Scott Woodward:
Is this sign-seeking, Casey?

Casey Griffiths:
Short answer? Yep. Yeah, it is.

Scott Woodward:
Okay.

Casey Griffiths:
It doesn’t seem like receiving signs is a negative thing. It’s just if you keep pushing the limits, which McLellin seems to do again and again and again, and nothing satisfies you, then it becomes a problem.

Scott Woodward:
The cheap way to get the thing that God wants to give you anyway, sign-seeking.

Casey Griffiths:
Fewer planned responses, and unless I get a sign, I’m out of here. That’s negative sign-seeking. We have faith so that the Lord can give us signs. It seems like there’s that kind of relationship happening there.

Scott Woodward:
Hello, Casey. We are back.

Casey Griffiths:
Hello, Scott. We’re here once again.

Scott Woodward:
Section 64 through 66 this week, and this is part two. We are covering Section 65 and 66 here. So 65 is just one of those little shorties but goodies, Casey. This is one of my favorites, honestly, because of how much it packs in six little verses. As we go through it, I’ll explain more as to why this is so insightful to me. But before we do that, what was the context? What do we know about the context for this section?

Casey Griffiths:
Section 65 is the first section, I believe, that’s received at John Johnson’s home in Hiram, Ohio. And this is going to be a place that is hugely consequential for the Church. This is where the Doctrine and Covenants is born, essentially. It’s where they hold the conference to decide that they’re going to produce a new book of scripture that just so happens to be the book that we’re reading right now. It’s also going to be the place where Joseph Smith works on his Bible translation for about a year. He’s staying here. It’s also going to be where he receives the vision of the degrees of glory or Section 76. And tragically, it’s also the place where Joseph Smith is attacked by a mob and loses a child in March of 1832. That happens. So this kind of marks a new epoch in the Doctrine and Covenants because the revelations of the John Johnson Farm are huge, first of all, on every level, socially, economically, especially theologically. And this is the beginning of that. About two months before in Section 63, the Lord commands that the Isaac Morley Farm, which is in Kirtland, Ohio, is going to be sold. And that just so happens to be where both Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon’s families are living at the time that the Lord tells them to sell the farm.

Casey Griffiths:
So they have to find a new home, and they’re asked to seek it out through prayer. Shortly thereafter, in answer to their prayers, these recent converts, John and Elsa Johnson, invite Joseph and Sidney’s families to come and live with them on their farm in Hiram, Ohio, which is about 30 miles southwest of Kirtland. And the original building is still there. It’s a beautiful Church historic site right now that you can go visit. Joseph Smith writes, “On the 12th of September, I removed with my family to the township of Hiram and commenced living with John Johnson.” Joseph’s family lives in the Johnson home, and Sidney’s family lives separately in a small log home that’s on the Johnson farm. And since this is kind of away from the hustle and bustle of the Church in Kirtland, it gives them kind of comparative peace and quiet. So they’ve got time to focus on what Joseph really wants to do, which is complete his translation of the Bible, a work that he has engaged in, but he’s been putting off because of all the things happening, traveling to and from Missouri and other things occurring. In fact, he records, “From this time until the forepart of October, I did little more than to prepare to recommence the translation of the Bible.”

Casey Griffiths:
According to his own history, Section 65 is received in the forepart of October, those are his words, where the two earliest surviving manuscripts of this revelation, possibly recorded later, are dated to October 30th. In his history, Joseph Smith designates this section just as a revelation on prayer. But William McLellin, who might have been present when the revelation was dictated and made a copy of it soon after, clarified that it was related directly to Matthew 6:10, a passage from the Lord’s Prayer, where the Lord instructs his disciples to pray using these words, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” So Joseph has already worked on Matthew 6 over six months earlier, and we don’t really know why he comes back to this particular verse at this time or exactly what his question is linked to this, but he may have been seeking a clarification on what it meant to pray for God’s kingdom to come, or more specifics on when God’s kingdom was going to come or how. In any case, Section 65 deals with those two questions. What does it mean to pray for God’s kingdom to come?

Casey Griffiths:
And when is God’s kingdom going to come and how? So there’s the backstory. Should we dive into the content?

Scott Woodward:
All right. So an initial and striking feature of Section 65 is how biblically drenched the language is, Casey. This is only six verses long, but it contains these really rich, unmistakable biblical phrases and ideas from places like Isaiah 40, Matthew 16, Daniel 2, Revelation 19, Matthew 25, Psalm 107, and Daniel 7, which is quoted a bunch of times in Matthew, where the Lord’s Prayer is coming from. Also, Hebrews 1 and Matthew 6. All of this is just seamlessly woven together into this really beautiful, coherent, insightful, packed message on the vital topic of the kingdom of God. And you don’t have to read the New Testament very long, Casey, to realize that the kingdom of God was central to the mission of Jesus Christ. The very first words out his mouth as he begins his ministry is, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And this is just the cadence of his entire ministry. It’s just teaching the kingdom. Sometimes he shows the kingdom by doing miracles. He’s teaching parables about the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is light. I mean, it’s all kingdom of God focused, right. And then he does this curious thing in Matthew 16, where he promises Peter that he would give him the keys of the kingdom.

Scott Woodward:
And all of these topics are kind of swirling in the air around what Section 65 addresses, the kingdom of God. Let’s drop in, for instance, to verse one. It begins with this invitation to, “Hearken to the voice sent down from on high,” he says, whose message to mankind is quote, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight.” This was the very message of John the Baptist in his generation when he declared, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Again, there’s that kingdom theme, right? And verse one is saying this same message is now being claimed in Joseph Smith’s day. Verse two, “The keys of the kingdom of God are committed unto man on the earth, and from thence,” meaning from the keys of the kingdom, “shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth, as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, until it has filled the whole earth.” So, let’s think about that for a second. Let’s break it down. The keys of the kingdom of God. Now, elsewhere in the Doctrine and Covenants, those are called the keys of the Church, in Section 42.

Scott Woodward:
They appear to refer to the authority to direct where and when and how God’s kingdom is to be established and regulated upon the earth. These are the very keys that were committed to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery by Peter, James, and John, referenced back in Section 27. It seems like the Lord is saying here, if the question, again, we don’t have the question that Joseph was asking, but if his question was something like, how will the kingdom of God be established on the earth? How will God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven in preparation for the kingdom of heaven to come? Or something like that. Then verse 2 is starting to give a pretty insightful answer. He’s saying, it’s going to be under the direction of those who hold these keys of the kingdom that the gospel, he says, will roll forth unto the ends of the earth like the stone cut out of the mountain without hands will roll forth. That’s that imagery of the rolling stone filling the earth in Daniel’s inspired interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream back in Daniel 2, where the various kingdoms of the world are depicted as this big, huge statue that’s then destroyed by this stone cut without hands.

Scott Woodward:
Daniel’s prophecy, remember, is that the day would come when the God of heaven would set up a kingdom which would never be destroyed, but which would instead break in pieces and consume all earthly kingdoms and stand forever. So verse 2, right out the gate, is hitting with a punch here. It’s explaining that the gospel kingdom is going to grow throughout the world as the gospel rolls out under the direction of those who hold kingdom keys. Casey, we’re only into verse 2, and this is already pretty darn insightful.

