Abide #22: Doctrine and Covenants 137-138

Janiece Johnson: Today, we will consider two visions received by two different prophets named Joseph Smith and separated by almost 100 years. The first was received by Joseph Smith Jr. in January of 1836 as they completed work on the Kirtland Temple. The period surrounding the dedication of the Kirtland Temple was a time full of manifestations of the Spirit. As Lorenzo Snow said, the Spirit poured out in copious effusion. The day they first introduced preparatory ordinances of the endowment, Joseph Smith received a vision of the celestial kingdom. 82 years later, Joseph F. Smith, nephew of the Prophet and now the fifth prophet to follow his uncle, he pondered a verse in First Peter that talked of Christ's ascension to hell after his death. Perplexed, he asked the Lord for help to understand. In response, he too saw a vision. This time, a vision of the spirit world. My name is Janiece Johnson. I'm a Willis Center Research Associate at the Maxwell Institute, and I, along with Joseph Stewart, the Public Communication Specialist at the Institute, 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, but rather to hit on a few key themes 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 to engage the world of religious ideas."

Now, this is different. Visions. We've been having lots of revelations, but now suddenly, we've got some visions. What do you think?

Joseph Stuart: Well, I think it's fascinating because, growing up, I actually thought essentially, of all revelations as coming through visions -- these grand events like the First Vision, or Moses and the burning bush. When in reality, most of Joseph Smith's revelations came through asking questions, and then listening and writing what he was learning through the Holy Spirit. But with these visions, he is actually seeing something that is taking place, and then he's describing it to other people. Or in Joseph F. Smith's case, he's describing it to his son. He is dictating a revelation that someone is writing down. I also want to be clear, these are not the only two visions that prophets have had. If you read any of the letters or diaries of Prophets, especially folks like Wilford Woodruff, you're going to see a lot of references to -- I had a vision, or I had a revelation about X, Y, or Z. That does not mean that it's been canonized by the church as something that we declare as official doctrine though.

Johnson: And in the 19th century, there were also average members of the church who also received visions. And sometimes, those visions were circulated. Some of them are a little surprising to us today. Our colleague, our former colleague, at the Maxwell Institute, Chris Blythe, is a great student of- of all of these visions, and all of these charismatic occurrences, some of which are really, really interesting. But the specific context of this vision that Joseph Smith receives, it's recorded in Section 137, occurs on the afternoon of the 21st of January. Joseph meets with the First Presidency in the room above the printing office in Kirtland, and they prepare to receive the endowment of the Lord, the Lord promised when he sent them to Kirtland. They washed and then anointed themselves with oil, according to biblical precedent. That evening, they met together with other church leaders and shared the preparatory ordinances with them. Joseph Smith Sr., the church patriarch, was there in attendance. And after the anointings had finished, he blessed his son Joseph. And then, a vision opened up to Joseph of the celestial world. What does he see?

Stuart: Joseph Smith sees his family, and he sees biblical figures. And again, it sticks out to me that Joseph Smith is always wondering what is going to happen to those that I love and those who have gone before me after death? Because, this is something- he has seen resurrected beings, he's even given instructions on how to detect a resurrected being from someone who has never had a body. It's still just so crucial to understand that Joseph Smith still has questions and that he has personal pain. His brother Alvin was very close to him before Alvin died. Even before Joseph received the plates, it seems that Alvin really believed in Joseph and trusted his accounts of the First Vision, and other heavenly visitations. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one knows that that person's memory continues to mean something special, I would even say sacred to us as time goes on. Even more than a decade later, he's still wondering, where's Alvin? Am I going to see him again?

Johnson: His brother died in 1823. So it's been 13 years. But, I think that this was something that really- not only Alvin, of course, staying with him, but also the way in which he died. He died really suddenly. And then at his funeral, the Reverend Stockton intimated -- a Presbyterian minister who was presiding at the funeral -- intimated that he'd gone to hell because he wasn't a church member. William Smith tells us Joseph Smith Sr. did not like it. But this is something that sticks with Joseph and- and all of the Smiths. What is happening with- with Alvin? Interestingly, Joseph also sees his parents, who are not dead. Joseph Smith Sr. just gave him a blessing prior to seeing this vision, but he preemptively sees them in the celestial kingdom reunited with their son. And I think that that is a beautiful vision and- and kind of a recompenser for his father who has just given him a beautiful blessing. And he has this beautiful vision to offer him in return of these- these parents, these loving parents with their son that they've lost.

