Casey Griffiths:
What is priesthood? I don’t know if there’s a more difficult question in the Church today.

Scott Woodward:
You can speak with authority because the Lord has placed authority upon you. But you’re given divine authority to do the work of God, and that will be binding for the salvation of the human family.

Casey Griffiths:
That’s a huge thing, right? That’s something that should be shouted from the rooftops.

Scott Woodward:
We’re going to do something that’s never been done before.

Casey Griffiths:
Does the oath and covenant of the priesthood apply to women? Priesthood is not synonymous with manhood.

Scott Woodward:
It seems pretty clear that we’re talking about this eternal family sealing the network of men and women into the eternal holy order of God.

Casey Griffiths:
A salvational system that doesn’t include women, that doesn’t put them to work, and doesn’t offer them the same blessings is really not complete.

Scott Woodward:
That’s why we have a Church of Jesus Christ in the latter days. Welcome back to part 2 of this week’s discussion about Doctrine and Covenants 84. Casey, in our first video, we talked about the context and the content of Section 84, which was a lot. That’s 120 verses long. And so we figured we ought to break this up into two parts. So here in part 2, we want to cover the controversies and the consequences of Section 84. So you ready to jump into controversies?

Casey Griffiths:
Let’s tackle it. The first one, I think we’ve already kind of tiptoed towards, which is the part of the first, the revelation where it talks about the temple being reared in this generation. Critics of the Church will look at this and call it a failed prophecy because the city of Zion and its temples have not been built yet. And are we going to build exactly what they were planning to build in 1833? Probably not, to be honest with you. We do have designs of the early city of Zion that show it as, like, being a square mile with 24 temples in the middle, a temple complex. And that same thing, the plat of the city of Zion, gives an explanation for what the temples are, and they are associated with the Church offices as they existed in 1833. These temples were administrative centers, and they were very similar to the Kirtland Temple, where they didn’t have places for ordinances. So the way they’re using the term temple is a little bit different here.

Scott Woodward:
Okay, so what about the prophecy? Clearly, the Lord said it would be built in that generation, and we gave one thought on this as we were covering those verses, but you said you wanted to go a little deeper on that, so we’ll do that.

Casey Griffiths:
It’s possible that it’s not a prophecy at all. It’s a commandment. And there’s a difference between a prophecy and a commandment. When a commandment is not kept, that doesn’t invalidate the commandment. So for instance, when the Lord said, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” that’s one of the Ten Commandments. If a person doesn’t keep the commandment, it doesn’t mean that the Lord was wrong. It means that the person failed or there was some weakness in the individual, and there’s nothing wrong with the Lord or the prophet that gave the commandment in the first place. And the language there, it sounds like he’s commanding them to build the temple, not prophesying that the temple will be built. That’s one way of looking at it. This seems to be the interpretation that the Church leans towards because they’ve footnoted it to Section 124. In later revelations, God provides two reasons why the temples were not built. Number one, there were contentions, envyings, and strife among the Saints in Missouri. So the Saints of Missouri couldn’t get their act together. If a person doesn’t fulfill the commandment, doesn’t invalidate the commandment. Second, the enemies of the Saints were demonstrating intense opposition.

Casey Griffiths:
Like you mentioned in Section 124, the Lord refers to the charge to build the temples as a commandment that he rescinded because of persecution. So he refers to it as a commandment in Section 124. Basically, which means it’s probably, in his mind, a commandment and not a prophecy, though I can see prophetic elements in it. The second might be with the phrasing which someone would bring up, “in this generation.” There’s uncertainty about what that means specifically. For instance, the Lord tells Joseph Smith, this is in Doctrine and Covenants 5:10, “This generation shall have my word through you.” It seems in this case, the word generation is used as a synonym for dispensation because we’re still using the words of Joseph Smith. It wasn’t just for the people that lived in his time. Generation, as it’s used in that passage, does not appear to be the time between a parent’s birth and the birth of their children, which is the traditional way it’s used, but kind of an epoch of time in the history of the human race. So I’m suggesting that generation here might be synonymous with the way we use dispensation today, which means the latter days.

