by Dennis B. Horne
In 1973 Elder Bruce R. McConkie gave a major devotional
address at BYU that he titled, “Agency
or Inspiration—Which?” I have borrowed the gist of that talk title and two
paragraphs from it to make a point and ask some questions that some might find
worth pondering.
The author of a chapter in a recently
published (free) ebook uses the word “assumptions” frequently, almost
obsessively, when describing how certain past apostolic Church leaders
interpreted and taught the scriptures.[1]
He gave academic names to categories of these alleged assumptions. The ebook itself uses the word “assumption[s]” 87 times and the chapter noticed here uses it some 60 of those; mostly applying it to certain teachings of Pres. Joseph Fielding Smith and Elder McConkie. Some examples follow:
“[A] key is recognizing that the
way we make meaning of scripture—that is, interpretation—depends in part upon
the assumptions we bring to scripture. Differing assumptions will produce
differing interpretations. This article does not take a position on
2 Nephi but presents the relevant assumptions and general history of its
interpretation in the twentieth century.”
“To lay out the relevant
interpretive assumptions to this history, Elders Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce
R. McConkie, James E. Talmage, and John A. Widtsoe provide useful
contrast.”
“He [Elder McConkie] shared the
assumptions of his father-in-law, Joseph Fielding Smith, . . .”
“Elder McConkie, who supervised the
production of the Bible Dictionary, shared President Smith’s
assumptions, . . .”
To my thinking the title of the chapter might easily have
been renamed, “Joseph Fielding Smith’s Questionable/False Scriptural Assumptions.”
Be that as it may, such a view about a President of the Church’s teachings is astonishing.
So—what is the problem with all this talk about interpretive
assumptions for apostles? It is that it leaves the Spirit of the Lord out of
the picture and perhaps God’s purposes also.
Let us ask some (hopefully) thoughtful questions as we seek appropriate
perspective.
Did President Joseph Fielding Smith and Elder McConkie think
they were preaching and writing about the doctrines of the gospel with, or
without, the Holy Spirit guiding and enlightening them? Did God put them where
they were in the Quorum of the Twelve for reasons of inspired doctrinal
explanation? Did He mean for them to have wide and persuasive influence over
the doctrine taught in the Church?
Did they seek and obtain the influence of the Holy Spirit in
their general over-all teachings? Did they have the Spirit of the Lord with
them when they taught about the creation and the fall? Did the Spirit and the
other Brethren allow them to mislead the membership of the Church on those
subjects for most of a century—or were they supported and sustained by them?
What about the many other apostles that taught the same
doctrines about the same subjects and scriptures that Pres. Smith and Elder
McConkie taught? Did they have the Holy Spirit in their personal scripture studies
and in their teachings to the Church?
To continue the line of reasoning: Are we now to believe
that the doctrines we are taught by church leaders only their (academically
labelled or not) assumptions?
Is the Spirit of the Lord present in the scripture study and
interpretations of church leaders? Do apostles have a special
endowment of power and insight when interpreting and teaching scripture?
Does the notion of interpretive assumptions tend to weaken or
to strengthen trust and faith in Church leaders’ teachings? Does faith come by
hearing the word of God? Are scriptures the word of God if some conflict with a
theory of science? Or are they assumptions? Should such passages be
reinterpreted or dropped so that they harmonize with current scientific
thinking?
Was Lehi mistaken? (2 Nephi 2:22-25.) Was Enoch mistaken? (Moses
6:48, 59.) Are their canonized statements (via the Prophet Joseph Smith) really
questionable or erroneous? Did Pres. Smith and Elder McConkie and many other
apostles misinterpret them because of their human assumptions, or did they
teach those interpretations to the Church by the power of the Holy Ghost?
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave the most current explanation (April
15, 2025) regarding Lehi’s teachings (2 Nephi 2:22-25) that I am aware of, at a
BYU devotional. He taught: “It’s interesting that Lehi’s declaration about joy
comes in the same breath as his observation about the fall of Adam and Eve. He
seems to be saying that their transgression in the Garden of Eden, which
brought pain and death and sickness and sorrow into the world, also made way
for joy.”[2]
Is this statement about Adam and Eve’s transgression bringing death into the
world an assumption? Perhaps it is Elder Uchtdorf’s assumption about Lehi’s
assumption? Or is it revealed truth?
