Foundations of the Restoration Archives

Three Lines from Hymn 26: Joseph Smith’s First Prayer

Optional Reading: Richard L. Bushman, “What Can We Learn from the First Vision”

Memorize and internalize concepts in bold typeface.

When the powers of sin assailing filled his soul with deep despair, Joseph Smith sought the God of love. His humble prayer was answered. He found the living, loving, God. So can you.

George Manwaring, a British convert and self-taught composer, was inspired by a painting of Joseph Smith’s first vision by the Danish artist C.C.A. Christensen. So Manwaring composed a hymn about it that begins like this:

Oh, how lovely was the morning!

Radiant beamed the sun above.

Bees were humming, sweet birds singing

Music ringing thru the grove,

When within the shady woodland

Joseph sought the God of love. . .

Humbly kneeling, sweet appleaing—

‘Twas the boy’s first uttered prayer—

We will read the accounts of Joseph Smith’s first vision together in class, and later lessons will introduce source criticism (how we know what we know) of them. This lesson shows how three lines from George Manwaring’s hymn go right to the heart of Joseph’s experience.

The powers of sin filled Joseph with deep despair

In 1832, Joseph wrote a brief autobiography including this passage about his early teens

“At about the age of twelve years my mind become seriously imprest with regard to the all importent concerns of for the well fare of my immortal Soul which led me to search ing the scriptures believeing as I was taught, that they contained the word of God thus applying myself to them and my intimate acquaintance with those of differant denominations led me to marvel excedingly for I discovered that <they did not adorn>instead of adorning their profession by a holy walk and Godly conversation agreeable to what I found contained in that sacred depository this was a grief to my Soul thus from the age of twelve years to fifteen I pondered many things in my heart concerning the sittuation of the world of mankind the contentions and divi[si]ons the wicke[d]ness and abominations and the darkness which pervaded the of the minds of mankind my mind become excedingly distressed for I become convicted of my sins . . . “

Have you ever wondered why Joseph Smith said that his “mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect, and I felt some desire to be united with them” (Joseph Smith-History 1:8)

Or why he told his mother after his first vision, “I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true” (Joseph Smith-History 1:20)

Until I studied other Christian theologies and histories, Joseph’s words meant nothing to me. Now I realize that those two lines are enormously meaningful. They say so much about what Joseph was looking for. They reveal the terrible dilemma Joseph struggled to resolve. The nature of God is at stake in that dilemma. So is salvation. To get a sense of Joseph’s dilemma we will need a sampling of both Presbyterianism and of Methodism

As we learned in our last lesson, the Presbyterian God is sovereign. That’s the most important thing about Him. He is in control. He might decide to save you but he is much more likely to damn you. And there is nothing you, in your totally depraved fallenness, can do about it. His will is mysterious, arbitrary, sovereign. And he abhors you….

Remember the haunting line from the famous Jonathan Edwards sermon, “The God that holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider, or some loathsome Insect, over the Fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his Wrath towards you burns like Fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the Fire . . . “

It’s overly simple to say that the Presbyterian God abhorred people and the Methodist God didn’t, but the contrast helps us see a difference that meant a lot to Joseph. Methodists emphasized that God so loved the world that He sent His Only Begotten Son, and people could choose to come to Christ and receive a gift of His grace. When they did they would be born again. A few would see visions, more would feel pure joy, and many would shout for joy. That’s what this image depicts:

Joseph Sought the God of Love

Now try to imagine what it was like to be Joseph. He knows he is sinful and needs Jesus Christ. He does not know whether (the Presbyterian) God had already damned him to eternal hell by his arbitrary sovereign will. As the heir of Adam’s fall, Joseph somehow deserved hell, though he did nothing to cause his own fall and there was nothing he could do to change it. Joseph didn’t like Presbyterianism but his teenage sinfulness lead him to think–even fear– it was probably true.

Joseph attended Methodist revival meetings where he was called to come to Christ. Everyone around him felt the power of God and Joseph said he “wanted to get Religion too wanted to feel & shout like the Rest but could feel nothing.”[1]

His family tradition told him that the scriptures and sound reason led to truth, but he faced a terrible conflict between his head and his heart. His heart had him hoping that Methodism (Arminian theology) was right, but he tried and tried and couldn’t produce any evidence to support that hope. He wanted to feel and shout, but felt nothing.

