Scott Woodward:
So is this a hint that we’re in the seventh seal?

Casey Griffiths:
Oh, my goodness. That’s a lot to unpack in one verse.

Scott Woodward:
This is where the story, like, becomes even more interesting.

Casey Griffiths:
Knowing what the book and the seals represent is so immensely helpful.

Scott Woodward:
So this is mostly about the opening of the seventh seal prior to the coming of Jesus. John says, I’ve seen you sitting on God’s throne in the future. Like, this is all going to be worth it.

Casey Griffiths:
The book is designed to give hope to people to know that there is a happy ending to the story.

Scott Woodward:
Anything that’s incomplete in our own personal journeys will be completed during this thousand-year period. There’s going to be some rough patches, but that’s not the end. The story continues and it ends gloriously. So hold on.

Casey Griffiths:
You know God is going to win, and so hang in there and endure the difficulties that you have, and eventually we’re going to be all right.

Scott Woodward:
Well, that will be fascinating to see how that one rolls out. This is end of time stuff, Casey. Hello, Casey.

Casey Griffiths:
Hello, Scott. We’re back.

Scott Woodward:
What a week we have in front of us this week. We have Sections 77 through 80. Casey, I got to say Section 77 is a pretty wild ride.

Casey Griffiths:
It’s fair to say this is one of the most unique sections of the entire Doctrine and Covenants. I can’t think of anything that’s really like it at all. And it deals with a book in the Bible that gets a lot of attention, and that’s the Revelation of St. John the Divine. So we’re dealing with the Book of Revelation today. Kind of exciting.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, very much so. And so we’re going to divide our covering of these sections into two videos, right. We’ll do Section 77. It’s so unique. It’s on its own. It’s its own thing for sure. There’s lots of content to cover. So that’ll be this video, part one. And then part two, we’ll cover Section 78 through 80, which we’re going to set up the United Order today or the United Firm. Big deal in Section 78. And then two short but I think interesting revelations, one to Jared Carter and one to Stephen Burnett. And that will take us through the revelations that we’re covering this week. And so two videos. And so for this video, Casey, let’s, I think we should just dive in. So when people look at Section 77, if you just glance at it, it’s one of the only sections, I think only Section 113 does the same thing, where it’s a Q&A format. It’s like Joseph Smith having a Q&A with the Lord, which is so cool. It’s very unique, Casey. Set this up for us. Why is Joseph doing a Q&A with the Lord about the Book of Revelation?

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, there’s two sections of the Doctrine and Covenants that are Q&A, and they have to do with maybe the two most challenging books in the Bible to understand. Section 113 talks about Isaiah, and Section 77 talks about the Book of Revelation, which, again, a lot of people kind of fixate on. But here’s the background. So this is taking place in the winter of 1832. And just like we mentioned with Section 76, they are translating the Bible. In fact, Joseph Smith is overt in saying that’s what sparks this revelation. They reach the Book of Revelation, which is challenging to understand. And he turns to the Lord and asks a series of questions. And they’re not simple questions, too. They’re pretty detailed, intricate questions. This is the way Joseph Smith introduces this in his 1838 history. He writes, “About the first of March, in connection with the translation of the scriptures, I received the following explanation of the Revelations of S. John.” Now, he doesn’t give a date for this revelation, but we know that he was in Kirtland, Ohio between February 29th and March 4th. He has to go up there and do some Church business. So this document is probably written down between March 4th and March 20th, when another revelation was given instructing Joseph Smith and Sidney to pause, to omit the translation for the present time so they can start getting ready to go to Missouri.

Casey Griffiths:
If so, this is the last section given in the Doctrine and Covenants before Joseph and Sidney are attacked by a mob at the Johnson Farm in Hiram, Ohio. After that happens, Joseph Smith moves back to Kirtland, and then he travels to Missouri to meet with Church leaders there. So this is sort of the peak. Section 76 and Section 77 contain some of the most profound insights in the Doctrine and Covenants. But we’re right before a severe trial, which is that they’re going to be beaten and tarred and feathered badly at the Johnson Farm. When Joseph Smith gets back from Missouri, he picks up his translation of the Bible again, and he starts with Revelation 12. So that’s the other thing you got to understand, is Section 77 only goes up to Revelation chapter 11. Then there’s some insights into the rest of the Book of Revelation when Section 88 is received. But there’s not a Q&A with the rest of the Book of Revelation. However, what he does get here kind of sets you up. It sets you up so that you understand the basics about the Book of Revelation, and then the Book of Revelation becomes a lot more clear.

Casey Griffiths:
So this revelation eventually gets published. It’s not published until about twelve years later in 1844.

Scott Woodward:
Why is that?

Casey Griffiths:
Because it’s kind of unique in nature. Again, Joseph Smith is there when it’s being prepared for publication. He does die before it’s placed in the Times and Seasons. But this has a unique journey. So it’s so unique and different that actually it doesn’t get put in the Doctrine and Covenants during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. But a guy named Franklin D. Richards is the mission president in England, and he wants the Saints there to have some of Joseph Smith’s more unique writings, like his First Vision account and the Book of Abraham, an excerpt from the Book of Moses. And he adds this into a volume of scripture that he calls the Pearl of Great Price. Later Church leaders see this and realize it’s important. They place it into the Doctrine and Covenants in 1876. And then a few years later, they decide to make the Pearl of Great Price its own book of scripture. They canonize it. So this goes to Pearl of Great Price, then comes into the Doctrine and Covenants and has been in the Doctrine and Covenants since 1876, when Orson Pratt, acting under Brigham Young’s guidance, puts it in there.

Scott Woodward:
Okay, so in 1876, this is taken out of Franklin D. Richard’s Pearl of Great Price pamphlet and put into the Doctrine and Covenants as Section 77. Is that right?

Casey Griffiths:
That is correct. Yes. But the last thing maybe I need to say, too, is, again, it only covers the first 11 chapters of Revelation. And maybe we need to quickly remind people, the Book of Revelation starts out fairly normal. The first couple of chapters are basically, the Savior appears to John and starts talking about seven different churches and talking about, Hey, the church in this place is doing great, but the church in this place isn’t doing that great. They need to fix this. But then starting in the fourth chapter of Revelation, it gets really strange. And so really, Section 77 is only asking about chapters 4 to 11 of the Book of Revelation, because that’s where it starts to get difficult to understand. It becomes highly symbolic. So again, we’re focusing in on those early chapters where it gets deeply symbolic But it does unlock enough symbols that the rest of the book makes a lot more sense if you have Section 77 as a guide to help you along the way.

Scott Woodward:
So chapters 1 through 3 is where John is, like, addressing his local saints, the people in his day, church members in his day, addressing their issues that they’re struggling with. And then in Chapter 4, the vision goes to the future. He starts to have a vision of the future, and this is the major shift. And so what we’re going to find out, though, is that the vision of the future is very relevant to those in his day, and that happens in a pretty surprising way, which Section 77 sheds some light on. Good framing, Casey, to keep that all in context.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, some keys here that unlock the entire book, really. It doesn’t have to cover the entire Book of Revelation, though I will say there’s some stuff in Section 88 that covers the rest of Revelation. That’s kind of the second one. Just not in that convenient Q&A format that Section 77 is, but there’s enough here to set you up so that the book makes way more sense.

Scott Woodward:
Okay, let’s go to our second C then, the content of Section 77. Question number one, verse one, “Q. What is the sea of glass spoken of by John, fourth chapter, sixth verse of the Revelation?” Now, just for our listeners, if you haven’t read the Book of Revelation chapter 4, recently, it’s probably a good idea that you open that up and kind of follow along as you read Section 77 to look at the verses because they’re not always quoted here in the section. But for convenience, I will quote that for us now. So here’s verse 6. It says, quote, “And before the throne, there was a sea of glass like unto crystal. In the midst of the throne and round about the throne were four beasts, full of eyes before and behind.” Okay, that’s the verse. Google Revelation chapter 4, and then click on images, and look at the different artwork that different artists have done with Revelation chapter 4, so you can get a picture. I think it’s super helpful, actually, because you’ll see there’s a throne, there’s a figure on it in the color of Jasper sitting on the throne with a rainbow going over his head. He’s holding a book with seven seals.

Scott Woodward:
Then in front of him, you’ve got these beasts, you’ve got these lamps that are burning, you’ve got 24 elders, and they’re all on this sea of glass. There’s lightning shooting out of the throne. There’s all kinds of really interesting things. If you have that whole image in mind, then you, too, will have some questions about Revelation chapter 4. So the one that Joseph Smith opens with is, What’s that sea of glass? What is that that the throne is on and all of that? And so here’s what the Lord says, “A, it is the earth in its sanctified, immortal, and eternal state.” Okay, so right away we see that this is a vision of the future. Whatever chapter 4 is beginning, it’s about the future, and it’s about the Earth and its far future. This is the sanctified, immortal, eternal state of the Earth. What we’re going to find out throughout this section is that the work of Jesus Christ is the work not just of saving humans, but of saving humans and all of God’s creation, including the Earth, so that they coexist together forever in their eternalized state. It’s not just about sanctifying men and women, but also the entire ecosystem in which we live, the entire Earth.

