Section 29: Foreshadowing the Exodus

 Section 29 is the first eschatological section in the Doctrine & Covenants. Eschatology is the study of the end times. This section is often compared to the book of Ezekiel or the Book of Revelation because they also deal with the end times and have some of the same symbolic images.  One of the podcasts I listened to this week (I think it was Scott and Casey on Scripture Central) pointed out that there is also a lot of imagery here from the book of Exodus. This fascinated me since one of the things I am discovering this year is that the modern church was as much a restoration of the Old Testament worship as it is of the New Testament gospel.  

In the Exodus story, before the people leave Egypt, Moses calls down 10 plagues onto the Egyptians.  They are:, water into blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock dying, boils, hail that turns into fire, locust, darkness, and the death of the firstborn.  Once they left Egypt, the Hebrews were lead by a pillar of fire/smoke to Mount Sinai where they received the law. Let's see how many of these images we can find in D&C 29.

Hail: 29:16 (also and stars falling v. 14)
Flies: 29:18

Lice: (here maggots) 29:18
Darkness: 29:14
Pillar of Fire: 29:12
Mount Sinai: 29:13

It doesn't include all the images, but there is definitely enough that someone familiar with the Exodus story might notice the tie in, especially because of the mention of the Pillar of Fire and the Mount Sinai. Those images are exclusively related to the Moses story.

At this time Joseph Smith was working on the "translation" of the Bible, so maybe these ideas were already in his head when he received the revelation. The thing he didn't know, and nobody knew at that point except God, was that within 20 years the Saints would be making their own exodus from the United States, lead by a modern Moses, Brigham Young, to establish a new home/nation in the American West. As the Old Testament Exodus is the foundation story of the People of Israel, the Doctrine and Covenants is the foundation story of the modern church. Was the Lord intentionally foreshadowing?  Probably.  He loves to do that. Did anyone pick up on it at the time? Probably not.

Section 25: A Revelation to Emma

 This section is the only section of the Doctrine & Covenants which is addressed to a woman.  As I listened to my podcasts about it this week most of them talked about how wonderful that Emma is called an "Elect Lady" (v 3) and how she is ordained to "expound scriptures and exhort the church according as it shall be given thee by the Spirit." (v.7).  They talked about how wonderful it was that Emma was given the task of creating a hymn book (v.11).  

These things are all true, but I also know of a lot of women who would find this revelation to Emma as condescending. She is called to be a "comfort unto my servant Joseph Smith Jun., thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in a spirit of meekness." (v. 5) She is told to "Continue in the spirit of meekness, and beware of pride. Let thy soul delight in they husband, and the glory which shall come upon him." (14).  They might point out that the man in this instance is setting up a whole church and community, and Emma, who is better educated and very intelligent, is only asked to assemble a hymnbook. 

I can understand this point of view. In the modern world women have the opportunity to lead and make big things happen in the world. Emma ended up giving up so much to be Joseph's wife. Her family's financial situation was much better than the Smith's family. She was much better educated than Joseph and was already running her own cottage industry raising chickens and selling eggs.  For years after she married Joseph she never had her own home, and was often left alone to fend for herself and her children as Joseph fulfilled his church duties, or spent time incarcerated because of his religion. Later she faced feelings of betrayal and resentments as Joseph started to practice plural marriage. 

All the podcasters I listen too had nothing but praise for Emma but showed regret that after her husband's death she didn't follow the saints, but stayed back in Nauvoo, remarried, and gave consent for her son to head a new church patterned after the one Joseph started. 

What I was thinking all week was how can we judge Emma for her decision to basically leave the church and stay in Nauvoo?  Is it not possible that in doing so she was following inspiration? One of the reasons she stayed was to take care of Lucy Mack Smith who was too old to travel west. What if God wanted the prophet's mother to be taken care of and inspired Emma to stay.  Later Emma married a man who was a drunkard. The man had a child with another woman while they were married, and Emma took the child into her home and raised her. We don't know the ways of God.  Maybe the Lord knew the man would engender the child, and knew Emma was just the kind of woman who would be willing to take care of the child regardless. Is it not possible that that mission was more important to the Lord than anything Emma might have done if she had gone west?

The answer is, of course, we don't know.  We don't know if Emma acted by inspiration at any particular point in her life, or not. We do know that sometimes God inspires people to do things that don't make sense at the time, or that may even seem wrong to the outside observer. We just don't know and we just shouldn't judge. 

