Russell M. Nelson Archives - Steven C. Harper

Our Contingent Constitution

On September 17, 1787 (236 years ago this month), thirty-nine delegates signed the United States Constitution. It begins with these words:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It took four months of intense and divisive closed-door debates in Philadelphia to get the Constitution signed, and that was only the first precarious step in a long, high-stakes fight over whether it would ever become the basis of our government.

One state had refused to send delegates to the convention at all. Many delegates had left the convention early. Three delegates who stayed refused to sign. Once the Constitution was signed it still had to be ratified by at least nine of the thirteen states. And some of America’s most persuasive and patriotic leaders were outspokenly opposed to it, including Samuel Adams, George Mason, and Patrick Henry.

James Madison was a proponent of the Constitution. He realized mid way through the convention that he could not get everything he wanted. So he had to choose between getting some of what he wanted or none of what he wanted. Wisely, he chose to compromise. He had argued that the Constitution did not need a bill of rights, but he lost that fight and, in the end, saw the wisdom of including ten amendments to the Constitution that forbade the government from encroaching on freedom of religion, of speech, of assembly, and to petition or protest, among others.

President Dallin H. Oaks taught,

Without a Bill of Rights, America could not have served as the host nation for the Restoration of the gospel, which began just three decades later.

James Madison’s example, and the June 1, 2023 letter from the First Presidency together with recent teachings from President Nelson and President Oaks, highlight the point I want to make in this post. It is that we need to live in tension without giving way to contention. In other words: In order to form a more perfect union, we must do the difficult work of holding firmly to what the Lord called “just and holy principles” while we humble ourselves, learn from other children of God whose views differ from ours, and find common ground for the general welfare.

President Oaks taught, “on contested issues, we should seek to moderate and unify.” He models how to do that while upholding just and holy principles. Some people have been critical of him for it. They are free to be so. But it was only by making concessions and accepting the wisdom of others’ points of view that James Madison got the Constitution through both the convention and the ratification process.

The Constitution is contingent. It always hangs by what Joseph Smith called “a brittle thread” (Burgess, James. Journal, 1841–1848. CHL. MS 1858). That thread is vulnerable to being severed when we the people pridefully choose parties over principles. President Oaks’s 2021 General Conference talk, “Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution” uses the word principle(s) 22 times. There is something important for us to understand about standing on principles.

Many troubling studies have shown that people (of all parties) tend to be more loyal to their party than to their principles.Voters are even more willing to sacrifice democratic principles for partisan interests when the electorate is highly polarized, as ours is. And lots of troubling evidence shows that unprincipled, partisan voters support candidates who violate the voter’s principles. We often overlook or justify the evil of our candidate when we would condemn or vilify the same behavior in the opposing candidate.

Living prophets have encouraged us to participate in politics, including in political parties, but they urge us to put revealed principles above all party loyalties. In 1833 the Lord revealed one principle that should always transcend party loyalty: “When the wicked rule,” he said, “the people mourn. Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil. And I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good.”

Earlier this year the First Presidency declared that “merely voting a straight ticket or voting based on ‘tradition’ without careful study of candidates and their positions on important issues is a threat to democracy and inconsistent with revealed standards (see Doctrine and Covenants 98:10).”

So the prophets have urged us “to spend the time needed to become informed about the issues and candidates you will be considering. Some principles compatible with the gospel may be found in various political parties, and members should seek candidates who best embody those principles. Members should also study candidates carefully and vote for those who have demonstrated integrity, compassion, and service to others, regardless of party affiliation.”

At the recent Joseph Smith Papers Conference, Spencer McBride, the best informed historian of Joseph Smith’s political thoughts and actions, said and illustrated that Joseph Smith’s politics were motivated by two principles above all others, namely political independence (not being the pawn of any party), and liberty and justice for all.

Before the 14th Amendment was added to the the Constitution and the Supreme Court interpreted its equal protection clause to apply to state and local governments, Missouri or any other state could issue executive orders to exterminate Latter-day Saints and the federal government said it would not, and maybe could not, do anything about it. That defect in the Constitution peeved Joseph Smith, and he vowed to do something about it. He was motivated by the principles the Lord had revealed to him earlier, in 1833, when the saints were driven–by men who owned other human beings–from their legally owned and occupied land in Jackson County, Missouri.

