Section 129
Section 129 is esoteric. It can only be understood by people with temple knowledge. It is also euphemistic. It’s no more about hand shaking than kicking the bucket is about actually kicking a bucket.
In January 1838, Joseph received a revelation. It cursed the saints who had become his enemies, said his work in Kirtland was done, and told him and the faithful saints to gather to Zion in Missouri.[1] That night Joseph counseled with Church leaders and concluded, “Well, brethren I do not recollect anything more; but one thing, brethren, is certain; I shall see you again, let what will happen; for I have a promise of life five years, and they cannot kill me until that time has expired.”[2]
No one could kill Joseph during that time. He had to get the fullness of temple blessings restored first. But people sure made his life miserable in the meantime. He escaped from his persecutors in spring 1839. As soon as he could, knowing that his days were numbered and he had none to spare, Joseph gathered several of the apostles on June 27, 1839, exactly five years before his violent death at the hands of a murderous mob, and taught the apostles what he had learned a decade earlier from Michael about “detecting the devil when he appeared as an angel of light” (D&C 128:20).
Wilford Woodruff drew tiny, symbolic keys in his journal, where he wrote what he learned about the “keys of the Kingdom of God Joseph presented . . . in order to detect the devel when he transforms himself nigh unto an angel of light.”[3] In December 1840, Joseph taught these keys to William Clayton, a trusted convert recently arrived from England. In April 1842, Joseph introduced the principles in section 129 to the Relief Society, and in May he gave the saints a temple preparation sermon, including the explanation that there are “certain signs & words by which false spirits & personages may be detected from true–which cannot be revealed to the Elders till the Temple is completed.”[4] A few days later Joseph endowed a few Church leaders in a temporary temple in the attic story of his Nauvoo store. Heber Kimball was there, and subsequently wrote to fellow apostle Parley Pratt, who remained in England to preside over the mission. “We have received some pressious things through the Prophet on the preasthood that would cause your soul to rejoice,” Heber wrote. “I can not give them to you on paper fore they are not to be riten. So you must come and get them for your Self.”[5]
Parley arrived in Nauvoo early in 1843, eager to be taught by Joseph. At a February 9 meeting, Joseph instructed him in the keys he had learned from Michael and had subsequently taught to Wilford, Heber, and a few others. The entry in Joseph’s journal for that day is the source for section 129.
The rough journal entry captures only some of the teaching that took place. It reads, “Parley Pratt & other come in—Joseph explained the following. There are 3 administrater: Angels, Spirits, Devils one class in heaven. Angels the spirits of just men made perfect—innumerable co of angels and spirits of Just men made perfect. An angel appears to you how will you prove him. Ask him to shake hands. If he has flesh & bones he is an Angel ‘spirit hath not flesh and bones.’ Spirit of a just man made perfect. Person in its tabernacle could hide its glory. If David Patten or the Devil come. How would you determine should you take hold of his hand you would not feel it. If it was a false administrator he would not do it. True spirit will not give his hand the Devil will. 3 keys.”[6] Clearly there was more said on this occasion than what got cryptically recorded.
In its polished form, section 129 is more clear but still vague. In heaven there are resurrected beings and spirits who are not yet resurrected. Either kind can be sent as messengers. Satan or his angels can counterfeit this kind of revelation. But there are keys to discern such imposters as explained in verses 5-9. It is not safe to draw the conclusion that Satan does not know these keys. It seems more likely, as Joseph taught, that there are boundaries to Satan’s power to deceive.
Part of being endowed with God’s power is the ability to discern true from false messengers (D&C 128:20). As Joseph taught, if Satan could appear in the guise of an angel without our having any ability to know better, “we would not be free agents.”[7]
Section 130
“I am going to offer some corrections to you.” That’s what Joseph said to Orson Hyde at lunch on April 2, 1843 after Elder Hyde had spoken at a morning session of a stake conference in Ramus, Illinois. A Protestant preacher before his conversion to the restored gospel, Elder Hyde mixed unrestored ideas into his sermon. Elder Hyde wisely replied to Joseph, “they shall be thankfully received.”[1]
Joseph and Elder Hyde and everyone else were aware of the prophecies of a contemporary named William Miller, who had predicted that the Savior’s second coming would be April 3, 1843, the day after conference. Elder Hyde spoke about what John 14:23 and 1 John 3:2 had to say about that.
Joseph preached twice at the stake conference, offering corrections to Elder Hyde, answering William Clayton’s question about time relativity, and correcting Miller’s prediction of the Second Coming. William Clayton captured Joseph’s teachings in his journal and Willard Richards later copied them into Joseph’s journal. Some of the teachings were then clarified and prepared for publication in the church’s newspaper in the 1850s and finally added to the 1876 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants.
