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Doctrine & Covenants 76 Part 2 • Dr. J. Spencer Fluhman • July 7 - July 13 • Come Follow Me
01:11:22
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- [00:00]
Spencer Fluhman
Foreign this project. He and Sidney are grappling with a passage from John. The passage relates to judgment. They come up against a question. It's a question that animated some of the very people that we cited before in the podcast here. These people who had how could God be just and blank? For them, reference to multiple judgments and multiple resurrections in John led them to this instinct that heaven must mean more than one thing. It can't be as simple as we've been led to believe. This stark dualism of judgment, saved or damned, end of the story, it doesn't work. That heaven must be bigger and broader is their instinct. As they meditate upon this verse 19, they've got a question. They're reading actively. They sit with their question and they're meditating on it. It's a beautiful kind of class on this, right? They come across something they don't understand. It doesn't make sense. Their instinct is, this can't be what I thought it was. This doesn't add up for me. That is not destructive tension for them. That is productive revelatory tension for them. They meditate on it. In verse 19, the Lord touches the eyes of their understanding. They're enveloped in divine glory.
- [01:40]
John
If you wanted to have a cross reference for that, that would be first. Nephi11 1. Nephi has his incredible vision. It begins with, I desire to know the things that my father had seen, believing that the Lord was able, able to make them known unto me. I sat pondering in my heart and I was caught away in the spirit of the Lord.
- [02:00]
Hank
That's footnoted there.
- [02:02]
Spencer Fluhman
The intentionality that disciples have to muster for that space in our world is unbelievable. The space for that is shrinking in our world. A disciple's life, you have to go out of your way to create space, to meditate on spiritual things for all of us. This is probably a little bit of a spur, a little bit of a nudge again, is to say, in all my running around like a crazy person to get done everything that is pressing on my time and on my attention. Do I even have the space in my life to pause on that? That is not easy to come by. You have to make it, you have to create it. But, yeah, a great spur here. It's a theological conundrum for them. How can this verse. How can this verse point to a stern judgment of heaven or hell the.
- [03:08]
John
Way that they'd been brought up speaking on that? It seems to me my phone is going to decide if I'm going to go to Google or if I'M going to go to God with my questions. I can put my phone away, I can meditate and I can go to God, or I can go with maybe my first instinct, which is I've got all this information at my fingertips. John, your quote is in my ears, right? If you lack wisdom, ask God. If you lack information, ask Google.
- [03:39]
Hank
Ask of Google, right?
- [03:41]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [03:43]
Hank
Like, where's the nearest five guys? I always say that's the most important question. But for wisdom, that's different.
- [03:50]
Spencer Fluhman
The wisdom's function to prioritize, to order, to rank information for us, to sift information for us. Wisdom risks being lost in the information tsunami that we're all a part of. See, that's my worry for my students, is that information everywhere, information faster than any of us can track. But what's the mechanism that orders, ranks, curates, spiritual lives are at risk here for us. I think it's a great place to kind of read these men as meditating on this problem of eternity. What a great thing. The answer is that they behold the Son of God, verse 20. The answer is they behold the glory of the Son at the right hand of the Father receive of his fullness. We can only guess what some of this means. They struggle with language to articulate. They see the angels and then bear that testimony that we've had ringing in our ears. Those of us who are Latter Day Saints and have been for a long time is one of the great articulations of Christian testimony in all of sacred history. To us we hold these words dear that he lives for we saw him on the right hand of God and heard the voice bearing record that he's the only begotten of the Father by Him, through him and of him the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof begotten sons and daughters unto God. Sublime. It's sublime language. We treasure it. We should treasure it. It's worthy of parsing in all sorts of ways. It's unforgettable in the catalog of Joseph Smith, revelatory language. It's beautiful. It's an anchor to the vision for sure. It comes first, I think, in priority, on purpose. Their answer to the question of justice isn't an abstract principle. It's a being. It's a living being. It's glorified Jesus. The professor in me. Let's look at justice. I can imagine all sorts of abstract concepts or framing language that I would dive into and hear the answer to their question about justice and judgment. Is Jesus so profound that that's the answer? It's a person, it's a divine being. We're going to pick that up again in a bit. That's not insignificant that their question is, hey, what's the deal with heaven and multiple resurrections? How does judgment work? How does judgment relate to heaven? We're given Jesus as the answer. Pretty beautiful.
- [06:44]
Hank
I'm contrasting with everything we've heard of some of the other traditions is that we have a God who's disappointed in us, who's angry with us. Here we have verse five. He's merciful, he's gracious. He delights to honor those. It's not transactional. Oh, you are obedient. Here's a blessing. It's I love blessing my children. Then we get verse 24. We are begotten sons and daughters unto God. We know we three how we feel about our sons and daughters.
- [07:21]
John
Right?
- [07:22]
Hank
How is God going to feel about his sons and daughters? Spencer, I can't stop thinking of your first statement. This is a monument to the redemptive work of Christ. I want to keep viewing it that way.
- [07:35]
Spencer Fluhman
I want to highlight what you just said, John, too, at the end there. Sons and daughters unto God. I want to highlight that prepositional relationship between those two phrases. You just spark a thought here. This is describing Jesus, of course. We get a vision of Jesus here, begotten sons and daughters unto God. In this context, I think this is the fatherhood of Jesus being referenced here, that they are begotten sons and daughters unto God. This pops up in the early sections of the Doctrine and Covenants as well. We're used to talking about all of us being sons and daughters of God, that spiritual relationship with the Father. I'm not convinced that's what this is a reference to. I think this might be a reference to Christ's spiritually begetting us as Father of our new lives in Him. This isn't a wild guess. This is an educated guess given the language of earlier sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. But I think that's what's going on here. This underscores something beautiful, John, that you've inspired in me about Christ's centrality even in this description of our son and daughter relationship with deity. The Son is the Father in many ways. This is one of the key ways for Latter Day Saints that he's the Father of our new spiritual lives in him when we are covenantally bound to Him. Faith, repentance, baptism, gift of life, and so on. That one unto is worth a highlight here for me because I think it's Pointing to the Son, where it could easily point to the Father as well. But I think it might be talking about the Son's fatherhood as well. Absolutely beautiful.
