Christ Restores the Authority to Confer the Holy Ghost - Part 1

What might Jeremiah have taught Joseph Smith about the temple?

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Left to right: (1) The Prophet Jeremiah by Michelangelo; (2) Lehi and Sariah, AI-generated inspired by Arnold Friberg’s Lehi and His People Arrive in the Promised Land; (3) Joseph Smith, CofJC.org

This week’s Come, Follow Me study of Jeremiah offers an intriguing window into the kinds of things Joseph Smith might have learned about ancient Israel, its prophets and temples while translating the Book of Mormon. Nephi tells us that the brass plates contained “many prophecies which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah” (1 Nephi 5:13). Nephi later reminded his brothers, who along with their father Lehi may have known and associated with the prophet Jeremiah,[1] that the people of Jerusalem had rejected the prophets and cast Jeremiah into prison (1 Nephi 7:14). Joseph would therefore have encountered Jeremiah not merely as a name he would have been familiar with from the Old Testament, but as Lehi’s contemporary.[2]

Jeremiah’s warning at the gate of the Lord’s house is especially relevant to our continuing study of the restoration of the temple: “Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these” (Jeremiah 7:4). Having a temple did not protect Jerusalem when the people refused to keep their covenants and the officiators and ordinances of the Lord’s house had been corrupted.

Lehi especially (and Nephi through observation and close association with his father) had personal experience with priests, high priests and even false prophets whose “works were works of darkness, and their doings were abominations” (2 Nephi 10:15). As with Jeremiah and others of his day and before, when Lehi, who was no stranger to the people of Jerusalem, “testified of [the Jews’] wickedness and their abominations,” “they were angry with him; yea, even as with the  prophets of old, whom they had cast out, and  stoned, and slain; and they also sought his life, that  they might take it away” (1 Nephi 1:19).

Lehi and Nephi’s experience no doubt vividly taught Joseph that having a holy structure (or in the case of Latter-day Saints worldwide, hundreds of them) is not enough. The doctrines and ordinances of the temple must be written in our hearts. As Jeremiah prophesied of our day:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake. . . .

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; [In the latter] days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord (Jeremiah 31:31–34).

My previous post considered the restoration of the authority to baptize; this three-part series now turns to the restoration of the higher priesthood authority necessary to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost—and, ultimately, to make available the spiritual blessings and saving ordinances of the house of the Lord.

When and where was the Melchizedek Priesthood Restored?

Historical sources clearly establish the date the priesthood authority to baptize was restored—May 15, 1829. However, it would not be until a revelation in early 1835 as part of the “Instruction on Priesthood” (published in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants as Section 3, now D&C 107) that the Lord would refer to this authority as the “Aaronic Priesthood.”[3]        

"Restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood " by  Avard T. Fairbanks. Photo by Stephen Fluckiger.

The sources are much less clear, however, about the date the priesthood authority to confer the Holy Ghost was restored. Likewise, there is substantial disagreement among historians as to what Joseph Smith and his associates understood about the nature of this priesthood at different times during his life.[4]

In its “Restoration of the Priesthood” Topics and Questions, the Church describes the timing of the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood as follows: “Within a month of the visit from John the Baptist, more heavenly messengers came to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. This time, the New Testament Apostles Peter, James, and John conferred on Joseph and Oliver the Melchizedek Priesthood and the keys of God’s kingdom (see Doctrine and Covenants 27:12–13; 128:20).”[5]

John Welch narrows this restoration date window even further. Estimating that the text in 3 Nephi 16–18 was probably finished during the afternoon or evening of May 15, he adds—

In translating the sentences at the end of 3 Nephi 18, when the resurrected Lord ascended back into heaven for that night, Joseph and Oliver would have encountered the related passage in which Jesus bestowed upon the twelve New World disciples “power to give the gift of the Holy Ghost” (3 Nephi 18:37). That awareness of the need to have a higher power in addition to the authority to baptize could well have heightened their desire to be ordained to that higher priesthood, which John had said would be “conferred on [them] hereafter” (JS–H 1:70). The ordination to the higher priesthood by Peter, James, and John may have occurred about May 19 since Joseph and Oliver were returning from a trip to Colesville for supplies about that time, but that remains uncertain although compatible with this overall chronology.[6]

Gemini-generated from Finger Lakes Region and Upper Susquehanna Valley (1828-31), september-2015-ensign-magazine-mormon_1523498_prt.pdf. [7]

The voice of Peter, James & John “in the wilderness” “on the Susquehanna river”

Why does Welch refer to “a trip to Colesville”? And what do we know about how the Melchizedek Priesthood was “conferred” and to what office(s) Joseph and Oliver may have been ordained?