Section 130 begins by clarifying John 14:23, which prophesies that the Savior will appear and reveal his Heavenly Father. Joseph emphasized, contrary to what Elder Hyde had suggested, that the appearance of the Father and Son are literal. They are exalted, embodied Gods; the designation Heavenly Father not a euphemism, and the social relationship sealed here will endure into eternity only with “eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy” (2).
Beginning in verse 4, Joseph answers a question William Clayton posed about the relativity of time depending on one’s proximity to God. Joseph declared that time is relative, but that all angels who minister to our earth have themselves lived on this earth, or will. The angels now reside with God “on a globe like a sea of glass and fire” where there is no time since “past, present, and future . . . are continually before the Lord” (7). Joseph taught that this earth will become a celestial kingdom, a great seer stone in which its inhabitants will be able to see kingdoms of lesser glory. Even more exciting, each individual who enters this kingdom will get a personal “stone” as a means of learning and progressing eternally.
Beginning in verse 12, Joseph prophesies the American Civil War based on his Christmas 1832 revelation (see section 87). He refuses to prophesy specifically about the date of the Savior’s second coming, having learned his lesson in from an earlier earnest prayer, which the Lord answered with intentional ambiguity, leaving Joseph “unable to decide” (16).
One result of Section 130 is clarification of what we do not know: the timing of the Savior’s second coming. The Section leaves no doubt that Joseph was a true prophet, however. He knew by revelation the nature of the American Civil War long before it came to pass. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell wrote, “the Prophet Joseph and the revelations confirm that God lives in an ‘eternal now,’ where the past, present, and future are continually before Him. He is not constrained by the perspectives of time as we are.”[2]
Verses 18-21 teach principles revealed in sections 51, 58, 88, 93 and elsewhere about the relationship between God’s law, individual agency, and growth. Intelligence is gained by choosing to diligently obey God’s laws. This is one of Joseph’s most profound, exalting teachings.
The last two verses clarify the nature of the Godhead. Joseph’s teachings at the conference focused on the Holy Ghost. “The Holy Ghost is a personage,” he said, “and a person cannot have the personage of the H.G. in his heart. A man may have the gifts of the H.G., and the H.G. may descend upon a man but not to tarry with him.”[3] Church historians, apostles, amended the text in the 1850s to more explicitly clarify the embodied nature of the Father and the Son.
Section 130 captures glimpses of the expansive Nauvoo teachings of Joseph Smith. In the last years of his life Joseph was teaching temple ordinances to select saints and related principles to the general body of saints. Some of Section 130 is simply fascinating answers to the questions of curious enquirers. But it is laced with temple teachings including the eternal nature of social relationships, the exaltation of man in the image of God, the heavenly temple, eternal progression, and growth by degrees of knowledge or intelligence based on obedience to the laws of God.
Section 131
Section 131 also includes esoteric temple knowledge, but maybe less new knowledge about the celestial kingdom than it has been interpreted to include. The first four verses came in the evening. It was May 16, 1843. Joseph was in the home of Melissa and Ben Johnson with his scribe/recorder, William Clayton. Melissa and Ben were in their mid-twenties, married two years ago on Christmas day, and parents of one child so far, Benjamin Jr. Joseph invited them to sit down and told them he was there to marry them according to the law of the Lord.
Benjamin had joked with Joseph before and thought he was joking now. He tried to join in the fun. He said he wouldn’t marry Melissa again until she paid for their dates, since he paid the first time they courted. Joseph might have thought that was funny on a different day, but he was in a hurry, he was solemn, and this occasion was sacred. He scolded Ben for being light-minded in this moment. Then he invite Melissa and Ben to stand and sealed them together by the power of the holy priesthood vested in him by ministering angels of Almighty God. He promised that if they keep the terms and conditions of this covenant, no power on earth or in hell could prevent them from being resurrected together and crowned with exaltation and eternal lives (D&C 132:19-24).[1]
That got their attention. Joseph sat them down again and taught them about the new and everlasting covenant of marriage they had just “made and entered into” (D&C 132:7). He said there were three parts to it (see section 132), and it’s blessings wouldn’t be sure unless and until Melissa and Ben made them sure by being faithful to the covenant. Using his secretary, William Clayton, as an example of one who had taken the step the Johnson’s were taking, Joseph taught them the doctrine of exaltation through faithfulness to covenants sealed by sacred ordinances.
