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Come, Follow Me: Doctrine & Covenants 27, 28

Section 27

Section 27 is one of the revelations Joseph did not know he needed. He set out to get wine so he and Emma could have the sacrament with Sally and Newell Knight, who were visiting so Sally and Emma could be confirmed. An angel appeared to Joseph and clued him in.[1] Joseph received the first four and a half verses and parts of verses 14 and 18. Both Joseph and Newel Knight said the rest of verses 5-18 were revealed a few weeks later.[2]

It is easy to assume that this revelation is about the word of wisdom, but it is not. It’s about the sacrament. Speaking for the Savior, the angel informed Joseph that it does not matter what the saints eat or drink for the sacrament. What matters is that they partake with an eye single to the Lord’s glory, signifying to God that they remember the Savior’s body sacrificed and blood shed for the remission of their sins.

Section 27 penetrates to the heart of the sacrament.

If one’s eye is not single to God’s glory in that ordinance, tradition can transcend substance. The angel commanded Joseph to not purchase wine or distilled drinks from people they could not trust. Rather, they should make their own sacramental wine. As a result of section 27, according to Brigham Young, “we use water as though it were wine; for we are commanded to drink not of wine for this sacred purpose unless it be made by our own hands.”[3]

The later text of Section 27 adds considerable detail to the earlier prophecy that Christ would partake of sacramental wine with Joseph and others. It emphasizes priesthood keys—rights associated with priesthood—and the transmission of those keys to Joseph by biblical prophets. It is the earliest document we have confirming that Peter, James, and John ordained Joseph an apostle.

Section 27 also applies to Latter-day Saints the counsel Paul gave the Ephesian saints to arm themselves spiritually.[4] The revelation identifies the archangel Michael as Adam, and Adam as the ancient of days referred to in the Book of Daniel.[5]

Newel Knight remembered how he and Sally, Emma, and Joseph obeyed this revelation. They “prepared some wine at our own make, and held our meeting. . . . We partook of the sacrament, after which we confirmed the two sisters into the church, and spent the evening in a glorious manner. The Spirit of the Lord was poured out upon us. We praised the God of Israel, and rejoiced exceedingly.”[6]

Section 28

As the church’s second conference approached in September 1830, Hiram Page, one of the eight witnesses of the Book of Mormon plates, began receiving revelations through a stone “concerning the upbuilding of Zion the order of the Church and so forth, but which were entirely at variance with the order of Gods House, as it is laid down in the scriptures. and our own late revelations.”[1] Newel Knight wrote that Hiram “had quite a roll of papers full of these revelations, and many in the Church were led astray by them,” including Oliver Cowdery and many of the Whitmer family. Joseph was perplexed, but not for the reason that is sometimes assumed.[2]

Hiram Page’s seer stone was not the problem. Joseph’s revelations and personal teachings encouraged others to use their spiritual gifts, including when those gifts involved seeric objects like Oliver Cowdery’s (see section 8). If Hiram had received real revelation through his stone about how to be a better husband, there would have been no problem. The problem was that Hiram’s revelations were “entirely at variance with the order of God’s house.” He was a teacher in the Aaronic priesthood. He had not been appointed by God’s authorized servants, nor sustained by the common consent of the saints, to receive revelations and commandments about issues that involved all the saints.

Joseph spent most of a sleepless night prayerfully seeking and receiving Section 28.

His history says, “We thought it best to enquire of the Lord concerning so important a matter.” Maybe the “we” included Oliver, because the Lord’s answer is addressed directly to Oliver, which is an important key to seeing what the revelation does rather than just what it says.

The Lord speaks to through the first elder of his Church to the second elder—a point of order—clarifying Oliver’s role to teach the revelations given to Joseph. Likening Joseph to Moses and Oliver to Aaron, the Lord reminded Oliver of his role to “speak or teach,” but not to write revelations for the Church or to command Joseph. The Lord directed Oliver to go on a mission to the Lamanites or Native Americans in the west, hinting that Page’s predictions for the location of Zion were wrong: “it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites.” But before his mission, Oliver was assigned to visit Hiram privately to “tell him that those things which he hath written from that stone are not of me and that Satan deceiveth him.” The Lord did not renounce personal revelation or seer stones. He reminded Oliver of the revealed order and showed him that Hiram was out of order. “For all things must be done in order, and by the common consent in the church, by the prayer of faith” (D&C 28:13).

By speaking through Joseph to Oliver, the Lord illustrated the order in which revelation flows for the Church. By countering the information in Page’s revelation with accurate details about Zion, the Lord led Oliver to the conclusion that either Joseph or Hiram Page was the true revelator. By commanding Oliver to teach Hiram Page these principles, the Lord reinforced them in Oliver’s mind and illustrated the order of the church at work at a critical moment. Oliver obeyed the revelation and “after much labor with these brethren they were convinced of their error, and confessed the same, renouncing the revelations as not being of God, but acknowledged that Satan had conspired to overthrow their belief in the true plan of salvation.”[3]

Section 27 notes

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 51, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 24, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/57.

[2] Newel Knight, Autobiography and Journal, 1846, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[3] Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 19: 92 (1877), also see 10:245, and 19:92. John Henry Smith, Diary (July 1906), Manuscripts Division, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

[4] Compare Ephesians 6:11-18.

[5] This teaching is distinctive to Joseph Smith. He equated the archangel Michael with the Bible’s Adam, an idea apparently first documented in Oliver Cowdery’s 1 January 1834 letter to John Whitmer (Oliver Cowdery Letterbook, Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 15). Similarly, Joseph interpreted references to the “Ancient of days” in the Book of Daniel (7:9, 13, 22) as references to Adam. When Daniel “Speaks of the Ancient of days,” Joseph taught in 1839, “he means the oldest man, our Father Adam, Michael” (Willard Richards Pocket Companion, 63, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah).

[6] Newel Knight, Autobiography and Journal, 1846, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

Section 28 notes

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” pages 53-54, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 24, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/59.

[2] Newel Knight, Autobiography and Journal, 1846, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[3] Newel Knight, Autobiography and Journal, 1846, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

Come, Follow Me: Doctrine & Covenants 23-26

Section 23

Once the Church of Jesus Christ was organized, Joseph’s brothers Hyrum and Samuel, their father, together with Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Knight, were “anxious to know of the Lord what might be their respective duties, in relation to this work.” Joseph’s history says, “I enquired of the Lord and received for them the following.”[1]

In section 23, the Lord speaks to each of these men in turn, offering blessings and warnings, prophecies and promises. Note especially the conditions on which the prophesied blessings depend.

Oliver Cowdery pridefully withdrew from the church in 1838 and remained out for a decade before returning humbly. During that period he wrote defensively about his importance in the restoration. Afterward Oliver testified meekly of the Book of Mormon and of receiving the priesthood from ministering angels along with Joseph Smith.[2] When Oliver was aware of pride and made his calling known, the Lord opened his heart to preach the truth.

For Hyrum, verse 3 fulfills the Lord’s promise to him in section 11. There the Lord told Hyrum Smith that if he would learn the word of the Lord, then his tongue would be loosed to preach it. Hyrum must have studied the scriptures in the year between the two revelations, since section 23 announces that his tongue is loosed. Hyrum preached powerfully ever after. Joseph’s father and brother Samuel also became effective missionaries and church leaders in response to this revelation.

Joseph Knight had done so much for Joseph—provided money, paper for the Book of Mormon, food, transportation, and moral support. He was most comfortable behind the scenes. What section 23 commanded was more difficult for him: to join the church meant to preach the gospel. Father Knight wrote that he wrestled with the decision to be baptized but finally decided not to. A few weeks later, he and his wife chose to be baptized.

Section 24

Joseph had a rough month between the church’s spirit-filled June conference in Fayette, New York and this July 1830 revelation. He returned to his home in Pennsylvania and then visited the saints in nearby Colesville, New York. Reverend John Sherer, who was losing some of his Presbyterian followers to the restored gospel, stirred prejudice against Joseph. Sherer’s followers interrupted baptismal services and he finally kidnapped Emily Coburn in an attempt to prevent her baptism.

When several who had been baptized, including Emma Smith, were to be confirmed, a constable arrested Joseph “on charge of being a disorderly person; of setting the country in an uproar by preaching the Book of Mormon.” The charges didn’t stick, but as soon as the court acquitted Joseph a constable from the neighboring county arrested him again and hauled him over the county line. All the antagonistic witnesses could offer was hearsay. Newel Knight embarrassed the prosecution with his testimony. Public opinion began to turn in Joseph’s favor. The court again acquitted him as his persecutors threatened to tar and feather him. The formerly hostile constable helped Joseph escape to Emma’s sister’s house, where Emma anxiously waited.

She and Joseph finally returned to their Harmony, Pennsylvania home the next day. He returned to Colesville a few days later with Oliver Cowdery to confirm the new converts, only to be chased all night by the same enemies. “Shortly after we returned home,” Joseph wrote, referring to Sections 24 and 25, “we received the following commandments.”[1]

Section 24 is one of several revelations in which the Lord meets Joseph where he is.

Though he has become larger than life to many, Joseph, like Nephi, thought of himself as a sinner who needed redemption through the atonement of Jesus Christ. In Section 24 the Lord acknowledges both Joseph’s accomplishments and his sins, commanding him to sin no more.

Section 24 addresses Joseph’s concern about finances and how to provide for his family. It does not promise wealth, only that Joseph will have sufficient if he attends to his calling: “thou shalt devote all thy service in Zion.” Because Joseph devotes all his service to the saints, the saints are responsible to see that his family’s needs are met.

Oliver too is encouraged to give his all to the kingdom. Perhaps hoping to escape further persecution, both of the church’s presiding elders are promised plenty of afflictions to endure. The Lord does, however, promise to smite anyone who uses violence against them. Those who use the law to persecute the prophet will find themselves cursed by the law. In sum, the two young apostles are now in the full time service of the Lord. He promises to look after them as they trust him and take up his cross and follow him, devoting their lives wholly to his service.

