D&C 137-138 Quotes and Notes

D&C 137 – January 21, 1836

This revelation was received in the west school room on the third floor of the Kirtland Temple. Church leaders from Kirtland and Missouri had assembled to be anointed as part of the endowment of power to be bestowed upon the “first elders” in connection with the dedication of the temple. Two separate meetings were held the evening of 21 January, the latter continuing into the morning hours. During the first meeting, Joseph Smith, his father, and his brother Hyrum, along with members of the First Presidency (Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams and Oliver Cowdery, associate president of the Church), the presidency of the Church in Missouri (David Whitmer, William W. Phelps, and John Whitmer), the bishoprics in Kirtland and Missouri, and the Prophet’s scribe (Warren Parrish), anointed each other with “holy oil” and offered prayers that the anointing blessings would be accepted. “The second meeting was not unlike the first, except that those being anointed were members of the Church high councils in Kirtland and Missouri. Although visions and spiritual manifestations were witnessed during both ceremonies, section 137 was received during the first anointing session.”^[1]Joseph Fielding McConkie and Craig J. Ostler, Revelations of the Restoration: A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants and other Modern Revelations, Deseret Book, 2000, p. 1137; … Continue reading

Oliver Cowdery made the following entry in his diary for the day: “Thursday, the 21st, this morning, at 15 minutes past nine, my little daughter is 5 months old. O Lord, I thank thee that thou hast thus been merciful and spared my only child. At about three o’clock P.M. I assembled in our office garret, having all things prepared for the occasion, with presidents Joseph Smith, jr. F. G. Williams, Sidney Rigdon Hyrum Smith, David Whitmer, John Whitmer and elder John Corrill, and washed our bodies with pure water before the Lord, preparatory to the annointing with the holy oil. After we were washed, our bodies were perfumed with a sweet smelling oderous wash. At evening the presidents of the Church, with the two bishops and their counsellors, and elder Warren Parrish, met in the presidents’ room, the high cou[n]cils of Kirtland and Zion in their rooms. Those named in the first room were annointed with the same kind of oil and in the man[ner] that were Moses and Aaron, and those who stood before the Lord in ancient days, and those in the other rooms with annointing oil prepared for them. The glorious scene is too great to be described in this book, therefore, I only say, that the heavens were opened to many, and great and marvelous things were shown.”^[2]Revelations of the Restoration, 1137-38; Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland,” 418-19.

Though consisting of but ten verses this is one of the most significant revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants. It lays the doctrinal foundation upon which rests the whole concept of our labors in behalf of our kindred dead. It clearly separates this doctrine from any notion that the living can neglect their responsibilities in this life, believing that they can attend to them or have someone else attend to them when they have died.^[3]Revelations of the Restoration, p. 1137-1138.

D&C 137.1 Whether in the body or out I cannot tell

What kind of vision was this? This text seems to open the possibilities for Joseph and his contemporaries to be participating in things outside of the normal mortal understanding. Certainly visions of the heavens would qualify as extraordinary experiences! Was Joseph “out of the body” during this prophetic perception? He seems to say that this may have occurred. What do ancient sources tells us about prophets’ mystical encounters? What does Joseph tell us about his visionary episodes? A careful reading of his accounts of visionary experiences might shed some light on these and other questions.^[4]I realize what I am presenting here may not fit everyone’s expectations of Joseph’s visionary experiences. But this seems to be his reporting of the occurrences of these events. One commentator … Continue reading

JSH 1.20, 42 – I found myself lying on my back… the vision opened my mind that I could see… so clearly and distinctly….

D&C 76.12 – By the power of the Spirit our eyes were opened and our understandings were enlightened, so as to see and understand the things of God.