Scott Woodward:
In fact, we’ve quoted Section 88, which is given a few months after Section 77, where the Lord says that the Earth “abides the law of a celestial kingdom, and it fills the measure of its creation, and transgresses not the law, wherefore it shall be sanctified.” Same word that’s used here in Section 77. “Yea, notwithstanding it shall die,” the Earth shall die, he says, “it shall be quickened again and shall abide the power by which it is quickened, and the righteous shall inherit it.” So we know this Earth will become our heavenly home. Heaven and Earth fused together here in a sanctified state. In a later discourse, Joseph Smith also explained the existence of other sanctified worlds that have already gone through this same thing. He said, quote, “The angels do not reside on a planet like this Earth, but they reside in the presence of God on globe like a sea of glass and fire, where all things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord. The place where God resides is a great Urim and Thummim.” That’s found in Section 130:6-8. And so what Revelation chapter 4 is about is when our Earth becomes like that.

Scott Woodward:
How do we go from the turmoil and trouble and strife and temptation and persecution that the Church is facing in John’s day of Revelation chapter 1 through 3, and then get to this beautiful, sanctified, glorious sea of glass and fire-like earth of chapter 4. That’s part of what this journey is all about in the Book of Revelation, and kind of unfolding how we get from there to there, from point A, turmoil, to point B, sanctification.

Casey Griffiths:
This is one of my favorite ideas found in the Doctrine and Covenants, that all things will become new, that we’re not just talking about immortality for men and women. We’re talking about the entire world undergoes a transition, and the Earth becomes the celestial kingdom or the eternal world or a place where we live together forever. And so I love that idea. And it is comforting because sometimes, you now, what distresses us is not just the idea that we’re all going to die, which the gospel is intended to answer, but also the things we see around us, the entropy that we witness all the time. The Savior’s atonement reverses that and changes not just us, but the world that we live in into a higher, holier sphere, which is pretty neat.

Scott Woodward:
Mind-boggling, really. It’s on the same level of people coming back from the dead and living in immortal bodies that can never die. They’re not subject to entropy like you’re talking about. As hard as it is to wrap our mind around immortal bodies like that, this section is making us take seriously that that’s going to happen to all of creation. We’ve seen this in previous revelations, Section 29, I think, the earliest, September of 1830, where the Lord says that this Earth will pass away, and then we’re going to get a new heaven and a new earth. This is just an echo of the Book of Revelation, the very end of Revelation, chapter 21. Here’s what John says. He says, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there no more sea,” he says. So that’s where everything’s headed. We’re headed toward a time in which this earth will become sanctified and immortal. It’ll become a new heaven and a new earth, a new atmosphere, a new earth that we stand on. It’ll be like a sea of glass, like its own Urim and Thummim, Section 130:9, goes on to explain.

Scott Woodward:
And so high drama ahead, Casey. So that’s how we introduce, this is the first question of Doctrine and Covenants 77:1 is, what is this sea of glass?

Casey Griffiths:
Just because we believe there’s a new Earth coming, it doesn’t mean that we get to abuse the Earth we have right now. The analogy is your own body, right? You’re going to get a new body. You’re going to be resurrected. That doesn’t mean that you can just run down and abuse the body you have right now. You do the best you can to be a good steward and take care of it. And we should with the Earth, even though we have the promise that all things will be renewed. Okay, so verse 2. So a sea of fire and glass is objectively strange, right? But this is where it gets really weird. And I want to plug that we did do an accompanying video with this where we literally just took the verses from Revelation chapter 4 and other places and plugged them into an AI art generator to see what it would do. And it came back with some bizarre stuff. But okay, verse 2, “What are we to understand by the four beasts spoken of in the same verse?” This is the verse. It says, “Before the Throne, there was a sea of glass like unto crystal, and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, there were four beings full of eyes before and behind.”

Casey Griffiths:
So this is already strange. There’s these beasts, and they’re full of eyes. So visualize that. And then it gets even really weird. It says this, “The first beast was like a lion, and the second beast was like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within, and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come.” So what are we seeing here, Scott? Like, what is going on? What are the beasts? Is what Joseph Smith is asking quite understandably.

Scott Woodward:
Great question, Joseph, yeah.

Casey Griffiths:
Here’s the answer in Section 77. “They are figurative expressions used by the Revelator, John, in describing heaven, the paradise of God, the happiness of man, and of beasts, and of creeping things, and of the fowls of the air, that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal, and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual, the spirit of man in the likeness of his person, and also the spirit of the beast sand every other creature which God has created.” And oh, my goodness, that’s a lot to unpack in one verse. So let’s tackle a couple ideas here. First of all, he says they’re figurative. So I don’t know if there are literal beasts in heaven that have the face of a cow and a man and a bird and full of eyes. He says they’re symbolic representations.

Scott Woodward:
But he is saying there are beasts there, correct?

Casey Griffiths:
Yes, he is saying that. In fact, that’s one of the things the verse says, “The happiness of man and of beasts and of creeping things, the fowls of the air.” So this answer is one of those big questions people, I think, wrestle with, but they don’t want to ask because they think they’ll look silly, which is, Is my dog going to heaven, you now, or my cat or my fish? Yes, all things will be made new. And he’s saying, yeah, and they’re happy here. That’s kind of what the beasts represent. The happiness found in kind of the different strata of heaven, from man and birds all the way down to creeping things. So will there be lizards and snakes in heaven? This seems to say yes. Just unpacking a couple of other things. This explanation also affirms that other creatures besides human beings not only have spirits, but their spirits appear in the likeness of their physical forms. The spirits of people are not ethereal and unrecognizable, but exist in the same form as men and women do here on Earth. Now, again, there’s a lot to unpack there, too. But this is illustrated in another scripture. You remember back in the Book of Mormon, the premortal spirit of Jesus Christ appears to the brother of Jared.

Casey Griffiths:
And on that occasion, the Savior teaches a similar principle. He’s talking to Jared because, the brother of Jared, sorry, says, I just didn’t know that you had form when he sees the finger of the Lord. And Jesus then appears to him fully in his premortal form before he is born, before he takes a physical form here on Earth and explains, “This body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit. And man have I created after the body of my spirit, and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit, will I appear unto my people in the flesh.” That’s Ether 3:16. So yes, your spirit has form. I don’t know how that works exactly, but the spiritual creation applies to all things. In fact, it lines up with another verse received in the Book of Moses, where the Lord says, “I, the Lord God, created all things of which I’ve spoken spiritually before they were naturally upon the face of the Earth.” That’s Moses 3:5. So this kind of expands our conception of the pre-natural, pre-mortal creation quite a bit. We know that animals have spirits. We know that human beings do, and that the image of these spirits is in the likeness of the physical bodies they’re going to receive.

Scott Woodward:
We know that marriage is not pre-mortally foreordained, like, who you’re going to marry. You get to choose who you marry, and that mix of genetics is going to have some effect on what your kids look like and so on and so forth. There’s so many, like, genetic variables that it’s highly unlikely that your spirit was formed to look exactly like your mortal body. Does that make sense, what I’m saying?

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, we can’t take these verses too far because they can set up some kind of predestination, your parents were destined to find each other and marry each other. And I don’t know if I would read it that way, except to say, A human is a human, and a human spirit looks like a human body. But I don’t know if we want to take it much further than that, because then we start to get into predestination territory. This is, like you mentioned earlier, a vision of the future, and we’re taking that into account. We’ve been talking in terms of premortal spirits, kind of because I sent the discussion in that direction. But now I’m thinking about somebody that’s born into a body that might have some challenges with it. I don’t think that your spirit necessarily is the same as your physical body in that sense, too. We know that everybody’s body in the resurrection is brought to a proper frame, that it’s basically restored to its full potential. And so again, this is one of those ideas that is really, really neat, but be a little cautious with it. We know less than we sometimes act like we think we do when it comes to this one.

Scott Woodward:
Well said. Okay, let’s go to verse three. Joseph is not done asking about these beasts. His next question is, okay, so, “Are the four beasts limited to individual beasts? Or do they represent classes or orders?” Interesting question. So the Lord says, “They are limited to four individual beasts, which were shown to John to represent the glory of the classes of beings in their destined order or sphere of creation, in the enjoyment of their eternal felicity.” Interesting. So there’s these four beasts that are representations of the different classes of beings, of creatures, in their eternal felicity. While the Lord here is saying, back in verse 2, A, he said, these beings are figurative expressions, that their presence in John’s vision is actually meant to underline the broad nature of Jesus’s saving work, which saves not just mankind, but all living things. Then there’s classes of salvation, if you will. We’re not talking about kingdoms of glory with mankind, like in Section 76. We’re talking about strata of salvation with beasts and everything else the Lord has created. In fact, Joseph Smith once explained this. He said, quote, “John saw the actual beasts in heaven, showing to John that beasts did actually exist there and not to represent figures of things on the earth.” He says, “I suppose John saw beings there of a thousand forms that had been saved from 10,000 times 10,000 earths like this.” Okay, whoa. He goes on, “Strange beasts of which we have no conception, all might be seen in heaven. The grand secret,” Joseph says, “was to show John what there was in heaven. John learned that God glorified himself by saving all that his hands had made, whether beasts, fowl, fishes, or men, and he will gratify himself with them.”