Section 25

In the summer of 1830, Emma Hale Smith was baptized near Colesville, New York as a group of angry neighbors objected. Before she could be confirmed, the raging crowd drove her and other saints into the Knight family’s home for refuge. Then a constable arrested Joseph for preaching the Book of Mormon. Emma awaited the outcome for a few days at her sister’s home, feeling that her “very heart strings would be broken with grief” as she witnessed her neighbors’ hostility toward her husband.[1]

It wasn’t only Emma’s confirmation that had been interrupted. Choosing to marry Joseph had disrupted the trajectory of Emma’s life. As with so many women who came of age in her time and place, Emma was raised to aspire to middle class respectability. Given her tumultuous married life thus far, she couldn’t help but be concerned about her financial future.

Then in section 24 the Lord essentially guaranteed Joseph and Emma a modest living if the saints would support them. They would have enough to enable him to devote his life to the church, but no guarantee of things of this world. All section 24 seemed to assure Emma was a life of hardship with a husband who belonged to the church.

To that point, the Lord had only spoken to the men of the Church, though, like Emma, the women of the Church—Lucy Mack Smith, Mary Whitmer, Polly Knight, and many others—were just as much its backbone and as vital as a heartbeat.

Then the Lord let Emma know that he could see through her eyes and gave her an opportunity to see through his.

The earliest manuscript of section 25 begins more intimately than the more formal, published version. “Emma my daughter in Zion,” the Lord says, “A Revelation I give unto you concerning my will Behold thy sins are for given thee & thou art an Elect Lady whom I have called.”[2] He reveals His will to this highly favored daughter, promising to preserve her life and her place in Zion if she will be faithful and virtuous. This was no hollow promise to a woman living in a time of high maternal mortality rates. Emma nearly died after giving birth to her first child.

The Lord’s command that Emma “murmur not because of the things which thou hast not seen,” is often assumed to refer to the Book of Mormon plates but there is no basis for that conclusion. There were many things Emma did not see, and the Book of Mormon plates may not have been among them.

The revelation gives Emma a calling, or several actually. “The office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy husband . . . ” As this sentence suggests and one might expect, at times Emma felt as if she was in a tug-o-war with the Lord over Joseph. Still, she excelled at meekly comforting and consoling him.

Emma, the Lord said, was called to be Joseph’s partner, his confidant, his strength; and he hers. The Lord commands her to go with Joseph when he goes, scribe for him when he has no other scribe (freeing Oliver Cowdery for other duties), and be ordained to expound scripture and exhort the church by the Spirit. Joseph is to lay hands on Emma to bestow the Holy Ghost, and she shall spend her time scribing and learning much in the process. She need not fear. Joseph will support her in this calling. That is his calling, and by doing it Joseph reveals whatever the Lord wills, according to the saints’ faith.

Emma can see where all this is leading. “Lay aside the things of this world and seek for the things of a better,” the Lord invites. Lay aside your telestial world aspirations and feed your celestial ones.

The Lord also called Emma to select sacred hymns for the church.

He delights in the heartfelt song. Thus Emma may be encouraged and rejoice and cleave to her covenants. Continue to be meek, the Lord commands her, and beware of pride. “Let thy soul delight in thy husband, and the glory which shall come upon him.” A crown of righteousness awaits Emma if she keeps these commandments continually.

Emma was confirmed and compiled the church’s first two hymnals in response to section 25, but the revelation is significant far beyond those accomplishments. It addresses Emma’s deepest fears and fondest hopes. This is the only revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants addressed to a woman. It shows that the Lord knew his daughter. He knew she was meek but could be proud. He knew that part of her wanted to complain because she had not seen some of the marvelous things others had seen. He knew she could be tempted by the things of this world. He invited her to sacrifice them for infinitely more. He knew before she knew that she was capable of scribing for Joseph, of learning much, and of teaching the saints by the power of the Holy Ghost. He knew that these callings would cause Emma anxiety. He assured her that Joseph would support her. He knew that she needed Joseph. He knew that Joseph needed her, and he called her to comfort and sustain Joseph.

Section 25 oriented Emma’s life.

Expecting twins, she forsook her unbelieving parents to obey its command to go with Joseph to Ohio, and she never saw them afterwards. A decade later Emma was elected by her sisters to preside over the Relief Society, which Joseph validated. He read the revelation to the sisters from the Doctrine and Covenants and said that Emma had been “orddain’d at the time, the Revelation was given to expound the scriptures to all; and to teach the female part of the community.” She was and sustained in her calling by her husband and her sister saints.[3]

A few weeks later Joseph was evading arrest on false charges. It was a depressing time of his life. There was tension between him and Emma over plural marriage, straining their relationship. Emma went to great lengths to visit Joseph in that situation. His journal entry says, “again she is here, even in the seventh trouble, undaunted, firm and unwavering, unchangeable, affectionate Emma.”[4]

In September 1843, Joseph sealed on Emma’s head the “crown of righteousness” the Lord promised in section 25. Then, just days before his death in 1844, Joseph invited Emma to write her own blessing. She thought of Section 25 and penned her hopes that she would be able to obey its commands and receive its promised blessings.[5] She clung to her covenants through Abrahamic tests. Emma understandably could have, and perhaps sometimes did, consider herself in competition with the Lord and others for Joseph’s time and attention. Section 25 assured her that however that might be, she was the Lord’s highly favored daughter, that he expected more of her than she may have thought she could give, and that he would finally give her all she ultimately wanted.

Section 26

Joseph and the saints in southern New York endured a blast of persecution in the summer of 1830. The Knight family in Colesville were understandably anxious. Back home in the nearby but comparatively peaceful setting of Harmony, Pennsylvania, Joseph received a series of revelations including section 26. The Lord gave it to Joseph, Oliver Cowdery, and John Whitmer to teach them what to do until the conference scheduled for September in Fayette, New York.

The revelation says simply that Joseph and his brethren are to devote their time to scripture study, preaching, confirming the saints in southern New York, and farming as needed until time for conference later in the summer. There he will direct them further.

The most significant, if understated, aspect of the revelation is the line, “all things shall be done by common consent in the church, by much prayer and faith.” (D&C 26:2) The Lord had revealed this principle earlier, but that revelation is not canonized, so this is the first mention of common consent in the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph’s manuscript history says that before the Church was organized, the Lord commanded he and Oliver to ordain each other elders in the Church of Jesus Christ, and then ordain others, but only after they could gather all who had been baptized to get “their sanction,” and be “accepted by them as their teachers.”[1]

At that meeting the members of the church, the women and men accepted Joseph and Oliver as their leaders by a unanimous vote.[2] Though the word vote is used, common consent differs from a democratic election. In common consent, Church leaders put forward a proposal and ask for consent and dissent. Though consent is common, it is not taken for granted and dissent is to be respected. The presiding authority meets with a dissenting member to learn why they dissented and acts accordingly. In an unusual turn of events, Joseph Smith dissented in October 1843 at the proposal that Sidney Rigdon be sustained as his counselor in the First Presidency. Joseph’s dissent was overruled by the Church after a lengthy discussion.[3]

Newel Knight said section 26 provided “great consolation to the little band of Brethren and Sisters at Colesville after having been abandoned from time to time by the servants of God in consequence of the wicked who were constantly seeking to destroy the work of God from the earth. It showed us that the Lord took cognizance of us and also that he knew the acts of the wicked. So we resolved to continue steadfast in the faith and were diligent in our prayers and assembling ourselves together, waiting with patience until we should have the pleasure of again seeing Brother Joseph and others of the Servants of the Lord who had become dear to us by the ties of the gospel, and of being confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ by the laying on of hands of the Apostles.”[4]

Section 23 notes

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 38, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/44.

[2] Steven C. Harper, “Oliver Cowdery as Second Witness of Priesthood Restoration,” in Days Never to Be Forgotten: Oliver Cowdery, ed. Alexander L. Baugh (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009), 73–89.

Section 24 notes

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 48, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/54.

Section 25 notes

[1] “Some of the Remarks of John S. Reed, Esq., as Delivered before the State Convention,” Times and Seasons 5 (I June 1844): 549-52. Joseph Smith, Manuscript History 1838-1856, May 17, 1844, Book F-1, page. 48.

[2] “Revelation, July 1830–C [D&C 25],” p. 34, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-july-1830-c-dc-25/1.

[3] “Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book,” p. 8, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/5.

[4] Journal, December 1841–December 1842,” p. 164, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-december-1841-december-1842/41. See Job 5:19

[5] Carol Cornwall Madsen, “The ‘Elect Lady’ Revelation: The Historical and Doctrinal Context of Doctrine & Covenants 25,” in The HeavensAre Open (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1993): 211-18.

Section 26 notes

[1] “History, circa June–October 1839 [Draft 1],” p. [8], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-june-october-1839-draft-1/8.

[2] “History, circa June–October 1839 [Draft 1],” p. [9], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-june-october-1839-draft-1/9.

[3] “History, 1838–1856, volume E-1 [1 July 1843–30 April 1844],” p. 1747-1749, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-e-1-1-july-1843-30-april-1844/119.

[4] Newel Knight, Autobiography and Journal, 1846, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

Come, Follow Me: Doctrine & Covenants 20, 21, 22

Section 20

License for John Whitmer, 9 June 1830. Courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org

Section 20 is the founding document of the restored Church of Jesus Christ. Joseph’s history says it came “by the Spirit of Prophecy and revelation.”[1] Joseph read it and the saints unanimously received it at the Church’s first quarterly conference in June 1830.[2]

It is a constitution of sorts, and quite unique. It is not in the voice of the Lord or an angel, as most of the sections are. Rather, it is in the voice of the Latter-day Saints, a sort of “we the people,” or, at least “we the elders of the church” (D&C 20:16).

Section 20 does three things.

Its first 16 verses justify The Church’s existence by highlighting the backstory of how it came to be established on April 6, 1830: the calling and commissioning of apostles to lead it, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and the collective witness of the elders.