That detail about slavery is not tangential to understanding what the Lord revealed about the Constitution. It is at the heart of what the Lord revealed. He said that he had let it be established and that it “should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles.” The inclusion of all flesh, not just Americans, not just white people, not just men, is important and intentional. In the next verses the Lord highlights a major shortcoming of the Constitution that conflicts with his plan. He says that all flesh should be protected in their rights according to just and holy principles so that every person “may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every [one] may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. Therefore, it is not right that any [one] should be held in bondage one to another. And for this purpose,” the Lord continues, “have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose” (D&C 101).

This important revelation shows us that the Lord is bigger than the Constitution. He established it, not the other way around. President Oaks taught:

Our belief that the United States Constitution was divinely inspired does not mean that divine revelation dictated every word and phrase . . . . The Constitution was not “a fully grown document,” said President J. Reuben Clark. “On the contrary,” he explained, “we believe it must grow and develop to meet the changing needs of an advancing world.” For example, inspired amendments abolished slavery and gave women the right to vote.

In this sense the Lord himself compromised with the framers of the Constitution and didn’t originally get everything he wanted in it (or taken out of it). President Oaks continued:

What was God’s purpose in establishing the United States Constitution? We see it in the doctrine of moral agency. In the first decade of the restored Church, its members on the western frontier were suffering private and public persecution. Partly this was because of their opposition to the human slavery then existing in the United States. In these unfortunate circumstances, God revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith eternal truths about His doctrine.

God has given His children moral agency—the power to decide and to act. The most desirable condition for the exercise of that agency is maximum freedom for men and women to act according to their individual choices. Then, the revelation explains, “every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:78).

“Therefore,” the Lord revealed, “it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:79). This obviously means that human slavery is wrong. And according to the same principle, it is wrong for citizens to have no voice in the selection of their rulers or the making of their laws.

Joseph Smith taught that the time could come when “even this Nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to peices and tumbling to the ground and when the constitution is upon the brink of ruin this people will be the Staff up[on] which the Nation shall lean and they shall bear away the constitution away from the <very> verge of destruction.”

We can fulfill that prophecy, but unless we do it by following our living prophets, we are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. President Oaks warned about “threats that undermine the inspired principles of the United States Constitution.” He said:

“The stature of the Constitution is diminished by efforts to substitute current societal trends as the reason for its founding, instead of liberty and self-government. The authority of the Constitution is trivialized when candidates or officials ignore its principles. The dignity and force of the Constitution is reduced by those who refer to it like a loyalty test or a political slogan, instead of its lofty status as a source of authorization for and limits on government authority.”

The contingent Constitution hangs in the balance. Latter-day Saints are supposed to be among the people who preserve it. What can we do in order to form a more perfect union? We can follow the examples of our greatest presidents and the teachings of our living prophets.

Constitutional scholar Justin Collings recently showed how George Washington’s vital role in creating and preserving the Constitution hangs on five principles we can espouse. In addition to these, George Washington had what an eminent historian called a sense for power. Washington could could have seized power several times but he always laid it down instead. He surrendered his command of the Continental Army when the war of independence was won. He could have made himself a king like Napoleon did. Instead he handed power peacefully to his duly elected successor. He exemplified the Constitutional principle President Oaks described in these words:

We are to be governed by law and not by individuals, and our loyalty is to the Constitution and its principles and processes, not to any office holder. In this way, all persons are to be equal before the law. These principles block the autocratic ambitions that have corrupted democracy in some countries.

George Washington’s principled leadership showed us how to live by just and holy principles. Abraham Lincoln’s leadership extended those just and holy principles to all flesh, or at least to more of God’s children than ever before.

President Lincoln steered us safely through our greatest Constitutional crisis by followed a nearly perfect recipe of faithfulness to the just and holy principles of the divinely inspired Constitution, the humility to eagerly listen to others whose views differed from his, and the courage to act decisively for a more perfect union, the general welfare, the common defence, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

When his army won the war and his party won the White House for the second time, Abraham Lincoln could have put party over principles. He did just the opposite. He said to the deeply wounded country, “With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Lincoln was doing what Joseph Smith had taught years earlier when he read 1 Corinthians 13 on charity and said:

Don’t be limited in your views with regard to your neighbors’ virtues, but be limited towards your own virtues; and not think yourselves more righteous than others; you must enlarge your souls toward others if yould [you would?] do like Jesus, and carry your fellow creatures to Abram’s bosom.