Are all the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants that
say Jesus is speaking to us really only Joseph Smith’s feeble human efforts
trying to find words to express an inspired thought?
What about Doctrine & Covenants 1:29-30? “Whether by
mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same. For behold, and
lo, the Lord is God, and the Spirit beareth record, and the record is true, and
the truth abideth forever and ever.” Is it really “the same” or is that an
assumption? Have all our prophets assumed too much from this? Do they, when
acting as prophets, speak for God or do they make assumptions for or about Him?
What about D&C 68:3-4?: “They shall speak as they are
moved upon by the Holy Ghost. And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon
by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be
the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the
Lord, . . .” Does the Spirit of the Lord come upon our prophets and apostles in
this way so that what they say is the mind, will, word, and voice of the Lord
(scripture)? Or is such really some kind of uncertain interpretive assumption?
Did Pres. Smith and Elder McConkie teach the Church the mind and will and voice
of the Lord or did they regularly give forth their own personal opinions
(assumptions)?
How can we trust and have deep and abiding faith in the
doctrinal teachings of our Church leaders if they are only giving us their human
interpretive assumptions—even part of the time? Where does such reasoning lead?
Are scriptural passages such as this one true?: “For,
behold, it is I that speak; behold, I am the light which shineth in
darkness, and by my power I give these words unto thee.” Are
those Joseph’s words or are they Jesus’s? For that matter, is the Doctrine and
Covenants (and the JST and Pearl of Great Price) filled with Joseph Smith’s
revelations—or with God’s revelations given through Joseph Smith?
In his BYU devotional address “Agency or Inspiration—Which?”
Elder McConkie explained: “I’ve sought the Lord diligently, as is my custom, to
be guided and directed this morning in what ought to be said—sought him both
for myself and for you, so that I might speak and you might hear by the power
of the Holy Spirit.” We therefore ask: did he obtain that Spirit (or not) then
and throughout his ministry? Or did he teach his own interpretive assumptions
to the Church on a regular basis?
Is the author of the “(No) Death Before the Fall” chapter in
a position to determine that Pres. Smith and Elder McConkie—or any other Apostolic
Church leader for that matter—is interpreting scripture by personal assumption,
or that some scripture itself could be Lehi’s or Enoch’s erroneous assumptions?
If so, where did he get that privilege? From the wisdom of the scholastic
academy? Are church members now obligated to understand scripture as he does or
as ancient Israel allegedly did? Should we have what President Joseph F. Smith called
a “theological scholastic aristocracy in the Church”—where learned academics
interpret the scriptures for us instead of prophets and apostles (who may supposedly
be making assumptions)?[3]
Do Presidents Nelson or Oaks or Eyring or Holland believe
their messages to the Church are or could be assumptions?
Are Pres. Nelson’s written and unwritten revelations from
God possibly in error because he is human? Does he make assumptions about them?
Are his revelations from the Lord to the Church looking through a glass darkly?
Is the Church at risk of being misled by human assumption today?
I read a different piece by a different author about Pres.
Smith at Fromthedesk
reviewing his influential teachings over his long lifetime. The probability (or
possibility) of the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit guiding and
blessing and enlightening Pres. Smith in his vast body of “theological” work and
conclusions was not mentioned once (though his reliance on previous prophets
was).
Would today’s apostles agree they are making assumptions as
they study and interpret and teach scripture to the Church? Does the Lord, by
His Spirit, prompt and direct what they teach—or not?
Elder
McConkie’s (and Pres. Smith’s) answer or reply to the charge of making interpretive
assumptions with the scriptures and doctrine:
Now, I think we’ve said enough; the
principles are before us. Let me just do one thing more. Let me do, in effect,
what my friend Alma would do. After he’d preached a sermon, he said, “And this
is not all. Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself?” (Alma 5:45).