The passage in verses 17-36 declares what we know. These are articles of faith: “There is a God in heaven,” this part begins, then summarizes the plan of redemption. God created. Mankind fell. “The Almighty God gave his Only Begotten Son . . . . He was crucified, died, and rose again” so that everyone who ever lived or lives can have eternal life on conditions of enduring in faith and repentance. This section briefly situates the restored gospel relative to other theologies. Saints share with many Christians, for example, the truth that sanctification comes through the grace of Jesus Christ, but not the agency-compromising idea that a sanctified person can never fall from grace. Anyone can opt out of God’s grace, and the revelation warns the church about that.

The third and longest passage begins in verse 37. It sets the qualifications for baptism, instructs how to administer the sacrament, relates the duties of priesthood holders and other members, and tells of the need for membership records.

Oliver Cowdery did not initially like verse 37’s detailed qualifications for baptism. He had prepared an earlier draft that specified only “whosoever repenteth & humbleth himself before me & desireth to be baptized in my name shall ye baptize them.”[3] By comparison, verse 37 adds the requirements of a broken heart and contrite spirit, evidence of true repentance and willingness to assume the name of Jesus Christ with determination to serve him to the end, and a godly life (Compare Moroni 6:1-4).

Oliver demanded “in the name of God” that Joseph delete the requirement that baptismal candidates should “manifest by their works that they have received the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins.” Joseph asked Oliver “by what authority he took upon him to command me to add or diminish to or from a revelation or commandment from the Almighty God.”[4] Joseph finally convinced Oliver, who read Section 20 to the church’s second conference in September 1830.[5]

There are two things section 20 does not do.

Verse 1 does not establish once and for all the date of the Savior’s birth. Verse 1 is best understood as a head note saying that the Church was organized on April 6 in 1830. It should not be understood to establish that date as precisely 1,830 years since Jesus was born. Joseph’s history says that the Lord “pointed out to us the precise day” to organize his Church.[6] It does not specify that it was his birthday, nor does verse 1 say it was. Rather, it has been interpreted to mean that it was.

Section 20 does not do all the work of establishing the Church’s authority, core doctrines, and practical organization and procedures. This revelation was amended frequently, as more became known. It is a beginning, not the sum total of the restored Church of Jesus Christ.

Section 21

After more than a year of anticipation, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery organized The Church of Jesus Christ on April 6, 1830, as the Lord commanded. At the organizational sacrament meeting, Joseph received section 21. In this revelation the Lord establishes the order of his Church. Elder Boyd K. Packer taught the relationship between order, ordaining, and ordinances. To ordain, he said, was the process of putting things in order. He defined an ordinance as a ceremony by which things are put in order.[1] Consider section 21 in that light.

The order the Lord intends is clear from what the revelation says and how it says it. Jesus reveals it to Joseph who reveals it to the saints. The Lord authorizes Oliver to ordain Joseph as the first or presiding elder, “this being an ordinance unto you” (D&C 2110-11). Oliver is to be ordained as the second elder, again by an ordinance. The Savior leads his church. Joseph speaks on his behalf. The Savior inspires Joseph to move the cause of Zion forward. The Saints sustain Joseph and Oliver as their leaders and give heed to their words as they heed the Savior’s. This ordained order requires “patience and faith” (D&C 21:5).

The first command in the revelation is to record these things. The acts of putting the Lord’s Church in its ordained order must be documented. Section 21 restored the Church of Jesus Christ. After nearly two millennia, duly authorized apostles were ordained and assigned by Jesus Christ to lead his church. Many people have “wished,” as one wrote, “I had lived in the days of the prophets or apostles, that I could have sure guides.” Others looked forward, waiting for the Lord to send new apostles.[2] Those hopes were realized on April 6, 1830. As Joseph put it, “the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded upon direct revelation, as the true church of God has ever been, according to the scriptures.”

Section 22

The Book of Mormon taught the need for authorized baptism of accountable, covenanting believers. Section 20 added to it, further specifying the method and criteria for baptism. However, when some “very moral and no doubt as good people as you could find anywhere . . . came, saying they believed in the Book of Mormon, and that they had been baptized into the Baptist Church,” Joseph did not know what to tell them. He asked the Lord and received section 22.[1]

Sixteenth-century reformers were pejoratively called Anabaptists (rebaptizers) when they followed the Biblical practice of immersing accountable believers, including people already baptized as infants. The American Baptist leader Francis Wayland defended this practice. “We consider ourselves not to baptize again,” he wrote, “but to baptize those who have never submitted to this ordinance.”[2]

Section 22 makes the same case. The Lord declares that “old covenants” are “done away” because he has restored “a new and everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.” So even a man baptized an hundred times would not have entered the “straight gate” by obeying an irrelevant law, by “dead works.” The Lord gave the new covenant because of these dead works.

Oliver Cowdery preached that until the Lord restored authorized baptism, “the ordinances of the gospel have not been regularly administered since the days of the Apostles.”[3] His teaching was understood by converts who flocked to the restored covenant. It was unpopular to others.[4]

Section 20 notes

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 29, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/35.

[2] “Minutes, 9 June 1830,” p. 1, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed September 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/minutes-9-june-1830/1.

[3] Oliver Cowdery, “Articles of the Church of Christ,” Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[4] “History, circa June–October 1839 [Draft 1],” p. [23], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-june-october-1839-draft-1/23.

[5] “Minute Book 2,” p. 2, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/minute-book-2/4.

[6] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 29, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/35.

Section 21 notes

[1] Boyd K. Packer, “Ordinances,” BYU Devotional, February 3, 1980: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/boyd-k-packer/ordinances/.

[2] Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 17. Jeffrey R. Holland, “Prophets, Seers, and Revelators,” Ensign (November 2004): 6.

Section 22 notes

[1] Orson Pratt, in Journal of Discourses, 2 Nov. 1873, 16:293-94. Also see “History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2],” p. 38, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed September 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-june-1839-circa-1841-draft-2/44.

[2] Francis Wayland, Notes and Principles on the Practices of Baptist Churches (New York: Sheldon, Blakeman, 1857), 98.

[3] “The Golden Bible,” Painesville Telegraph, 16 Nov. 1830, [3].

[4] “Mormonism,” Painesville (OH) Telegraph, 15 Feb. 1831, [1]; Thomas Campbell, “The Mormon Challenge,” Painesville Telegraph, 15 Feb. 1831, [2].

Come, Follow Me: Doctrine & Covenants 18, 19

Section 18

A Revelation to Joseph, Oliver, and David, making known the calling of twelve disciples in these last days, June 1829. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org.

The Lord revealed section 18 because Joseph, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer desired to know how to build the Church of Jesus Christ, something they knew was coming but they had never done before.[1] The Lord tells Oliver specifically to rely on what he has learned from the Book of Mormon manuscript he has penned as Joseph translated. Since he knows by the Spirit that it’s true, he can use it to compose a foundational document for the church that is soon to be restored. If they build the church on this foundation, hell cannot stop them.

This revelation is the first in the Doctrine and Covenants to refer to apostles, saying that Oliver and David “are called” to that calling (D&C 18:9). What should apostles do? “Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.” Based on that premise—the value to God of each individual soul—the revelation gives a rationale for repentance that is centered in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This part of the revelation sounds like a sacred equation: the value of each soul is directly proportionate to the infinite atonement of Jesus Christ. He conquered death to bring the repentant to him. He feels great joy in repentant souls. Truman Madsen had this revelation in mind when he taught, “If souls are of value in direct proportion to the concern and sacrifice of our Redeemer, then we know that in the eyes of the Father and the Son, your soul—even yours—and mine—even mine—is of infinite worth.”[2]

That is the revealed reason for Oliver and David to cry repentance. If they spend their whole lives at it and only a single soul repents, the effort will be worthwhile. Their joy with that soul will be great in God’s kingdom. How much greater joy, then, to help many repent? So they are to follow the Book of Mormon in preaching the law of the gospel with faith, hope, and charity by inviting all mankind to come to Christ and assume his name, becoming his.

After nearly two millennia, section 18 commissions new apostles.

The Lord prophesies their calling. Then, beginning at verse 31, he speaks directly to them, promising grace sufficient to save them if they choose to meet his covenant conditions. Oliver and David are charged to “search out the Twelve” by discerning their godly desires, manifest in their behavior (D&C 18:37-38). The Twelve, in turn, are to act on their revealed instructions. A quorum of twelve would not be called for nearly six more years, but this revelation sets apostles Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer to the task of selecting the members of that quorum and then speaks to them directly.

What does the Lord emphasize when he commissions apostles, when he gives them their job description, their marching orders? He teaches them that the atonement, the price paid, makes each soul of infinite worth in God’s sight. Based on that truth, he commissions the apostles to tell every soul to repent, to obey the law of the gospel, to become one with Christ by assuming his name.

Based on their commission in Section 18, modern apostles emphasize how the Savior’s atonement gives infinite value to each soul.

“If we could truly understand the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ,” said Elder M. Russell Ballard, “we would realize how precious is one son or daughter of God. . . . . We would strive to emulate the Savior and would never be unkind, indifferent, disrespectful, or insensitive to others.” Elder Ballard concluded, “It was Jesus who said, ‘If . . . you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!’ (D&C 18:15). Not only that, but great shall be the Lord’s joy in the soul that repenteth! For precious unto Him is the one.“[3]

Section 19

Agreement with Martin Harris, 16 January 1830. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org

Martin Harris was “one of the most respected farmers in Wayne County,” a prosperous, property-owning Palmyran since 1808.[1] In summer 1829, Martin and Joseph agreed to terms with a Palmyra printer named Egbert Grandin to publish the Book of Mormon. It was a controversial book and they wanted to print a large run of 5,000 copies.

Martin led the negotiations and planned to pay for the printing, but he balked when Grandin refused to begin work until he had security for the entire payment.[2] They worked out an agreement in which Grandin would print and bind all 5,000 copies of the book for $3,000, with Martin putting up more than 150 acres of land as collateral. That’s when Martin “staggered in his confidence.”[3] He would have to mortgage all the land he owned outright. The marvelous work halted for most of the summer.

