how to obey divine law to advance by degrees of light or glory through a perfect resurrection and into the presence of God.
Historian Richard Bushman summarized Section 88 best. He said it “runs from the cosmological to the practical, from a description of angels blowing their trumpets to instructions for starting a school. . . . . The revelation offers sketches of the order of heaven, reprises the three degrees of glory, delivers a discourse on divine law, offers a summary of the metahistory of the end times, and then brings it all to bear on what the saints should do now.”[3]
As with several other Sections, 88 instructs the brethren to proclaim the gospel and connects this commandment to the imminent end of the world and impending judgment. Section 88’s eschatological section is, in fact, the most detailed in Jospeh’s revelations. “For not many days hence,” it begins, before describing the end of the world, the resurrections, and the judgments and triumphs announced by angels, all culminating in a final battle between good and evil, “the battle of the great God,” in which the archangel Michael leads the armies of heaven against “the devil and his armies,” resulting in the final conquest of death, hell, and the devil (D&C 88:114-116).
Section 88 is expansive. It maps the universe. Its concepts stretch the mind, inviting inquiry and awe. “Truth shineth,” it says, introducing a string of related if not synonymous concepts that include truth, light, power, life, spirit, and even law. Condescending from the revelation’s lofty heights, the Lord simplifies its vastness in a metaphor suited for the saints. “I will liken these kingdoms unto a man having a field, and he sent forth his servants into the field to dig” (D&C 88:51). “My friends,” the Lord says, “I leave these sayings with you to ponder in your hearts, with this commandment which I give unto you: that ye shall call upon me while I am near: Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you” (D&C 88:62-63). The revelation both commands and invites solemnity and action.
Temple scholar Margaret Barker noted how the concepts in Section 88 pervade other scriptural temple texts. “Light and life, then, are linked and set in opposition to darkness and death. The presence of God is light; coming into the presence of God transforms whatever is dead and gives it life.”[4]
The therefore in verse 117 marks the beginning of the Lord’s final point in the initial, two-day revelation (D&C 88:117-126). This concluding segment reviews the revelation’s instructions in what one might call the “therefore what?” It is instructions for participating in a temple preparation class. The “therefore what” of the whole revelation is “therefore, sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him” (D&C 88:68).
The Latter-day Saints built their first temple as a result of section 88 and came into the presence of the Lord. A few days after Section 88 was completed, Joseph sent a copy of it with a rebuke to church leaders in Missouri. The saints there had not acted on Section 84’s command to build a temple in Zion. “I send you the . . . Lord’s message of peace to us,” Joseph wrote, “for though our Brethren in Zion, indulge in feelings towards us, which are not according to the requirements of the new covenant yet we have the satisfaction of knowing that the Lord approves of us & has accepted us.” Joseph sent a copy of section 88 with his letter. Referring to it, he wrote, “You will see hat the Lord commanded us in Kirtland to build an house of God, & establish a school for the Prophets, this is the word of the Lord to us, & we must yea the Lord helping us we will obey, as on conditions of our obedience, he has promised <us> great things, yea <even> a visit from the heavens to honor us with his own presence.”
Joseph had learned from Section 84 that the only way into the presence of God was through the temple. Nothing should therefore be more important. Yet, like Moses, he worried that Latter-day Saints would harden their hearts and provoke the Lord’s wrath (D&C 84:24). “We greatly fear before the Lord lest we should fail of this great honor which our master proposes to confer on us, we are seeking for humility & great faith lest we be ashamed in his presence.”[5]
The saints in Kirtland began building the House of the Lord in the summer of 1833 and, after some interruptions and a rebuke that reminded them of Section 88’s instructions (see Section 95), they dedicated it in 1836. Joseph, meanwhile, instructed the saints to purify and prepare themselves for an outpouring of the Lord’s power—an endowment. In November 1835 he met with the newly-called apostles. He confessed his own shortcomings and then taught them Section 88, or, as he called it, “how to prepare yourselves for the [p. 31] great things that God is about to bring to pass.”
Joseph told them he had assumed the church was fully organized, but that the Lord had taught him more, including “the ordinance of washing of feet” mentioned in Section 88:139. “This we have not done as yet,” Joseph taught the apostles, “but it is necessary now as much as it was in the days of the Saviour, and we must have a place prepared, that we may attend to this ordinance, aside from the world.” He continued to emphasize the need for the temple. “We must have all things prepared and call our solem assembly as the Lord has commanded us [see D&C 88:70], that we may be able to accomplish his great work: and it must be done in Gods own way, the house of the Lord must be prepared, and the solem assembly called and organized in it according to the order of the house of God and in it we must attend to the ordinance of washing of feet.”
Joseph helped them understand the relationship between the power with which God intended to endow them and their calling to preach the gospel (D&C 88:80-82). Then he concluded his teaching by reaffirming what Section 88 twice calls the “great and last promise”: “I feel disposed to speak a few words more to you my brethren concerning the endowment, all who are prepared and are sufficiently pure to abide the presence of the Saviour will see him in the solem assembly” (D&C 88:69, 75).[6]
When the temple was finished and the solemn assembly convened, Joseph dedicated it with an inspired prayer that drew liberally on section 88 (see section 109). Joseph worked hard to get the saints to see the importance of section 88, to understand the temple and ultimate blessings. Like Moses, he wanted to usher his sometimes short-sighted people into the presence of the Lord. This revelation preoccupied Joseph’s attention. He wanted its promised blessings and he worked to explain them to the saints. Section 88 built a temple, established schools, motivated (and continues to motivate) learning by study and faith, and helped many saints sanctify their lives and lay hold on the great and last promise of entering the Lord’s presence.
The leaders of the church in Missouri grew troubled. Saints were gathering there by the hundreds. Relatively few of them were obeying the law of consecration when they did. “Have you all fulfilled the law of the church,” William Phelps wrote to them in the church’s newspaper, “which saith: Behold thou shalt consecrate all thy properties, that which thou hast, unto me, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken?” (see section 42).[1]
In Ohio, Joseph learned by “the still small voice” that leaders in Missouri were wondering what to do. He sought and received a revealed answer, section 85, which he sent to them.[2] It clarifies the duty of the Lord’s clerk to keep a history of righteousness and unrighteousness in Zion, including accurate records “of all those who consecrate properties, and receive inheritances legally from the bishop.” Those that do not receive their inheritance by living the law of consecration are to be excluded from the church record referred to as the “book of the law of God.”
Verse 7 prophesies that the Lord will send someone to arrange inheritances for those whose names are recorded in the book, but those who are not in the book will receive no inheritance in Zion. Verse 8 prophesies that those who steady the ark (go beyond their assigned role in building Zion) will be smitten.
Joseph purchased his first journal on the very day this revelation was given, “for the purpose,” he wrote, “to keep a minute account of all things that come under my observation.”[3]At about this same time, Joseph began writing his history, recording his letters, and minutes of church council meetings. He knew, as John the Revelator had prophesied, that the mankind would be judged by records of their works kept on earth (Revelation 20:12, D&C 128:6-8), and Joseph tried to document his own “manner of life” (D&C 85:2).
Later, in 1841, Joseph began another journal, the Book of the Law of the Lord, a title he derived from D&C 85. Joseph appointed Willard Richards as “Recorder for the Temple, and the Scribe for the private office of the President.” Willard became what Section 82 calls the “Lord’s clerk,” filling the duties described in the revelation. He recorded historical entries and donations in the Book of the Law of the Lord.[4] In 1842, while preparing to leave for the East, Richards gave the Book to William Clayton, whom Joseph appointed as Temple Recorder, with a commission to fulfill the duties named in Section 82.[5]
These recorders carefully kept track of consecration. They recorded the deeds and donations of those who freely offered their whole souls to the Lord’s work. Joseph recorded a tribute to his wife Emma, to bishop Newel Whitney, to his brother Hyrum and many others. ‘The names of the faithful are what I wish to record in this place.” He recorded “the virtues and the good qualifications and characteristics of the faithful few,” as he called them, but also noted that “there are a numerous host of faithful souls, whose names I could wish to record in the Book of the Law of the Lord.”[6]
I’m sometimes asked when the Lord will require us to live the law of consecration. The answer is never. It never has been coercive and never will be. Section 85 clarifies that church leaders should simply keep track of who consecrates but not encroach on individual agency to obey or disobey. The Lord will judgment as he deems best. The law is quietly kept by many people, and their names are recorded in appropriate places. The faithful whose names and deeds are documented will receive inheritances in Zion. Those “whose names are not found written in the book of the law . . . shall not find an inheritance among the saints of the Most High” (D&C 82:7, 11).
Section 86
With Christianity in apostasy and no living prophets, Protestant reformers retreated to the relative safety of the Bible, the known word of God. Some went so far as to declare, though the Bible never does, that it was all sufficient and alone sufficient for salvation. Joseph faced the same fears and frustrations resulting from apostasy, but he took a different approach to the Bible. He “reflected again and again” on its often repeated injunction to ask and receive, seek and find, knock and the door will open (Joseph Smith—History, 12).