That is, he’d given them the case studies, he’d quoted the revelations, he’d
told them what was involved, and then he bore personal testimony. This is what
we ought to do in the Church. We ought to learn how to teach by the power of
the Spirit, so that when we get through talking about the gospel subjects we’ll
know whether what we’ve said is right, and we’ll be in a position to bear
testimony, not alone of the truth and the divinity of the work, but also that
the doctrine we proclaim and the everlasting truths which we expound are right,
that they are the mind and voice and will of the Lord. Now, the glorious,
wondrous thing about this work and about these doctrines is that they are true.
There isn’t anything in this world, no truth that we can conceive of, to
compare with the truth that the work we’re engaged in is true, that the Lord’s
hand is here. It’s a literal fact that we have the gift and power of the Holy
Ghost. We have the spirit of revelation, the spirit of testimony, the spirit of
prophecy. These things must be, or else we’re not the church and kingdom of
God; we’re not the Lord’s people.
Are we Protestant evangelicalism, where our theology rests
on the pronouncements of learned scholars, academics, linguists, and
historians?
Is this thought from Pres.
Oaks given many years ago worth pondering?: “The Church leaders I know are
durable people. They made their way successfully in a world of unrestrained
criticism before they received their current callings. They have no personal
need for protection; they seek no personal immunities from
criticism—constructive or destructive. They only seek to declare what they
understand to be the word of the Lord to his people.”
I know how I answer the above posed questions.
***
Other related items of interest:
For an example of how Elder McConkie himself used questions
to encourage deeper doctrinal thought and scriptural investigation, see:
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-r-mcconkie/mystery-godliness/
For examples of what current senior church leadership think
of Elder McConkie’s doctrinal teachings—that they were not assumptions—see:
https://interpreterfoundation.org/elder-bruce-r-mcconkies-alternative-to-evolution/
For excerpts from a presentation by Elder Harold B. Lee that
discusses the dangers of taking such notions as human interpretive assumptions among
prophets and apostles too far, see the below (from “The Church and Divine
Revelation”):
There is a matter pertaining to
revelation that I should like to delve into because of erroneous ideas, and
unfortunately some have existed among seminary men. I think most of those who
have entertained those ideas are not now with us. One who fails to have a faith
and testimony in revelation as one of the fundamental things that pertains to
this work certainly is not in a position to build the kind of faith that we
want in youth. In other words, he himself needs someone to educate him and
convert him to the truth.
I am quoting
from a book which has been controversial but was written by one of our men [Heber
Cyrus Snell, Ancient Israel: Its Story
and Meaning (1948)], and apparently a well-intentioned man, but which
contains the substance of what I want you to get by way of the opposite. The
teachings are corrected, certainly, by the scriptures, and we will want to
discuss them a little while today. These are disjointed paragraphs, but they
will give you a little expression here and there to give the point I want.
“Saul’s difficulties
with his chief courtier reveal the presence of some nervous instability or
disease, the source of which cannot now be known. That some abnormality was
present is clear from his first association with the ‘sons of the prophets,’
who were wont to revel in ecstatic utterances and other strange behavior.
Certainly any neurotic leaning which he might have inherited would have been
aggravated by such company. But however Saul’s mental aberration might be
explained by modern psychology, or what stage it finally reached, it must have
had much to do with his decline. Along with his court difficulties it would
tend to estrange his subjects.”
Now, he is
speaking of Saul’s revelations, his dreams and such, seeking to get the will of
the Lord.
I read
again from this same book another statement: “Amos’ message has been described
as one of unrelieved doom for the kingdom of Israel. His criticisms were keen
and his denunciations must have been terrible to hear; but if he held out no
hope, not even for the oppressed whose rights he championed, it is very
difficult to find an adequate motivation for his acceptance of the prophetic
task. Amos’ conception of Deity was so advanced . . . that it is hard to
believe there was no room in his message for the divine mercy and love. Perhaps
those who added these ideas of a more kindly Divinity to the book [see Amos
9:8–15]—if indeed they were added—had good reason to think that the prophet
included them in his conception and his preaching.”