Casey Griffiths:
It’s going to be built before the latter days are over, before the Second Coming. Here’s one more maybe possible way to think of it, too. The passage uses this language. This is verse 5, “This generation shall not all pass away until an house shall be built unto the Lord.” So it’s possible that that prophetic part of the passage is saying there’s going to be a house built, a temple built. It might be that this is referring only to a temple being built, but not necessarily the temples in Zion being built in that generation. If this is the case, then the prophecy is fulfilled. There’s a temple built in Kirtland, there’s another built in Nauvoo. If we’re really taking it as far as we can, members of that generation don’t really pass away until the early 20th century. So we could say the St. George temple, the Manti temple, the Logan temple, the Salt Lake temple, even Cardston, Canada, and Laie, Hawaii, fulfill this prophecy that an house will be built.

Scott Woodward:
I like that. Although verse 4 says, “The city New Jerusalem shall be built by the gathering of the Saints, beginning at this place, even the place of the temple, which temple shall be reared in this generation. For verily this generation shall not pass until a house shall be built.” Isn’t the verse 5 referring to verse 4’s New Jerusalem temple?

Casey Griffiths:
You could look at it that way, but I guess another question to ask would be, What is the New Jerusalem? Like, is it a collection of buildings? What’s a city? I guess you’d say. One time I was in Craig Ostler’s class and we were talking about Enoch’s city being taken up into heaven. And Craig just asked a really insightful question, which is, What is a city? Like, is it the dirt and the trees and the buildings? And his opinion was what was taken up in heaven was the people, that that’s what forms a city. And in that sense, if we look at the New Jerusalem as the people, the New Jerusalem is a pretty sizable city. The Church is several million people. And it was a fairly sizable city within that generation, if we’re going to use that meaning of generation to say it. And the New Jerusalem being reared might have different dimensions to it than just we’re going to build these buildings and we’re going to build this city that happens. So I’m open to all those ideas and interpretations, and I think each one gives us the idea that, hey, there’s plenty of wiggle room here for the New Jerusalem to be built. I think it’s going to be built in Independence, but if it’s built somewhere else, I’m okay with that, too. It just seems like my reading of the Doctrine and Covenants is that there’s something special about that spot.

Scott Woodward:
To build a New Jerusalem, which is… That’s where the city comes in, which could be really extrapolated, you’re saying, to apply to all the gathering places of the Saints. That could be the city of New Jerusalem.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. I mean, does the Salt Lake Temple fulfill this prophecy? Yeah, in a lot of ways it does. If you’re looking at it, the Saints have to build an temple and city from that perspective. And commandments can be fulfilled in surprising ways, too. You see that again and again and again in the scriptures.

Scott Woodward:
Maybe the situation changed, and therefore, the Lord readjusted based on Section 124 saying, I no longer require that at your hands because your enemies came and stopped you from doing it. And so we’re shifting. Both of us are implying something that’s not quite said in the text. So go give it a read. Think about what you think about this. But it is definitely the Lord’s response to Joseph’s concern about the prophecy or the command in Section 84 that they need to build a temple in Missouri. So this is not a temple recommend question.

Casey Griffiths:
No, it’s not.

Scott Woodward:
What do you think Section 124:49-54 imply? That’s not a temple recommend question.

Casey Griffiths:
That would be a surprising question if it showed up. Okay, so what is priesthood?

