This week: Lesson 34, “Faith in Every Footstep” (D&C 136).
Subjects covered: The pioneer trek across the Great Plains to the Salt Lake Valley.
Potential issues:
If you can think of any other issues from this week’s lesson, please comment below so we can add more links.
PLEASE NOTE: This information is a preparatory resource for gospel doctrine teachers to help them formulate answers to questions that might arise during their class. It is not in any way a substitute for the Gospel Doctrine manual, nor should instructors make these topics the focus of class instruction. This information is provided with the understanding that it is an additional resource only.
Possibly relevant would be the entry on “Revelation after Joseph Smith” since some critics — including some of my non-Mormon clients — have assumed that Sec. 136, discussed in part in this lesson, is the only revelation Brigham Young ever received.
Thanks, Ardis! I added it to the original post.
Mike,
Appreciate your insight.
Question for anyone:
Our Gospel Doctrine teacher taught that this life was ‘it’. No more chances for we who have had a chance. I realize that the word ‘chance’ is part of the problem here, but what is a better answer or better question so that we come away with a better answer?
Correction to above: no more chances for eternal life for we who have been given the opportunity and the free will to accept etc . . . .
eve,
The concept that if one had been taught the Gospel in this life and rejected it there would be no more “chances” comes from Alma 34:31-35. However, the point was clarified by a subsequent prophet in Joseph F. Smith’s vision of the redemption of the dead.
This includes everyone, even those who had “rejected the prophets.” Then it states:
This points out that the dead can repent and be redeemed “through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God.” This is speaking of being eligible for the Celestial Kingdom because the ordinances of the Temple are requirements for this kingdom and not for the lower kingdoms.
However, notice the caveat, “And after they have paid the penalty of their transgressions…” This is the difference between repenting in this life and repenting in the Spirit World. If one repents in this life the suffering of Jesus Christ pays the penalty for their transgressions. If one procrastinates until the next life, they must suffer the penalty themselves. This is what Jesus was telling us when He said:
Theodore
Hello,Theodore.
Speaking of those who go to the Terrestrial kingdom:
D&C 76:
72 Behold, these are they who died without law;
73 And also they who are the spirits of men kept in prison, whom the Son visited, and preached the gospel unto them, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh;
74 Who received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it.
Notice “those who died without the law” are a different than those “who received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it”. So, those who died without the law would be those who were never taught the gospel, whereas the others rejected the gospel when it was taught to them in the flesh, but repented as spirits.
This doctrine of those who died without the law (were not taught the gospel in the flesh, but afterwards received it) going to the terrestrial kingdom, contradicts D&C 137 which says they will go to the Celestial kingdom:
6 And marveled how it was that he had obtained an inheritance in that kingdom…
7 Thus came the voice of the Lord unto me, saying: All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God…
Those who go to the Telestial kingdom:
D&C 76:
82 These are they who received not the gospel of Christ, neither the testimony of Jesus.
84 These are they who are thrust down to hell.
85 These are they who shall not be redeemed from the devil until the last resurrection, until the Lord, even Christ the Lamb, shall have finished his work.
I take this to mean that telestial people are those who were taught the gospel and rejected it in the flesh, and don’t repent as spirits or receive the testimony of Jesus as spirits. This seems to contradict verses 109 & 110:
109 But behold, and lo, we saw the glory and the inhabitants of the telestial world…
110 And heard the voice of the Lord saying: These all shall bow the knee, and every tongue shall confess to him who sits upon the throne forever and ever…
Doesn’t that mean that they will receive the testimony of Jesus as spirits if they are bowing and confessing?
Telestial people sound like the category in Alma 34, and not Terrestrial:
33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance…
35 For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.
If you don’t repent in the flesh you become sealed to the devil. This is the FINAL state of the wicked (which terrestrial and telestial people are by rejecting the gospel in the flesh).
But Alma contradicts D&C 76:74 which says they can repent as spirits.
I expound more on this (which no one has responded to) in:
Gospel Doctrine apologetics: D&C lesson 30
August 11th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Hi Onika,
The promises in D&C 76 are minimum guarantees, not the maximum blessings available to them. It doesn’t mean that those who died without the opportunity of hearing the Gospel would be forever blocked (damned) from obtaining the Celestial Kingdom. D&C 137 does not contradict Section 76, it is an addendum to it.
“The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10), which is different from each individual’s memory being renewed to recall that Jesus (Jehovah) was anointed to be the Messiah. Then it will be common knowledge that cannot be denied. This knowledge does not change the kingdom which they have chosen. I think that every knee bowing and every tongue confessing comes at or immediately after each individual’s resurrection. Each person is resurrected to a certain kingdom and there is no change from one kingdom to another for them after that.
