Abide #20: Doctrine and Covenants 129-132

Joseph Stuart: In today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast,” we are studying four of Joseph Smith’s revelations. Three of them, Sections 129-131 are written in Joseph Smith’s own style, you can hear him teaching the Saints. This makes sense; they are quite literally teachings from Joseph Smith in both personal and public settings, compiled and made available to the Saints. They form a sort of super-cut of Joseph Smith’s teachings, like watching you a YouTube compilation of an athlete’s highlights that is made for quick absorption. That isn't to say that the principles are easy to absorb, or that you can learn all of them in one sitting, but nevertheless, they're fairly straightforward. They're spoken in a voice that we can recognize as a living, breathing person.

Section 132 is a different matter entirely, at least for many. It's a revelation that is a sustained theological document, that at times also reads like a legal document. The voice is the Lord's and it covers one topic at great length: celestial marriage. It's a section that requires skill and care to unpack, there's much to gain to be sure, but readers should always recognize that their comfort level with the revelation with polygamy, with celestial marriage, and the revelation’s implications for individuals, families and communities may be different than their own.

My name is Joseph Stuart. I'm the Public Communications Specialist at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. I'm joined by Janiece Johnson, a Willes Center Research Associate at the Institute, and we will be discussing each week's block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Come, follow me curriculum. We aren't here to present a lesson, rather to hit on a few key things from the scripture block that we believe will help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to “Inspire and fortify Latter Day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas.” The historical context for how we received section 129-those around Joseph Smith just say that he comes into the room, he starts talking, and then he gives this revelation in a brief form, and then extends it later.

Janiece Johnson: I think section 129 is fascinating, because it is super straightforward, but has lots of implications here. And Joseph is expecting that people will see spirit beings…or different, some sort of messenger from beyond.

Stuart: Yeah, someone who either has not yet received a body, someone who will never receive a body, or someone that has received the body and is now resurrected.

Johnson: And I think that this continues a theme that we get throughout the Doctrine and Covenants, “beware lest ye be deceived”. This is one of those consistent themes that's woven through the Doctrine and Covenants. And I think about, here, we're getting to something very specific, and maybe something that's not going to have a great deal of application for everybody.

Stuart: At least not all of the time.

Johnson: But does have some doctrinal implications for all of us.

Stuart: Now, something that I find fascinating in the phrase, lest ye be deceived, I think that reveals something about Joseph Smith worrying that he is being deceived. And that when you open up the idea that the Spirit can communicate to every single person and teach them things that they need for their own lives, we have to learn to trust the impressions that we receive from the Spirit. And I wonder if that's why in the Doctrine and Covenants we have the phrase, “lest you be deceived” so often is because Joseph Smith (and again, I'm not saying that this is 100%. true, it's just my idea) maybe Joseph Smith is always battling with the idea of “Am I reading the Spirit the way that I should?”

Johnson: Well, and I think that all of us to some degree or another, battle with that. Trying to understand “Did I understand that correctly?” For many in other faith traditions, there is a great struggle with this idea. The idea of personal revelation just induces images of chaos, and how, if everybody's getting revelation, how is it all going to work together? And I think within Latter-day Saint theology, we've got lots of checks and balances and structure in place to help us understand if we are deceived. But we see lots of different traditions struggling with this. Martin Luther, for instance, in his earliest writings about his experience, he called it his “tower experience”. And it's this major conversion experience. And I would call it an instance of personal revelation. But later, after he's broken away from the Catholic Church, and is thinking about this more, I think that he becomes aware of the radical potential. If he's saying everybody could have an experience like I had in the tower, what chaos would ensue? And he reigns it in, and he begins to talk about it differently. He talks about it more like it was kind of just a general nice experience, where he felt some divine love, rather than a very specific revelatory experience. And I think that maybe that's… tells us this, this theme is something that is going to continue. And here if someone appears to you, you've got instructions. What…what to do, how to figure out what kind of being this is that's appearing to you,