Scott Woodward:
And again, this sounds like what Joseph learned back in Section 29:22-25, where the Lord said that after the Millennium, after the thousand years end, there’s going to come an end to this earth as we know it, and there will become a new heaven and a new earth. And then listen to this in verse 24, “For all old things shall pass away, and all things shall become new, even the heaven and the earth, and all the fullness thereof, both men and beasts, the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea. And not one hair, neither mote, shall be lost, for it is the workmanship of mine hand.”

Scott Woodward:
And so Joseph Smith is actually quite convinced from John’s Revelation and his own revelations, that there would be salvation for all creatures. In fact, he pushed back against those who thought that the saving work of Christ was for humanity only, which you can forgive some people for reading the scriptures that way. Most of scripture deals with the salvation of humanity, I think, primarily because humanity are the ones who’s going to read scripture. But we’re getting some hints. There were some glimpses that there’s actually more to the saving work of God than that. Here’s what Joseph said. He said, quote, “Says one, I cannot believe in the salvation of beasts.” Then Joseph says, “Any man who would tell you that this could not be would tell you that the revelations are not true. John heard the words of the beasts giving glory to God and understood them. God, who made the beasts, could understand every language spoken by them. The four beasts,” that John saw here, “were four of the most noble animals that had filled the measure of their creation and had been saved from other worlds because they were perfect. They were like angels in their sphere. We are not told where they came from, and I do not know, but they were seen and heard by John, praising and glorifying God.”

Scott Woodward:
Help me understand this, Casey. So we just learned that these are figurative expressions of the four different strata of salvation for all of God’s creations. And yet Joseph is saying that when John saw them, they were actually literal beasts that had been saved from other worlds. So is Joseph saying they were literal beasts that were being used as figurative expressions of the strata of salvation for creation? Or help me understand that literal versus figurative thing that is going on here.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, I’m going to be honest and say I have puzzled over this till my puzzler was sore, to be honest with you. But I don’t know exactly what he means here. One great thing about Joseph Smith is that he had this boldness to him, but he was also humble enough to say, I don’t know, which you’ll notice he does at the end of this, actually. So it seems like the revelation is saying directly that these are figurative expressions, that these beasts are symbolic. But Joseph Smith seems to be saying that they’re also literal here, and they might come from other worlds, that John might be describing something that he has no frame of reference for. And so he’s doing the best he can to try and describe what he’s seeing. And Joseph Smith is saying, Yeah, there is a possibility, too, that what he was seeing was just something he didn’t understand because it came from another world. But you’ll notice at the end, he says, But I don’t really know. In the quote, he says, “We are not told where they came from, and I do not know, but they were seen and heard by John praising and glorifying God.”

Casey Griffiths:
So he’s opening up the idea, again, combining one of the other ideas in Latter-day Saint cosmology that I really love, which is there’s other worlds, and that salvation is a universal thing, not just a thing that we talk about on Earth, but that there’s worlds without number that God has created, and there are strange and wonderful and bizarre creations that exist there, too. And I mean, just the simple fact that on the average day, I see an image that’s from our world that is bizarre and strange and beautiful, but shows the variety of God’s creation. I think Joseph Smith is just trying to emphasize this beautiful Latter-day Saint concept that there is a salvation for the universe, that there’s an infinite atonement that covers everywhere. So it’s a symbolic representation that I think underlines a literal truth, which is that God intends to save all things.

Scott Woodward:
And we do this, too. We will use, like, something that’s literal to symbolize something figurative. So for instance, I’m thinking of the four houses in Hogwarts. Casey, go with me on this. You got Slytherin. And what’s the symbol of Slytherin?

Casey Griffiths:
A snake.

Scott Woodward:
Snakes are real. But in this case, they’re being used to symbolize a class of beings called Slytherin. In my mind, that’s how I reconcile this as well.

Casey Griffiths:
I took my kids to a farm the other day, and they saw a peacock. And if you’d never seen a peacock before, you could look at it and say, It’s full of eyes, because you don’t know what you’re looking at, and you don’t have a frame of reference to describe it. And so we need to leave open that possibility, too, that when we read the Book of Revelation, John is seeing the future. And, I mean, there’s another place where he says, I saw, like, great locusts spout fire from the Earth. Is he describing something that is in the future that he just doesn’t know? Maybe he saw a helicopter and saw it fire a missile, and he’s not going to say, I saw an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. He’s going to say, I saw a great locust shooting fire. However, the next verse does seem to counteract that because it switches us back to symbolic mode. Okay, so verse 4, “What are we to understand by the eyes and wings which the beasts had?” Remember, the beasts are full of eyes and they have six wings. And this is what the answer the Lord gives us. He says, “The eyes are a representation,” so again, we’re going back to being symbolic, “of light and knowledge, that is, they were full of knowledge, and their wings are a representation of power to move, to act, et cetera.”

Casey Griffiths:
And that might explain why wings are associated with angels and heavenly beings. It seems like this passage is emphasizing that it’s symbolic. For instance, while the Book of Revelation and the Prophet Joseph Smith taught that animals enjoy eternal glory alongside men and women, the four beasts, again, this section emphasize, again, are symbolic. John’s descriptions that the beasts were full of eyes would have undoubtedly been kind of a horrifying sight to an uninitiated person. But the eyes are not literal, this is saying. The eyes are a symbol of the knowledge that’s given to exalted beings.

Scott Woodward:
So no matter what class of exalted beings we’re talking about, they’re full of eyes, they’re full of wings, means they’re full of knowledge and they’re full of power. So in an exalted state, whatever type of creature they are in the sphere of their eternal felicity, they will enjoy lots of power and lots of knowledge. Is that the takeaway?

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. It’s kind of like you have two eyes, right? And those eyes are the instruments you use to discern almost the entire world around you. And that is a symbol that every human being can relate to. It’s an easy, symbolic thing to say they’re full of eyes as a way of communicating they can see more, they can discern more, they can understand more, they have a greater knowledge. But again, I want to emphasize it’s symbolic, and it leads us to another thing. The wings are symbolic. The wings that they see extend this idea that exalted beings have a greater ability to travel and move through the universe. You might note that Isaiah used similar symbolism when he describes what he sees. He sees a bunch of seraphim, which is an Old Testament word for angels, in the temple in Jerusalem. And when Isaiah describes them, this is in Isaiah 6, is kind of where Isaiah receives his call to be a prophet. He says, “They had six wings. With twain, he covered his face, and with twain, he covered his feet, and with twain, he did fly.” So six wings again pops up there and then pops up again in the Book of Revelation.

Casey Griffiths:
But Section 77 is saying the wings that are shown here are meant to demonstrate the greater power of movement that are given to exalt a being. So if you’re a person living 2,000 years ago and you want to express movement, the most free creatures that you can see around you are birds because they can go a lot more places than you can go. And so wings express this idea that they can move, that they can travel. But Joseph Smith himself, on another occasion, says in literal reality, angels don’t have wings, that they appear to be men and women just as us, and that when a prophet like Isaiah or John emphasizes wings, they’re being shown something symbolically to express the idea of more freedom of movement.

Scott Woodward:
And speaking of freedom of movement, Joseph describes literally how the Angel Moroni, when he was 17, moved in his bedroom. Remember this, where he says a conduit of light, like, appeared, and Moroni ascended through this conduit of light. This is how he’s getting around. Talk about great power of movement. I remember when Jesus appears to some of his apostles at the end of the Gospels. He’s not using the door. He just shows up, and then he’s just gone. He just vanishes. When he’s eating with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, they’re breaking bread. As soon as he breaks bread with them, they recognize him and he vanishes. The power of movement given to exalted beings is briefly described in a couple places. We’re kind of teased with this in the Gospels and in Joseph Smith’s history, but that symbol of wings is like, it’s way more powerful and way more free than we currently move, is kind of the idea I’m getting from that.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, that makes sense.

Scott Woodward:
All right, let’s go to verse 5. This one’s really interesting to me. “Question, What are we to understand by the 4 and 20 elders spoken of by John?” What’s he referring to? This is Revelation 4:4, which says this, quote, “And round about the throne were 4 and 20 seats, and upon the seats I saw 4 and 20 elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they had on their heads crowns of gold.” So that’s what John is seeing in the vision. And so Joseph’s question is, who are those 24 people? They seem significant. Here’s what the Lord says. “Answer, We are to understand that these elders whom John saw were elders who had been faithful in the work of the ministry and were dead, who belonged to the seven churches, and were then in the paradise of God.” This is interesting. So along with this incredible vision of the throne of God, exalted earth, that’s the sea of glass, the symbolic beasts representing the orders of saved beings. John is now seeing some familiar faces, some people that he would have known in the seven churches that he was originally writing this letter to. People who, when they received this letter, were still alive in mortality.