Martin worried that no one would buy the books and he would lose his farm.

“I want a commandment,” he told Joseph, “I must have a commandment.” So Joseph asked and the Lord gave a commandment, section 19.[4] In a word, the commandment was repent. Frequent, intense repetition of I command and repent dominate this text. It offers astonishing autobiographical insight into the Savior’s atonement. It begins in the voice of the Almighty Christ. First, he clarifies a mystery, or a common debate at the time about whether God’s punishment would last forever or not. Didn’t the word eternal obviously mean never-ending, proponents might argue. Not necessarily, the Lord answers. Consider that it can be a qualitative measure as well as a quantitative one. The acts of Christ’s suffering and being resurrected didn’t last forever, and yet they have eternal consequences. Punishment, perhaps, can be limited in duration and yet lasting in effect. Moreover, Christ says, eternal “is more express” than other words (D&C 19:7). It makes the intended point powerfully.

With that the Savior begins to make his intended point powerfully. He repeatedly commands Martin to repent because Christ suffered exquisitely so that he could. This is the best autobiographical description of the Savior’s atoning suffering in the scriptures. It is wrenching, beautiful, and powerful. “It is more express than other scriptures” (D&C 19:7). Compare section 18, for example, where the Savior speaks briefly and modestly in the third person voice to describe how he suffered the pain of all so that all might repent (DD&C 18:10-13). It’s the same doctrine declared by the same Christ but in an entirely different voice and tone.

Section 19 is adapted to Martin’s present predicament, which Christ knows how to address.

Throughout section 19 there is subtle allusion in which Christ compares himself to Martin implicitly. As Martin wrestles with whether he should keep his promises, and whether the sacrifice asked of him is too great, the Savior declares his character: he keeps promises. He made the infinite sacrifice. Where Martin is concerned with carnal security, the Savior shows contempt for covetousness. Where Martin is coveting his own property, the Lord compares it to the priceless testament of Jesus Christ, the “Book of Mormon, which contains the truth and word of God” (D&C 19:26).

This revelation reoriented Martin Harris. He grasped what the Lord was saying so expressly. He learned to let this commandment suffice and not ask again (D&C 19:32). He obeyed the Lord’s command to “not covet thine own property, but impart it freely to the printing” (D&C 19:26). He mortgaged his farm on August 25, paying Grandin in full.[5] Once the paperwork was finished, Grandin’s employees began printing. The marvelous work was back on track.

Section 18 notes

[1] “Book of Commandments, 1833,” p. 34, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/book-of-commandments-1833/38.

[2] Truman G. Madsen, “The Savior, the Sacrament, and Self-Worth,” Address given at the 1999 BYU-Relief Society Women’s Conference, https://womensconference.byu.edu/sites/womensconference.ce.byu.edu/files/madsen_truman.pdf.

[3] Elder M. Russell Ballard, “The Atonement and the Value of One Soul,” General Conference, April 2004, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2004/04/the-atonement-and-the-value-of-one-soul?lang=eng.

Section 19 notes

[1] Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York, 1867), 41, 50.

[2] John H. Gilbert, Memorandum, 8 Sept. 1892, photocopy, MS 9223, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/162efea4-cb3f-459f-937f-949b3995e572/0/0. “Mormon Leaders at Their Mecca,” New York Herald, 25 June 1893, 12.

[3] Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism: Biography of Its Founders and History of Its Church (New York: D. Appleton, 1867), 51.

[4] Joseph Knight, Sr. Reminiscences, no date. MS 3470, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[5] Martin Harris, Mortgage to Egbert B. Grandin, 25 August 1829, Mortgages, Liber 3, 325, Wayne County Clerk’s Office, Lyons, New York.

Come, Follow Me: Doctrine & Covenants 14-17

Sections 14, 15, 16

Oliver Cowdery kept his acquaintance, David Whitmer, informed about the translation of the Book of Mormon. When antagonism against Joseph grew in Harmony, Pennsylvania, Oliver wrote to David to ask if he and Joseph could finish translating at the Whitmer’s home in Fayette, New York. David himself came with a wagon to transport them, told them his parents would house and feed them for free while they were translating, and promised them all the help they might need.

By early June 1829, they commenced translating in Fayette. The Whitmers and their neighbors were friendly and supportive. Whitmer sons David, Peter, and John were about the same age as Joseph and Oliver, all in their twenties, and especially “zealous,” Joseph’s history says, “and being desirous to know their respective duties, and having desired with much earnestness that I should enquire of the Lord concerning then, I did so, through the means of the Urim and Thummim and obtained for them in succession the following Revelations.”[1]

Section 14 was for David.

Portrait of David Whitmer by Lewis A. Ramsey.

It repeats phrases and themes of the marvelous work about to be made known to mankind and the figurative field that is ready for harvest. It also repeats the emphasis on working for Zion, and promises David that if he works to build Zion and endures to the end, God will give him the greatest possible gift: eternal life.

The revelation foreshadows David’s role as one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon. David kept many of the revelation’s commands. His testimony of the Book of Mormon, to which he remained faithful, is recorded in every copy. He assisted in the marvelous work. But in David’s case the condition that he “endure to the end” (D&C 14:7) is especially notable. He may not have endured as the Lord intended. Having served for almost four years as president of the Church in Missouri, he was cut off from the church in 1838. He lived for another five decades as a respected citizen of Richmond, Missouri and make a conscious effort to affirm the Book of Mormon while finding fault with Joseph Smith and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[2]

The Lord gave essentially the same revelation to both John and Peter, sections 15 and 16, commanding both to hearken to his words as their Redeemer.

They desired to know what would be of most worth to them. The Lord blesses them for this desire and he tells them the most valuable thing they can do is to “declare repentance unto this people, that you may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in the kingdom of my father” (D&C 15:6, 16:6).

Like most of the revelations in the Doctrine & Covenants, these ones have an internal rationale. Declaring repentance is the most valuable thing for John and Peter to do, the Lord explains, because it will enable them to rest with the repentant in God’s kingdom. Sections 18, 84, and 93 explain this line of reasoning further, but in these sections we are introduced to the truth that working for the salvation of others is eternally satisfying for ourselves.

Section 17

Two Book of Mormon passages prophesy that “three witnesses” (2 Nephi 27:12) “shall assist to bring forth this work.” They would be shown the Book of Mormon plates so they could know and bear witness of the truth (Ether 5:2-3). Joseph translated the passage in Ether first. By the time he translated the 2 Nephi prophesy he was nearly finished with the Book of Mormon, and there had been plenty of foreshadowing about who the three “who shall assist” could be.

In section 5 the Lord had told Martin Harris that he could qualify if he chose to be humble and faithful. In section 6 the Lord mentioned witnesses and testimony and told Oliver Cowdery that he should “assist to bring forth my work” (D&C 6:9, 28, 31). In section 14 the Lord called David Whitmer “to assist” and prophesied that if he asked of God in faith he would “stand as a witness of the things which you shall both hear and see” (D&C 14:8, 11).

In June 1829 as the translation neared completion at the Whitmers’ home in Fayette, New York, Martin, David, and Oliver pled with Joseph to ask God if they could be the prophesied witnesses. Joseph asked, and the Lord answered with section 17. Joseph rose from his knees and said to Martin, “you have got to humble yourself before God this day and obtain, if possible, a forgiveness of your sins. If you will do this, it is God’s will that you and Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer should look upon the plates.”[1]

The revelation can be read as a covenant in which the Lord promises Oliver, David, and Martin that if they will rely on his word wholeheartedly, he will show them the Book of Mormon plates.

He also promises to show them the breastplate, Laban’s sword, the seer stones the Lord made for the brother of Jared, and the Liahona that directed Lehi and his family miraculously through the wilderness near the Red Sea. The witnesses will view these artifacts by faith akin to the brother of Jared’s or Lehi’s.

That experience would prove to these men much more than the fact that Joseph had plates. Lehi’s miraculous compass, Laban’s sword, and the brother of Jared’s seer stones testify that the plates are inscribed with ancient writing about actual people who received revelations, knew the Lord, were directed to a promised land, and committed their testimonies of Christ to writing that had been translated by Joseph Smith.

In exchange for such an experience, the Lord obligates the would be witnesses to testify of the Book of Mormon to fulfill his purposes. Their witness will verify Joseph’s, keep him from being overwhelmed, and accomplish the Lord’s righteous purposes. On these conditions, the Lord covenants to resurrect the witnesses at the time of his second coming.

About noon on a late spring day in 1829, Joseph, David, Oliver, and Martin slipped into the woods near the Whitmer home.

Artist’s depiction of Moroni showing the plates to Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Joseph Smith.

“Having knelt down,” Joseph said, “we began to pray in much faith, to Almighty God, to bestow upon us a realization of those promises. According to previous arrangement, I commenced by vocal prayer to our Heavenly Father and was followed by each of the other three.” Nothing happened.

“We again observed the same order of prayer, each calling on and praying fervently to God in regular rotation, but with the same result as before.” Finally Martin Harris confessed that he was responsible for the Lord’s silence. He left the others humbly, disappearing deeper into the woods. “We knelt down again,” Joseph stated, “and had not been many minutes engaged in prayer when presently we beheld a light above us in the air of exceeding brightness and behold an angel stood before us.” He held out the plates for them to see, turning them over one by one. “We could see them,” Joseph testified, “and discern the engravings thereon very distinctly.” A heavenly voice declared, “These plates have been revealed by the power of God, the translation of them which you have seen is correct, and I command you to bear record of what you now see and hear.”

“I left David and Oliver,” Joseph reported, “and went in pursuit of Martin Harris, whom I found at a considerable distance fervently engaged in prayer.” Joseph knelt beside him and their joined faith opened heaven. Joseph saw and heard the vision again while Martin cried out, “mine eyes have beheld, mine eyes have beheld,” and was overcome with joy. Joseph helped him up and they returned to the Whitmer home, rejoicing.[2]

Joseph entered the room where his parents and Mrs. Whitmer were visiting.

