followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 76 Part 2 : Dr. Steven C. Harper

Episode Date: July 4, 2021

Dr. Harper returns with Hank and John to discuss how Section 76 elaborates when Paul says that we can be “joint-heirs with Christ.” We hear Dr. Harper share why he reveres Joseph Smith and what Dr. Harper feels are Joseph’s greatest gifts. Join us with one of the Church’s foremost historians to  discuss one of the most profound revelations of this dispensation.Shownotes: https://followhim.co/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannel

Welcome to part two of this week's podcast. Verse 39 can be confusing. I remember a Sunday school lesson years and years ago where there was quite a discussion about verse 39 and what it meant. It says, verse 39. All the rest should be brought forth by the resurrection of the dead through the triumph of the glory of the Lamb who was slain, who was in the bosom of the Father before the worlds were made. So I guess the important distinction to make here is those who follow Satan in the beginning, those who never do become embodied are never resurrected. But everyone else is resurrected.

So here is one of the first distinctions, right? There's a resurrection of everyone who's ever embodied, and there's no resurrection for those who never are embodied. So remembering that we're trying to chart the answer to Joseph's question, what is the difference in the resurrection of the just and the unjust? Here's a first installment. Here's a first part of an answer to that. Everyone else is brought forth, verse 39 says, by the resurrection of the dead, through the triumph and the glory of the Lamb who was slain, who was in the bosom of the Father

before the worlds were made. And then you hear Joseph and Sidney say, this is the gospel, the glad tidings. That is good news. So you asked a bit ago about universalism. In a sense, you remember Alma in the Book of Mormon, a resurrection at all is a form of salvation. So there is a universal salvation for anybody who was ever embodied in the first place. They will come forth in a resurrection and almost all of them a resurrection to glory. OK. All right. Let's notice the testimony in verse 41.

As you both know, John Hilton has been doing some really important work, drawing our attention to the fact that the scriptures are pervasive and the teachings of the prophets, that Jesus was crucified for the world to bear the sins of the world. And that's verse 41 is one of the most powerful testimonies of that. He came into the world, even Jesus, to be crucified for the world and to bear the sins of the world and to sanctify the world and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness. We don't want to overreact against Protestantism, Catholicism, and become the Christians who don't believe in the crucifixion of Christ. And sometimes we're at risk of doing that just because of cultural shifts,

nothing that our scriptures say. Let's pay particular attention to the fact that our scriptures right here emphatically declare that Jesus Christ was crucified for the sins of the world and to cleanse it from unrighteousness. So that all through him, again, verse 42, notice the word all. Notice how conspicuously that word shows up throughout this revelation. It tells us that salvation is pretty close to being universal. With exceptions, but all through him might be saved,

whom the Father had made and put into his power. I'm loving this. I would recommend everybody go back and listen to our interview with Dr. Hilton. We did one over Easter, and he is just fantastic in the way he says, we love Gethsemane. We love Gethsemane, but we can't love Gethsemane to the point that we don't talk about Calvary. Calvary is kind of a, oh yeah, that happened too. The crucifixion is what comes up over and over and over in Scripture, and we should notice that. Indeed. I was just going to say,

I just, 40 and 41 are a really nice kind of summary statement. This is the gospel. This is the glad tidings that Jesus came to be crucified for the sins of the world, to bear the sins of the world,

to sanctify the world and cleanse it from all unrighteousness. That is glad tidings. That is great news. And so I like when the scriptures kind of do a little concise. Here's the point. Yeah, very well said. His atonement is the means to the end that through him all might be saved whom the Father has made.

43 continues. And again, the word all jumps off the page to our attention. Jesus glorifies the Father and saves all the works of his hands, except the sons of perdition who denied the Son after the Father has revealed it. So again, salvation is nearly universal. Well, we might ask, well, why doesn't he save everyone? Why doesn't he save those few who, as President Packer put it, defect to perdition? And President Packer was drawing our attention to the fact that it's an active agency. God would save them if they wanted to be saved, right? If there was one shred of them, one particle of them that wanted his salvation, he has

a plan for that. And he has a Christ who's capable of it. So the fact that they're not saved is because he revealed the plan to them, and they did not want it. Yeah. Righteousness, Steve, is only righteousness if it's chosen. Right? That's the whole... Chosen, yeah. That's by definition, right? If I force someone into righteousness, that's not righteousness. That's slavery. That's force. Now, Steve, if there's any moms and dads listening here saying, oh, that's my son or daughter, I would say be careful there, right? of the father has to reveal the son to them and then go against it. And this kind of gets to the idea of what is the unpardonable sin. And the Joseph Smith statement, is that what you guys are thinking? Yeah, well, I just don't want anyone to get discouraged here thinking this is their child that is choosing not to be saved.

The Lord is going to give ample opportunity. Right. Yeah, President Packer was emphatic about that as well, right? This is relatively few. It's a tiny number of people, relatively speaking. And none of our sons and daughters, I don't think anybody we know probably, is at this threshold. I don't know exactly where to draw the line, but the line is way far out there, a lot farther than we have fathomed. Notice the emphasis. Another way to say what we're saying is to notice the emphasis

of 44, wherefore he saves all except them. The point he wants us to take away is he's going to save just about everybody unless they absolutely look him in the face and say, I don't want it. And even that is not that sort of, you know, when your kids are defiant, what they really want is a great big hug, but they're calling you names and stuff. That's not who we're talking about here either. Those aren't perdition. They're the ones that the Lord will wrap his arms around and say,

come on. Yeah, that's immaturity. That's emotional immaturity. And it happens in this home a little bit. Some from my children and some from their father. None from their mother. Some from Professor Smith. I love that high percentage word there of all.

That makes me happy. Yeah. So this is flying in the face of everything in that current culture and theology. That he's going to save all, and then there's some very few exceptions. You can hear the Lord in conversation with that theology, right? With that world, with that culture. Is almost universal damnation the case, or is universal salvation the case? And the Lord keeps telling us here in these early verses, almost universal salvation is the case,

and the only ones who will not get it are those who exercise their agency to opt out, knowing thoroughly and fully well what it is that they're choosing. Pretty hard for us to wrap our heads around why that would happen, but that's the exception there. Steve, is God too merciful to some? Is that why? No, I don't want everyone to be saved. Is it the parable of the laborers in the vineyard? I don't want, they don't deserve it. Yeah, I've had that response before, but it's always because I don't understand, right? It's when I interpret the parables and put myself, I'm the good son in the parable that we have decided to call the prodigal son, right? That's not what the scriptures call it.