- [09:30]
John
Spencer, you're teaching King Benjamin, Mosiah, 5, 7.
- [09:34]
Hank
The children of Christ.
- [09:36]
John
Because of the covenant which you have made, you shall be called the children of. You think, oh, he's going to say God. He doesn't. You shall be called the children of Christ, his sons and his daughters. This day he has spiritually begotten you.
- [09:51]
Spencer Fluhman
That's it. I think that's a tie here. That is worth holding onto. I think that's what we're getting with the unto there. Yeah. Well done, Hank. That's perfect. All of this beautiful language, all of this glory, all of this screeches to a halt in the next verse. This is the rhetorical equivalent of a wrecking ball to a great experience we were all having. This is a sharp turn from the sublime to the tragic to the evil. There's purpose in it. We got to take it on. We really can't get around it. In this section, what comes next is a vision of the angel of God who fell a rebel against the only begotten Son and the Father called perdition. Verse 26. Heavens weep over him. He is fallen. He has fallen. Verse 27, verse 28. The Lord commanded that we should write. They can't skip this either. We just as soon skip it. It's not where we were a few verses ago. It's a crash. That old serpent, the devil, who rebelled against God and sought to take the kingdom of our God and his Christ. In verse 28 and verse 29. Chilling mood change for the whole section. For me, rhetorically, wherefore he maketh war with the saints of God and encompasseth them. Roundabout. Very different feel to the section. We go from the Son to the enemy. If we're hoping for a turn, we don't get it yet. Verse 30 expands that theme to those who he overcomes, who the evil one overcomes. Verse 30, we saw a vision of the sufferings of those with whom he made war and overcame. These are described for us. Verse 31, they know my power. Powerful phrase. They have been made partakers of thereof. But they have been overcome in verse 31 there to the point that they deny the truth and defy my power. In verse 32, they're called the sons of perdition. Verse 33, they are vessels of wrath. I can't imagine a more horrifyingly vivid description. They are containers of wrath. They are vessels of wrath. Unbelievable, haunting, heavy, dark imagery with these folks. Verse 35 continues the theme. They've denied the Holy Spirit after having received it. They've denied the only begotten, the Son, having crucified him unto themselves and put him to an open shame. Verse 36, we end up with fire and brimstone. My whole contextual. All that time I just spent with all of us here, I'm minimizing fire and Brimstone. But in 36, we get it. More accurately, they get it. They go away into a lake of fire and brimstone with the devil and his angels. So we're left here about verse 36. Forlorn, a little, eyebrows raised, maybe eyebrows singed. It's heavy. There's a point here. The fact that we've gone from the Son to the adversary to the sons of perdition, are all in service of what comes next. It's pretty powerful. This is the beating heart of the vision, at least for me. I shouldn't tell your listeners what the beating heart of the vision should be for them, but it is the beating heart for me, because Joseph Smith pushed me here. This is why we're given that vision of evil, why it's not just skipped. Verse 37. Those sons of perdition are, quote, the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power. Verse 38. The only ones who shall not be redeemed in the due time of the Lord. Verse 39. All the rest brought forth by the resurrection of the dead through the triumph and glory of the Lamb. Outside that small group of renegades who have known God's power, denied it and rebelled against that power. All the rest brought forth by the resurrection of the dead through the triumph and glory of the Lamb. What we get here is a breathtaking scope of Christ's redemptive power and everyone else saved, lest we miss the point. Verse 40. This is the gospel. The glad tidings. This is the gospel. This is why we rejoice in verse one. This is why the inhabitants of the earth should listen up. The gospel is this message, verse 41, that he came into the world, even Jesus, to be crucified for the world, to bear the sins of the world, to sanctify the world, to cleanse it from all unrighteousness, that through him all might be saved whom the Father had put into his power and made by him who glorifies the Father and saves all the works of his hands. The ark of the revelation of the vision. It gives us Jesus and it gives us this counter to that vision of the Son, only again to come back to emphasize the breathtaking scope of Christ's redemptive work. When he says crucified for the world, what does he mean, the world? Well, the world. I mean, it's big, it's broad. If we're ever tempted to see Christ's work as sectarian, as happening within our little corner of humanity, only we've missed this grand scope of Christ's work. It's the world he's after. It's the world he's saving. It's the world he's sanctifying. It's the world he's cleansing. Except for those few in verse 43, verse 44, he saves all except them. There we have it, My shorthand for the vision itself. And we've got a lot more to talk about. I pause here purposefully. This is the great pivot for me. This is the core for me. This is the shorthand for the vision for me is the triumph and glory of the Lamb. That's what this is, bearing witness to, universalistic in its scope, without being universalism of Joseph Smith's day. It's much, much more than that in the end. And we'll see that by the end. We must not miss that core there, that core message of the extent of Christ's redemptive work. When we're getting to three degrees of glory, we're going to get the height here in a minute. Because exaltation marks the other axis. I guess I'm laying out a. Of all metaphors, me and a mathematical metaphor. How in the world did this happen? But I guess I'm mapping two kind of axes for the vision. That X axis, the breadth of it, is just mapped in these verses. We just read that Y axis, the height is going to be mapped here in a minute with exaltation. We're going to see the height here in a minute.
- [17:39]
John
Kind of a whiplash of a good Hollywood movie. Grand and then dark and then grand.
- [17:47]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah, I think on purpose. Yeah, I think on purpose.
