Hank Smith: 00:01 Welcome to followHim, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come, Follow Me study. I’m Hank Smith.

John Bytheway: 00:09 And I’m John Bytheway.

Hank Smith: 00:11 We love to learn.

John Bytheway: 00:11 We love to laugh.

Hank Smith: 00:13 We want to learn and laugh with you.

John Bytheway: 00:15 As together, we followHIM.

Hank Smith: 00:19 Welcome, my friends, to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. And I am here with my beloved co-host, John Bytheway. Hi, John.

John Bytheway: 00:32 Hi. I like that one.

Hank Smith: 00:34 Yup.

John Bytheway: 00:34 You look jazzy today.

Hank Smith: 00:35 Yeah. We call you John the Beloved sometimes, because you are a beloved soul, you are a beloved soul. We want to remind everybody to come on to social media, give us a try on Instagram and Facebook. You can find video recordings on our YouTube channel, transcripts, and show notes at followhim.co, followhim.co. And of course, we want you to rate and review the podcast that helps us out quite a bit. Now, John, we get to talk to one of the great minds in the Church every week. It’s not every week that we get to talk to a great mind and someone who we’ve already visited and who we are good friends with. So tell us who we have this week.

John Bytheway: 01:27 We’re so excited to have Tony Sweat back again, and really excited that he’s going to talk about this section, too. And, in fact, I didn’t tell Tony this was coming. But this little book, The Holy Invitation, really has blessed my children as they are preparing to go to the temple. And I thought since I read his long bio before, I’d read the one at the back of this book, which was published in 2017. And then maybe Tony can give us any updates.

John Bytheway: 01:55 But here’s our short bio about the author on the last page. Anthony Sweat is an Assistant Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. He’s the author of numerous best-selling books and a regular speaker at various LDS events and conferences. He received a BFA in painting and drawing from the University of Utah and an MEd and PhD degrees in Education from Utah State University. He and his wife Cindy are parents of seven children and reside in Utah. And we’re so glad to have you back, Tony. Thanks for being willing to come again.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 02:33 I’m so honored to be on here again with both of you on this wonderful podcast with both of my friends. I just love you both so much and so grateful to be here.

Hank Smith: 02:42 John, when we first started, I knew that this year would be Doctrine and Covenants. And Tony lives a good 500 yards away from me and we’ve been friends for many years. And so I immediately called him and said, “Hey, what am I going to do with the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History? How’s this going to work?” And he said, “I think something like this. Like I don’t know, you’ll do great.” I’m like, “Will you be our first guest?” “Yes, as long as I can do Section 88.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 03:12 Eighty-eight.

Hank Smith: 03:13 There is something about 88. And of course, I’m like, “Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, you can have 88.” And I didn’t realize that this is a landmark section. I don’t know. But in my kids’ video game language, I think we level up here. Tony, I know you’re excited about it. I know you love it. And that’s going to be probably one of the best parts of our conversation today. So, we’re just going to hand it over to you. Back up as far as you want to give us some context and some history to what leads up to this. And let’s go from there.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 03:53 Okay. All right. I’ll back up. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void.

John Bytheway: 04:03 Can you go back further, please?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 04:04 I won’t go that far. No, actually half-joking, that does have something to do with that. And I’ll kind of tie in, as Joseph, like we’ve talked about before, his translation of the Bible is going to affect Section 88 or affect what’s going on in particular with the School of the Prophets in Section 88. But, I mean, this really is a landmark revelation, as Hank said, where we were half-joking before we hit record on this that Joseph Smith has just barely turned 27. And we miscalculated his age at first. And so I think he’s like 26. And they’re like, “No, no, no, he’s 27.” We’re like, “Oh, yeah, that explains it.” Now he can produce a revelation like this.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 04:51 This is a soul-stirring, soul-expanding revelation. It covers everything from the light of Christ that governs everything to planets. And there’s parables, there are specific instructions, there’s the School of the Prophets, there’s building a temple, there are things about the Second Coming. There’s great one-liners here. I mean, it is a revelation among revelations. Again, I’ll never tire of saying this. If you want to reconfirm or deepen your testimony in the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith, just read something like section 88 and ask yourself repeatedly, “Where did this come from?” It’s just unbelievable to me, these kinds of revelations that are so expanding and exalting.