In the same way we cannot judge the Lord's revelation to Emma. It may sound like he was undervaluing her potential contribution to burgeoning church, but it is more likely, that with all the other things she had to contend with at that time, creating a hymn book was about as much as she could handle. Maybe instead of undervaluing Emma the Lord was protecting and supporting her. We just don't know what was really going on in Emma's heart at the time and we should refrain from judging.

The Articles and Covenants: Section 20

Section 20 of the Doctrine in Covenants outlines the basic tenets of church.  It was written mostly by Oliver Cowdery and edited through revelation by Joseph Smith. Joseph asked Oliver to create the document, basing it primarily on principles found in the Book of Mormon.  Oliver was particularly suited to do this because he was in the process of recopying the Book of Mormon manuscript so they would have a second copy to give to the printer. 

Oliver was an educated man and understood the different beliefs of the competing religions.  In this chapter he and Joseph clearly delineate where this new church fell in important questions of debate of the day. 

I got a lot of my ideas about this from the different podcasts that I listened to, but I wanted to write down the ideas so I could reference them the next time we go through the D&C. Here are some of the theological questions of the day.

The nature of the Godhead. The idea of the trinity was established at the Council of Nicaea in 325.  Since that time, no major Christian church contested the idea, even during the protestant reformation. Joseph Smith knows that the Godhead consists of three separate beings, but interestingly he does not state it overtly in this section, but he does suggest it in v. 2 when he states that he was called of God, and ordained by Jesus Christ. We know from the Lectures on Faith, written in 1835, that Joseph didn't yet understand that the Holy Ghost was also a separate being.

Ongoing Revelation: The idea that the leader of a church could receive new revelation on how to guide the church was a main point of division between the Catholics and the Protestants.  Catholics believed that the pope received revelation for the church, even after Jesus' and the apostles' deaths.  Protestants believed that all revelation was contained in the Bible, and that there was no need for further visitation of angels or visions etc. In v. 6, 11 Joseph declares that he had received the visitation of angels, and is inspired by God. 

Closed Cannon: Catholics and Protestants both believe in a closed cannon, though Catholics include more books in their cannon than Protestants do.  Joseph Smith departs from both groups by proclaiming that he had brought forth new scripture in v 8-11.

Unconditional Election: Calvinist believed that, because God knows the beginning from the end, he already knows who will be saved.  There is nothing anyone can do to change that, so your good works might show that you are elected, but they don't lead to your election. Joseph Smith refutes this idea in v 14-15 where he clearly states that people have a choice to receive or reject the gospel.

Universal Salvation: There was another religion called Universalist that believed that God is able to do his work and that everyone would be eventually saved after they had suffered the consequences of their sins.  Joseph Smith Senior was a Universalist earlier in his life, and that is why he had never been baptized. In v 29 refutes the idea of universal salvation, because it states that people must do certain things to be saved, and in v. 32 which states that man may fall from grace. 

Requirements for Baptism: Some churches of the day believed that baptism was the start of the journey to Christ and so there should be no requirements to qualify for baptism.  This was a view held by Oliver Cowdery, and he did not write this verse when he put together the Articles and Covenants.  This verse was added by Joseph Smith and it made Oliver Cowdery very upset. He convinced David Whitmer that they were in error as well, and Joseph had to travel to the Whitmer's home and convince both of them that this verse came as revelation from the Lord.  It was perhaps the beginning of Oliver's eventual split with the church.

Hierarchal Priesthood: The Catholics and Episcopalians believed that priesthood authority was essential and hierarchal.  In other words, in order to receive priesthood authority you had to be ordained by someone who already had that authority.  The Methodists, however, believed in universal priesthood.  Anyone who felt moved upon by the spirit to become a minister, could become a minister. In v. 38-67 the importance of a hierarchal priesthood organization. 

Baptism by Immersion: The importance of baptism by immersion was a point of contention between Catholics and some protestant religions, and Baptists.  Joseph is declaring here that he sides with the Baptists.

It is interesting to see the section within historical context, but that doesn't diminish its importance in the church today.  Although the way we administer the offices of the priesthood has been refined since 1830, the basic guidelines remain the same, as do the basic beliefs. 

Eternal Torment

This week in Come Follow Me we are studying Section 19 of the Doctrine and Covenants. This section has the amazing passage in which Jesus describes his suffering during the atonement. We as a church gain a lot of information about the nature of the atonement from this section. 