Stuart: I find it fascinating that the idea is to shake their hand, which in pre-COVID times maybe didn't stick out to me as much. But it sticks out to me now as something that… it is literally my body touching your body. This is something that Janiece and I discussed in the Abide episode on section 88. The idea of embodiment, the idea that the soul is comprised of the spirit and the body, that there are these physical sensations that we have to grasp with. And for many people-I won't say all-but for many people, when they have one of these special experiences, like Martin Luther's conversion experience in the tower, or when someone first discovers for themselves a testimony of the Book of Mormon, or receives a confirmation for what they should do for their child, or something in their calling. It's something that sticks with you. I can remember how I felt in certain situations, it's not just the revelation I received, it's the physical experience. What religion nerds like Janiece, and I call sensory experience. Your taste, touch, smell, and sense of feel as well, absolutely contribute to your religious experience. And something that actually sticks out to me in that way is, William Clayton was president during Joseph Smith’s instruction. And he took notes on this. What do the Joseph Smith papers say about the notes, Janiece?

Johnson: The Joseph Smith papers tell us that William Clayton was there during the instruction, he took notes. But the record that we have today has a uniforming flow. So the way that it shows up in his journal, it seems very clear that he created it in one sitting. All of the entries from the 14th of May to the 19th of May. So, he likely took other notes from other sources that we don't yet have any more and pulled them together.

Stuart: So you can tell by looking at a piece of paper, whether someone wrote it in one setting or not? Can you say more about that?

Johnson: So that he doesn't like…he doesn't lift up his pen. It's just this straight thing. And it's, it's too consistent. I think if we look at how we take notes, they can look very different. And even one single person's handwriting can look very different from one entry to another entry, depending on the medium, depending on how they're taking the notes. All of these things change how we… how we write something, and in this instance, it's all the same. And that's just unheard of over that many days.

Stuart: Yeah, now I'm thinking about all the haphazard sticky notes that I have on my desk, that probably look like different people wrote them just because I wrote them at different times. Quick plug for the podcast that I did with Robin Jensen, David Grua, and Jessica Nelson, who talk about what the Joseph Smith papers does and how they do it. And just a reminder that again, going back to our episode on section 88, the Lord expects us to learn out of the best books, and he gives us opportunities through the church to learn from those who specialize in this sort of thing.

Moving on to Section 130. This is a series of snippets from Joseph Smith. So this is a single sermon, but they sort of take the highlights out of it. You might think of this as sort of like the Instagram video version of this address that Joseph Smith gave. And something that has always stuck out to me in verse two, which reads “that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy”. Reminds me of when we talk about friendship being one of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism. Is that we exist as a community and we survived through… as a community. I really love the mental image that I have of all the people in the church that I have worked with, everyone that I have known coming to get to coming to see one another on some sort of celestial block party.

Johnson: That salvation, even exaltation is relational. It's not just us by ourselves, but these… these social interactions. No, man, no woman is an island. We need those social interactions. And Joseph elevates that sociality.

Stuart: Yeah.

Johnson: With eternal glory.

Stuart: And also to add to that, the great quote of Joseph Smith is that if the Latter-day Saints go to hell, that they will go to hell and make a heaven out of it. That's the sort of attitude I like to hear, that no matter what is going on, we've got each other and we have a place to enjoy one another's company and become better men, women, people together. Something else that I really like is connecting to Joseph Smith, inquiring of the Lord when the Second Coming would be. This is in verse 14, he says that he's praying to know when the Second Coming is going to happen. And in verse 15, receives an answer: “Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art 85 years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man, therefore, let this suffice and trouble me no more on this matter.

Johnson: I have had a student here or there who has struggled with this, why would God lie? And my answer is because God is sarcastic. But I think that there is something here. And I think we can sense a little bit of…maybe frustration, “but trouble me no more on the matter.” 14 and 15 are essential here. And when we get to 133, talking about this apocalypticism, this, this will be important for us to remember. Joseph is a product of his time, he is a prophet who has had visions and revelations directly to him, but he is also a product of his time. And he is so concerned with the millennium and when the advent of the Second Coming is, and I think here, as I read it, the Lord is saying, “Okay, you want an answer? I'm gonna give you an answer. You're not gonna live until you're 85. So really, this answer doesn't matter.”

Stuart: Spoilers, Janiece!

Johnson: Spoilers. Sorry, we're not quite there yet. St. John says, not even the angels in heaven know when Christ will come again. Yet, we as human beings perpetually want to know. Joseph's not any different.