Scott Woodward:
But this vision, this vision is about the future, the far future. And some of those very people who received this letter would possibly have been depicted in this future vision. So this is really interesting. These are people that John had struggled with, sacrificed with, people who he’d called to repentance, people who had laid down their lives. People who had probably been martyred or would be martyred violently by the hands of some of their persecutors. And this leads to the question in my mind, like, Casey, what if you saw a vision of the future destiny of some of the ordinary people from your ward? What if you saw that they were sitting on God’s throne with him? What kind of impact would that have? What would you think? I see this as a vision of hope in that way. If those in my ward can make it, good people, normal people who we sat by in sacrament meeting, if they can make it, if they can sit on God’s throne, then maybe there’s hope for people like me and my family, too. This is where my mind goes. Maybe you see in this future vision of your ward, you see that rascal of a boy in the deacon’s quorum or that gossipy girl who lives down the street or that apathetic priest.

Scott Woodward:
If you saw them in the future, far distant future, sitting on God’s throne, clothed in white raiment, wearing crowns of gold on their head, what kind of an impact would that have on you? That’s what’s happening for John here, right? This is a vision of hope for all who would read this letter. Those who were going through hell in a lot of ways, they’re living in what John refers to as the synagogue of Satan. Things were really tough in the midst of those seven branches of the church. And so John says, I’ve seen you sitting on God’s throne in the future. This is all going to be worth it. In those dark moments, this is hope.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, I love this idea of the ordinary and mundane, maybe next to the fantastic. They’re in the eternities amidst these fantastic, amazing things, a sea of glass and beasts with eyes and wings, and recognize that, hey, the ordinary is part of the fantastic, that what we see all around us is destined for the eternal world. And if you’re someone like John, who the context here is, it’s possible that this is a John that we haven’t met. But most people assume that this is the John who writes the Gospel of John, and 1, 2, and 3 John. You’ve lost a lot of people. And to see some of the people that you lost, I’m guessing he knows some of the 20 and 4 elders surrounding the throne of God, wouldn’t just be theological. It would be really comforting to know that those people that you lost are in the presence of God and that they’re okay and that God is going to win. That’s a big purpose of the whole Book of Revelation is to basically flip to the last page of the story and say, You know it’s going to turn out all right. You know God is going to win. And so hang in there and endure the difficulties that you have. And eventually we’re going to be all right.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. If you find the Book of Revelation confusing, welcome to the team. We all do. But if you zoom back and just look at the Book of Revelation as a whole, that’s the simple message, isn’t it, Casey? It’s God wins. Those who keep their covenants will be exalted. Those who are true and faithful will be saved by the blood of the Lamb. We’re going to go through some really challenging times. Yep, but know where this is headed. Where it’s headed is being depicted right here in these chapters, of chapter 4 and 5 of the Book of Revelation. Sea of glass, glorified beings. It’s going to end well. So if that helps you to endure your present affliction, then all the better. That’s the purpose of the Book of Revelation, at least one of its greatest purposes, yeah, for sure.

Casey Griffiths:
Yes. Okay. So that is just John’s initial vision of the throne of God. We spent all that time processing that. Now, this is where we get into the stuff that really helps you understand the Book of Revelation and helps break down exactly what John is seeing. So let’s go to verse 6. “What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?” And this is where a lot of the pop culture influence of the Book of Revelation. You hear movies like the Seven Seals or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or anything like that. This is where this is coming from. John sees a book. This is the verse that describes it, Revelation 5:1. “I saw in the right hand of him that set on the throne a book written within and on the back side, sealed with seven seals.” And this is the answer that the Lord gives the Prophet Joseph. “We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God, the hidden things of his economy concerning this Earth during the 7,000 years of its continuance or its temporal existence.”

Casey Griffiths:
Wow. Okay, so let’s put this in context, okay. We mentioned earlier that the church in John’s day was experiencing some really difficult times. The Book of Revelation is being written in some of the final stages of what we call the Great Apostasy. In fact, if this is the John that wrote the Gospel of John, all the other Apostles are probably gone at this point, and he is left alone. The saints are struggling to stay strong while they’re surrounded by persecution. And the epistles in Revelation 1 through 3 make it clear they’re dealing with idolatry and lewdness and all kinds of worldly problems. In chapter 4, John is invited to see a vision of things in the hereafter. So we already mentioned this is a vision of the future. And the contrast between the first three chapters of Revelation, which are kind of a, this place needs to do this better and better. This place is doing okay. This place needs to do this better. And then chapter 4 is pretty powerful because we go from sort of mundane, worldly things to this fantastic vision of the eternal world. And now we’re going to switch again to sort of see what Section 77 is describing as a panoptic vision of the history of the Earth, or at least what it calls the temporal history of Earth.

Scott Woodward:
If the question is, how will something so fallen and so base and so corrupted become something so holy and exalted and sanctified? If that’s the question, the answer is in that book in the hands of the one who sits on the throne. Like you said, this is where the story becomes even more interesting. It’s not just a bunch of fascinating symbols, but now the core piece of the story is like, what’s in that book? The book is going to tell the story of how we go from the state of corruption to the state of sanctification with this Earth. And so this becomes fascinating.

Casey Griffiths:
All of this ties into the framework of the Book of Revelation. So first three chapters, counsel to these churches, four brings us into this more symbolic representation. And then the book itself is kind of what John sees through the rest of the vision.

Scott Woodward:
And that leads us then to verse seven. Q. Here’s the question. “So what are we to understand by the seven seals with which it,” meaning the book, “was sealed?” What are those seven seals? “Answer. We understand that the first seal contains the things of the first thousand years, and the second also of the second thousand years and so on until the seventh.” So the book seen by John here is representing the temporal existence of the Earth, likely from the fall of Adam to the end of the Millennium. That’s how they understood it at this time. And the prophet Joseph explains it like this. He said, “John had the curtains of heaven withdrawn, and by vision, he looked through the dark vista of future ages and contemplated events that should transpire throughout every subsequent period of time until the final winding-up scene.” Close quote. Section 77 does not explain the symbols that John saw with each of the seven seals. John’s revelation does not spend equal time on the history of each of the thousand years seen in the vision. In fact, the vision itself gives unequal time to one particular seal. So if we broke it down real quick, the first through the fifth seals are actually covered in only 11 verses.

Scott Woodward:
Chapter 6:1-11 is the first 5,000 years of this book. So obviously, those are not the emphasis. Then the events of the sixth seal are covered in 14 verses. So that’s a little more substantive. That’s chapter 6:12-7:8. But then the events that take place after the opening of the seventh seal, all the way to the Second Coming of Christ are covered in 211 verses. That’s the totality of Revelation, chapter 8 through 19. So you can see that this is primarily going to be focusing on the seventh seal. And then only six verses describe the Millennium, and nine verses then cover the final scenes, including the last rebellion of the wicked, their ultimate destruction. And then we get 33 verses containing John’s description of the Earth in its sanctified glory.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, its focus is the latter days. If each one of the seals represents a thousand years, it spends by far, and it’s not even close, really, its most time on the seventh seal, which has to do with our time that we live in. I asked Richard Draper once, who wrote a book on the Book of Revelation, like, Are we in the sixth seal or the seventh seal? And his answer was, I don’t know exactly. Like, he was smart enough to say, I don’t know, but signs point towards us being in the seventh seal.

Scott Woodward:
Some people I was going to say, Well, isn’t the seventh seal the Millennium? But that’s not entirely true. It opens before Jesus comes again with the Second Coming and then concludes with the Millennium. And so there is some wiggle room there. The seventh seal can open before Jesus comes. In fact, that’s what this 211 verses are about.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. And it seems like that’s the focus, is that if the seventh seal is the last thousand years, the Millennium, you could say, doesn’t have an exact starting point. Or if we’re using the analogy of a thousand years as one day, when it’s 12:00 AM, it’s still dark outside, right? And it takes time for what we call the day, the full light of the sun, to burst upon us. And so we could be in the seventh seal, but we’re still dealing with the darkness that comes from living in a fallen world as we move towards the rising of the sun, which will bring us into the world of light that’s described at the end of the Book of Revelation. So the timetable that’s revealed in Section 77 shows that most of the tribulations that John saw will take place after the opening of the seventh seal or during the seventh 1,000 years. But again, we’ve got to be cautious here, too, because our calendar is 2,025 years since the birth of Christ. We are not 100% sure if that’s completely accurate. And we also don’t know if the seals are supposed to mean precisely a thousand years to the day, to the minute, to the hour, or if they mean transitions from one era to another.