Whenever I put myself in the wrong position, I think God's too merciful. Whenever I understand how it really is, I am the prodigal. When I really understand how things are, I want the most maximum mercy possible. Would some people in Joseph Smith's day say, I don't like this vision because your God is too merciful? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

It goes too far. That was a common response. That's just too far. I mean, you know, and you'll sometimes hear Latter-day Saints do this. We sometimes misunderstand evangelical Christians, and we think, oh, my gosh, all they have to do is sort of say some trite prayer that they accept Jesus, and then they're all in the kingdom. And not us.

We have to bake bread for the widows and earn merit badges and all that. And, you know, we don't understand brothers and sisters very well. We're really not that far apart. And this revelation is emphasizing to us that loving heavenly parents created us because they wanted to save us. They're creating us right now, as we might say it. They want us to inherit all they have. And they are mighty to save, right? They are capable of saving every single last one of their children.

The infinite atonement of Jesus Christ can do that. So why will some not be saved? Because they're the ones making that choice. Steve, this is wonderful. Honestly, absolutely wonderful. It's interesting to me that we, I've seen this in Latter-day Saints today, even, you know, those on Twitter.

If I say something like, God loves all of his children. Well, hold on. Well, God, you know, God's, and I'm like, that doesn't mean he can bless all of his children because they don't, you know, every blessing is tied to that doesn't mean he can bless all of his children because they don't – every blessing is tied to a commandment. But God loves all of his children.

No. Well, you're going a little far there. I don't know. It's like, come on. He delights to bless. Yeah. What was that, Elder Holland? Surely the thing God loves most about being God is the thrill of being merciful.

We get parable of the labors in the vineyard at that point. But wait a minute, you haven't done nearly as much work as I have. And so it seems wrong to us to be so merciful. My dad joined the church when he was 24. And if you wanted to make him mad, just say something like, oh, you got to do all this before. Which he didn't. He was a good boy. But as if wickedness was happiness. But I just think it's interesting when we suddenly become deciding what's fair and what's not. When the greatest unfairness ever was the Savior's sacrifice for us.

As Elder Rendland just gave that talk, you know? Why should it bother us if that's the labor in the vineyard? Are you envious because I'm generous? And what's interesting is you get exactly what you expected to get. Like the Lord in the parable, this is Matthew chapter 18, I think it is, or Matthew 20, one or the other. And the Lord says, you've got exactly what we agreed to. It's yours.

What is the problem? And that goes back to President Benson's great talk on pride. I don't want the celestial kingdom. I want the celestial kingdom because I can look down on a bunch of other people. I want more than the next guy. Yeah, I want the celestial kingdom because I can look down on a bunch of other people. I want more than the next guy. Yeah. Yeah. I want more. Oh. And you know what I love about that? To bring in a quick Book of Mormon reference, I love to kind of look at the parable of the labors in the vineyard and then, you know, Alma and Ammon, when the brethren all get back together and it's like, my joy was even more because of the joy of my brother. And there wasn't that, oh, man, you guys did better than I did.

You know? Is it the older we get, the more merciful we want God to be just because we start to, I don't know. To realize. For me personally, the older I get, the more I'm grateful for his mercy. I think so. And you just kind of cut people slack and think, you know, they're doing the best they can. I don't know if it's a function of old or Joseph Smith, as you know, taught to the Relief Society in 1842. He said, the nearer we come to our Heavenly Father, the more merciful we are.

The more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls. But that's interesting to me, Steve, that the people of Joseph Smith's day would not go, this is awesome, right? I love how merciful God is. Instead, oh, what did you say? The saints fly to pieces. Is that what he said? Fly to pieces like that.

There are some of them who are inclined to universalism. The knights do. So there are some of them who do. And Joseph's dad likes the universalist streak. The next chunk of the Revelation addresses another thing that's in the air, and that is speculation about the nature of hell and punishment. So the Lord essentially says, your guys' speculation is all nonsense. None of you have any idea what you're talking about. And I'm not going to tell you, right? So Joseph, after this, will write a letter to the saints in Missouri. So tell brother Burkett that that stuff he's teaching in,

uh, you know, Cora meeting or whatever is nonsense. He has no idea. So, so the Lord, I can see it here. It was not,

it neither was it revealed. Neither is, neither will be. Yeah. So, so we still don't know exactly the nature of punishment, right? Thinking all the way back to section 19, the Lord says, look, I use the words eternal punishment, but don't think that you necessarily understand what I mean by that. It can mean more than you might think.

I'm so glad I had these verses because students will sometimes ask, what's hell like? I don't want to... And it's like, well, the Lord's like, just stop, right? There's almost a, don't ask, I'm not going to tell you. Yeah. How long it lasts, how hot it is, those things that were the subject of many, many sermons in Joseph's day. Here the Lord says, you really don't know. And I'm not telling you that stuff. Sometimes I give you a little glimpse of it, but then I shut it up again. Verse 47 says in 48 says, you really don't know how wide, high, deep, how much the misery is. You really can't understand it unless you actually end up there. So don't speculate. Don't think you can fathom it. And then 49 is write this down.

Guys, this is really spectacular stuff. I used to think that they would stop at this point and write it all down and then envision some more. And that is a live possibility. But it is the case that the earliest manuscript we have of this vision is the very first entry in what we call Revelation Book 2. They went and bought a new book. They had just sent Revelation Book 1 to Missouri for printing. So they're in Ohio, and they go out and buy a new book and put this revelation in it. And so it might be that these repeated verses like 49 are the Lord saying, guys, before this evaporates from your minds, get a book and write it down.

