Statue of John the Baptist ordaining Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdrey to the Aaronic Priesthood; Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah
Where Science Meets the Doctrine and Covenants: Come Follow Me Lesson: February 17-23: Doctrine and Covenants 12–17; Joseph Smith—History 1:66–75
To me, Doctrine and Covenants section 129 has always seemed rather odd, for if I ever encountered an angel or a spirit, I don’t think I would have the presence of mind to offer to shake hands. We are told in verses 1-9, “There are two kinds of beings in heaven, namely: Angels, who are resurrected personages, having bodies of flesh and bones—For instance, Jesus said: Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. Secondly: the spirits of just men made perfect, they who are not resurrected, but inherit the same glory. When a messenger comes saying he has a message from God, offer him your hand and request him to shake hands with you. If he be an angel he will do so, and you will feel his hand. If he be the spirit of a just man made perfect he will come in his glory; for that is the only way he can appear—Ask him to shake hands with you, but he will not move, because it is contrary to the order of heaven for a just man to deceive; but he will still deliver his message. If it be the devil as an angel of light, when you ask him to shake hands he will offer you his hand, and you will not feel anything; you may therefore detect him. These are three grand keys whereby you may know whether any administration is from God.”
Christ had a physical, resurrected body, which his disciples could “handle”. None-the-less, he could apparently enter a room without going through an open door or window. The angel Moroni also entered Joseph Smith’s bedroom, apparently, without opening the door. Yet, according to Doctrine and Covenants 129, Joseph Smith could have felt Moroni’s hand if he had offered to shake hands.
Then we read in Joseph Smith History 1: 68-69, 72, “We still continued the work of translation, when, in the ensuing month (May, 1829), we on a certain day went into the woods to pray and inquire of the Lord respecting baptism for the remission of sins, that we found mentioned in the translation of the plates. While we were thus employed, praying and calling upon the Lord, a messenger from heaven descended in a cloud of light, and having laid his hands upon us, he ordained us, saying: Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness. [This is also Doctrine and Covenants section 13]… The messenger who visited us on this occasion and conferred this Priesthood upon us, said that his name was John, the same that is called John the Baptist in the New Testament, and that he acted under the direction of Peter, James and John, who held the keys of the Priesthood of Melchizedek, which Priesthood, he said, would in due time be conferred on us, and that I should be called the first Elder of the Church, and he (Oliver Cowdery) the second. It was on the fifteenth day of May, 1829, that we were ordained under the hand of this messenger, and baptized.”
Oliver Cowdery describes these events thus:
“This was not long desired before it was realized. The Lord, who is rich in mercy, and ever willing to answer the consistent prayer of the humble, after we had called upon Him in a fervent manner, aside from the abodes of men, condescended to manifest to us His will. On a sudden, as from the midst of eternity, the voice of the Redeemer spake peace to us, while the veil was parted and the angel of God came down clothed with glory, and delivered the anxiously looked for message, and the keys of the Gospel of repentance…This voice, though mild, pierced to the center, and his words, ‘I am thy fellow-servant,’ dispelled every fear. We listened, we gazed, we admired! ’Twas the voice of an angel from glory, ’twas a message from the Most High! And as we heard we rejoiced, while His love enkindled upon our souls, and we were wrapped in the vision of the Almighty! Where was room for doubt? Nowhere; uncertainty had fled, doubt had sunk no more to rise, while fiction and deception had fled forever!...what joy filled our hearts, and with what surprise we must have bowed, (for who would not have bowed the knee for such a blessing?) when we received under his hand the Holy Priesthood as he said, ‘Upon you my fellow-servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer this Priesthood and this authority, which shall remain upon earth, that the Sons of Levi may yet offer an offering unto the Lord in righteousness!’1
We see an interesting note in common with Joseph Smith’s visitation by God the Father and Jesus Christ when a pillar of light accompanied them. “…I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.”2 Then a conduit of light transported Moroni. Joseph said, “…I saw, as it were, a conduit open right up into heaven, and he ascended till he entirely disappeared…”3 Now John the Baptist descended in a “cloud of light.”4 Oliver Cowdrey said that, “the veil was parted and the angel of God came down clothed with glory…”5
In every case, the heavenly visitors were coming from, and/or returning to somewhere “above,” associated with a pillar, conduit, or cloud of light. In the case of Moroni, his travel via a conduit of light was, apparently, not at all hampered by the ceiling/roof of the Smith cabin. All three visits are telling us something, that is still beyond our comprehension, about the transportation of heavenly beings. In the fall of 1966, the television series Star Trek first aired. It featured a “transporter” on the Star Ship Enterprise that could beam people and cargo from the Enterprise to some other destination, such as the surface of a planet. The series made such teleportation seem possible, even though it is still science fiction. None-the-less, today thousands of jet airplanes carry millions of passengers half-way around the world in a matter of hours — the type of transportation that was impossible a mere one hundred years ago. Who knows what sort of transportation lies just around the next inventive corner?
