Doctrine and Covenants 137-138

1. Doctrine and Covenants 137-138

2. Doctrine and Covenants 137-138 The vision of the Celestial Kingdom, which is now D&C 137, was not part of the Standard Works until 1976. During the April General Conference of that year, the Church voted unanimously to accept this vision and the vision for the Redemption of the Dead (138) as canonized scripture. These revelations were originally placed in the Pearl of Great Price; however, when a new edition of the D&C with study aids was commissioned, it was decided to add the two revelations to the D&C. This decision was made by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve (Church News, 2 June, 1979, 3).

3. Doctrine and Covenants 137:5-8 Alvin Smith was the first living son of Joseph Smith, Sr., and Lucy Mack Smith. He was born on 11 February 1798, nearly seven years before Joseph Smith, Jr. He died on 17 November 1823, three months before his twenty-fifth birthday. His mother recorded that “Alvin manifested, if such could be the case, greater zeal and anxiety in regard to the record that had been shown to Joseph, than any of the rest of the family.” The prophet Joseph had great love and respect for Alvin. Joseph was concerned for his eternal welfare.

4. Doctrine and Covenants 137:10 It is one of the sweetest and most soul-satisfying doctrines of the gospel! In Joseph’s day the fiery evangelists of Christendom were thundering from their pulpits that the road to hell is paved with skulls of infants not a span long because careless parents had neglected to have their offspring baptized. Why do some children die and others live? Are those who died better off than those who remain in mortality?

5. Elder McConkie said that President Joseph Fielding Smith once told him that we must assume that the Lord knows and arranges beforehand who shall be taken in infancy and who shall remain on earth to undergo whatever tests are needed in their cases. This accords with Joseph Smith’s statement: “The Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth (Teachings, 196-97).

6. What will be the status of Children in the Resurrection? President Joseph F. Smith explained the Latter-day Saint belief: “Joseph Smith taught the doctrine that the infant child that was laid away in death would come up in the resurrection as a child; and, pointing to the mother of a lifeless child, he said to her: ‘You will have the joy, the pleasure, and satisfaction of nurturing this child, after its resurrection, until it reaches the full stature of its spirit.’” There is restitution, there is growth, there is development, after the resurrection from death. I love this truth. It speaks volumes of happiness, of joy and gratitude to my soul. Thank the Lord he has revealed these principles to us” (Gospel Doctrine, 455-56).

7. Charles Buck wrote c.1825 about infant salvation in his Buck’s Theological Dictionary. Infants: Salvation of. “Various opinions,” says an acute writer, “concerning the future state of infants have been adopted. Some think, all dying in infancy are annihilated; for, say they, infants, being incapable of moral god or evil, are not proper objects of reward or punishment. Others think that they share a fate similar to adults; a part saved, and a part perish. Others affirm all are saved because all are immortal and all are innocent. Others, perplexed with these diverse sentiments, think better to leave the subject untouched.

8. Cold comfort to parents who bury their families in infancy! The most probable opinion seems to be, that they are all saved, through the merits of the Mediator, with an everlasting salvation. This has nothing in it contrary to the perfections of God, or to any declaration of the Holy Scriptures; and it is highly agreeable to all those passages which affirm where sin hath abounded, grace hath much more abounded. On these principles, the death of Christ saves more than the fall of Adam lost.” If the reader be desirous of examining the subject, we refer him to p. 415, vol. ii, Robinson’s Claude; Gillard and William’s Essays of Infant Salvation; An Attempt to elucidate Rom. v. 12, by an anonymous writer; Watt’s Ruin and Recovery, p. 324, 327; Edwards on Original Sin, p. 431, 434; Doddridge’s Lect. Lect. 168; Ridgley’s Body of Div. vol. i. p. 330-336).

9. Doctrine and Covenants 138 President Joseph F. Smith’s vision in 1918 offered comfort to a grieving world and gives us greater understanding of the plan of salvation. My soul is rent asunder. My heart is broken, and flutters for life! O my sweet son, my joy, my hope!...O God, help me!”

10. So President Joseph F. Smith wrote in his journal upon the death of his eldest son, Hyrum Mack Smith, the 45-year-old Apostle who succumbed in January 1918 to a ruptured appendix. Eight months later, on September 24, Hyrum’s widow, Ida Bowman Smith, died of heart failure just a week after giving birth to a baby boy. The couple left behind five children. At the time, the First World War, which began in 1914 while Hyrum was presiding over the European Mission, was still raging. It ended with the Armistice on November 11, 1918.