Scott Woodward:
It’s a good idea to never take numbers literally in the Book of Revelation. That’s just a good rule of thumb. Almost always numbers are symbolic.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. And Hebrew numerology is a whole other discussion for another day. But when you hear things like a third part, a third part probably doesn’t literally mean a third part. It’s a way of saying a lot. And a third in a Hebrew numerology tended to convey disaster, destruction. You’ll see the number seven a lot, and seven seems to imply wholeness or completion, but that doesn’t always mean it’s a good thing. Like, later on in the Book of Revelation, they describe the adversary as a dragon with seven heads, which I don’t think means he’s perfect. It means he’s perfectly evil or wholly evil or anything like that. So pay attention to the numbers here, too.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, very good. Okay, let’s go to verse 8. “Question. What are we to understand by the four angels spoken of in the seventh chapter and first verse of Revelation?” And here’s what that verse says. It says, quote, “And after these things, I,” that’s John speaking, “I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.” Okay. Four angels keeping things at bay. Here’s what the Lord says. “Answer. We are to understand that they are four angels sent forth God, to whom is given power over the four parts of the earth, to save life and to destroy. These are they who have the everlasting gospel to commit to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, having power to shut up the heavens, to seal up unto life, or to cast down to the regions of darkness.” By the way, there’s another symbol, four, a symbolic number. Four represents the cardinal points of the compass, and usually is a reference to all parts of the earth, which is perfectly fitting here in the Lord’s answer. So I don’t know if that fully answered it for me, Casey, what those four angels are, but Joseph Smith will later add a little bit.

Scott Woodward:
He’ll teach this. He’ll say, quote, “Four destroying angels hold power over the four quarters of the earth until the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads,” which is another symbol, which he explains. He says, “Which signifies sealing the blessing upon their heads, meaning the everlasting covenant, thereby making their calling and election sure. When a seal is put upon the father and mother, it secures their posterity so that they cannot be lost but will be saved by virtue of the covenant of their father and mother.” Close quote. Oh, boy. So now we’re into the idea of sealing. Symbolically in scripture, there’s a sealing on the forehead. This in the Old Testament times was done right before destruction, where a servant of God says to go and write the name on the foreheads of those who will be saved, and everyone who doesn’t have the name on their forehead gets destroyed. And so having the name written on your forehead represents being set apart for salvation, or having your calling and election made sure, is how Joseph says it. In other words, having your calling in the house of Israel to obtain the kingdom of God, to inherit the kingdom of God.

Scott Woodward:
That promise, which is not sure for all of us, it’s all through your faithfulness, there can come a point at which that becomes sure. And that’s when the symbolic name in the forehead is taken. We all express every time we take the sacrament, we express our willingness to take upon ourselves the name of Christ. And if we actually have the name of Christ on us at the last day, then we are saved. We will not be destroyed. Our calling and election will be made sure, to use that phrase. And then Joseph is explaining further here that the sealing of parents and children together is about binding people in such a way that they will be saved from the powers of destruction when they come. They’ll be able to endure into the eternities together. This sealing is what’s being represented here in some way by these four angels who have power to seal up unto eternal life. That’s at least partially what’s going on here. Anything else you would add, Casey?

Casey Griffiths:
These angels, again, are… So much of our symbolism as Latter-day Saints comes from this book. The angel that we used to place on top of all of our temples is from Revelation 14, right? And the term sealing, too, is found in here as well. Sealing can mean a lot of different things, but part of it is like the seal of God’s approval is placed on you. You’re sealed, meaning he’s basically saying you’re going to be okay. He’s placing his seal on you to make sure that you’re all right. And that leads us into the next verse, verse 9. “What are we to understand by the angel ascending from the east?” Revelation seventh chapter and second verse. So this the verse that Joseph is asking about in the Book of Revelation. “I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. So that’s the verse.

Casey Griffiths:
Here’s the answer given by inspiration in Section 77. “We are to understand that the angel ascending from the east is he to whom is given the seal of the living God over the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Wherefore, he cryeth unto the four angels, having the everlasting gospel, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And if you will receive it, this is Elias, which was come to gather together the Tribes of Israel and restore all things.” So it sounds like it’s saying the angel is Elias. And again, this is another term that pops up in the Doctrine and Covenants, and there’s a lot of mystery surrounding it. We don’t know. We’ve said this before a couple of times. We don’t know exactly who this Elias is, the one that’s mentioned in this passage. And it might be a composite title, to be honest with you, since no single angel alone restored all things. This could be a symbolic representation of all the angels of the Restoration. In fact, several angels play a key role in the Restoration of the gospel in the latter days.

Casey Griffiths:
The work of the Restoration takes place probably during the sixth seal, if we’re going off that thousand-year chronology, through the work of these angels, along with Joseph Smith and other women and men who are called to assist in the work. So Moroni is identified in the Doctrine and Covenants, for example, as being given the specific commission to reveal the Book of Mormon, which contains the fullness of the everlasting gospel. That’s in Section 27:5. But the visitations of Moroni were only the first of many angels who took part in the Restoration. And not all of the angels who participated in the Restoration are named, but at least the following are involved. This is taken from lists like Section 13, Section 110, and Section 128 in the Doctrine and Covenants. Moroni is one of the angels. John the Baptist, that’s in Section 13. Peter, James, and John, they’re mentioned in Section 27. Moses, Elijah, and Elias are mentioned in Section 110. They appear in the Kirtland Temple. And then Joseph Smith in Section 128, which is a letter written to the Church, mentions dealings with Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael. In fact, Section 27 identifies Michael as Adam.

Casey Griffiths:
So it could be that this Elias discussed here is a composite figure that represents all these angels of the Restoration, because it takes a whole bunch of them to get all the keys and authorities back. And again, we’re just scratching the surface here. We could go even further to statements Joseph Smith or his contemporaries made about other angels that appeared to Joseph Smith and gave instruction or keys or authorities to perform the work that he needed to do.

Scott Woodward:
So when he says, This is Elias, which was come to gather together the Tribes of Israel and restore all things. That’s what’s making us think like that’s probably a composite title because so many other angels were actually involved in the restoration of all things. That’s likely the meaning is what you’re saying.

Casey Griffiths:
That’s my guess. We could be wrong here, too. It could refer to a singular specific person. But again, Elias is usually a title that refers to different people. But again, there is someone named Elias that appears in the Kirtland Temple, or at least is called Elias. So again, keep your options open until we get more information on who this angel is in particular.

Scott Woodward:
Very good. Let’s go to verse 10. Great question. Chronology question. “What time are the things spoken of in this chapter to be accomplished?” And the Lord just gives a straightforward answer. He says, “They are to be accomplished in the sixth 1,000 years or the opening of the sixth seal.” So like you said, this is most likely this discussion in the previous verse is about the angels who are helping to restore the gospel and prepare for the gathering of Israel. That’s happening in the sixth seal. Now, we don’t know the precise correlation between our time now and God’s time and whether we’re in the seventh seal now compared to Joseph Smith’s being in the sixth. We don’t know. People speculate about that stuff. We don’t know. We don’t know exactly when the sixth seal ends and the seventh seal begins. So careful on your speculations. And we should not assume, for instance, that the year, like AD 2000, corresponds with the opening of the seventh seal. I’ve heard people do that stuff, too. Like, careful, right? The Lord’s answer to the question in verse 10 just makes it clear that the initial work of the Restoration of the gospel took place in the sixth seal.

Scott Woodward:
We just don’t know precisely when those thousand years end and the seventh thousand-year cluster begins, which is the time in which the prophesied millennial reign will happen. So just be careful with your speculations. The Lord is being, I think, deliberately brief here and not spelling it all out for us, unfortunately.

Casey Griffiths:
So next we’re going to get to one of the things in the Book of Revelation that is speculated about the most, and that is this. Okay, verse 11, “What are we to understand by sealing the 144,000 out of all the Tribes of Israel, 12,000 out of every tribe?” This comes from Revelation 7:4, where John said, “I heard the number of them which were sealed, and there were sealed 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel.” And again, there is a lot of speculation over who the 144,000 are or what their identity is. Here’s the answer given in Revelation. “We are to understand that those who are sealed are high priests ordained unto the holy order of God to administer the everlasting gospel. For they are they who are ordained out of every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, by the angels, to whom is given power over the nations of the earth, to bring as many as will come to the church of the Firstborn.” So, wow. All right. So the Book of Revelation mentions that there’s 144,000 or 12,000 from each tribe of Israel that are going to be sealed. Again, this is where we get into numerology.

Scott Woodward:
All the numbers here are symbolic, and they’re not literal.

Casey Griffiths:
The number 12 is usually associated with Israel. For instance, there’s 12 tribes and 12 apostles called to administer to those tribes. That’s found in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 12:9. 12 multiplied by 12 or 12 squared represents the idea of Israel being raised to a new order of magnitude or the millennial Israel, Israel the way it’s supposed to be. And then it says that these high priests are drawn from every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, which, man, sort of describes the global reach of the Church in the latter days, saying, Hey, Israel isn’t in one spot, is what I’m drawing from this passage, that Israel is found all over the place because the 144,000 are going to come from every nation on Earth. It’s kind of as the gospel rolls forth throughout the world, we’re encouraged to think of the formation of this select group of high priests. According to this passage, the 144,000 represents members from every country. We shouldn’t also make the assumption that the 144,000 are the only ones that get blessings on this great day. If you read the passage, John actually describes a “great multitude which no man could number of all nations, kindreds, peoples, and tongues that stood before the throne of God.”