Today, however, I want to focus on a different part of Section 19, but first I want to remind the reader of the setting of the section.  Martin Harris has been asked to mortgage most of his farm to pay for the printing of the Book of Mormon. This is a really big ask. His farm is his livelihood, and he has spent his adult life building the farm into a productive vocation. In addition, Martin's wife, Lucy, is against the idea of risking the farm for the sake of what she sees as a scam.  She is afraid Martin is gambling away her future security, which, in fact, he is. He ends up losing both the mortgaged farm and his wife, who separates herself from him after he loses the farm.  

So why was Martin even willing to consider such a huge sacrifice?  It is because just two months before this revelation, he saw an angel who showed him the gold plates.  (it reconfirms my theory that that only people who see angels are those who are about to be asked to make a very big sacrifice).  This section is response to Martin's hesitancy to sacrifice his profession and his marriage to support Joseph Smith's prophetic mission.

This section basically says, "Martin, I am asking you to sacrifice a lot, but think of how much I sacrificed for you." That is why Jesus describes his suffering.  Jesus also warns that failure to be obedient leads to Judgement. He says the judgements have been called, "endless torment" (v. 6) and "eternal damnation." (v. 7), but then he clarifies these terms.  These punishments are called "endless" and "eternal" not because they are, in fact without end.  They are called "endless" and "eternal"  because God is Endless and Eternal, and they are God's punishments. (v. 1-12). He also says that he calls them "endless" and "eternal" so they might be "more express...that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men." (v.7)

I listen to a podcast called "Church History Matters" with Scott Woodward and Casey Griffiths.  In their podcasts they always have a section about the "controversies" found in that week's texts.  This week they both agreed that there weren't any real controversies in section 19.  I am like, What? To me this is one of the most controversial passages in all scripture. Why? because it basically says that God intentionally misleads us. Didn't he just say that he says things like "eternal torment" to "work upon the hearts of men." In modern language that is saying that he says something that he knows we will misconstrue in order to motivate us to do something he knows will be good for us. Dare I say, he lies?  It isn't technically a lie, but it kind of is. It is intentionally misleading. 

I have heard some people say that by reading the Doctrine and Covenants we come to know Jesus because most of the sections are revelations given directly from him. If that is so, and if this section is a revelation from Jesus, we need to accept the notion that God intentionally misleads us sometimes.  I think most people of faith would vehemently deny this idea, but I don't know how else you could interpret it. Could you say that he wasn't intentionally misleading? No, he admits that he is.  Could you say he didn't know we would take it wrong? No, he is omniscient. He knows how we would take it. 

In a way this understanding of the nature of God and how he interacts which his children is a little liberating. I think all of us at some point in time have received an inspiration to do something that didn't work out as we expected. Maybe someone felt inspired to marry someone but that marriage ended up in divorce. Maybe someone is inspired to take a job, only to have that job end disastrously.  The fact that God will mislead our understanding of something doesn't mean he doesn't love us.  In fact, it means the opposite.  It means he loves us so much that he is willing to tell us what we need to hear to motivate us to do the right thing, even if he knows we won't accurately understand what he is telling us.  Often, after whatever happened is over, we can look back and see that the failure caused by the misleading inspiration really was for our good. It made us a better/stronger person than we would have ever been if we hadn't gone through it. 

My conclusion is that we don't have to assume that everything God inspires us to do is going to lead to a happy ending.  I think we just need to trust that everything God inspires us to do will lead to the best ending, even if that doesn't come in this life. Still, it is a hard doctrine and it plays out over and over in early church history. We just have to make peace with it and be faithful and "willing to submit to all things the Lord sees fit to inflict upon him." (Mosiah 3:16).

The Restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood

 This week in Come Follow Me we are studying Doctrine and Covenants 18.  In this chapter David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery are commissioned to seek out twelve men to be apostles in the church (v. 37).  This section was given in June 1829 so it is assumed that it came about because Peter, James, and John had already come and given Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery the Melchizedek Priesthood.  There is no clear record of when this happened. We know it happened after John the Baptist conferred the Aaronic Priesthood on May 15, 1839.  Some historical records said it happened as Joseph and and Oliver were traveling between Harmony PA and Colesville (D&C 128: 20) There is only one time that Joseph and Oliver traveled to Colesville during this time period. So that is a likely time period.

One of my podcasts with Scott Woodward and Casey Griffiths, asked the question what exactly was restored by Peter, James, and John?  In D&C 27:12  God says that he sent Peter, James, and John "by whom I confirmed you and ordained you apostles and to be especial witnesses in my name and to bear the keys of your ministry."  It sounds like the main thing Peter, James, and John restored were the keys of the apostleship.  In Joseph Smith's history Joseph states that the power of laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost was given by the Lord to them in David Whitmer's home in the summer of 1829. (Church History Topics).  We also know that the sealing power was given to Joseph Smith by Elijah in the Kirtland temple 1836.  At that same time other messengers appeared and bestowed other keys.

