KnoWhy #799 | July 1, 2025
Why Is Joseph’s Vision of the Three Kingdoms so Important?
Post contributed by
Scripture Central
“And shall come forth; they who have done good, in the resurrection of the just; and they who have done evil, in the resurrection of the unjust.” Doctrine and Covenants 76:17
The Know
On February 16, 1832, the Prophet Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were busily engaged in the translation of the Bible.1 Joseph had been working on this since June 1830 and, according to the Lord’s instructions, had been translating the New Testament throughout the previous year (see Doctrine and Covenants 45:60–61). At this time, Joseph and Sidney were living about thirty miles south of Kirtland, Ohio, in a town called Hiram and were working in John Johnson’s home there.2
When Joseph and Sidney reached John 5:29, Joseph rendered this verse as follows: “And shall come forth; they who have done good, in the resurrection of the just [rather than ‘of life’]; and they who have done evil, in the resurrection of the unjust [rather than ‘of damnation’].”3 According to Joseph, “This caused us to marvel, for it was given unto us of the Spirit” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:18). Joseph and Sidney meditated on what this verse meant. As they pondered on this verse’s significance, “the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about” (76:19).
Joseph and Sidney then saw a series of visions that are now recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 76.4 After seeing God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ enthroned in the heavens, Joseph and Sidney beheld three kingdoms of heaven and learned that all humankind would inherit one of these three degrees of glory, except for a small few who would become the sons of perdition. They also learned the requirements necessary to obtain each kingdom and how people’s actions in this life affect their ability to dwell with God in the life to come. In doing so, God restored to the world the understanding of heaven that was maintained in the early Christian church that had been lost through the Great Apostasy.5
This system of degrees of glory in heaven was completely at odds with the typical conceptions of heaven and hell that Joseph and Sidney would have been familiar with. While most Christians believed in one single heaven for the righteous and a single hell for all the damned who did not accept the gospel in their lives, this vision singlehandedly redefined what salvation entails in God’s plan of happiness as it was then understood and cherished by the early Latter-day Saints. For Joseph Smith especially, this vision stood in stark contrast to what he would have been taught as a youth and would have been especially meaningful and powerful for his family.
As Steven C. Harper has noted, “Many of [Joseph Smith’s] ancestors were practicing Calvinists. They believed that God saved and damned according to his ‘sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will.’”6 In short, Calvinist doctrine maintains that God will ultimately save or damn according to His will, regardless of personal choices. Even members of Joseph’s own family had joined the Presbyterian Church, a denomination heavily influenced by Calvinism, while they lived in Palmyra. Joseph would have been intimately familiar with points of Calvinist doctrine.
On the other hand, some Christians had foregone the traditional heaven and hell and embraced Universalism. “Simply put,” as Matthew McBride has summarized, “Universalists believed that God would not eternally punish sinners but that all would eventually be saved in God’s kingdom.”7 Joseph’s father and paternal grandfather even belonged to the Universalist Society at one point. However, Universalist doctrine “could be used to deprive men of their agency.” Some Universalists maintained that there would be no need of repentance or other salvific ordinances—God would save everyone regardless.8
Not all churches believed in these two extremes, and many groups, such as the Methodists, “believed that Christ was mighty to save but that he would respect an individual’s will to be saved or not.”9 Joseph and other Latter-day Saints would have been familiar with all these varying viewpoints. Thus, when learning about how the just and unjust would be resurrected, it prompted deeper thought as to what reward each individual might receive in heaven.