This is akin to what President Oaks taught in October 2020 when he urged us to act on the Savior’s teaching to love our enemies. He said:

Knowing that we are all children of God gives us a divine vision of the worth of all others and the will and ability to rise above prejudice…. . As I have lived for many years in different places in this nation, the Lord has taught me that it is possible to obey and seek to improve our nation’s laws and also to love our adversaries and our enemies. While not easy, it is possible with the help of our Lord, Jesus Christ. He gave this command to love, and He promises His help as we seek to obey it.

President Nelson recently taught us the Savior’s command to be peacemakers:

… Venomous contention . . . infects our civic dialogue and too many personal relationships today. Civility and decency seem to have disappeared during this era of polarization and passionate disagreements. . . .

Too many pundits, politicians, entertainers, and other influencers throw insults constantly. I am greatly concerned that so many people seem to believe that it is completely acceptable to condemn, malign, and vilify anyone who does not agree with them. . . .

Anger never persuades. Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions. . . . .As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are to be examples of how to interact with others—especially when we have differences of opinion. One of the easiest ways to identify a true follower of Jesus Christ is how compassionately that person treats other people. . . . .

The Savior’s message is clear: His true disciples build, lift, encourage, persuade, and inspire—no matter how difficult the situation. True disciples of Jesus Christ are peacemakers. . . . One of the best ways we can honor the Savior is to become a peacemaker. . . .

Contention drives away the Spirit—every time. Contention reinforces the false notion that confrontation is the way to resolve differences; but it never is. Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to choose to be a peacemaker, now and always.

Brothers and sisters, we can literally change the world—one person and one interaction at a time. How? By modeling how to manage honest differences of opinion with mutual respect and dignified dialogue.

We almost didn’t get a Constitution. We have almost lost it several times. The Constitution is contingent. It always hangs by what Joseph Smith called “a brittle thread” (Burgess, James. Journal, 1841–1848. CHL. MS 1858).

The biggest threat to our divinely inspired Constitution is us–the petty, partisan, prideful worst parts of each of us. The good news is that the greatest hope for our divinely inspired Constitution is also us–the best parts of us; the principled, prayerful, and patriotic parts. If we choose to let God prevail, we can be fully faithful to just and holy principles including the extension and preservation of moral agency for all flesh, and we can do so with charity for all and malice toward none.

That’s how we’ll defend our divinely inspired Constitution.

Come Follow Me: Doctrine and Covenants 2 and Joseph Smith-History 1:27-65

Do you know how Joseph Smith was called to save the earth?

When Joseph left the grove after seeing the Father and the Son, he was not a prophet. He had no calling and no idea that he ever would. The calling came three and a half years later. Joseph Smith-History 1:27-65 tells the story. Doctrine and Covenants section 2 is a quote from that history. It’s one of many things an angel told Joseph when he called him, and maybe ultimately the most important thing.

A reminiscent entry Joseph’s journal, written in 1835, also tells the story

“When I was about 17 years,” Joseph Smith said, “I had another vision of angels; in the night season, after I had retired to bed; I had not been asleep, but was meditating on my past life and experience. I was well aware I had not kept the commandments, and I repented heartily for all my sins and transgressions, and humbled myself before him, whose eye surveys all things at a glance. All at once the room was illuminated above the brightness of the sun; An angel appeared before me.” “I am a messenger sent from God,” he told Joseph, introducing himself as Moroni. He said that God had vital work for Joseph to do. There was a sacred book written on golden plates, buried in a nearby hillside. “He explained many of the prophecies to me,” Joseph said, including “Malachi 4th chapter.”[1]

Moroni appeared three times that night and again the next day, emphasizing and expounding the same prophecy

There must have been something vital to Joseph’s calling in that. Malachi doesn’t mention priesthood. Moroni does. Speaking for the Lord, Moroni said: “I will reveal unto you the Priesthood by the hand of Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Joseph said Moroni paraphrased Malachi’s next verse too: “And he [Elijah] shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to their fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers, if it were not so the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.'”