Joseph continually worked at understanding the Bible better and better, and making it possible for us to do so too. He had been over the parables in Matthew 13 in the spring of 1831, but he revised his own revision a year and a half later. His journal for 6 December 1832 says he spent the day “translating and received a revelation explaining the Parable [of] the wheat and the tears.”[1]
Section 86 defines and evokes powerful symbols to explain a parable about how the gospel spread, how apostasy followed and “drove the church into the wilderness” (D&C 86:3), and how the Lord nevertheless protected and preserved his people and will cause the gospel to flourish again. The main analogy of the parable is a field in which the apostles have planted wheat but Satan has sewn tares. The question for Joseph Smith and Latter-day Saints is, how should the field be harvested? The version in Matthew 13 says to let the wheat and the tares “grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn” (Matthew 13:30). Importantly, Section 86 reverses the order of the harvest: “Let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned (D&C 86:7, cross reference D&C 64:24). In his new translation, Joseph revised Matthew 13 according to what he learned from the revelation (JST Matthew 13:29).
All that is preliminary to the Lord’s main point in Section 86. His intent in the revelation is to explain how, despite apostasy, the priesthood has returned to its lawful heirs, and they are commissioned to harvest the wheat planted by the original apostles. Notice how the Lord develops this point with the four consecutive Therefores that begin verses 7, 8, 10, and 11.
The difference between Joseph’s way of reading the Bible and the dominant way of his time and place is crucial. For many people, the Bible is “a sealed book,” as popular Methodist preacher of Joseph’s day described it, lamenting that he did not live “in the days of the prophets or apostles, that I could have sure guides.”[2] Joseph’s revelations open the Bible. Consider how profound it is that in section 86 the Lord explains his own parable to Latter-day Saints. Is there any reason why He would not? Could not?
Section 86 revises and expands the biblical record. The fact that it came as Joseph was revising his previous revision is, itself, revealing. Joseph never felt finished with the work of unlocking the scriptures. One of his great contributions to us is his example of reading for and receiving revelations.
Section 87
Section 87 came during a Constitutional crisis. Congress had passed tax laws that favored northern factories over southern planters. So a South Carolina convention “unilaterally nullified the tariff and forbade its collection. President Andrew Jackson, refusing to acknowledge this assertion of state power, called out troops. By Christmas 1832, a military confrontation appeared imminent.”[1]
Latter-day Saints and other Christians viewed these events (along with a plague in India and a nearly global outbreak of cholera) in eschatological terms, meaning they thought the end of the world would come soon.
At least that’s how it looked to Joseph Smith and others late in 1832. Wars and rumors of wars, desolating sicknesses and desolating scourges were in the news.[2] Joseph asked for and received a revelation about what was to come. It said that wars–plural–would begin shortly with South Carolina’s rebellion, then continue until wars had gone global and resulted in “a full end of all nations” (D&C 87:6). The revelation foresaw slave rebellions and the uprising of “remnants” vexing the Gentiles, which Joseph and the early Saints interpreted in Book of Mormon terms to mean descendants of Lehi irritating the unrepentant (Mormon 7:1-10, 3 Nephi 10, D&C 19:27).[3]
Section 87 is mainly descriptive, not prescriptive. The first seven verses describe what God knows will happen because people reject His laws and His love. It is not about what He wants to happen, or what would happen if people obeyed His laws and reflected His love. It describes unfathomable violence by which the inhabitants of the earth “feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God” whom they have rejected. Given the impending eschaton, the prescriptive point in the last verse is “stand ye in holy places, and be not moved” (D&C 87:8).
Is that a command to be passive? Does it mean we should be bystanders or immobilized by fear? I think it means something like, take a stand for holiness and don’t get pushed around. I interpret it as a command to take an immovable stand for the laws and love of God in a world descending into self-destruction. The otherwise depressing revelation ends with good news for those who take such a stand: The day of the Lord–the eschaton–comes quickly (D&C 87:8).
Joseph Smith may have looked foolish to some when the crisis blew over. Civil war didn’t come. It didn’t start with the rebellion of South Carolina, nor result in death and misery, or global warfare, or the end of nations. Well, at least not right away, as Joseph and others probably expected.
The eschaton never seems to happen as expected. That’s the story of Christian eschatology in a nutshell. Since the days of Paul at least, Christians have been expecting the end of the world any day. Every generation of Christians has waited for the end times, and there are always some Christians somewhere who are sure that it’s coming very, very soon.
Early Latter-day Saints were like that, though not quite as much as the followers of William Miller (1782-1849). He was a generation older than Joseph Smith. He was a Baptist, then a Deist, but the combination of having his life miraculously saved in the War of 1812 and the deaths of loved ones led him to conversion to Jesus Christ, and he renewed his Baptist faith. He longed for Jesus’ return to end wars and death. Like me, William Miller didn’t have the knowledge or skills or the revelation necessary to read and understand apocalyptic parts of the Bible in context. So he made some assumptions that led him to interpret Daniel 8:14 to mean that the Savior would return sometime between March 21, 1843 and a year later.
Some of William Miller’s followers got even more specific
They narrowed the day of the Savior’s Second Coming to April 3, 1843. They were not the only ones interested as that day approached. Latter-day Saints were also looking forward to the Savior’s Second Coming, studying the prophecies, trying to discern the signs of the times, as Christians had been doing for nearly two millennia.
So It was no wonder that on Sunday April 2, 1843 the subject came among the saints. Joseph told them, “I prophecy in the Name of the Lord God that the commenceme[n]t of bloodshed as preparat[o]ry to the coming of the son of man. will commenc[e] in South Carolina.— (it probably may arise through the slave trade.)— this the a voice declard to me. while I was praying earne[s]tly on the subje[c]t 25 December 1832. I earnestly desird to know concern[in]g the coming of the Son of Man & prayed. when— a voice said to me, Joseph, my, son, if thou livest until thou art 85 years old thou shalt see the facce of the son of man. therefore let this suffice & trouble me no more on this matter.[4]
The next day was April 3, 1843. It turned out not to be the eschaton. Joseph’s journal entry takes a poke at Miller and his followers: “tis too. pleas[a]nt. for false prophets.” A few days later on April 6, 1843, Joseph again told his experience a decade earlyer of praying to know when the Savior’s Second Coming would be, and this time he added how he had decided to interpret the Lord’s intentionally vague revelation: “. . . were I going to prophecy. I would procpesy [prophesy] the end will not come in 1844. or 5— or 6. or 40 years more [p. [72]] there are those of the rising generation who shall not taste death till christ come. <I was once praying earnestly upon this subject. and a voice said unto me.> My son, if thou livest till thou art 85 years of age, thou shalt see the face of the son of man. . . . <I was left to draw my own conclusions concerni[n]g this &,> I took the liberty to conclude that if I did live till that time Jesus <he> would make his appearance.— <but I do not say whether he will make his appeara[n]ce, or I shall go where he is.—> I prophecy in the name of the Lord God.— & let it be written. <that the> Son of Man will not come in the heavns till I am 85. years old 48 years hence or about 1890.—” (cross ref. D&C 130:14-17)
Look at the way Joseph read his own revelations in the context of his culture’s eschatology. He accurately prophesied the American Civil War, but he didn’t fully understand his prophecy. When he received the revelation in 1832, as South Carolina was threatening secession, he assumed, as almost all Christians have done, that the Savior’s Second Coming would be soon. Then in 1843 Joseph specifically noted the difference between what the Lord revealed and what he, Joseph, interpreted it to mean:
The Lord’s revelation: “Joseph, my, son, if thou livest until thou art 85 years old thou shalt see the face of the son of man. therefore let this suffice & trouble me no more on this matter.”
Joseph’s interpretation: “I was left to draw my own conclusions concerni[n]g this &,> I took the liberty to conclude that if I did live till that time Jesus <he> would make his appearance.— <but I do not say whether he will make his appeara[n]ce, or I shall go where he is.—> I prophecy in the name of the Lord God.— & let it be written. <that the> Son of Man will not come in the heavns till I am 85. years old 48 years hence or about 1890.—”
This is a terrific way to show that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God and a frontier farmer in the antebellum (pre Civil War) United States. That means that he knew things from God that no one else could, and that he understood them as most everyone else in his time and place would.
Sometimes Joseph didn’t understand right away how to interpret the Lord’s revelations. He referred to his Christmas 1832 revelation occasionally but never published it during his lifetime. Latter-day Saints began to pay attention to it in the 1850s as the American Civil War loomed. Then, in 1861, when it began to be fulfilled to the letter, a Philadelphia newspaper reprinted the revelation and asked, “Have we not had a prophet among us?”[5]
Section 85 notes
[1]“To the Saints,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Nov. 1832, [6].
[3] Joseph Smith, Book for Record, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, published in Dean C. Jessee, editor, The Papers of Joseph Smith: Journal, 1832-1842 (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1992), 2.
[4] Book of the Law of the Lord, 26, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.
[5] William Clayton, “History of the Nauvoo Temple,” manuscript, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.