So both of those are live possibilities for how it gets recorded. Steve, can I just jump in? I have felt this before. How about both of you? That when I have something divine happen to me, I have that, there's that prompting. Write it down. It reminds me of President Eyring, his talk, right? The Lord said, I'm not giving these experiences just for you. Write them down. Write them down, write them down. And I have noticed in my personal life,

and I would love to hear from both of you, that if I do write them down, it's almost as if I'm showing the Lord I'm serious and I want more. I'm not a journal keeper of like epic proportions. I got to say that. But when something happens to me that I know is clearly the hand of God, I have a little, just even a little note on my phone that I say, I'm going to make a couple of notes here about this because I want the, I don't know, write it down. It's important. I think that President Eyring, you referred to that talk, and I think we're talking about the same talk, and I won't get the words right, but it was a, oh, a paradigm shift for me. I thought a journal was, I went on this trip and I won this trophy. And he was like,

document the hand of God in your life. It was a totally different reason. And it dawned on me, you know, that's kind of a lot of what the scriptures are. It's people documenting the hand of God in their life and putting their testimony down. So you guys have made me feel a little better. I'm the world's worst journal keeper. And you're a historian. Yeah. Well, I do believe that everyone else should keep a journal. So you can study it. But Joseph Smith was not too far on the list above me. He started a journal in November of 1832. It's not started yet at the time of Section 76. And it was only after the Lord really got on him in Section 85 for the second time, told him, you've got to keep a record.

So he bought a journal. He wrote in it dutifully for 10 days. Then he quit for 10 months. And it was on and off like that for the rest of his life. We have about 1,500 plus pages of his journals, but only about 30 or 35 of them, I think 33, are in his hand. And when they are, they're about the role of God, the hand of God in his life. When they're not, it's his clerk saying, today he read this or went there or had this meeting. So even bad journal keepers like me can obey the instruction we've received from our prophets and from the Lord to keep a record in which people will be able to see the evidence of God's hand.

Imagine what would have happened if they had not obeyed the command to write this vision. We wouldn't be sitting here today talking about the good news of the restoration. I think one reason is, and this might be a silly example. I looked into a new car the other day called the Honda Crosstour. I'd never even seen it before, right? I'd never seen a Honda Crosstour before, but I was like, hey, that's a good looking car. I like that car. Maybe I'll buy one.

I looked on KS, you know, on the classifieds and said, oh, what? And then I started seeing that car everywhere. I had never seen it before. And yet there it is in that intersection, in that parking lot. And there it is there again. There's something about when you're recording things, you have a, I don't know, your mind is looking for them. You're paying attention to them. They've been there the whole time, right? It's not like everybody just started buying cross stores. Unless, of course, they were like, well, Hank Sutton, he's a trendsetter. He's interested.

We're all going to be interested. I started to see it more. And I think that's one of the reasons I think the Lord says, write these things down. Because then you're going to see more of it. And it's there. It's already there. The hand of God is already around you. But you're just not seeing it because perhaps you're not writing it down.

You're not taking notice. Anyway, thanks for letting me stop there on verse 49. Write the vision. You bet. Verse 50 tells us, okay, now we're going to launch into the resurrection of the just, right? This was Joseph's question. Lord, help me understand the difference between the resurrection of the just and the unjust. Is it that simple or is there more complexity to it?

Is there more layers, more levels? Joseph and Sidney said, we're going to bear record now of what we saw and heard the Lord show us about the resurrection of the just. And so it's a good exercise to do with students here to have them pay close attention and see when we transition to the resurrection of the unjust. And what we notice is there's not a clear line. There's not a black and white line. That is, we go from here to a variety of kinds of resurrection. Some of the more just, some of the less just, and some of the unjust. And that's how section 76 complexifies or complicates heaven. I don't mean those in negative terms, right? This diversity of heaven, let's use that word since it's a better word.

There is a heaven beyond heaven. There are more levels of heaven than we've thought. By the time we're done reading the Revelation, we almost have the idea that there are as many heavens as there are people to inhabit the heavens. And we simplify it in a celestial heaven, a terrestrial heaven, and a telestial. But even as we read along, there are reasons to think that it's even more complex or diverse than that.

There appears to be plenty of room. When I look up in the night sky, it looks like there's a lot of space. So verse 50 starts the conversation of the vision the description of the resurrection of the just these are the ones who receive the testimony of christ they're they're those who are baptized with him baptized in his is the image of his burial the manner of his burial it says buried in the water in his name. These are people who live, make, and keep covenants. My family has very short come-follow-me discussions usually, and they're usually pretty one-sided.

And the other day while we were feeding our mouths at the counter, I said, what's the most important thing we will ever do? I want you to pick one word. You can just pick one word. What's the most important thing we will ever do? I want you to pick one word. You can just pick one word. What's the most important thing we will ever do? And my 16-year-old son said, covenant. And he was right. The most important thing any of us will ever do is covenant. And that's what we're reading here. If we could sum up everything that the people who come forth in the resurrection of the just do, it is that they make and keep covenants. They're not necessarily, if I understand, they're not necessarily superior quality people in any other way, right? They're

not smarter than other people. They're not morally superior. They're not necessarily more righteous. They make and keep covenants. Covenants become the guiding determinant of their lives in Christ, and they therefore overcome by faith. They are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, which the Father sheds forth on all those who are just and true. They become members of the church of the firstborn, which this section, section 88, others will talk about that church. I'm not sure I have a good handle on what that church is. This is what he says in, this is Doctrine and Covenants 1067. Behold, this is my doctrine. Whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my church. I really like that statement.

It's very, it's very inclusionary. Yeah, and it makes it sound like a group of people that believe one thing versus they get together in a church. Yeah. I think what we could say safely, and I don't mean to be too definitive about the church of the firstborn. It's a mystery to me, but section 88 weighs in on it too.

And what we can notice is that both sections 76 and 88, especially in these passages are temple concepts. We might even think of them as somewhat esoteric. That is sort of teachings and concepts that haven't been fully elaborated by this point in the Restoration and that only are elaborated the further and further we go in temple teachings and temple doctrine. So, for example, notice the close proximity in both Section 76 and Section 88 to making and keeping covenants that are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. I think we could safely say that those who are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise or the Holy Ghost in its role of being a verifier and a validator of covenant faithfulness,

those are the ones who are members of the Church of the Firstborn. It's not the same as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is a heavenly church for those who are faithful to their covenants and who receive all the promised blessings of their covenants. I think we could say that. Another way to say it is verse 55, they are they into whose hands the Father has given all things. We could read that in terms of temple. You mentioned section 138 already.