Scott Woodward:
Take my words as food for thought. But as I look at the word priesthood in the revelations of Joseph Smith and in his teachings about it. Then I look at how we use the word priesthood today. There appears to have been some metamorphosis with our use of this word and what we say it means. For example, we’re accustomed to speaking of priesthood in the Church today as the power or authority of God delegated to man, right. It’s like a power that a man holds. We even call them priesthood holders. But this definition actually developed shortly after the time of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and it’s not found in his own personal lexicon or in any of his revelations, like Section 84 as being a key one, Section 107, Section 121, Section 124. Like, none of these revelations about priesthood define it like that. Instead, it’s defined as like a holy order, like we saw today in Section 84. It’s a holy order. It’s a group. It’s a hood of priests. It’s a hood of high priests, if it’s the high priesthood, rather than something that somebody holds. It’s a group that you belong to, and you’re given certain authorizations to do certain things according to the office that you hold. You can hold office in the priesthood, but you don’t hold priesthood in this original understanding of priesthood as I’m reading it.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. And it’s clear in the Church that that has changed for sure. And it seems like that’s part of the controversy, too, right? Is the way Joseph Smith used priesthood is probably, and I’m agreeing with you on this, different than the way modern Church leaders use priesthood and modern Church members. This is the way Dallin H. Oaks uses it. He says, “We’re not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be? When a woman, young or old, is set apart to preach the gospel as a full-time missionary, she is given priesthood authority to perform a priesthood function. The same is true when a woman is set apart as an officer or teacher in a Church organization under the direction of one who holds the keys of the priesthood. Whoever functions in an office or calling received from one who holds priesthood keys exercises priesthood authority in performing her or his assigned duty.” So that clearly sounds like he’s not talking about, like, an organization that you enter into, but that he’s saying authority is granted to you. And I think that’s very different from what you’re talking about here. But I think there’s a way to reconcile them.

Scott Woodward:
Really important when you read scripture, this would be my point, when you read scripture, you should know how the word is being used in the context of that revelation, right?

Casey Griffiths:
I agree. Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I think it might be able to help us clarify discussions about challenging topics around the topic of priesthood today, particularly like women and the priesthood. It can help us reframe temple work, temple workers. In Joseph Smith’s day in Nauvoo, for instance, the temple workers, men and women, were referred to as the priesthood or the holy order, the anointed quorum. This proto-temple worker group in Nauvoo of men and women, referred to as the priesthood, I find really fascinating and interesting. So in Joseph Smith’s day, we’re going to have a couple of definitions of priesthood, one of which is like just a holy order that men belong to within the Church ecclesiastical structure in order to do Church duties. But then as the temple theology continues to build and it crescendos in Nauvoo, we’re getting other definitions of priesthood, like those who officiate in the temple are the temple priesthood, and it consists of men and women. Joseph also will refer to priesthood as, like, an eternal family-based holy order that men and women are brought into.

Scott Woodward:
And in the resurrection, when we rise as kings and queens and priests and priestesses, the whole group of people are called the priesthood. Read Section 2 of the Doctrine and Covenants with that idea in mind, and you’ll probably get closer to the meaning, right? That Elijah is going to reveal the priesthood to be able to bind men and women and children in this huge family, this eternal family order. And that, too, is called the priesthood. It’s the hood of all the priests and priestesses, kings, and queens. So it’s just this really rich word in Joseph Smith’s lexicon.

Casey Griffiths:
It seems like the leaders of the Church in our day have tried to answer the most pertinent question relating to this, which is women and priesthood, by using definition two, by saying, Well, women serve in the Church and they serve with authority, and the only kind of authority that the Church is priesthood. So if priesthood is the authority of God, of course, women have priesthood. Just like President Oaks said, when a woman is set apart to preach the gospel, she’s being given priesthood authority. When a woman is called to lead a Church organization like the Relief Society, she’s doing so with priesthood authority. But you’re saying that the first definition works, too, which I really like, actually, that if priesthood is this organization that a person is brought into, it’s a wholly sanctified order that women can enter into. And that makes a ton of sense out of things that Joseph Smith said in the Nauvoo period, specifically, where he’s talking to the Relief Society, for instance, and he says, I want to make you a kingdom of priests. You can see this right in the Relief Society minutes. And he’s saying, I’m going to bring you into the holy order, but I’m going to do it through the temple.