[6] Book of the Law of the Lord, 164, 179, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.
[2] Lorenzo Dow, The Dealings of God, Man, and the Devil as Exemplified in the Life, Experience, and Travels of Lorenzo Dow (New York: Cornish, Lamport & Company, 1850), 10.
[5] “A Mormon Prophecy,” Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, 5 May 1861, reprinted in Robert J. Woodford, The historical development of the Doctrine and Covenants, 3 volumes (PhD dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1974), 2:1110.
In section 57 the Lord identified the site for his temple in Zion. That was the first reference to a specific Latter-day temple in the Doctrine and Covenants. There is not another one until section section 84, which tells the saints to build the temple and forges the gospel links between their missionary work, the gathering of scattered Israel, the fulfillment of ancient prophecies, and the building of New Jerusalem, crowned with its holy temple.
Joseph’s history designates section 84 as a “Revelation . . . On Priesthood.”[1] That is worth considering. It could be described as a revelation on temple ordinances, covenants, the gathering of Israel, missionary work, the law of consecration, and the imminent coming of the Savior to “reign with my people,” in Zion, as He says in closing (D&C 84:119). So why priesthood? What was Joseph seeing? What difference will it make to our understanding when we see it too?
The answer may be in a long digression between verses 7 and 31. It seems, at first, to tangent from the point of the revelation, which began with a prophecy about building the temple. It turns out, however, that the digression is becomes an explanation of priesthood the relationship between priesthood, ordinances, and the endowment of power we need to transcend the fall and regain God’s presence. In short, priesthood validates the ordinances to be performed in the prophesied temple.
Moses understood that, the revelation says, and tried to teach it plainly, but the Israelites of his day did not generally want the endowment of priesthood power. They could not, therefore, endure God’s presence. Angry, God gave them less priesthood than he had to offer but as much as they were willing to receive. Joseph later taught about this strange human tendency to “set up stakes and say thus far will we go and no farther.” By contrast, Moses and Joseph were like Peter and the others who, Joseph said, received “the fullness of priesthood or the law of God” when the Savior was transfigured before them.[2]
I remember a Sunday School class discussion in which the consensus was that God does not get angry. It was an example of wresting the scriptures, which testify in section 84 and elsewhere that the Lord’s “anger was kindled against them,” and justifiably so. They rejected him, his plan, his sacrifice, his redeeming love, his fullness. The misguided class was trying to articulate truth about God’s character. It was a little like the process by which the creeds of Christianity eventually determined that God had no passions or emotions like anger. Section 84 does a better job. The Lord is justifiably angry, it says. There is nothing wrong with justified anger. The problem is the choice to express it badly. God does not express his anger the way a fallen mortal might. Section 84 says that when God is angry at his children for rejecting his blessings, he responds by offering as much as they are presently willing to receive, preparatory to our receiving more (D&C 84:23-26).
Having concluded his digression, the Lord returns to his main theme, namely, how priesthood holders will serve in the temple to be built on the consecrated spot in Independence, Missouri. Saints who are full of priesthood power—figurative descendants of Moses and Aaron—will be filled with the Lord’s glory in the temple. One would think this revelation would provide the saints enough incentive to begin building a temple on the dedicated site in Independence, Missouri—Zion. They did not, however. There are several complicated reasons why, and later revelations will cover these.
The saints obeyed Section 84 in other specific ways. A council of high priests assigned Orson Hyde and Hyrum Smith to write a rebuke the church leaders in Missouri as verse 76 commanded.[3] As instructed in verses 112-114, bishop Whitney and Joseph Smith left Kirtland “to fulfill the Revelation,” making important contacts in New York City, visiting Albany, and prophesying in Boston.[4] The gospel continues to be preached to “all who have not received it” (D&C 84:75). Many people have made the covenant to receive, obtain, and magnify the priesthood as outlined in section 84. Many people have obeyed the law of consecration as instructed in verses 103-110.
Perhaps the most important result of Section 84 is that is raised Joseph’s consciousness of the fundamental importance of priesthood and, inseparably, the temple. He had listened attentively all night at age seventeen while Moroni explained the imperative need to obtain restored priesthood in order to seal the human family together before the Savior’s coming, but the doctrine of the priesthood distilled on Joseph like dew from heaven (D&C 121:45). Considerable dew condensed during the night nine years later, when section 84 explained the priesthood’s past and projected its future use in temples.[5]
[3] Joseph Smith, Letterbook, 1829-1835, pages, 20-25; Kirtland Minute Book, January 13, 1833, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. See Section 82.
[4] Newel K. Whitney, undated statement, Newel K. Whitney Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. Samuel H. Smith, Journal, 26 November 1832, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Joseph to Emma Smith, 13 July 1832, Community of Christ Archives, Independence, Missouri.
[5] Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 202-05.
Revelation, 15 March 1832. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org.
It is very good to have your sins blotted out. It is not good to have you name blotted out. Before erasers and delete keys, scribes used a blot of heavy ink to expunge the record. God keeps meticulous records. In them he blots out the sins of the repentant and the names of the rebellious unrepentant (Isaiah 44:22, Nehemiah 4:5, Alma 6:3, Moroni 6:7, D&C 109:34).
Joseph chose and ordained Jesse Gause as a counselor in the presidency of the high priesthood in March 1832.[1] A week later Joseph received Section 81, giving Jesse instructions for his calling.[2]
Section 81 announces that the keys of the kingdom belong to the Presidency of the High Priesthood. The Lord commands Jesse to “be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees” (D&C 81:5). The Lord promises to bless Jesse on the specific conditions that he remain faithful, pray always, and proclaim the gospel. The revelation closes with a reiteration of the Lord’s covenant with Jesse: “If thou art faithful to unto the end thou shalt have a crown of immortality and eternal life which I have prepared for thee in the mansions of my Father” (D&C 81:6).
Jesse Gause forsook his covenant and his calling by 1833. In an early manuscript of Section 81, the name of Jesse Gause is blotted out and replaced by the name of Frederick Williams. It was a tragic ink blot for Jesse but not a hindrance to God’s plan. Here, as elsewhere in the revelations, the Lord simply replaced Jesse and the kingdom rolled forward (see D&C 56 and 124:91-95).
Section 82
To organize the church (as Joseph was led by the Lord to do) to be “independent of every encumbrance beneath the celestial kingdom,” then you make “bonds and covenants of mutual friendship, and mutual love.”[1] The problem was that in early 1832 there was a lack of friendship and love among church leaders. Section 78 commanded Joseph, Sidney Rigdon, and Bishop Whitney to travel to Missouri to organize a united firm with Bishop Partridge and others. Sidney and Bishop Partridge were at odds with each other.
Joseph noted with relief that the Missouri saints were glad to see them and sustained him as President of the high priesthood, and that Bishop Partridge extended “the right hand of fellowship.” Joseph’s history says that between meetings the “difficulty or hardness which had existed between Bishop Partridge and Elder Rigdon was amicably settled, and when we came together in the afternoon all hearts seemed to rejoice, and I received the following revelation given April, 1832, shewing the order given to Enoch and the church in his day.”[2]
The revelation begins with the Lord’s forgiveness for the brethren who have forgiven each other, and a warning not to backslide. The tone is serious and solemn. The Lord is about to organize the leaders of his church, by covenant, into a firm, an order, or what we might call a corporation. It is to fulfill the command in section 78 “to manage the literary & Mercantile concerns & the Bishoprick both in the Land of Zion & in the Land of Kirtland.”[3] In other words, section 82 organizes the leaders by covenant into a united firm designed to build Zion by living the law of consecration.
The Lord declares a reason that he has consecrated Zion and its stake in Kirtland to the saints and why he commands them to covenant with him to consecrate: “that every man may improve upon his talent, that every man may gain other talents, yea, even an hundred fold, to be cast into the Lord’s storehouse, to become the common property of the whole church” (D&C 82:18). Talent in these verses refers to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, where a talent is a substantial amount of silver or gold. This is a revelation about economics. By Joseph Smith’s lifetime the word talent in English had taken on the meaning of a natural gift or endowment, enriching the Lord’s usage of it in this revelation.
Section 82 created the United Firm, better known as the United Order, a pseudonym still used in published versions of the revelations.[4] The men named by the Lord in verse 11 met the day after the revelation was given and “resolved, that the name of the Firm mentioned in the Commandments yesterday be Gilbert, Whitney & Company in Zion. And Newel K. Whitney & Company in Kirtland, Geauga Co. Ohio.”[5] They joined the church’s two storehouses and made them a parent company of the church’s printing and real estate projects “and named the newly integrated mercantile establishment the United Firm.”[6]
The members of the United Firm were diligent if faltering. They acquired properties in both Ohio and Missouri and published the revelations, two newspapers, and a hymnal. They operated two stores until antagonistic neighbors in Independence, Missouri dragged Bishop Partridge from his home in July 1833 to tar and feather him, demanding that the Firm shut down its Independence businesses. Then the mob burned the Firm’s printing office and destroyed its press. In Ohio, meanwhile, the Firm struggled with debt and access to credit. Building Zion was expensive and the saints were often frustratingly stingy. The Lord accused them of saying “we will not go up to Zion, and will keep our moneys” (D&C 105:8).