In the Doctrine and Covenants, angels are sent to solve problems Joseph doesn’t know exist

In the case of section 2, Joseph knew he needed forgiveness but he didn’t know that the earth was on track to be wasted unless Elijah came soon to catalyze a dramatic turn. President Russell M. Nelson taught that “eternal life, made possible by the atonement, is the supreme purpose of Creation. To phrase that statement in its negative form, if families were not sealed in holy temples, the whole earth would be utterly wasted.”[2] Section 2 is the Lord’s announcement to Joseph that Elijah will endow him with priesthood powerful enough to seal families forever, reverse the effects of death and the disintegration of families, and thus fulfill the purpose for which the earth was created (see section 110).

Joseph just wanted forgiveness

He got it–and a calling to save the earth. From the earliest (chronologically speaking) revelation in it, the Doctrine and Covenants points us to the temple, to the Savior’s priesthood, and to the ultimate purpose of sealing families so they can be together forever.

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 5, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 21, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/5. “Journal, 1835–1836,” p. 24, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 21, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-1835-1836/25.

[2] Elder Russell M. Nelson, Conference Report (October, 1996), 97.

What dilemma led to Joseph Smith’s first vision?

There is a dilemma at the heart of Joseph Smith’s first vision accounts. It is hidden in plain sight. Once you see it you wonder how you missed it before.

There is a new book out from an esteemed university press.*

One of its chapters illustrates how easy it is to miss the dilemma Joseph emphasized. The author compares Joseph’s experience to some early American conversion narratives and concludes that Joseph’s accounts lack the angst and the typical “transformations of the heart.”

“Nowhere in Smith’s first vision is there a description of the agonies and ecstasies of conversion,” this author claims. Joseph “presents himself not as one whose heart needs changing but one whose mind needs persuading.”

Notice the either/or: “not as one whose heart needs changing but one whose mind needs persuading.” This author thinks Joseph’s accounts are about resolving “cognitive dissonance” or intellectual incongruity “rather than ravishing a sinful heart with infinite love.” These phrases sound fancy but they are uninformed. This is a false dilemma posing as analysis.

This author has not heard what Joseph is saying

“Nowhere in Smith’s first vision is there a description of the agonies and ecstasies of conversion.” Really? Joseph’s accounts describe both his agony and his ecstasy. (More on that in later posts.)

I remember the day I finally saw the dilemma Joseph describes

It was lunch time. I was sitting outside. I had copies of all the first vision accounts and was reviewing them again, trying to look at them in new ways, asking different questions. I had read each of them many times before. But that day I started paying attention to the number of times Joseph described what was going on in his mind. Then I noticed that he distinguished between his mind and his heart. Then I saw it: Joseph’s was trying to tell me that his mind and his heart were at odds.

Every story has a problem

When Joseph told his story, the crux of the problem was that his soul depended on knowing how to act relative to Christ’s atonement–and how to act he did not know.

The Presbyterian option made sense in his head

He knew he was sinful. He also knew he hadn’t been able to do anything about it. That’s what the Presbyterian option taught him to expect. It made sense.

The Methodist option appealed to his heart

He attended Methodist meetings and witnessed sinful souls like his feel God’s redeeming love, and “he wanted to get Religion too wanted to feel & shout like the Rest but could feel nothing.” Methodism taught him to expect to feel God’s love if he gave himself to Christ. That didn’t happen, however. No matter how much his heart wanted Methodism, it seemed to his head like the Presbyterian explanation fit best.

One of the options appealed to his heart and the other to his head

No matter how much brain power he put into it, he did not know if his conclusions were right, and no matter how much he tried to follow his heart, he did not know if it was leading him right. That was the problem. His head was telling him one thing, his heart another. How could he know which was right? The welfare of his immortal soul was at stake. It was a terrible problem. These slices of Joseph’s Manuscript History Book A1, excerpted in the Pearl of Great Price as Joseph Smith-History, verses 10 and 18, highlight Joseph’s dilemma:

10 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? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it? . . . .

18 My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.

Verse 10 is about Joseph’s thought process, about what’s gone on in his head. He has often wondered whether all the options are wrong and how he will be able to decide. The parenthetical clause in verse 18 is about Joseph’s emotional vulnerability. He tells us he has kept the awful, recurring thought that all the options for forgiveness are wrong from entering “into my heart.”