So his head led him to believe that Presbyterianism (Calvinist theology) must be right—but that’s an awful possibility and he didn’t want to conclude it was true if any better option was open.

He tells himself over and over that maybe they’re all wrong, but he doesn’t dare let that thought sink into his heart because he’s convicted of his sins and desperately in need of the Savior’s forgiveness (Joseph Smith-History 1:10, 18). He can’t figure out this dilemma. Then he experiences the epiphany that comes from reading James 1:5.

He realizes that he can ask of God, and he makes an early morning trip to the woods to ask in faith. In his 1838/39 Manuscript History, Joseph described it this way:

“In the midst of this war of words, and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself, what is to be done? Who of all these parties are right? Or are they all wrong together? and if any one of them be right which is it? And how shall I know it? While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, First Chapter and fifth verse which reads, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.[”] Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man that this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did, for how to act I did not know and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had [I] would never know, for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same [p. 2] passage of Scripture so differently as <to> destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible. At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion or else I must do as James directs, that is, Ask of God. I at last came to the determination to ask of God, concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally and not upbraid, I might venture.”

Joseph’s Humble Prayer was Answered: He Saw the Living (Loving) God

In a November 1835 journal entry, Joseph’s scribe recorded this telling:

“being wrought up in my mind, respecting the subject of religion and looking upon <at> the different systems taught the children of men, I knew not who was right or who was wrong and concidering it of the first importance that I should be right, in matters that involved eternal consequences; being thus perplexed in mind I retired to the silent grove and bowd down before the Lord, under a realising sense that he had said (if the bible be true) ask and you shall receive knock and it shall be opened seek and you shall find and again, if any man lack wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all men libarally and upbradeth not; information was what I most desired at this time, and with a fixed determination I to obtain it, I called upon the Lord for the first time, in the place above stated or in other words I made a fruitless attempt to pray, my toung seemed to be swolen in my mouth, so that I could not utter, I heard a noise behind me like some person walking towards me, <I> strove again to pray, but could not, the noise of walking seemed to draw nearer, I sprung up on my feet, and [p. 23] and looked around, but saw no person or thing that was calculated to produce the noise of walking, I kneeled again my mouth was opened and my toung liberated, and I called on the Lord in mighty prayer, a pillar of fire appeared above my head, it presently rested down upon my <me> head, and filled me with joy unspeakable, a personage appeard in the midst, of this pillar of flame which was spread all around, and yet nothing consumed, another personage soon appeard like unto the first, he said unto me thy sins are forgiven thee, he testifyed unto me that Jesus Christ is the son of God . . . “

When the powers of sin assailing filled his soul with deep despair, Joseph sought the God of love. His humble prayer was answered. He found the living, loving God.

Joseph recorded his testimony of this experience often. His earliest accounts emphasize his successful quest for God’s forgiveness.

When the power of sin has assailed my soul, I have also sought the living, loving God. My prayers have been answered less dramatically than Joseph’s but with the same redeeming love. I testify that Joseph sought and found the God of love. So can you.

So much is at stake over whether his testimony of this experience is true or not. Seekers should become the best informed analysts of Joseph’s vision accounts. So in class we will introduce the known accounts of Joseph Smith’s first vision and practice source criticism.

How Apostasy Shaped a Family that was Ripe for Restoration

Required Reading: Terryl L. Givens, “Lightning Out of Heaven”

Optional Reading: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

Memorize and internalize concepts in bold typeface.

Remember: “Long before Joseph Smith offered his first prayer, thousands and millions of people must have yearned, as Sarah did, for the assurance that God was not the severe, distant, impersonal deity of Jonathan Edwards, but the kind, loving, and very personal God that Joseph found in the Sacred Grove” (Terryl L. Givens, “Lightening Out of Heaven”)

In 1741, Presbyterian minister Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) delivered the most famous sermon in American history:

The God that holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider, or some loathsome Insect, over the Fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his Wrath towards you burns like Fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the Fire; he is of purer Eyes than to bear to have you in his Sight . . . . and yet ‘tis nothing but his Hand that holds you from falling into the Fire ever Moment . . . .

The 16th century (1500s) reformation of Christianity produced variant theologies. The ones that most concern us are Calvinism and Arminianism.