Stuart: Again, just want to underscore, Joseph is still working out here how salvation is going to work. And we don't yet have proxy work for the dead, but it's going to be coming in a few years. We have to think about revelation as process, not just a lightning bolt that comes, but think about all the weather conditions that have to take place for a lightning bolt to make contact with the ground. There's a lot that goes into receiving revelation. And it seems that Joseph was thinking about eternal families and that same sociality, as he says in Section 130, that we will exist with one another after death for a long time before he learns about vicarious temple work.

Johnson: But this strikes that in his mind. This- he knows that there- there is a way for his brother, he knows that there is a way for his brother who was not baptized, who did not join the church, and did not have that opportunity in life, that he could receive that blessing of being in the celestial kingdom. This revelation will not be canonized until 1981. The process by which we decide whether or not something is canonized is the process of common consent. And it is presented before the church, and the church votes or sustains whether or not we accept this into- into our canon into our official scripture. And both Section 137 and Section 138 were canonized in 1981.

Stuart: Scholar Mary Jane Woodrow talks about this and about how both of these revelations have something to do with genealogy. This is something that- it becomes very important to the church's mission in the 1970s and into the early 1980s. This is something that President Spencer W. Kimball cared deeply about. And so again, when we're thinking about canonization, and we're thinking about revelation, the things that we are interested in, we should pursue those things and understand that maybe the Lord put that desire, that curiosity about a subject into our hearts so that we could do something about it. Now, in Section 138, it has a really sad backstory. Joseph F. Smith is in the midst of the First World War, the Spanish flu epidemic, which killed 50 million people, and personally- in his personal life, his son, Hyrum Max Smith had just passed away from appendicitis of all things. Hyrum was an apostle, and even though parents shouldn't have favorite children, it seems that Hyrum may have been Joseph F. Smith's favorite child.

Johnson: He had a lot.

Stuart: He had 55 Kids, so maybe it's a percentile thing. But it's important to remember that we often take the life experiences we have into the religious experiences that we have.

Johnson: And I think- and Joseph F. Smith had grappled with death throughout his life. His first memory was learning that his father had been murdered. His mother died in 1852 when he was still a teenager. He had several children die. And then, this time in 1918, when we have- at the end of the First World War, all of these chaotic things. September is when the flu pandemic hits Utah. In early October, they are shutting up Utah. The Deseret News reported on October 10 1918, "many towns are closed by order of the health board. Theaters, churches and all public gatherings under ban for present. Spanish Influenza rapidly spreading." 2,300 Utahns will die in the Spanish flu pandemic, that's 180 deaths per 1000 people. That was the second highest in the US. So it is not just Joseph F. Smith, though he is personally, poignantly, feeling this, but everybody is gonna feel this.

Stuart: So Joseph F. Smith in his personal life, as just mentioned, he had 55 children, but he lost many of them while he was still alive. And his first child who passed away has always stuck with me as a researcher. His first child, her name was Mercy Josephine, and he called her Dodo, and she passed away in 1870. Joseph F. is a young father, he's only 30 years old, but it seems that despite his busy schedule as an apostle, he was a very attentive and loving father. And his journal is poignant in his description of his feelings after Dodo's death. He wrote, "I scarcely dare to trust myself to write. Even now my heart aches and my mind is all chaos. I shouldn't murmur, may God forgive me, my soul has been and is tried with poignant grief. My heart is bruised and wrenched almost asunder. I am desolate, my hope seems desolate and almost dreary. Yet, here are my family and my little babe, yet I cannot help but feel the tenderest, sweetest and yet the strongest cord that bound me to home and earth is severed. My own sweet Dodo is gone. I'm almost wild and oh, God only knows how much I loved my girl, and she is the light and the joy of my heart. The image of Heaven graven in my soul was almost departed, the star of my life and happiness seem to have shown it's last on Earth and my soul bowed into the dust. My Dodo, my heart is almost broken for the loss of thee." And his wife, Julina, said that, no matter how many children Joseph F. had, no matter how many other children passed away, he never got over losing his firstborn, Mercy Josephine. So, it's with this in mind, thinking about how hard every single death in Joseph F. Smith's life has been, from his father, to his mother, to his children, to his friends and mentors, he's hit particularly hard and in the midst of a pandemic, and the First World War. And as he is sick, as he's reading the Bible, he is reading about what other Christians call Jesus's descent into hell, or the harrowing of hell. He receives a revelation, he sees a vision of what takes place in the spirit world.