Hank Smith: 05:45 Last week we talked to Dr. Ken Alford about war–Section 87. And so he talked about how these two go together, that they put them side by side. So yeah, go back as far as you want.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 06:03 So Dr. Alford, I love to death, also he’s a great friend of mine. If you have the printed version, you could circle Section 87 where it says, “Revelation on war that Joseph is given on Christmas Day in 1832.” And then flip the page and go over to this Section 88 revelation on peace, he calls it. If you look at the section heading-

John Bytheway: 06:30 “The olive leaf.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 06:31 … “The olive leaf plucked from the Tree of paradise, the Lord’s message of peace to us.” And I want to give a little more context. I think that’s appropriate. And actually in your Come Follow, Me materials from the Church, they highlight that. That’s not how Joseph Smith himself contextualizes Section 88. The reason why he calls it the olive leaf, obviously, it’s plucked from paradise because there’s such soul exalting doctrines in here. But there’s also some tension going on between leaders of the Church in Ohio and leaders of the church in Missouri.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 07:12 Back in the 1800s, it was just difficult running a church that was hundreds and hundreds of miles away when you have one body in Ohio and one body out in Missouri. There was just communication. There were issues with leadership with how we’re doing things. Joseph, why are you in Ohio if Zion is in Missouri? There are different things going on that there seems to be continued tension all the way through the year 1832 between the leaders in Missouri and Ohio.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 07:47 And let me just read you a little bit from a letter, where we get this from is a letter that Joseph Smith writes to WW Phelps over in Missouri. He writes it on January 11, 1833, so just a few weeks after Section 88 is given. And that’s where Joseph Smith sends Section 88 to the Saints over in Missouri and calls it the “olive leaf.” That’s where we’re getting that quote from in the section heading is this letter to WW Phelps.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 08:13 So, this is what Joseph said. “I send you the olive leaf, which we have plucked from the Tree of Paradise, the Lord’s message of peace to us.” Now, here’s the next line in the letter, the context. “For though our brother in Zion indulge in feelings toward us, which are not according to the requirements of the New Covenant, yet we have the satisfaction knowing the Lord approves and has accepted us and established his name in Kirtland.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 08:44 So it’s like this is the Lord’s message of peace to us. So even though you guys are upset at us and are having hard feelings toward us, hey, this revelation shows the Lord is happy with what we’re doing here in Ohio. That’s one of the major contexts of it. And later in the letter, Joseph writes, “Our hearts are greatly grieved at the spirit which is breathed, both in your letter, that’s WW Phelps, and that of Brother Sidney Gilbert, the wearying spirit which is wasting the strengths of Zion like a pestilence.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 09:18 So they wrote some critical letters. Yeah. Ouch. We don’t have WW Phelps or Sidney Gilbert’s letter that they wrote, but we have this that shows that they weren’t kind letters. They wrote these letters in mid-December. This is out of Joseph’s papers editors. They write, other communications from Missouri elders early in 1832 had revealed a rift between church leaders in Missouri and Ohio, in part to resolve these differences Joseph Smith traveled in Missouri in the spring of 1832 and met with various leaders, but subsequent letters indicated the problems remained.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 09:57 In July of ’32, Joseph Smith reproved WW Phelps for his “cold and indifferent spirit”, and accused other Missouri leaders of raking up every fault and looking for moats in the eyes of those who are laboring with a tender and prayerful heart for their salvation. So that’s a long way to say there’s not happy feelings between Ohio and Missouri leaders right now. And this revelation seems to be saying, the Lord saying, “Let me give a message of peace. Let me settle your hearts. Let me tell you in Kirtland anyway, at least, that I’m happy with you, I’m pleased.” But then the Lord is also going to lay out a number of things that I think will try to help the Latter-day Saints live more, as Joseph said, have feelings more that are in harmony with the covenant and more of a celestial approach with each other both in Ohio and Missouri.