Stuart: Also, just to contextualize it, this is the time when William Miller is gathering a following into a religious group that eventually becomes the Seventh Day Adventists, when he predicts Jesus Christ coming in 1845. And again, a few years later, it's one of those things that as you just said, that if no man or no person knows the time in place, when it's gonna happen, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, no man, no person actually knows when it's going to happen. But it's important to keep in mind that Joseph Smith isn't the only one thinking about the millennium. This is the stuff that's in the air he's breathing.

Johnson: Now in verse 18, we get whatever principle of intelligence we attain onto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life, through his diligence, and or her diligence and obedience, than another, she will have so much the advantage in the world to come. He will also have so much advantage in the world to come. Learning matters, education matters, being curious matters. If I want to quote one of my favorite, fake football coaches, “being curious matters and wanting to… to learn matters”. This is a characteristic of God. And if we are literally the children of God, then we want to learn.

Stuart: Certainly, and I liked that Joseph doesn't put a limit on what the knowledge and intelligence is in this life. That if you are interested in green caterpillars, the Lord is excited that you are excited about green caterpillars. If it's gospel study, if it is something that brings light and joy into your life, and brings you closer to God through experiencing the joy of God, He is all for it. In verse 20, through 22, or sorry, verses 20 and 21. This was the favorite verse section of my mission presidents, “There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world upon which all blessings are predicated. And when we attain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” The thing that sticks out to me most here is that there's no negative inverse. Or in other words, if you don't do it, you are immediately assigned to this penalty. It is that a blessing is not made available, not an act of punishment being given to you. And this is something that I think about in terms of individual obedience. We don't yet know the great blessings that our Heavenly Parents have in store for us. We're doing the best we can, and the closer we are able to keep their commandments, and feel of the Holy Spirit, the closer we will get to realizing all the blessings that God has in store for each of us. And I know that that isn't always an easy thing to think about. I know that I prefer to think about God sort of operating through Amazon Prime that, oh, I paid my tithing. So I'm gonna place this order. And in two days, I'm going to be able to have this paper accepted for publication, or I'll be able to find the perfect school for my child or whatever it is. The Lord asked us to trust Him. That He will bless us in the way that he best sees fit.

Johnson: Verses 22 and 23. Again, we can see we're kind of moving in kind of two verses…

Stuart: This is like full Instagram stories.

Johnson: This is why I don't watch Instagram stories. But I just want to stick with the two verses for a while. “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's, the Son also, but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but as a personage of spirit, were it not so the Holy Ghost could not dwell on us. A man may receive the Holy Ghost and it may descend upon him and not tarry with him.” The fact that we believe in an embodied God, again, we could spend all day just talking about this verse. But today, I think the thing that struck me, the thing that I have been thinking about is just how often we focus on the brokenness of our bodies, and how they don't do what we want them to do. But our bodies are great gifts. mortality, no matter how broken they feel.

Stuart: As soon as you said, that I remembered in Moses seven where God appears to Moses and he's weeping. So this is something that listeners may be familiar with, with Teryl and Fiona Givens’ book, The God Who Weeps, taken from a Eugene England essay, The Weeping God of Mormonism. And again, I am not God, to be clear, but I really hate crying in front of people. It's something that I feel uncomfortable with, whether it's at a pulpit, or whether it's because I'm in great physical pain, or whatever it is, I don't like to be that vulnerable with people. And I wonder if in that moment, God himself did not plan to be that vulnerable with Moses, but that through his embodiment through his body, his emotions came out. And in thinking about the staggering truth that we have a body that operates like God's body minus the perfection.

Johnson: So even as we often focus on the limitations of our bodies, our bodies make us like them. Our bodies make us like our heavenly parents. And that is a great gift.

Stuart: Thanks for that, Janiece. So section 131 moves us to the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. Could you tell us more about that?