The intent
of that is to strip entirely the prophetic power of Amos to know the true God.
It merely was a conception of Deity which had grown with his advanced
mentality. That, to him, was revelation. It was a prophecy.
Another
statement: “Sometime in the life of almost every thoughtful person, some tragic
event—disloyalty of friends, loss of health or fortune, death of a loved
one—threatens to upset his whole system of values and even to destroy life
itself. If the experience can be safely passed the individual may come through
it chastened and strengthened in his soul. But it is likely that fundamental
changes in his thinking will result. He will now see that at some point his
former thought was narrow, or unworthy, or even completely erratic, and that in
certain ways his attitudes must be changed. He is a blessed person if he can
now re-organize his life and carry on.”
And then he
goes on to press that point with respect to the prophets: “The culture of
ancient races centered generally in religion. Israel’s changing world and
heart-breaking experience produced fundamental changes in her religious
thinking and attitudes.”
Now he is
stripping again the divinity of the call of the prophets and making their
expressions nothing more nor less than the changed attitudes that resulted from
the experiences of men involved.
“Most
far-reaching of all was the changed point of view regarding Yahweh himself. For
the boldest thinkers, like the unknown prophet of the Exile, he was no longer
merely the sponsor of a chosen people but the God of all the earth, its Creator
and its Savior. All peoples were his children and subject to the same
principles of truth. . . . But there were other men who clung tenaciously to
older points of view . . . to whom it seemed that the pathway of the nation
must lie along the narrow road of law and ritual.
“. . . Out
of its gloom had come a chastened nation, with brighter visions of God and his
relationship to men.”
That is
pretty well-defined by one of our writers, who takes the view that there is no
such thing as foretelling or the gift of prophecy or a divine power by which
men speak beyond their understanding. Each man, according to that concept of
prophecy, is limited by his own understanding, his experience, his training.
Let me give
you another summation, which one of our brethren (Glenn Pearson), whom I asked
to summarize, has given: “Through it all, human reason is made the criteria for
judgment of all revelation. Like the humanists, and John Dewey, they say:
‘Though it slay my most cherished beliefs, yet will I trust it. You must prove
your ideas before the court of my reasonable mind, for I too am an intelligent
thinking being.’ Always they make scripture give ground to the advanced
thinking of our day. To them, revelation is the best thought of the prophet,
and a prophet is a man of such enormous self-confidence that he attributes his
ideas to God, thus giving them strength. But if Alma, Nephi, Christ, and Joseph
Smith had known what research has now revealed, they would have said it
differently or not at all. We know better, so we are not obliged to believe.”
Now, there
you have a summation of what I think you may have heard as the teaching of the
so-called “modernists” concerning revelation. …
Now, how
converted are we—when the whole foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ rests
upon, as it did in the past, the “foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone”? (Ephesians 2:20). Now, we
can’t escape that.
Contrast
that with what President J. Reuben Clark said about revelation. He had been
asked, “President Clark, a lot of the people are wondering whether the welfare
program came by revelation or whether it is just somebody’s wild idea.” That
was the problem he had before him. This is the way President Clark introduced it,
and I will read a few paragraphs to give his thinking:
“Now I want to say . . . a few words about
revelation. Revelation, for our
purposes, is a communication from God to man. That is revelation. Now
I think it is possible to classify revelations in perhaps three classes, for our purposes. The first is what they call a theophany, which means an appearance,
in person or by voice, of the Lord or of the Father. And among the theophanies
that come readily to one’s mind is that which blessed Moses when he talked face
to face with God.
“Daniel had
a theophany with the Lord. While the Lord was here on earth, at the baptism of
the Savior, the Father spoke. . . . One of the greatest, if not the greatest
theophany of all time, was the First Vision to the Prophet Joseph, when the
Father and the Son together, came to him, visibly.
“I assume
that he saw the Father and the Son, even as Moses said he saw, not with his
natural eyes, but with his spiritual eyes.”