Casey Griffiths:
And there’s a lot to unpack there. You could spend a long time just studying Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and what it means exactly. One thing with the Book of Daniel is to be a little cautious with it because it’s so rich in prophecy. And a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what Daniel was talking about. But this is one place where the Lord clearly does identify an element from the Book of Daniel as the stone being the Church or the kingdom of God in the latter days. So verse 2 seems to be explaining that this kingdom of God is going to grow throughout the world as the gospel rolls out under the direction of those who hold the priesthood keys. So it’s going to happen under the direction of key holders. Let me go on to verse 3. “Yea, a voice crying – Prepare ye the way of the Lord, prepare ye the supper of the Lamb,” this is a reference to the millennial Day, and “make ready for the Bridegroom” is a reference to the Second Coming of Christ. The way in which the Lord’s disciples are then encouraged to prepare for this day in verse 4 is to “pray unto the Lord, and call upon his holy name, and make known his wonderful works among the people.”

Casey Griffiths:
And as the disciples pray, they’re to specifically “call upon the Lord, that his kingdom may go forth upon the earth, that the inhabitants thereof may receive it, and be prepared for those days to come,” specifically those days “in which the Son of Man shall come down in heaven, clothed in the brightness of his glory, to meet the kingdom of God which is set upon the earth.” And this is another reference to a prophecy found in the Book of Daniel, in Daniel 7, specifically, in which the prophet Daniel saw in vision a day when, these are his words, “One like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven and was given a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him, and that his kingdom shall not be destroyed.”

Scott Woodward:
And Daniel 7 tends to be one of the passages that Jesus spends a lot of time on in his ministry. His favorite title for himself is the Son of Man. It’s this nice, perfectly cryptic phrase that you’re not sure whether he’s talking about himself as just a human, like the phrase used in the Book of Ezekiel, or if he’s talking about this, which is this Daniel 7 prophecy that the Son of Man will come in the clouds of heaven and be given the kingdom, the kingdom that would never be destroyed and would be given to the Saints of the Most High. And that’s exactly what Jesus will lean into, calling himself the Son of Man of Daniel 7, is ultimately infuriating to the leaders in Jerusalem. He’ll quote this when he’s being tried right before his crucifixion. He’ll quote Daniel 7, and the high priest will rip his clothes in frustration and say, Have we not heard him speak blasphemy? Because Jesus applied Daniel 7 to himself. Anyway, so it’s interesting that it’s coming up here. Here’s the Lord’s commentary on what this means in the Lord’s prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Scott Woodward:
Here it is. We’re talking about this kingdom of God being set up on earth in preparation for Jesus to come. We’re being asked to pray that the inhabitants of the earth will receive the gospel in preparation for that day. Then verse 6 concludes actually in the form of a prayer. It’s like its own little mini prayer about the Lord’s prayer that says this, quote, “May the kingdom of God go forth, that the kingdom of heaven may come.” Okay, pause. He’s making a distinction here between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. That distinction, I think, can be understood best as the Church and kingdom of God on Earth, on the one hand, let’s call that the kingdom of God, and then Christ and his resurrected Saints, and all those that are waiting to come down with him as the kingdom of heaven on the other. And so the prayer here in verse 6 is that God’s church and kingdom will spread sufficiently throughout the earth under the direction of the kingdom keys, back to verse 2, so that Christ and his heavenly kingdom may descend from above and unite with God’s earthly kingdom below to launch the millennial era.

Scott Woodward:
And all of this, the prayer concludes, “That thou, O God, mayest be glorified in heaven so on earth.” So when these two, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, fuse together in that millennial day, this will be the day when God is truly glorified. Only then will God’s will truly be done on earth as it is in heaven. And only then will, quote, “Thine enemies be subdued.” That is, Satan, he’ll be bound for a thousand years, and all ungodly influences will be overthrown. “For thine,” he says, O God, “is the honor, power, and glory, forever and ever. Amen.” That’s it. Six verses, almost like an expansion on the Lord’s Prayer, giving us doctrinal insights and other words that we can pray in preparation for the kingdom of heaven to come to Earth. Super cool, Casey.

Casey Griffiths:
Let’s talk controversies in Section 65. Maybe the main one is a phrase here, that Latter-day Saints, particularly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, emphasize that not many other churches do. And that is the concept or idea or the phrase, the “keys of the kingdom of God,” which I believe appear here in the Doctrine and Covenants for the first time, correct?

Scott Woodward:
Yes, like Section 27:13, speaks of Peter, James, and John, where it says, “I have committed the keys of my kingdom and a dispensation for last times to you.” But, Casey, Section 27 and Section 65, what’s their chronological relationship, especially that phrase in Section 27?

Casey Griffiths:
That’s complicated because part of Section 27 was revealed in 1830, while Joseph Smith is still living in Harmony, Pennsylvania. But then the second part that actually talks about the keys of the kingdom isn’t in the Doctrine and Covenants until 1835, which seems to suggest that when Joseph Smith was putting together the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, he sought additional revelation on the keys and ideas that were being talked about in Section 27. So this might be Section 65, chronologically, the earliest reference to the keys of the kingdom, which is going to become a big deal to Joseph Smith and a big deal to Latter-day Saints today.

Scott Woodward:
Now, that’s interesting. Okay, so this is the very first time chronologically the idea comes up. So what’s the controversy then?

Casey Griffiths:
Do other Christians talk about priesthood keys? Is their concept of priesthood the same as ours? We started setting this up by me saying, Hey, I work with Community of Christ a lot. They don’t ever talk about priesthood keys. They just believe that their authority comes from the fact that some of the people that founded Community of Christ were priesthood holders in the Church under Joseph Smith. So like William Marks was ordained to the priesthood, therefore they have the priesthood and a line of authority that extends on. But a lot of times, Latter-day Saints from our Church will come back and say, Well, you have the priesthood, but you don’t have the keys. And it seems like we draw a distinction between holding the priesthood or authority of God and holding priesthood keys.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I don’t know of any other Christian denomination that talks about keys, keys of the kingdom. We have, I think, in Protestant Christianity, the concept of the priesthood of all believers, meaning those who feel a conviction from God, you feel called, that you can go out and preach, that kind of thing. You don’t need authorization from any hierarchical priest or anything like that. In Catholicism, I know they’ve got different, like, priesthood orders with orders of priests and bishops and maybe cardinals all the way up to the Pope. But in terms of keys, I don’t think anyone else really talks about this. But it is biblical, Casey. That’s what’s really interesting, right? This is a phrase. It only comes up once in the Bible. It’s in Matthew 16:19. Remember this moment where Peter bears his testimony to Jesus? He says, I know that you’re the Christ, the Son of the living God. And then Jesus responds back, blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven. And then Jesus makes some promises to Peter, one of which is verse 19, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.”