- [17:50]
John
It reads a little like Revelation 5. Both of you know Revelation 5. John is weeping. There is no one to play the role of Redeemer. Then this angel says, weep not the lion of the tribe of Judah. But he looks. It's not a lion, it's a lamb. John goes on to say, when the Lord the Redeemer takes the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne, or he takes his assignment as the Lamb of God, a new song is sung. Listen to the same language that you brought out all the world. The world, the world. All saves all the works of his hands. He saves all except this small group. This is Revelation 5:11. I beheld and heard the voice of angels round about the throne, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands. Pretty high percentage description.
- [18:54]
Spencer Fluhman
Well, it's beautiful. I glanced down at verse 44 and. In light of our discussion of section 19, do you allow guests to engage in reckless speculation?
- [19:08]
John
We'll allow it, yeah.
- [19:11]
Spencer Fluhman
This next point, this is just for fun. No one has to think hard about it. It's really interesting. You get this from historians. He says, wherefore he saves all except them, they shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, which is eternal punishment. Our radar just went off, you and me, given where we've just been.
- [19:38]
Hank
We just read section 19.
- [19:41]
Spencer Fluhman
We just read section 19. This is, like I say, reckless speculation. I'm not counting any redemption out at this point. I'll throw in for fun. When this revelation is recorded in the handwriting of Frederick G. Williams. It originally didn't read that way. Verse 44, it read eternal punishment, then went on in the handwriting of Joseph Smith. I kid you not. He came in and added endless punishment and eternal punishment. I kid you not. Both E's are capitalized.
- [20:24]
Hank
Which means his comes from him.
- [20:27]
Spencer Fluhman
It comes from him. And Then in verse 45 and the end thereof, no man knows. My point here is just simply don't count Jesus out, ever. Do not count Jesus out in terms of his redemptive work. This is speculative. I'm acknowledging that absolutely. Those of us who spend time on these documents, it is fascinating to see Joseph Smith's hand above the line, adding endless and eternal, both in capital E's. Given where we've been on the podcast today, the ways in which our sense of things is limited and then expanded with a grander sense of Christ's redemptive work. Fascinating. That one's maybe a throwaway, but I can't help myself.
- [21:17]
Hank
Never forget that. I'm going to capitalize those E's right there. It changes it.
- [21:22]
Spencer Fluhman
Your listeners can go to Joseph Smith Papers website. You can see this document. This is not some secret that only the nerdiest among us had get access to. This is right waiting for you in the Joseph Smith Papers, the Revelation series. This is that Kirtland Revelation book manuscript. Revelation Book 2. You can go and see it right there. You can see the handwriting. It's color coded. You can see who's writing where. It's a Beautiful little quirky moment caught my eye. Given that wrestle with D&C 19, one.
- [21:58]
Hank
Of my favorite quirks.
- [21:59]
Spencer Fluhman
Isn't that fun?
- [22:01]
Hank
I looked up on citation index scriptures BYU. Edu section 76, verse 43 who glorifies the Father saves all the works of his hands. Do you want to hear the first six results 35 times? General Conference 2023 President Dallin H. Oaks Kingdoms of Glory 2022 President Dallin H. Oaks Divine Love and the Father's plan 2020 President Dallin H. Oaks the Great plan 2019 President Dallin H. Oaks Trust in the Lord 2019 President Dallin H. Oaks the Two Great Commandments 1995 apostasy and restoration Dallin H O It's almost.
- [22:44]
Spencer Fluhman
Like there's a theme developing there about.
- [22:47]
Hank
Saving all the works of his hands. And these talks he gave those two talks in that sounded like almost two sessions in a row. They weren't. But the Great Plan and Divine Love in the Father's Plan used those verses.
- [23:03]
John
If by chance, President Oaks is listening. Thank you, President.
- [23:08]
Hank
Yeah, the last six citations of that were all President Oaks, the most recent.
- [23:14]
Spencer Fluhman
Amazing. Yeah, that's amazing.
- [23:16]
John
By the way, we'll put both the link to Spencer's document that he's talking about on Joseph Smith papers and those talks that John referenced, our great Lisa Spice. She will put those on our show notes. Followhim CO if you're worried. How do I find that kind of thing? We'll help you out.
- [23:34]
Spencer Fluhman
Marvelous. What we get from here in the vision are vision of the degrees of glory. These are the parts that I grew up knowing were there. I had missed the forest for the following trees right here. I'd known of these descriptions of the degrees of glory. As my kids would say they hit different with that forest in mind of Christ's redemptive work. I read these a little bit differently now. I'll point out some of those ways with the forest in mind.
- [24:03]
John
Would you say if I'm a teacher this week, don't miss verses 22 through 24. Don't miss 39 through 44. Don't jump into the kingdoms.
- [24:17]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah.
- [24:17]
Hank
This preparatory part, you're going to miss.
- [24:20]
John
The Lord's redemptive power that you talked about.
- [24:23]
Hank
You'll drive right past the monument.
- [24:26]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah. The big framework is a big heaven. We have to remember that it's a big heaven. It's God in Christ Jesus saving all of his children. That's the big story. The big narrative is exactly what we hoped it would be. It is precisely what we hoped it Would be it's God in Christ saving all the children. Well, the big heaven is the big story. It is the big story. We can't lose that X axis, that breadth. I did skip past that early on. I did. Until the saints slowed me down, taught me why. That was the good kind of trouble, good scandal. Until they taught me I would skip that because I was hurrying on my way to the degrees of glory without realizing God's economy. The big narrative there, these degrees of glory, they fit better with that big story in mind. Verses 50 through 70 give us the vision of the celestial. 7180 gives us the vision of the terrestrial and the telestial. 81, 90, we get a summary section at the end there. 91 through 113. Then a benediction we'll finish off with. That's reminiscent of the opening divine preface that we get there. We get the celestial first. We can highlight pieces here. This is the height. This is the vision of exaltation that reorients the saints in some ways. This comes slowly to them. Some of this language to us seems very rooted in the restoration, completely in line with Joseph Smith's teachings in Nauvoo that garnered a lot of controversy then and since. For Christians outside the restoration, this becomes one of the divides that separates us from other Christian communities. No doubt saints at the time didn't read it this way. This wasn't read with all the implications. This gets clarified and expanded and amplified by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo. Exaltation. Does it appears here? The saints miss it. I don't know how else to say it. I think it's because the language is biblical, for one thing. To them it could be heard and read as conventional. But given the eyes that we bring to it that Joseph Smith gives us in the Nauvoo period and that Nauvoo amplification, it pops to us now. This is the vision of the celestial.