Do you think 76, I know, is received in 1832, and you've got 138 not received until 1918, right? But do you see them as working together? Because some people won't be able to make covenants in this life, right? Yeah, certainly. So I would see these two as, in our day, in 2021, we have the blessing of having them both. And so let them kind of work together as in, this is this life or the next. Yeah, certainly we do. With only 76, we don't understand how vast this plan of salvation is. And with Section 88, our minds are blown again when we realize that God is a spectacular planner for happiness, salvation, and exaltation.

Okay. Verses 56 and 7, with their emphasis on priesthood and kings and priests, emphasize to us again that we're talking about temple. Ultimately, we're talking about temple covenants, making and keeping temple covenants, and the promises of exaltation that come with it. These folks dwell in the presence of God and his Christ forever and ever. These are the ones that come with him when he comes again in the clouds of heaven. These are the ones who have part in the first resurrection. So clearly the first resurrection is the resurrection of the just.

That's what verse 65 says. I want to know what you would say to someone who, you know, we have this idea in the church of like, well, celestial kingdom, celestial glory, that's kind of out of my reach. I'm shooting for terrestrial kingdom. And there's nothing in these two columns that I see that says, yeah, you're probably not going to make it. I see a lot of invitations here of repentance. Fill your life with the spirit. If you want to be part of this. Makes me think of the late, great scholar, Stephen Robinson. Yeah.

Right. scholar, Stephen Robinson, right? And his book, Believing Christ, which begins with the story of his wife, who is, you know, all a wonderful Latter-day Saint woman in every way, who gives up, who says, I just can't do this. I'm not celestial material. And they have a conversation where they realize there's no such thing as celestial material. And they have a conversation where they realize there's no such thing as celestial material. There's just fallen mortals, imperfect people who get to choose what they want. Right?

This is not a list of inherent qualities. This is a list of people who choose one thing over another. You're faced with a choice to covenant or not, to be baptized or not, to keep the baptismal covenant or not, to make and keep the temple covenants or not. It really has very little to do with inherent qualifications. It all depends on an exercise of agency. Gaining the celestial kingdom has nothing to do with being particularly inherently great. It has everything to do with what you really want. Look at verse 69. The people who get the

resurrection of the just are imperfect people who were made perfect through Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. He's the one who did the hard work through the shedding of his own blood. Our job is just to choose. Choose him. Choose you this day. Verse 52, washed and cleansed from all their sins. That means they had sins to be washed and cleansed from. Absolutely right. They're repenting. Yeah. As sinful as other folks, but they just decided they want the blessings that God offers and they opted for them.

I really like that idea. It's not a list of qualifications that you're trying to attain, but it's where's your heart. And Stephen Robinson's second book after Believing Christ was called Following Christ. And he had a phrase in there that I just loved. He said, the question is not, am I going to make it. And your 16-year-old son who gave that answer about make a covenant, yeah, you're in the covenant. So the question isn't, am I going to make it? The question is, do I want to stay? That book blessed me a lot, both of those. I remember Dr. Robinson saying, mercy is only mercy if you don't deserve it.

The moment you earn it, it's not mercy. It's justice. You earned it. So let God be merciful. Let him give you things you don't deserve. So would I be correct in saying, Steve, that if someone is feeling this section and they're like, oh, I'm just not celestial material. Hey, if you're repenting, if you are sincerely repenting and God has your heart, you are on the right path you are headed yeah absolutely headed there yeah yeah absolutely and and i uh the way i sometimes talk about it is repent relentlessly oh i like that it's it's not that if you repent and then you are flawless from then on out i don't know anybody like that. So a relentless repenter, somebody who every day,

or maybe every other day, or maybe once a year manifests that sincere, sincerity is crucial. You can't fake it. You can't repent if you don't mean to repent. But everybody who sincerely repents and comes to Christ is a candidate for the celestial kingdom. Repent relentlessly. Absolutely. That's a great phrase. It is. The new young women's theme has a phrase at least Sister Becky Craven said that that's one that has come up again and again.

The young women appreciate that phrase, I cherish the gift of repentance. And I'm glad we're talking about this because it can sound like it's this one-time thing, and then if you sin again, it all comes back and you're toast. To me, it sounds to me like most of the scriptures are what we're talking about. You keep repenting every day. You make course corrections every day. And the fact that the Lord has the sacrament table there every Sunday kind of tells us, yeah, you're probably going to mess up again. So powerful. Come on back and we'll do this again week and we'll do it the next week and

we'll do it the next week. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. I wish everybody could know Steve Robinson, right? I wish everybody had to read, believe in Christ.

And then they got to know him because I love his soul. He's a curmudgeon. He's passed now. Wonderful, delightful, but sort of grouchy. Didn't feel well very much. Struggled with some serious health problems. And if they could realize that that guy knows very well that he's going to have celestial heaven because that's what he really wants and then say, yeah, but he's not Mr. Rogers. He's sarcastic or whatever. Then they would really get what he's saying in the book.

Right. And I feel when I realize that, I think, well, then I'm going to make it too. I'm going to be all right. Because whatever flaws I have, whatever sins I commit, I am sincere. I love Christ and I want to love him better. And I am sincere in my repentance. And those are the criteria that qualify us for him saying, then I will make you perfect. I think I'm going to remember repent relentlessly for the rest of my life. Well, if you don't mind an airplane reference, I have airplanes behind me on my desk, but you can't see them. But President Uchtdorf, I love that idea of an airliner is off course most of the time, but it relentlessly corrects itself. It's constantly correcting itself until it touches down on the runway.

But it's the whole time the autopilot is fixing the winds and everything else that's going on. So I like that metaphor. And it's not a one-time course correction. It's a daily, hourly, and minutely. Well, gentlemen, notice that we make a transition between verse 69 and 71 from the resurrection of the just. And we learned in verse 70 that these people will be resurrected into celestial bodies. People who are made perfect through the atonement of Christ resurrected into celestial bodies. And the glory of the sun is sort of the type for that.