The context for the first four verses, then, is exaltation. All of the sources suggest that what Joseph taught the Johnsons that night is not the same as what D&C 131:1-2 has been understood to mean–that there are three degrees inside the highest of the three degrees of glory. That idea hangs on nothing more than D&C 131: “In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees,” and the assumption that celestial there means the highest of the three heavens revealed in D&C 76. That is not the only possibly interpretation, and in context it’s not the best one. In Joseph’s vocabulary and the Johnson’s, celestial could still just mean heavenly. If we read D&C 131:1 that way it makes sense in context. In other words, Joseph probably taught the Johnsons what we are taught: that there are three glories in heaven, and exaltation in the highest one comes from making and keeping the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. Joseph meant what sections 76 and 132 teach.
According to William Clayton’s journal, Joseph taught that “in order to obtain the highest [degree of glory] a man [and woman] must enter into this order of the priesthood,” meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. Joseph explained that a man and a woman sealed together “by the power and authority of the holy priesthood” would continue to be married and have their family after resurrection, while those who weren’t would not.[2] There are many, many descendants of the Johnson’s today, and will be forever, as a result of this revelation.
The day after he sealed the Johnsons, Joseph preached a sermon on 2 Peter 1 about making one’s eternal destination sure. It included Section 131:5-6. William Clayton noted Joseph teaching “that knowledge is power and the man who has the most knowledge has the greatest power. Also that salvation means a man’s being placed beyond the powers of all his enemies. He said the more sure word of prophecy meant, a man’s knowing that he was sealed up unto eternal life by revelation and the spirit of prophecy through the power of the Holy priesthood. He also showed that it was impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance.”[3]
In speaking of knowledge and ignorance, Joseph did not mean that book learning or secular subjects were sources of salvation. He meant that unless one knows for themselves the fulness of temple ordinances and their promised blessings, they are not yet endowed with power over all enemies, including death both spiritual and physical.
Joseph had taught the same principle in other words the preceding Sunday. He tried to help the Saints understand the difference between having a testimony that one could be saved if they obeyed the gospel and gaining the testimony that one had been saved because they obeyed the gospel. Step one is to gain a testimony of Christ and the possibility of salvation, Joseph taught. That was just the beginning of the quest for knowledge of God, which to Joseph was the equivalent of power over sin and death. “They would then want that more sure word of Prophecy that they were sealed in the heavens & had the promise of eternal live in the Kingdom of God,” Joseph taught. This is what he called knowledge, which is what he meant in section 131—and what the Lord meant all the way back in section 84:19-24.[4]
Section 131 leads willing Saints to the knowledge of God, the certainty of a future exaltation by virtue of the sacred covenants sealed by priesthood. Ignorance of the knowledge of God leads to a less certain, or at least less celestial, future. One wants to be more sure in what the young Joseph called “matters that involve eternal consequences” (131:5).
Samuel Prior, a Methodist, had listened to Joseph’s sermon on 1 Peter 1 and come away unexpectedly impressed. Joseph returned the gesture in the evening by listening to Prior’s sermon. Afterward Joseph “arose and begged leave to differ from me in some few points of doctrine,” wrote Prior, “and this he did mildly, politely, and affectingly; like one who was more desirous to disseminate truth and expose error, than to love the malicious triumph of debate over me.” Drawing on Section 93:33, Joseph noted that matter endures eternally and added verses 7-8. “I was truly edified with his remarks,” Prior noted, “and felt less prejudiced against the Mormons than ever.” Joseph invited Prior to visit him in Nauvoo, which he did.[5]
Section 132
Section 132 is heaven and hell, exaltation and damnation, the best thing in the Doctrine and Covenants and the worst. It made Joseph F. Smith feel like he had to qualify it. “When the revelation was written, in 1843,” he explained, “it was for a special purpose, by the request of the Patriarch Hyrum Smith”—Joseph F.’s father—“and was not then designed to go forth to the church or to the world. It is most probable that had it been then written with a view to its going out as a doctrine of the church, it would have been presented in a somewhat different form.” He said it included intensely personal stuff that addressed its immediate context but wasn’t relevant “to the principle itself.”[1]
Joseph F. was spot on. Section 132 is about marriage, specifically Joseph’s marriage to Emma Hale. Would it endure beyond death? Would it even endure for another week? Those were Joseph’s questions in July 1843. The revelation answers them conditionally. Joseph had those questions because of the answers he had received years before to two questions about the Bible. Verse 1 restates Joseph’s question about seemingly adulterous yet Biblical practice of polygyny—simultaneously having more than one wife—by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others. The other question comes from Matthew 22:30, Jesus’ teaching that “in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”
The answer to that one was wonderful news: those who make and keep the new and everlasting covenant of marriage will be exalted. But the answer to the other question was more than Joseph anticipated. The Book of Mormon forbade plural marriage unless the Lord commanded otherwise (Jacob 2:28-30). Joseph’s own revelations declared adultery an abomination and promised punishment. “With these prohibitions emblazoned on his own revelations, Joseph was torn by the command to take plural wives. What about the curses and the destruction promised adulterers? What about the heart of his tender wife?”[2]
Though he began to obey it within a few years, Joseph did not dare to write the revelation until its hard doctrines put so much strain on his marriage to Emma in the summer of 1843 that he decided to write it in hopes that it would help her. He entered a plural marriage with Fanny Alger in the 1830s, though it did not last. Then, between early 1841 and fall 1843, Joseph was sealed to approximately thirty women. About a third of them were already married at the time. As historian Richard Bushman noted, “nothing confuses the picture of Joseph Smith’s character more than these plural marriages.” He continues, “What drove him to a practice that put his life and his work in jeopardy, not to mention his relationship with Emma?”