The “trip to Colesville” reference is significant because it gives us perhaps the best historical evidence of where and when the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood may have occurred. In possibly his most definitive description of this event, the Prophet in a letter he dictated dated September 6, 1842,[8] which became Section 128 cited in the Topic and Question above, describes—

The voice of Peter, James & John, in the wilderness, between Harmony, Susquehanna County, and Colesville, Broome County, on the Susquehanna river; declaring themselves as having possessing the keys of the kingdom, and of the dispensation of the fulness of times.[9]

Thus, the Prophet declared, he and Oliver heard the voice of Peter, James and John “in the wilderness” somewhere near the Susquehanna River. Moreover, they declared during this visitation that they possessed the keys of the kingdom, and of the dispensation of the fulness of times.

But this account includes no details about the conferral of the priesthood, ordination to any office therein or any reference to the power John the Baptist promised they would receive to lay on hands and give the Holy Ghost. Details about these aspects of this visit would only come out in later revelations and from other primary and secondary reports.

As to the precise location where Joseph and Oliver “heard the voice” of (and were apparently ministered to directly by) Peter, James and John, Mark Staker, a curator in the church’s Historic Sites Division, in a Joseph Smith Papers podcast about where this event may have happened, noted that—

The banks of the river come to the road at five different locations along that, and so if they hadn’t gone far from the road, one of those five could have been the location, but we don’t know if they went far from the road. There are things to suggest that maybe they were not on the road, that there might have been some persecution going on, and so that’s as close as we can come to a location.[10]

As for the precise date, however, as Welch suggests, it is a matter of determining from the historical record when Joseph and Oliver might have been travelling along that road. Staker notes, for example, when looking “at times when Joseph was [in Colesville] or could have been there, and not up in Fayette [about 90 miles further northwest] or elsewhere, . . . there are only a few times when that’s the case.”[11]

In addition to Welch, two other LDS historians, Larry Porter and Michael Hubbard MacKay, place Peter, James and John’s visit during “the 13-day period of 16 to 28 May 1829.”[12] Having run out of lined paper and needed provisions, Joseph and Oliver made the 28-mile trip to Colesville to seek help from Joseph Knight Sr. (possibly around May 18), who had given Joseph food and paper as early as January 1829.[13]

Knight was not home, however. Returning empty-handed, Joseph and Oliver went out looking for work. No doubt inspired by the Spirit, Knight, almost immediately upon Joseph and Oliver’s return, arrived to  rescue them—

I Bought a Barral of Mackrel and some lined paper for writing [while on a business trip to Catskill, New York]. And when I Came home I Bought some nine or ten Bushels of grain and five or six Bushels taters [potatoes] and a pound of tea, and I went Down to see him [Joseph Smith] and they ware in want. Joseph and Oliver ware gone to see if they Could find a place to work for provisions, But found none. They returned home and found me there with provisions, and they ware glad for they ware out.[14]

Whether or not that heavenly conferral of priesthood authority occurred on this trip or another trip to Colesville within this window in late May 1829[15] (or some other time), the record as we have it today does not clearly tell us.

Perhaps the Church History Topic on this issue summarizes it best. What we can rely on is the Prophet’s “only firsthand account,” his 1842 letter now canonized as Section 128. “Precisely dat[ing] this heavenly manifestation from existing sources” beyond this, the article concludes, is “impossible.” The estimates of those who have studied the accounts “range from as early as a few weeks after the appearance of John the Baptist on May 15, 1829, to many months later.”[16]

Perhaps more important than the date, however, the article adds, is that Joseph Smith’s understanding (and the understanding of “other early members of the Church”) “developed over time and with the aid of continued revelation.”[17]