Johnson: For a second, I want to talk about revelation and the process through which he goes. Because, we've talked about revelation and the many different patterns that we get for revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants. There's never just one way to receive revelation. But here, we get a pattern, and there's some similarity with how Joseph and Sidney Rigdon received the revelation which we had recorded in Section 76, Vision of The Three Degrees Of Glory and everything else. It truly is an optic vision of- of so much. But, in both instances, they're reading scripture. Joseph F. Smith is reading First Peter, Joseph and Sidney were working on the translation of the Bible and reading in John. They had a question and they thought about it, they understood, and then they thought about it some more. And in that process of pondering and meditating on those answers that they initially received, then the vision opens up. Joseph F. says, "the eyes of my understanding were opened". I think about that process and the time involved in that process. We can read about it in just a few succinct verses. But, meditation is not something that just happens in an instant -- we're quiet for a second, and then we see a panoptic vision. We need that time to process and to think and to meditate. And to find those moments. How much does it take for us to be quiet in a very noisy world? What practices enable us to enter into a place where we really can meditate and ponder? David O. McKay called that one of the most sacred doors through which we enter into the Lord's presence. This is a critical piece of us learning to communicate with the Father. And I think one that in a very noisy world, we often under- under utilize.

Stuart: Certainly. And I think something that President Smith was meditating on, what he was pondering about, was a letter that he had received from a member of the church asking what had happened after Jesus died, where did he go? He received that letter two months before he has this vision of the redemption of the dead. Sometimes, our questions can help spark answers in other people. President Smith is very sick, he's not well, he's going to die only a few weeks after he receives the vision. But the day after he receives the vision, he goes to General Conference and tells people I am very sound in my mind, and I have received information that will be shared with you eventually. After the conference, he dictates the revelation to his son, Joseph Fielding Smith, or Joseph F. Smith Jr. and that's the same copy that we use today that eventually is canonized in 1981. So, even though it seems that part of the revelation had been sparked by the death of Hyrum Max Smith, I love that President Smith makes a connection with his son, and dictates the revelation to him, and that's how we have the manuscript copy that we do today. Now, I also want to add that Section 138 is largely an affirmation of things that had largely been taught previously. The main thing that it contributes is that the Savior did not go to the spirits in Hell or in Spirit Prison, but rather he goes to the spirits in Paradise and organizes them to go and teach the people in Spirit Prison. And so that's the main contribution in the vision given in 1918 that we come to understand that the church is organized on the other side of the veil, very much like it is organized on this side of the veil, the idea of leadership and the essential nature of missionary work in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with others.

Johnson: The last thing we want to talk about today is just an example of a prompting received and acted on at the right time. We like these kinds of stories in the church, I think that 98% of the time we don't get to see why we're- we're prompted to do something. But in this instance, Susie Young Gates was able to. She is daughter of Brigham Young, she is the President of- very involved with the Utah Genealogical Society. And she is coming by to talk with Joseph F. Smith about the Genealogical Society, she wants to check in on him, they've been friends for a long time, and she has some apples and she thinks, maybe he would like some apples. She knows he's not been physically well, that he has been sick for the last five months. And she thinks maybe he would like some apples. She brings these apples she has, and brings them to him and is able to- to hear for the first time, they've just written down the revelation.

Stuart: So ask for those promptings. Follow those promptings. And we'll look forward to talking to you next week. Have a blessed week, y'all.

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