Johnson: So I think that sometimes when we talk about the new and everlasting covenant, we just think about the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, but the new and everlasting covenant is something way more all encompassing. This is all of those covenants, all of those ordinances that we enter into. And then we move specifically to this new and everlasting covenant of marriage. Now, this is not something that just comes out of nowhere in 1843. Joseph has been teaching since the mid 1830s, the durability of marriage, the potential durability of marriage, that marriage can be eternal, that marriage might not be just be ‘til death do us part. The first marriage that Joseph Smith officiated was in 1835. It was in Kirtland between Newell Knight and Lydia Bailey Knight. And Newell night wrote in his journal, they both actually have just beautiful journal entries. Lydia talks about Joseph's face and how she felt like his skin was almost translucent as he was talking. This is the the memory that's etched for her… is this memory of what Joseph looks like as he is teaching them and Newell writes, “Long long has the world been shrouded in Gentile ignorance and superstition, but the shackles are beginning to be blown away like the summer threshing floor and light and intelligence to be given to the children of the kingdom.” This continues in May 1835, W.W. Phelps was visiting Kirtland and he writes his wife Sally, who's in New York. And he says “a new ideas Sally, if you and I could continue faithful to the end, we are certain of being one in the Lord throughout eternity.” In 1840, Parley writes, “It was from Joseph that I learned that the wife of my bosom might be secured to me for time and all eternity, and that the refined sympathies and affections which endeared us to each other emanated from the fountain of divine eternal love.” In 1842, Joseph signs a letter that he's written to Emma, yours in haste, your affectionate husband until death, through all eternity, forevermore.

Stuart: So this is clearly something that's been on Joseph Smith… on his mind for a long time. I'm thinking about his experience with his brother, Alvin, whom he was very close to, and thinking about the ways in which the Smith family would continue to be a family, even after death. And again, I think that sometimes we paint Joseph Smith as this guy who just ran around giving revelations to people and entering into wrestling contests or whatever, and he just sort of lived this caricature-type life. But it's important to remember that he had questions and he had worries, and he had a family that he deeply cared about, and wanted it to be together forever. So I really like, in receiving this revelation, and even in thinking about the remembrance of Joseph's face from Lydia Knight, I can only imagine how much it would have meant to him to have arrived at an answer after wondering for so long. how can families be bound together even after death?

Johnson: Along with some of these ideas about eternal marriage and this aggregation of the new and everlasting covenant, we have with it section, the revelation given in section 132. Now, this is different. This is different than the other sections we've talked about today. But this also, this revelation stands differently than those other manuscript’s revelations. This revelation was not edited. It was not prepared for publication. Joseph did not go over this multiple times. And we're seeing some of the rawness of the revelation. And for me that is really emblematic of the rawness of this topic. This is not something that I think we should discuss lightly, or joke about, but this can be something difficult.

Stuart: I first learned, when I was in a class with someone who had recently…with a woman who had recently married a man who had previously been married to another woman. And I had never considered how sensitive how painful the topic of eternal marriage might be. And so, this is just something that again, we're trying to talk about this in a disciple-scholarcontext where we are faithful believers. We're also historians who know a lot about context of this. But it's crucial to remember, every single person is going to understand this a little bit differently. And we'll just plead for patience with us as we discuss it, but also plead for you to have patience with others, and empathy for others if and when you're teaching section 132.

Johnson: As I read section 132, today, we have this beginning preamble and then with verse three, we begin to talk about eternal marriage. By the time we get to verse 33, then we enter into talking about the plurality of why. And for myself, I see these things very separate. Eternal marriage has some applicability to me today, and plural marriage is not something that I see as applicable to myself. However, as a historian, I recognize that in the 19th century, they did not see this division, it was all celestial marriage. There was not this division that there is for me today.

Stuart: So, Robin Jensen, and David Grua, and Jessica Nelson, talk with us a little bit about this, on the Maxwell Institute Podcast episode on documents volume 12, the Joseph Smith papers, which will be included in the show notes. If you are not signed up for those, and you can subscribe at mi.byu.edu and receive the resources that we send out to help with teaching and also just for further gospel study, recognizing, of course, that academic work does not speak for the church. So some of the things we're going to be talking about are not endorsed by the church, but are simply ways that we as individuals have found it helpful to think about section 132, but also to talk about polygamy in this context.

In reading section 132, we have to recognize that there are different parts of the Revelation, and also that some of them seem to be directed specifically to Emma Smith, that this is a revelation given to Emma Smith specifically. And so could you give us a rundown of what the revelation looks like? A sort of roadmap?