- [27:09]
John
We can't forget it's 1832.
- [27:12]
Spencer Fluhman
It's years before the saints or observers start to put this together. Like it's 1839 before we get any rich sense that anyone's paying attention to what this could mean for human potential. It's belated. It's a slower recognition where we come to it now in a lot of ways seems like the announcement of a distinctive Latter Day Saint conceptualization of exaltation, God's ultimate intention for humanity. Verse 51, they received the testimony of Jesus, they believe on his name and were baptized in keeping the commandments. Verse 52, they are washed and Cleansed from all their sins. They receive the Holy Ghost. Verse 53. They overcome by faith. They're sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. Verse 54. They are the church of the firstborn. That language, church of the firstborn, pops up several times in the section. It's an amplification of Hebrews 12, a description of the heavenly city, the saints of God who have overcome in some ways. This section of the vision reads sounds, feels like an amplification of that Hebrews 12 language for sure. They are they in verse 55 into whose hands the Father has given all things. My voice inflected the All Saints didn't see all there a reference there might be to the oath and covenant of the priesthood in section 84. That phrase is pregnant with possibility, shall we say loaded with implication. They are they in verse 56, who are priests and kings who have received of his fullness and of his glory. Priests of the Most High, after the order of Melchizedek. All of this language will be elaborated on in subsequent revelations. Verse 58 as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God. Playing on that earlier language maybe, of begotten sons and daughters unto God. They are God's, even the sons of God. 59. All things are theirs, life or death. Things present to come. Verse 60. They overcome all things. The language is potent, it's powerful, it's soaring in some ways because it's biblical, because it resonates with biblical language. It could have been seen by saints at the time and observers at the time as conventional. And it was like I've said. But given what we get from Joseph Smith, it charts a different course for human potential for Latter Day Saints than is the case with most Western Christians. At least there are strains in Eastern Christianity that are richer with language, with theology, about salvation as deification, as participating in God, partaking of divine life. That's richer in the Eastern tradition than the Western. What we end up with in the revelations of Joseph Smith, and especially in his teaching in Nauvoo, is we end up with a vision for these verses and their implications that resonates with Eastern Christianity in ways west took a different track thousands of years ago. Most of our Christian friends in the Anglophone world of European descent, those Christians take those teachings of Joseph Smith as difficult, as separating, as even heretical. But is a separating point. This is where we get these kernels of insight into God's intention for the exalted. This is where we get them.
- [31:24]
John
So far in what we've studied this year, the Lord seems to say line upon line, line upon line here. It's almost as he throws the doors open and says, I'll explain this later. Let me show you the big beautiful vista. For example, let me ask you about one. Garrett Dirkmod has helped us see this. Verse 51. These are they who were baptized, but yet no word of those who weren't baptized.
- [31:52]
Spencer Fluhman
This becomes really interesting in a lot of ways. One of the critical footnotes for these degrees of glory section is section 137 of the Doctrine and Covenants, because it's a clarifying point on the vision itself. In the language that we get here from Joseph and Sidney, they certainly tweak. But our vision of the terrestrial are those who die without law, verse 72, or receive not the testimony of Jesus, but afterward receive it. They're honorable. Maybe honorable, but not valiant. In Joseph smith's reckoning, after 1832, he spends a number of years assuming that those who die without the law or the restored law, baptism or priesthood, or however we want to articulate that, that this describes them. Yeah, that they're saved, they're enveloped within the reach of Christ's atoning work, that their inheritance is a glory. By comparison to traditional Protestant formulations that he'd grown up with, this is still breathtaking. But then in 1836, the deck gets reshuffled a little bit toward the side of the extent of Christ's redemptive work as recorded for us in Doctrine and Covenant, Section 137, he sees a vision of the celestial kingdom and his brothers. There he says, my paraphrase, not his language. What now?
- [33:33]
Hank
Yeah.
- [33:33]
John
Wait, what?
- [33:34]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah, it's clear how he read his own revelation in the vision, that by the terms of the vision Alvin would be provided his older brother had passed away before the restoration of authority, that he had been provided for a terrestrial degree of glory here in the vision, that's corrected for Joseph Smith, though with a really potent phrase that when combined with DNC19 and D&C76, D&C137, it's the huge karate chop on the conventional heaven, hell, judgment, dichotomy, those three together, fatal karate chop. On the older way of seeing it, it says, I'm paraphrasing those who would have if they had been permitted to tarry, which again, this injects more nuance into judgment. It qualifies hell even further, or limitation even further. It underscores God's judgment. Again, I'm glad we were shown a person when the question was judgment. I'm Glad we were shown a person, a perfect person, a person filled with glory and love and power beyond our comprehension. Who could discern, who would know? Well, he would. Is the point of the vision he would. Who determines if they had been permitted to tarry? All of this nuance, all of these caveats. I was tortured by these questions as a young missionary. I really was. I'm a chronic overthinker, maybe that's me. But I was obsessed with the question of God's justice and mercy and what constituted someone's chance to hear the gospel. I was tortured by this as a young man. What if my incapacity as a speaker or my weakness as a conveyor of God's message. Am I walking around messing people up? Am I? What if you know, my youth and my ignorance notwithstanding, there are questions that are answered here. I wish I would have had a clearer sense then. But God reassuring Hank, to your point, all of this, all of it, all of it matters. There is not injustice here. Taking it wide angle, the vision makes allowance for the vast variety of human experience. Precisely what Joseph and Sidney didn't see in their upbringing with conventional Christian understanding. And what we get here is all of the individual details and caveats and conditions, all of that taken into account here. Heaven is big and vast and varied and diverse. All of it counts and matters and is held, sanctified, glorified, lifted up and saved by Jesus. The crushing quirk of timing that Joseph had assumed had doomed Alvin to less. God says, not so fast. Do you think that some accident of chance plays in judgment? No. In a way, we're getting God's character revealed in all of this too.