“Father! Mother! You do not know how happy I am. The Lord has caused the plates to be shown to three more besides me. They have also seen an angel and will have to testify to the truth of what I have said, for they know for themselves that I do not go about to deceive the people.” The pressure of being the sole eyewitness had, Joseph said, become “almost too much for me to endure. But they will now have to bear a part, and it does rejoice my soul that I am not any longer to be entirely alone in the world.”[3]

Martin, Oliver, and David eagerly told what they had seen and heard.

Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, circa August 1829. Images courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org.

They wrote a statement of testimony to the whole world that they had seen the engraved plates and heard the voice of God state that they were translated correctly. “We declare with words of soberness,” they affirmed, “that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon.” It happened just as all the witnesses said. “It is marvelous in our eyes,” they declared together. “Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things.”[4]

The testimony of the Three Witnesses in the Book of Mormon today.

As Section 17 emphasizes, the witnesses fulfill the Lord’s righteous purposes. They do not compel people to believe. They make everyone able to accept or reject the testimony and accountable for their choice. Witnesses sift people into self-selected categories of believers or unbelievers. “Their testimony shall . . . go forth unto the condemnation of this generation if they harden their hearts,” while those who believe will receive the testimony of the Spirit (D&C 5:5-6).

Sections 14, 15, 16 notes

[1] Dean C. Jessee, editor, The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1989), 1: 294.

[2] Lyndon W. Cook, editor, David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness (Orem: Grandin, 1991).

Section 17 notes

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 23, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/29.

[2] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 25, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/31.

[3] “Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, Page [11], bk. 8,” p. [11], bk. 8, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/103.

[4] “Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, circa August 1829–circa January 1830,” p. 463, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/printers-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-august-1829-circa-january-1830/467.

Come, Follow Me: Doctrine & Covenants 12, 13

Section 12

A revelation given to Joseph Knight Sr. in Harmony, Pennsylvania, May 1829. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org.

In the spring of 1829, Joseph Knight was in his late fifties and lived with his large family in Colesville, New York, a long day’s journey from Joseph home in Harmony, Pennsylvania. He routinely supplied Joseph with food, shoes, cash, and paper to see him through the translation process.[1] During one of his visits, Father Knight was “very anxious to know his duty as to this work.” Joseph asked the Lord, who answered with the revelation in section 12.[2]

It says many similar things as revelations to Joseph Smith, Sr., Oliver Cowdery, given earlier or around the same time: A great and marvelous work is about to be made known to mankind. Like a sword that cuts both ways, the Lord’s words can bless and curse, save and damn. The figurative field is ready for harvest. Whoever desires to harvest should do so all day long, saving his soul in the process. God calls whoever will harvest. If Father Knight will ask, God will answer. Since he has asked, the Lord tells him to keep the commandments and work for Zion.

One of the great souls who made the restoration possible, Joseph Knight obeyed this revelation. He did all in his power to bring forth the Book of Mormon. He transported Joseph Smith in his wagon when he went to Fayette to organize the church in April 1830 and in his sleigh when he moved to Ohio early in 1831. He was “first to administer to my necessities while I was laboring in the commencement of bringing for the work of the Lord, and of laying the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Joseph remembered. “Faithful and true, and even handed, and exemplary and virtuous and kind.”[3]

Section 13

Section 13 is an excerpt from Joseph’s Manuscript History. It is the words by which John the Baptist ordained Joseph and Oliver to the priesthood of Aaron on May 15, 1829.

They had been translating the Book of Mormon, likely in 3 Nephi about the Savior’s commission to Nephi and others, “I give unto you power that ye shall baptize this people when I am again ascended into heaven” (3 Nephi 11:21-26). As Joseph read those words to Oliver in May 1829, it was as if the Savior was teaching them too. They realized that no one on earth in 1829 had the Lord’s permission and power to baptize. No one.[1] They went to the woods for what Oliver described as fervent prayer. To “inquire of the Lord respecting baptism for the remission of sins as we found mentioned in the translation of the plates,” Joseph said.[2]

His account continues: “a Messenger from heaven, descended in a cloud of light, and having laid his hands upon us, he ordained us, saying unto us; ‘Upon you my fellow servants in the name of Messiah I confer the priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, and this shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.”[3]

Only later in his narrative, almost as an afterthought, Joseph reveals the messenger’s identity: he “said that his name was John, the same that is called John the Baptist in the new Testament, and that he acted under the direction <of> Peter, James, and John.”

Joseph’s straightforward account can seem matter-of-fact. Oliver, by contrast, could barely contain himself when he wrote the story years later: “Twas the voice of the angel from glory—twas a message from the Most High! . . . . Where was room for doubt? No where.”[4]

Joseph and Oliver followed John the Baptist’s instructions and immersed each other in the Susquehanna River, then ordained each other. “We were filled with the Holy Ghost,” Joseph said, “and rejoiced in the God of our salvation.”[5] Soon Joseph’s brother Samuel was baptized by this authority, and so on down to each person who has received the gospel of repentance and baptism by immersion in the last dispensation.

That will continue until, or so that, the sons of Levi (modern Aaronic priesthood holders, cross reference D&C 84:26-34 and D&C 128:24) can offer the Lord the latter-day equivalent of their service in the ancient temples.

There is reason to believe that there is more to keys of ministering angels mentioned by John the Baptist than most commentaries on section 13 consider. The keys are mentioned again and associated with John the Baptist in D&C 84, a temple revelation describing how priesthoods, keys, ordinances, and endowments of power were offered anciently and will be again. When Joseph gave a rapid rundown of temple related restorations of keys, knowledge, and power in D&C 128, he mentioned how Adam showed him how to discern the devil on the banks of the Susquehanna River. That must have happened at about the same time John the Baptist restored priesthood that held the keys to that knowledge. Joseph taught it to Parley Pratt, as recorded esoterically in D&C 129 with the euphemism of hand shaking standing in for temple knowledge, or in other words keys governed by Aaronic priesthood that enable a person to detect the devil when he appears as an angel of light (D&C 128:20).[6]

Section 12 notes

[1] Joseph Knight, Reminiscences, MS 3470, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/37b7b91c-4148-45d6-8f32-df4acf06fe99/0/0.

[2] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 21, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed September 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/27.

[3] “Journal, December 1841–December 1842,” p. 179, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-december-1841-december-1842/56.

Section 13 notes

[1] “History, 1834–1836,” p. 48, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/50.

[2] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 17, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/23.

[3] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 17, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/23.

[4] “History, 1834–1836,” p. 48, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/50.

[5] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 18, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed September 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/24.

[6] Wilford Woodruff Journal, June 27, 1839. President Joseph Smith’s Journal 1843 As kept by Willard Richards, 170-172 (February 9, 1843). Both journals are in the Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

Come, Follow Me: Doctrine & Covenants 10, 11

Section 10

Preface to the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org

If Joseph Smith’s revelations were ranked in order of coolness, section 10 would rank near the top. I don’t mean to be irreverent about it, but it’s a little like watching a duel or a dance off between the devil and the Lord. He even puts it that way–“I will show . . . ,” he says. Who will win? And what kind of impressive moves will it take?

With Oliver as scribe, Joseph began translating in the Book of Mosiah, where he and Martin had left off before losing the manuscript. As they went, Joseph worried about the lost beginning. Should he translate it again?

No, the Lord answers in section 10.

He adds instructions about how to proceed, an omniscient explanation for his answer, and assurance that nothing vital was lost.[1]

In section 10 the Lord describes a conspiracy against Joseph and the Book of Mormon. He exposes Satan’s attributes and tactics and the “servants of Satan” who “uphold his work” (D&C 10:5). Satan inspired conspirators to steal the manuscript from Martin, the Lord explains. They are waiting to see if Joseph publishes the same manuscript. If so, they’ll alter the stolen manuscript and claim he has no gift. If not, they’ll publish the stolen manuscript and claim Joseph has no gift. They will steal and lie for the glory of the world and destroy Joseph in the process. But the Lord clues Joseph in to the conspiracy and helps him thwart it.

The Lord cautions Joseph to not reveal his knowledge of the conspiracy until the Book of Mormon is translated because he can’t always tell who is trustworthy. With that caution, the Lord reveals to Joseph that the Book of Mormon plates contain a back-up copy of what was lost. “Remember,” the Lord says, “it was said in those writings that a more particular account was given of these things upon the plates of Nephi?” Joseph should therefore translate the small plates of Nephi until he gets to the reign of King Benjamin. The conspirators only stole a translation of part of Mormon’s abridgment of Nephi’s writing. Publishing the translation of Nephi’s own small plates will derail the conspiracy, demonstrating in the process that God’s “wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil” (43).

Section 10 gives us Christ’s embracing view of Christianity.

The Lord affectionately refers Christianity in general as “my church.” Section 10 was revealed well before there was a restored Church of Jesus Christ. The revelation teaches us to think of the Savior’s restored church as the redemption of Christianity. By calling Joseph Smith and keeping promises made to the Book of Mormon engravers to bring forth their words, the Lord is building Christianity, not undermining it. Christians need not fear. They will inherit God’s kingdom. It’s those who “build up churches unto themselves to get gain” whom the Lord promises to disturb (D&C 10:55-56).

Section 10 illustrates that God is both omniscient and benevolent. Satan uses his influence to blind, to enslave, and to deceive. The Lord uses his power to bless, to save, and to preserve our agency. Theologians have long wrestled with the assumption that if God is all knowing, there can be no such thing as individual agency. The whole script of human action must have been predetermined, this assumption goes, and therefore we have no power to stray from it. One alternative is to believe in a less than omniscient God. Section 10 presents a refreshing alternative. The Lord shows how he uses his foreknowledge to preserve and protect individual agency and simultaneously keep his promises.

The Lord promised the Book of Mormon engravers that their descendants would receive their writings. He called fallible free agents, Joseph Smith and Martin Harris, to bring to pass that promise. Joseph and Martin chose to disregard the Lord’s will and lost the manuscript as a result.