Hank Smith: 10:46 Let me ask you, because I know these are good men out in Missouri. So what is causing, do you think, do they feel like, hey, we’re out here in the middle of nowhere because we’ve talked about what Missouri is like. It’s not what they had expected. So, I don’t want to excuse, what did he call it? “Their wearying complaints are like a pestilence.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 11:14 Orson Hyde and Hyrum Smith called WW Phelps and Sidney Gilbert’s letters “low, dark, and blind insinuations.” We can use those words, Hank.

Hank Smith: 11:24 Man. So, give me the perspective of those out in Missouri. So, what’s happening out there? Do you think that they’re just so frustrated that they’re sending… These are good people sending these frustrating letters. Hey, you’re over in Kirtland where it’s 1832. We’re out in Missouri where they live like it’s 1621.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 11:52 Yeah. What’s hard is it really is all conjecture, because we don’t have a lot of like Gilbert’s and Phelps’ letter and different things. But it’s easy to see that there’s some faultfinding going on. It’s easy to see that there’s second guessing. One of the ways that I think that justifies this is in the future, when you study section 101, and the Lord gives the parable of the tower in that Section, it says that they begin to consult amongst themselves in Zion over in Missouri and to question and to set up variants one with another.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 12:27 So it seems to be second guessing of leadership, which is a natural human tendency. Whether in our families we second guess our parents when we’re growing up. At school, our teachers, our coaches, I mean, how many times have you heard people complain about the way a coach runs things or a teacher or their boss at work or even in the church, people who are doing their very best to live consecrated lives and to serve out of just good hearts, we find ourselves becoming critical and having moats in our eyes and looking for beings and others? I think it’s a part of fallen human nature.

Hank Smith: 13:07 I have never heard someone criticize a church leader. I don’t know what you guys are talking about. I’ve never heard someone criticize the bishop, yeah, or the Relief Society President. I mean, this happens all the time.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 13:21 All the time. And like you said, you were saying, Hank, these people out in Missouri, bless their souls, they are doing hard work and they are giving, sacrificing, and doing the very best. But like all of us, both in Ohio and Missouri, we are facing a fight against fallen men to try to live a more celestial way of life. And that’s what they’re fighting against. So some of Section 88, again, and I tried to address this of like if you guys want to be endowed with power in your life, we’ve got to rise above light speeches and evil speaking and fault-finding, “finding fault with one another.” You’ll see these hints throughout Section 88 of some of the things you’re struggling with.

Hank Smith: 14:08 Yeah. And maybe I’m off here, Tony, you can tell me. But I would imagine that if I know the leaders in Ohio have homes and beds and stores and all these things around them and I’m out here in Missouri where there’s bars and angry neighbors that I would say, “Oh, life is so easy for you out there in Kirtland.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 14:34 Yeah. And I think there’s got to be some of that. And again, that’s just assumptions on our end. As you’ve talked about in previous episodes, they are living on the frontier and there’s probably part of them like, yeah, you’re back in Ohio where it’s more comfortable and up to speed and we’re out here roughing it. You came out here and visit us but why are you not staying with us? If this is going to be where Zion is built, shouldn’t the profit be here? Now that’s just conjecture. I want to say that.

Hank Smith: 15:04 We don’t know.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 15:05 But we don’t know. But that seems like a logical inference that could be made as well.

Hank Smith: 15:10 Yeah. Okay. These poor souls, these are real people. And I love to get the context, because you’re saying, “Yeah, look at them. They’re human.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 15:23 Yeah. And I want to be careful, too. No leader is faultless. And surely Joseph has faults. He’d be the first to say and so the parents and coaches and bishops. And so it’s not an issue of saying, hey, if there are faults and problems, let’s ignore them. We don’t ignore them. We do bring them up. But I think we do it in a spirit of charity, which is what Section 88 will say, “Clothe yourself with the bonds of charity.” We do it assuming good intent for the most part, because people are trying to do good instead of a spirit of harsh judgment, harsh criticism, harsh, unfair accusation. That seems to be what’s driving a wedge.