The Lord finally dismantled the United Firm in section 104 because some of its members broke the covenant they entered as a result of section 82. “I the Lord am not to be mocked in these things,” he told them, after reminding them about the punishments he prophesied for covenant breakers in section 82 (D&C 104:3-10). In April 1834, two years after beginning, the United Firm ceased to function unitedly. Some Latter-day Saints understand that this process ended the law of consecration. That is a little like saying that if NASA ceased operations the laws of rocket propulsion would be nullified as a result. They would not be. The choice not to live the law of consecration does not end the law of consecration.
Section 83
While he was in Missouri in spring 1832, Joseph “received a welcome known only by brethren and sisters united as one in the same faith.”[1]These saints, including widows Phebe Peck and Anna Rogers, were acting on the law of consecration as best they could. The law specified that “individuals” should consecrate surplus to the storehouse maintained by the bishop to that “every man who has need may be amply supplied and receive according to his wants,” but it was not clear that women could be supplied as well (D&C 42:33). Section 83 is an “addition to the laws” already given.[2] It clarifies that the storehouse is for widows, orphans, and children whose parents cannot provide for them. “They have claim upon the church, or in other words upon the Lord’s storehouse, if their parents have not wherewith to give them inheritances” (D&C 83:5). The storehouse, in turn, is to be stocked by the consecrated offerings of the Latter-day Saints. “Widows and orphans shall be provided for, as also the poor” (D&C 83:6).
Generally speaking, Latter-day Saints past and present have practiced these principles beautifully. When he dedicated the new Bishops’ Central Storehouse in 2012, President Dieter Uchtdorf recalled his boyhood in post-World War II Germany, when food, clothing, and bedding was sent from the church’s storehouses to meet the needs of his family and others.[3]
Having been treated to section 76 in February 1832 for his efforts to understand and revise the Bible, Joseph continued his painstaking study of the scriptures. His history says that “about the first of March, in connection with the translation of the scriptures, I received the following explanation of the Revelations of Saint John.”[1] The questions answered by this revelation are embedded in it.
Section 77 is a key to unlocking the meanings of The Revelation chapters 4-11. It models the right way to approach that famously complicated book. Joseph Smith studied the book carefully, formulated questions for the Lord, then sought and received the Lord’s answers to his specific questions.
Joseph rarely spoke of or taught from John’s Revelation. One exception is an April 1843 sermon. The Nauvoo high council had recently convened a hearing to correct Pelatiah Brown’s interpretation of Revelation chapters 4-5. Joseph described Brother Brown as “one of the wisest old heads we have among us,” though he had misunderstood the meanings of the beasts John saw in Revelation 4. Joseph was frustrated that John’s Revelation was “a subject of great speculation” among Latter-day Saints and others, speculation based on ignorance about John’s intended meanings. Joseph decided to reveal some of John’s meaning to combat the ignorance.
Joseph taught that with the exception of chapter 12, John’s Revelation is about the future, not the past. Joseph taught that “John saw curious looking beasts in heaven, he saw every creature that was in heaven, all the beasts, fowls, & fish in heaven, actually there, giving glory to God. I suppose,” Joseph continued, “John saw beings there, that had been saved from ten thousand times ten thousand earths like this, strange beasts of which we have no conception all might be seen in heaven. John learned that God glorified himself by saving all that his hands had made whether beasts, fowl fishes or man.”
Because of section 77, Joseph knew what the beasts represented. He had a key to John’s Revelation, and he was not a hostage to the rampant speculation. “We may spiritualize and express opinions to all eternity,” Joseph told the saints, “but that is no authority.”[2] Section 77 is an authoritative key to understanding parts of John’s Revelation. As a possessor of such keys, Joseph could say as perhaps no other person can, “Revelation is one of the plainest books God ever caused to be written.”[3]
Section 78
Joseph purposely veiled the meaning of section 78. The issue it addresses is intentionally vague in the present form of the revelation. That is because it deals with church finances and assets. It addresses the problem of paying for the things the Lord has commanded, namely the building of Zion and publishing the Book of Commandments. Joseph—whose job in the Literary Firm was to oversee expensive publication of the Book of Commandments (see section 70)—sat in counsel with Bishop Whitney, whose job it was to meet the church’s needs from the storehouse, which was literally his store.
Where today’s verse 3 vaguely talk about “an organization of my people,” the manuscript versions more specifically refer to “an organization of the literary and mercantile establishments of my church.”[1] Joseph kept the issues behind section 78 as confidential as possible to avoid giving the church’s enemies information they could use to cripple it financially, and thus undermine Zion. Essentially the revelation tells how the church could use its profitable mercantile assets (like Bishop Whitney’s store) to finance its revealed priorities (buying land in Missouri and publishing the scriptures).
Joseph and the other members of the Literary Firm had covenanted to publish the Book of Commandments, but they lacked funding for the expensive project. The Lord commanded Bishop Partridge to buy land, lots of it, on which to build Zion in Missouri. Bishop Whitney had a profitable store and other businesses in Ohio. Based on the law of consecration’s principle of using the surplus of some to meet the needs of others, section 78 provides a solution to these problems.
In obedience to the revelation, Joseph, Bishop Whitney, and Sidney Rigdon traveled to Missouri to counsel with Bishop Partridge and the Literary Firm members who were there printing the Book of Commandments. Together they created the United Firm, which is often called the United Order, which is not the law of consecration. The United Firm (Order) was a corporation designed to support the church according to the law of consecration. Technically, it was the joining of the Literary Firm with Newel Whitney’s Kirtland, Ohio store and the Independence, Missouri store operated by Whitney’s partner, Sidney Gilbert. Uniting these firms was meant to streamline the building of Zion. It did not ultimately work as intended. That is not God’s fault. It is the fault of free agents (see section 104). It worked great when saints chose to keep their covenants and were not overwhelmed by their enemies.
Section 79
One of the most remarkable facts about Joseph Smith as a revelator is that many intelligent, faithful people went to great lengths to seek, receive, and obey his revelations. Jared Carter embraced Joseph’s revelations and went on a mission because of them. After he returned he went to the home where Joseph was living to ask “the seer to inquire the will of the Lord concerning my ministry the ensuing season. And the word of the Lord came forth.”[1]
Jared noted that April 25, 1832 marked “the commencement of a mission by Jared Carter, a servant of the Lord.” He followed section 79 specifically, going from town to town in the power of his ordination, “which was to the high privilege of administering in the name of Jesus Christ.” Jared went northeast along Lake Erie and continued on to Benson, Vermont, his birthplace, proclaiming the everlasting gospel in each location. He battled opposition and bouts of depression. He kept careful track of his obedience to the revelation and the fulfillment of the promised blessings. His records testify that, as promised, the Lord sent him the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, to teach him the truth and where he should go. Since Jared was faithful to section 79, the Lord crowned him again with a bountiful harvest. Jared summarized his service after returning in October. “I have been gone six months and two days. The Lord has permitted me to administer the Gospel to 79 souls and many others by my instrumentality have been convinced of this most glorious work.” He rejoiced on the completion of his difficult yet successful mission. “God has blessed me according to the prophecy of Brother Joseph before I went from Ohio,” Jared wrote.[2]
Section 80
Steven Burnett started fast. He converted at age 16 and was ordained a teacher, then an elder, and then a high priest before he turned 18. He was filled with the Holy Ghost and a desire to take the gospel to his relatives. He led his parents into the church and was called to preach in January 1832 (D&C 75:35) and again in March by section 80.
Stephen and Eden Smith started their on mission on July 15 and spent a few days together declaring the gospel in villages south of Kirtland, Ohio.[1] Stephen also went east with success. He “was the first one that sounded the glad tidings of the everlasting gospel” in Dalton, New Hampshire.[2] By 1838 Stephen felt completely disillusioned. He tried but failed to regain the Spirit. Finally he “proclaimed all revelation lies” and left the church. He said that the foundation of his faith failed and the entire structure fell in “a heap of ruins.”[3] Joseph thought there was more to it. He thought that Stephen’s unwillingness to consecrate his life to the kingdom of God contributed to his unconversion.[4]
[2] Ibid., p. 7. Here Jared confused his first mission with his second. In both instances the Lord crowned him with sheaves as prophesied for his second mission in Section 79.
Section 80 notes
[1] Eden Smith, Journal, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Stephen Burnett had earlier preached with Eden Smith’s father John. See Lyndon Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Provo, Utah: Seventy’s Mission Bookstore, 1981), 170, 314.
[2] Levi B. Wilder to the editor, 15 February, 1835, in Messenger and Advocate 1:5 (February 1835): 75.
Various people love Joseph Smith or object to him for the same reason: he revealed “realms of doctrine unimagined in traditional Christian theology.”[1]
Vision, 16 February 1832. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org.