Scott Woodward:
That’s it. That’s the one spot in the Bible where that phrase comes it up, and it’s clearly important to Jesus, and it’s clearly significant. And Christians don’t ignore this verse. In fact, anytime you see Peter depicted in Christian art, nine times out of ten, you see him holding keys. If it’s in color, if it’s like a color mosaic or a color stained glass window, usually he’ll be holding a silver one and a gold one. They’re usually really big keys. And all throughout Christianity, you’re going to see Peter holding the keys.

Casey Griffiths:
I just barely went to Capernaum, which is the town where Peter was living when he met Christ. There’s a giant statue of Peter there, and he’s holding a big, giant key. It seems like it’s all over the place. Even when a Christian tells a joke, they usually say something like, A guy walked up to the pearly gates and there was, guess who? Saint Peter, which they interpret as Peter being given authority, you know, to determine who gets into heaven or he’s the guardian of the gate. Once you start to pay attention to this, you can see it all over the place in Christian iconography.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, so it’s not lost on Christians that Jesus was mentioning something significant to Peter here and that Peter will get these keys somehow, whatever that means. There’s nowhere else in the Bible that explains it. If you look in Christian commentaries on what this verse is talking about, the best I can find is they guess that it might have something to do with legislative power in the sense of being able to authoritatively admit or exclude people from the Church like Peter does in Acts 2 or the Gentiles in Acts 10. Or maybe it’s absolving power in the sense of being able to forgive sin or retain sin. Or maybe it’s the keys of interpreting gospel truths, of unlocking treasures of knowledge, they say, and teaching what’s lawful and unlawful. Honestly, that’s pretty good, given that they only have one verse to go on.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, the other thing about that passage in Matthew 16 is it’s followed up by an incident that’s discussed in three out of the four Gospels, and that is the Mount of Transfiguration. And I think another thing that sets us apart is the Mount of Transfiguration is sort of seen as a mysterious event to Christians. But Joseph Smith interpreted the Mount of Transfiguration as being the fulfillment of that statement that Jesus made to Peter. This is a statement Joseph Smith makes in his history. He said, “The priesthood is everlasting. The Savior, Moses, and Elias, gave the keys to Peter, James, and John on the mount when there transfigured before him. The priesthood is everlasting, without beginning of days or end of years without father, mother, et cetera. If there’s no change of ordinances, there’s no change of priesthood. Whenever the ordinances of the gospel are administered, there is the priesthood.” So Joseph Smith is making an explicit connection to say, Well, this wasn’t just Jesus kind of giving a speech. He was literally saying what was going to happen next. After Peter recognized Jesus was the Christ, he takes Peter, James, and John to the Mount of Transfiguration. And there, along with Moses and Elias, which in the New Testament, the term Elias usually refers to Elijah, that’s the Greek version of the name, gave them the keys.

Casey Griffiths:
And so this idea that not only did Jesus promise the keys, and he wasn’t just using a neat metaphor, but he was talking about literal keys, priesthood keys, also ties into the Mount of Transfiguration and the way we see it. And that also has to do with the Doctrine and Covenants and this concept and idea of priesthood keys.

Scott Woodward:
You mentioned the Doctrine and Covenants. That, Casey, gives us an advantage in understanding what Matthew 16:19 was all about, what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration, like you’re mentioning. What I want to say here, I want to say it humbly, I want to say it gratefully. But it’s true. We have an advantage over our fellow Christians in understanding what the keys of the kingdom are that Jesus was speaking about in Matthew 16, because we have the Doctrine and Covenants. Here in the Doctrine and Covenants, we learn what these keys are about, what they’re for. We know that Peter, James, and John brought them from their time period to our time period and conferred them on Oliver and Joseph, and then the Doctrine and Covenants explains them. For instance, we know that these are connected to the last dispensation of time. Section 27 mentions that, which is kind of cool to think about, that Jesus gave these keys to Peter, James, and John with our dispensation in mind. Chew on that for a minute. We also know from Section 42 that these are connected with the Church somehow. We also know that they belong to the First Presidency.

Scott Woodward:
Once we get a First Presidency, coming up here in a couple sections in Section 81, and they are to be held equally by the First Presidency. They’re also to be held by the Twelve Apostles, we’ll find in Section 112, to help them unlock the door of the kingdom of God to all nations and to send authorized servants to preach the word to those nations. Then here in Section 65, verse 2 says that these keys direct how the gospel will roll forth unto the ends of the earth in preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus. I think there’s something insightful, Casey, about calling these keys this full title, the keys of the kingdom, rather than just shortening them and just saying priesthood keys, because Jesus is explicitly tying this to his millennial reign. And maybe we don’t always think about the keys like that. Like if we say priesthood keys, sometimes we think about the person that presides in your Church meeting, the one that gets to decide who pray, you know, and gets to invite people to speak or not speak. Sometimes that’s our experience with the keys, but it’s so much more than that. Yes, it’s that, but it’s so much more than that because all of this is in preparation for the reign of the King of the kingdom of God.

Scott Woodward:
In fact, every time we say Christ, Jesus Christ, we are invoking a phrase that had everything to do in the Old Testament times with kings, with kingship. King David is called the Christos. He’s called the Anointed One, and Jesus is the descendant of David. It’s all tied into a kingdom which will eventually be very literal. It will be the political kingdom of God on Earth in the Millennium. There’s not going to be other governments. It will be a government run by Jesus, who will then turn the reign of this world over to the righteous Saints, and together they will rule and reign with him on this Earth. That’s what these keys are ultimately trying to bring about. And so when you see a deacon passing the sacrament on Sunday, authorized by the bishop who holds the keys of the kingdom to authorize that, it would be a really interesting thought experiment as you see the deacon walking by to ask, what does the sacrament have to do with preparing for the kingdom of God on Earth? Or to think about every temple marriage that’s authorized by priesthood keys or every missionary who is called under the direction of President Nelson, who holds the keys of the kingdom.

Scott Woodward:
What’s that got to do with preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus? Everything that we do under the direction of the keys ultimately have to do with the kingdom.

Casey Griffiths:
Let me segue from that into maybe second controversy here, which is, what is the kingdom of God? This is another concept that most Christians tend to kind of spiritualize to say, well, the kingdom of God is heaven. You’re going into heaven, you’re dying, and you’re going into the kingdom of God. And I don’t disagree with that. I actually think that’s a lovely way of describing it. But one distinction we might need to make here, too, is that the early Saints didn’t see the kingdom of God as always just being synonymous with dying and going to heaven. They saw the kingdom of God as a real thing. You just use that language when you said there will be an actual kingdom that reigns on Earth. There’s an article of faith that says, We believe Jesus will reign as the king on the Earth. Like you mentioned, the name Christ literally means king in Greek. And this passage, Section 65, is also saying that the kingdom is going to roll forth. In fact, it’s tying back to that dream that Nebuchadnezzar has, that Daniel interprets, where he sees the kingdom of God as a stone that literally breaks into pieces all other kingdoms.