Presbyterians like Jonathan Edwards were Calvinist. Their soteriology, or doctrine of salvation, is a variant of the theology of John Calvin (1509-1564).

Followers of John Calvin (1509-1564) emphasize God’s complete and total sovereignty: They use the acronym TULIP:

Total depravity of mankind: all people are completely fallen and powerless

Unconditional election: God will (mercifully) save few and (justly) damn most

Limited atonement: Christ atoned only for the few who will be saved

Irresistible grace: No one to whom God gives grace can opt out of it

Perseverance of the saved: If God elects you to be saved you will be saved

Joseph Smith’s ancestors were British Calvinists (Puritans, Pilgrims). Puritans wanted to purify or restore the Church of England (Anglican). They settled in New England (Massachusetts, Connecticut) in the 1600s and 1700s.

Jonathan Edwards was a young divinity student at Yale in the early 1700s. He wrote a note in the front of his Greek grammar book about the rumors he’d heard about Sarah Pierrepont:

“They say there is a young lady in [New Haven] who is loved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and . . . this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on Him. . . .” (Quoted in Iain H. Murray, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography [Banner of Truth, 1987], 92).

In 1727, Sarah (17) married Jonathan (27). They both loved God, but Sarah thought of him differently than her husband did:

One day while listening to a prayer she had a deep desire to “call God my Father” and wondered whether she really could. When she prayed privately she felt “the presence of God was so near, and so real, that I seemed scarcely conscious of any thing else. God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, seemed as distinct persons, both manifesting their inconceivable loveliness, and mildness, and gentleness, and their great . . .love to me.” Sarah struggled to communicate, as Joseph would a century later, “the peace and happiness, which I hereupon felt.” It “was altogether inexpressible” (Sarah Edwards, in Works of President Edwards, vol. 1, pp. 172–73; italics in original; see also George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003), 243–44.

Methodists and many Baptists are Arminian. Their soteriology follows the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609), who started out Calvinist but changed his views.

Calvinism emphasizes the fallen nature of mankind, so does Arminianism (so does the Book of Mormon at 2 Nephi 2:29, Mosiah 3:19, and Ether 3:2). But where Calvinism teaches that God will save a few from the fall unconditionally, Arminianism emphasizes scriptures that make God’s blessings conditional (think of James 1:5-6).

So Arminians believe Christ performed an unlimited atonement so that all who choose to act on God’s conditions may be saved.

Calvinists believe that a person cannot resist God’s grace (because then God wouldn’t be sovereign); Arminians believe a person can choose to receive God’s grace.

In May 1738, an Anglican minister in his mid-30s, John Wesley, was listening to a sermon in London when he felt the Holy Ghost assure him that Christ had atoned for his sins. He became a powerful preacher of Arminianism. After his death in 1791, Wesley’s followers founded the Methodist Church.

In the 1770s when Joseph Smith’s parents were born and his grandparents were trying to figure out which church to join, Universalism began to gain popularity. Universalism is the doctrine that God will save everyone.

Calvinism was justified by a selective reading of Paul’s teachings. Universalism was justified by a selective reading of John’s teachings. God is love. Why would a loving God with power to save people damn anyone?

It may seem like Universalism and Calvinism are complete opposites but they both assert that God does all the decision making. Neither includes what Latter-day Saints call agency. In both Calvinism and Universalism, people don’t choose to accept or reject God’s plan of salvation through Christ, God makes all the choices.

Deism is the idea that God created the universe and lets it run, but he doesn’t reveal himself through prophets or scriptures. Reason is the revelation of Deism. Unlike the other isms, Deism doesn’t begin with the story of fallen Adam and Eve, and if there was no fall, there’s no need for a redeemer. Deism is more philosophy than religion. Deism’s Jesus is more philosopher than Savior.

These isms and others competed with each other, creating conflict, instability, anxiety, fear, and leading to faith in the lives of Joseph Smith’s grandparents and parents.

Between the dates when and places where his parents were born, there was a shot heard round the world that sparked the American Revolution. Political and spiritual doctrines of self-determination swept America at the same time. We can see that expansion of individual liberty, economic opportunity, and religious freedom were wonderful, but people who lived through it were as anxious and unsettled as we are in our uncertain times. By the time Lucy Mack gave birth to Joseph twenty-five years later, a second great awakening had many people asking anew what, if anything, they could do to obtain salvation in Christ.