- [37:06]
Hank
Exactly.
- [37:08]
Spencer Fluhman
Is the mystery a capricious one? No, the mystery is a beautiful one, as it turns out. The mystery, yes, but it's not capricious. It's not unsearchable. It's comprehensible within the calculus of God's love. That's what we're seeing in these revelations. That baptism point is addressed specifically in Joseph Smith's own anxiety, which is answered by a subsequent vision.
- [37:31]
John
Yeah.
- [37:32]
Spencer Fluhman
Of family, secured, redeemed, unexpectedly. Unexpectedly. I mean, can we stop and celebrate the moments of unexpected redemptive work of God in the world? I thought this thing was broken, lost. I mean, what a beautiful moment. Joseph gazes into heaven and is surprised by what he finds there. I love it. It's what makes me a latter day saint. The way that this reveals God to me means everything to me. My own encounter of God has everything to do with the revelations of Joseph. Smith. And that's what makes me a Latter Day Saint. The God I have encountered in these revelations of breathtaking mercy and love means everything to me.
- [38:24]
Hank
I love this. And Hank, I'm a broken record. I actually know what a record is. I actually know what an LP is at 33 and a third revolutions per minute. Not only is God real, the first vision, what is he like? We get more and more as these sections go on. Here's Joseph, verse 51. These are they. Who received the testimony of Jesus, believed on his name and were baptized. And maybe somewhere in the back of his mind, Ah, Alvin. But wait. Just wait until 1:37. Hey, what's Alvin doing here? I'm glad you said it, Spencer. Who would have believed? Who makes that judgment? The perfect judge decides who would have believed. We don't make final judgments. Thank you, President Oaks. We don't make final judgments. But only he who can read their hearts makes that judgment. Who would have believed? He sees Alvin there. Thank you for rounding that out. What did you call it? You got 1976, 137, the karate chop. Yeah, here, karate chop. Here's section 19. I, God, have suffered these things for all that they might not suffer. Oh, that's really what he's like. He doesn't want us to suffer. And then we get all the way to Alvin, who's there smiling in this celestial kingdom.
- [39:48]
John
I feel like. Section 19, Joseph says, God is more merciful than I thought. Section 76. God is a lot more merciful than I thought. Than section 137. God is boy.
- [39:59]
Spencer Fluhman
Is God merciful?
- [40:00]
John
He's much more merciful than I thought.
- [40:04]
Hank
He is so merciful. I'm going to capitalize those E's in verse 44.
- [40:11]
John
When you said, that's what makes me a Latter Day Saint. You chose a scripture to go on your mission plaque. This was mine. Alma 26:16. As I'm reading 76. This is what comes to mind. Let us glory. We will glory in the Lord. We will rejoice for our joy is full. We will praise our God forever. Who can glory too much in the Lord than this? Who can say too much of his brother great power, his mercy and his long suffering toward the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part, which I feel. That's the feeling I'm getting from section 76. It's beyond our words to express how this makes a child of God feel.
- [41:01]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah, I love it. Before we leave the exaltation verses, I want to highlight verse 61. For us. It's a fascinating verse to me. It caught my attention years ago in the back and forth with close friends who aren't of our faith, who are profoundly Christian, deeply Christian. The back and forth over some of these very doctrines that we've just been discussing of exaltation, human potential, the question of whether or not humans could reasonably participate in the divine life in any meaningful way. I noticed this verse years ago. I think it's fascinating to see that it's wired into the discussion of exaltation. The critique that my friend had of his sense of Joseph Smith's teaching is that if we're not careful, the line between God as the object of worship and anything else could be blurred. I ended up seeing verse 61 in the context of that critique. Wherefore let no man glory in man. This is coming on the heels of the breathtaking portrait painted for the Church of the Firstborn, into whose hands are put all things, who share glory with God himself. All of that transcendent language attached those who inherit celestial glory. Let no man glory in man, but rather let him glory in God, who shall subdue all enemies under his feet. Almost even as it's proclaiming the heights of human potential. A check on a twisting of that idea away from the glorification of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Almost an anticipatory guardrail against misunderstanding. The giver of the gift versus the receiver of the gift. That would be the fatal flaw as of verse 61, is misunderstanding who the giver of the gift is, who the receiver of the gift is. This is reinforced a few verses later in another amplification of the New Testament, verse 69, describing the exalted. These are they who are just men made perfect through Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood. How, by what means have they become these beings of glory, of holiness? Here it's Jesus again. These are just men and women made perfect through Jesus. Wired in to the exaltation theology of the restoration is this centering of Christ. He is centered even in that, that we cannot miss him. In any doctrine. Going back to the classic by President Parry, any doctrine disconnected from Christ loses its meaning. It's subject to distortion to the extent that it's disconnected from the very root of of Christian doctrine, the atonement of Jesus Christ. This one too. Exaltation. This doctrine subject to distortion and misunderstanding, if disconnected from the very root of Christian doctrine, the atoning gift of Jesus Christ that's in there. It can't be missed either.