Casey Griffiths:
And then there’s another discourse where he’s talking about the Nauvoo temple, and he says something like, There’s three grand orders of the priesthood. And he mentions the Melchizedek and the Aaronic and then he says there’s a third order. And he uses this word patriarchal priesthood, which today the word patriarchal or patriarchy is totally loaded. Barbara Gardner and Jonathan Stapley have both suggested alternate words, that it wasn’t meaning men, it was meaning family, and that women were brought into that order of the priesthood, too. But it happens through the temple. And that’s one thing I’ve thought about, because I don’t know if there’s a more difficult question in the Church today than the place of women, and do women have rights to leadership, and do women have right to the priesthood. And I think you can solve it using both definitions. The other thing that I’ve always thought is we could make the temple sort of is where everything is sort of explained. Like, it’s not appropriate here in this setting to discuss the liturgy and the wording that’s used in the temple, but there’s so much there that’s helpful. Like, my wife specifically had issues with this, but when she went to the temple and saw women performing ordinances with authority, it was like, Oh, okay, I get it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And one of my favorite quotes to kind of help clarify all of this in my mind was this quote from Elder Joseph Fielding Smith. And he gave this actually in a talk called Relief Society: An Aid to the Priesthood, referring to the priesthood as this group of men rather than as authority. He says this, actually. He says, “Authority and priesthood are two different things.” That’s very much in alignment with how the Doctrine and Covenants is speaking of this. He says, “A person may have authority given to him or a sister to her to do certain things in the Church that are binding and absolutely necessary for our salvation, such as the work that our sisters do in the house of the Lord.” He says, “And you sisters who labor in the house of the Lord can lay your hands upon your sisters and with divine authority, because the Lord recognizes positions which you occupy, you can speak with authority because the Lord has placed authority upon you. Our sisters have been given power and authority to do a great many things. The work which they do is done by divine authority.” Priesthood is a holy order with officers and stuff in it, and then there’s also divine authority that can be given to men and women for various things, like Sunday school president.

Scott Woodward:
Does that require priesthood office? No. We can give authority. Sisters as missionaries, does that require priesthood office? No. But you can be given divine authority. Temple workers, especially sisters, does that require priesthood office? No. But you’re given divine authority to do the work of God, and that will be binding for the salvation of the human family. Now, in terms of the narrative in 1832, like, we’re not even close to talking about women yet. That’s not going to happen for another decade. So in 1842, we’re going to get the Relief Society. And then Joseph Smith is starting to think about how women as officers in the Church should work and how they’ll be situated under the direction of the priesthood of the First Presidency. And we’ll talk all about that as we go on later. But this is early. 1832 is early. We’re still talking mostly about men here, but we’re going to watch this develop, and it’s eventually going to subsume. Like I said in Nauvoo, we’re going to be talking about men and women as the priesthood doing temple work with divine authority. Anyway, that quote from Joseph Fielding Smith is super helpful.

Casey Griffiths:
Jean B. Bingham, who was the General Relief Society President, made this statement, and look at how she uses it. She said, “In my callings, because I am serving with priesthood authority given to me by one who has keys, there have been numerous times when I have had thoughts or words given to me that are just what a young woman or Relief Society sister or Primary child needed to hear. I know that those words came to me because of the priesthood authority I was given when I was set apart for that calling.” So it does seem like she’s distinguishing a little bit here. She’s using the term priesthood authority and recognizing that dichotomy that you’re kind of setting up there as well, that she has authority. Where does it come from? It comes from the priesthood. So a lot of times in my classes, when we introduce this idea, we’ll say, Okay, let’s define these terms: priesthood, priesthood authority, priesthood keys. Let’s talk about which one’s different and how they separate from each other. And how they should be used appropriately in the Church. Because we’ve also got statements from people like Dallin H. Oaks and M. Russell Ballard, where they said things like, Priesthood is not synonymous with manhood.

Casey Griffiths:
That sometimes in the Church, we simplify by saying, Hey, second hour, the priesthood is going to meet here, and the women are going to meet here. And both of them said, That’s a mistake. First of all, if a woman has been to the temple, she’s been inducted into the priesthood, in my mind. She’s part of that first definition that you set up.

Scott Woodward:
That’s the full name of the garment, right? It’s the garment of the holy priesthood, and men and women wear it.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, they receive it. And in the temple, women perform ordinances with authority. And then in the Church, there’s priesthood authority to do certain things. Like, you mentioned the Sunday school president. That happens to be my calling right now. It’s not an office of the priesthood, but do I have authority to supervise teaching and training in my word? Yeah. What kind of authority? Comes from the priesthood, so it’s priesthood authority.

Scott Woodward:
All the officers of the Church have divine authority to do their thing.

