Podcast Summary: followHIM – Doctrine & Covenants 125-128 Part 2 with Dr. Jordan Watkins
Release Date: October 29, 2025
Hosts: Hank Smith & John Bytheway
Guest: Dr. Jordan Watkins

Episode Overview

This episode delves into Doctrine and Covenants Sections 125-128, focusing especially on the often-overlooked significance of record keeping in temple work—particularly records of proxy baptisms for the dead. Dr. Jordan Watkins brings historical, theological, and personal insights to illuminate how record keeping, legal concepts, and personal experience shaped Joseph Smith’s revelations and the doctrines that undergird Latter-day Saint temple work. The discussion also explores the broader spiritual and communal implications of proxy ordinances, drawing connections to healing, justice, family, and the binding power of texts and rituals.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Centrality of Record Keeping in Temple Work

• Records as Sacred: Dr. Watkins explains that Sections 127–128 focus on the divine imperative to be meticulous and truthful in recording baptisms for the dead. This is connected to the earliest revelations to Joseph Smith commanding the Saints to keep records.
  • [00:21] "We talk about temple work, we don't usually focus on records of temple work. That's what 127 and 128 are all about."
• Development Through Adversity: Joseph Smith’s experiences of persecution—especially his time in Liberty Jail and subsequent periods in hiding—greatly influenced his revelations on record keeping. Initially, records were tied to seeking justice for the Saints’ losses, but over time the vision broadened to include salvation for the dead.
  • [07:34] "Joseph's liberty, jail experience... inspired him to broaden his vision. I would say it this way, from a focus on securing justice... to an emphasis on finding revealed answers to aid in the salvation of the living and the dead."
• Cultural and Legal Context: Early Americans, including the Latter-day Saints, came from a culture that valued record keeping, especially in religious and legal contexts (e.g., family Bibles, legal documents). Legal challenges Joseph faced (habeas corpus, extradition threats) intensified his thinking on the necessity and power of authoritative texts.
  • [09:41] "[Habeas corpus]...means the authorities have to take me. They have to take my body before the court to consider the legality of the arrest or detainment."

2. The Power and Function of Proxy

• Proxy Work Embedded in Law and Ritual: Dr. Watkins highlights the pervasive theme of "proxy" in Joseph’s time—agents acting on his behalf legally, recorders standing in for witnesses, documents serving in lieu of physical presence. This legal proxy mechanism is reflected in and amplified by temple ordinances.
  • [18:31] "Proxy work is everywhere in these letters... recorders can stand in for the general recorder... bodies and documents are working as proxies."
• Habeas Corpus as a Spiritual Parallel: George Adams famously likened proxy baptism to a writ of habeas corpus—just as habeas can free someone from prison, records of baptisms for the dead symbolically free spirits in the afterlife.
  • [22:20] "Adams and I think Joseph, they saw this clear parallel between writs of habeas corpus and records of baptism for the dead."

3. Ontological Significance of Records

• Records as Living Documents: The records themselves are as significant as the acts they memorialize—they "stand in" for physical deeds and have binding, salvific power.
  • [25:05] "This list is an absolute good. This list is life... Joseph is teaching something similar about records of baptism for the dead. The records themselves stand in for the dead."

4. Theological Implications: Binding, Sealing, and Interdependence

• Sealing Power Embedded in Record Keeping: Joseph taught that keeping a faithful record is a priesthood function "to bind on earth and in heaven."
  • [28:31] "Record keeping here...is another function, or in some ways we might even say the function of priesthood."
• Mutual Dependency of Generations: Not only do the dead need the living for ordinances, but the living need the dead—for lessons in grace, charity, and wisdom drawn from their lives and records.
  • [35:55] "We need them in the sense that doing work for them teaches us grace, charity, mercy, selflessness... Perhaps just as much as the dead need access to the ordinances, we need them to become who God wants us to be."

5. Healing, Communion, and Community

• Turning Hearts through Ordinances & Relationships: Personal narratives (e.g., Dr. Watkins’ story of reconciliation with an uncle at a funeral, and Elder Renlund’s recounting of the Pratt brothers’ rift) illustrate the healing and unifying power of family history, temple work, and forgiveness.
  • [41:40] "[Elder Renlund]: When God directs us to do one thing, he often has many purposes in mind. Family history and temple work is not just for the dead, but blesses the living as well."
• Records as Instruments for Building Zion: Records—spiritual and institutional—help forge a community across time, linking participants with past, future, and present co-religionists.
  • [46:24] "Ordinances and records create community, linking us with those who participated anciently and who will participate in the future."