- [44:51]
Hank
Thank you, Spencer. Bringing up verse 61. Let no man glory in man, but rather let him glory in God. I'm looking at the footnotes. They are abundant. We've got 29 lines of footnotes right here in my high priest size scriptures. One of the footnotes, Hank, is Alma 2616, your mission plaque. Scripture tied into that perfectly. But I'm glad you pointed out verse 69. They are just men made perfect through Jesus. Tie in. Be therefore perfect. How is that the only way that's possible? Moroni 10:32. Be perfected in him, not be perfect. Then you can come to him. Maybe you'll be good enough, but you're perfected through Jesus. That's a great text to add to your be therefore perfect at the end of Matthew 5. How is that even possible? It isn't possible for us by ourselves.
- [45:47]
Spencer Fluhman
We've gone the world behind the text. We're now in the world of the text. But John, you've put us helpfully in the world that we bring to the text. I think one of the, we might call it, pitfalls of discipleship is with a vision like this of the celestial. If we imagine this apart from Jesus, it can feel like a game of spiritual achievement. That in itself it doesn't work. So many of us have experienced that it doesn't and can't work. There is no striving equal to what has just been described. Verse 95, he makes them equal in power, in might and in dominion. What if we read 95 apart from 94? We're in deep trouble if we see 94. Those who dwell in the presence of the Church of the Firstborn, they are seen, and as they are seen, known as they are known, having received of his fullness and of his grace. It's the only math that works is the arithmetic of grace here. It's the only math that can possibly work. If we read 95 apart from 94, then it's a burden we wear every day. All that's in front of us are our shortcomings. How could we ever get there? I can't get to Saturday, for crying out loud. How am I going to get there? I'm not getting there ever. If we see these exaltation doctrines apart from Jesus, it can be ironically stifling to spiritual life. We can even try harder. We can be more disciplined. It's sapping because if we try and be a branch without the vine, we wither. You can't be a branch without the vine and not wither, you're disconnected from the source of life. That is a pitfall of discipleship. That conscientiously you can want to follow Jesus, but that the distortion comes right there. How could I ever be equal in power in my devil? What does that even? I have no frame of reference for that. When we're talking about me, you talked.
- [48:02]
Hank
About when this revelation was given. Some of it was actually used in anti newspapers. I bet verse 95 was there from four years ago. I have in my notes. This is a repugnant idea to most of Christianity. He makes them equal in power and in might and dominion. I wonder if that was in those antis. And you're saying gotta read 94 first.
- [48:26]
Spencer Fluhman
It does become noticed eventually we're beaten up over distortions of this doctrine for sure. But I have gently said to my Christian interlocutors, you have a sense, understandably, in some ways it's our fault at times that we've tried to earn what God has provided for us. I point you to the vision here. We're actually the other kind of problem. Jesus is actually doing too much saving. At least be offended on the right point. We may have distorted of this in well intentioned ways.
- [49:11]
Hank
Who does he think he is, the Savior or something?
- [49:14]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah, that's what we end up with in the wide angle with that big a heaven with these kinds of blessings for the faithful which they again in the arithmetic of striving could never earn. In that one for one equation we end up with an anthem to Christ's redemptive work in my mind, without parallel. Yeah, nowhere.
- [49:43]
John
It'd be interesting for Joseph Smith to know. Let's say he finishes the vision and then finds out oh, in some future day Latter Day Saints are going to be known for earning their own salvation. He might. What?
- [49:55]
Spencer Fluhman
What?
- [49:57]
John
Yeah, we should be the exact opposite. We should be known for section 76. These are they who are made perfect through Jesus Christ. He makes them equal in power. They received of his fullness and of his grace. His fullness. His grace. It's right there.
- [50:19]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah. Maybe it's an important moment to sum up the vision carrying on this sense of what we bring to the text, our own questions of discipleship. John, you've helpfully started us in that direction. I think we could say as a summary comment here that what we get is a distinctive Latter Day Saint. It's really fancy word but it's. It's meaningful soteriology. This is the study of salvation. We get a distinctive Latter Day Saint sense of salvation exaltation in this section, it's one that steers clear of two extremes. I took pains at the beginning to lay out that is that human beings are passive recipients of God's judgment. Section 76 doesn't give us that. It gives us agency, mattering a great deal. It gives us, quote, unquote works. And that's the language of the section, certainly mattering a great deal. We're nothing like passive recipients of God's action. We are actively implicated in these gradations of God's presence. In fact, we could say the question animating doctrine and Covenant, Section 76 is proximity to God. How close do we want to be? That's the logic of the revelation is exactly that. That the exalted have the presence of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Out from there. Folks are positioned by their own actions, desires, intentions, all of it. That's what emerges here. You've both mentioned some interesting predecessor Book of Mormon passages to D and C76, but the one that might stand out to me now that I'm thinking of it is as Alma 29 that our desires figure in judgment so titanically. That's what connects here. How close do you want to be to God? I've got Elder Maxwell ringing in my ears. The education of our desires is not an insignificant part of mortality. Do I want the right things? What do I want? This is a rubber hits the road discipleship question for us. D&C88, given a few months later, puts us here as well. What doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him and receive not the gift? Behold, he rejoices not in that which is given unto him, neither rejoices in him who is the giver of the gift. What we have tallied for us here In D&C 76, another rubber hits the road discipleship question. This enumerates God's gifts to his children. And the question for me is, what good are these gifts given if I don't receive them? Every covenant act of obedience, every good work, quote unquote, in this sense is reformatted for me as an act of reception. It's the way I receive God's gifts.
