In February 1832, not even a full two years after the organization of the restored Church of Jesus Christ, the Prophet Joseph Smith received a revelation that completely upset the common Christian understanding of Heaven and Hell. Now recorded as Doctrine and Covenants section 76, the revelation details how that heaven is split up into three principle levels where the Holy Ghost’s presence is available in all three, God the Son’s presence is available in the top two, and God the Father is only in the highest. The verses describe the qualities of the individuals who will obtain the various kingdoms, including the following somewhat mysterious passage regarding those who inherit the lowest, or Telestial, level:
“The glory of the telestial is one, even as the glory of the stars is one; for as one star differs from another star in glory, even so differs one from another in glory in the telestial world; for these are they who are of Paul, and of Apollos, and of Cephas. These are they who say they are some of one and some of another—some of Christ and some of John, and some of Moses, and some of Elias, and some of Esaias, and some of Isaiah, and some of Enoch; but received not the gospel, neither the testimony of Jesus, neither the prophets, neither the everlasting covenant.
“Last of all, these all are they who will not be gathered with the saints, to be caught up unto the church of the Firstborn, and received into the cloud” (D&C 76:98 – 102, emphasis added).
This passage always caused me to wonder at just what type of person could call themselves a follower of a true prophet of God—a true priesthood holder—and yet not ‘receive the gospel.’ Given that the list even includes the likes of Christ, it seems difficult to identify who in scripture could even have fit this description; the masses that stopped following him at one point would not have said they were ‘of Christ’ and the rest who did follow him were either apparently faithful or, like Judas, became apostates after receiving the gospel of whom, the revelation specifies, they “[suffer] themselves through the power of the devil to be overcome, and to deny the truth and defy my power—they are they who are the sons of perdition” (Ibid., vv. 31 – 32). So who calls themselves ‘of Christ’ and yet ‘receive not the gospel’? What do such characters look like?
To help answer that question, we have an original commentary on the revelation given by Joseph Smith in 1843 in the form of a poem. The content of the poem follows closely the content of D&C 76 but arranged in verse, which arrangement necessitated in places the expansion of information in certain places. For example, the following excerpt pertains to those who are ‘of Christ’ yet ‘receive not the gospel’:
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.
These lines reveal an interesting, subtle aspect regarding the characters we are investigating: they followed after men who professed Christ yet followed not after the Spirit of Christ for themselves, going ‘their own way,’ so that their worship was not one with the light of their Lord but rather ‘in darkness.’ They are neither apostates nor evildoers; they are outward disciples upon whom the gospel did not have its inward transforming effect. These are they Jesus spoke of in parable when he said:
“The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away. But when the blade sprang up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. And the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it tares? And he said unto them, An enemy hath done this. And the servants say unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he saith, Nay; lest haply while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn” (Matt. 13:24 – 30, ASV).
The particular nature of tares is that they resemble outward wheat, hence the warning to not attempt to pluck them up before the wheat was ripe since the wheat would be difficult to distinguish and some could be accidentally lost. Instead, the instruction was to wait until the time of harvest. This is because it is when wheat is ready to harvest that the difference from the tares can at last be seen, for the wheat turns to gold and bows down with the weight of its fruit while the tares remain upright due to being hollow and fruitless. This is a fitting comparison for those who call themselves followers of Christ, or any of his prophets, and yet do not bear the fruit of truly receiving the gospel.
When Christ spoke to John on the Isle of Patmos about these types of characters, those who had professed his name yet knew him not, he described his dissatisfaction with all such in no unclear terms: “You [who] are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!” (Rev. 3:16, NLT). The coldness of apostasy Christ will naturally reject, but lukewarm faith has no great reward to speak of either. Note that it is the faith that is lukewarm, not the outward zeal. On the surface, the wheat and the tares appear the same most of the time, therefore it is not the external religious activity or zeal that distinguishes these groups. To the outside observer, these are not two bodies of saints but one.
What then makes a disciple the ‘hot’ water Christ desires instead of the ‘lukewarm’ water he spits out? Or we might ask, citing the wording of the revelation in D&C 76, what did followers of ancient prophets and apostles lack despite going out ‘in all kinds of hope’ to call themselves by the name of their teachers? Brigham Young gives us the answer:
“Now 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. They never can become Gods, nor be crowned as rulers with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. They never can hold scepters of glory, majesty, and power in the celestial kingdom. Who will? Those who are valiant and inspired with the true independence of heaven, who will go forth boldly in the service of their God, leaving others to do as they please, determined to do right, though all mankind besides should take the opposite course” (JOD 1:312).