Philo Dibble, as one of several being present during Joseph and Sidney’s reception of D&C 76, said, “I saw the glory and felt the power, but did not see the vision.”^[5]Dibble, “Recollections of the Prophet Joseph Smith,” Juvenile Instructor, 27 (1892). Elder Dibble relates “that Joseph and Sidney were in the spirit and saw the heavens open, there were other … Continue reading

Moses 1.11 – Mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes…

2 Corinthians 12.3 – …whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth.

The Ascension of Isaiah 6.6-15 – …As he was speaking in the Holy Spirit in the hearing of all, he became silent and his mind was taken up from him and he saw not the men who stood before him… the mind in his body was taken up from him. But his breath was in him; for he was seeing a vision… the vision which holy Isaiah saw was not from this world but from the world which is hidden from the flesh.^[6]The Ascension of Isaiah is a pseudepigraphal work that has fragments in Greek, Coptic, Latin, and Old Slavonic. Three separate works comprise the total book, the final version by a Christian editor, … Continue reading

D&C 137.5 – Joseph saw his father, his mother, and Alvin

In this most remarkable vision, the Prophet was not shown things as they were in the celestial kingdom but rather as they yet would be. This would have been immediately evident to him as he saw in that vision his own father and mother. His father was present in the room with him when the vision was received, and his father and mother lived for some years after this event. Each of the persons shown in the vision appears to have been deliberately chosen to emphasize that salvation is a family affair and that it centers in the promises made to our ancient fathers. In addition to seeing the Father and the Son, the Prophet saw Adam, the father of all humankind; Father Abraham, the father of the faithful; and his own father and mother reunited with his brother Alvin, who had died twelve years earlier at age twenty-five.^[7]Ibid., p. 1138-39.

The death of Alvin had a deep impact on Joseph Smith

“In November 1823, Alvin Smith, the oldest child of Lucy Mack Smith and Joseph Smith Sr., suddenly became seriously ill and lay near death. Alvin was 25 years old, a strong and capable young man whose hard work contributed greatly to the family’s financial stability. His mother described him as ‘a youth of singular goodness of disposition,’ whose ‘nobleness and generosity’ blessed those around him ‘every hour of his existence.’ …

“Knowing he was dying, Alvin called his brothers and sisters to him and spoke to each of them. To Joseph, who was almost 18 years old and had not yet received the gold plates, Alvin said, ‘I want you to be a good boy and do everything that lies in your power to obtain the records. Be faithful in receiving instruction and keeping every commandment that is given you. …’

“When Alvin died, the family asked a Presbyterian minister in Palmyra, New York, to officiate at his funeral. As Alvin had not been a member of the minister’s congregation, the clergyman asserted in his sermon that Alvin could not be saved. William Smith, Joseph’s younger brother, recalled: ‘[The minister] … intimated very strongly that [Alvin] had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a church member, but he was a good boy and my father did not like it.’”^[8]Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 401, 403. See also: Smith, History of Joseph Smith, 1996, 116.

D&C 137.7-9 – Who would have received it

The question could well be asked as to why it was that Alvin would be chosen to represent these truths? The answer is that he is the perfect example of the kind of person to whom these principles apply. Alvin died in November of 1823. His passing had been a matter of considerable sorrow to the Smith family and to the young woman to whom he was engaged. Their wounded souls had been cut to the core at his funeral by the unfeeling remarks of the Presbyterian minister who had consigned Alvin to hell because he had not been baptized or involved in that church.

Despite his relative youth, Alvin was a man of unusual spiritual propensity. Before his death, he called each of his brothers and sisters in turn to his bedside and gave them a parting admonition.

Mother Smith stated that “Alvin had ever manifested a greater zeal and anxiety, if it were possible, than any of the rest with regard to the record which had been shown to Joseph, and he always showed the most intense interest concerning the matter. With this before our minds, we could not endure to hear or say one word upon that subject, for the moment that Joseph spoke of the record it would immediately bring Alvin to our minds with all his kindness, his affection, his zeal, and piety. And when we looked to his place and realized that he was gone from it, to return no more in this life, we all wept with one accord over our irretrievable loss, and we could ‘not be comforted, because he was not.'”^[9]Smith, History of Joseph Smith, 1996, 119.