In 1902, church leaders tasked BH Roberts

with turning Joseph Smith’s history, originally serialized in 1842 in the Times and Seasons, into published volumes. While in that role, he had gathered the serialized “History of Joseph Smith” from back issues of the Millennial Star, the Saints’ British periodical, and bound it into three volumes that he kept and annotated.

His notes show that he thought Joseph contradicted himself in the passages quoted above

Joseph said he “asked the personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right, (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong,) and which I should join.” Earlier, however, Joseph said that prior to his vision he had “often said to myself, what is to be done? Who of all these parties are right? Or are they all wrong together?”

The two lines seemed contradictory to Roberts

He knew that Joseph’s 1842 letter to John Wentworth said that at about age 14 he began to notice “a great clash” between churches and considered “that all could not be right, and that God could not be the author of so much confusion.” So Roberts silently elided the line for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong. That’s why those words are not in the published version of Joseph’s manuscript history (see top of page 6).

If BH Roberts couldn’t see

the dilemma Joseph tried to highlight, it seems wise to be humble and cautious about assuming that we have understood Joseph well. Working hard to listen to Joseph, using both brain and spirit, leads to seeing and hearing things in Joseph’s first vision accounts to which we may have been blind and deaf.

In my next post I’ll write about Joseph’s other dilemma

the one that kept him from telling his story, and that shaped the way he told it when he finally decided to do so. Stay tuned.

*Grant Shreve, “Nephite Secularization; or, Picking and Choosing in the Book of Mormon,” chapter 8 in Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman, editors, Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 207-229. Quoted passages are from page 208.

Joseph Sought the God of Love . . . and Found Him

There is so much more to the story of Joseph Smith’s first vision than is commonly known

Besides the familiar account included in the Pearl of Great Price, there are three other known accounts by Joseph and five known reports of people who heard him tell his experience. As a historian and as a believer, I’m thrilled that Joseph Smith’s first vision is probably the best documented vision of God in history. But some Latter-day Saints are troubled when they learn that there are several accounts of the story.

Like accounts of the Savior on the Mount of Transfiguration

or instituting the sacrament, or suffering in Gethsemane, or appearing after his resurrection, the accounts of Joseph’s vision are not identical, and that fact is unsettling to some. It wasn’t unsettling to me because I learned it from Professor Backman, who wrote the book on the accounts and was thrilled, as a historian and a believer, to have such a richly documented vision of God to study. His motive was to teach me the vision in a way that was true to the historical facts and sustaining of my faith. But there are other motives out there. Other people present the same facts as Professor Backman taught me, but their motive is to undermine faith.

On its face, the fact of multiple and varied accounts is not a problem

The fact of multiple and varied accounts only upsets faith if the person assumes that multiple or varied accounts of the vision is incompatible with the first vision. In other words, there is nothing inherent in the facts of the matter that ruins faith. Faith in the first vision, or loss of it, depends entirely on what a person decides to do with the facts. Faith in the first vision, or loss of it, is not a matter of knowledge or sincerity. Some people on all sides of this issue are both informed and sincere. Others on all sides are neither. And some on all sides are informed but insincere while others are sincere but not well versed in the facts of the matter. None of those things seem to be the determinant of whether a person has faith in Joseph Smith’s first vision.

The determinant is each individual’s agency

We are not acted upon by knowledge. We act upon knowledge. We exercise our God-given ability to decide for ourselves whether to exercise faith in Him, His Son, and in Joseph Smith as their choice to restore the gospel. I am well-informed about the facts. I have studied the accounts of Joseph’s vision for several years and I find them harmonious and complimentary on the core elements of the story, namely: Joseph craved more light and truth about God and couldn’t find it in the existing churches. He studied the Bible and that inspired him to pray in the woods, where God answered his prayer directly.

Critics counter this claim

by highlighting ways the accounts are inconsistent with each other or with other known facts, and some critics claim that Joseph embellished his experience over time. It comes down to deciding whether to trust Joseph or not, and if you want to make that decision based on a consensus view of Joseph’s reputation, you’ll find that Moroni accurately predicted that Joseph’s name would be known for good and evil in every place on the planet. You’ll have to choose whether you can trust him. No one else can make that choice for you.