On February 16, 1832, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon read John 5:29, where Jesus testified to some Jews that he would raise the dead who “shall come forth; that that have done good, unto the resurrection of the just; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” Joseph and Sidney “meditated upon these things” and the Lord touched, perhaps literally, their eyes, and they understood. They testified together of Jesus Christ. They saw and understood God’s plans for salvation and the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, whom they saw and with whom they spoke, at his Father’s right. After all the testimonies given of Christ, they give the ultimate testimony: “He lives! For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotton of the Father—that by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:22-24).
In a major reversal, another vision opened to Joseph and Sidney.
They saw an angel, Lucifer, revolt against God to steal the kingdom from its rightful heir—Jesus Christ. Weeping, Heavenly Father banished Lucifer permanently from his presence.
Having been punished for his rebellion, Satan chooses to attack the saints by surrounding them with evil. Joseph and Sidney envisioned the suffering of those who fell under Satan’s onslaught. The Lord told them that all who knew his gospel and then chose to follow the devil and become subject to his power, denying the truth and defying Christ’s power, become Satan’s children rather than Christ’s. They are sons of the utterly lost. It had been better for them not to have been born. They suffer God’s justified anger with the devil and the spirits who rebelled with him. The Lord has said they are not and will not be forgiven. They don’t want to be. They denied the Holy Spirit after they received it. They denied Christ. It was as if, knowing the power of his gospel, they openly crucified him themselves. They are sent to hell with the devil and the spirits who rebelled with him. Though resurrected, they remain spiritually dead forever, cut off from the Godhead, the only ones unredeemed by Christ, who saves everyone else and would have saved them if they wanted that.
A heavenly voice testified to Joseph and Sidney of these glad tidings: Jesus Christ came into the world to be crucified to endure the sins of the world, to sanctify and cleans the world for all unrighteousness for the express purpose of saving everyone of Heavenly Father’s children who exercises their God-given agency to be saved, all except the few who “defect to perdition.”[2]
Juxtaposed against the suffering of the damned, Joseph and Sidney testify of seeing and hearing about the resurrection of the just: those who receive the testimony of Jesus Christ, believe and are baptized by immersion, signifying burial and rebirth as Christ commanded. Christ cleanses from sin all who choose to keep these commandments. They receive the Holy Spirit when an authorized priesthood holder lays on hands. The just overcome Satan by exercising faith in Christ. The Holy Ghost, in his role as the Holy Spirit of Promise, seals them by testifying that they have been faithful to their covenants. Heavenly Father sheds this Holy Spirit of Promise on all who are keeping their covenants. Covenant keepers belong to the church of the Firstborn. Heavenly Father gives them everything—including the fullness of temple blessings. They are priests and kings, priestesses and queens. They are the children of God who fully inherit his glory. They are thus gods themselves. Everything is theirs. Death cannot stop them. Their future is limitless. They belong to Christ, and he belongs to Heavenly Father. Nothing can damn them or hem them in.
The just are resurrected first and come with Christ at his second coming to reign on earth. They dwell in Zion, the New Jerusalem, the holiest place on earth. They commune with angels and the people of Enoch’s Zion and the other saints throughout time who have received the fullness of temple ordinances and been faithful to their covenants. Their names are written in heaven where God and Christ judge everything. They have kept their covenant promises to obey the laws of God, and Christ therefore keeps his covenant promise to resurrect and perfect them by the power of his perfect atonement in which he shed his own blood. They are resurrected with celestial bodies as glorious as the sun, which is typical of God’s glory.
Joseph and Sidney then envisioned the terrestrial world, which differs from the celestial as the moon differs from the sun. The celestial church of the Firstborn received all Heavenly Father has. Inhabitants of the terrestrial glory do not. They died without obeying the laws of God. Christ arranged for the gospel to be preached to them in the spirit world. They received the testimony of Jesus Christ there, but would not receive when they were alive on earth. They were honorable but deceived, blinded by crafty men. They receive God’s glory, just not all of it. They receive the Savior’s presence, just not all the Father has. They were promised the blessing to become kings and queens if they would obey the laws of God, but they did not, and thus they forfeit their crowns. The Lord commanded Joseph and Sidney to write this vision before the Holy Spirit leaves them.
Joseph and Sidney then envisioned the telestial glory, which pales in comparison to the others as stars pale in comparison to the sun and moon from our perspective. Heirs of telestial glory do not deny the Holy Ghost but they do not receive it either. They do not want the gospel of Jesus Christ. They remain in Satan’s power and are not resurrected until the very end of time, after Christ has finished his work. They receive only a portion of what Christ offers them, but they are saved.
When the visions ended the Lord commanded Joseph and Sidney to write them before the Holy Ghost left them. They marveled and acknowledged their inability to conceive of or communicate what they had seen. They saw much the Lord commanded them not to write.
Section 76 testifies.
Two eyewitnesses repeatedly declare what they saw, heard, and understood. “I know God,” Sidney Rigdon testified in conference in April 1844. “I have gazed upon the glory of God, the throne, the visions, and glories of God.”[3] Such testimony can be rejected but not discredited. It is powerful evidence.
Wilford Woodruff read section 76 before he ever met Joseph.“It had given me more light and more knowledge with regard to the dealings of God with men than all the revelation I had ever read in the Bible or anywhere else,” he said. Wilford “had been taught that there was one heaven and one hell,” and that those who were baptized would go to heaven, and those who were not would go to hell. Personal righteousness made no difference. “That was the kind of teaching I heard in my boyhood,” he noted. “I did not believe one word of it then.” He said section 76 “opened my eyes. It showed me the power of God and the righteousness of God in dealing with the human family. Before I saw Joseph I said I did not care how old he was, or how young he was; I did not care how he looked.” Wilford knew that only one thing mattered about Joseph: “The man that advanced that revelation was a prophet of God,” Wilford wrote. “I knew it for myself.”[4]
Notes
[1] E. Brooks Hollifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought From the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 335. Richard Bushman calls such texts “exaltation revelations.” Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 195.
[2] Elder Boyd K. Packer, “The Brilliant Morning of Forgiveness,” Ensign (November 1995), 18.
[3]Times and Seasons, 5:522-6. History of the Church, 6:290.
Ezra Booth was a talented Methodist preacher who visited Joseph Smith at his home in Kirtland in 1831 with his wife, John and Elsa Johnson, and some others. An early history of Disciples of Christ in northern Ohio reported that “Mrs. Johnson had been afflicted for some time with a lame arm, and was not at the time of the visit able to lift her hand to her head. The party visited Smith partly out of curiosity, and partly to see for themselves what there might be in the new doctrine. During the interview, the conversation turned on the subject of supernatural gifts, such as were conferred in the days of the apostles. Some one said, ‘Here is Mrs. Johnson with a lame arm; has God given any power to men now on the earth to cure her?’ A few moments later, when the conversation had turned in another direction, Smith rose, and walking across the room, taking Mrs. Johnson by the hand, said in the most solemn and impressive manner: ‘Woman, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command thee to be whole,’ and immediately left the room.”[1]
Ezra Booth and the Johnsons joined the church. They knew God had restored the New Testament gift of healing to Joseph Smith. Knowing that God worked through Joseph, however is not the same as being converted by the Savior’s gospel. Ezra went with Joseph and many others to Missouri in the summer of 1831. He judged everything Joseph said and did with a jaundiced eye. He found fault with Joseph’s personality and prophecies. Then, casting himself as a public servant, Ezra wrote nine letters against Joseph that were published in the Ohio Star newspaper.[2]
The Ohio Star, Thursday, December 8, 1831.
Ezra’s letters claimed that Joseph’s revelations were false and that Zion in Missouri was a scam. Ezra justified his failures to do what the revelations commanded and persuaded himself and perhaps others that Joseph was “quite dictatorial” and no prophet after all. What about that nagging miracle Ezra had witnessed? The fact that Elsa Johnson was healed could not be denied, even by Joseph’s most outspoken antagonists. So a subsequent history explained that the “infinite presumption” of Joseph Smith gave Elsa Johnson a “sudden mental and moral shock–I know not how better to explain the well attested fact–electrified the rheumatic arm–Mrs. Johnson at once lifted it up with ease, and on her return home the next day she was able to do her washing without difficulty or pain.”[3]
Ezra’s letters raised public consciousness of Joseph Smith and the restoration.[4] In section 71, the Lord called Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon to take a break from revising the Bible to take advantage of the opportunity Ezra gave them to declare the gospel in the area and set the record straight.
Joseph and Sidney enjoyed obeying this revelation. “Knowing now the mind of the Lord,” Joseph wrote, “that the time had come that the gospel should be proclaimed in power and demonstration to the world, from the scriptures, reasoning with men as in days of old, I took a journey to Kirtland, in company with Elder Rigdon, on the 3d day of December to fulfill the . . . Revelation.”[5] Sidney Rigdon replied to Ezra Booth in the pages of the Ohio Star and invited him to meet publicly.[6] For nearly six weeks Joseph and Sidney “continued to preach in Shalersville, Ravenna, and other places, setting forth the truth; vindicating the cause of our Redeemer: showing that the day of vengeance was coming upon this generation like a thief in the night: that prejudice, blindness, and darkness, filled the minds of many, and caused them to persecute the true church, and reject the true light: by which means we did much towards allaying the excited feelings which were growing out of the scandalous letters then being published.”[7]
Since Ezra Booth, many others have wielded weapons against the restored gospel. The Lord’s policy, as stated in Section 71, is to “let them bring forth their strong reasons against the Lord.” Such opposition facilitates agency and fulfills prophecy. It compels people to consciously choose whether to believe in Joseph Smith’s testimony and it honors Moroni’s unlikely promise to the obscure, teenage Joseph that his “name should be had for good and evil among all nations . . . or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people” (Joseph Smith-History, 1:33).