Now, you
will get that same thought if you will read again the story of the Prophet
Joseph when he said, after relating the vision, “When I came to myself again, I
found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven” (Joseph Smith—History
1:20). Now, it said just exactly the same thing that Moses explained, which is
the correct explanation of how one may see with spiritual eyes. You will find
that, of course, in Moses, the 1st chapter (see vv. 2–11). Now continuing with
President Clark:
“Then there are the theophanies when
only the voice is heard. And you will
remember any number of those cases, where there is an actual voice. I have
already referred to the Father’s voice at the baptism of the Savior. The
Prophet Joseph, on more than one occasion, evidently heard the voice of the
Lord. But on many, many other occasions there was no voice, nor other physical
manifestation. The revelations came through the power of the Holy Ghost, to
which I shall further refer to in a few moments.
“Paul heard
the voice of Christ at the time of his conversion. The Father’s voice came to
the three Apostles, Peter, James, and John at the time of the Transfiguration,
saying ‘This is my beloved Son: hear him.’ (Matt. 17:1–12; Mark 9:2–13; Luke
9:28–36.)
“These
theophanies are revelations, but they are not the only revelations, nor the
only way in which revelations come. Speaking of the Welfare Plan, I never heard
President Grant say that he had seen the Master, that he had seen the Father,
or that he had heard a voice about the Welfare Plan. But that does not mean
that he did not have a revelation.
“One of the
common ways, other ways, in which revelations come is shown by the words of
Enos. Enos said, ‘The voice of the Lord came into my mind again, saying.’ [Enos
1:10] That is, the word of the Lord came into his mind; there was no voice, but
nevertheless a certainty that he had the word of the Lord coming to him.
“If I might
be pardoned, I would like just to tell of a personal experience. I was standing
at the bier of Senator Knox, a very dear, personal friend of mine. We had
almost the relationship of father and son. And as I stood there, there came
into my mind a voice, saying as distinctly as though it spoke in my ear, ‘This
that you see here, is not Senator Knox; this is merely the flesh which housed
his spirit, the spirit is gone.’
“Jeremiah
said: ‘Then the words of the Lord came unto me, saying.’ (Jer. 1:4.) And then
he went on with those great prophecies and revelations which came to him in
that way. Now that is a direct communication, not a theophany, but the
equivalent of it.
“But there is still another way in which
revelation comes, and that way is through the ministrations of the Holy Ghost.
I’m not going to . . . give you a sermon about the Holy Ghost, but it is worth
your study to try to learn what the Holy Ghost may and can do.”5
I want to
contrast a man of inspiration who actually has had a revelation and tells about
it—a testimony, we say, a voice of divine power expressing itself in truth to
him—with a man who has never had any such experience, and so he concludes,
because he hasn’t had such, that all of it is just the fabrications of one’s
own thinking and experience. Now, I hold those two up by contrast so we can see
the difference between a revelation that comes by God and a divine source and
that which is a fabrication of one’s thinking because he has never enjoyed the
experience of a revelation.
In the 19th
chapter of Revelation is found what I think in the Bible is perhaps one of the
best definitions of a revelation: “And I fell at his feet to worship him. And
he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy
brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation
19:10; italics added). Therein is an excellent definition. Let’s follow that
through. Paul the Apostle said to the Corinthians, “No man speaking by the
Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and . . . no man can say that Jesus is
the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 12:3). Now put those two
statements together, and they make this very impressive truth. The testimony of
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. One who has a testimony of Jesus must receive
it by the power of the Holy Ghost; in other words, the Holy Ghost is the power
by which we receive revelation, or the testimony of Jesus. It is the spirit of
prophecy, or, to put it differently, prophecy is a gift of the Holy Ghost.
Then we
have what Peter said about it when he said, “For the prophecy came not in old
time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21). There are some who wonder what sort of individual
one must be to receive a testimony. There are some who have concluded that
somehow one must hold the priesthood. I have taken four illustrations that are
of individuals who are of different standing within the Church to illustrate
the next point.