And then in verse 71, the visionaries, Joseph and Sidney Rigdon, see a terrestrial world. And these are people who are resurrected into terrestrial bodies, and the moon is typical of that. But what we don't see here is any clear indication that we have stopped talking about the resurrection of the just and are now talking about the resurrection of the unjust. Remember the text in John 5 that we started with, that we're curious about, said the resurrection of the just, they go to heaven. The resurrection of the unjust, they're condemned. And here we're getting a nuance, a layer, a whole different way of thinking about resurrection to glory. So this is added.

This is all new materials, not even in the Book of Mormon. And the Bible only hints at it. So this wonderful section that follows is restoration of knowledge that was missing until February of 1832. These are people who die without the law. And this is where, as Hank was saying earlier, Section 138 really helps us because if all we had was 76, we would be led to the conclusion that people who die without knowing the restored gospel and having accepted it

can do no better than terrestrial heaven. But when we read Section 76 in combination with 138, we realize that everyone, whoever lived, regardless of when they died, can receive all the blessings of celestial heaven. So we can qualify these verses and say, these are people who don't accept the law on either side of death. These are, verse 73, these are folks who go to the spirit prison. The Savior visits and preaches to them there so they can be judged, just as if they were living in the flesh. They received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh,

but they afterwards received it. And I think when we put this in combination with section 138, what we're learning here is these are people who knew better, who knew they should have received the gospel earlier, who didn't for one reason or another. I don't know what that threshold is. I was uncomfortable on my mission when one of my companions would, people would reject us at the door and he'd say, you're going to hell then. And I don't know for sure, but I think the threshold is higher than that. I think our loving Heavenly Father will make awfully sure that everybody knows what they can do, knows the gospel and what they can do with it. And your agency is not fully activated until you know.

Until you know. And I'm not sure a couple of kids showing up on your doorstep and making one door approach is enough knowledge. Let's come back to the opening, verse 5. I, the Lord, am merciful and gracious and delight in this. I want to just tell you as a teenager when I read this, I needed a better definition of the word receive because it didn't sound fair to me. Well, they didn't get it. That's not fair. And receive is choosing to receive, choosing to accept it. And so I think you use the word accept. And I think if anybody's reading it the way I did when I was a teenager, they received it,

not the testimony of Jesus. Well, what it means is they refused it. They didn't, they refused to accept it. And that helped me make sense of it. I like that insight, John. In 74, you could replace received not with rejected. Exactly. It's not that they didn't get a chance. It's that they willfully refused it. They rejected it. Thank you.

Yeah. And what they did next was say, you know, I regret that. I should have done better. I'm happy to accept. So these are folks who wanted some but not all of the glory that was available to them, and that's exactly what they're going to get. They want some but not all. These are good people, right?

These are fine people. I'm not sure that there's nothing in the Revelation that indicates that heirs of celestial heaven are somehow superior to these people. It's just tells us that they want celestial heaven, whereas these people really don't. I'm guessing you know people like this. I do. I know people who are really terrific, wonderful people. And I say, well, would you like all these blessings of the gospel? I say, no, not really. That terrestrial stuff, that sounds great to me. Perfectly content there. Happiest can be. So if I get that, that's all I'll ever ask.

I like what you said. People who want, who choose, who it's not. Am I wrong in saying I don't think anybody's going to go to the terrestrial kingdom who doesn't want the terrestrial kingdom, right? I don't think anybody's going to the celestial kingdom who doesn't want the celestial kingdom. There's a Book of Mormon phrase about you would be more miserable to dwell. There's this idea of you're going to go where you feel comfortable and happy as we're talking about where you want. Joseph taught that for sure. That same principle. It seems as Latter-day Saints, we've moved the line between heaven and hell.

It's now between the celestial kingdom and the terrestrial kingdom. Heaven is the celestial kingdom and anything below that could be considered hell. Because I've heard that before. Oh, you believe that I'm going to hell. That's not this revelation. No, you don't find that here. This revelation is about heaven. Yeah.

All of the things it talks about are heaven. Celestial, terrestrial, telestial. These are heaven. These are degrees of heavenly glory. All of them. So you could think of perdition as hell. And Joseph will teach also that hell is a kind of quality. It's what we put ourselves through when we realize we didn't act as we should have acted.

We didn't exercise our agency in the way we really wish we had. Hell is also a description for that state between death and resurrection, right? Even for the righteous, section 45 teaches us they consider it a time of bondage. Yeah, they're damned in a sense. They cannot make progress until the resurrection comes. So there's a state there of hell. But what this revelation shows us is that there's a whole lot more heaven than there is hell. In some ways, it's a reversal of the notion that we start with,

where hell's very, very big and heaven's very tiny. When we come through section 76, we realize hell is pretty tiny tiny and heaven is not only big, but it's quite diverse. Steve, you mentioned at the very beginning about, and maybe this is a good place to fit this in, maybe not, but you mentioned at the beginning about some can say that we are saved and damned at the same time. It would just be one of those places to say that, that, you know, like, so if I'm in the celestial kingdom,

do I think I'm damned or do I think I'm saved? Both, right? You're going to be in heaven. It surpasses understanding the glory of, of telestial heaven, even surpasses understanding the revelation says. And at the same time,

I think we'll probably be aware that there was more, more we could have had if that's what we really wanted. So in that way, then we consider it being, being damned because there could have been more. And there's an ongoing conversation to which we don't have a good answer about whether there's progression between the kingdoms. Some of your listeners will say, absolutely, there isn't, because so-and-so said so.

And others will say, absolutely, there is, because so-and-so said so. Frankly, it's an unsettled question. We really don't know the answer to that at this point. It makes me think, what we've been talking about makes me think of the line from Jonathan Edwards, the great Reverend Edwards, Presbyterian minister in the 18th century, New England, who used the words, God's arbitrary sovereign will. Why will some people go to heaven and some people go to hell? Because of God's arbitrary sovereign will. And that's not what section 76 is teaching us. These destinations are our choosing. Every child of God had the option of choosing any of them they wanted. And the reason we end up where

we do is because of what we wanted, what we chose. It's not arbitrary. God is sovereign, but he uses his sovereign power to put that power to choose in us. We get to decide. I think it's – maybe it's our education system because I want to get an A. I tried really hard. I got my score back, and I got a C. I really wanted the celestial kingdom, but I got the telestial kingdom, and I had – I did my my best and I just didn't get it. And we've got to throw that out the window and say, these are all choices.