In section 73, the Lord told the elders to continue preaching the good news while Joseph and Sidney returned to revising the Bible while preaching locally as best they could.[8]
Section 72
Church members in Ohio, wanting to learn their duty and worried about their “spiritual and temporal welfare,” gathered on December 4, 1831.[1] The church grew larger and more complicated to manage. Many of the ablest saints, including Bishop Edward Partridge, had migrated to Missouri to obey earlier revelations, leaving a large number of saints in Ohio without a bishop. In a revelation a month earlier than Section 72, the Lord had promised to call other bishops when he saw fit (D&C 68:14).
He saw fit in Section 72, which is actually a series of three related revelations given to answer the questions Joseph and others were asking. Verses 1-8 address whether the time is right for the appointment of a new bishop? If so, who should it be? Verses 9-23 outline the duties of the new bishop. The saints worried about overtaxing their resources in gathering to Zion in Missouri. They could not wisely arrive faster than Bishop Partridge could make land available for them to inherit. Verses 24-26 are an amendment to earlier revelations, given to regulate the gathering of saints to Zion.[2]
“I cannot see a Bishop in myself,” Newel Whitney told Joseph after section 72 called him to that office, “but if you say it’s the Lord’s will, I’ll try.” Joseph replied that Newel “need not take my word alone. Go and ask Father for yourself.” Newel prayed privately for confirmation and “heard a voice from heaven tell him, ‘thy strength is in me.’” He found Joseph and told him he would accept the calling as the Lord’s bishop.[3] He confided to his wife, Ann, “that it would require a vast amount of patience, of perseverance and of wisdom to magnify his calling.”[4]
Early bishops like Edward Partridge and Newel Whitney did not preside over wards as bishops do today. That began in the 1840s. Their primary duty was to implement the law of consecration. They managed the Lord’s property and assets, relieved poverty, paid the church’s bills, and literally built Zion as best they could. Having received his calling and confirmation of it by revelation, Newel Whitney did his best to serve as a bishop for the rest of his life. He was a great choice for the job. Not only was he an experienced and able manager of properties, inventories, and accounts. Perhaps most important of all, he knew he was incapable of being a bishop unless he relied on the Lord for the patience, perseverance, and wisdom he needed.
The bishops were responsible to assist the members of the Literary Firm (see section 70) so they could concentrate on publishing the Lord’s revelations and selling the Book of Commandments widely, thus raising funds to support their own families and, hopefully, surplus to benefit the church. In this way, assistance from the bishop would enable members of the Literary Firm to be faithful and wise stewards.
Section 72 is a blueprint for appointing bishops in all large branches of the church to facilitate obedience to the law of consecration. If the saints act on this blueprint, they will be obeying the law of consecration’s principles of agency (acting of one’s own free will to obey God’s will), stewardship (taking care of the Lord’s property and business as commanded), and accountability (reporting to the Lord’s appointed servant, the bishop).
The saints struggled to obey section 72’s command to gather to Zion only after receiving a recommend from the bishop to do so. Joseph wrote to church leaders in Missouri that he rejoiced at the news that a group of saints had arrived there safely, but “they left here under this displeasure of heaven.” Why? For “making a mock of the profession of faith in the commandments by proceding contrary thereto in not complying with the requirements of them in not obtaining recommends.”[5] William Phelps reminded the saints of the revelation. He wrote in the church’s newspaper that emigrating saints would not be welcome in Zion “without regular recommends.”[6] Slowly the saints began to comply with the revelation by receiving recommends before moving to Missouri.[7]
Section 74
The context of section 74 is mysterious but the content is a commentary on 1 Corinthians 7:14, where Paul counseled Christian women who were married to Jewish men regarding the tension between their religions when it came to raising children.[1]
This remarkable revelation makes one think of Joseph’s teenage struggles to understand the Bible. “The teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible” (JSH 1:12). Joseph had learned then to take his questions to the Lord himself. In Section 74, as in several others, the Lord himself interprets the Bible for Joseph. In doing so he subtly solves an important theological problem that often occurs to parents of three-year-olds. It concerns original sin. Are mortals sinful by nature or not? Ask a group of Latter-day Saints if they believe that people are inherently evil and, all evidence from themselves and their own children aside, they will overwhelmingly answer no.
Ask the Book of Mormon writers and you get a different answer. They knew and taught that mortals are inherently evil, at least in part (2 Nephi 2:29, 2 Nephi 4:17-20). As the Brother of Jared put it, “because of the fall our natures have become evil continually” (Ether 3:2). Though the scriptures are plain on this point, sometimes modern Latter-day Saints underestimate the effects of the fall. Perhaps we fear that it makes us sound too much like other Christians. But by merely being born as mortals, we inherit a sinful nature. We are naturally vicious, selfish, carnal, mean, and often flat out evil.
Doesn’t section 74 say that little children are holy? Yes. They are, but not because they are inherently so. The revelation says they are “sanctified through the atonement of Jesus Christ.” Section 74 teaches us one more of the profundities of Christ’s infinite atonement. Since children inherit fallenness helplessly without having exercised any agency in the matter, Jesus Christ atones for them. He sanctifies them and sets them on a course to become free agents at about age eight if properly taught the law of the gospel (see sections 29 and 68). As long as children are not yet free agents, too helpless to understand or do much about the fallen part of their nature, Jesus sanctifies them according to his will. That is what section 74 teaches. It is beautiful doctrine, restored through Joseph Smith, and it resolves an important theological problem.
Section 75
Manuscript of Section 75 in Sidney Rigdon hand, Newel K. Whitney Collection, BYU. Likely original manuscript.
The church convened quarterly conferences in its early years, including an important one in January 1832 in Amherst, Ohio, the home of several Latter-day Saint families about fifty miles east of church headquarters in Kirtland. The Lord had recently revealed that at this conference the elders would learn what he wanted them to do next (See section 73). Joseph’s history says they “seemed anxious for me to inquire of the Lord that they might know his will, or learn what would be most pleasing to Him for them to do.”[1]Joseph asked and received two revelations and Sidney Rigdon wrote them down.[2] Combined, they now comprise section 75.
Many of the early elders kept journals of their missions or wrote letters to the church newspaper to report on their service. They intended to document their obedience to the revelations, or, in some cases, justify their disobedience. We can use their records to tell whether they obeyed section 75. When they did, the Lord unfailingly granted them the blessings he promised on conditions of their obedience.
William McLellin started his mission to the south with Luke Johnson but was soon overwhelmed by doubts. The Lord promised him that continual prayer would sustain him, that if William and Luke would pray, then “I will be with them even unto the end.” William said he could not bring himself to pray in faith. He had his eyes on a young lady named Emiline Miller. He quit his mission and took a job so he could marry her, noting, meanwhile, that he was too sick for missionary work.[3] “Preferring not to proceed alone,” Luke returned to Hiram, Ohio where Joseph called Seymour Brunson to replace William. Luke and Seymour filled their call and enjoyed the Lord’s promised blessings on their mission in the “south countries,” Virginia and Kentucky.[4]
Orson Hyde noted that he and companion Samuel Smith did “one of the most arduous and toilsome missions ever performed in the Church.”[5] For eleven months they walked from Ohio to Maine and back. Samuel wrote that they followed the revelation as they “went from house to house” and shook the dust from their feet as a testimony against those who rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ.[6]
Lyman Johnson and Orson Pratt went east, as commanded, ending up in New England. They baptized many, including a future apostle, and at Charleston, Vermont, twenty-two-year-old Orson Pratt pronounced a priesthood blessing that raised Olive Farr from bed where she had lain invalid for seven years. “Thank God,” she wept, “I’m healed!” Such evidence that the Lord was with the elders, as he said he would be in the revelation, greatly increased their success. They immersed 104 sons and daughters of God for the remission of their sins and organized them into branches before returning to Ohio after walking nearly 400 miles.[7]
No known records tell whether Asa Dodds, Calves Wilson, Major Ashely and Burr Riggs obeyed section 75. Simeon Carter and Emer Harris did with great success, though they each ended up serving with their brothers as companions.[8] Ezra Thayre and Thomas Marsh apparently served their mission. Hyrum Smith and Reynolds Cahoon obediently served together, and on his return home Hyrum set out to obey other instructions in the revelation. He noted that he “went to work with mine hands for the support of my family.”[9] Seymour Brunson reported his mission with both Daniel Stanton and Luke Johnson. They baptized fifty-three and organized them into a branch.[10]
Sylvester Smith and Gideon Carter obeyed the revelation. Sylvester had it in mind the next summer, too, when he went out again “resolved to blow the trumpet of the Gospel.” He knew that if he would the revelation promised that the Lord would be with him. “I trust I shall continue to receive the grace of God to support me even to the end.”[11] There is no known evidence that Ruggles Eames and Stephen Burnett obeyed this revelation. Micah Welton and Eden Smith obeyed. Eden’s journal shows that he was especially mindful of the revelation’s instructions to preach and provide for his family as best he could. “Preachd and then returned home and Laboured for the support of my family,” he wrote, echoing the Lord’s instructions.[12]
Section 71 & 73 notes
[1] A.S. Hayden, Early History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve, Ohio (Cincinnati: Chase and Hall, 1875), 250.