Can God keep his promise to the Lehite prophets and still allow Joseph and Martin agency to obey or disobey his commands?

Section 10 answers yes and illustrates how. Knowing that Joseph and Martin could choose to disobey him and that, if so, Satan could seize that opportunity to undermine the Book of Mormon’s power to bring souls to Christ, the Lord commanded Nephi to prepare alternative plates without his knowing exactly why (1 Nephi 9). Nearly a thousand years later, the Lord commanded Mormon to include those plates with his edition of the others. “I do not know all things,” Mormon wrote about that, “but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore he worketh in me to do according to his will” (Words of Mormon 1:7).

Joseph and Martin did not have to disobey the Lord, but now in case they did the Lord could keep his promise without compromising their agency. How many permutations are in the intricate plan of salvation? How many backups has the Lord prepared? Who knows? Only an omniscient God could truthfully assure us in such certain terms that “the works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught” (D&C 3:1).

Section 10 not only restates that guarantee, it shows how God fulfills it. The Lord could have told Joseph what to do with a few words: Don’t retranslate the part you lost. To our delight, however, the Lord uses section 10 to show, not just tell. “I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil” (10:43).

Joseph relied on section 10 to write the preface to the original edition of the Book of Mormon (see above).

I like to imaging the scene of cunning conspirators, proud of their fool-proof plan to expose Joseph. They walk boldly into Grandin’s bookstore on Main Street in Palmyra, pick up one of the copies of the leather-bound Book of Mormon, smelling the ink, glue, and calfskin. Eager to see what is says so they’ll know which of their sinister plans to enact, they open and read the preface. Quoting and paraphrasing section 10, it reveals their plot and foils their plan. They sheepishly close the book, put it back, slink out the door, and are never heard from again.

But the Book of Mormon makes its way, converting a few, then hundreds, then thousands, and eventually reaching every nation, kindred, tongue, and people with its witness of Jesus Christ. It fulfills God’s promises to the Lehite prophets without coercing Joseph or Martin in the process. Who is the mastermind behind section 10? It’s either Joseph Smith or an omniscient God capable of guaranteed plans with endless permutations that preserve both individual agency and divine promises.

Section 11

Father Smith returned home from his Spring 1829 visit to Joseph with a revelation in hand saying he was called to the marvelous work. Joseph’s younger brother, Samuel, returned home a few weeks later having been baptized and “greatly glorifying and praising God, being filled with the Holy Spirit.” Older brother Hyrum wanted to get in on the action. He went to Joseph’s place in Pennsylvania and asked what the Lord had in store for him. Wait, the Lord replied.[1]

Section 11 includes all of the anticipation of section 4 and later revelations, and it commands Hyrum to take part. But the Lord restrains Hyrum in this revelation. Unlike his father, Hyrum is not yet called to preach but rather to wait until he has the Book of Mormon and the restored church. Then, as Hyrum desires, he will be a successful preacher of the gospel. For now he should keep the Lord’s commandments, be patient, appeal to the Spirit, and cleave unto Christ wholeheartedly in order to assist with the printing of the Book of Mormon. “Be patient until you shall accomplish it,” the Savior tells him.

It could have been disappointing for Hyrum to be told to study and wait while everyone else, it seemed, was doing more exciting work. But he was simply to keep the commandments as best he could. He was not to declare the Lord’s word but to obtain it. Then his tongue will be loosed and then, if he desires, Hyrum will be full of the Spirit and the Lord’s word, the power of God to convince many. So for now Hyrum should not preach but study the scriptures.

This revelation channels Hyrum’s zeal.

He is like a wild horse. Here the Lord bridles him, careful not to break his spirit but to train him. This revelation gives Hyrum, and since him so many others, the formula for becoming successful preachers of the gospel. Having the Lord’s conditional promise of power to convince by the Spirit if he will first learn the gospel, Hyrum spent a year searching the scriptures and helping with the publication of the Book of Mormon.

When the Lord spoke to him again in April 1830, the Book of Mormon was printed, the church was restored, the marvelous work had come forth, and Hyrum had knowledge to pair with his desire to declare the good news. Having been promised in May 1829 that the Lord would loose his tongue if he would obtain the word, Hyrum learned in April 1830 that his “heart is opened, thy tongue loosed; and thy calling is to exhortation” (D&C 23:3).

Section 10 notes

[1] “Revelation, Spring 1829 [D&C 10],” The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 21, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-spring-1829-dc-10/1.

Section 11 notes

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 19, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/25.

Come, Follow Me: Doctrine & Covenants 6-9

Section 6

Revelation given through Joseph Smith to Oliver Cowdery in April 1829. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org

Early in 1829, Joseph’s father-in-law was about to evict him. Joseph “cried unto the Lord that he would provide for me to accomplish the work whereunto he had commanded me.”[1] This prayer was answered on a Sabbath evening when Joseph’s younger brother Samuel arrived with a twenty-two-year-old school teacher named Oliver Cowdery.

Oliver had learned about the marvelous work from Joseph’s family. He had prayed to know the truth of the matter and the Lord showed him the Book of Mormon plates in a vision, and told him of the translation Joseph had begun.[2] Oliver probably brought with him some money for Joseph to use to make a payment to his father-in-law.

On the second day after his arrival, Oliver began scribing as Joseph translated the Book of Mormon. Oliver had a normal inclination to fear and doubt things that had been revealed to him before. He wanted to know if he could believe what he was seeing and experiencing. The Lord responded with the reassuring revelation in section 6.

Speaking through Joseph but to Oliver, the Lord assures him that his gifts are indeed divine, and that the revelation he received before was too. This has the effect of convincing Oliver once and for all that Joseph, however unrefined or lacking in literacy, is the Lord’s chosen seer, for out of Joseph’s mouth came words of Jesus Christ, telling Oliver things Jesus knew but Joseph didn’t. Oliver wrote to David Whitmer saying that Joseph had “told him secrets of his life that he knew could not be known to any person by himself, in any way other than by revelation from the Almighty.”[3]

Section 6 foreshadows sections 7 and 8 by telling Oliver about records that have been kept hidden due to wickedness and that Oliver can have the gift to translate if he desires it. The revelation foreshadows martyrdom, but it is encouraging and empowering to Oliver.

It also bears a beautiful autobiographical witness of Christ, perhaps even in a visual way for Joseph and Oliver, the two young seers. The Lord invites them to “look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not. Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet” (36-37). Like Peter, beholding the risen Christ gives Joseph and Oliver apostolic courage.

What we have in Section 6, then, is a document of the Lord’s lovingly employed omniscience. He is not the arbitrary sovereign Oliver’s ancestors imagined him to be.[4] He uses his limitless power to address the needs of those who desire and ask. He proves to Oliver that Joseph Smith, whatever his “faults” (v. 19), is the Lord’s chosen seer. The revelation not only says those things. By its delivery through Joseph and its secrets known only to the Lord and Oliver, it illustrates them.

Section 7

Doctrine & Covenants, 1835. Restored text highlighted. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org.

In the spring of 1829, as they translated and scribed the Book of Mormon, nothing excited the young seers Joseph and Oliver more than the idea of sacred ancient writings that had not yet come to light. The Book of Mormon was not just the best example of this, it mentioned many other texts. The Lord told Oliver in section 6 that he could, like Joseph, translate records like these if he desired.[1]

As they translated, they discussed John chapter 21:20-23. What did the words mean: “that disciple should not die”? Was John still alive? The text itself is ambiguous. Bible scholars had been “puzzled with this passage,” and Joseph and Oliver couldn’t agree on its meaning.[2] They agreed to seek clarifying revelation through the seer stones Joseph used to interpret the Book of Mormon. There they saw a parchment John had written and hidden.[3]

The parchment is apparently the original source for John’s Gospel in the New Testament. The revelation of the parchment to Joseph and Oliver restores much that was lost from the final few verses of John 21. The Lord did give John power. As the revelation was first recorded, this was power to bring souls to Christ. When Joseph reviewed the revelations for publication in 1835, he clarified that John asked the Lord for “power over death, that I may live and bring souls to thee.”[4] The Lord granted John’s desire.

Joseph also added to the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants the words in verse 6-7. The Lord said of John, “I will make him as flaming fire and a ministering angel: he shall minister for those who shall be heirs of salvation who dwell on the earth.” The Lord said to Peter, “and I will make thee to minister for him and for thy brother James: and unto you three I will give this power and the keys of this ministry until I come.”[5]

This section clarifies an ambiguous Bible passage and satisfied Joseph and Oliver’s curiosity. It does more work than that, however. It restores to the scriptures the fact that Jesus gave keys of salvation to Peter, James, and John. The revelation confirms that the Bible is true even as it confirms that the Bible is not complete. Nor is the Bible sufficient for salvation. We don’t just have the incomplete records of dead apostles. Jesus Christ sent Peter, James, and John back to earth to confer their keys on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, not too long after they received this revelation.

Many years later, the apostle Boyd K. Packer stood with President Spencer W. Kimball, other apostles, and local church leaders in the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen, Denmark, admiring Bertel Thorvaldsen’s Christus and his sculptures of the twelve apostles. The sculpture of Peter holds symbolic keys in his hand, given him by Jesus Christ. President Kimball pointed them out and then then charged the Copenhagen stake president to “tell every prelate in Denmark that they do not hold the keys. I hold the keys!” As the party left the church, President Kimball shook hands with the caretaker, “expressed his appreciation, and explained earnestly, ‘These statues are of dead apostles,’” then said, “you are in the presence of living apostles.”[6]

Section 8

Revelation for Oliver Cowdery in April 1829. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org.

The Lord told Oliver he could translate ancient records in section 6, then showed him an ancient record in section 7. Joseph said Oliver “became exceedingly anxious to have the power to translate bestowed upon him,” so Joseph asked the Lord and received section 8.[1]

In the revelation the Lord tells Oliver the conditions on which he’ll be able to translate. He’ll have to seek the necessary knowledge honestly, in faith, believing in the Lord’s promise. The Lord, in turn, will tell Oliver this knowledge in his heart by the power of the Holy Ghost. This spirit of revelation guided Moses in leading the children of Israel safely through the Red Sea. It is now Oliver’s gift. “Apply unto it,” the Lord commands him.