This is what you want. I just wish one thing if I could help my fellow Latter-day Saints is this idea of the anxiety over, I've got to be good enough. I've got to be good enough. I've got to be good enough. And I'm saying, just repent enough, right? Just keep repenting. Just keep repenting and you're on the right path. Yeah. What we really have to do is want the right thing. What's your desire? What do we love? What is your desire? What do you love? Do you love me? Jesus asks Peter. And Peter is sort of, of course I do. No, I mean it.

I'm really asking, do you love me? And as you know, this is in the context of these wonderful fat fish. Peter's just caught the biggest catch of his life. And those fish are money, right? It would be like if I was looking at a pile of thousand dollar bills and have a life choice to make, right? I've been called to the full-time ministry of the Savior, or I could go fishing and I could make a lot of money. And I just had the biggest jackpot of my life. And now I'm having breakfast with the savior. And he's saying, do you love me?

Do you love me more than that pile of thousand dollar bills? Yeah, of course I do. No, I mean it. Think about it. I'm serious. Do you love me? Of course I do. Do you love me?

Yes. Well then do the right things, right? Feed my sheep, show that you love me. So that's the question that's really being asked of us. Not, do you check all the boxes for a celestial heir? He takes care of that part. He makes us perfect through the shedding of his own blood. The question he's asking us is, do you love me? And Elder Holland says that so much more beautifully than I possibly can. But that's the question.

We get to answer that question for ourselves. It comes ringing down through the halls of time, he said. Do you love me? And we get to answer that question every day. I love the symmetry, elegance of Peter's three denials, and then Jesus giving him a chance to answer, thou knowest I love thee three times, and feed my sheep three times, and how that he just kind of gave him a chance to reverse course. And I was going to say that we need the Savior to help us want the right things. I think Joseph Smith talked about the nearer man approaches perfection,

the clearer his views, the greater his enjoyments, until he has lost desire for sin. But he says, but we, what's the word? We expect this is a station which no man ever arrived in a moment. And so that's another thing we ask for, is for the Lord to help us want the right things. That's part of the grace of the atonement. Absolutely. To actually lose desire for sin and to not want sin, but to want the best things. That's Mosiah 5, right? The Holy Ghost has, the Spirit has wrought a mighty change in us. We have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.

I used to think, where's the order form for that? How do I sign up for that? And I used to wonder, were they done? Like, forever? And then right after that, King Benjamin gives them a name to put on themselves. And I think, I don't think they were done. I think in that moment, and I think we've all had moments where conference is over the last day, man, and we're so fired up and that was awesome. And we have no desire to sin.

And then we go back to work and school the next day and we got to lose it again. Relentless repenter. Right. So to sum up, uh, terrestrial heirs are the ones who are not valiant in the testimony of Jesus. They have it. They just don't endure faithfully in it. They show that it's not what they ultimately really want most. And that's fine. They get what they really want most. And verse 81 sums that part of the vision up. And again, verse 80, they're told to write that before they forget it,

while they're still in the spirit, while it's still clear in their minds. We transition from the terrestrial to the telestial kingdom. In verse 89, the two seers here are seeing the telestial heaven, which surpasses all understanding. We have a folk doctrine in the church that we might dispel here. I heard it taught in my youth that Joseph had said that if you could just see the telestial kingdom, you'd be willing to kill yourself just to get there. And that's not what he taught.

That misses the mark. What he apparently taught, according to Wilfred Woodruff is that it's important for us to fulfill our mission on the earth it's important for us to have a probation here at least for many of us and so God endowed us with fear of death none of us even if we know the plan of salvation none of us are eager to die we do just about all we can to prevent it, and only folks who are in utter despair get over that to the point of that extreme.

So what Joseph taught is because we're supposed to finish our mortal probation on the earth, God implanted in us a fear of death. And if we could see what awaits us, that fear would go away. Joseph didn't say the telestial kingdom. He said the other side of the veil, right? If you could see what's beyond this earth, there's nothing very scary, no reason to be scared of death. So we don't want to misstate that. I made a wonderful student cry one day when I said, that's a bunch of crap.

Don't sugarcoat it. Utterly insensitively. And I've felt bad ever since. And I've wondered if that made me a telestial heir. I'm really glad you brought that up, though. And I'm glad you called it a folk doctrine. Yeah, so the terrestrial glory is pretty spectacular compared to the telestial, and the celestial is exponentially more spectacular than that, like the sun is more

glorious than the moon, and the moon more glorious than the stars. So then we launch into a section here where we kind of review. We go back through all three kingdoms again. And the most striking thing about the heirs of the celestial kingdom in this passage is that God makes them equal, in verse 95, equal to him in power and in might and in dominion. Now, this is one of the things that is repugnant to most of the rest of Christianity. If the early converts had a hard time with it, this might be one reason why. And there are lots of our Christian sisters and brothers today who will say, oh, I was with you when you said that we were saved through the perfect atonement of Christ that he worked out with the shedding of his own blood.

But when you're telling me that he's going to make us equal to God and power, might, and dominion, they just think that is so objectionable because it's blasphemous to consider ourselves as of the same species as God. We can't become like God. And, of course, this is what I love about the plan of salvation. It's the very thing that repulses many of our brothers and sisters about the restored gospel is one of the things that's most beautiful about it to me. So we're going to have to disagree there. I love that the purpose of the plan is for God to raise his children to be like him, to be in his presence, to see as they are seen, as verse 94 says it,

know as they are known. That's going to be so great to be in God's presence and see and know how we fit in his family and to receive the fullness of his grace and to be made equal to him. We're not claiming that we can do that on our own. That's one of the objections is that sometimes Latter-day Saints misunderstand or are perceived to think that they earn their way up to be like God. Nothing in this revelation says that. It's him who's making us equal to him.