Johnson: My biggest question in approaching this text and approaching the question of plural marriage from my particular experience is “Why?” And if I approach the text with those questions, acknowledging that I cannot authoritatively speak to why, but the best authoritative response I can get, is lies in the text. And that is for me, what… what I rely on. Versus and and the why's that I see in the text. First, the first three verses talk about it as a commandment that is reiterated in verse 34. For some people, that's maybe enough, God commanded it, I did it. Okay. My brain doesn't quite work quite that way. I want to know why. But that's not the only why that's potentially offered in the text. In verse 31, the Lord says, a continuation of the works of the Father, wherein he glorifieth himself. Verse 40, talks about it. This is part of the restitution of all things. I am the Lord thy God, and I gave unto thee my servant Joseph an appointment to restore all things. Verse four talks about to multiply and replenish the earth. Now this is certainly not anything new. We've gotten that since the Garden of Eden, since Genesis one. But here, I think it's actually fascinating to me, because statistically polygamous wives, wives have less children than monogamous wives do in the 19th century. Now, a man may have more children because he's got multiple wives. But each of those wives individually has less children, which is interesting to me. So historical statistics kind of complicate how straightforward that, that one might be. But in verse five to raise up, or actually the fifth one that I see does not actually come from section 132. But it comes from the Book of Mormon from Jacob 2. And the Lord says those…if we remember the context of Jacob two, we have Jacob preaching to the Nephite men who are participating in unauthorized polygamy. And Jacob says, Sorry, that's not it. You looked at David, you looked at Solomon and you thought you were okay. You thought you could have wives and concubines, and it was okay but Jacob tells the Nephites look, this is only okay if I command it. And if I commanded it is to raise up a righteous seed. If we look at that generation of those families that came through polygamy, we have some very righteous seed. We have families who are loyal and committed to the gospel. Perhaps the most compelling one is thinking about what is introduced, begins in verse 35. I think it's really interesting because as I see this shift… about 33, to plural marriage and talking about plural marriage in the text, the revelation goes to Abraham, God commanded Abraham and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife. So the justification here could be God commanded it again, same thing, right? Yet, the revelation continues, Abraham was commanded to offer up his son Isaac. Nevertheless, it was written, Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse and it was accounted onto him for righteousness. I think that this is really interesting interpretively, that when we're looking for justification, The Lord doesn't just stick with the “it's a commandment I told you so, so do it.” But goes to this kind of Abrahamic sacrifice or an Abrahamic test in verse 50. When the revelation specifically speaks to Emma, it's again going to go back to that idea of an Abrahamic test. And for me, that is very clear, even those who received a witness that this was God's will. That didn't mean that it was easy. It was always a test.

Stuart: And that's something that comes through repeatedly as you read journals, as you read letters from 19th century Latter-day Saints, there were very few people who saw polygamy as an easier way of forming a family or living as a family, but they testify of it as a commandment. So there's even a woman who, upon hearing the Woodruff manifesto, she is in anguish, she is the second wife, she doesn't know what is going to happen to her. She says I had a testimony that this was what I was supposed to do. And I think that it's crucial for us to remember that it is not always easy to accept the things that…that God teaches us. Or to live, the things that God has asked us to live.

Johnson: For me, as I think about plural marriage, I want to prioritize women's experience and women's voices. And then we run into this issue of women's agency. Scholars have a very difficult time understanding how conservative women make certain choices within religious structures. And, and this isn't it's not just scholars, but scholars, particularly as they try to deal with this in a balanced and even-handed way. In the 19th century, those anti-polygamous, those many in the East who were criticizing polygamy, this anti-polygamy novel from 1888, said the cornerstone of polygamy is the degradation of women and flourish only when she is regarded and treated as a slave. Even today, we struggle to see how women in conservative religions can choose something that someone on the outside feels like degregates them or ties them down. And religious scholars particularly struggle with this-the problem of agency. And as I read these women's accounts, I see women as agents.

Stuart: As Latter-day Saints, we talked about agency a lot, maybe more than other religious groups. What do we mean here when we're talking about agency, because I'm thinking about war in Heaven type stuff, I'm thinking about the right to choose something. But what do scholars say about agency?