Peter, you
will recall, was with the disciples when Jesus withdrew with them to Caesarea
Philippi on the coast of the Mediterranean on a hot day, apparently to have a
rest from their arduous missionary labors. And there came a time, even in their
day, when they thought it wise to rest. Maybe some of the rest of us should
learn that lesson. Jesus asked them for some sort of report about their
missionary labor when He asked the question: “Whom do men say that I the Son of
man am?”
Recall
their answer: “Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and
others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.”
Then He
asked the question, “But whom say ye that I am?”
Then
Peter’s direct testimony: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Now the
reply or the rejoinder of the Master is significant: “Blessed art thou, Simon
Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father
which is in heaven” (Matthew 16:13–17).
That answer
disproves the writing of our friend who says that it is due to one’s experience
and the progress he has made in his intellectual thinking. Flesh and blood do
not reveal this unto you. Peter hadn’t received this knowledge because he was a
great scientist or because he was a great philosopher or because he was a
student of this teacher or that—he was a humble, lowly fisherman. “Flesh and
blood hath not revealed [this] unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” It
was a revelation he received to know that Jesus was the Christ. …
Who is a
prophet, then? Brother Hugh Nibley’s radio series deals with the subject “Time
Vindicates the Prophets.” It’s been a most timely series to offset this thing
that is creeping in among us. Brother Nibley, one of our fine scholars at the
Brigham Young University and a devoted Latter-day Saint with his feet firmly
planted, has been giving us some excellent material. May I read one or two
paragraphs from Brother Nibley’s excellent series.
“The
prophets being thus disposed of, the word prophet
has been liberated in our own day for almost unlimited use. Almost any
individual of more than ordinary insight, learning, or rhetorical gifts is sure
at some time or other to be called a prophet. So loosely has the word come to
be used that we must, before proceeding, reach an agreement on a few things
that a prophet is not.”
He said:
“If anyone who claimed to be a prophet attempted to teach anything of his skill to another, he was not a true prophet, the saints were advised. Prophecy is a direct
gift from God; it cannot be conveyed from one man to another; it cannot be
transmitted through any courses of instruction.”
And then I
skip down; I am picking out only a few statements here and there. “Obviously,
then, the prophetic gift, the highest form of revelation, coming directly from
above cannot be transmitted through any courses of instruction, however
valuable they may be as preparation; it cannot be acquired in any school.”
Here is
what Peter said. I’ve thought of this ofttimes. This is supposedly from
tradition, in a very old text. Peter is reported to have said to James
regarding the use of his writings in the Church: “They think they are able to
interpret my own words better than I can, telling their hearers that they are
conveying my very thoughts to them, while the fact is that such things never
entered my mind. If they take such outrageous liberties while I am alive, what
will they do after I am gone!”
I sometimes
wonder that people will try to twist words to make them mean something wholly
different from the writer. It reminds me of something President George Albert
Smith said. I think it was Brother Joseph Merrill who wrote home when he went
over to preside in the European Mission. He was quoted as having said that
President George Albert Smith taught while he was there that in order for one
to be a candidate for terrestrial glory he had to have baptism done for him
after he had received the gospel in the spirit world. Brother Merrill said, “Did
you teach that, Brother Smith?” Brother Smith wrote back very humbly and said,
“I don’t know, Brother Merrill. I don’t think I did because I’ve never believed
that, so I don’t think I taught it.”
If people
will twist men’s words while they are alive, heaven only knows what they will
do after they are gone. Then Dr. Nibley says this:
“Of course,
God can choose a learned man for a prophet if he wants to, but we are told in
no uncertain terms that such is not the type of man he prefers. To the pagan,
Celsus, who made merry over the poor education and bad grammar of the Apostles,
Origen replied that the obviously defective education of the prophets was the
most powerful argument in their favor, for if they had acquired the learning of
the schools, then their great gifts of leadership and persuasion might possibly
be attributed not to direct instruction from above, but to their years of
training. . . .