Nearly twenty years later, Joseph Smith recounted his feelings at the time of Alvin’s death, saying: “I remember well the pangs of sorrow that swelled my youthful bosom and almost burst my tender heart when he died. He was the oldest and noblest of my father’s family. . . . He lived without spot from the time he was a child. . . . He was one of the soberest of men, and when he died the angel of the Lord visited him in his last moments.”^[10]History of the Church, 5:126-27.

D&C 137.10 – Little children are saved

Little children shall live! What more perfect evidence of an omniscient and loving God than the doctrine which proclaims that little children who die are heirs of celestial glory! From these no blessing shall be withheld and to such no opportunities will be denied. The testimony of the Book of Mormon and the latter- day oracles is certain and clear: children who die before the age of accountability shall come forth in the resurrection of the just and go on to enjoy all of the privileges associated with eternal life and the family unit.

As a result of his vision of the celestial kingdom, the Prophet Joseph Smith recorded, “I also beheld that all children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven” (D&C 137:10). This idea was not entirely new to the Prophet, for he had learned from the Book of Mormon and previous revelations of the Lord’s disposition in regard to the status of children. An angel explained to King Benjamin that “the infant perisheth not that dieth in his infancy” (Mosiah 3:18). After having described the nature of those who come forth in the first resurrection, Abinadi said simply, “And little children also have eternal life” (Mosiah 15:25). A revelation given in September of 1830 specified that “little children are redeemed from the foundation of the world through mine Only Begotten” (D&C 29:46).

D&C 138 – Joseph F. Smith’s vision of the Redemption of the Dead

Early Christians believed that people were not saved or damned based on when they lived or died but based on what they decided to do with Christ’s offer of salvation when they learned about it. Over the subsequent centuries, however, death became “a firm boundary of salvation” in western Christianity.^[11]Steven C. Harper, Doctrine and Covenants Central, background to D&C 138. See also: Jeffrey A. Trumbower, Rescue for the Dead: The Posthumous Salvation of Non-Christians in Early … Continue reading

Based on teachings of Peter and Paul, medieval Christians continued to believe in what they called the “harrowing of hell,” Christ’s disembodied descent into the spirit world between his crucifixion and resurrection to redeem the captives. A rich tradition of drama and art depict the Savior’s mission of “deliverance” in which he declared “liberty to the captives who had been faithful” (D&C 138:18).^[12]K. M. Warren, “Harrowing of Hell,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII. (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910).

A thousand years later, in 1918, the problem of death had not diminished and the aged Prophet Joseph F. Smith contemplated the same teachings of Peter and Paul. The Great War, known to us as World War I, raged, eventually claiming more than nine million lives.^[13]Tate writes, “In the end, seventy million men took up arms. There were over thirty million military casualties, including over nine million dead. Nine million! Such numbers roll easily off the … Continue reading

A global influenza pandemic dwarfed that total, reaping a grim harvest of perhaps 50 million souls or more worldwide. It killed over 195,000 Americans in October 1918, the deadliest month in American history, the month the Lord revealed section 138.^[14]George S. Tate, “The Great World of the Spirits of the Dead: Death, the Great War, and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic as Context for Doctrine and Covenants 138,” BYU Studies 46 no. 1 … Continue reading

Death itself was an absence… For the bereaved whose kinsmen were among the missing or had distant graves in foreign fields, even the rituals of closure that revolve around a body were not available. And the sheer, overwhelming quantity of death awakened individual and communal grief on an unprecedented scale.^[15]Tate, p. 21. On the pervasiveness of grief and communities of mourning, see Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge … Continue reading With loss came questions: What is the fate of the dead? Do they continue to exist? Is there life after death? Will I see my loved ones again? The world was dense with loss and, as soldier journalist Stephen Graham wrote upon revisiting the battlefields in 1920, “There is a pull from the other world, a drag on the heart and spirit.”^[16]Stephen Graham, The Challenge of the Dead (London: Cassell, 1921), 36.