Casey Griffiths:
And a lot of people have played around with what Nebuchadnezzar’s dream means, interpreting that giant statue that gets destroyed by the stone as meaning the kingdoms of the Earth, right down to, well, this part represents Babylon, and this is the Persians, and this is the Romans, and these are the European kingdoms. There’s a lot of great stuff written on that. Now, this passage seems to indicate that the gospel is the kingdom that will roll forth. But it sort of reflects Joseph Smith’s growing doctrinal understanding. Later on in his life, he’s going to take this idea quite literally, meaning he feels like they need to set up a kingdom of God, and he differentiates between the spiritual kingdom, which is the Church, and the political kingdom of God. Some of our listeners might be familiar with the Council of Fifty and what it is. I think we’ve talked about it in past series, especially leading up to the death Joseph Smith. We did a series on the martyrdom last year. And in the last few months of Joseph Smith’s life, he set up an organization called the Council of Fifty that was quite directly the kingdom of God.

Casey Griffiths:
And this organization has kind of been shrouded in mystery because for a long time, we knew that the Church had the minutes of the Council of Fifty, but they hadn’t published them. They did publish them in 2015. You can go and look at them on the Joseph Smith paper site. The Council of Fifty was quite explicitly a plan to literally set up a kingdom of God. In fact, this is an excerpt from the Council of Fifty minutes from April 18, 1844. Joseph Smith explained in the meetings of the Council of Fifty, “There is a distinction between the Church of God and kingdom of God or Council of Fifty. The laws of the kingdom are not designed to affect our salvation hereafter. It is an entire, distinct, and separate government. The Church is a spiritual matter and a spiritual kingdom. But the kingdom which Daniel saw was not a spiritual kingdom, but was designed to be got of for the safety and salvation of the Saints by protecting them in their religious rights and worship.” So he distinguishes and says, Yeah, we’re not waiting for the kingdom to come. We’re going to try and build it right here on Earth.

Casey Griffiths:
And I think part of that’s reflected in the emphasis the early Saints have on building Zion. But this is well after they’ve been evicted from Missouri. This is when they’re in Nauvoo. This is also when they feel like they’ve been mistreated or neglected or just outright ignored by the governments that they’ve sought help from. And so they’re saying, well, maybe we have to set up the kingdom on our own. And they take that idea quite literally. Latter-day Saints to this day still take the idea quite literally. Would you agree?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And that’s the point that I think Section 65 is driving home. There is a thing right now called the kingdom of God on Earth, but it’s a preparatory thing for the kingdom of heaven to come and to be fused together with this kingdom. And that will literally, like, be what rules the world in the millennial day, that fusion of the kingdom of God on Earth and the kingdom of heaven. It’s Christ and the Saints ruling Earth in the millennial day for a thousand years. I don’t know if we really emphasize that a lot. I know we talk a lot about keeping the commandments so that we can prove ourselves worthy of dwelling with Heavenly Father again, of returning to live with him again. We’ve talked in previous episodes, Casey, how the Doctrine and Covenants and other biblical scripture is really clear. We’re not going to heaven. We’re creating heaven here, and the kingdom is coming here, and we’re not planning on ever leaving Earth. This Earth will become sanctified. It’ll be the place where resurrected people live. And so this whole kingdom of God business is very literal. Although like you said, Joseph does distinguish between a spiritual kingdom and a political kingdom.

Scott Woodward:
And so our Church right now, where we separate a church and state, that would be considered a spiritual kingdom.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. I think the reason why he has to separate the two as time goes on is in large measure because he wants to make it clear, and this comes out very clear in the Council of Fifty minutes, that the Church is one thing and the kingdom is a different thing because the kingdom isn’t going to force people to believe in the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That’s one thing that’s really found in the minutes. For instance, this is an excerpt from the Council of Fifty minutes, April 11th, 1844. Joseph Smith explained, “God cannot save or damn a man only on the principle that every man acts, chooses, and worships for himself. Hence the importance of thrusting from us every spirit of bigotry and intolerance towards a man’s religious sentiments. That spirit, which has drenched the earth with blood. When a man feels the least temptation to such intolerance, he ought to spurn it from him.” So it’s really clear in the Council of Fifty minutes, the part of the reason why he’s distinguishing between the spiritual kingdom and the political kingdom is he wants it clear that the political kingdom is going to be pluralistic, that there will be different religions within the political kingdom.

Casey Griffiths:
And a major thing that he seems to emphasize is that the role of the political kingdom is to protect people from being persecuted based on their beliefs. So it’s not a fusion of church and state. It sounds like Joseph Smith is separating church and state even in the Millennium because he believes the role of the Church is to persuade people to make covenants with Christ, but not force them. And the role of the state is to protect people from being discriminated against based on their beliefs. So it really is a huge relief to look at the Council of Fifty minutes and realize, well, the kingdom of God that the early Saints had in mind was pluralistic. It was tolerant. In fact, let me share another quote from the Council of Fifty minutes. Same discourse where he said the thing I just said previously. Joseph Smith said, “The principles of intolerance and bigotry never had a place in this kingdom nor in my breast, and I am ready to die rather than to yield to such things. Nothing can reclaim the human mind from its ignorance, bigotry, and superstition, but those grand and sublime principles of equal rights and universal freedom to all men. Hence, in all governments or political transactions, a man’s religious opinions should never be called into question. And a man should be judged by the law independent of religious prejudice.”

Casey Griffiths:
So it seems like he’s got to sort of separate those two out so the people know if the political kingdom of God is in charge, you’re still going to have the right to believe what you want to believe. They’re not going to force you to join the Church. That that’s a key role of government. And he’s feeling this way because the United States government has done such a terrible job protecting the rights of the Saints up to that point.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And in those minutes, he mentions this, too. He says, “The gifts of prophets never were designed to govern men in civil matters.” He said, “The kingdom of God has nothing to do with giving commandments to damn a man spiritually.” Just to what you’re saying, like, Joseph is very clearly trying to, A, say there is a thing called the political kingdom of Christ that will be established, and maybe we can start it. That’s what the Council of Fifty is about. Maybe we should kind of seed that political government. Let’s go out West. Let’s leave the United States and go out West and start this little government, which turns out to never happen. But that’s happening on the one hand, and on the other hand, trying to be really clear that when the kingdom of Christ gains power in this world, it’s not going to be used to stiff-arm people to believe in Jesus as Messiah, right, or to accept the truth claims of the Church. There’s a really powerful ecumenical spirit here that breathes throughout the Council of Fifty minutes, and it’s pretty cool. It’d be interesting to see what it’s going to actually be like in the Millennium, but it is not a place where if you’re not a Christian or if you’re not a Latter-day Saint, that you will not be welcomed there.

Scott Woodward:
It’s a place for all who are good and honorable people of this world. The wicked, we know, will be destroyed in the Second Coming. Whatever that means, we’ll let Jesus decide what wicked means. But there will be millions and millions of honorable, good, decent folks who are not Latter-day Saints who will continue into the Millennium and be protected within the kingdom of Christ, which is awesome.