- [53:42]
Hank
Spencer When I was a teenager at Highland High School Seminary reading this. I'm reading verse 101, for example. But received not the gospel, neither the testimony of Jesus. I have to say this because I wonder if there's anybody out there who thought the Same thing, verse 74, who received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards Received. I thought, well, that's not fair. Because I thought received meant they never heard it. Yeah, the special definition here is no, they never accepted it. This is just brother, by the way here. Corianton had four issues in Alma. 39, 40, 41, 42. In Alma 42, his issue was. I think it's unjust for God to consign sinners to a state of misery. I've always wondered if he had what we have back then. If he knew that it wasn't endless misery. I'm right with him there. It doesn't sound just to consign people to endless misery. Meaning with no end. Isn't it interesting that he wondered about that? Alma has a good answer. But I wonder if Alma knew. Section 19. I wonder if he knew the redemptive power of Christ here in 76. How incredibly pervasive it is. Except for a handful of sons of perdition.
- [55:13]
Spencer Fluhman
It's a great question, John. I mean, in some ways the vision presents itself as a mystery being made known as a revelation of something hidden.
- [55:22]
Hank
Corianton, That's a good question, right?
- [55:25]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah. Crayon's question is Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon's question, John. Yeah, it's another version of the same question. If there's a resurrection of the just and the unjust, does that do justice really to all the vast variety of human experience and variation?
- [55:43]
Hank
What they knew and when they knew it, what light they had.
- [55:47]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah. Corey Anne's question is Joseph Smith and Sidi Rigdon's question. The vision is the answer. And the answer is Jesus.
- [55:54]
Hank
I love Alma's answer. It's, listen, let these things trouble you no more. Let your sins trouble you, which will bring you to Christ. Let his justice and his mercy have full sway in your heart. Here we are learning the full sway, to use Alma's phrase, of the mercy of Christ. It's bigger than you think. When you read this section, as you've so beautifully told us, Spencer.
- [56:22]
John
I think you've articulated something that we probably need to hit again. And that is. When we look at the terrestrial kingdom and the telestral kingdom, that word receive not comes up over and over. It's an active. No, it's not.
- [56:37]
Hank
Not just hearing it. I'm not accepting it.
- [56:39]
John
Yeah, I don't want this. Whatever you're offering me, I receive nothing.
- [56:45]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah. When put together with Doctrine of Covenant, 1688, maybe Alma 29. This one we get a heaven with no stark duality there. No justice in that inherited sense, one scholar called it. It's more about affinities.
- [57:04]
John
Yeah.
- [57:05]
Spencer Fluhman
What have you resonated with? Where are you inclined to what have you become?
- [57:13]
Hank
What's the desire of your heart? What are you drawn to?
- [57:16]
Spencer Fluhman
You get what you want. It's a weird way of framing it. I loved that word from that scholar that it's about that the heaven that emerges here in the vision is one of affinities. Yeah.
- [57:28]
Hank
Book of Mormon. You'd be more miserable to dwell with a just and holy God. You're going to be where you're less miserable.
- [57:37]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah. And other scriptures. Light cleaves unto light. What am I cleaving to? What am I joined with? What am I united with that brings us again back to vine and branches? If my desire is love and holiness in Christ, my inclination is toward the life of the disciple. These are good signs. Yeah. Yeah.
- [58:01]
John
These are good things.
- [58:02]
Spencer Fluhman
These are good things. If not, then I meant education of my desires. Again.
- [58:07]
John
Education of my desires. I have a question for both of you. I sometimes see something happen in lessons on section 76 that I don't see happen in the text. That is. Spencer, you've taught us that mainstream Protestant Heaven is small, hell is big. He reverses those. Heaven is huge, hell is small. Sometimes in Latter Day Saint lessons, we flop it back again. We say the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, that's heaven. The rest is really some version of hell. How would you say to not let that happen because then the message is reversed.
- [58:57]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah. Holds together to simply create a new heaven. Isn't the point of the. You thought you had a small heaven. Well, this one is even smaller. As it turns out. That's not the trajectory of the vision. The exaltation versus the height has to be embedded within the breadth to get a full sense of what Christ is doing in the world. That helps us be less sectarian. It helps us be less judgmental. It helps us be more open and alive to what Go is doing beyond the bounds of my own ward. It helps me see my neighbors in a different way. It helps me see my children who have chosen different paths in a different way. That's all good outcomes from sensing the breadth of God's work in the world. By the same token, I guess the other pitfall would be we don't want to mute the exaltation invitation either. Exactly what that balance is is a good question. I love that these are in the same section, just verses apart. It's working together. Because you're right. We don't want to ignore the rest of the section and only see the 10 verses from 50 to 70. All of it's the economy of God in the world. By the same token, we have to hear God's call. In verses 50 through 70, he delights John. Back to your point. As the giver of good gifts to his children, he wants to share divine life with them. He wants them to participate in divine being. That's what he intends. That's what's said there. We have to be able to hold them both. I guess I'm surrendering before that mystery, but I think you've highlighted an important productive tension I would say is holding those two ideas together simultaneously. Don't swap it back. Your point points to another good footnote for us. If we thought a tripartite heaven was a stunning revelation of God's love and redemptive work, it's further subdivided later. The prophet subdivides the celestial kingdom into three. A later revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants will do that. We end up with kind of six degrees of glory, one might wonder profitably. Wait a minute. It's as if God reckons with individuals at the level of individuals. Then it really starts getting breathtaking. When we're counting desires and who would have if they had tarried. Then it starts getting beautiful. It's a great point, Hank. It really is.
- [61:42]
John
President oaks helped in October 2023. Kingdoms of Glory his talk starts this way. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are frequently asked, how is your church different from other Christian churches? Among the answers we give is the fullness of the doctrine of Jesus Christ. Foremost among that doctrine is the fact that our Heavenly Father loves all his children so much that he wants all to live in a kingdom of glory forever. He goes on. The revealed doctrine of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints teaches that all the children of God, with exceptions too limited to consider here, will ultimately inherit one of three kingdoms of glory, even the least of which surpasses all understanding.