In many ways, Doctrine and Covenants 76 corrected these common Christian beliefs that missed important doctrinal truths, making the doctrine it teaches unique in Joseph Smith’s day.10 Rather than teaching that the majority of humanity would be damned for not having the opportunity to hear the gospel, as most Calvinists maintained, the revelation illustrated that only those who became sons of perdition would “go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels—and [are] the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power.”11
Moreover, “The varying degrees of reward (available only through the power of God), are determined by one’s works.”12 Or, as Joseph Smith taught following the reception of this vision, “if God rewarded every one according to the deeds done in the body, the term ‘heaven,’ as intended for the Saints eternal home, must include more kingdoms than one.”13 In this way, all of humanity can be saved from eternal punishment by God’s grace in one degree of glory or another. And all who make and keep the covenants necessary to allow them to return to God’s presence will be able to dwell in celestial glory with God.
The Why
Steven Harper has noted, “Section 76 restores an enormous amount of truth that is available in no other place. . . . [It] is fuller, richer, and deeper than any of the Christian soteriologies [beliefs about salvation] of Joseph’s time or ours.”14 While many Christian theologies may still struggle to explain how God’s love and grace can operate together with human agency, Doctrine and Covenants 76 provides a clear bridge between the two—that is, “God is sovereign, but not arbitrary. He loves mankind universally but does not save them unconditionally. Rather . . . God endows his children with power to choose how they wish to be saved by Christ, if at all.”15 For this and many other reasons, it is no surprise that this revelation was so monumental that many Latter-day Saints simply referred to it as “The Vision” in the following years.
This revelation added to what had previously been revealed to Joseph in Doctrine and Covenants 19:6–12 regarding the nature of “eternal” and “endless punishment.” Together, these revelations overturned the classical understanding of heaven and hell, and they also highlighted God’s boundless mercy and revealed much about His character and divine attributes.16 Wilford Woodruff, for example, once remarked, “When I read the vision . . . it enlightened my mind and gave me great joy. It appeared to me that the God who revealed that principle unto man was wise, just, and true—possessed both the best of attributes, and good sense, and knowledge. I felt He was consistent with both love, mercy, justice, and judgment; and I felt to love the Lord more than ever before in my life.”17
God is a loving Father who desires all His children to return to His presence. For this reason, He established a plan that would not punish the vast majority of His children for simply never having had the opportunity, in this life or at some other point before the Final Judgment, to learn of Him. As President Dallin H. Oaks taught, “God’s great plan of happiness provides a perfect balance between eternal justice and the mercy we can obtain through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It also enables us to be transformed into new creatures in Christ.”18 Furthermore, “The mission of the restored Church is to help all the children of God qualify for what God desires as their ultimate destiny. By the redemption provided through the Atonement of Christ, all may attain eternal life.”19 Thanks to the perfect working of this plan, God can and will bless us with all the mercy we are truly willing to accept.20
Reflecting on this glorious vision and the possibilities it opened for humankind, Joseph Smith later recorded, “Nothing could be more pleasing to the Saint, upon the order of the kingdom of the Lord, than the light which burst upon the world, through the foregoing vision. . . . The rewards for faithfulness and the punishments for sins, are so much beyond the narrow mindedness of men, that every honest man is constrained to exclaim: It came from God.”21
Casey Paul Griffiths, Scripture Central Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants, 4 vols. (Scripture Central; Cedar Fort, 2024), 2:329–67.
Matthew McBride, “‘The Vision,’” in Revelations in Context: The Stories Behind the Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Matthew McBride and James Goldberg (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016), 148–54.
Steven C. Harper, Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants: A Guided Tour Through Modern Revelations (Deseret Book, 2008), 262–72.
Stephen E. Robinson and H. Dean Garrett, A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants, 4 vols. (Deseret Book, 2001), 2:285–333.
- 1. For more information regarding the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, see Scripture Central, “Why Did Joseph Smith Produce a New Translation of the Bible? (1 Nephi 13:28),” KnoWhy 628 (January 18, 2022); Kent P. Jackson, Understanding Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible (Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center; Deseret Book, 2022).
- 2. For more information regarding the events that transpired in Hiram, Ohio, see Scripture Central, “Why Were the Saints Commanded to Gather in Ohio? (Doctrine and Covenants 38:32),” KnoWhy 788 (April 15, 2025).