Casey Griffiths:
It’s nice to know that even if that political kingdom never really got built, the blueprints for it, which are effectively the Council of Fifty minutes, do say it’s going to be pluralistic and tolerant and respectful of people’s rights and opinions. So that’s a relief. All right, so let’s talk consequences of Section 65. What are a few takeaways we should get from this little section?

Scott Woodward:
From Section 65, just six little verses, a few things are clear. First, that this, in the 1830s, and I think we could extend it to today, is the season for preparing for the kingdom of heaven to come to Earth. Second, that to be prepared for that day, the Church and kingdom of God on Earth must be sufficiently set up throughout the world. We got to get a critical mass sufficient to receive Christ and his heavenly kingdom. Not everyone in the world needs to be converted, but we do need to have centers of strength throughout the world set up in such a way that we are ready for the millennial reign of Jesus, whatever that means, whatever that’s going to look like. Third, that those who hold the keys of the kingdom will be the ones who determine where and when and how the gospel will roll forth throughout the world and thus how God’s earthly kingdom will be established and regulated on the earth. Then fourth, that as the Lord’s disciples, we all are invited to, quote, “Make known his wonderful works among the people,” and we’re invited to truly pray that God’s kingdom may go forth upon the earth and that Earth’s inhabitants may receive it.

Scott Woodward:
It’s interesting that the word kingdom comes up at least twice in the Lord’s Prayer. Now here in Section 65, the Lord is saying, No, really, please pray that the kingdom of God will go forth on the earth, that the inhabitants of the earth will receive the gospel in preparation for the kingdom of heaven to come. Casey, I’ve noticed that in my own prayers, I don’t often pray for these things. I don’t often pray for the kingdom of God to go forth, that the kingdom of heaven may come. Until I read Section 65 again. And then I remember, oh, yeah, Jesus has asked us to actually pray for this, explicitly. It’s rare that Jesus tells us exactly what to pray for, but here’s one of those rare moments where, literally, like, he wants us to pray for this and to pray that God’s Spirit will be upon the inhabitants of the Earth, that they can receive the gospel.

Casey Griffiths:
I don’t pray for that that often, too. But I do hear a lot of people, especially recently, coming up and saying, I’m just ready for the kingdom to come. I’m ready for this whole mess to kind of come to an end and for us to move into the millennial kingdom, which I think will be a lot more pleasant world to live in than the one we’re in right now. So good thoughts in Section 65.

Scott Woodward:
Let’s move on to Section 66. Section 66 is just another short section of the Doctrine and Covenants, Casey. What, 13 verses given to a man named William E. McLellin. What do we need to know about the background to Section 66?

Casey Griffiths:
William McLellin is one of the most interesting and colorful figures in the history of the Church. And this is kind of our introduction to him, and then he’s going to loom large in the next couple of sections. So let me give you a little bit of background on him. William E. McLellin was a new convert from Paris, Illinois. He meets Joseph Smith at a conference held October 25th to 26th, 1831 at Orange, Ohio. And this is a remarkable conference, by the way. If you look up the minutes, I think it’s the last time that all the witnesses of the Book of Mormon are together. They all bear their testimony. Just really, really neat stuff. At the conference, William was ordained to the high priesthood. And afterward, William actually goes with Joseph Smith to Hiram, Ohio, to where he’s living in the home of John and Elsa Johnson. And he later writes that after he arrived at the Johnson home, “He went before the Lord in secret and on my knees asked him to reveal the answer to five questions through his prophet.” So it seems like McLellin is setting up this idea that he wants to sort of test Joseph Smith.

Casey Griffiths:
So he writes down five secret questions and apparently doesn’t tell Joseph Smith what the questions are, just goes and ask for a revelation. And I should mention, Scott, by the way, that we don’t know what the questions were. William McLellin tells this story much later on in his life, but never actually reveals what the questions are.

Scott Woodward:
Can’t we kind of play Jeopardy a little bit with this section, where it’s like we know what the answers are, so can we surmise the questions at all, do you think? Are there five points made in this revelation that probably are responsive to the questions? I mean, what do you think?

Casey Griffiths:
Well, our mutual friend Jack Welch actually has done this. You can look at the answers given in Section 65, and we don’t know exactly what the questions are, and we won’t know until William McLellin comes back and gets resurrected. But Jack kind of looked at the answers and came up with five possible questions that these could be the answers to. So it seems like his first question was probably something like, How does the Church that I’ve just joined, organized by Joseph Smith, fit into the religious world? That’s answered in verse 2. Question 2 was probably something close to, All right, what’s my spiritual standing? How am I doing? That’s answered in verse 3. His next question was probably, So what’s my role in the Church? What am I supposed to do now? Which is answered in verses 5 through 8. He may also have asked about the power of healing. Something like, I have seen the power to heal exercise by Church members. Am I going to be able to have this power? That’s answered in verse nine. And then his final question, and this may have been a challenging question to ask, is about temptation. It seems like, this is the way Jack Welch phrases it.

Casey Griffiths:
“His last question may have been, How can I escape the temptations of adultery and sin I have struggled with since the death of my wife?” And we’ll get into that. Now, again, I want to emphasize, we don’t know exactly what the questions were, but the contents of the revelation reveals sort of the things that he’s struggling with. And another great thing about William McLellin is he does keep a journal during his early days in the Church. This was published a couple of years ago by BYU Studies. And in the journal, William actually writes down his own copy of the revelation, and he puts a preface on it saying, this is what William McLellin writes, “This day, the Lord condescended to hear my prayer and give me a revelation of his will through the prophet or seer Joseph.” So he says, Yeah, the Lord condescended to answer my prayer. He gave me this revelation. And the revelation, William also said, answered his questions to his “full and entire satisfaction.” Those are his words. After recording the revelation, McLellin also writes in his journal, “This revelation gave great joy to my heart because some important questions were answered which had dwelled upon my mind with anxiety, yet with uncertainty.”

Casey Griffiths:
So he does say, Yeah, he gave me the exact answers to my questions, even though Joseph and us today don’t know precisely what the questions were.

Scott Woodward:
That’s super interesting. So this is a test that Joseph Smith passed. So William is actually testing the prophet, and the Lord gives answer to his five questions. Is that okay?

Casey Griffiths:
That’s one way of looking at it. I mean, we could say maybe he wasn’t testing, maybe he just genuinely wanted to know these questions. But it seems like if that had been the case, he would have just gone to Joseph Smith and said, Hey, I have some questions, and then told them to Joseph Smith. Instead, by his own omission, he says, I kept it secret. I didn’t tell him what the questions were. And years later, he’s still referencing the fact that Joseph Smith didn’t know the questions.

Scott Woodward:
Well, let’s get into the revelation itself. The revelation begins in verse one like this, “Behold, thus saith the Lord unto my servant William E. McLellin – Blessed are you, inasmuch as you have turned away from your iniquities, and have received my truths, saith the Lord your Redeemer, the Savior of the world, even of as many as believe on my name.” Maybe we should point out that William E. McLellin actually comes into the Church as a result of the mission that the Lord had commissioned in Section 52, where those missionaries were to go from Ohio to Missouri and preach all along the way and then preach all the way back. McLellin is one of those converts, which is great. So a recent convert here. Now, verse 2, “Verily I say unto you, blessed are you for receiving mine everlasting covenant, even the fullness of my gospel.” I love that, the fullness of the gospel, another name for that is the everlasting covenant. That’s so good. I teach a course, Casey, called Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel. I like to say to my students, we’re going to call it the everlasting covenant because that phrase sparkles a little bit.