The conferral by Peter, James, and John of priesthood authority and keys, probably sometime in late May 1829, was a foundational historical event in the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood. But the historical sources also support describing the restoration of this “higher” priesthood authority, including its offices, keys, and doctrinal underpinnings, as an unfolding process rather than as a single event.[18]

To free Joseph from persecution, the Lord prepares the Whitmers’ hearts to assist the work

During the remaining days of May, according to Welch’s timetable, the Prophet translated the rest of Third Nephi through the end of Moroni and the Title Page of the Book of Mormon. Then, by the end of June 1829, they completed the translation. This included the small plates of Nephi, from First Nephi through the Words of Mormon. They thus arrived “back,” as it were, to the opening pages of the surviving book of Mosiah that Joseph had translated (after the loss of the 116 pages) with Martin Harris’ (and others) assistance in late 1828-early 1829 before Oliver’s arrival on April 7.[19]

We will come back to the temple implications in some of these books (including the story of the Brother of Jared Joseph and Oliver encountered in their translation of the Book of Ether). For now, however, continuing to focus on the story of the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood requires us to fast forward to events associated with the Prophet’s 100-or-so-mile move from Harmony, Pennsylvania to the Whitmer farm in New York State.

The “spirit of persecution” that Joseph reported on in his 1838 history continued to intensify in late May 1829.[20] The Lord, knowing the end from the beginning, prepared a way for them to be able to continue and complete the work unhindered. The Prophet’s mother, in her history, recounted:

As Joseph was translating by means of the Urim and Thummim, he received instead of the words of the Book, a commandment to write a letter to a man by the name of David Whitmer, who lived in Waterloo [a village adjacent to Fayette, N.Y.], requesting him to come immediately with his team, and convey himself and Oliver to his own residence, as an evil-designing people were seeking to take away his (Joseph’s) life, in order to prevent the work of God from going forth to the world. The letter was written and delivered, and was shown by Mr. Whitmer to his father, mother, brothers, and sisters, and their advice was asked in regard to the best course for him to take.[21]

David’s father agreed that David should go get Joseph and Oliver. But there was a big caveat. “His Father said why David [you] know you have sowed as much wheat as you can harrow in tomorrow and next day and then you have a quantity of plaster[22] to spread that is much needed on your land and you cannot go unless you get an evidence from God that it is very necessary.” David, acting on his father’s explicit faith in God’s power to direct him, then “asked the Lord for a testimony of [whether] it was his will that he should go[.] [He] was told by the voice of the spirit to (sow) <​(har) inn his wheat​> his wheat and then go straightway to Penn[sylvania].”[23] 

The next morning, looking on the field, he realized that he faced “two heavy days of work” that would necessarily delay him on his errand. He again pled with the “lord to enable him to do this work sooner than the same work had ever been done on the farm before and he would receive it as an evidence that it was the will of God for him to engage in forwarding the work which was begun by Joseph Smith.” So it was that when, at the end of the day, “he discovered to his surprize [sic] that he” had “finished the whole 2 days work,” the sought for “sign” was in hand.

Running to share the tale, his father “could not believe it till he examined [the field] for himself and ascertained that it was actually the fact now[.] Well said his Father there must be some overruling power in this thing and I think you had better go as soon as you get your plaster paris sown and bring up the man with his family <​with his scribe​>.”

The next morning, David went to the pile of plaster he had left just the day before and found that it had “entirely disappeared.” Running to his sister’s nearby home and enquiring, she related that “one of the children” the previous day “begged” her to go and see three men who were sowing the plaster faster than anything she had seen in her life. She did so, but assumed it must have been someone her brother, David, had hired. After making “considerable enquiry” and not discovering anyone in the area who had done the good deed, David and his father (rightly) concluded that a “supernatural power” had been at work.[24]

David then hastened to Harmony. On the return trip with Joseph and Oliver, they encountered a dignified older man carrying a knapsack, whom Joseph identified as a heavenly messenger transporting the plates. After they reached Fayette, David’s mother, Mary Musselman Whitmer, later recalled that the same messenger showed her the plates.[25]

Clearly, the Lord did not leave the Whitmers without ample direction, comfort, strength and, yes, evidence, of His direct involvement and oversight of His work of restoration—of His gospel, His authority, His Church and, ultimately, His temple ordinances.