Casey Griffiths:
So imagine the 144,000 right at the center, but then this huge multitude surrounding them. So the numbers are bigger than 144,000, even if we’re taking that literally.

Scott Woodward:
I just want to add a little bit from Richard Draper. You mentioned his book, The Opening of the Seven Seals.

Casey Griffiths:
Excellent book. Yeah, highly recommended.

Scott Woodward:
So 12 is a symbol of Israel. And remember that Israel was called to be a royal priesthood. And so 12 is sometimes also associated with priesthood, that Israel is meant to represent this group through whom all the nations of the Earth would be blessed. There’s this group, Abraham’s seed, the house of Israel, set up in a position to bless the nations. That’s what those who belong to the priesthood do. He says, so 12 times 12 kind of represents a fullness of the priesthood or the ability to administer the fullness of God’s ordinances to all the nations of the earth. Then if you times 144 by a thousand, you get 144,000. Why times it by a thousand, he says? He says because John isn’t satisfied with 144. So he gives the image a superlative quality by multiplying a thousand, which represents completeness. And so it’s like the fullness and completeness of the priesthood or Israel in their role as God’s royal priesthood, administering the blessings of the everlasting covenant to all mankind where everybody gets it, living and dead. That’s an idea. Now, that was a little bit of Richard Draper and a little bit of Scott Woodward putting those together.

Scott Woodward:
But again, that’s what’s fun about these numbers is you start to think about what these might mean and what it might look like that we’ve got this 144,000 group that’s surrounded by this innumerable group. And in my mind, that’s the story that seems to fit best.

Casey Griffiths:
It’s tough for us to imagine John counting all 144, like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So he He’s saying 144, and he’s using sacred numerology to just convey this idea that there were a lot. And then he adds that endless multitude surrounding them to say there’s a lot more. Associating them with priesthood. Joseph Smith goes one step further and associates them not only with priesthood, but with the priesthood authority that’s used in the temple to save people. Joseph Smith ties the 144,000 to that. In fact, this is what he teaches. He says, “It is not only necessary that you should be baptized for your dead,” this is when he’s introducing baptism for the dead, “but you will have to go through all the ordinances for them, same as you’ve gone through to save yourselves. There will be 144,000 saviors on Mount Zion, and with them an innumerable host that no man can number. Oh, I beseech you to go forward, make your calling and election sure. And if any man preach any other gospel than that which I have preached, he shall be cursed. And some of you who now hear me shall see it and know that I testify the truth concerning them.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, this is the fullness of the priesthood ordinances. This isn’t just baptism. This is everything sufficient to make men and women, kings and queens, priests and priestesses, to rule and reign with Jesus when he comes again, which is the climax of the Book of Revelation, right? On into the Millennium and then on into the sanctified world. What we’re seeing here is there’s this group that’s been given this stewardship to make sure that all mankind, living and dead, as Joseph is emphasizing here, will have a chance to be heirs of that new creation in the kingdom of God in that particular era. I think that’s what’s going on here. We can’t prove it, Casey, but that seems to be what Joseph is hinting at here, what these numbers seem to suggest. And so until I find a better explanation than that, that’s what I’m going with. For the sake of time, let’s move on. Let’s go to verse 12. “Question. What are we to understand by the sounding of the trumpets mentioned in the eighth chapter of Revelation?” He doesn’t specify any verses, but if you look through chapter 8, you see there’s these several moments where trumpets will blow and then things will happen. Then trumpets blow, things happen.

Scott Woodward:
And here’s the Lord’s answer. He says, quote, “We are to understand that as God made the world in six days, and on the seventh day, he finished his work and sanctified it, and also formed man out of the dust of the earth, even so in the beginning of the seventh thousand years, will the Lord God sanctify the earth, complete the salvation of man, and judge all things, and shall redeem all things, except that which he hath not put into his power.” Probably a reference to what Section 76 referred to as the Sons of Perdition. “When he shall have sealed all things unto the end of all things. And the sounding of the trumpets of the seven angels are the preparing and finishing of his work in the beginning of the 7,000 years.” The preparing of the way before the time of his coming. The 7,000 years begins with these seven angels blowing these trumpets. “And this represents the Lord,” did you catch that? “Sanctifying the earth or preparing it for the coming of Jesus, completing the salvation of man, judging all things, redeeming all things,” which in my understanding, Casey, that bleeds into after the Savior comes.

Scott Woodward:
The beginning of the Millennium is going to be this time when we finish all the ordinances for everybody who’s ever lived that we maybe couldn’t find or maybe we got a backlog of… That’s a lot of people who’ve lived. And so we got to finish the salvation of man, the work of the salvation of man. It’s a time of judging all things and redeeming all things. I’m a little confused where he says this is all before the coming of Jesus, because we know the sanctification of the earth, the completion of the salvation of men, the judging of all things, and redeeming of all things does not happen before Jesus comes. And so help me out with the reading there.

Casey Griffiths:
I’m not sure myself, but it is helped out a little bit in the next verse where he does kind of describe this. Again, we sometimes do a disservice when we’re trying to be too precise with these thousand years, in that we’re trying to, like, tie exact dates to them or even think in terms of it ends and it begins, when really it seems like the flow here is more like one day into the next. I’ll sometimes have people come to me and say, When does the Sabbath day actually begin? Does it begin when the sun goes down on Saturday night or at 12:00 AM or when the sun comes up on Sunday morning? Again, I don’t know if the Lord thinks in precise terms because he’s talking about the cycles of salvation here that he’s dealing with.

Scott Woodward:
And that seventh 1,000-year period has sometimes been likened to the Sabbath of the Earth’s temporal existence. It’s going to be the time in which the Earth will rest, which is what Sabbath means. And so, yeah, there’s some build up to that. There’s some cleansing. Saturday is a special day. It’s the day we get ready for Sunday. It’s a day of cleansing, a day of preparation. But even when Sunday starts, it seems like there’s still some cleansing, some sanctifying, some redeeming, some judging that needs to happen here. And the completion of the salvation of man is how he says it. But it’s all taking place in that seventh seal, which I think is the major point here.

Casey Griffiths:
I would say the most stressful time of the week for my family is Sunday morning when you’re trying to get everybody ready and we have 9:00 AM church and I have to be there early for my calling. My wife has a calling she has to do, and it can be stressful. But once things are in motion, then the Sabbath becomes a delight, right? It’s that rest of the day, once you get it started, that becomes really, really great.

Scott Woodward:
I just want to add one more thought before we move on. And that is this phrase where the Lord says that the seventh 1,000 years is the time to complete the salvation of man. I’ve heard, I think President Oaks quote this very phrase to say that the Millennium will be the time in which the Lord will complete all that is incomplete in our personal salvation. So we sometimes mourn when people die too early. We don’t have a chance, for instance, someone passes away in their youth. They don’t have a chance to be married. We don’t do sealings for the dead if they weren’t already married in this life. We’re not hooking people up through sealing ordinances. There’s an incomplete ordinance, for instance, for that person who died before they got married. When will they get to date? When will they get to marry and be sealed? During this thousand-year period is what it sounds like. This is President Oaks’ deduction from this verse that anything that’s incomplete in our own personal journeys will be completed during this thousand-year period. I think that’s a comforting thought as well, that it doesn’t all have to be crammed in before you die.

Scott Woodward:
We know that there’s hope for that. Joseph Smith revealed several things relative to that. Joseph F. Smith gave us a little bit more in Section 138. So don’t fret if you or those you love have not had everything completed for your salvation, there’s a thousand years where we get to bring some resolution to those things.

Casey Griffiths:
We’re getting close into what is the seventh seal. If we go to the next verse, verse 13, they just ask, “When are the things to be accomplished, which are written in the ninth chapter of Revelation?” That is a chapter in Revelation where there’s a lot of stuff going on. The Lord gives this quick answer. “They are to be accomplished after the opening of the seventh seal, before the coming of Christ.” Now, the ninth chapter of the Book of Revelation, just to give you some context here, contains some of the most terrifying imagery found in the book. And it talks about wars and plagues poured out on the Earth in the latter days. But Section 77:13, indicates these events take place after the opening of the seventh seal. So during the seventh 1,000 years that are here, but indicates that the 7,000 years does not begin with the coming of Christ. So in this case, if we’re using the metaphor that each of the thousand years is like a day, and the 7,000 years is Sunday, it’s the Sabbath of the Earth’s temporal existence, that might be instructive. Just like I mentioned earlier, a day doesn’t begin when the sun emerges over a mountain.

Casey Griffiths:
Technically, it begins in the middle of the night, right at midnight. And it starts to give way gradually to the coming of light. We could liken the coming of Jesus Christ to the moment when the sun finally bursts over the horizon and we see this glorious sunrise and the Earth is bathed in light. But before that, there’s some darkness and then a gradual increase in light. So we might be in for some rough experiences before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, but there are better times ahead. Like you mentioned, the book is designed to give hope to people to know that there is a happy ending to the story.