“. . . We
cannot agree with the Talmudist who says that any opinion expressed by a clever
scholar is to be received exactly as if it were the word of God to Moses on
Sinai—they are not the same at all. We cannot agree with the fourth-century
fathers that the learned man who reads the scripture is conversing with God
just as literally as did Adam in the garden. Nor can we agree with the popular
academic platitude that since the gospel contains all truth, whatever is taught
anywhere, provided only it is true, is the gospel. This is of a piece with that
other cliché, that since God is mind, any mental activity whatever is to be
regarded as a direct revelation from heaven.”
Brother
Nibley has done a most excellent job in this series. I commend it to all.
One is a
prophet, then, who has the gift of prophecy. Who may have the gift of prophecy?
It’s answered, I think, pretty clearly in what I have cited before, but let me
give an incident.
A group of
65 Episcopal scholars had been holding a meeting or a convention or a synod,
whatever they were calling it, in Salt Lake City and had asked for the
privilege of coming to the Church Office Building and meeting with one of the
General Authorities to discuss problems and ask questions, and President George
Albert Smith had kindly agreed to meet them. But on the day that they were to
come, my telephone rang. It was a hot day, and his secretary said, “Brother
Smith is ill and can’t be here today, and he’s got this group of men that he
promised to talk to, so he called and asked if I would ask you to go up and
meet these scholars and answer their questions.”
I didn’t
feel very well, either.
We had two
hours of discussion. At first I told them just what the Lord told Joseph, that
all the churches were wrong. They had a form of godliness, but they denied the
power thereof. They taught for commandments the doctrines of men. Then I told
them about the organization, the restoration by holy angels, and then their
time came in the second hour to ask questions, and it was everything from the
Mountain Meadows Massacre to plural marriage and back and forth and in between.
It was a time for explaining the power of testimony.
“Why will
your people make these sacrifices to pay tithing?” “Why are they willing to send their sons and
daughters into the mission field at their own expense?” “How are you able to
build these great structures out of the sacrifices of your people?” And there
was only one answer. It’s because of the conviction, the certainty, the
testimony of the divinity of the work that they are supporting thus by their
sacrifices.
Well, there
followed that two-hour session a rather interesting meeting and conversation
when they went over to Temple Square, where the President’s secretary, Brother
D. Arthur Haycock, was walking with Reverend Samuelson from New York, who was
the head of the party. As they fell into conversation, Arthur said to him,
“Reverend Samuelson, you have been asking Brother Lee some rather frank
questions. Would you mind if I asked you a frank question?”
“Certainly
not,” this fine gentleman replied.
Arthur
said, “Now, would you say that you and your fellow ministers have a testimony
that the things you teach as Episcopal ministers is the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Would you say that the Episcopal Church is the true church of Jesus Christ on
earth and that you have a testimony of it?”
The
reverend hesitated for a moment, and then he replied, and note the significance
of it, “No, I wouldn’t say that we have a testimony. I’d say rather that we
have a zeal for doing good.”
Now, there
is the distinction between the truly authorized servants of the Lord and the
ministers of sectarian churches—fine men, doing a lot of good, no question
about it, and we’re not to disparage all that they have done. But they lack the
power of the Holy Ghost by which that divine knowledge and certainty of the
things they teach could have been revealed! That’s what Moroni meant when he
said he would exhort any that would read these things that they would ask
according to a formula, “with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith
in Christ,” and if they would do that they should receive the knowledge. How?
“By the power of the Holy Ghost” (Moroni 10:4). How to qualify to receive the
Holy Ghost, then, becomes our task, all of us.
Nephi in
writing said: “I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my
people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a man
speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it
unto the hearts of the children of men” (2 Nephi 33:1).
And he
explains how the Holy Ghost may be obtained: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I
know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no
hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your
sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name
of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the
water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost;
yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye
speak with the tongue of angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel”
(2 Nephi 31:13).