Scott Woodward:
When you say gospel, everyone in the room thinks they know what that means. But when you say everlasting covenant, people kind of lean in a little bit like, What is this? It kind of sparkles. I love this. So the everlasting covenant. “Sent forth unto the children of men,” the Lord says, “that they might have life and be made partakers of the glories which are to be revealed in the last days, as it was written by the prophets and apostles in days of old.” So the Lord has sent out the everlasting covenant to prepare people for the glory to be revealed in the last days, the ancient prophecies to be fulfilled.

Casey Griffiths:
If question one is, How does the Church that I’ve joined fit into the larger world? The Lord is saying, this is the everlasting gospel. This is the truth of the covenant. William McLellin is still sort of growing. It’s sort of like you have a testimony, you get baptized, and then it continues to grow. We do have some of his thought process on the day that he got baptized, too. He records it in his journal. So his journal, on the day he was baptized, reads as follows, “I rose early and betook myself to earnest prayer to God to direct me into truth. And from all the light that I could gain by examinations and searches and researches, I was bound as an honest man to acknowledge the truth and validity of the Book of Mormon, and also that I had found the people of the Lord, the living Church of Christ. Consequently, as soon as we took breakfast, I told Elder H. Smith,” I believe that’s Hyrum Smith, “that I wanted him to baptize me because I wanted to live among a people who were based upon the pure principles and actuated by the Spirit of the living God.” So it seems like question one is, tell me about this Church I just joined.

Casey Griffiths:
The Lord says, this is the real deal. This is the everlasting covenant. And then the next question he’s going to have, which is answered in verse three is, well, tell me about me and how I’m doing. Here’s what the Lord says, “Verily I stand to you, my servant William, you are clean, but not all; repent, therefore, of those things which are not pleasing in my sight, saith the Lord, for the Lord will show them unto you.” So that must have been a little piercing, but it is one of the things that it seems like he’s seeking, is to know his status before God. And the Lord addresses this pretty directly just by saying, Hey, you’re clean, but not all. In fact, we have William’s thoughts on this matter, too. Like a lot of new converts who face temptation right after they’ve made a really good decision, William said he did. In fact, in his journal, he records this. He goes, “The enemy of all righteousness made a mighty struggle to persuade me that I was deceived until it seemed to me that horror would overwhelm me. I did not doubt the truth of the things which I had embraced, but my fears were respecting my own salvation.”

Casey Griffiths:
So is this the true church? The Lord says, Yes. How am I doing? Well, that’s what I’m really worried about. After these doubts come, though, William is visited by Newel Knight, another one of these people traveling to Missouri, who he said, “Came by, and by the Spirit of God, was then able to tell me the very secrets of my heart, and in a degree, chased darkness from my mind.” And it seems like by the time William met Joseph Smith, he was once again in need of this assurance of his salvation, a need of guidance in repenting of his sins. So again, those two things that a lot of people wrestle with, is the Church true, which is a major wrestle for some people that are dealing with it. And then the second thing that it seems like a lot of people deal with is, am I worthy? Which, again, is one of those things that comes back again and again. This is very understandable and relatable.

Scott Woodward:
Is there hope for someone like me? The Lord says, Yes, you’re clean, but not all. I will show you the things that you need to tweak and work on. In fact, he goes on to do that here in a couple of verses. But let’s pick up verse 4, where the Lord says, “Now, verily, I, the Lord, will show unto you what I will concerning you, or what is my will concerning you. Behold, verily I say unto you, that it is my will that you should proclaim my gospel from land to land,, and from city to city, yea, in those regions round about where it has not been proclaimed. Tarry not many days in this place,” Hiram, Ohio, “go not up unto the land of Zion as yet,” don’t go to Missouri, “but inasmuch as you can send, send; otherwise, think not of thy property.” Interesting. “Go to the eastern lands,” the Lord calls him, “bear testimony in every place, unto every people and in their synagogues, reasoning with the people. And let my servant Samuel H. Smith,” Joseph Smith’s younger brother, “go with you, and forsake him not, and give him thine instructions; and he that is faithful shall be made strong in every place; and I, the Lord, will go with you.”

Scott Woodward:
So he’s got a mission call, and he’s got a mission companion outlined here. And then the Lord gives him a gift here. He says, verse 9, “Lay your hands upon the sick, and they shall recover. Return not till I, the Lord, shall send you. Be patient in affliction. Ask, and ye shall receive. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” So William’s called to proclaim the gospel and also given the promise that he’ll have the power to heal the sick. And travel with Samuel H. Smith, the prophet’s brother. It’s interesting to note that prior to this revelation, McLellin had already preached with another Smith brother, with Hyrum, and he had also witnessed the power of healing. In fact, when McLellin himself became sick, he actually asked Hyrum Smith for a blessing, and he recorded in his journal, quote, “We immediately bowed before the Lord, and with all the faith which we had, we opened our hearts to him.” Hyrum Smith then laid hands on McLellin, who then wrote that it was, quote, “Marvelous for me to relate that I was instantly healed.”

Scott Woodward:
So he has been a firsthand witness of the healing power of God. And having sought that gift, he now receives it.

Casey Griffiths:
These verses are answering questions three and four, which Jack Welch speculates are, What’s my place in the kingdom? Lord says, go on a mission. And question four was, Can I also heal people? Because prior to this, he has seen the gift of healing. Hyrum Smith has healed him. So he’s asking, Can I have this happen? And it actually does happen. He goes on this mission with Samuel H. Smith. A few days later, he’s giving a sermon to a group of preachers talking about the Book of Mormon and spiritual gifts. And afterwards, he’s approached by a man he calls Father Wood, who told them that his granddaughter was really sick. So he’s getting the opportunity to receive this. Now, without hesitation, William McLellin, Hyrum Smith, they go to the family’s home, which is two miles away. And then this is what William records. He said, “The family seemed quite believing, and we all bowed before the great Jehovah and implored his mercy upon the child. We then arose, and brother Hyrum and I laid our hands upon it, and in a few minutes, the little child got down from its mother’s lap and began to play on the floor. This caused them to rejoice, and the old gentleman got down and prayed mightily, then arose and said he believed that the Lord was there.”

Casey Griffiths:
Now, another thing that we find out is that only a few days before this revelation was given, McLellin had injured his ankle and asked Joseph Smith about healing. He said that, “In response to this, Joseph turned to me and asked me if I believe in my heart that God, through his instrumentality, would heal it. I answered that I believed he would. He laid his hands on it, and it was healed.” William then goes to Hiram, Ohio, where this revelation is given. So all this stuff is happening, surrounding this, where he’s seen Hyrum and Joseph Smith perform healings. He wants to perform a healing. And then a couple of days later, he does perform a healing. So he’s super sincere at this point in his life. Now we’re going to get to the next question, which deals with some sensitive stuff. Okay, so go to verse 10, “Seek not to be cumbered. Forsake all unrighteousness. Commit not adultery – a temptation with which thou hast been troubled.” And you got to imagine this isn’t easy for William McLellin to hear.