Scott Woodward:
That’s not the end. The story continues and it ends gloriously. So hold on. Okay, now verse 14 takes an interesting twist. It says, “What are we to understand by the little book which was eaten by John, as mentioned in the 10th chapter of Revelation?” Visionarily, this angel comes to John, and he holds that little book in his hand, and he says to John, Eat it. And so John takes it and he eats it. He says it was sweet in his mouth, but it gave him an upset stomach. It was bitter in his belly, he said. That’s kind of weird, Casey. And here’s what the Lord says. “Answer. We are to understand that it was a mission and an ordinance for him to gather the Tribes of Israel. Behold, this is Elias, who, as it written, must come and restore all things.” Well, okay, so this book is like a mission call, an ordinance. In this case, read law for the ordinance, not like a ritual. It’s a law for John to go and gather the Tribes of Israel. Then the Lord curiously switches back to this Elias character. “Behold, this is Elias, who, as it is written, must come and restore all things.”

Scott Woodward:
So now we’re back to that theme. Will John play any role in the gathering of Israel? I think so, Casey, I think we don’t know exactly the details of this, but we do know from Section 7 of the Doctrine and Covenants that John was given the same blessing that the Three Nephites were given in 3 Nephi 28, where he was promised that he would not die a temporal death like we all do. But he would rather be translated, and he would have a mission to help in some way somehow with the preparation of the house of Israel for the second of Jesus. I say some way somehow because we don’t know exactly what he’s doing. We don’t have a record of that. We don’t know what he’s done. We don’t know what he will do. Same with the Three Nephites. I think this might have something to do with that. That’s a pretty sweet calling. But the things he would have had to have witnessed in the time in which he’s been on the earth may have been pretty bitter indeed. So a sweet/bitter calling. That’s one take on it. Any other take you would give on that?

Casey Griffiths:
It’s interesting how the Doctrine and Covenants kind of illuminates the dilemma that John faces, which is if this is the John that wrote the Gospel of John, and I feel pretty confident that it is, he’s told that he’s going to, this is in Doctrine and Covenants 7, “undertake a great work, make him a flaming fire and a ministering angel, and he will minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation who will dwell on the earth.” The Book of Mormon adds that John was told he would never taste of death. In fact, there’s a whole speech in 3 Nephi 28, which explains that John and the Three Nephites were never going to taste of death or no suffering except, and this is an important phrase in 3 Nephi 28:9, “They would never know sorrow save it be for the sins of the world.” And that is great. If I were to come to you and say, Hey, you’re going to live forever and not experience any physical pain, that’s a good deal, right? Sweet. What’s the bitterness? The bitterness is you still have to feel sorrow for the sins of the people around you. And John effectively has to work everything that he and his fellow disciples have worked to build, collapse around him.

Casey Griffiths:
The Three Nephites have to see their entire civilization be destroyed. That’s really bitter and tough. At the same time, too, they continue to do their labor. And I will emphasize the little passages like this one in Section 77 emphasize how important John is. He’s referred to as Elias. And earlier Elias is spoken of as the one that will restore all things. And Joseph Smith, on several occasions, notes that John is actively doing things to prepare for the Second Coming. For instance, at one point, Joseph Smith was caught up in the Spirit, and he prophesied, this is the quote, “That John the Revelator was then among the Ten Tribes of Israel who had been led away by Shalmaneser the king of Israel, to prepare them for their return from their long dispersion to again possess the land of their fathers.” So if you’re John, you get to see some of the worst things that have ever happened in history and some of the best things. It’s bitter and it’s sweet. It’s the gospel in a nutshell, right? That it’s so sweet to have the fruits of the gospel and to know that you’re going to have eternal life.

Casey Griffiths:
But there’s a lot of sorrow and suffering wrapped up in it, too, especially for someone like John, whose mission doesn’t last 18 months or two years. It lasts several millennia. That’s a big thing to ask of a person. But he does command John. He’s going to do this. He’s going to be the Elias that helps bring together the Twelve Tribes.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. Okay. Very good. Verse 15, Casey, tell us about the two witnesses. This is really juicy.

Casey Griffiths:
This is another one of those passages in the Book of Revelation that everybody seems to kind of like, speculate on and on again. But okay, “What are we to understand by the two witnesses in the 11th chapter of Revelation?” 11th chapter of Revelation talks about a siege of Jerusalem, these two witnesses that are there. The answer given by the Lord here is, “They are two prophets to be raised up to the Jewish nation in the last days at the time of the restoration, and to prophesy to the Jews after they are gathered and have built the city of Jerusalem in the land of their fathers.” So John describes or has described to him, the two witnesses spoken of as ministering to the people in Jerusalem for, this is John’s words, “a thousand, two hundred, and three-score days.” That’s Revelation 11:3. He also describes that they have power to shut the heavens and smite the earth with plagues. And when they’re finished their testimonies, Revelation 11 says they are overcome by their enemies and they’re killed. However, three and a half days later, they’ll be resurrected and descend into heaven. And the Doctrine and Covenants just identifies these two witnesses as “two prophets to be raised up to the Jewish nation in the last days.”

Casey Griffiths:
That is vivid imagery. And you can see why a lot of people kind of fixate on these passages, because saying Jerusalem is going to be under siege and two prophets are going to hold off the forces of darkness and call down fire from heaven, then get killed, then get resurrected. Wow, that is really fascinating stuff. Now, before we get carried away, let’s emphasize a couple of things here. The title of prophet given to these two witnesses probably indicates that they’ll likely be leaders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, meaning they’re ordained and they’re set apart by the heads of the Church.

Scott Woodward:
What do you mean probably? Like, is there a chance that maybe it’s not?

Casey Griffiths:
Well, I mean, the phraseology here is interesting. Like the Lord says, they’re raised up unto the Jewish nation. Does that mean that they are Jewish? Does that mean that they’re sent specifically with a commission to minister to the Jewish people? But it seems like the way that the Lord uses the term prophet also denotes that they have priesthood authority, which means they would have to come from the Church, basically, to have the authority of God to carry out the work that they’re asked to do. For instance, an earlier revelation given to Joseph Smith says this, “It shall not be given to anyone to go forth to preach my gospel or to build up my church, except he’s been ordained by someone who has authority, and it is known to the church that he has authority and has been regularly ordained by the heads of the church.” That’s Section 41:11. So the Lord in Section 77, giving these two witnesses the title of prophet, means that these witnesses are likely going to be called from among the leadership of the Church. They’ll be general authorities. There are statements from other leaders like LeGrand Richards who just flat out said, They’ll be either members of the First Presidency or the Quorum of the Twelve, the two witnesses.

Scott Woodward:
Well, that will be fascinating to see how that one rolls out. This is end of time stuff.

Casey Griffiths:
Another big addition this passage makes to the text of the Book of Revelation is that these prophets are supposed to be called after the Jewish people have gathered and rebuilt the city of Jerusalem. This is a prophecy of Joseph Smith’s that foresees the modern establishment of what’s going on in the Middle East right now, the establishment of the state of Israel in the wake of the Second World War, and the Book of Mormon’s prophecy that Nephi gives that the Gentile nations will act as nursing fathers and mothers as the Jewish people return to Palestine. The establishment of the state of Israel, which gets plenty of attention nowadays, constitutes that another prophecy given to Joseph Smith, this time through the Book of Mormon, but also Section 77, has been fulfilled. So there’s our time frame, too.

Scott Woodward:
We know that the establishment the State of Israel happened in 1948. That’s very future to Joseph Smith, future to Nephi, future to John the Revelator. But you’re suggesting that that is a partial fulfillment of this, or in other words, that these two witnesses will come sometime after the State of Israel has been officially constituted as a nation.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, and I want to be sensitive to current events. Full disclosure, we record these podcasts several weeks in advance, and there’s some crazy stuff happening over in the Middle East right now. And the Church has issued statements to basically say, We are against war. We are against suffering. We want all people to live in peace with each other. But I don’t think anybody can argue against the fact that Jewish people have returned to Palestine and that the city of Jerusalem, which was not in a great state in the time Joseph Smith received this revelation, has been rebuilt. And so that’s partial fulfillment, too, of something that was given to Joseph Smith through the Book of Mormon and through Section 77.

Scott Woodward:
So is this a hint that we’re in the seventh seal? Because of what the Lord said in chapter 10, he said, Revelation 10, these events will happen in the opening of the seventh seal, but before the Second Coming.

Casey Griffiths:
We’ve been trying to hedge our bets a little bit, but that does seem like a pretty good indication. Again, we could be wrong, but all signs point to yes.

Scott Woodward:
We have no authority to declare anything, Casey, but this is us speculating, and that’s very interesting. I do know that we are living in the time before Jesus comes. I do know that.

Casey Griffiths:
Good responsible statement there, Scott. Well done.

Scott Woodward:
All right. Well, that concludes. That was a very long, careful run through. It was hard to do Section 77 quickly, Casey, because there’s so many details and nuances and intricate symbolism. That was our effort to go through the content. But we have our third C now, which is the controversies of Section 77.