By predisposition, prayer, and lots of study

I have decided to trust Joseph Smith. I have studied all the accounts of his vision carefully and in context. I have published books about the vision with both academic and devotional publishers. My testimony is that Joseph Smith told the truth, and that those who knew him best believed him most.

In celebration of the 2020 bicentennial of Joseph’s vision

President Russell M. Nelson invited Latter-day Saints to study it seriously. I expect there will be many lessons and discussions about it. Some of these will focus on why it matters. I invite you to reconsider the way you might answer that question—why does Joseph Smith’s first vision matter? Many talks and lessons over the years have answered that question by saying that the vision showed that God and Christ were separate beings. That is true, but it’s not what mattered most to Joseph. It’s not what he wrote in his accounts. What was it about his vision that was most important to him?

First, Joseph testified that the Lord forgave his sins.

“at about the age of twelve years my mind became seriously imprest [p. 1] with regard to the all importent concerns for the wellfare of my immortal Soul which led me to searching the scriptures . . . 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 and . . . . I felt to mourn for my own sins and for the sins of the world . . . . therefore I cried unto the Lord for mercy for there was none else to whom I could go and to obtain mercy and the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and . . . . a piller of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the <Lord> opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph <my son> thy sins are forgiven thee. . . . I am the Lord of glory I was crucifyed for the world that all those who believe on my name may have Eternal life.”

Second, Joseph testified that the vision brought him joy and love

“I called on the Lord in mighty prayer,” he said, “a pillar of fire appeared above my head, it presently rested down up me head, and filled me with Joy unspeakable.” In another account he testified, “my soul was filled with love and for many days I could rejoice with great Joy.”

Third, God is more powerful than the adversary that opposes Him and us

Fourth, we can choose to call upon God in faith in order to be delivered from the enemy of our souls, who is an actual though unseen being. Fifth, when we are perplexed, distressed, and anxious in a confusing world, God invites us to seek and receive the love, wisdom, forgiveness, and healing we need from Him.

God loves us

That’s what Joseph learned in the grove. “I had found the testimony of James to be true,” he said, “that a[nyone] who lacked wisdom might ask of God, and obtain, and not be upbraided.”

What difference does it make if God and Christ are separate

embodied beings if they no longer reveal themselves, if they don’t hear and answer the prayers of anxious teenagers who ask in faith, if they don’t forgive sins or fill us with love and joy? Presbyterians of Joseph’s day believed that God was without body, parts, or passions. Latter-day Saints respond by emphasizing how the vision proves that God and Christ have bodies. But what does it matter if they have bodies unless they also have passions, including redeeming love for us?

Joseph’s accounts testify of a loving, responsive God

and show how we can reach him. They show how an anxious soul can make the courageous choice to exercise faith. Sarah Edwards lived a century before Joseph. She was married to the great Presbyterian preacher Jonathan Edwards, whose most famous sermon explained God’s mercy by emphasizing how abhorrent we are to God, so the fact that he is temporarily sparing us from the pains of the well-deserved hell we will most likely inhabit real soon is evidence of his mercy.

Sarah secretly preferred a different God

She had a deep desire to “call God my Father” and wondered whether she really could. She sought him in private prayer and 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 was typical of many people then and now

Terryl Givens explained, “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.”

That is why Joseph’s first vision is so vitally important

It is the answer to all our prayers, our hopes for God’s acceptance, love, and forgiveness. It is the archetype for seekers everywhere. It reveals the antidote to our fears and anxieties and dilemmas. When Joseph entered the grove, it seemed to his teenage soul as if he were one of very few who could not feel God’s love and forgiveness. Then God filled him with love. Experiencing that love is the reason to choose to exercise faith in the God who revealed himself to Joseph Smith. The Father and the Son who appeared to Joseph are so loving and lovable. They respond to anxious teenagers, forgive their sins, and fill them with love that helps them cope with their fears and frustrations and causes them to rejoice with great joy.

In answer to his simple, faithful prayer

Joseph Smith saw our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ in the woods. After anxiety, perplexity, distress, and guilt, he felt their love, received their forgiveness, and experienced unspeakable joy, and so can you.

How Do You Get Priesthood Power?

The Example of Emma Hale Smith Can Help

Recently a living prophet, Russell M. Nelson, declared something that has always been true. Joseph Smith taught it.

“Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book,” p. [38], The Joseph Smith Papers

“Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book,” p. [58], The Joseph Smith Papers

Other prophets have taught it recently.

But it hasn’t always been believed by some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“The heavens are just as open to women who are endowed with God’s power flowing from their priesthood covenants as they are to men who bear the priesthood,” President Nelson said.

He explained that “accessing the power of God in your life requires the same things that the Lord instructed Emma and each of you to do.”

I do not like it when lesson manuals or teachers try too hard to liken the scriptures to us or prescribe the gospel as if one size fits all. But I like it a lot when prophets declare the truth and invite us to seek and receive revelation to know how to apply the truth to our circumstances. I loved hearing President Nelson invite us to “study prayerfully section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants and discover what the Holy Ghost will teach you.”

This post is my way of sustaining President Nelson’s invitation. It’s designed to provide backstory to D&C 25 and some orientation to principles of interpreting the scriptures.

Start with them there then

In the technical terms of scriptural hermeneutics or interpretation, start with exegesis (ex-a-gee-sis). In other words, start by working to understand what a revelation meant to its original recipient(s)–to them there then. Don’t assume what it meant. Discover what it meant.

Then, in hermeneutical terms, do eisegesis (ice-a-gee-sis)–determine what the revelation means to you here now. President Nelson taught this way when he invited us to “study prayerfully section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants and discover what the Holy Ghost will teach you.”

I hope this post helps someone discern how to act here and now on what the Lord told Emma there and then. There was Harmony, Pennsylvania, a settlement on the Susequhanna River where Emma was born in the summer of 1804. Then was twenty-six years later, July 1830, when the Lord gave the revelation.

In order to come as close as possible to understanding the revelation as Emma did, try to pretend that then is now and you are her.

Three years ago you married Joseph against your parents’ wishes

Then you watched Joseph translate the Book of Mormon. In the midst of that you gave birth to a son who lived less than an hour, and you barely survived weeks of infection. Then, just three months ago, Joseph restored the Savior’s church.

Your parents raised you with middle class aspirations. They worried that by marrying Joseph you were opting for poverty and infamy. Their worries were well founded. Right after your marriage you moved in with Joseph’s parents, then about a year later you moved in with yours. They offered you and Joseph a small farm and a smaller home, allowing payment over time. Only the generous help of friends enabled you and Joseph to make the payments. You have had to depend on others financially. You worry about that.

One month ago, you were baptized near Colesville, New York as a group of angry neighbors objected. Before you could be confirmed, the raging crowd drove you and other saints into the Knight family’s home for refuge. Then a constable arrested Joseph for preaching the Book of Mormon. For the next few days you waited at your sister’s home, praying and “awaiting with much anxiety the issue of those ungodly proceedings.” You felt your “very heart strings would be broken with grief” as Joseph is tried and acquitted in two counties, spat on, insulted, and mocked.

Finally you and Joseph arrive safely at home. There the Lord gives a revelation that makes you more worried. Married life thus far had been tumultuous, and you’re understandably concerned about your family’s financial future and safety. Then the Lord tells your husband:

“Thou shalt devote all they service in Zion; and in this thou shalt have strength. Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many; but endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days. And in temporal labors thou shalt not have strength, for this is not they calling. Attend to thy calling and thou shalt have wherewith to magnify thine office” (D&C 24:7-9).

So there you go. The Lord essentially guaranteed you and Joseph a modest living that depended on the faithfulness of the saints. If the saints will support you, there will be enough to enable Joseph to devote his life to the saints. Other young wives in your time and place are aspiring to secure financial futures, but all the revelation foreshadows for you is a life of hardship with a husband who belongs to the church. You know him well enough to have no doubt that he will devote himself to Zion. Will you have faith enough to face that future? The Lord thinks so. He knows you well. He gives the next revelation directly to you. It comes through Joseph but the Lord speaks to you and shows that he knows your hopes and dreams, fears and frustrations.

It has a more affectionate tone than most, but it is straightforward

The earliest manuscript of the revelation begins more intimately than the formal, published version. “Revelation, July 1830–C [D&C 25],” p. 34, The Joseph Smith Papers

“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.”