11. Death and the war were certainly on President Smith’s mind that year. On October 3, 1918, less than two weeks after the death of his daughter-in-law, he sat in his room “pondering over the scriptures; and reflecting upon the great atoning sacrifice that was made by the Son of God, for the redemption of the world; and the great and wonderful love made manifest by the Father and the Son” (D&C 138:1-3).

12. No Stranger to Loss It was not President Smith’s first experience with the death of loved ones. He was just five when his father, the Patriarch Hyrum Smith, was slain with the Prophet Joseph Smith in Carthage Jail. His mother, Mary, died when he was 13. In 1915 his wife Sarah Richards died, followed later that year by his 25-year-old daughter, Zina Smith Greenwell. By 1918 only one of his siblings had survived. Of his 44 children, 13 had died, many in their childhood.

13. D&C 138: 1-2 The more we study, pray, and ponder the awesome Atonement, the more we are willing to acknowledge that we are in His and the Father’s hands. Let us ponder, therefore, these final things.

14. Doctrine and Covenants 138:15-19, 50 “All beings who have bodies have power over those who have not” (Teachings, 181). Doctrine and Covenants 138:27-37, 57 President Wilford Woodruff said that in the work of the ministry in the spirit world “every Apostle, every Seventy, every Elder, etc., who has died in the faith, as soon as he passes to the other side of the veil, enters into the work of the ministry, and there is a thousand times more to preach to there than is here… They have work on the other side of the veil; and they want men, and they call them” (JD, 22:334).

15. “The spirits of the just are… not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings, and motions, and are often pained therewith” (Joseph Smith, Teachings, 325). Elder Russell M. Nelson wrote of an experience his grandfather Andrew C. Nelson had when his father returned from the spirit world (Heart to Heart: An Autobiography, 1979, 16-18). If you could talk to a “spirit” in the “Spirit World,” what would you ask them? “On the night of April 6th, 1891, I had a strange dream or vision in which I saw and conversed with my father who died January 27th, 1891. I felt so impressed after it that I desired to write it for my own benefit and the benefit of my family and friends.

16. To corroborate my testimony of the possibility of such a visitation I quote the following: Spirits can appear to men when permitted; but not having a fleshy tabernacle can not hide their glory (Key to Theology, 120). I was in bed when father came and sat on the side of the bed. I could plainly see my wife and children in bed too. “When father came to the bed, he first said: ‘Well, my son, being you were not there (at Redmond) when I died, so that I did not get to see you, and as I had a few spare minutes, I received permission to come and see you.’ “I am very glad to see you father. How do you do?” ‘I am feeling well my son, and have had very much to do since I died.’

17. Question #1 What have you been doing since you died father? My son I have been traveling together with Apostle Erastus Snow ever since I died; that is, since three days after I died; then I received my commission to preach the Gospel. You cannot imagine, my son how many spirits there are in the Spirit world that have not yet received the gospel; but many are receiving it, and a great work is being accomplished. Many are anxiously looking forward to their friends, who are still living, to administer for them in the Temples. I have been very busy in preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

18. Question #2 Will all the spirits believe you, father, when you teach them the Gospel? No, they will not. Question #3 Father can you see us at all times, and do you know what we are doing? No, my son, I can not. I have something else to do. I can not go when and where I please. There is just as much, and much more, order here in the Spirit world than in the other world. I have been assigned work and that must be performed.

19. Question #4 How do you feel at all times, father? Oh, I feel splendid, and enjoy my labors, still, I must admit that at times I get a little lonesome to see my family; but it is only a short time till we will again see each other. Question #5 Father, is it unnatural to do die? Or does it seem natural? It is just as natural to die, as it is to be born. The first thing I could see was a number of spirits in the Spirit world.

20. Question #6 Father, is the principle and the doctrine of the resurrection as taught us true? True, yes, my son, as true as can be.

21. Question #7 Father is the gospel as taught by this Church true? My son, do you see that picture? (pointing to a picture of the First Presidency of the Church hanging on the wall) Yes, I see it. Well, just as sure as you see that picture, just so sure is the Gospel true. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has within it the power of saving every man and woman that will obey it, and in no other way can they ever obtain a salvation in the Kingdom of God. My son always cling to the gospel. Be humble, be prayerful, be submissive to the Priesthood, be true, be faithful to the covenants you have made with God. Never do anything that will displease God. Oh, what a blessing is the Gospel! My son, be a good boy. Good bye!

22. “I then saw him leave the room. He was neatly dressed in a suit of light gray clothes, which I had never seen him wear when alive” (in From Heart to Heart: An Autobiography (Salt Lake City: Quality Press, 1979) 16-18).