At times Emma worked up the will to consent to some of the sealings, but then her will to do so broke. She had forsaken her parents and siblings to marry and follow Joseph. She believed in him as much as anyone and made monumental sacrifices for her faith. But this one was Abrahamic. All she had was Joseph, and that was enough to compensate for all she had laid aside, but now she was being asked to share him. She would not do it willingly, at least not consistently. During a period of willingness, however, in May 1843 she and Joseph were sealed together.
By July Emma was struggling to be reconciled to the revelation. Joseph and Hyrum counseled about what to do for her and decided to write the revelation and see if it would help. William Clayton, Joseph’s secretary, wrote the revelation as Joseph dictated with Hyrum present at Joseph’s upstairs office in his Nauvoo store. It took nearly three hours and ten pages to write, after which William read it back to Joseph for accuracy. Hyrum optimistically took it to Emma, who rejected it. Clayton confided to his journal that Joseph “appears much troubled about E[mma].”[3]
By September Emma again reconciled to the revelation and she and Joseph received the crowning ordinances of exaltation section 132 describes esoterically in verses 7 and 19.[4] Joseph was determined that if he was going to break Emma’s heart to obey a command, he would not lose her eternally. He was heard to say, “you must never speak evil of Emma.”[5]
Section 132 is an extraordinarily complicated text. Not only does it intertwine the answers to two questions. It is the culmination of the restoration, the most exalted of the exaltation revelations (see sections 76, 84, 88, 93, 131). It sets forth gospel fulness in cryptic terms, as if some of its pearls are too precious to be viewed publicly. Moreover, though it contains much that was revealed to Joseph earlier, the actual text of section 132 was determined by events in the summer of 1843 including Emma’s opposition to Joseph’s plural marriages, an otherwise unknown test the Lord gave her, and her concerns about the economic security of herself and her children.
Section 132 is Abrahamic in every sense. If you choose to read it, pay special attention to the Lord’s rationale throughout. Plural marriage is meant to be an Abrahamic test. The revelation ends with assurance the Lord will reveal more later (D&C 132:66). Meanwhile, “plural marriage was the most difficult trial of 1843,” wrote historian Richard Bushman, and he could just as accurately have said of Joseph and Emma’s life and in the lives of many Latter-day Saints today.[6] It is hard to imagine a more wrenching test for Joseph, and it was incomparably difficult for Emma. The revelation forced them—and us—to find out whether we will trust the God who gave it. That is characteristic of the God of Abraham, who puts his children through wrenching tests to “prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Abraham 3:25).
Section 132 leads us to the conclusion that God requires all our hearts first and foremost before he finishes the work of sealing them to each other and exalting them forever. The same revelation that requires such an extreme sacrifice of Emma, after all, sets forth the terms and conditions on which she will be exalted with Joseph. It seems that one of the main points of Section 132, in fact, is to assure Joseph that he and Emma will be exalted together, that despite the wedge plural marriage drove between them, the Lord will weld them eternally. Joseph specifically prayed in the Kirtland temple that Emma and their children would be exalted. The Lord seems likely to answer that prayer (D&C 109:68-69).