By the time Joseph went into the grove, Methodism was the largest Church in the country (Gaustad, Historical Atlas of Religion in America, 2d ed. 1976, p. 4). That growth curve is staggering.

What would it have been like for Joseph Smith’s future parents, whose world underwent political, religious, and economic revolution in their first 30 years?

If you’re Lucy (Joseph’s mother), your Calvinist mother has been your stabilizing force. Your father is wildly unpredictable, though he recently converted to Christianity after years of what was called “infidelity,” meaning a lack of faith.

If you’re Joseph Senior, your father has also made a dramatic change from belonging to a Congregational (Calvinistic) Church to Universalism. He taught you that God loves you and that you should love God, pray earnestly, be pious, and have contempt for self-righteousness. He taught that the way to truth is a combination of “scripture and sound reason.” God is no respecter of persons and that Jesus Christ “can as well save all as any”

If you’re newly-wed Joseph and Lucy you have no church. You are, in fact, the first members of your family for several generations to not belong somewhere. You have Calvinism and Universalism and Deism in your blood and Arminianism in the air. Each of them is contending for your attention and your soul, but you don’t belong to any of them.

You worry about how you’ll support your growing family and what you’ll tell the children when they ask you if they need to be saved, and if so how.

You’re Christian—you believe that the answer will center on Jesus Christ, but whose Christ? Which doctrine of salvation will you teach them? You don’t agree—with your parents, with each other, or even with yourself:

Lucy

feared dying before conversion
promised God she’d seek true Church and tried several options
some church is better than no church

Joseph Sr

dreamed anxious dreams
disgusted with “formalist” clergy
no church is better than the wrong church

Lucy wrote a really important memoir. In it she described how the conflict between her and her husband came to a head:

“My mind became deeply impressed with the subject of religion. . . . I endeavored to persuade my husband to attend the Methodist meeting with me he went a few times to grat[ify] me for he had so little faith in the doctrines taught by them that my feelings were the only inducement for him to go— But as soon as his Father and brother Jesse [Smith] heard that we were attending methodist meeting they were much displeased and his father came to the door one day and threw Tom Pain’s age of reason into the house and angrily bade him read that untill he believed it they also told him that he ought not to let his wife go to the meetings and it would be far better for him to stop going . . . My husband requested me not to go . . . . I was very much hurt by this but did not reply to him then but retired to a grove of handsome wild cherry trees and prayed to the Lord that he <would> do so influence the heart of my husband that he would be <one day> induced to rec[ei]ve the Gospel whenever it was preached. I [s]pent some time in prayer and returned to the house much depressed in spirits. That night I had the following dream—”

“. . . I stood in a large and beautiful meadow, . . . I discovered two . . . trees . . . on the same side of the stream. These trees were very beautiful: they were well proportioned, and towered with majestic beauty to a great hight; . . . and after beholding them a short time, a bright light surrounded one of them. . . . Presently a gentle breeze passed by; and the trees encircled with this golden zone, bent gracefully before the wind and waved its beautiful branches [p. 49] in the light air. . . .”

“I turned my eyes upon its fellow . . . but it was not surrounded with the belt of light . . . no matter how strong the wind blew over it, not a leaf was stirred, not a bow was bent; but obstinately stiff it stood . . . . I wondered at what I saw, and said in my heart, what can be the meaning of all this. And the interpretation given me was, that these [trees] personated my husband and his oldest brother (Jesse Smith); that the stubborn unyielding tree, was like Jesse, and the other, more pliable and flexible one, was Joseph [Smith Sr.] (my husband): that the breath of heaven which passed over them, was the pure and undefiled gospel of the son of God; which gospel— Jesse would always resist; but, when Joseph should be more advanced in life, that [p. 50] he would hear the pure gospel, receive it with his whole heart, and rejoice therein . . .” (“Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845,” p. 48, The Joseph Smith Papers).

And remember that among the revelators who experienced manifestations of God’s love and assurances that restoration was on the way, there were women including Sarah Pierrepont and Lucy Mack Smith.

Joseph’s parents were among the seekers who were ripe for restoration. In the next lesson we will see how three lines from hymn 26 highlight the way the restoration got started.