The Lord also reminds Oliver of his other gift: The gift possessed by Moses’ brother Aaron–the gift of working with a divining rod, or, as the earliest extant manuscript of this revelation puts it, “the gift of working with the sprout.”[2] It has already told Oliver many things, and may be what the Lord alludes to in D&C 6:11-12. The Lord affirms and validates this gift and commands Oliver not to trifle with the gift or ask for things that he ought not.

So what should he ask for? He should ask to know the mysteries of God. He should ask to translate and receive knowledge from ancient records that have been kept hidden. The Lord will grant these desires according to Oliver’s faith, just as he has done all along.

Means of receiving revelation including Oliver’s rod, Lehi’s “miraculous directors,” Joseph’s seer stones, or the Brother of Jared’s were apparently more common anciently and in Joseph’s day than in ours (D&C 17:1). By 1829 when this revelation was given, such gifts were being questioned. Skepticism of “means,” as the scriptures call these objects, were beginning to be explained in naturalistic terms instead.[3]

Before publishing this revelation in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph took out the explicit mention of Oliver’s rod and referred to it vaguely to “the gift of Aaron” (D&C 8:6). This revelation neither denies nor discourages either of Oliver’s gifts, however. As commanded, Oliver did not trifle with his rod or make it known to unbelievers (D&C 6:11). Little is known about it in our time, when natural rather than supernatural explanations are preferred. Perhaps the equally marvelous, supernal gift of the Holy Ghost remains nearly as mysterious. It is widely available, yet few “apply unto it” as the revelation commands (D&C 8:4).

Section 9

Revelation for Oliver Cowdery on the matter of translation. Image courtesy of josephsmithpapers.org.

Oliver couldn’t translate. Why, after the Lord had said he could? He wanted to know, and the Lord told him in section 9.[1] Oliver did not understand what it took to translate by the gift and power of God, and the only way he was going to gain understanding was to try it. He made a start but could not continue.

His efforts were undermined by his assumption that all he had to do was ask and the Lord would do the rest. Not so, the Lord explained. Oliver learned a lesson about revelation that is best understood through experience. Revelation is an active, not passive process, requiring a combination of spiritual sensitivity and intellectual exertion.

Before Oliver arrived on the scene, Joseph had also struggled to learn the process of revelation. Joseph worked hard to translate, to apply the gift and power of God. As a result of Oliver’s failure to translate and the Lord’s explanation, Oliver gained respect for Joseph’s gift he would never lose and knowledge about the process of revelation he would never forget.[2]

The process of revelation is usually learned after wrestling with it for a while, gaining experience with how it feels in both the heart and the mind, and then applying it, as the Lord told Oliver to do in section 8. This revealed recipe for receiving revelation is a lot more than the common refrain, “just pray about it.” Revelation seldom comes so cheaply.

The Lord promised Oliver other opportunities to translate later, but for now he was to finish what he had started, scribing the Book of Mormon. Oliver was faithful to that charge, as the manuscripts in his handwriting attest.[3] Years later he testified, “That book is true. Sidney Rigdon did not write it. Mr Spaulding did not write it. I wrote it myself as it fell from the lips of the prophet.”[4]

Section 6 notes

[1] “History, circa Summer 1832,” p. [6], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-summer-1832/6 .

[2] “History, circa Summer 1832,” p. [6], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-summer-1832/6 . “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 15, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/21.

[3] James H. Hart, “About the Book of Mormon,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 9 Apr. 1884, 190; see also “Report of Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith,” Deseret News, 27 Nov. 1878, 674.

[4] In his famous 1741 sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Jonathan Edwards described “the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation.” John E. Smith, Harry S. Stout, and Kenneth P. Minkema, editors, A Jonathan Edwards Reader (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 90.

Section 7 notes

[1] “Revelation, April 1829–A [D&C 6],” The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-april-1829-a-dc-6/1.

[2] Adam Clarke, The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Text Carefully Printed from the Most Correct Copies of the Present Authorised Version, Including the Marginal Readings and Parallel Texts. . . . Vol. 1 (New York: J. Emory and B. Waugh, 1831), 631.

[3] “Account of John, April 1829–C [D&C 7],” The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/account-of-john-april-1829-c-dc-7/1.

[4] 1835 Doctrine & Covenants 33:1 (D&C 7:2).

[5] “Doctrine and Covenants, 1835,” p. 161, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/doctrine-and-covenants-1835/169.

[6] Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple (1980), 83. Edward L. Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 2005), 108, 327.

Section 8 notes

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 16, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/22.

[2] “Revelation, April 1829–B [D&C 8],” p. 13, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-april-1829-b-dc-8/2. Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 73. Robert J. Woodford, “Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants,” (Brigham Young University, PhD dissertation, 1974): 185-89.

[3] See all of Alma 37. Also 1 Nephi 16:29, Mosiah 8:15-18, D&C 10:1, JS-H 1:62.

Section 9 notes

[1] “Revelation Book 1,” p. 14, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 22, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-book-1/8.

[2] Oliver Cowdery, Norton, OH, to William W. Phelps, 7 Sept. 1834, LDS Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1834, 1:14.

[3] Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, circa August 1829-circa January 1830, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/printers-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-august-1829-circa-january-1830/1. Book of Mormon Original Manuscript (1829) https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/content/library/book-of-mormon-original-manuscript-1829?lang=eng.

[4] See Reuben Miller’s journal, 1848-1849, Church History Library, MS 1392, https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/record?id=0448e354-d892-4ea7-9e2a-28b714114909&compId=22222322-f4fe-41e3-aa86-bfc54b94df92&view=browse.

Do you know how old Joseph was when he saw his first vision?

Why is this even a question? Doesn’t everyone know that Joseph Smith was 14 when he saw God and Jesus Christ in a grove? The answer is no. Some people think they know. That’s not the same as knowing.

So was Joseph 14 or not?

He probably was. Why the qualifier? Because the evidence shows that the answer isn’t so simple. The evidence says that Joseph began worrying about his soul when he was about 12. He continued to do so through his early teens. His memory of his age at the time of his vision was vague. Joseph usually remembered his age at the time as an afterthought.

Joseph’s 1832 autobiography says

“At about the age of twelve years my mind become seriously imprest with regard to the all importent concerns for the well fare of my immortal soul.” That led Joseph to search the scriptures and observe churches and Christians. He concluded that the scriptures and the versions of Christianity didn’t match. Joseph felt grief as a result. In 1832, he remembered that this process lasted “from the age of twelve to fifteen.”

Joseph did not specify his age in the 1832 account

He said simply that “while in the attitude of calling upon the Lord a piller of light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee.” Frederick Williams later inserted the words “in the 16th year of my age” into the clause quoted above. No one knows whether Joseph told Frederick to do so or why he wrote “16th year.” Some people may think they know. That’s not the same as knowing.

Joseph’s scribe recorded

an 1835 telling of the vision in Joseph’s journal. In that telling, the last thing Joseph says about the vision is, “I was about 14 years old when I received this first communication.” On that day at least, his age at the time of the vision was an afterthought, and he approximated it. That line contrasts with the intense and emotional lines before it. The foreground in this memory is of discovering the truth, overcoming the unseen power that startled him, praying, seeing divine beings, and being filled with joy. His age at the time is background. It was important enough to him to try to recall at the end but not more important than that.

In his manuscript history

Joseph remembered that unusual religious excitement started “in my fifteenth year.” He was, in other words, fourteen. Of all the accounts, this one does the best job of establishing a date and situating Joseph in time: early spring, 1820. Compared to the others, this memory is uncharacteristically sharp about Joseph’s age and the date of the vision. Joseph remembered later in this account, “I was an obscure boy only between fourteen and fifteen years of age,” after which his scribe added “or thereabouts.” A later revision of this document is more typical. In it Joseph says he was “about 15 years old” during the “unusual religious excitement.” Estimating like that is typical of the way Joseph dated things in his vision memories. Certainty about dates and his age is uncharacteristic in his vision accounts. In his letter to John Wentworth, Joseph said, “When about fourteen years of age I began to reflect upon the importance of being prepared for a future state.”

The secondary accounts follow this pattern

Orson Pratt says, “When somewhere about fourteen or fifteen years old, he began seriously to reflect upon the necessity of being prepared for a future state.” Orson Hyde’s version is less wordy but no more precise: “When he had reached his fifteenth year, he began to think seriously . . . ” The journal of Levi Richards just says “when he was a youth he began to think about these things.” David Nye White quoted Joseph saying God “revealed himself to me first when I was about fourteen years old, a mere boy.” Alexander Neibaur’s journal entry doesn’t say anything about Joseph’s age at the time.

Those are the facts of the historical record

That’s the evidence we have on which to base an answer to the question with which we began: How old was Joseph Smith at his first vision? He typically said he was about fourteen, and usually as an afterthought. Once he said clearly that he was fourteen. His scribe added, “or thereabouts.” Another scribe said he was fifteen. Some people interpret the vagueness and variety as evidence that Joseph didn’t see the Father and the Son. Some people think they know that he could not possibly mis-remember his age if he actually saw a vision. That’s not the same as knowing.

Joseph didn’t remember exactly how old he was

He didn’t claim to. He claimed to see the Father and the Son. He knew that God knew it. He couldn’t deny it. “Some said he was dishonest, others said he was mad, and he was ridiculed and reviled, but . . . he had seen a vision. He knew he had, and all the persecution under heaven could not make it otherwise.”

How will you study Joseph Smith’s First Vision: Some thoughts on seeking, assuming, and knowing

In philosophical terms, Joseph’s first vision is epistemological (e-pis-tem-a-loj-i-cal). Epistemology is the philosophy of knowing. It seeks answers to such questions as: What is knowledge? What do I know? How do I know? Joseph’s vision is about knowing. “How to act I did not know,” he said about his pre-vision self. But after the vision he knew. “I had seen a vision, I knew it, and I knew that God knew it.”