Hank Smith: 16:04 I want to bring back something as Michael Wilcox talked about John, when he said we live in a culture of outrage, right?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 16:12 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 16:12 Let me find something to be outraged about. And you usually can find something, if you want to.

John Bytheway: 16:17 Oh, gosh, yeah. Listen to the radios. I think it’s called K- Outrageous, the channel that I listen to. Every day, there’s something to be mad about.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 16:29 But I mean, John and Hank, I’ll put you guys on the spot. Section 121, no power or influence can be had or ought to be maintained by virtue of the preset only by?

Hank Smith: 16:42 Persuasion, gentleness, long suffering.

John Bytheway: 16:47 “Love unfeigned.” Yeah.

Hank Smith: 16:49 Kindness, pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy and without guile. How did I do there, huh?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 16:58 You passed, my brother.

Hank Smith: 16:59 Thanks, thanks.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 17:01 These are principles they’re trying to learn in how to live and communicate celestially. And they continue over years and years and years. And so do you and I.

Hank Smith: 17:12 Yeah. But then to get some of these harsh letters, that would be hurtful. If I got a harsh email from Tony, I’d be like, “Hey.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 17:23 Easy.

Hank Smith: 17:24 Easy. Yeah, I’m doing my best here.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 17:25 Walked a half mile over to my house and talk to me.

Hank Smith: 17:27 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 17:28 I’m going to go back to my lean, too, and fire off a letter.

Hank Smith: 17:31 And just the means, I don’t think… Maybe those of us who just are so used to our day and time can understand the frustration of writing a letter and getting a response, what, two and a half months later. I mean, and you need information and trying to…

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 17:55 I served my mission in Bolivia in the ’90s. And it took two weeks for letters to get to us. And if we wrote it took two weeks. So it was a month cycle of communication, which is something that in today’s day and age, younger people don’t understand. But you did feel distant. I felt like I was on a whole another planet. And I can see that Ohio and Missouri, it felt like they were running their own churches a little bit at this time.

Hank Smith: 18:23 Yeah. Edward Partridge is just going to have to move forward, right? You can’t wait for an answer for every move.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 18:34 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 18:35 Because it’s going to take two and a half months. And that’s if Joseph gets it and responds and sends it right back.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 18:41 Right away.

Hank Smith: 18:42 Right?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 18:42 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 18:43 You feel like we kind of understand what’s happening that leads up to it?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 18:49 That’s really the main context of why Joseph calls it the “olive leaf.” And you’ll see some of that context in some of the revelations. But other than that, then the Lord just explodes ideas. And if we want to move into content, like an easy way I would summarize Section 88 for people at home, if they’re getting ready to study it, what I’d invite you to do is to ask yourself what do we learn about heaven and how to prepare ourselves for heaven on earth? That’s kind of what Section 88 is getting at, as a whole. If that was a look for, what are you going to learn about heaven, and then what do you learn by you and I to prepare ourselves on earth for heaven when heaven comes to earth? Like it’s trying to prepare celestial people as a whole.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 19:40 Yeah. So, that 127 through the end is that January 3rd revelation. And you can see a shift there, 126 there’s an amen, [inaudible 00:19:49] amen. And again, the order of the house prepared for the presidency, they actually treated these as two different revelations. And then when they printed the 1834 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, they’re subsumed into one because this last part gives instructions for the School of the Prophets. So, since 88 tells them to start the school of the Prophets, they’re joined together into one.

John Bytheway: 20:14 Some of our listeners may have visited the Newel K. Whitney store and been upstairs. And if I remember right, the missionaries told us, “See, this room right here, adjacent to the School of the Prophets is on the side of the wall, this is where Section 88 was given.” And I looked at the sister missionaries, “Do you get to like to do gospel study in this room?”