Starting Right: How an Assumption Led to Apostasy

Required Reading: “Becoming Like God”

Optional Reading: Matthew J. Grey, “The Apostolic Fathers as Witnesses to the Early Christian Apostasy”

Memorize and internalize concepts and dates in bold typeface.

Professor Stephen Webb (1961-2016) was a devout Christian but not a Latter-day Saint. He wrote the book Mormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn from the Latter-day Saints (2013). It says:

“The traditional view, which is often called classical theism, holds that God is utterly unique. God is not one of the things of this world. He is absolutely transcendent, and as such, God is utterly beyond the stretch of our imagination, let alone the range of our knowledge. We can know God only if and when God reveals himself to us, but even then we do not know God’s substance (or essence). . . . Classical theists think the idea that God is embodied is nonsensical. It is like saying squares are round. If it is the nature of God to be pure spirit, then by definition God cannot have or be a body. Classical theism was slow to develop in the church [Christianity] and did not receive its most systematic treatment until the work of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), but most Christians today share its assumption that God is immaterial” (pages 4-5).

The most important thing to internalize from this lesson is the contrast between the restored truths God revealed about himself to Joseph Smith and classical theism

How classical theism’s assumption that God is immaterial came to have a hold on Christianity:

- - Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born of a virgin, crucified for the sins of the world, resurrected, and ascended into heaven after promising to return someday
  - That, at least, was the testimony of eyewitnesses of his majesty–apostles he chose and ordained
  - They contributed to biographies of Jesus and a history of their acts as apostles
  - The epistemology (or way of knowing) of these records is eyewitness testimony–they knew because they were witnesses. That is a posteriori knowledge, a little Latin that means based on experience
  - Eyewitness accounts were compiled and recorded in the Bible–we know their testimonies because they were recorded in historical records
  - In their historical records, apostles prophesied apostasy
  - In their letters to Christians, apostles documented apostasy
  - By about 100 AD there were no more active apostles
  - Theologians replaced apostles and theology replaced experience and eyewitnesses
  - Theology is typically a priori, a little Latin that describes knowledge gained from reasoning and deduction
  - Theologians reasoned and deduced based on teachings of Parmenides (born about 515 BC)
  - Philosophy professor James Faulconer wrote: “As he is usually interpreted, Parmenides gave careful, rational arguments that the transcendent ultimate must not only be unchanging, it must be unmoving, indivisible, unaffected, and outside time–since each of those things implies change.”
  - “When later thinkers began to think about the Jewish and Christian God philosophically–as they had to from at least the second century on–they tended to do so in Parmenides’s terms. Those were, after all, the intellectual common currency of the time, the ideas available to early Christian thinkers for explaining their belief to others. They could no more have thought in other terms than we could explain how our houses are lit without using the language of electricity.”
  - “Parmenides’s way of thinking about reality became an embedded cultural assumption. In fact, the Parmedian assumption was all the more powerful because it was unconscious. Not knowing they were making that assumption made it difficult for early Christians to avoid it” (Faulconer, Thinking Otherwise, 5-8).
  - Beginning in 325 AD, Roman emperors convened councils of bishops who were theologians
  - The councils agreed on creeds that codified the nature of God and Christ
  - Based on the Parmedian assumption, theologians decided, using words not found in scripture, that God and Christ were of one uncreated substance
  - This implied that God is immutable (does not ever change in any way) and impassible (cannot experience emotion, pleasure, pain, or anything that seems human)
  - When your Christian friends ask you if you are a Christian, they are asking if you accept these ideas about who and what God is. They are asking if you believe in the Christ of the Christian creeds

Artist’s depiction of Joseph Smith preaching at conference in Nauvoo in April 1844.

Imagine it’s April 7, 1844 in Nauvoo, Illinois. The Mississippi River is rolling along. The prairie grass and the trees are green. It smells like spring. It’s a very pleasant morning and by 10 AM thousands of saints have gathered in the open air to listen to the last General Conference talk Joseph Smith will ever give.

Joseph knows that he does not have long to live.[1] What will he say? He decides to speak in memory of “Beloved Brother King Follet” who recently died in an accident. Joseph asks the saints to pray that he would have the Holy Ghost and that the Lord would strengthen his lungs. Find the sources of this King Follett discourse, as it became known, and some source criticism, on The Joseph Smith Papers website. The sources include Wilford Woodruff’s journal entry. It’s Wilford’s best effort to reconstruct Joseph’s sermon.[2]

Joseph Smith’s journal entry for April 7, 1844.