6. Contextual Reception & Ongoing Revelation

• Revelation Amid Life’s Messiness: Dr. Watkins emphasizes that revelation comes "in the midst of our messy lives" rather than independent of our circumstances.
  • [23:44] "Revelation is not received or understood in vacuums...Instead, in light of, in relationship to our context, including our problems. Those are launching pads for revelation."
• Church Policy and Respect for Other Faiths: The episode addresses sensitive issues (e.g., proxy baptisms for Holocaust victims), highlighting church efforts to respect the voices and concerns of others while continuing temple work.
  • [59:56] "In 1995, they created a policy to prohibit the posthumous baptism of Holocaust victims...the thrust of the practice of baptisms for the dead is to assist in turning the hearts of the children to the fathers."
• The Unfinished Restoration: Both hosts and Dr. Watkins remind listeners that much is not yet revealed (Article of Faith 9) and God has made "ample provision" for the salvation of all.
  • [62:41] "That's just a beautiful idea that God is not looking to send people to hell. He has made ample provision, more than enough room to save anyone who chooses."

7. Practical Wisdom for Listeners

• Every Member a Recorder: Today, every Latter-day Saint is a recorder—digitally, spiritually, and relationally. Watkins encourages care and honesty in all types of records, reminding that the spirit of record keeping should unite, not divide.
  • [63:08] "Let's say it this way, we are all church recorders now. Every member a recorder...We ought to make sure that our records, the records we promote...are of the kind that turn hearts to each other."
• Personal Story—Grief, Record, and Temple Work: Dr. Watkins shares about his adopted sister Micah’s passing and the family's ongoing record-making—through temple work, diaries, and reflection—that continues to bind hearts even beyond death.
  • [66:27] "I'll mention a personal example of records of sadness...In 2013, about a year after my sister Micah passed away, other binding records emerged. My mom took Micah's name to the temple..."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the sacredness of record keeping:

"These should then be attended to with great earnestness. Let no man count them as small things. There is much which lieth in futurity pertaining to the saints which depends upon these things..."
— Dr. Watkins reading Doctrine & Covenants 123, [02:47]

On proxy work's legal and spiritual parallel:

"Adams and I think Joseph, they saw this clear parallel between writs of habeas corpus and records of baptism for the dead."
— Dr. Watkins, [22:20]

On ‘eternity in a ledger’:

"Smith’s materialism went so deep as to find eternity in a ledger."
— John Durham Peters quoted by Dr. Watkins, [28:23]

On why the living need the dead:

"We need this work to help us learn to be more like Christ. We need this work to become who God wants us to be. Perhaps just as much as the dead need access to the ordinances... we need them."
— Dr. Watkins, [35:55]

On records as living, binding entities:

"The records themselves are life."
— Dr. Watkins, [25:16]

On God’s ample provision and ongoing revelation:

"The Lord God knows the situation of both the living and the dead and has made ample provision for their redemption according to their several circumstances and the laws of the kingdom..."
— Dr. Watkins quoting Joseph Smith, [56:45]

On diving into church history and faith:

"One of the beautiful things about it is... as we glimpse how God really works with people, how he really works with his prophet, how he condescends to meet Joseph and to meet the saints where they were, well, that ought to give us a better sense of how God could condescend to meet us where we are."
— Dr. Watkins, [75:38]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:21] – Introduction to the focus on record keeping in D&C 127–128
• [09:41] – Legal context: habeas corpus and Joseph Smith's extradition crisis
• [16:08-18:31] – Joseph Smith’s reflective record keeping while in hiding
• [22:20] – George Adams’s habeas corpus analogy for baptisms for the dead
• [28:23] – "Eternity in a ledger"; theological weight of record keeping
• [35:40-41:40] – The mutual need of living and dead; personal and scriptural stories of reconciliation
• [46:24-56:17] – Joseph’s exuberant vision at the end of D&C 128; creation of binding community across generations and dispensations
• [59:56] – Addressing the concerns of proxy baptisms for Holocaust victims; policy and principle
• [66:27] – Personal story: records of sadness, loss, and binding in Dr. Watkins's family
• [73:38] – Faith and scholarship: how learning history can strengthen rather than diminish faith

Tone and Language

The discussion is scholarly yet personal, weaving together historical rigor, legal analogy, spiritual contemplation, and heartfelt storytelling. Dr. Watkins, Hank Smith, and John Bytheway maintain a tone of reverence, empathy, and curiosity—encouraging listeners to see beyond surface-level doctrine into the living, complex, and relational heart of restoration theology.

Conclusion

This rich episode invites listeners to:

• Reconsider the sacred power and communal necessity of record keeping in religious life.
• Reflect on the healing and binding power of proxy work—both for the dead and the living.
• Understand that revelation emerges through lived experience, including suffering and imperfection.
• Embrace the unfinished, open-ended nature of the Restoration, with hope and humility.

Final Word

"Opportunities for meaningful proxy work exist all around us. Again, vicarious work is not plan B. It is the plan. Yes, with Joseph Smith, shall we not go on in so great a cause?"
— Dr. Watkins, [72:03]