Casey Griffiths:
We don’t know the exact nature of the temptation he was dealing with, but we do know a couple of things. We know that his wife, who was named Cynthia Anne, and he’d only married her two years earlier in 1829, died sometime in the summer of 1831. So he’s a recent widower. In fact, on August 1st, 1831, in his journal, he writes of visiting her grave. He writes, “I visited the grave of my departed and dear companion Cynthia Anne, and there they seemed to mourn with me for the loss of my dearest friend and her blessed little infant.” So it sounds like Cynthia Anne died in childbirth. McLellin later writes of spending “many lonesome and sorrowful hours after her death.” So it seems like William and Cynthia have a good marriage, and the temptation to commit adultery after came from his loneliness after she passed away, and not from any unhappiness with her. But again, this is going to be a hard thing to hear, right? The Lord saying, I know that you’re tempted to commit adultery. It seems like in these circumstances, William is dealing with some stuff, but yeah, the Lord has to kind of tell him directly, Don’t do that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, and this It was probably helpful and insightful for William when he received this. I can only imagine. It reminds me of Section 1 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which, by the way, is about to be revealed. Section 1 is going to come, what, a couple of days or something after Section 66? I think it comes right after this. The Lord says, part of the purpose of the revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants was to give to the servants of God in their own language understanding so that, quote, “Inasmuch as they erred, it might be made known. Inasmuch as they sought wisdom, they might be instructed. Inasmuch as they sinned, they might be chastened, that they might repent. Inasmuch as they were humble, they might be made strong and blessed from on high and receive knowledge from time to time.” The Lord is illustrating with William E. McLellin here what he does for those who approach him, seeking for guidance, seeking for wisdom, seeking for correction, seeking for chastening, seeking how they can become strong in their weakness. And so how beautiful is that, that God is using him as the object lesson to say, Look, I know everybody’s weakness out there, and I can help you if you come unto me.

Casey Griffiths:
We shouldn’t end the revelation there either. The Lord does assure him, verse 11, “Keep these sayings, for they are true and faithful; thou shalt magnify thine office, and push many people to Zion with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads. Continue in these things even unto the end, and you shall have a crown of eternal life at the right hand of my Father, who is full of grace and truth. Verily, thus saith the Lord your God, your Redeemer, even Jesus Christ. Amen.” So the Lord just tells him he’s tempted with committing adultery, which maybe isn’t the same thing as being called an adulterer, just that he’s been tempted towards it, and then assures him, Hey, if you don’t do that, you’ll have eternal life. So let’s don’t be too hard on the guy, because a lot of us have temptations that we’re dealing with. And again, the assurance is it’s not weird to be tempted. What happens that hurts you is if you give in to those temptations, if you act upon those temptations, which in this particular instance, William doesn’t. He’s okay. It’s a couple of years down the road that he does run into trouble.

Casey Griffiths:
But it seems like at this point in time, he’s very humble, he’s very malleable, and he’s doing okay.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, very, very good. Okay, let’s move on to the controversies. Okay, so here’s a controversy that I’m thinking about with Section 66, and that is, was William E. McLellin seeking for a sign, and did the Lord give him a sign? We just talked about this with Section 63, right? The Lord addressed a group of people in Kirtland back in, what, verse 7 and 8 of Section 63, the Lord said, “And he that seeketh signs shall see signs, but not unto salvation. Verily, I say unto you, there are those among you who seek signs, and there have been such even from the beginning; but, behold, faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe.” Is he, with his little test here that he rigged up, I’m going to ask five questions to the Lord privately, then I’m going to go to Joseph Smith and ask him for a revelation, and we’ll see if the Lord will give me answers to my five questions. Is this sign-seeking, Casey?

Casey Griffiths:
Short answer? Yeah, it is. And I got to say that William McLellin is the personification of what the Lord is teaching about sign-seeking in Section 63. Like, this guy kills me because when you walk through his history, which he himself recorded, he sees sign after sign after sign after sign. And yet it doesn’t seem like it has a long-lasting impact on him. Now, by long-lasting, I mean in the sense of his entire lifetime. He’s still in good shape, and he’s called as one of the Twelve Apostles four years after this. But McLellin just had so much proof. And the crazy thing is, is he always acknowledges that these were real things that happened. Like, he never comes out, as far as I know, and says, Well, Joseph Smith must have secretly read my journal where I wrote down the five questions, because he doesn’t write down. We don’t know where he records the five questions, basically. He never comes out and says, Well, Hyrum Smith must have been using psychology to trick me into thinking I was healed, because he acknowledges that it’s genuine. And I mean, even after this section is given, which is a full-blown sign to the guy, five questions that Joseph Smith doesn’t know that are precisely answered in the section, in the very next section, which is Section 67, he expresses doubt about the language in the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Casey Griffiths:
In fact, he’s the one that they actually choose to see if he can answer the Lord’s challenge to produce a section of the Doctrine and Covenants the way Joseph Smith does. So William McLellin is the thesis illustrated that signs don’t permanently convert you, but that signs can enhance faith that’s already there. I think his faith is enhanced here, but it’s clear, even in his later years, that though he believes all of this was real and to his dying day, he says, I love the Book of Mormon. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t convert him to the gospel permanently.

Scott Woodward:
And so in case any of you listeners out there don’t know how his story ends, we’re strongly hinting at that. He will leave the Church. He’ll be excommunicated from the Church in 1838. As a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he’s going to be excommunicated up in northern Missouri, and he’ll never come back to the Church. He’ll never come back to the Church. But to his dying day, he is convinced that Joseph Smith really got a revelation from God called Section 66 in the Doctrine and Covenants. Here’s his words. He says, quote, “I now testify in the fear of God.” This is after he’s out of the Church. This is after he’s excommunicated. “I now testify in the fear of God that every question which I had thus lodged in the ears of the Lord were answered to my full and entire satisfaction.” Then he says, “I desire it for a testimony of Joseph’s inspiration.” That’s his way of saying, I was seeking for a sign. And then he said, “And to this day, I consider it,” meaning Section 66, “to be an evidence which I cannot refute.” And yet he does not come back to the Church.

Scott Woodward:
He does not repent. I think he’s actually an interesting human, and he’s a mix of good and bad, like all of us. But this one kills me. I’m with you, Casey.

Casey Griffiths:
I’m grateful for his historical record, too. His journal is one of the best examples we have of an early Latter-day Saint convert. At the same time, man, signs don’t convert, do they? He just so completely illustrates that entire thesis that it’s hard to find a better example of it.