Think of this: when one receives the gospel through its attendant ordinances, one receives the gift of the Holy Ghost—and what is the purpose of the Holy Ghost in one’s obtaining eternal life if it is sufficient to only listen to the dictates of some inspired person—or someone who claims so to be—in order to obtain the reward? When hands are laid on the head to confirm a baptized person, the words spoken are not, “Follow the prophet” or “Follow such and such person,” but they are “Receive the Holy Ghost.” The fruit that weighs down the head of the wheat, which the tares do not possess, is the ability for a mind to be led unitedly and personally by revelation and the Holy Ghost. As Joseph Smith said:
“Thy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity—thou must commune with God” (STPJS, 137, emphasis added).
For a mind to ‘commune with God’ is, as the poem stated, to receive ‘the prophetic spirit that came from the Lord’ (incidentally, D&C 76 says, ‘the testimony of Jesus,’ which is the same as the spirit of prophecy [see Rev. 19:10]) and to obtain ‘the covenant…which Jacob once had’ (which is the new and everlasting covenant as discussed at great length on this blog post). And these things only come to those who can ‘control themselves’ and have their own faith to light their way.
So what is the great sin in being united with and calling oneself a fellow believer without obtaining the gifts and covenants of true believers? It is the sin of dependency, a defining trait of a mere angel. As Joseph Smith said regarding the saints in his day:
“President Joseph Smith read the 14th chapter of Ezekiel—said the Lord had declared by the Prophet, that the people should each one stand for himself, and depend on no man or men in that state of corruption of the Jewish church—that righteous persons could only deliver their own souls—applied it to the present state of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—said if the people departed from the Lord, they must fall—that they were depending on the Prophet, hence were darkened in their minds, in consequence of neglecting the duties devolving upon themselves, envious towards the innocent, while they afflict the virtuous with their shafts of envy” (Ibid., 237 – 238, emphasis added).
Though some may be inclined through general Christian tradition to think of angels as high and holy beings, from the Mormon perspective angels are single or unwed and hence damned (meaning unable to progress) in comparison to gods, which are men and women who enter into unending glory through divine rulership over an ever-expanding posterity. Joseph Smith taught that angels are expressly those who failed to understand or live up to the priesthood requirements that lead men to godhood:
“What was the design of the Almighty in making man? It was to exalt him to be as God…. The mystery power and glory of the priesthood is so great and glorious that the angels desired to understand it and cannot. Why? Because of the tradition of them and their fathers in setting up stakes and not coming up to the mark in their probationary state” (Joseph Smith quoted by James Burgess in “Sermon delivered at Nauvoo temple grounds on Sunday August 27, 1843,” James Burgess Notebook, grammar and punctuation modernized).
In other words—and as has been the point all along in this essay—those who are ‘of Christ’ and yet fail to personally obtain his spirit and his covenant are destined to be damned as they did not come ‘up to the mark,’ never learning to govern their own souls toward exaltation. If they had learned this one lesson, they would not be damned and their outward discipleship would have been visited with those inward gifts and promises God gives to the faithful—in other words, they would not just look like wheat, they would be weighed down with fruit when ripe. Instead, dependent on the directives and faith of their fellow man, they themselves fall short of the ‘true independence of heaven’ needed to become a god.
Of course, our Father in Heaven calls and inspires men specifically to teach and lead his children in their weakness upon this earth, namely in the form of prophets. And for those filled with the ‘prophetic spirit’ there is no difficulty in obtaining a oneness with an oracle of God—just as Jesus was one with the Father and, as he prayed, his disciples gained a oneness with him—so that when they hear the word of the Lord from their fellow man they knows it is truth. But for those who follow any man just for the sake of following, not being inspired by the same spirit that emanates from God and that animates the mouths of the prophets, there is no truth in them but a façade of wanting to be counted among the believers. ‘In darkness they worshipp’d; to darkness they go.’ Not because they loved darkness, but because they had no light of their own.
Knowing that this zealous yet hollow spiritual state persists even now (if not now more than ever), consider upon a more modern rendering of the D&C 76 poem as you ask, “Lord, is it I?” (Mark 14:19):
These are they that came out for Joseph and Brigham;
For Cephas and Jesus, in all kind of hopes;
For Heber and Wilford, and Kimball, and Grant;
For Nelson and Eyring, and Dallin H. Oaks.
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.
Home | The Science of Theology 