Johnson: Catherine Brekus, wrote this great article that was called “Mormon Women and the Problem of Historical Agency” and she walks through all of these different issues. You know, she…she uses that quote that I just read to you from an anti-polygamy article and then talks about Mormon women's experience and how they defended polygamy, assuming that once they got the vote, they would vote down. That did not happen.

Stuart: No, and this is something that the good folks at Better Days 2020 have gone into extensively. The idea that Utah women, especially Latter-day Saint women in Utah, they believed that if given the choice to vote, that they would vote their husbands and the leaders of their church out of government office, and as you said, that just didn't happen.

Johnson: Catherine Brekus in her article talks about a number of different things that should help us think about agency. One, that women can choose to uphold social structures just as well as, as much as they choose to transform them. We need to reconsider how we think about how…what people choose. Today and our understanding of consent, it might function very differently than someone's experience in the 19th century. But if we look, as we look at plural marriage, we have Joseph Smith married…by the time that this revelation was given, Joseph Smith had already been sealed to many women, some with Emma's consent and a segment of those without Emma's consent. Some of the women that Joseph proposed plural marriage to-Sarah Kimball said, Go teach it to someone else. She refused right off the bat. Others, Helen Mar Kimbell talked about that. That she similarly had a similar response yet, as she thought about it, and as she prayed about it, she received a witness that this was what God wanted her to do-to be sealed to Joseph Smith. And Joseph Smith isn't making them grand romantic gestures. He's not making them great promises. This is his MO, is basically “God revealed this to me. What do you think?”

Stuart: And this is something that again, we have to think about. That agency isn't just something that one chooses, it exists within social structures. That people have different priorities. They have different things that they're trying to accomplish, different levels of knowledge within that system. And we have to, as Dr. Brekus says, in this article, reconsider the association of agency with freedom and emancipation. This is something that in my doctoral dissertation (I studied the Nation of Islam) that comes up frequently too, that why do these women join such a conservative patriarchal religion, and some people may not love the word patriarchal, what it means here is male-led, where men are given lots of opportunities to lead and to prescribe what their religious group will do. And what Ula Taylor, a historian at the University of California at Berkeley talks about is that women found things that worked for them and for their families within this system. And I believe that it's the same for Latter-day Saint women. That within the social structures in which they existed, they found opportunities that may not have been available to them in other places.

Johnson: One of the most difficult, I think, moments when considering Joseph Smith's polygamy and Joseph Smith, introducing plural marriage is Helen Mar Kimball. She's 14 when she is sealed to Joseph Smith. The idea is introduced by her father, she says later that she never would have agreed to it if it hadn't been introduced by her, her father. And it's interesting to me that while this is…14, is young, yes, it was potentially legal, but it's still very young in the 19th century, for a woman to be married. And though Helen Mar Kimball was the youngest, we actually have more from her than any other of Joseph's plural wives, we have more of her writings and more of her voice, and more of her speaking on this than anyone else. Now, some of this comes in the 1870s. And she's had 30 years to process it. She also is still sealed to Joseph, but she has married Horace Whitney, who, from all I can see is the love of her life. She talks about it more than anybody else. And I think that that's really important. She talks about her personal experience with it. And she completely believes that this was God's will. But she is also very clear about how difficult it is. And I just want, I want to read… she writes this poem shortly before the end of her life, and she's in her 80s when she writes this, and she writes it for her posterity. And it's a much longer poem, but I just want to pick out a couple lines from it. “I thought through this life, my time will be all my own. The step I'm now taking for eternity alone,” and that's how she described her sealing to Joseph. For eternity alone. “The world seemed bright, the threatening clouds were kept from sight and all looked fair, the pidyon angels wept. They saw my youthful friends grow cold, and poisonous darts from slanderous tongues were hurled.” This was not something that everyone welcomed. “Barred out from social scenes by this, thy destiny by sickened heart with brood and imagine future rope blows, and like a fettered bird with wild and longing heart, I daily pine for freedom and murmured a lot. Couldst thou still see the future and that glorious crown, awaiting you in heaven you would not weep nor mourn. Pure and exalted was thy father’s aim, he saw a glory in obeying this high celestial law. For 2000s, who died without the light, I will bring eternal joy and make that crown more bright.” She does not forget how hard it is, this sticks with her even towards the end of her life. She signs this. Interestingly, she signs it: Helen Mar Kimball Whitney. And then almost as an afterthought, she writes Smith above in between the Whitney and the Kimball, this has affected her whole life. And she will not forget the difficult parts here. But she insists that we see her as a whole human being, that we not just see her in her distress and the difficulty, but that we are also able to see her in these moments of joy. So let's go back and look at verses 18 and 19, in 132. Here in this section, if we look at requirements and promises for eternal marriage, one, it is sealed in the temple by proper authority. Plural marriage was only done by revelation and commandment, that commandment that we got from Jacob, and then it had to be sealed and ratified by the Holy Spirit of promise, sealing again, by the Holy Spirit of promise, this, I see this as the seal that this was entered into…that someone wasn't just going through the motions that their heart was there. That's how I interpret this today.