[6] Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 599 fn. 2. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City: Signature, 1994), 111.
[3] Orson F. Whitney, “Newel K. Whitney,” Contributor 6 (January 1885): 126. Poulsen, “The Life and Contributions of Newel Kimball Whitney,” 33054. “Aaronic Priesthood Minutes,” 1857-1877, 3 March 1877, Church History Library.
[4] Elizabeth Ann Whitney, “A Leaf from an Autobiography, Continued,” Woman’s Exponent 7 (September 1, 1878): 71.
[6] “The Elders Stationed in Zion to the Churches Abroad, In Love, Greeting,” The Evening and the Morning Star, 2 (July 1833), 111.
[7] See, for examples, Jan Shipps and John W. Welch, editors, The Journals of William E. McLellin (Urbana and Provo: University of Illinois Press and BYU Studies, 1994), 138.
[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 180, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 6, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/186.
[2] Elden J. Watson, Orson Pratt Journals, January 25, 1832. Edson Barney statement reported in St. George, Utah Stak General Minutes, December 23, 1860, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Manuscript copies of Section 75, Newel K. Whitney Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
[3] William McLellin to Beloved Relatives, August 4, 1832, typescript, Community of Christ Archives, Independence, Missouri. In Shipps and Welch, The Journals of William E. McLellin (Urbana and Provo: University of Illinois Press and BYU Studies, 1994), 79-86. See Porter, “Man of Diversity,” in Shipps and Welch, 301-02.
[5] Orson Hyde, “History of Orson Hyde,” Millennial Star 26 (3 December 1864): 776.
[6] Events in the Life of Samuel Harrison Smith Including His Missionary Journal for the Year 1832, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.
[7] Breck England, The Life and Thought of Orson Pratt (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1985), 29-31, 306.
[8]The Evening and the Morning Star volume 1 (February 1833): 69-70, (March 1833): 84, volume 2 (May 1834): 156. Mark B. Nelson and Steven C. Harper, “The Imprisonment of Martin Harris in 1833,” BYU Studies 45:4 (2006): 113-15.
[9] Hyrum Smith diary, 1831-1835, Church History Library, page 27.
[10]The Evening and the Morning Star 2 (June 1833): 100.
[11] Sylvester Smith to Dear Brother, 16 May 1833, The Evening and the Morning Star 2:14 (July 1833): 107.
[12] Eden Smith, Journal, typescript, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
In November 1831, Joseph convened a council at the Johnson home in Hiram, Ohio and laid the manuscript Book of Commandments before the church leaders. It was the archive of dozens of his revelations. He felt that “the Lord has bestowed a great blessing upon us in giving commandments and revelations.”[1] He had testified that the contents of the book should “be prized by this Conference to be worth to the Church the riches of the whole Earth.” It was time to publish the revelations.[2]
Oliver Cowdery asked “how many copies of the Book of commandments it was the will of the Lord should be published in the first edition of that work?” The council voted for 10,000.[3] The Lord revealed a preface for the book in which he said “these commandments are of me & were given unto my Servents in their weakness after the manner of their Language.”[4]
The question arose, “was the simple language of Joseph Smith worthy of the voice of God?”[5] Joseph’s history says that a discussion followed “concerning Revelations and language.”[6] Other fears went unspoken during the discussion. After all, everyone in the room must have recognized that they were being asked to aid a poorly educated, twenty-six year-old farmer who was planning to publish ten thousand copies of revelations that unequivocally declared themselves to be the words of Jesus Christ in a Protestant culture that widely believed the Bible to be all the word of God there ever would be. If that was not enough to make the elders consider carefully, the revelations Joseph proposed to publish called the saints’ neighbors idolatrous and Missourians enemies, commanded them all to repent, and foretold calamities upon those who continued in wickedness. Finally, the revelations were not properly punctuated, the spelling was not standardized, and the grammar was inconsistent.
Though lacking confidence in his own literary skills, or perhaps even because of his limitations, Joseph was sure that his revelation texts were divine if imperfect productions. He promised the brethren present that they could know for themselves as well. Just a few days earlier Joseph had predicted that if the saints could all “come together with one heart and one mind in perfect faith the vail might as well be rent to day as next week or any other time.”[7] Seeking confirmation of the revelations, the brethren tried to rend the veil like the Book of Mormon’s brother of Jared. They failed. Joseph asked why and received Section 67.
The revelation challenges widespread but unfounded assumptions about what constitutes a revelation.
Must it be literarily lovely? Some are, but not all. That or any other standard set by mortals will be subjective. The Lord will never satisfy all self-appointed editors. He does not seem worried about that. In contrast to the elders’ fears about that, the Lord seems utterly unconcerned. He does not ask whether Joseph dangled any of his participles or spelled everything just right. He asks whether the revelations are righteous. He thus sets a standard for truthfulness that involves observations and experiments, but in the end can only be spiritually known for sure. For the things of God are known certainly only by communication from the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:10-14).
Section 67 does the work of giving the brethren a certain testimony of the revelations even if it was not the dramatic one they hoped for. In section 67 the Lord read their minds, provided them with a scientific, hands-on way of observing the properties of the revelations and using a sample from them as a control in an experiment. The Lord gives the kind of testimony the brethren were suited to receive and gently urges them become humble and spiritual enough to part the veil between him and them completely. He invites them to touch, feel, hear, see, taste, and testify of the revelations. He invites them to know him insofar as they are able, and to “continue in patience” until they know him face to face.
Joseph’s history and other sources tell us how the brethren acted out the instructions in the revelation and became willing to testify before the world. William McLellin, who had the preceding week written as Joseph dictated section 66, “endeavored to write a commandment like unto one of the least of the Lord’s, but failed.”[8]</a Joseph asked the men present “what testimony they were willing to attach to these commandments which should shortly be sent to the world. A number of the brethren arose and said that they were willing to testify to the world that they knew that they were of the Lord,” and Joseph received a revelation for them to sign as witnesses. McLellin signed along with four others, and John Whitmer copied the revelation and their signatures into the manuscript Book of Commandments.[9]
Twelve more elders signed the statement in Missouri when the book arrived there for printing. Joseph undoubtedly appreciated these witnesses. He knew he was no writer. He felt imprisoned by the “total darkness of paper, pen and ink;-and a crooked, broken, scattered and imperfect language.”[10] He considered it “an awful responsibility to write in the name of the Lord.”[11] Yet he knew the responsibility was his. The revelations said God had “called upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and spake unto him from heaven, and gave him commandments” and declared to him that “this generation shall have my word through you” (D&C 1:17, 5:10).
As section 67 acknowledged, these witnesses knew the limits of Joseph’s imperfect language. It was a striking vote of confidence in Joseph and his revelations for eighteen men who knew him to declare their testimonies that the revelations were true. The discussion about revelations and language concluded as “the brethren arose in turn and bore witness to the truth of the Book of Commandments. After which br. Joseph Smith Jr arose and expressed his feelings and gratitude.”[12] The bold project of publishing the revelations required fearless believers to sustain Joseph in his awesome responsibility.
Section 68
Four newly-ordained high priests were among the Church leaders who gathered for conference in Hiram, Ohio in November 1831. They “requested of the Lord to know his will concerning them.” The Lord obliged them with the first twelve verses of section 68. He then adds an amendment to previous revelations about the office of bishop. Then he comments on the implications of the bad parenting he sees in the church.[1]
The saints resolved to act on this revelation’s instructions regarding bishops and church discipline.[2] Oliver Cowdery took this revelation and others to the saints in Missouri. The brethren who sought the Lord’s will and received it acted on it pretty well in the short term. Orson Hyde, William McLellin, and the Johnson brothers would all be chosen as apostles in 1835, largely because of their faithfulness to the Lord’s commission in this revelation to preach the gospel by his Holy Spirit. All of them struggled to endure in that commission and were at one time or another antagonistic to the church.
Section 68 gives a unique definition of scripture as the voice of God communicated by his Holy Spirit to his authorized servants in real time. In dictionaries of Joseph’s day, the word scripture literally meant what is written. Then and now the word connoted very old sacred writing. The sooner we get past that confining idea the better. In 1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson urged Harvard Graduates “to show us that God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake.”[3] Joseph Smith already had.
The Lord uses this revelation and others to give instruction on parenting.
