(Scripture Reading Exercise.)

IV. REVELATION.—(Continued.)

SPECIAL TEXT: I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other: "Joseph, this is My beloved Son, hear Him." Joseph Smith, Pearl of Great Price, p. 85. (Edition of 1902.)

NOTES.

1. The Doctrine and Covenants on the Existence of God: The Doctrine and Covenants in the main is a collection of Revelations given through Joseph Smith. The revelations are not a formal treatise on theology. In all the revelations the existence of God, as would naturally be expected, is assumed. "There is a God in heaven who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, the same unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things that are in them." (Doc. & Cov. Sec. XX; 17). This declaration is made in the revelation which directed the organization of the Church to be made, on the 6th day of April, 1830. So all through the revelations, God's existence is proclaimed, but never argued: "Hear, O Ye Heavens, and give ear O Earth, and rejoice ye inhabitants thereof, for the Lord is God, and beside Him there is no Savior. Great is His wisdom, marvelous are His ways, and the extent of His doings none can find out. His purposes fail not, neither are there any who can stay his hand; from eternity to eternity he is the same and his years never fail. * * * And now after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony last of all, which we give of him, that he lives; for we saw Him, even on the right hand of God, and we heard the voice bearing record that He is the Only Begotten of the Father—that by Him, and through Him, and of Him the worlds are and were created and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God." Doc. & Cov., Sec. LXXVI. This kind of proclamation recurs at times in other revelations.

2. The Lectures on Faith: In the fore part of the Doctrine and Covenants there is a series of six lectures on faith. The lectures, of course, are not on the same level of authority with the revelations. They constitute a treatise on the subject of their title drawn up by a committee appointed from among the Elders of the Church by the High Council at Kirtland, on the 24th of September, 1834. The committee consisted of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams. (History of the Church, Vol. II, p. 165.) The lectures were first delivered to a class of elders at Kirtland during the winter of 1834-5, under the title of "Lectures on Theology." The Prophet alludes to the circumstance in his journal as follows, under date of December 1st, 1834: "Our school for the Elders was now well attended, and with the lectures on theology, which were regularly delivered absorbed for the time being, everything else of a temporal nature." (Hist. of the Church, Vol. II, pp. 175-6.) On the first of January following he refers to the same subject as follows: "During the month of January I was engaged in the school of the Elders and in preparing the lectures on theology for publication in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants which the committee [above named] appointed last September were now compiling."

The following is a foot note from page 176 of the History of the Church, Volume II: These "Lectures on Theology" here referred to were afterwards prepared by the Prophet, (See p. 180), and published in the Doctrine and Covenants under the title "Lectures on Faith." They are seven in number, and occupy the first seventy-five pages in the current editions of the Doctrine and Covenants. They are not to be regarded as of equal authority in matters of doctrine with the revelations of God in the Doctrine and Covenants, but as stated by Elder John Smith, who, when the book of Doctrine and Covenants was submitted to the several quorums of the Priesthood for acceptance, (August 17, 1835,) speaking in behalf of the Kirtland High Council, "bore record that the revelations in said book were true, and that the lectures were judicially written and compiled, and were profitable for doctrine." The distinction which Elder John Smith here makes should be observed as marking the difference between the Lectures on Faith and the revelations of God in the Doctrine and Covenants. (See also Seventy's First Year Book, Part V, Lesson I, pp. 135-138.)

3. The Objective Reality of Joseph Smith Vision: Did the visions of Joseph Smith have objective reality, or were they purely subjective, mere creations of the mind? This question has been extensively debated. Of course, from the Mormon point of view, the visions had objective reality. That is to say, the Divine personages of the first vision were tangible, bodily persons. One of them, in fact, was the risen Christ, who, when he arose from the dead left a tomb empty; who, to some of his doubting disciples, on appearing to a number of them after his resurrection, said "handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bone as ye see me have." And who in further attestation of the reality of his bodily existence ate of a fish and honey-comb in the presence of these same disciples. And we have warrant even of the Athanasian Greed that "such as the Father is, such is the son;" and conversely it follows of necessity that as the Son is, so is the Father! Hence the Father a tangible reality, a personage of flesh and bone as indeed was and is the Christ.

The Singularity of Joseph Smith's Vision of God: Joseph Smith's vision of God is the most singular of any given to mortal man. The only other vision that approaches it is that of Stephen described in Acts VII. "He being full of the Holy Ghost looked up steadfastly unto heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." Then the Jews cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears that they might not hear his supposed blasphemy, and ran upon him with one accord, and stoned him to death. Stephens's vision of God, however, is not equal to Joseph Smith's vision for distinctiveness of view, and definiteness of revelation of the Father's person. Hitherto it could be said—"And no man knoweth * * * * the Father save the Son, and He to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him (Matt. xi:27); also "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." (John i:18.) The Father according to these sayings—except for the vision of Stephen—had kept in the background of revelation; for the Jehovah of the Jews—God—was but the pre-existent spirit of the Christ of the New Testament. (See also revelation of Moriancumer, the brother of Jared, Ether III.) But when the "dispensation of the Fulness of Times" was being ushered in, it was fitting that a fulness of knowledge of God should be revealed to the first great witness and prophet of that dispensation. Fitting, too, that the Father should introduce the son to that witness and prophet. Nowhere else is there a vision of God so perfect, and glorious as in that vision with which the dispensation of the fulness of times opens—the dispensation in which it is promised that all things shall be gathered together in one—"all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even to him. (Eph. I:10).