- 3. JST, John 5:29, emphasis added; Doctrine and Covenants 76:17. Compare the King James Version: “And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”
- 4. Throughout the revelation, Joseph and Sidney note that at least six visions regarding each level of heaven, the enthroned Father, and so on were opened up to their view. See Monte S. Nyman, “Six Visions of Eternity,” in Sperry Symposium Classics: The Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Craig K. Manscill (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2004), 189–201, for a breakdown of each of these visions.
- 5. For a discussion regarding the ancient Christian understanding of the three degrees of glory, see Scripture Central, “What Did Early Christians Teach About the Three Degrees of Glory? (2 Corinthians 12:2, 4),” KnoWhy 689 (September 19, 2023).
- 6. Steven C. Harper, Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants: A Guided Tour Through Modern Revelations (Deseret Book, 2008), 262.
- 7. Matthew McBride, “‘The Vision,’” in Revelations in Context: The Stories Behind the Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Matthew McBride and James Goldberg (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016), 150.
- 8. Casey Paul Griffiths, “Universalism and the Revelations of Joseph Smith,” in The Doctrine and Covenants, Revelations in Context, ed. Andrew H. Hedges, J. Spencer Fluhman, and Alonzo L. Gaskill (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2008),175. See also Harper, Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants, 262. McBride, “‘Vision,’” 150, similarly notes, “Most Christians felt that Universalism went too far, that its teaching of universal salvation removed all incentive to keep God’s commandments and would lead to an immoral, dissolute life.”
- 9. Harper, Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants, 262.
- 10. While some have attempted to draw comparisons between three heavens imagined by Emmanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish nobleman and scientist from the eighteenth century, these comparisons are superficial and Swedenborg’s system shares little in common with the three degrees of glory revealed to Joseph Smith. See J. B .Haws, “Joseph Smith, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Section 76: Importance of the Bible in Latter-day Revelation,” in Hedges et al., Revelations in Context, 142–67.
- 11. Doctrine and Covenants 76:36–37. Shon D. Hopkin, “Salvation by Grace, Rewards of Degree by Works: The Soteriology of Doctrine and Covenants 76,” in Let Us Reason Together: Essays in Honor of the Life’s Work of Robert L. Millet, ed. J. Spencer Fluhman and Brent L. Top (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2016), 338, phrased this principle using terms that would be familiar to a wider Christian audience: “There is only one condition set between the unsaved and the saved. The unsaved purposefully and determinedly reject the salvation available to them through Christ, and the saved accept Christ and the salvation he offers them.”
- 12. Hopkin, “Salvation by Grace,” 341.
- 13. “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 183, The Joseph Smith Papers.
- 14. Harper, Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants, 270, 272.
- 15. Harper, Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants, 271.
- 16. Because this revelation overturned what others had believed for years, some early Latter-day Saints needed time to understand it before they could fully accept it. As Brigham Young recalled, for instance, “My traditions were such, that when the Vision came first to me, it was directly contrary and opposed to my former education. I said, Wait a little. I did not reject it; but I could not understand it. I then could feel what incorrect tradition had done for me.” Brigham Young, HYPERLINK "https://scriptures.byu.edu/" \l ":tea94:j06"in Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Latter-Day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854–86), 6:281.
- 17. Wilford Woodruff, HYPERLINK "https://scriptures.byu.edu/" \l ":tc363:j05"in Journal of Discourses, 5:84.
- 18. Dallin H. Oaks, “Truth and the Plan,” October 2018 general conference.
- 19. Dallin H. Oaks, “Divine Love in the Father’s Plan,” April 2022 general conference.
- 20. President Oaks also taught that this plan allows “all of the children of God to proceed to a kingdom of glory for which their obedience has qualified them and where they will be comfortable.” Dallin H. Oaks, “The Great Plan,” April 2020 general conference; emphasis added.
- 21. “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 192, The Joseph Smith Papers; spelling silently modernized.