Casey Griffiths:
In the Restoration Proclamation, the leaders of the Church made the narrative of priesthood restoration more complicated, by which I mean, typically when I was a missionary and we talked about priesthood restoration, we’d say, John the Baptist restored the Aaronic priesthood, and Peter, James, and John restored the Melchizedek priesthood. In the Restoration Proclamation, they add in a third event, which is that Elijah appeared and restored the authority to create eternal families. They add in the Kirtland Temple, making it three narratives. But I sort of wish that we would also add in a fourth event, which is to say, And during the Nauvoo period, women were inducted into the priesthood as well and given authority to perform ordinances. Because so many people look at our church and just their narrative is, women don’t have the priesthood and women can’t lead. And that’s just not true, because we are cautious to talk about the temple, and rightly so, it’s sacred. A lot of people don’t understand why the temple is so important to us and how it fits into our narrative, especially for women. Like let me bring up this quote. This is from President Nelson. He said this in 2019.

Casey Griffiths:
He was speaking to women. He said, “If you are endowed but not currently married to a man who bears the priesthood, and someone says to you, I’m sorry you don’t have the priesthood in your home, please understand that that statement is incorrect. You may not have a priesthood bearer in your home, but you have received and made sacred covenants with God in his temple. From those covenants flows an endowment of his priesthood power upon you.”

Scott Woodward:
It’s interesting, and we’ll probably cover this more when we get to Section 124 of the Doctrine and Covenants. But the only reason the Lord gives for building the Nauvoo Temple is he says, We need to restore the fullness of the priesthood. That’s 1841. Peter, James, and John have already happened. John the Baptist, Moses, Elias, Elijah already happened. And so what more was there to bring back regarding priesthood? And from the teachings of Joseph, it seems pretty clear that we’re talking about this eternal family sealing the network of men and women into the eternal holy order of God. Priests, priestesses, kings, queens, united eternally. That’s the fullness of the priesthood. Bookmark that. We’ll talk more about that when we get to Nauvoo. But just know that this word priesthood is really rich, especially in these revelations of Joseph Smith and how he’s using it and how he’s learning about it and how he’s teaching about it. And so just keep that in mind as you go through his revelations. That would be my advice. Just step back and say, Am I imposing our modern way of talking about it into my reading, or am I really reading this in the context and the definitions that are being given here right in the text?

Casey Griffiths:
Love it. This has been so helpful to me. Let me go to one more controversy. And you and I brought this one up when we were prepping to teach this. It’s common practice that when a man is ordained an elder, when he receives the Melchizedek priesthood or is inducted in the Melchizedek priesthood, the instructions are that the ecclesiastic leader who’s interviewing him will read the oath and covenant of the priesthood in Section 84 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Now, I think you and I solved this in real time as we were working on it, but does the oath and covenant of the priesthood apply to women?

Scott Woodward:
Thousand percent, yes.

Casey Griffiths:
It sounds like it’s a male thing because you’re hearing sons of Moses and sons of Aaron. But then there’s a subtle little shift here, right? Do you want to walk us through that?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So that picks up in verse 35, and we mentioned this kind of in passing as we were going through the text. Let’s look at it carefully with this question in mind. Verse 34 talked about those who receive these two priesthoods, obtain these two priesthoods, and magnify their calling, become the sons of Moses and Aaron, seed of Abraham, church, kingdom, elect of God. I think in 1832 context, this is clearly talking about the male officers in the Church. But then verse 35 happens. Okay, verse 35 happens. “And also all they who receive this priesthood receive me.” Okay, so that group all, the all they, now we’re talking about a different group because then he defines what he means by priesthood, verse 36, “For he that receives receiveth my servants receiveth me.” That’s a clarification. If you receive this priesthood, meaning this group of the sons of Moses and the sons of Aaron, if you receive that group called the priesthood, the hood of the priests, if you receive them, then you’re receiving me. And when you receive me, you receive my Father and my Father’s kingdom. Who does that apply to? Who is asked and invited to receive the servants of the Lord, called here the priesthood?

Scott Woodward:
Well, that’s men, that’s women. That’s the whole world. That’s what the section goes on to talk about, right. Is take this to the whole world, men and women, and invite them to receive my servants, receive my ordinances, because if you receive that, then you receive me, and off we go. I think verse 35, when it says, All they, now we’re shifting to a group of men and women.