It's him who's giving us this power and might and dominion. It's him who wants to endow his children with all of the blessings he has, with all the happiness he has. And so I love that truth. I'm very grateful that it's been restored in the latter days. And you can see hints of it with Paul, right? We're made heirs, joint heirs with Christ. I mean, C.S. Lewis started to see it towards the end of his writing, right?

He said, you see mere mortals, but these are potential gods and goddesses. Yeah. And there's not a thing in the Bible that objects to it or refutes it. It's only if you read the Bible through the lenses much on Greek philosophical ideas for its orientation to the Bible. And that's why we get ideas that make us so inferior that we could never become like our Heavenly Father. Well, and I think, too, to the fact the last word you said our heavenly father we take that not as a metaphor this is all about family and of course we're going to become like our father of course our father wants to reward his children and not it's

not a metaphor he's our father indeed beggotten sons and daughters unto God. Yeah, that phrase back there, we are all called begotten sons and daughters. And that Greek philosophy took that away too, didn't it? We're a creation. We're metaphorically his children, but not really. Yeah. Absolutely. There can't be anything other than God originally, so we have to be created out of nothing by God.

And the restored gospel rejects that. And there are lots of implications either way, depending on what you decide to do with that original idea about who God is. Section 76. Tell me if I'm right here, Steve. I think it was Richard Bushman who said in swipes, Joseph Smith cut Gordian knots, right? Section 76 seems to be one of those. How can God be both merciful and just? It certainly does.

And other revelations too, right? I've heard that same phrase used with Section 93. Truman Madsen used it in terms of Section 93, which describes how we can be both created by God and free. Yeah. Right? What's the nature of our agency, of our independence from God, if we are extensions of God. And that's an old and problematic question, and Section 93 answers it really brilliantly. Section 76 similarly cuts through lots of arguments in Christianity and sets forth a much more diverse and generous, copious heaven than traditional Christianity has ever imagined.

Yeah. I mean, I've always thought, and I could be wrong, but I've always thought that Latter-day Saints, among all the theologies on the earth, have a very liberal view of heaven and who will go. Let me tell you in practical terms what that means to me. There's a lot of people I love generally and specifically people I know in different Christianities, different denominations and people I look to as examples, right, of Christ-like love and behavior and devotion to God and so forth. And according to some of their soteriology, I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to make it because I have chosen the wrong version of Christ in whom to put my faith. And for them, salvation is a matter of propositionally choosing the right philosophy of who Christ is. Well, in the version of Section 76, I'm going to make it, and so are they.

This is what I love about it. This is a more generous view of salvation. It's hard for me to believe in a God who does save and damn people by his arbitrary sovereign will, or even by saying, if you believe the right exact ideas about Christ, you can get in. You could be Mother Teresa and spend your life serving, but if you believe the wrong ideas about Christ, you're not getting in. That doesn't work for me. That's not a God of mercy.

That's not the God we were introduced to in the beginning of this session. I hope I end up with Mother Teresa, yeah. Yeah, I'll be so fortunate if it ever works out that way. Um, uh, so here we have in section 76, a version of God's plan and plans for us that is worthy, worthy of a God who, who wants us to have all the blessings that are possibly available to us, not because we deserve them. We don't deserve them. We don't earn them, but we get to choose them.

We get to have them if we want them, because Jesus Christ, the mediator of this plan, worked it out through the shedding of his own blood, and he is capable of making us perfect. And even if I don't have exactly the right ideas about exactly who he is, I can make it. What I need to do is covenant, covenant with God, and grow by degrees and by grace that he gives me.

And if I'll do that, I'm going to make it in. I'm going to make it to whatever level of heaven I want. And I want the one where I get to be with Jenny Sebring for all eternity. That's the motivation for me. Otherwise, I'm an introverted guy. I'd take it to celestial heaven if it surpassed all understanding and had an ESPN place you know, place that I could watch.

That'd be okay with me. But that's unsatisfying now because I want to be with my family forever. And the way to get there is through the new and everlasting covenant of marriage and the highest of the heavenly glories. I'm glad you said that because that takes us to another section. And this isn't being revealed right now yet about eternal families right would you yeah so we we talked in the beginning about how you know everything we've had on salvation before 76 is sort of like you know third grade math we've advanced up to that level and we have an

understanding of the basic concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. And then section 76 says, let's learn algebra and some trigonometry. And then later sections are going to say, now there's some more beyond that, there's some calculus. And section 131 says, in the celestial heaven, there are even degrees beyond that. And the highest and holiest of all salvations is exaltation, where we get to be with our families forever. And so that's the goal for me, right? That's the great prize. To be with my people I cherish most for eternity is the greatest motivator of

my life. I love what you said there about it's him, right? It's him. He made it possible. He wants to give us everything that we want, right? That we choose. And I think it kind of gives us that in 107, the end of the plan, the Savior says, I have overcome. I have overcome and have trodden the winepress alone, even the winepress of the fearness of the throne of his power to reign forever and ever. If we realize that he overcomes, he is the one who does, you know, that fear we have of, oh, can I earn it? Can I earn it? He did earn it. And now he has the right to give you what you want. Jesus Christ is the protagonist of section 76. He is the main character. He's the hero. In act one, we met him in the premortal life. We saw him there. And we've watched throughout.

And in the midpoint of the revelation, he worked out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood. And here at the end, he says, I did it all by myself. I tried the wine proselyne and I will be crowned. You'll be crowned there with me. We see the culmination, the climactic fulfillment of Christ's redeeming work and the plans of salvation that he has brought to pass here in the verses that you were just referring to. It's really a Christ-centered revelation. For people who say Latter-day Saints aren't Christians, really they're just saying we don't believe in the same philosophical premises about Christ that they do.

