Priesthood and the Kingdom

In 1832 a vision of the Kingdom of God burst upon the earth through the prophet Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon. In it, we learn that heaven has three grand divisions that follow along certain lines:

• The Telestial, or first heaven, is the lowest level of heaven and will be made up of nearly all of God’s children who have lived: “we saw the glory and the inhabitants of the telestial world, that they were as innumerable as the stars in the firmament of heaven, or as the sand upon the seashore” (D&C 76:109).
• The Terrestrial, or second heaven, is an intermediary level of heaven and will be made up of people who were virtuous in goodness but not valiant in Christ: “wherefore, they obtain not the crown over the kingdom of our God” (Ibid., v. 79).
• The Celestial, or third heaven (see 2 Cor. 12:2), is the highest level of heaven and will be made up of those who were valiant in Christ and thus become “joint heirs” with Christ (Rom. 8:17). These go on to the same station and blessing as Christ, who “thought it not robbery to be made equal with God” (Philip. 2:6): “They are they into whose hands the Father has given all things—they are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his fulness, and of his glory” (Ibid., vv. 55 – 56).

All three levels comprise the Kingdom of God, or in other words, the principality where God is king. The highest portion of the Kingdom of God, the Celestial level, is also known as the Kingdom of Heaven, or in other words, the portion of heaven where kingship is administered.

• Entrance to the overall Kingdom of God—be it any of the three levels—is conditioned upon an action that will be undertaken by all people who seek to enter therein: “These all shall bow the knee, and every tongue shall confess to him who sits upon the throne forever and ever” (Ibid., v. 110; see also Rom. 14:11). In other words, all citizens of the kingdom will have to acknowledge Christ as their sovereign king.
• Entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven, however, is conditioned upon a priesthood ordinance that will induct people into the first of three initiate orders of priest-kings and priestess-queens, also known as the Church of the Firstborn:

  “They are they who received the testimony of Jesus, and believed on his name and were baptized after the manner of his burial, being buried in the water in his name, and this according to the commandment which he has given—that by keeping the commandments they might be washed and cleansed from all their sins, and receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands” (Ibid., vv. 51 – 52).

To enter into this highest level requires two things: (1) ordinances administered by valid authority; and (2) a godlike autonomy, the initiate having been led by revelation through the Holy Spirit to the fulness of those valid ordinances. As Brigham Young said:

“Those men, or those women, who know no more about the power of God, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, than to be led entirely by another person, suspending their own understanding, and pinning their faith upon another’s sleeve, will never be capable of entering into the celestial glory, to be crowned as they anticipate; they will never be capable of becoming Gods. They cannot rule themselves, to say nothing of ruling others, but they must be dictated to in every trifle, like a child. They cannot control themselves in the least, but James, Peter, or somebody else must control them” (JOD 1:312).

Those who desired salvation but could only pin their faith ‘upon another’s sleeve’ will find themselves inheriting the outer, Telestial portions of the kingdom, having depended on others to acquaint them with Christ but having never known him. Or as Joseph Smith wrote in his poetic version of D&C 76 (see specifically vv. 98 – 102):

As the stars are all different in lustre and size,
So the telestial region, is mingled in bliss;
From least unto greatest, and greatest to least,
The reward is exactly as promis’d in this

These are they that came out for Apollos and Paul;
For Cephas and Jesus, in all kinds of hope;
For Enoch and Moses, and Peter, and John;
For Luther and Calvin, and even the Pope.

For they never received the gospel of Christ,
Nor the prophetic spirit that came from the Lord;
Nor the covenant neither, which Jacob once had;
They went their own way, and they have their reward.

By the order of God, last of all, these are they.
That will not be gather’d with the saints here below,
To be caught up to Jesus, and meet in the cloud:-
In darkness they worshipp’d; to darkness they go.