In the midst of the dead and dying was Joseph F. His father Hyrum had been brutally shot to death when Joseph was five. “I lost my mother, the sweetest soul that ever lived,” Joseph wrote, “when I was only a boy.”^[17] Joseph F. Smith, “Status of Children in the Resurrection,” in Messages of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, compiled by James R. Clark, 6 vols. … Continue reading His first child, Mercy Josephine, died at age two, leaving Joseph “vacant, lonely, desolate, deserted.” His eldest son died unexpectedly in January 1918, leaving President Smith his “overwhelming burden of grief.” In between those deaths, President Smith buried a wife and eleven other children.^[18]Joseph Fielding Smith, compiler, Life of Joseph F. Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1938), 476.

Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and Wilford Woodruff all taught that the Savior unlocked the spirit prison and provided for redemption of the dead.^[19]See Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds. and comps., Words of Joseph Smith (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center Brigham Young University, 1980), 370; Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses, … Continue reading Not until Joseph F.’s vision, however, did mankind know how Christ “organized his forces,” “appointed messengers,” and “commissioned them to go forth” (D&C 138:30). That made it possible for the dead to act for themselves, to be fully developed free agents who were accountable for their new knowledge. The teaching fulfilled God’s just plan of salvation, making each individual responsible to receive or reject “the sacrifice of the Son of God” (v. 35).

As both orphaned son and grieving father, President Smith appreciated the vision’s confirmation of “the redemption of the dead, and the sealing of the children to their parents” (v. 48).

Earlier in 1918, President Joseph F. Smith lost his son Hyrum, then forty-five, to complications from a ruptured appendix. President Smith wrote in his journal:

“My soul is rent asunder. My heart is broken, and flutters for life! O my sweet son, my joy, my hope! . . . O God, help me!”^[20]Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith, 474 (only a portion of the lament is quoted here); this passage is also quoted in the Priesthood and Relief Society manual Teachings of Presidents of the … Continue reading After his sons Joseph Fielding and David Asael took him to view Hyrum’s body, President Smith confided again in his journal:

At the noon hour David and Joseph took me to Hyrum’s where I once more kissed the lips of my boy—whose lips I have never failed to kiss since his birth whenever we have met, or parted until now—they did not, for the first time in all his life, kiss me back again! O how bitter is this unwelcome fate! I am actually thankful that I can find some relief from my overwhelming burden of grief in tears.^[21]Tate, p. 10-11. Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith, 476.

The death of his firstborn son, in whom he took such pride and placed such hope, was devastating to the prophet. Suffering from ill health since 1916, President Smith declined markedly in the months following Hyrum’s death.^[22]Tate, p. 11.

The death of his daughter-in-law^[23]Joseph F. Smith’s son Hyrum was married to Ida Bowman Smith. After Hyrum died, Ida died of heart failure on September 24, six days after she gave birth to a son, whom she named after his deceased … Continue reading just before conference could not but renew his grief for his son. The prophet, asking himself what purpose the death of the young Apostle might serve, must have found consolation in the words of the vision that now comprise D&C 138.57: “I beheld that the faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance . . . in the great world of the spirits of the dead.” It must also have brought him comfort to see among the noble and great ones his father Hyrum (D&C 138.53), after whom he had named his son and after whom in turn his new orphaned grandson was also named.^[24]Tate, p. 12.

A survivor of the influenza pandemic repeatedly asked, “Where are the dead?” Section 138 “answers this question and speaks to the great, worldwide need that underlies it.”^[25]Tate, “The Great World of the Spirits of the Dead,” 39–40. On October 31, 1918, ailing President Smith sent his son Joseph Fielding Smith to read the revelation to a meeting of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. 