Scott Woodward:
It’s interesting, too, that Jesus connects sign-seeking with adultery, right, where he says it’s an adulterous generation that seeks for signs. Then the Lord warns him here about committing adultery. And then, spoiler alert, the reasons that we have outlined for his excommunication are that he “lost confidence in the presidency of the Church, and he consequently left off praying and keeping the commandments of God. And,” note this, “he went his own way and indulged himself in his lustful desires.” Close quote. That’s from Joseph Smith’s journal. I don’t know if that means he full-on committed adultery or not or what, but, Casey, there seems to be, again, this interesting connection between sign-seeking and adultery. And I don’t know what to do with it. I just see it here with McLellin. I see it in Jesus’s teachings. It was back in Section 63, where the Lord was warning both about adultery and sign-seeking in the same couple of cluster of verses, the cheap way to get the thing that God wants to give you anyway, sign-seeking.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, and that’s not to say that all sign-seeking is bad. There was an elder on my mission who was super sincere, and he was an older convert to the Church. He was three or four years older than most of the rest of us. And he came to me once and he said, you know, I was reading about Joseph Smith praying to know his standing before God, so I prayed to know my standing before God. And that night I had a dream where I walked into a chapel and the president of the Church was there and he turned to me and said, Elder, would you help me ordain this young man to the priesthood, there was a twelve-year-old in the room, because I know you’re worthy of the priesthood you hold. Now, that’s sign-seeking. But I mean, he was so sincere and so genuine about it that I think it was one of those things where his faith did lead to a sign being given to him. And I mean, I wouldn’t say Joseph Smith was a sign-seeker because he was praying to know his standing before God and Moroni appeared to him. It doesn’t seem like receiving signs is a negative thing.

Casey Griffiths:
It’s just if you keep pushing the limits, which McLellin seems to do again and again and again, and nothing satisfies you, that it becomes a problem.

Scott Woodward:
Okay, so maybe instead of calling it sign-seeking, when it’s the good version, maybe we call it seeking a witness. We call it seeking a witness. If it’s the bad version, we call it seeking a sign. So how can we distinguish between these two? How do you know when you’re seeking a witness? Like, Hey, I will happily join your church, God, if you’ll tell me the Book of Mormon is true. That’s what missionaries invite people to do all the time, versus maybe what McLellin is doing. When people cross that line, what does it look like to be doing it wrong?

Casey Griffiths:
Great question. And what seems to come to mind is your planned response. If your planned response is, and unless I get a sign, I’m out of here, that’s negative sign-seeking. If your planned response is, thy will be done, whatever I’m told, it’s not going to change my testimony, my dedication. Because this elder, I genuinely believe if he hadn’t gotten any answer, probably would have been okay either way. It seems like your attitude towards what happens with the sign, because we’ve all asked for direction and guidance and sometimes not gotten it or have gotten it from the source we didn’t expect to get it from. But what happens after seems to determine our faithfulness, whether we’re seeking signs because we want a sign so that we can have faith or whether we have faith so that the Lord can give us signs. It seems like there’s that kind of relationship happening there.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Signs follow those that believe, he said in Section 63:9, which reminds me of the Book of Mormon in Ether 12, that you receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. So there is some upfront faithfulness that is shown, or like you’re saying, your intention is, I am fully willing to commit. I’ll be all in. You know my heart, Lord. I don’t want to be deceived. So help me get clarity here so that I can make sure I’m doing the right thing. That seems different than, Well, I’ll believe it when I see it. I’m going to continue this to do my own thing. If God wants to tap me on the shoulder, I don’t know. There’s an attitudinal difference that is significant. Yeah.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. And what a person brings to this matters a lot more.

Scott Woodward:
Okay. Well, I don’t know that we fully solved it, but there’s some thoughts to throw out there. Comment in the comments if you have a better distinction between seeking a witness and sign-seeking. The good thing, seeking a witness, the bad thing, seeking for signs. How do you make a distinction between those two? How do you know when you’re doing it right? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. That’d be great.

Casey Griffiths:
Let’s talk consequences then for Section 66. The biggest consequence is that it seems like William E. McLellin is encouraged here. He’s promised a crown of eternal life, but you’ll note that common phrase, If you’re faithful to the end. Initially, the revelation is a huge boon to him. He copies the revelation, like we mentioned, in his journal, and then he adds an addendum which reads, “A revelation given to William E. McLellin, a true descendant from Joseph, who was sold into Egypt down through the loins of Ephraim, his son.” And this addition to the revelation might have been part of the original record, or it might have been added by William himself. John Whitmer didn’t include these last two lines when he recorded the revelation, so they didn’t end up in the Doctrine and Covenants. At any rate, it was right after Section 64, where the Lord declared, “The rebellious are not of the blood of Ephraim.” And so it must have been encouraging for William to know that he was of the blood of the birthright tribe of Israel. Like you mentioned, Scott, he does go on to be a gifted preacher. He converts a lot of people to the gospel.

Casey Griffiths:
When the original Quorum of the Twelve is called in 1835, McLellin is one of them. Unfortunately, his service to the Church is short-lived because he’s excommunicated in 1838. And that’s where Joseph Smith records that statement about McLellin indulging himself in lustful desires. McLellin’s side of the story is that he was upset with Joseph Smith and the problems with the Kirtland Bank and everything like that. But interestingly, William never loses his testimony of the inspiration he saw in the early days of the Church or his testimony of the Book of Mormon, but he never really comes back to the Church either. So again, he’s a great personification of sign-seeking and what its long term consequences are.

Scott Woodward:
He’s a great example of someone who is complicated like the rest of us. He bears some of the coolest testimony of the Book of Mormon decades after he’s been out of the Church. He’ll say things like this, quote, “When a man goes at the Book of Mormon to attack it, he touches the apple of my eye. He fights against truth, against purity, against light, against the purest or one of the truest, purest books on earth. I have more confidence in the Book of Mormon than any book of this wide earth,” he says. “And it’s not because I don’t know its contents, for I’ve probably read it through 20 times. I’ve read it carefully through within a year and made many notes on it. It must be that a man does not love purity when he finds fault with the Book of Mormon.” Close quote. Like, he’s been out of the Church for a long time when he says that. To his dying day, he has a conviction of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, but he loses confidence in Joseph Smith as a prophet. He stops keeping the commandments. He stops praying. He indulges his lustful desires, whatever that entailed exactly.

Scott Woodward:
He’s a complicated character, Casey, and I don’t want to bring any final judgments against him here. That’s not our call, but I think we can learn from his example. How’s that? Can we say it like that?

Casey Griffiths:
We don’t want to be too hard on the guy, and I’m not going to go into it, but he does stir up some other problems for the Church after he leaves, but we’ll deal with that in later sections. At the same time, he’s a human, you know, and he’s dealing with the same stuff we’re all dealing with. But at this early stage in this conversion, the Lord is very encouraging. I hope we can also take away from this section that the Lord takes our questions really seriously and wants us to approach him with our questions and also seek answers through revelation and through the scriptures.

Scott Woodward:
Let’s seek for a witness, not for a sign, whatever that means.

Casey Griffiths:
Okay. Well, this has been fun, Scott. It’s great to be with you, and we’ll see you next time.

Scott Woodward:
All right. As always, a pleasure. We’ll see you next week.