Doctrine and Covenants 137-138
“The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead”
December 1 - December 7
scripture
quotes
We Are Children of God
<p>It is my prayer that we will recognize the confirming influence of the Holy Ghost as we come to fully understand that we are children of God. “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” states: “All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.” We are “choice spirits who were reserved to come forth in the fulness of times to take part in laying the foundations of the great latter-day work” (D&C 138:53). President Russell M. Nelson declared: “You were taught in the spirit world to prepare you for anything and everything you would encounter during this latter part of these latter days (D&C 138:56). That teaching endures within you!”</p>
Peter M. Johnson, “Power to Overcome the Adversary”, October 2019 General Conference
The Choice Spirits
<p>In the vision of the redemption of the dead given to President Joseph F. Smith, he saw many of the noble and great prophets who had been on the earth prior to the Savior’s coming. He also saw the Prophet Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, his father, and “other choice spirits who were reserved to come forth in the fulness of times to take part in laying the foundations of the great latter-day work” (D&C 138:53). Who were those other choice spirits? Our generation was somewhere there among those “noble and great” leaders, prepared in the world of spirits to be on the earth at this time! The scriptures tell us that “even before they were born, they, with many others, received their first lessons in the world of spirits and were prepared to come forth in the due time of the Lord to labor in his vineyard for the salvation of the souls of men” (D&C 138:55–56). The labor we were prepared and reserved to perform includes “the building of the temples and the performance of ordinances therein for the redemption of the dead” (D&C 138:54).</p>
Elaine S. Dalton, “We Did This for You”, October 2004 General Conference
Assisting In the Lord's Work
<p>Inasmuch as we follow Christ, we seek to participate in and further His redemptive work. The greatest service we can provide to others in this life, beginning with those of our own family, is to bring them to Christ through faith and repentance so they may experience His Redemption—peace and joy now and immortality and eternal life in the world to come. The work of our missionaries is a magnificent expression of the Lord’s redeeming love. As His authorized messengers, they offer the incomparable blessings of faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, opening the way to spiritual rebirth and redemption.</p> <p>We can also assist in the Lord’s redemption of those beyond the grave. “The faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption, through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God, among those who are in darkness and under the bondage of sin in the great world of the spirits of the dead” (D&C 138:57). With the benefit of vicarious rites we offer them in the temples of God, even those who died in bondage to sin can be freed.</p>
D. Todd Christofferson, “Redemption”, April 2003 General Conference
Redeeming the Dead
<p>Some have misunderstood and suppose that deceased souls “are being baptised into the Mormon faith without their knowledge” or that “people who once belonged to other faiths can have the Mormon faith retroactively imposed on them.” They assume that we somehow have power to force a soul in matters of faith. Of course, we do not. God gave man his agency from the beginning (Moses 7:32). “The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God” (D&C 138:58), but only if they accept those ordinances. The Church does not list them on its rolls or count them in its membership.</p> <p>Our anxiety to redeem the dead, and the time and resources we put behind that commitment, are, above all, an expression of our witness concerning Jesus Christ. It constitutes as powerful a statement as we can make concerning His divine character and mission. It testifies, first, of Christ’s Resurrection; second, of the infinite reach of His Atonement; third, that He is the sole source of salvation; fourth, that He has established the conditions for salvation; and, fifth, that He will come again.</p>
D. Todd Christofferson, “The Redemption of the Dead and the Testimony of Jesus”, October 2000 General Conference
commentaries
Commentary on D&C 138:53–56