The Saints were surprised to hear from President Smith at the October conference that year, for he had been very ill. In his weakened condition he spoke only briefly. The front page of the Deseret Evening News for October 4 summarizes his comments. He referred to his illness and said: “I have not lived alone these five months. I have dwelt in the spirit of prayer, of supplication, of faith and of determination; and I have had my communications with the Spirit of the Lord continuously.”^[26]Tate, p. 8. See also: Joseph F. Smith, 89th Semi-Annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, … Continue reading

The prophet shared the vision of October 3 with his son Joseph Fielding, who took it in dictation immediately following the close of conference.^[27]Smith, Life of Joseph F. Smith, 466. As the headnote to section 138 indicates, the text was presented on October 31 to President Smith’s counselors, to the Quorum of the Twelve, and to the Patriarch of the Church and unanimously accepted by them.^[28] James E. Talmage, Journal, October 31, 1918, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University; Anthon H. Lund, Journal, October 31, 1918, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. President Smith died on November 19, and the text was first published in the Deseret Evening News on November 30 under the title “Vision of the Redemption of the Dead.” Joseph F. passed from life to death knowing better than anyone else what he could expect on arrival.^[29]Steven C. Harper, Doctrine and Covenants Central, background to D&C 138.

Arise from the dust

D&C 138.17 reads as follows:

Their sleeping dust was to be restored unto its perfect frame, bone to his bone, and the sinews and the flesh upon them, the spirit and the body to be united never again to be divided, that they might receive a fulness of joy.

The King James version of Isaiah 26.17-21 reads as follows:

Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O Lord.

¹⁸ We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

¹⁹ Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

²⁰ Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

²¹ For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

Bruggeman writes:

Behind the creation formula lies a royal formula of enthronement. To be taken “from the dust” means to be elevated from obscurity to royal office and to return to dust means to be deprived of that office and returned to obscurity. Since the royal office depends upon covenant with… God, to be taken from the dust means to be accepted as a covenant-partner and treated graciously; to return to the dust means to lose that covenant relation.^[30]Walter Bruggemann, From Dust to Kingship, Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft; Giessen Vol. 84, Iss. 1, (Jan 1, 1972): 1.

Bruggeman continues when he relates that Genesis 2.7, 1 Samuel 2.6-8, and Psalm 113.7 all speak of being raised from dust to power, a “formula which makes best sense if it is understood as an enthronement formula.”^[31]Bruggemann, p. 4.

The creation motif is apparent in Psalm 104.29-30

when thou takest away their breath,

they die, and return to their dust.

When thou sendest forth thy spirit,

they are created:

and thou renewest the face of the earth.

Covenant and creation are closely related here. The language is that of creation… The dust imagery is here one … (that affims) that suffering and humiliation can be endured, because the faithful know that being in the dust is not the last thing. There is more to be hoped for- and in our context, the more would seem to be elevation out of the dust back to a situation of stability and wholeness, indeed even “glory.” This is confidence that “resurrection” is intended by God toward his faithful.^[32]Bruggemann, From Dust to Kingship, p. 7-8.

If “heaven” here be understood as the kind of elevation of man which applies equally to resurrection and enthronement, then the passage (1 Corinthians 15.48-49) follows the motif of dust faithfully. As “death” expresses both the dust motif and also the broken covenant, then “victory” speaks of being raised out of the dust to kingship as well as the restoration of the covenant… the entire ministry of Jesus is calling men from dust to kingship. That is why his ministry was so frightening and threatening to some and why he had to be eliminated: because he upset the arrangements between the kings and the nobodies.^[33]Bruggemann, p. 17-18.

70 Billion People

Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught:

On the other side of the veil, there are perhaps seventy billion people. They need the same gospel, and releases occur here to aid the Lord’s work there. Each release of a righteous individual from this life is also a call to new labors. Those who have true hope understand this. Therefore, though we miss the departed righteous so much here, hundreds may feel their touch there. One day, those hundreds will thank the bereaved for gracefully forgoing the extended association with choice individuals here, in order that they could help hundreds there. In Gods ecology, talent and love are never wasted. The hopeful understand this, too.^[34]Neal A. Maxwell, Notwithstanding My Weakness, 55.

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