- [62:34]
Spencer Fluhman
That is a perfect benediction on this section. That really is Amen.
- [62:40]
Hank
That was one of those talks that listed in that citation index. President Hoax has spent a lot of time in section 76. If nothing else, the lake of fire and brimstone is great for cartoons. What would you say? The lake of fire and brimstone is a metaphor, but it's a temporary metaphor. What do you do with that?
- [63:05]
Spencer Fluhman
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, at very least we can say it's vanishingly insignificant in the broad scope of the vision. It's a point of contrast that is on its way to something else. It's not a meaningful category within the vision itself. It just isn't.
- [63:23]
John
Another question for you. Put on your historian hat again. Who and why would they struggle with this? Yes, it goes against everything you've ever been taught, but that's a good thing.
- [63:35]
Hank
Other than that, is it?
- [63:37]
John
No. There's people that need to suffer. Is that what it is? God is too merciful. I can't handle that.
- [63:45]
Spencer Fluhman
I think it goes back to the traditionalists response to universalism. I don't know that we'd say that these are folks who had plumbed the depths of the vision, had sorted it and wrestled it to the ground. It was new, it was challenging, it was aligned with this radical, unorthodox, universalist insurgency within the broader New England religious world. The critique was it absolves folks of responsibility. It saps their initiative. It undercuts calls to repent. If they're just, why would they repent? Why would they need to keep God's law? All of those critiques applied. I suspect that animated some of the latter day Saint critiques as well. So what's interesting for the universalists, they don't solve the problem of human will. They share with their critics an assumption that God would simply save everyone, period. But human will didn't figure in their calculation. What we see in the vision here is a fuller, richer reckoning with the implication of our own choices, of our own ability to respond to God's call. If I could build a time machine, I'd go back and I'd say, now, don't miss what's going on here. This isn't universalism as they had known it. This is not what we get. Like I say, lowercase universalistic in its implication. But it's not universalism of their time. It's not. It's different. It holds together those contraries in a characteristically restoration way. This is the Joseph Smith method. These things that look like opposing positions somehow find reconciliation in the restoration. This is one of them. I think that's what we're seeing here.
- [65:42]
John
Brigham comes to love it and others.
- [65:44]
Spencer Fluhman
I'm sure he does. He probably gives us a good spiritual pattern there. He's like, I had to wait a little. I'm an impatient person. I've never had time for patience is my problem. I'm endlessly curious. I want to wrestle things to the ground. I want to sort them out. What a powerful note from a former president of the church. Wait a little. That's worth highlighting too, is that. That's a Spiritual skill that we need to develop the ability to know that we're not ready yet to pass judgment on this or that or to sort this or that.
- [66:23]
John
Made me laugh a little bit. What you said there about missionaries. How do you teach someone to repent? You better repent or you're going to heaven.
- [66:32]
Spencer Fluhman
This was the conundrum. Yeah.
- [66:34]
Hank
Spencer, I remember leaving a discussion in the Philippines where there was a young adult who was pretty rude to us in the family. I remember looking at my companion and saying, do you really think that was their chance? Because I thought if I believed about us, the things that he believed about us from pamphlets, I wouldn't get anywhere near us either.
- [66:58]
John
Spencer, this has been spectacular in every way. My scriptures are covered in notes. I want to go share with my family all that I've learned. I'm 100% certain Steve would be elated over what's happened. I think he is. I want to bring two things together that you've taught us. One is how much you love the Lord and how you've highlighted him in this section more than any other piece. Then here you are, a historian who knows the history of the Church. There may be a narrative out there that, oh, you don't want to know the history of the Church. You'll lose your faith. Yet you know the history of the Church. You brought out the beauty of the revelatory gift of Joseph Smith. Could you share with someone who is maybe listening, saying, how do I connect the history of the Church with my testimony of the Lord? How can I not be scared of the Church's history? How have you done it?
- [68:11]
Spencer Fluhman
I'm idiosyncratic. Like everyone, we all have our own way through things. I'm not a committed, faithful Latter Day Saint in spite of my study of our past, but because of it. I mean that for me, the history of the Church reflects human life more generally. Of course it's complicated. Of course there are paradoxes. Of course there are failures. Of course there are complexities. Of course there are deep disappointments. That is the mortal experience. That is our ecclesiastical experience. In so many ways, I have found a reservoir of insight and inspiration that is bottomless. Over the past several decades, as a teacher and as a scholar, I haven't found bottom, and there is no bottom. It continues to be a source, an engine for me of potent questions, of answers, questions again and then more answers. But church history for me stretches me to see all of God's children in the ways that he does. It stretches me to be compassionate to my own failings. As I'm compassionate with others failings, it stretches me to be patient with God's slow work and long game. That's how God works. It has stretched me to be compassionate with the suffering on every side. Our history, human history, reveals to me all of the things that makes God weep, but all of the things that motivates his loving action in the world as well. I see all of that. I am. At least Holly tells me slowly, over time, it's made me a better disciple. My study of our past. I'm a better disciple because of it, not in spite of it. I've still got miles yet to go. I would say to anyone who's overwhelmed, fresh courage, take God's not going to forsake you or us or anyone now or ever. That's the message of the vision too.
- [70:43]
John
Wonderful. Thank Holly for us, please, for letting us steal you away.
- [70:48]
Spencer Fluhman
She'd do anything for the Sorensens if we want.
- [70:50]
John
That's true. We have loved having you here. We want to thank Dr. Spencer Fluman for joining us on Follow Him. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen. We love you, Shannon. We want to thank our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. Every episode, this episode especially, we love and remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. We hope you'll join us next week. We've got more church history, more Doctrine and Covenants to cover on Follow Him.
- [71:22]
Spencer Fluhman
More.