So what keys do you have to have before you have the Melchizedek Priesthood?  Does one have to be a Melchizedek Priesthood holder to be an apostle?  Now they do, but did Jesus' original apostles have the Melchizedek Priesthood?  They were ordained as apostles by Jesus, so maybe they did.  Or maybe they just had the authority to be apostles.  

This line of thought made me take a new look at what is meant by the Melchizedek Priesthood.  In the current church, men are ordained as Elders as early as about 18 years old.  When they become Elders it is understood that they hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, but they don' t have many of the keys that were restored to Joseph Smith. They can convey the gift of the Holy Ghost, and give priesthood blessings, but that is about it. As they progress in the gospel they may get more keys or they may not.  They might become a bishop or a temple ordinance worker. Some become 70's or even Apostles.  These passages in the Doctrine & Covenants make it sound like each of those keys were considered separate gifts. The term Melchizedek Priesthood wasn't even used in the church until 1835. When Paul says that Jesus was a high priest after the order of Melchizedek (Heb 5:6) he is saying it because under the Mosaic Law a person couldn't be a high priest unless he was a Levite, and Jesus wasn't a Levite.  So Paul was going to a time before the Mosaic Law to justify Jesus' priesthood. 

I guess I am saying that the term Melchizedek Priesthood does not have a single clear meaning. In a newly ordained Elder it means one thing, and when we say that the Prophet holds all the keys of the Melchizedek Priesthood, it means another.  As a result, it makes sense to say there wasn't a single moment when the Melchizedek Priesthood was restored. Instead it was restored a piece at a time as those pieces, or keys, were needed. It may be that there are priesthood keys that we don't even have yet, that might given for the first time as part of the Millennium.  I do think we have all the keys we need for right now, and they were given to Joseph Smith over the course of the restoration of the Gospel. 

What the Three Witnesses Saw

 In Come Follow Me this week we read about the calling of the three and eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon. When we think of these special witnesses we think about them seeing the Gold Plates, but if you read Section 17 carefully you see that they saw more than that.  The three witnesses saw

1. the gold plates, 

2. the breast plate, 

3. the sword of Laban,

4. the Jaredite Urim and Thummim, 

5.  the Liahona.  

Bryce Dunford from Talking Scripture, who is a bit obsessed with finding temple imagery in every scripture text, put forth the idea that the things they saw were probably the holy temple relics from the Nephite nation. The original Hebrew temple contained certain relics in the alter in the Holy of Holies. Those included 

1. The tablets Moses made with the Law written by the finger of God

2. Aaron's rod which budded.

3. a gold jar of manna. (Hebrews 9:4)

Bryce tried to show that the items in the stone box that Joseph Smith found corresponded to the items in the temple arc. 

The stone tablets = the Gold Plates because both contained the religious law of the culture. 

Aaron's rod that budded = the Urim and Thummim, because both provided revelation, and the sword of Laban because that was a symbol of political supremacy. i.e. As the priests of Aaron were the religious leaders, the one possessing the sword of Laban was the political leader. 

The Jar of manna=the Liahona, since the Liahona lead the Nephites through the more fertile parts of land where they could find food.  i.e. both represented temporal salvation. 

The one to one symbolism is a little sketchy, but I think he could be correct on the more general point. The ark of the covenant held the most sacred relics of the old world church.  Lehi and his family didn't bring those items with them, and they were lost soon after Lehi left Jerusalem. When the Nephites built their own temple in the new world they naturally would have put in to its altar the most holy relics of their own culture--things that represented the power of their God and his willingness to save and protect them. Mike even suggested that stone box in which the relics were found may have actually been the buried altar of the temple.  I think that is a stretch because I couldn't see Mormon, on the run and in constant danger, hauling around a large stone box everywhere he went.  Still, it doesn't seem strange to me that at some point, when Mormon saw that the temple was going to fall into the hands of sinful men, he might have taken the temple relics, or that maybe the temple relics were already with the religious records he was given when he was a young man, and that he cared for and protected them the rest of his life. 