It appears quite certain that all four of those heavenly visitors were resurrected beings. However, only John the Baptist laid his hands upon Joseph and Oliver. This act of laying his hands upon them tells us a lot about the interaction of resurrected beings with mortal beings.
When Jesus appeared to his disciples in the closed room, a conduit of light was not mentioned. However, we read in Luke 24:36-43, “And as they [Cleopas and another disciple who had just come from Emmaus] thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them.”
The disciples “handled Him” and he “did eat before them.” Those six words tell us an enormous amount about the resurrected Savior. An entire book could be written about those eight verses. In fact, I have written such a book, The Immortal Messiah: the Physiology of Resurrected Beings (Cedar Fort, 2022).
Luke does not say that the disciples felt the wounds in his hands and feet and side, but Thomas was missing from the group that first day. John fills in that missing part of the story: “And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.”6
Likewise, when Christ visited the people in the Americas, “And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto them saying: Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world. And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come.”7
John the Baptist had been beheaded by Herod,8 yet when he visited Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdrey, he was completely whole. Yet the Savior retained the marks of His crucifixion.
New Testament Student Manual Chapter 28: John 20–21 states, “The scriptures suggest several possible reasons why Jesus Christ has retained the wounds of the Crucifixion in His hands, feet, and side: to substantiate His literal, physical Resurrection (see John 20:19–20, 24–28); to testify that He is the Messiah of whom the prophets wrote (see 3 Nephi 11:11–17); to identify Himself as the Messiah to the Jews in the last days (see Zechariah 12:9–10; D&C 45:51–52); and to assure the faithful of His power to save and bless (see D&C 6:34–37). Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught further about why the Savior retained the wounds of His Crucifixion:
“‘Even though the power of the Resurrection could have—and undoubtedly one day will have—completely restored and made new the wounds from the crucifixion, nevertheless Christ chose to retain those wounds for a purpose, including for his appearance in the last days when he will show those marks and reveal that he was wounded ‘in the house of [his] friends’ [Zechariah 13:6; D&C 45:52]. (Christ and the New Covenant [1997], 258–59).”
Again, these differences between the Savior and John the Baptist tell us a lot about the resurrection. As yet however, we don’t know enough to understand the message. We have no idea, at present, what the differences are between our physical bodies and the physical bodies of resurrected beings. Interestingly, what we do know about our physical bodies is that we are comprised entirely of atoms, and those atoms are 99.9999….% space. In some ways, it’s easier to think about Christ and Moroni passing through walls than to think about why we can’t.
References
1. Messenger and Advocate, vol. 1 (October 1834), pp. 14–16; Joseph Smith History 1, following verse 75
2. History 1:16
3. History 1:43
4. History 1:68
5. History 1: following 75
6. John 20:26-27
7. 3 Nephi 11:13-15
8. Matthew 12:1-14
Trent Dee Stephens, PhD
Comments