Stuart: I think that it also speaks to the Holy Spirit of promise, like a literal sealing by the Holy Ghost. It's not just something that is performed, it's something that is witnessed to the people involved by the power of the Holy Ghost. So it's not just a rote checklist sort of thing. It's something that comes with a personal witness of what's going on. As you were talking about with Helen Whitney and others, people still come back to these personal witnesses that they had, that this was the right thing for them to do.

Johnson: Right. And that sealing is only available through the Holy Spirit, that what, what enables these promises to endure. Not just someone going through the motions. And then the promise is “ye” this is in the middle, or maybe 1/3 of the way down in 19, “ye shall come forth in the first resurrection”, ye is plural, we're talking about a couple of being sealed up together, “ye shall come forth”. But if ye abide in my covenant. Latter-day Saint culture is very focused on marriage, as the end all be all. And as a single person, I know that marriage is important. I know that this commandment is important. But sometimes we see getting married as the last thing you need to do, not unlike all of Jane Austen's stories, which end with people getting married. But that last piece there “if ye abide in my covenant”, it only works if we stay in the covenant. Getting married is just one of those steps. And for all of us, this “if” is considerable. If we abide in the covenant, we can partake of the Atonement, to partake of all of those blessings that God has offered to us. We need to stay in the covenant and we want to abide in my covenant, perhaps where our language of the title of this podcast comes from: abiding in the covenant. I think for any of us, that is something that we really need to think about. When we get to verse 50, the Lord says, “Behold, I have seen your sacrifices, and I will forgive all your sins, I have seen your sacrifices and obedience to that which I have told you go therefore and I make a way for your escape as I accepted the offering of Abraham and his son, Isaac”, if the Lord is giving us this idea of Abraham and Isaac and Abrahamic test, as to understand what is being asked of them with polygamy. With that analogy, also comes a ram in the thicket. “I make a way for your escape.” Now, I don't know what that ram is. Maybe for some women for Sarah Campbell, it was her being able to say sorry, nope. Maybe for other women, it was the relief that they felt with 1890 and the manifesto. But, if the Lord is using the structure of Abraham and Isaac to understand why this was a commandment, then there is a way for your escape. All eternal relationships are voluntary. We will not be forced into anything eternally.

Stuart: Amen. And amen. I think it's crucial to remember too, that while I'm reading section 132, that Latter-day Saints have read the revelation very differently over time. For instance, if you look at the Come, Follow Me manual that we're following, it talks about temple relationships. It talks about temple marriage. And that's something that arises after the first manifesto in September of 1890, which is now canonized as Official Declaration One. But in the 20 to 30 years after that Latter Day Saints searched for a new way of talking about marriage that took place in the temples that wasn't connected to polygamy. Apostles, like James de Talmage, among others, who had grown up as monogamous, began to teach the idea of celestial marriage as temple marriage. And this is something that really starts to pick up in the late 19 teens and early 1920s. We're grateful to historian Lisa Olson Tate for sending us that note and would say, look for more on this in the church's publication on the Young Women's history that should be coming out soon. We have loved our conversation that we've had with you today. And hope that you have a blessed week, y'all. Thanks.

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