This brings up an obvious question:  Does the church have holy relics in its modern temples, or perhaps just in a single central temple?  If it does, what might they be? I think (and this is pure speculation) that is wouldn't be ridiculous to suppose that the items seen by the special witnesses may still exist on this earth, and that the Church keeps them somewhere in the Salt Lake Temple. They are kept secret for fear of theft or defilement. Another idea is that the church may have other relics from the modern church, like the seer stone, Joseph Smith's temple robes or something of the like, that they keep in the temple. Of course, the most likely thing is that there are not "sacred relics" that the church keeps in the temples, because temples don't need relics to be holy. 

I am sure I will never know, but I think the idea that the 11 witness saw temple relics supports my earlier idea that the restoration of the gospel was primarily the restoration of the temple and temple blessings and that the church that Joseph Smith restored was primarily an Old Testament based church rather than a New Testament style church.   

The Lost Manuscript

 This week in Come Follow Me we read D&C 10 which explains why Joseph Smith shouldn't retranslate the lost Book of Mormon manuscript. I have had several thoughts about the lost manuscript and the philosophical implications of that whole episode in Church History.

During Sunday School today there was a discussion about how great God's grace is that he could foresee the loss of the 116 pages and so he provided a replacement 1,500 years before it was needed.  They also pointed out that the replacement was, in a way, better than the lost part because it "throw(s) greater views upon my gospel." (v. 45).  I agree what they were saying, mostly, but I did bring up the point that if Martin Harris hadn't lost the manuscript, we would still have had the books of Nephi. They were there, already, on the plates.  So, presuming the original lost text had valuable information on it, we did lose valuable information when the manuscript was lost.  I would personally love it if the manuscript was discovered and we got to see what was in it.   

Of course, this begs the question:  If the manuscript wasn't going to be lost, would Heavenly Father inspired Nephi and Mormon to write/include that other record? Was Martin Harris destined to lose the manuscript, or just very likely to. In other words, this incident does bring up the age old question "does God's foreknowledge of what we will do mean that we are predestined to do it?"  Scott Woodward and Casey Griffiths deal with this question in their podcast. I don't think there is a satisfying answer.  I think you need to just pick which option you like best and stick to it.  As for me, I think Martin could have chosen to obey the Lord and not to lose the manuscript and we could have had both versions of the first books of the Book of Mormon, kind of like the different versions of the four gospels. In other words, I think foreknowledge does not mean predestination.  

I like this view because it affirms something I experience in my life.  Decisions do have permanent consequences. God's grace can ameliorate those consequences, and turn them for our good, but they are still there. The day I made a bad choice and damaged my hearing had permanent consequences. I have received blessing from having hearing aids.  It makes it easier to listen to recorded books and podcasts, but if I could go back, I wouldn't have tried to listen to a recorded book while mowing the lawn. 

One other question, that is actually not super important, but is interesting, is what happened to the lost manuscript. Bryce Dunford on Talking Scripture mentioned that the Martin Harris pageant in Clarkston portrays Lucy Harris throwing the manuscript into the fire.  That is the tradition in the Harris family. Section 11 of the D&C seems to contest that.  Section 11 seems to have been received months after the manuscript was lost (though the section heading suggests that the actual date it was received it not clear).  Would the Lord warn Joseph Smith of the plan of evil men to use the manuscript to discredit Joseph Smith if the manuscript had already been destroyed?  If it still existed in 1829, when, exactly, would have Lucy destroyed it?  I guess she could have destroyed it later, maybe after the Book of Mormon was published without it. Lucy, herself, died in 1836. 

Here are some possibilities

1. Lucy did burn the manuscript some time after the revelation in 1829.  This seems a little unlikely because she would have had to do a good job of hiding it from her husband who was very motivated to find it. It is possible, however.

2. Someone else destroyed it after 1829.  Maybe they were holding on to it to use it just as the Lord said to discredit Joseph Smith and when their scheme didn't work, they destroyed it to cover their culpability. I think this is a distinct possibility, but not very fun.

3. The manuscript was kept somewhere, and then perished by accident.  Maybe someone found it among their great grandparents things, didn't know what it was, and threw it away. This is also a good possibility, but also not very fun.

4. The manuscript still exists somewhere and someday someone will find it and sell it to the church for a tremendous amount of money.  Then BYU scholars will have a grand time studying and analyzing it.  This is a much more fun and exciting prospect because it could happen at any time, maybe in my lifetime.

5. The Lord took up the manuscript and keeps it in the same place as the plates and the Urim and Thummim. When the time is right it and other lost books will be restored to the church.  This is also a nice idea, but probably wouldn't happen in my life time, so therefore not so exciting, at least to me.

Of course, this is all silly speculation, with no chance of verifying any of the options. Still, it is an interesting thing to think about.