Casey Griffiths:
You made the comment that it’s common practice to read this with a man before he’s ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood, that we should probably read this with women before they go to the temple and are endowed.

Scott Woodward:
What are they about to do? They’re about to, verse 19, they’re about to receive the laws and rituals of the higher priesthood in order to get the power of godliness in their life in order to prepare to see God, which we’ll ritualize through the endowment. It’s a ritual of preparation to actually see God, and we even sort of ritualize that at the veil. Like, we’re going to go into God’s presence, right. And so, yeah, what a perfect time to read the oath and covenant with men and women before they go into the temple and receive the next laws and rituals. Yeah, 100%.

Casey Griffiths:
I’d love for women to read the oath and covenant of the priesthood and realize that all the promises made here apply to them. Just a modern confirmation. This is an excerpt from a conversation that Jean Bingham, Sister Bingham, when she was Relief Society President, had with President Russell M. Nelson. So this was back and forth. It was unscripted. But here’s the transcript. President Nelson made reference specifically to Section 84, and he said, “The oath and covenant of the priesthood means that God’s made a promise, and he sets the conditions. And if you agree to keep them, you make a covenant. And then he also indicates, When you do what I say, you will receive the blessings. If you do not what I say, you have no promise. So it’s clearly a two-way conversation, a covenant two-way. He makes the provision, and you accept them and keep those covenants and keep the blessings.” And then Sister Bingham asked, “So that is just as relevant to women as it is to men?” President Nelson’s answer was, Totally. Sister Bingham then asked a clarifying question, “All those priesthood blessings from the oath and covenant of the priesthood are enjoyed by both men and women?”

Casey Griffiths:
President Nelson’s answer was, Exactly, exactly. So I think if you just read the text, you can get there. But it’s nice to know that a modern prophet has also confirmed, Yep, every blessing here is for both men and women. It’s for all disciples of Christ. It’s for everybody who’s willing to enter into these covenants and receive the priesthood. And boy, I don’t know if we acknowledge Jean Bingham enough. She did some good stuff.

Scott Woodward:
Some good questions. Wow.

Casey Griffiths:
She’s asking some good questions, and she’s making some powerful statements when she’s the General Relief Society President. Just really, really valuable stuff.

Scott Woodward:
And I want to circle back to something we were talking about a couple of minutes ago here. So in 1832, before there’s even been a temple built, the sons of Moses, sons of Aaron, this seems clearly to be talking about men and men only. But there’s going to be a shift 10 years from now when we get to the Nauvoo Temple, 1841, that revelation, Section 124, when the Lord starts talking about building the Nauvoo Temple, he says, We’re going to do something that’s never been done before. From before the foundations of the earth, he says, this is going to be different. In fact, let me just quote two verses from Section 124. Let’s look at verse 41 and 42. The Lord says to Joseph Smith about the Nauvoo temple, “For I deign to reveal unto my church things which have been kept hid from before the foundation of the world, things that pertain to the dispensation of the fullness of times. And I will show unto my servant Joseph all things things pertaining to this house and the priesthood thereof, and the place whereon it shall be built.” So let’s think about that in context.

Scott Woodward:
So we’ve had temples in the past. Ever since Moses, there’s been temples, right? There’s been the temple of Solomon, Book of Mormon people had temples. Jesus’s day, there was a temple, temple of Herod. But the Lord says, this temple is going to be something different. We’re going to do something different with the Nauvoo temple that’s never been done before. And I’m going to teach Joseph Smith about all things pertaining to this house and the priesthood thereof. And what we’re going to find is something that’s never been done before, I think, Casey, is that women were being invited to become ordinance workers in the house of the Lord to administer the ordinances on behalf of women. We have no record of that in the Old Testament. They’re always men. They’re always the sons of Aaron, sons of Levi. We don’t have that in Jesus’s day. We’ve never had a temple quite like we have temples today. And in those temples, the priesthood thereof consists of both men and women who are administering the ordinances of salvation. So Section 84 is kind of starting the thought out, saying that “in the ordinances thereof the power of godliness is manifest.” Well, by Nauvoo, we start to realize women get to officiate in those ordinances, too.