When he does it will not be an exception to the law of exaltation in section 132:7, 19-20. Historical records show that Joseph and Emma met its terms and conditions. They made and entered the covenant on May 28, 1843 and received the confirming ordinance section 132 refers to as “most holy” on September 28, 1843 (D&C 132:7).[7] Though neither Joseph nor Emma was flawless after meeting the conditions on which the Lord will exalt them, neither committed the unpardonable sin verse 27 describes as the only way to nullify the promised blessings. Emma was not excommunicated; her ordinances were not voided. She gave her children faith in the Book of Mormon but blamed Brigham Young for plural marriage. It seems as if the Lord spoke D&C 132:26 specifically to set Joseph at ease about Emma’s eternal destiny. Perhaps that knowledge was an “escape” Joseph needed in order to make the extreme “sacrifices” for plural marriage that contributed to his death (see section 135) (D&C 132:49-50).
As they parted for the last time on earth, Emma asked Joseph for a blessing. He was under pressure and unable to bless her then but bade her to write the desires of her heart and he would seal them later. She wrote of her desire “to honor and respect my husband as my head, ever to live in his confidence and by acting in unison with him retain the place which God has given me by his side.”[8] She wrote, in other words, that she wanted the blessings promised to her in section 132 and that she desired to obey its challenging commands. The next time Emma saw Joseph he had been shot to death. Section 132 makes that a small matter. It promises them, and all others who make and keep the same covenants, “Ye shall come forth in the first resurrection; and if it be after the first resurrection, in the next resurrection; and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths.”
There it is. Section 132 is heaven and hell, exaltation and damnation, heights and depths. Perhaps we are to learn from it that if we never plumb depths we can’t expect to ascend the heights.
Section 129 notes
[1] “Revelation, 12 January 1838–C,” p. [1], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed March 4, 2019, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-12-january-1838-c/1.
[2] “Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845,” p. 241, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed March 4, 2019, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/249.
[3] Wilford Woodruff, Journal, June 27, 1839, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[4] “Discourse, 1 May 1842, as Reported by Willard Richards,” p. 94, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed December 8, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-1-may-1842-as-reported-by-willard-richards/1.
[5] Heber Kimball to Parley Pratt, June 17, 1842, Pratt Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[6] “Journal, December 1842–June 1844; Book 1, 21 December 1842–10 March 1843,” p. [174], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed December 8, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-december-1842-june-1844-book-1-21-december-1842-10-march-1843/182.
[7] “Account of Meeting, circa 16 March 1841, as Reported by William P. McIntire,” p. [16], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed December 8, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/account-of-meeting-circa-16march-1841-as-reported-by-williamp-mcintire/1.
Section 130 notes
[1] “Instruction, 2 April 1843, as Reported by Willard Richards,” p. [37], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed December 8, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/instruction-2-april-1843-as-reported-by-willard-richards/1.
[2] Neal A. Maxwell, If Thou Endure it Well, 28.
[3] “Instruction, 2 April 1843, as Reported by William Clayton,” The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed December 8, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/instruction-2-april-1843-as-reported-by-william-clayton/1.
Section 131 notes
[1] Benjamin Johnson, My Life’s Review, 96.
[2] “Instruction, 16 May 1843, as Reported by William Clayton,” p. [15], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed December 8, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/instruction-16-may-1843-as-reported-by-william-clayton/3.
[3] “Discourse, 17 May 1843–A, as Reported by William Clayton,” p. [16], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed December 8, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-17-may-1843-a-as-reported-by-william-clayton/1.
[4] “Discourse, 14 May 1843, as Reported by Wilford Woodruff,” p. [32], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed December 8, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-14-may-1843-as-reported-by-wilford-woodruff/3.
[5] Ehat and Cook, comps. and eds., Words of Joseph Smith, 202-04.
Section 132 notes
[1] Joseph F. Smith, “Discourse,” Deseret News, September 11, 1878, 498.
[2] Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 441.
[3] Smith, editor, William Clayton, Journal, July 12, 1843. William Clayton Letterbooks, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.
[4] Faulring, editor, American Prophet’s Record, 28 September 1843. William Clayton, Journal, October 19, 1843, in George D. Smith, editor, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature, 1995), 122.
[5] According to Lucy M. Wright in Woman’s Exponent, 30:59.
[6] Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, 490.
[7] Faulring, American Prophet’s Record, September 28, 1843. Andrew F. Ehat, “Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question,” M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1981, pages 76-84. William Clayton, Journal, October 19, 1843, in George D. Smith, editor, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature, 1995), 122.
[8] Cited in Carol Cornwall Madsen, “The ‘Elect Lady’ Revelation: The Historical and Doctrinal Context of Doctrine and Covenants 25,” in The Heavens Are Open (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1993), 208.