Onika, notice the verse following Alma 34:35:
Alma states that this is his own deduction rather than a distinct revelation. There is no evidence that the full revelation on the redemption of the dead was given to any prophet until after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was probably revealed to the Saints of the Early Christian Church because they were performing baptisms for the dead.
Associated with the “final state of the wicked” King Benjamin talked about “endless torment:”
This was later explained by the Lord in D&C 19:6-18:
After they have paid the penalty for their transgressions the final state of existence for the wicked who would not repent is the Telestial Kingdom, which is a kingdom of Glory that “surpasses all understanding (D&C 76: 89).”
God loves all of His children and gives them all the opportunity and experience they need to make a choice as to where they want to spend eternity. He assists them to obtain happiness according to their desires for happiness. It is only the sons of perdition, who apparently do not want happiness but revel in misery, who do not obtain a kingdom of happiness.
Theodore
Theodore,
I see this as another example of doctrine changing and evolving. Mosiah 3:25 says “a state of misery…from whence they can no more return…” If it were called endless torment because God’s name is endless, then endless should have been capitalized in Mosiah. Besides that, God is endless and that is why it is his name, so as long as God exists, who is endless, the punishment exists, because the guilt, shame, and unworthiness eternally exist.
In the NT a son of perdition is anyone who has accepted the gospel, been baptized, and then wilfully sins, or breaks his covenants. (Hebrews 10: 26-39) It doesn’t mean a perfect knowledge of Christ, but apostasy; or in other words, going back to one’s previous sinful ways when one knows better. Peter describes them as the self-willed:
2 Peter 2:
9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
onika,
It seems to me that you want the scriptures to read like a textbook that has been correlated by theologians. Quite the rather, the individual narratives that make up our scripture were written at different times, by different people with different perspectives and different audiences with different needs.
There is a common theme that runs throughout scripture — God loves us and has given us commandments so that we can become like Him — but there are stages of revelation, which means some later prophets understand more than previous ones. (And even the same prophet’s views can develop over time.)
Your type of cross-referencing exegeisis — as commendable as it is for your wide reading and deep thinking — does a disservice to the individual writers of scripture. You demand of them what they cannot give, being separated by hundreds (sometimes thousands) of years and varying levels of understanding.
Mike,
I understand you are saying prophets from different dispensations have different degrees of knowledge/revelation. Paul taught this when he explained that everyone dies because of Adam’s sin even though we did not commit the sin ourselves, and that all those who came before Moses did not have the law and sinned, but Christ atoned for their sins because they did not have the law (unintentional sins). In other words, knowledge of the law brings condemnation.
Romans 5:
13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
Acts 17:
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
All the prophets before Moses had some degree of the law. They knew about clean and unclean beasts; they knew they shouldn’t eat blood; they knew they should get married and multiply; they knew they shouldn’t kill people or waste animals’ blood; they knew they should offer sacrifice when thanking God or asking for blessings. So, he must be talking about the law of Moses, which was stricter and had more requirements. Notice Jacob did not stone his sons to death when they killed a bunch of helpless people in Shechem. Judah wasn’t stoned for playing with the “harlot”. In fact there didn’t seem to be a law against a man lying with with a woman whether he was married or not, as long as she wasn’t married or betrothed. Abraham planted a grove (Asherah pole)to worship God. God gave everything the people needed to know to Moses from the very beginning. Then things changed after Jesus came, and again after Joseph Smith. Why?
D&C 19:
8 Wherefore, I will explain unto you this mystery, for it is meet unto you to know even as mine apostles.
So, his apostles DID know about the word endless.
It appears that Abraham and his descendants were pagans until Moses, so no wonder they fit in with Egypt so well (Joseph married the daughter of a priest of Heliopolis, named after the Asian goddess Anath), and they had such a hard time giving up pagan practices. They were only truly able to give them up after the captivity in Babylon.
Onika,
You’re getting too far out for me. I don’t know what stuff you have been reading, and I really don’t want to know. But calling Abraham a pagan is like calling Mother Teresa and anti-Christ.
I’ve just been reading the scriptures, Theodore.
Genesis 21:
33 ¶ And Abraham planted a grove in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God.
Deut. 16: 21
21 ¶ Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee.
Deut. 7: 5
5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
2 Kings 18:
1 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.
2 Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.
3 And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did.
4 ¶ He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
If he wasn’t a pagan worshiper, then the writers of Genesis were.
Genesis 41:
45 And Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphnath-paaneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On. And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt.
On is Heliopolis.
Notice Asenath and Zaphnath have “nath” on the end. People commonly would have the names of their gods on the end of their names such as El in Immanuel,etc. The Hyksos introduced the goddess Anath to Egypt, as well as the god Seth. They also brought the composite bow and chariot to Egypt. I think Joseph came during the Hyksos rule. The area they ruled was lower (northern) Egypt (including Delta area).