“It is necessary for us to have an understanding of God at the beginning,” Joseph says. “If we get a good start first we can go right, but if you start wrong you may go wrong.”

Joseph asked: “What kind of a being is God? . . . have any of you seen or herd him or communed with him[?] . . . . The scriptures inform us that this is eternal life to know the ownly wise God & Jesus Christ whome He has sent. [So] . . . if you dont know God you have not eternal life. [So] . . . . find out what kind of a being God is.”

Joseph then testified: “God who sits in yonder heavens is a man like yourselves That GOD if you were to see him to day that holds the worlds you would see him like a man in form, like yourselves.”

Wilford Woodruff’s April 7, 1844 journal entry.

That radical, restored truth challenged classical theism. Joseph learned from God that the creeds were wrong (JSH 1:19 and Manuscript History A1). So Joseph rejected the assumption on which traditional Christianity is based. The God Joseph knew was not a theological abstraction. The God Joseph knew was mutable or capable of change, of becoming God. He was also passible, meaning that he not only had a body, he had passions. He could suffer. The God who revealed himself to Joseph Smith became God and was perfectly passible. Joseph taught that all people are children of God, with potential to become like him. Joseph taught that God, and later Christ, had become exalted, and that because of them we could become exalted too, but not overnight. “It will take a long time after the grave,” he said. Joseph taught: “You have got to learn how to make yourselves God, king and priest, by going from a small capacity to a great capacity to the resurrection of the dead, to dwelling in everlasting burnings . . . to be an heir of God & joint heir of Jesus Christ enjoying the same rise exhaltation & glory untill you arive at the station of a God.”

Joseph knew that he was speaking to converted Protestant Christians who might find his teachings challenging to their assumptions about God. So he turned to the first verse of the Bible and showed that his teachings were grounded in the Bible, not in Greek philosophy. He taught that the verb translated as created in Genesis 1:1 refers to organizing both spiritual and elemental matter into divine beings with power to become exalted as God is. From his Hebrew studies and from the Book of Abraham, Joseph knew that the word translated as God in Genesis 1:1 is plural–Gods. Gods created. “The Gods came together & concocked the plan of making the world & the inhabitants,” he said.

So Joseph rejected the traditional Christian–but not Biblical–doctrine that God created out of nothing, or ex nihilo. Wilford and thousands of others must have been on the edges of their seats, if they even had seats.

Joseph used the ring on his finger to illustrate what the Lord had revealed to him. There are two basic kinds of stuff–element and intelligence. Neither was created or made. They can’t be (DC 93). They’re like a ring, Joseph said, with no beginning and no end. God and people are made out of this stuff. God made people out of this stuff but did not make the stuff.

“The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge,” Joseph said. The Lord had taught him over the years that intelligence is the same as light, truth, life, law, glory, and power (DC 88, 93). God offers us intelligence on terms and conditions (laws of God). And we can accumulate intelligence by choosing to obey God’s laws (DC 51, 88, 93, 130). Put another way, we are endowed with God’s power when we keep covenants.

As Joseph put it, “God has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences that they may be exalted with himself.” Joseph declared that he knew these truths “by the revelations of Jesus Christ.”

In the quest for truth, we will start right if we understand that we belong to a Heavenly Family. We are here on purpose. We are children of Heavenly Parents, whose divine Son, Jesus Christ, was part of the plan from the very beginning to exalt us in their image—if that is what we want.

Professor Webb was really great at identifying and interrogating the assumption on which Christianity is based. He asked, “What if Joseph Smith’s vision of God really does have something important to say to all Christians today? What if his insight into the materiality of the divine is what the world today most needs to hear?” (Mormon Christianity, 8-9).

The assumption about God that is embedded in the creeds of Christianity led to apostasy. In the next lesson we will see how apostasy shaped a family that was ripe for restoration.

Notes

[1] “Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845,” p. 241, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed May 18, 2022, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/249; https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/part-1/1-2/1-2-7?lang=eng; Woodruff, Journal, Apr. 9, 1842, and July 28, 1844.

[2] “Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by Wilford Woodruff,” p. [133], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed May 18, 2022, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-7-april-1844-as-reported-by-wilford-woodruff/1.