The first promise the Lord makes to Emma is that he will preserve her life. It’s a conditional promise based on whether she chooses to be faithful and virtuous. It was no hollow promise. She had barely survived childbirth. She knew women who hadn’t survived. And soon she would be expecting twins, increasingly the possibility of complications and death. Though it might not even register with readers now, the Lord’s promise of life would have been precious to Emma. So would His promise that she would “receive an inheritance in Zion.” It would have meant the world to her, since forsaking the world was the price she was willing to pay for that promise. Like all early saints, Emma was counter cultural in that respect.

“Murmur not,” the Lord commands Emma, “because of the things which thou hast not seen.” It’s commonly assumed that this clause refers to the Book of Mormon plates, but there is no reason to rule out other possibilities. Emma may have seen the plates. When she was asked if she saw them or not she didn’t answer directly. She testified that she handled them through a cloth. She didn’t say she never saw them. Besides, there were other things she may have longed to see but didn’t: visions, angels, marvelous translation.

Emma was among the first to receive a calling in the restored Church of Jesus Christ

Part of her calling, the Lord said, was to support Joseph in his: comfort him, go with him, and scribe for him. But Emma’s calling also included being ordained to preach–to expound scripture and to exhort the saints by the power of the Holy Ghost. There was a lot for Emma to be afraid of in that list of assignments.

First, it sounded like Joseph would be like the rope in a tug-o-war between the Lord and Emma: “The office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy husband . . . ” The Lord was asking her to share Joseph with Him and the saints, and to make Joseph better at serving them by strengthening him. Emma could comfort and console Joseph so he could renewed for the burdens the Lord and the saints would place on him.

And “go with him at the time of his going,” the Lord told Emma. That’s another line that is easy to miss when we read. To her, however, it may have been the revelation’s most demanding clause. Expecting twins, she boarded a sleigh near her parents’ home that winter and headed west with Joseph. She went with Joseph in every sense–to comfort and console, to expound and exhort, to compile hymns, to inherit Zion–and that meant that she never saw her parents again.

The Lord follows Emma’s heavy list of callings by telling her how He’ll make her equal to them: He promises to give her the Holy Ghost, knowledge, and enough financial support. Barely. She’ll have to “lay aside the things of this world, and seek for the things of a better” to do what she’s been called to do and become what she’s been ordained to be, and to inherit Zion. Emma could see where it all led. She would have to starve her telestial aspirations and feed her celestial ones.

This revelation helps us see Emma’s conflicted complexity as the Lord did. Since she was human like us, there was a constant civil war inside her. The Lord saw that she was meek but could be proud. She wanted to complain about what she hadn’t seen at the same time she trusted incredibly in her husband’s revelations. She coveted the things of this world but longed for the things of a better world. She was afraid of the unknown and willing to go and do what the Lord commanded her.

My favorite thing about Emma’s revelation is how capable the Lord reveals she is

She’s full of potential. His high expectations are frightening to her. Can she possibly exercise that much faith? Chart a course that’s so counter to her culture? Expound? Exhort? Select sacred hymns? Comfort? Console? Shun pride? Maintain meekness? Delight in the glory her husband receives? Keep God’s commands continually? Cleave to her covenants?

She wanted to. She wondered and worried whether she could. She let the revelation orient her life. She selected sacred hymns for the saints. She expounded scripture by the Holy Ghost. The Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book is full of her exhortations.

She comforted. She consoled. In 1842, when Joseph was evading arrest for unjust charges, Emma may have remembered when the constable came for him twelve years earlier. She had been consoling him ever since. She wasn’t about to stop now. She went to Joseph in his hiding place. “Again she is here,” he said about that visit and all the earlier consoling times, “even in the seventh trouble—undaunted, firm, and unwavering—unchangeable, affectionate Emma!”

“Journal, December 1841–December 1842,” p. 164, The Joseph Smith Papers

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. (Carol Madsen told that story best)

Emma clung to her covenants through Abrahamic tests. She could have, and perhaps sometimes did, consider herself in competition with the Lord and the saints for Joseph’s time and attention. The Lord assured her, however, that she was His highly favored daughter. He expected more of her than she may have thought she could give. I believe He will be true to His promise to give her all she ultimately wanted.

PS

That last sentence is not just wishful thinking. It’s based on the revealed terms and conditions of the new and everlasting covenant of marriage and knowing whether or not Emma made that covenant and abided by its terms. Subscribe if you want to be notified when I post the story of what I know about that and how.