Casey Griffiths:
Oh, my goodness. Like, where to begin? We’ve dealt with a lot of it, but this is a section that, honestly, you could spend a lifetime thinking through and studying. I’m going to deal with the one that I probably hear most commonly, associated with Section 77, which is, Does Section 77 teach that the Earth is only 7,000 years old? Remember, the book has seven seals. Each seal represents a thousand years. Do we take that literally to mean that the Earth is only 7,000 years old, or are there other ways of looking at it? What do you think?

Scott Woodward:
So again, the language is in verse 6. It says, “,We are to understand that book contains the revealed will, mysteries and works of God, the hidden things of his economy concerning this Earth during,” quote, “the 7,000 years of it,” meaning the Earth’s, “continuance or its temporal existence.” Yeah, that has led some readers to conclude include that the Earth is only 7,000 years old. This would confirm the young Earth view, if you read this literally. Taken at face value, it kind of sounds like the Earth is 7,000 years old, which aligns with this group called the Young Earth Creationists. But it does seem to clash pretty strongly with modern science and a lot of LDS theology, a lot of LDS leaders. I’m thinking of people like James E. Talmage, people like John A. Widtsoe, people like Brigham Young, who were very, very open to a very old Earth that would match what scientists say is the age of the Earth. So what’s going on here with that? Here’s my take, Casey.

Casey Griffiths:
OKay.

Scott Woodward:
The most common reading of this among Latter-day Saints scholars is that this is symbolic or typological. So the phrase that was used here is temporal existence.

Scott Woodward:
And that can be seen as a period of the Earth’s fallen mortal condition. Maybe it’s 7,000 years since the fall of Adam, if you want to read it like that. Not the entire history of the Earth itself and the age of the rocks and all of that stuff. That’s one reading. Another is that this 7,000 years can be kind of a figurative schema echoing the idea of God’s seven periods of creation. You have seven periods of creation of the Earth, and then now you have tacked onto that another seven periods of creating this Earth from its first creation to the new creation we’ve been talking about. It’s creation to new creation. How do we go from a fallen world to this exalted, sanctified sea of glass, crystal type of world? This is that temporal schema of seven days of new creation is being tacked on here. That would match kind of the early Jewish mindset and Christian millennialist thinking that was totally operative among early Latter-day Saints. That’s another thought which I find intriguing and could be true. But in one way or another, this seems to reflect a spiritual framework or a figurative framework for the history working within that history.

Scott Woodward:
It seems also to be operating within kind of Peter’s language as well, where a thousand years to man is one day to God and the seven days of creation. Now we’re getting seven days of new creation happening on top of that. All this seems to be couched in this symbolic framework of scripture. The temporal history, I think, can be framed in that way. The temporal history from the Fall until new creation. I think that’s a fairly decent reading of what Latter-day Saint scholars tend to suggest on this, and I’d throw my hat in with that. I would not say that the Earth is only 7,000 years old. I’m not on board with the young Earth view of this. I think there’s more going on, and it’s all couch in that biblical typology of seven days of creation, seven more days toward new creation.

Casey Griffiths:
I tend to lean your direction to, to where, you know, the Lord has given us the scriptures, but the scriptures are not a guide to how the Earth was made. The Lord has also given us our mind and reason and science, all these marvelous tools. It seems like the Earth is older than 7,000 years. I might be wrong. Given the highly symbolic nature of the Book of Revelation, too, I’d feel more comfortable saying, for now, until we get more information, it seems like it’s more correct to say this is a typological or symbolic representation of Earth’s temporal existence. That seems to be a key phrase here. How long did the Earth exist before its temporal existence commenced? I don’t know. All the signs we have tend to point towards it existing for a very long time before that, and for the process of creation to take a very long time. And right now, using the tools that we have, that’s the picture that we can paint. But I don’t think there’s a clash here between science and religion. I don’t think if you accept Section 77, you have to say, Well, the Earth was created 7,000 years ago, and that’s that.

Casey Griffiths:
I think there’s plenty of options open to us, as well as understanding, but still fitting this into this symbolic typological exploration of future history. And again, the Lord plays around with time a lot, right? Like he’s flashing back and forth from different scenes. Right after chapter 11 of Revelation, which is basically where Section 77 goes up to, there’s a flashback to premortality, where we see Michael and the angels casting Satan out of heaven. And so time is complex for God, and it seems to be more flexible and fluid. And the way that he sees things with the past, the present, and the future all before him as one eternal now, is different than we see it. And we’ve got to take that into account when we’re trying to take scriptural passages and interpret them literally in our physical world. So again, because of the symbolic nature of this book, I would caution people, and I think we’ve done this through our whole presentation here to just be really careful and don’t over-claim when it comes to the Book of Revelation.

Scott Woodward:
I think that’s really important. I’ve heard people trying to pit scripture against science, and I think that’s irresponsible and not a good idea. It’s not what the Lord is commenting on here. That’s not the questions that Joseph Smith is asking. He’s asking about what John saw and the meaning of a very symbolic vision, and that’s it. So we need to keep it framed in that context and not take it out of that context and try to apply it to a geological one or anthropological one. Don’t do that. The Church has no official position on the age of the Earth. And Church members are totally free to accept evolution, geological time, cosmic scale creation. All the science is really interesting. We should pursue it, we should look into it, we should weigh and measure all things. That’s all really good. We’re invited to do all of that. And scripture does not contradict that. And if you read scripture to contradict that, I think you’re doing damage to the scriptures and to your understanding of science. We’ve had a couple of apostles who, for instance, James E. Talmage, who was a geologist by trade, and he also became an apostle.

Scott Woodward:
He very much saw the compatibility between what the scriptures are saying because they’re telling a particular story in a particular framework. The story that the rocks are telling us about the deep age of the Earth, he saw no incompatibility there, but suggested that if we see incompatibility, it’s because of our misreading of scripture, not because we’re reading it correctly. Anyway, we could go on and on about that. Maybe one day we should do a series, Casey, on the tension between science and religion throughout the history of our church. I think that would be an incredible series. Maybe next year we could do that. But for now, that’s probably good to let that question rest there.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. Again, run all the thought experiments you want to, but maybe keep your options open when it comes to this and wait until we gain further light and knowledge on the answers to this question.

Scott Woodward:
All right, our final C, Consequences, Casey. So what are the outcomes? What are the consequences of Section 77.

Casey Griffiths:
I will say this, Section 77 is so helpful in understanding the themes and the meaning of the Book of Revelation. But as we’ve tried to emphasize repeatedly here, there’s still a lot about the Book of Revelation that we just don’t understand yet. And a lot of people fixate on the Book of Revelation because the imagery in it is so vivid and striking. However, I want to emphasize, Doctrine and Covenants 77 only covers the first 11 chapters, really only chapter 4 to verse 11. And even though Doctrine and Covenants 88, which we’re going to cover in a couple of weeks, adds to our understanding that we just need to really cautious in being too definitive about what these symbols mean. Again, it’s really helpful, knowing what the book and the seals represent is so immensely helpful, but we need to be responsible in how we understand the Book of Revelation, too. For instance, this is something Joseph Smith said that I think about a lot. And usually when I teach the Book of Revelation, I put this up as a preface to our understanding. He said this, “I make this broad declaration that whenever God gives a vision of an image or beast or figure of any kind, he always holds himself responsible to give a revelation or interpretation of the meaning thereof. Otherwise, we are not responsible or accountable for our belief in it. Don’t be afraid of being damned for not knowing the meaning of a vision or a figure if God has not given a revelation or interpretation on the subject.”

Casey Griffiths:
So Joseph Smith is basically saying here, Hey, until we have definitive interpretation from God, which Section 77 does do for a couple of things. God saying, Here’s what the beasts mean, and here’s what the eyes mean, and here’s what the book means, and here’s what the book that John ate means. But unless there’s something like that, we aren’t held responsible for it. So we don’t have to play the guessing game of saying, Hey, this beast with this many heads represents this. Again, it can be incredibly useful for us to think about things and to ponder those things, but to not get too definitive about what they mean. The Lord in the future will give us more information. And I think eventually, the Book of Revelation is going to be totally open to us. At one point, Joseph Smith said, “It’s the plainest book God ever caused to be written.” But I think when Joseph Smith said that, what he was saying was the meaning is plain, and that is that in the end God wins and evil will be taken from the Earth, that Satan will be cast down, and a new era, a new Earth, and a new heaven will all be initiated by God.

Casey Griffiths:
That’s pretty plain from the book. So don’t get caught up too much in what this number of horns or this third of destruction means. We’ve got to be cautious and get the overall themes from the book and not get lost in its minutiae.

Scott Woodward:
Well summarized. Excellent. The Book of Revelation is the story of God’s victory. It’s a story of creation to new creation. We can all find ourselves in there somewhere. But the thing we need to come away from this book with if we’re doing it right, is hope. I love that. Well, thank you, Casey. That is part one of this week’s Come, Follow, Me. Join us in the next video for part two, Sections 78 through 80, and we’ll see you soon.

Casey Griffiths:
All right. See you then.