“For how to act I did not know.” History, circa June 1839 – circa 1841. [Draft 2] P. 2 – The Joseph Smith Papers

This post is also epistemological

I’m asking, what can be known of Joseph’s experience and how? I recognize that there are severe limits on what I can know about the vision and how. But there are things I can know and some good methods of knowing. So I’m seeking answers based on the historical method and on spiritual experience.

We can only know through Joseph

He was the only witness. He created the evidence we have to evaluate. It is best to seek learning by faithfully studying Joseph’s accounts. It is worst to assume what his experience must have been like and how he would respond to it. But that’s exactly what many people do.

“I had seen a vision, I knew it, and I knew that God knew it.” History, circa June 1839 – circa 1841 [Draft 2] P. 4 – The Joseph Smith Papers

Many people do hypothetical history

That’s when a person imagines how the past should have been rather than working to discover how it actually was. One problem with hypothetical history is that it’s easy to disprove. For example, without ever looking at the evidence, some assume that if Joseph saw God and Christ he would obviously tell his family right away. He would remember his precise age at the time. He would write the experience immediately. And surely he would relate it the same every time he told it. None of those assumptions is supported by Joseph’s accounts of his vision.

Joseph’s way of knowing can be our way of knowing

In other words, if we seek as Joseph did, we can come to know what he knew as he knew. A well-known statement of this is Moroni 10:3-5 in the Book of Mormon. Sometimes people sum up this passage as, “just pray about it,” but those few words hardly capture the formula, which includes more than one hundred carefully chosen words. It says you need two ingredients to begin: someone’s testimony or statement, and the ability to test its veracity. We must have the testimony in order to verify it. But simply knowing about a testimony is not the same as knowing that it is true. So Moroni says we have to do extensive brain work: reading, remembering, pondering, all with real intent or focused purpose. We also have to add spiritual work: faith in Jesus Christ, sincerity, prayer. When a seeker invests all of the required elements—intellectual and spiritual—the promise is that “by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:5).

Verses 3-5 of Moroni 10 from an original Book of Mormon

An early Latter-day Saint newspaper article explained this way of knowing

“Search the revelations which we publish, and ask your heavenly Father, in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, to manifest the truth unto you, and if you do it with an eye single to his glory, nothing doubting, he will answer you by the power of his Holy Spirit: You will then know for yourselves and not for another: You will not then be dependent on man for the knowledge of God.”

The principle of independent verification by revelation

That’s how Dallin H. Oaks described this epistemology. Simply put, it’s seeking. There are other ways to think about knowledge. Rationalism and the scientific method emphasize observation and the intellect but discount spiritual possibilities or dimensions of knowing. These epistemologies are good at revealing proximate truths but fail when it comes to knowing ultimate ones. They can’t verify the existence of God, or whether he appeared to Joseph in a grove.

These ways of knowing are appealing

They provide satisfying certainty about perplexing problems like the causes of sickness or natural disasters. They are good at explaining how, but incapable of ultimately explaining why some things happen. They are powerless to verify or disprove Joseph Smith’s testimony of his first vision. People who think in these ways alone can assume, as one scholar did that “the revelation to Moses as recorded in the Old Testament can hardly be taken literally as an event in which the Divine handed over or dictated to Moses Ten Commandments,” but he doesn’t know that. He stated it forcefully as a foregone conclusion but it’s still just a personal opinion based on his assumption about what is possible.

Agnosticism, or not knowing, is another alternative

It is the conviction that ultimate things are unknowable. As with Joseph Smith’s epistemology, agnosticism is based on personal experience, or lack thereof, with God. Agnostics know that they don’t know, and some agnostics assume that no one else knows either.

From all the alternative ways of knowing, Joseph Smith chose to be a seeker

The Oxford English Dictionary defines seek as to approach or draw near to God in prayer. It defines a seeker as “a searcher, and explorer, one who endeavors to find something hidden or lost, as in seeker after truth.” Joseph Smith recognized that he lacked the ultimate knowledge of salvation. He desired it badly. He thought, read, observed, analyzed, and finally prayed to find it. He worked hard for it. He struggled. Seeking is active, not passive. Seeking is not spiritual or intellectual. Seeking is spiritual and intellectual. Seeking requires the whole soul, all of one’s faculties. Seeking is the investment of one’s best brain work, spiritual sensitivities, moral judgments, and emotional vulnerabilities. Seeking is humble. Seeking is hard. And seeking is ultimately satisfying.

Assuming is the enemy of seeking

Assume has many definitions. The ones meant here are to pretend to possess, to put forth claims or pretensions, to take for granted as the basis of argument or action, to suppose. To assume is to avoid the hard work of seeking. Assumptions are not knowledge, but often those who hold them do not discern the difference. At best, assumptions are hypotheses—the beginning, not the end, of knowledge. At worst, assumptions masquerade as knowledge, pacifying those who hold them and keeping them from seeking. Assumptions thus prevent us from ultimate knowing. Assuming is intellectually and spiritually lazy. It is arrogant. It is easy. And, though temporarily attractive, it is ultimately unsatisfying and it can be spiritually devastating.

D&C 88:118: “And as all have not ^afaith, seek ye diligently and ^bteach one another words of ^cwisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best ^dbooks words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.”

Seeking is a commandment

Over and over the scriptures enjoin us to seek. A single verse, Doctrine and Covenants section 88:118, commands three times that we should seek. It tells us why to seek: because we lack faith. It tells us what to seek: learning. It tells where to seek: out of the best books. It tells us how to seek: diligently, as well as by study and also by faith. Similar instructions are everywhere in the scriptures. Sometimes the command to seek is modified by an adverb, as in seek diligently, or seek earnestly (D&C D&C 46:6, 88:118). Sometimes we are told what to seek (Amos 5:4-6, 14; D&C 6:16; 11:7, 21; 25:10; 46:8, 88:118; Jacob 2:18). Sometimes the scriptures say what not to seek (D&C 6:7; 11:7; 22:4; 66:10; Jacob 4:10; Alma 39:14). Some of the most beautiful passages are the ones that attach specific promises to seeking. “Seek the Lord, and ye shall live,” says one (Amos 5:6), an if/then formulation reiterated in the Doctrine and Covenants: “Seek the face of the Lord always, that in patience ye may possess your souls, and ye shall have eternal life” (101:38; see also 11:23, 88:83). Seeking is the means to knowing God. We could spend a long time profitably studying the scriptures that teach us how and what and where to seek.

There are no scriptural instructions to assume

This philosophical and dictionary work has a lot to do with the way we decide to study Joseph Smith’s first vision. Anyone concerned about knowing whether Joseph told the truth approaches the issue either as a seeker or as an assumer. A seeker comes to the quest open-minded, open-hearted, desiring to know whether and in what ways Joseph’s testimony is true and willing to use any means—spiritual and intellectual—to gain that knowledge. An assumer, whether believing or unbelieving, pre-supposes that they have knowledge. What more is there for them to learn? They are narrow-minded, closed to at least some of the possible means of knowing. Rather than hold assumptions tentatively and subject them to testing and verification, assumers have already arrived at the conclusion. They do not want to know any more. They do not seek to know every bit of evidence Joseph left us, asking what it might reveal. Rather, they pick and choose bits that match their assumptions.

The historical method

Is the means that seekers can use to gain knowledge of the accounts of Joseph’s vision. It is a disciplined way of thinking that identifies and sorts different kinds of information. It seeks knowledge of the past from those who created the knowledge. It discerns the difference between historical facts and interpretations of the facts or opinions about them. Historical facts are pieces of knowledge about the past than can be verified, and that are the same regardless of how one chooses to interpret them.

Here are some historical facts

Joseph Smith, Jr., son of Lucy Mack and Joseph Smith, was born in Vermont in 1805
Several documents created by Joseph Smith and his associates declare that he experienced a vision
These documents were written in the 1830s and 1840s

Those are historical truths that can be verified using the historical method. Notice, however, how little these facts actually reveal. The historical method is limited. It can tell us whether Joseph Smith was born in Vermont in 1805. It cannot tell us whether he was visited by God in New York in 1820. It can show us several documents that testify that Joseph envisioned heavenly beings. It cannot tell us whether his testimony is true or false. It can prove that the documents were written in the 1830s and 40s. It cannot prove whether they accurately represent Joseph’s experience in the grove. The historical facts do not prove or disprove whether Joseph experienced a vision.

Seekers need more than the historical method

The combination of seeking by study and by faith enables seekers to discern whether Joseph’s accounts tell the truth. The foremost historians of the first vision are seekers of the study and faith variety. They are disciplined, highly skilled students of the historical method who were trained in esteemed universities. And they choose to exercise faith in Jesus Christ and seek to know by spiritual and intellectual means.

What about people who lose their faith after learning of the multiple first vision accounts

I have visited with and studied many of these sincere souls. Compared to the first vision scholars, they are ignorant of the evidence and of the historical method of studying it. They are generally poorly-informed people who assumed they were well-informed. Their crisis of faith began when they encountered evidence that overturned their assumptions. They did not practice a disciplined method of seeking. They did not seek by diligent, systematic study as well as by faith. Googling is not a synonym for seeking, nor is depending on secondary evidence or antagonistic witnesses. The hard work of seeking by study and by faith often prevents the painful process these people experience.

Joseph was a seeker

He not only created historical documents that testify that he experienced a heavenly vision. He also left us evidence of his effective epistemology, his way of knowing. By richly documenting his first vision, Joseph gave us a testimony to verify and illustrated how it could be done.

In 2020, I’ll post all year about Joseph Smith’s First Vision and the Book of Mormon. Subscribe if you’re a seeker, or want to be. Leave me a comment if you have questions about the First Vision or the Book of Mormon you want to discuss. Finally, share these posts with anyone you think they might edify or help.