I know of
no place in the scripture where there is a better explanation of how to get the
Holy Ghost than that. And if we will apply that fully in our own lives, if
there is any area of the gospel as we speak of it where we do not have a full
assurance or certainty, if we will apply the rule that Nephi mapped out, as
there specified, we too can know with a certainty that defies all
contradiction. …
We can sum
it up and say that any person who has received a testimony has received a
revelation from the living God or else he would not have the testimony. Anyone
who has a testimony, then, has enjoyed the gift of prophecy, he’s had the
spirit of revelation, and to that degree he is a prophet unto himself, isn’t
he? He has had the gift by which the prophets have been able to speak things
pertaining to their responsibilities. Now, mark the distinction between a lay
member receiving information and the prophet of the Lord who has the keys: only
one man can receive revelation for the Church. …
If the
Presidency appoints someone to do a certain thing, is that appointment
sufficient to guarantee what he says to be authentic? With reference to a
certain address [Talmage’s “The Earth and Man”] which had been delivered years
ago by one of our brethren on a controversial subject, the First Presidency
wrote:
“We make
this foregoing statement without making any comment at all upon the matters
discussed in the sermon. The whole point of this explanation is that the sermon
cannot be regarded as the official pronouncement of the Church.
“With
reference to a further question involved in your letter, as to the value to be
attached to a publication made ‘by appointment’: In our Church, as you know,
men are called ‘by appointment’ to do many things, but that does not mean that
the Church must approve everything that they do, nor does it necessarily give
to that which they do an official sanction. These ‘appointments’ are made
merely in order that certain work shall be done. For example, Elder John A.
Widtsoe is at present engaged in delivering a series of lectures at the
University of Southern California, in a course bearing the title, ‘Mormon
History, Doctrines, and Philosophy.’ He is doing this ‘by appointment’ of the
Presidency, but that does not mean that everything or anything which Elder
Widtsoe may teach or say acquires by virtue of the ‘appointment’ any peculiar
value or force. Certainly what he says cannot be taken as the official and
therefore, of necessity, the inspired view of the Church, nor the official
doctrine of the Church. This does not mean
that his views are not orthodox—they may be or they may not be; it only means
that whether orthodox or not, they are not the official utterances of the
Church and are not binding upon the Church and stand only as the
well-considered views of a scholar . . . of the Church. This is the position in
which all of the work which your father did ‘by appointment’ stands.”
Now, that
is a pretty straightforward interpretation, isn’t it? But I think it is one
that we all should get. …
I bear you
my testimony that I have that witness; I know that it is true and that Joseph
was a prophet and the gift of prophecy is among men today. I know it and thank
God that I have had a simple enough faith that from my childhood I too have had
a theophany. I’ve heard a voice of an unseen spirit. I’ve received witnesses
and testimonies that I could not have received except by that gift by which we
too might continue to know the truth.
[1]
See Ben Spackman, “(No) Death before the Fall? The Basis and Twentieth-Century
History of Interpretation,” starting page 81, at:
https://lifesciences.byu.edu/00000196-3fde-d175-add6-bfdf50c80001/gospel-evolution-pdf
[3]
Because the chapter we are noticing brings up some alleged views of Pres. J.
Reuben Clark Jr., I include this 1954 reminiscence from Elder Harold B. Lee,
who was for three decades intimately acquainted with Pres. Clark:
To accept the reality of the
Fall and the Atonement is to immediately defeat the teachings of the theories
of the so-called scientific men. . . .
And when you begin to see that, you see how vital to
all we are teaching is an understanding of the Fall, making necessary the
Atonement—hence the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ. Recently President J.
Reuben Clark and I were talking about some of these things—about some who
perhaps claim membership in the Church but who deny the Fall and therefore deny
the need for the Atonement and even the Atonement itself. President Clark said,
“If they really only knew it, they are not Christians, because they do not
believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world.”
And from Pres. Clark in general conference:
It seems sometimes as if the darkness that surrounds us is all but impenetrable. I can see on all sides the signs of one great evil master-mind [Satan] working for the overturning of our civilization, the destruction of religion, the reduction of men to the status of animals. This mind is working here and there and everywhere. (Conference Report, October 1935, 92; emphasis added.)
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