<p>In Doctrine and Covenants 138:53–56, the vision shifts in time to show the spirit world in Joseph F. Smith’s own time. There, he beheld Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, and the other Presidents of the Church Joseph F. Smith had served under. We have no doubt that, like the Old Testament prophets, many of the faithful women of this dispensation—including Emma Smith, Lucy Mack Smith, Mary Fielding Smith, Mary Ann Angel Young, Leonora Taylor, Phebe Woodruff, and other righteous women—labor alongside their companions in the spirit world.</p> <p>There is an added level of poignance to this portion of the vision, since Joseph F. Smith lost his father, Hyrum Smith, when he was only five years old. President Smith once recorded in his journal that thinking of his childhood in Nauvoo invoked “sacred memories of the past, made doubly and at the same time Dear and dreadful, by the Sacred resting place of my Fathers Dust, and the Dreadful Scenes that once, (and to my memory Clear as day) brought gloom and Horror upon the honest world and filled 10 thousand Hearts with grief and woe!”<a id="_ftnref1" class="see-footnote" title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a></p> <p>In his vision just weeks before the end of his mortal life, President Smith saw his father once again, alongside his uncle, the two martyred testators of this dispensation (D&C 135:5). In President Smith’s great vision, all of the great prophets of ancient and modern times united with one purpose: to bring salvation to the dead by preaching the gospel to them by building temples of the Lord for their work. With the end of his time on earth so near, President Smith’s vision of great prophets and missionaries assured him that though one phase of his labor was about to come to a close, an entirely new phase was about to begin.</p> <p>Even before Doctrine and Covenants 138 was received, President Smith expressed his conviction that the mission of earthly prophets does not end with death. He taught on a separate occasion:</p> <blockquote> <p>This gospel revealed to the Prophet Joseph is already being preached to the spirits in prison, to those who have passed away from this stage of action into the spirit world without the knowledge of the gospel. Joseph Smith is preaching that gospel to them. So is Hyrum Smith. So is Brigham Young, and so are all the faithful apostles that lived in this dispensation under the administration of the Prophet Joseph. They are there, having carried with them from here the holy Priesthood that they received under authority, and which was conferred upon them in the flesh; they are preaching the gospel to the spirits in prison; for Christ, when his body lay in the tomb, went to proclaim liberty to the captives and opened the prison doors to them that were bound. Not only are these engaged in that work but hundreds and thousands of others; the elders that have died in the mission field have not finished their missions, but they are continuing them in the spirit world.<a id="_ftnref2" class="see-footnote" title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a></p> </blockquote> <div class="footnotes"> <p class="footnote"><a id="_ftn1" class="footnote-label" title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> <em>Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph F. Smith, </em>1998, “The Life and Ministry of Joseph F. Smith.”</p> <p class="footnote"><a id="_ftn2" class="footnote-label" title="" href="#_ftnref2">[2]</a> Joseph F. Smith, <em>Gospel Doctrine, </em>1939<em>, </em>471–72.</p> </div>
Doctrine and Covenants Minute by Casey Paul Griffiths
Commentary on D&C 138:57–60
<p>We do not know if the last few verses of President Smith’s vision (D&C 138:57–60) constitute a separate vision or a continuation of his vision of the “noble and great ones” sent to earth in the last days (D&C 138:55). It is possible that the last part of the vision, in which he “beheld that the faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption” (D&C 138:57), was a reference to his own departed son Hyrum Mack Smith, who had passed away only months earlier. It is also likely that he beheld the faithful women of this dispensation, including Hyrum Mack’s wife, Ida Bowman Smith, who died only weeks before President Smith’s vision. His son and daughter-in-law were reunited in death and continue their work together, joining the spirits who died before them who are preaching beyond the veil. </p> <p>President Smith’s vision filled in a vital part of the plan of salvation. Just as the vision of the three degrees of glory (D&C 76) explained the final destination of all men and women, Joseph F. Smith’s 1918 vision taught that righteous men and women can expect to continue their labors in preaching the gospel in the next life. In mortality and in the world of spirits, peace for the righteous comes in knowing they are on the path to exaltation and eternal life. But the labors of the righteous continue, as they go on in the work of God, committed to assisting in the great work and glory “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). </p>
Doctrine and Covenants Minute by Casey Paul Griffiths