Children come weak and helpless. Powerless to act for themselves but innately divine, children can be empowered to act for themselves if properly parented. Out of love, God empowers his children to act as he acts. God empowers his children by teaching them law, beginning with the law of the gospel. If children are not taught God’s laws as they mature, they will never have agency or power to act for themselves. Teaching children the law of the gospel is a prerequisite to their gaining the ability to choose and act for themselves.
Teaching children the laws of God does not guarantee they will keep them. It does guarantee that they will be able to choose for themselves whether to keep them. Parents who do not teach and therefore do not endow the children with agency will answer to God for deciding for the children rather than empowering them to choose for themselves. This revelation, together with Sections 29 and 121, shows how the Lord both teaches and models how to endow children with power by giving them laws and, thus, agency.
Section 69
Joseph spent the first two weeks of November 1831 in Hiram, Ohio closely reviewing the revelations and counseling with his brethren about their publication. The church’s press was in Independence, Missouri. The handwritten copies of the revelations and the money to print them was in Ohio. John Whitmer wrote that “it was in contemplation for Oliver Cowdery to go to Zion and carry with him the Revelations and Commandments, and I also received a revelation to go with him.”[1]
Seeing that it would not be wise to send Oliver Cowdery alone to Missouri with the invaluable Book of Commandments and quite a bit of cash in his possession, the Lord appointed John as his companion. The Lord, moreover, gave John the command to continue to document the important history of the church (see section 47) and to be counseled and assisted as church historian by Oliver, William Phelps, and perhaps others in Missouri who know important historical information or are good writers. The missionaries in the field should write about their experiences and send the accounts to Zion for John to use in keeping the church history. Zion is the place for John to do this work and the saints to send him their documents. He should, however, travel often to the various branches to gather knowledge. He can preach and explain at the same time he writes, copies, selects and obtains historical information.
Joseph told the council that the revelations should be prized more than the riches of the earth, and that he wanted to dedicate them, together with Oliver and John, to the Lord.[2] Then John went faithfully with Oliver to Missouri, carrying with them the revelation to parents in Zion (section 68), the priceless Book of Commandments to be published by William Phelps in Independence, Missouri, and considerable cash for printing and for Bishop Partridge to buy land in Missouri.[3]
John Whitmer, History, 1831–circa 1847 [front cover]. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org.Together with Sections 21 and 47, section 69 give the commandments to document the history of the church. In the restored Church of Jesus Christ, history functions much as theology does in other Christian traditions. Latter-day Saints don’t refer to the philosophical creeds of traditional Christianity to describe the nature of God. They tell, rather, of historical events like Joseph’s first vision in which God revealed his nature. We know priesthood needed to be restored and was because ministering angels brought it to Joseph Smith. We know of these experiences because they are described in documents. Without those documents, we lose what was restored. If we cannot document our history, we are back in the apostasy. Thus, revelations like Section 69 are perhaps more important than they might seem.
Manuscript History of Joseph Smith, 1838–1856. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org.
John Whitmer wrote a history because of Sections 47 and 69. It is an important but sketchy source of early church history. As John’s selfish interests overwhelmed him he became bitter toward the church in 1838. That is reflected in the last chapters of his brief history. When John stopped writing Joseph started. With help from a host of assistants, Joseph compiled a much fuller history of the church to document the restoration.
Section 70
Section 70 created what is often called the Literary Firm, a corporation assigned by the Lord to receive, write, revise, print, bind, and sell the revelations according to the law of consecration. Section 70 has to be read in light of the law of consecration in section 42, which says that everyone who devoted themselves full time in Church service could be “supported out of the property which is consecrated to the Lord.”[1] So, when the plan was laid for six members of the Church to form a firm dedicated to publishing the revelations, section 70 was given to apply the law of consecration specifically to their case. It solves the problem of how to pay the bills when you spend all your time, talent, and energy working for the Lord’s church.
Church leaders had counseled for nearly two weeks early in November 1831 about publishing Joseph’s revelations. They had decided to send the manuscript revelations with Oliver Cowdery and John Whitmer to Independence, Missouri, where church printer William Phelps would publish them on a press he was to purchase in Cincinnati.
Books don’t publish themselves.
Joseph was thankful for those who had helped him with the church’s publishing projects. He noted that Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris had labored with him from the beginning to scribe and publish the Book of Mormon, that John Whitmer and Sidney Rigdon had long scribed and transcribed revelations and Joseph’s new translation of the Bible. Joseph then explained that if the saints valued the revelations enough to want them published, the Church should compensate those who gave their time and means to get them published.[2]
Section 70 appoints and ordains the revelator, the financier, scribes, a transcriber, and an editor as “stewards over the revelations and commandments which I have given unto them, and which I shall hereafter give unto them; and an account of this stewardship will I require of them in the day of judgment.”
Members of the Literary Firm had the stewardship of managing the revelations from receipt to publication to sale. The Lord commanded them not to give the problems of getting the revelations published, or the profits from selling the Book of Commandments, to anyone else. Rather, they are to use the profits to provide for their families. Whatever is left after that they are to consecrate by giving it to the storehouse for the saints in Zion and their descendants who obey the laws of God. This is what the Lord requires of every steward that he appoints.
No Latter-day Saints are exempt from this law of consecration—not Bishop Partridge, nor his agent Sidney Gilbert, nor anyone the Lord appoints to do any job whether the work is physical or spiritual.
Joseph modeled and taught his brethren the law of consecration as section 70 sets it forth. When William Phelps began acting like the owner of the Lord’s press rather than a steward over the revelations (D&C 70:3), Joseph gently but directly sent him the following postscript. It penetrates to the heart of consecration and Section 70: “Bro. William – You say ‘my press, my types, &c.’ W[h]ere, our brethren ask, did you get them & how came they to be ‘yours’? No hardness, but a caution, for you know that it is We, not I, and all things are the Lord’s, and he opened the hearts of his Church to furnish these things, or we should not have been privileged with using them.”[3]
Most of the six members of the Literary Firm had already been deeply involved in the publishing work and remained so through the 1833 publication of the Book of Commandments and, along with others, the 1835 publication of the Doctrine and Covenants. Martin Harris funded the publication of the Book of Mormon and perhaps the Firm’s later projects. Sidney Rigdon often scribes of revelations and Joseph’s new translation of the Bible, and he proofread the manuscript revelations. John Whitmer transcribed these texts as a human copy machine. Oliver Cowdery assisted in all stages of receiving, editing, and printing. He and John Whitmer carried the revelations and money to print them to Missouri where the Lord’s choice for an editor, William Phelps, printed the Book of Commandments.
Joseph received the revelations. He also edited and amended them as he saw fit.
One of Joseph’s stewardships in the Literary Firm was to “correct those errors or mistakes which he may discover by the holy Spirit.”[4] Joseph believed in his revelations more than anyone, but he never believed that any scripture was literarily pristine.[5] He edited his own revelations because he regarded them as his best efforts to represent the voice of the Lord condescending to speak in what Joseph called a crooked, broken, scattered, and imperfect language.
Most of the other members of the Firm were more literary than Joseph. That was a blessing that occasionally annoyed him. After William Phelps criticized one revelation, Joseph responded defensively in behalf of himself and Oliver Cowdery. “We would say, by way of excuse, that we did not think so much of the orthography [spelling], or the manner, as we did of the subject matter; as the word of God means what it says; & it is the word of God, as much as Christ was God, although he was born in a stable, & was rejected by the manner of his birth, notwithstanding he was God.” Joseph implicitly and a bit defensively blamed the revelation’s spelling and punctuation errors on his limited education and explicitly on his proofreader, Oliver’s, fatigue, he having recently returned from Missouri and then New York, where he purchased the church a new press amidst opposition.[6]
The members of the Firm gave their best efforts to publish the revelations, impoverishing themselves in the process. Then, when William Phelps had nearly finished printing the Book of Commandments, a mob of Missourians destroyed the press and burned his home and office and as many copies of the revelations as they could. Some of the printed sheets were rescued by various saints and a few incomplete copies of the Book of Commandments were published.
Today there are fewer than thirty known copies, and they sometimes sell for astronomical amounts. We should remember what the revelations originally cost. Joseph and the other members of the Literary Firm made themselves poor and persecuted by publishing them. They all voiced their conviction just prior to organizing the Literary Firm according to section 70. Joseph made a motion, and the other brethren approved it unanimously, that they should “prize the revelations to be worth to the Church the riches of the whole earth.”[7]
[2] “Resolved: that the mode and manner of regulating the Church of Christ, take effect from this time, according to a revelation received in Hiram, Portage County, Ohio, Nov. 11, 1831.”Far West Record, July 3, 1832, p. 34.
[3] Ralph Waldo Emerson, “An Address,” July 15, 1838, Harvard Divinity School, in Brooks Atkinson, editor, The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York: Modern Library, 1950), 80.
[3] John wrote that he and Oliver left Ohio on November 20, 1831 and arrived safely in Independence, Missouri on January 5, 1832. Book of John Whitmer, 38.