Scott Woodward:
And so that’s something that’s never happened in the history of the world, I believe. Section 124 is saying. So exciting things with women, priesthood, temple. It’s all so rich and good.

Casey Griffiths:
That’s a huge thing, right? And something that should be shouted from the rooftops. A salvational system that doesn’t include women, that doesn’t put them to work, and doesn’t offer them the same blessings is really not complete. So when the Lord says the fullness is going to be revealed here, that’s a major, major thing, and maybe something that deserves a little bit more recognition when we talk about the restoration of the priesthood.

Scott Woodward:
All right, Casey, we are now to the consequences of Section 84, our final C here. What flows out of Section 84 and impacts the Church going forward?

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, let’s try and summarize this big three-part revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants. First, let’s go through the doctrinal peaks of the section using this priesthood lens. So we learn that there is a high or greater priesthood that’s talked about in verse 19, which is after the holiest order of God. That’s verse 18. And that through the laws and rituals mediated by this priesthood, mankind can become sanctified and prepared to see the face of God the Father. So there’s a higher priesthood that brings us into God’s presence. That’s a big deal.

Scott Woodward:
So what I’m hearing you say is there’s some pretty significant theological takeaways from this in terms of higher priesthood. And we also learned that there’s this thing called the lesser priesthood, verse 26, or an order of lesser priests, verse 111, which mediates the preparatory gospel of repentance and baptism and the remission of sins. And more doctrine here is we learn that all people who receive the Lord’s priesthood servants by accepting the laws and rituals of both holy orders from under their hands receive Jesus. That’s verse 35, 36, and 89. And then Jesus leads us to receive the Father and the Father’s kingdom through a covenant from the Father that all he has will be given to them. This is called the oath and covenant which belongeth to the priesthood. Verse 39 says so. Again, a dense, beautiful, little packed theological point about all mankind being invited to receive all that the Father has mediated through this group called the priesthood.

Casey Griffiths:
Right. The oath and covenant of the priesthood, one of the most impactful and important sections of any revelations given, and a great summary of the covenant God makes with men and women. It’s the plan of salvation in a nutshell, right? It’s a very succinct way of just saying, Here’s the deal. Here’s what I’m asking, and here’s what you get to receive in return. And it is definitely a good deal for anybody that chooses to enter into it. Then the revelation continues, and we learn that all mankind are born with the capacity to come unto God and receive this covenant despite varying degrees of righteousness and wickedness, which leads us into Christ explaining why he sends his priesthood servants to preach the gospel of the kingdom to all the world unto those who have not yet received it. So here’s the message. It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful. Now I need you to go out and share it with everybody that you possibly can, because it will help lift them and bring them to a higher, happier, and better state.

Scott Woodward:
We learn from the very second verse of this revelation that this work of restoring and gathering the people of God by inviting them to receive the laws and rituals of both priesthoods is the very purpose for the existence of the Church. That’s why we have a Church of Jesus Christ in the latter days. So awesome. And all of this is somehow intimately connected with the temple that the Lord has commanded the Saints to build at the epicenter of Zion. This is kind of the first breadcrumb on a long trail, like we said, is going to lead to Nauvoo, a lot of clarity about temples and what the Lord is up to. But this is, again, one of the very first in the stages of the development of temple doctrine. And wow, the impact, the ongoing impact that this revelation and subsequent revelations that build on this one have is pretty incalculable because it affects people on both sides of the veil, we’ll find out. Billions of people. And so what a revelation.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, so much to process, and yet such a simple message when you boil it down to, if you receive my servants, you receive me, you receive my Father, and then you receive all that my Father hath. It’s like a four-sentence summary of why it’s called the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, it’s like all the theological pieces of the Restoration that had been revealed up to this point are starting to come together into a more cohesive picture of what God is up to, which, again, will continue to be clarified all the way up to and through Nauvoo. So more to come on this, but man, what a great place to start.

Casey Griffiths:
Seriously, wonderful stuff. Well, Scott, it’s been a pleasure, as always. Thanks for walking us through this. I learn a lot from you. It’s always a joy.

Scott Woodward:
We’ll see you next week.