But it's hard to read section 76 and say a believer in that is not a believer in Christ. Is there anything to the story, Steve, of the vision closing and Sydney collapsing or of some sort? I think there is. Yeah, no reason to disbelieve it. Again, we've got Philo Dibble, who throughout the 1870s, 80s, and early 90s gives us a few different accounts of having been present for at least part of this. And as I remember, if I remember right, he's our source for saying Sidney was sort of fatigued when it was over, and Joseph said he's not as used to it as I am. That's a great moment. Which I think is really cool. That's a great moment. I think it's a great moment. Which I think is really cool. That's a great moment. I think it's consistent too. I always think of Joseph Smith saying, when I came to,

I was lying on my back. Apparently it wears you out or something. And maybe he grew to grew stronger process, but I like that Sidney Rigdon had to be carried. That's a cool one. We ought to come out of this revelation realizing that we still don't know the celestial math, right? These last verses, yeah, 115. 115, 116. They say, you guys make sure you write all that down, but trust me, you still, you don't know anything. And I got more to tell you about that. And he told us at the beginning of the revelation, he would very generously tell us all about this just as soon as we could internalize

it. So that is good. Leadership style is, is giving people, um, giving people assignments that they're capable of, that are just a little outside their reach and letting them get there and then give them a little more just outside their reach, but don't overwhelm them to the point that now they're discouraged because they can't comprehend it all. If I try to do that as a parent, not try to overwhelm a child with so much that they're overloaded and can't move at all, but just, just push a little bit further every time, a little bit further, let's reach a little bit more every time. Um, I, I, and I, I can see the Lord doing that with these sections. And to me, it's another testimony to the prophet Joseph Smith that he's including

little tiny hints at future revelations. He would have to have the whole plan set out in his mind to be making this up, right? To throw in little hints here and there. In his history, there's an entry right after this revelation that is one of the key things I think about when I realize he's not the inventor of these ideas, because he sits back after he sees this series of visions and he marvels at it. And the next passage in his history says that is so far beyond the narrow mindedness of man that all of us are constrained to exclaim. It came from God.

He, he, he couldn't have conceived of this, right? There are other people Alex Campbell who we mentioned earlier on he's playing with the idea of three kingdoms but nothing like this nothing so sophisticated

he says the first two you kind of experience on earth and then there's the kingdom of glory after this Emanuel Swedenborg 100 years or so earlier he's tapping into Pauline phrases in Corinthians and talking about three kingdoms of heaven and so on. But nobody, none of them come anywhere close to this. I wouldn't be surprised if Swedenborg had some inspired ideas. But then you get this text and you think that just blew the roof off of everything. That's Joseph himself says, dang, that is so far beyond me and everybody else.

It came from God. Because of what happened after this, did it have a big impact on the persecution because it was published in the paper or whatever? Yeah, I don't know anything about that. I don't think it had anything specific to do with the march beating and tarring feathers. But I do know that Joseph told the missionaries, keep that on the down low, right? Do not start with, hey, did you guys know that? Right? Let's get to that calculus after we do addition and subtraction.

Brigham Young had a hard time internalizing it. Wilford would have said it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I loved it. Kind of a favorite statement of mine of Joseph Smith was the, could you gaze into heaven for five minutes? You would know more than by reading everything ever written on the subject. And here is all of this. And then even at the end, and there's more,

which we're commanded not to write. There's even more. It's not lawful to write, and neither is man capable of writing them. And I love that God is greater and grander than we have imagined. It's a good section for that statement about if you could gaze into heaven for five minutes, and he and Sidney did. The ending does seem to say that. It just says, we're not even coming close to telling you what we saw. Yeah, he wrote a letter where he said, Lord, deliver me from the narrow prison of paper, pen and ink and a crooked, broken, scattered and imperfect language. And notice that some of this text is dictated, right? Some of it's in the first person voice of the Savior.

But most of it is you guys describe what you've seen. And I can imagine thinking, I don't have words for that. Neither is man capable to make them known. I don't know how to describe what we just saw. I love it. Of anyone on the planet Earth today, there's a handful of people who know Joseph's life like you, who understand him like you do. And I know that there are some of your mentors who would, who you would give full credit to.

So at knowing Joseph Smith is as well as you do as well as can be from what's left, right? The documents, the evidence that's left, how do you feel about him and this, and this restoration? I love Joseph Smith because he opened the door to Jesus Christ. He is utterly inconsequential unless he receives these revelations that we've been reading about and talking about. There were literally lots of other people named Joseph Smith who farmed in upstate New York and other places, and we are not having a podcast about them. They weren't the greatest revelators in the history of the world.

They didn't commune with Jehovah, not in the way he did. So I don't love Joseph Smith because he was handsome. I don't care. I don't love him because he was a good wrestler. I don't care. I don't love him because he was some sort of idealized, perfect prophet. He wasn't. I know that he wasn't.

He knew that he wasn't. The Lord knew that he wasn't, as he's told us a few times in the Doctrine and Covenants. So what is it about him? Why do we care? We care because he cracked the heavens open and revealed Jesus Christ. He heard him as he was commanded, And he documented that unbelievably well. And those documents are now in our hands. I mean, would you revere somebody who gave you the greatest possible gifts, right? Who, who, who answered the terrible questions of existence. That's why I revere him.

It's not some sort of a, you know, I don't think I have misconceptions about who he is. He's a real guy, and I don't expect him to be more than that. It's not remarkable to me that he's sort of ordinary in many aspects. What's remarkable to me is that an ordinary guy revealed all that he did about, from, through, by the Lord Jesus Christ. So the Savior is my subject of study, and I get to him through the texts that he gave to Joseph Smith. Steve, we can't thank you enough for coming again to our podcast, right, John? When people come back, it gives us a boost of confidence. You guys are doing immensely important work.

15 people are going to read Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants, but a million people are going to watch what you guys are doing. And it wouldn't matter if it was me on here doing it with you or not, but I am pleased and thankful to be able to talk about these wonderful revelations. That testimony was beautiful. I don't care if he was handsome and a good wrestler. I mean, that was beautiful. He opened the door to Christ. Thank you for that. Well, everyone, we want to thank Dr. Stephen Harper for being with us.

We want to thank all of you for listening. We're grateful for your support. We couldn't do it without listeners. We're thankful to our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorenson. Our production crew, we have just an awesome crew that helps us. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Kyle Nelson, Will Stoughton, and Maria Hilton. And please join us on our next episode of Follow Him.