Hank Smith: 20:37 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 20:37 And how cool is that?

Hank Smith: 20:39 How cool is that?

John Bytheway: 20:39 Is that where it was given?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 20:41 Yeah. It was probably received there. And Joseph had that adjacent room, sometimes called the Revelation Room.

John Bytheway: 20:47 There’s so much here that we better get started, because the Sabbath is coming in a few days. Tony, you mentioned something that these little phrases in here that are just amazingly beautiful and profound and everything. Why don’t we jump into the text?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 21:08 I mean, just a few one-liners, before we look at the bigger picture. I mean, a few one-liners to highlight from the top, verse 15, “The spirit and the body are the soul of man.” Verse 73, “I will hasten my work in its time.”

Hank Smith: 21:24 We might have heard that a couple of times in the last-

John Bytheway: 21:27 Yeah. It seems like it’s happening.

Hank Smith: 21:29 Yeah.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 21:29 Verse 78, “Teach ye diligently.” Verse 118, “Seek learning by study and also by faith.” I mean, one-liner after one… Elder Maxwell would be proud. I mean, these are just awesome one-liners that packed so much punch, let alone in the broader context of what it’s teaching.

Hank Smith: 21:54 Yeah. “Teach ye diligently out of the best books.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 21:58 -Out of the best books. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 22:00 “A house of order, a house of prayer.” And my kids’ favorite, “Retire to thy bed early.” Yeah, they love that one.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 22:07 Yes. That’s their favorite.

Hank Smith: 22:09 “Cease to sleep longer than it’s needful.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 22:12 That somehow was the one-liner that has not gotten legs underneath it in the Church over the years.

Hank Smith: 22:18 It’s so funny. I’m going to put that right in my kids’ ear this week.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 22:26 And we can talk about those in context, because what the Lord is trying to do there with these elders with the School of the Prophets. As you’re going through this section, again, like I mentioned, you’re going to learn things about heaven, and there’s all this stuff on the light of Christ and he’s the power of this… You’re going to learn stuff about law and the Celestial Kingdom, and every kingdom has laws.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 22:45 So I would kind of say, if it’s all right, let’s kind of look at some of these heaven revelations. And then the second part is more practical, which is build a temple, organize a school of the prophets, and start to learn to live a more celestial life. And those are kind of to be the two groupings that they’re not in that sequential order but they roughly address those two themes in here.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 23:11 So if you look in Section 88, if you look at verse 3, “Wherefore I now send upon you another Comforter, even upon you, my friends, that it may abide in your hearts, even the Holy Spirit of promise.” Verse 4, “This comforter is the promise which I’ve given to you eternal life.” I mean, so out of the gates, this revelation kicks off with a big idea on the other comforter.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 23:39 And Joseph Smith himself explains this. Let me read you this quote from Joseph. He says, “The other Comforter has spoken of is a subject of great interest and perhaps understood by a few of this generation. After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, is baptized for the remission of sins, receives the Holy Ghost, which is the first comforter. So the first comforter is the gift of the Holy Ghost. Then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God. And the Lord will soon say to him, ‘Son, thou shalt be exalted.’”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 24:16 “Now, what is this other Comforter? It is no more nor less than the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And this is the sum and substance of the whole matter. And when any man obtains this last Comforter, he will have the percentage of Jesus Christ to attend to him or appear unto him from time to time. And he will manifest the father into him and they will take up their abode with him. And the visions of the heavens will be opened unto him. And the Lord will teach him face to face that he may have a perfect knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 24:49 Now, wow, that’s big itself. So, we’ll come back to this because I actually think these verses 3 and 4 set the context for what the School of the Prophets is trying to accomplish. They are trying to obtain this other Comforter. That’s why it’s called the School of Prophets. It’s the school of people who are trying to have prophetic power, prophetic visions, prophetic knowledge, prophetic experiences, and to achieve this other comforter. So I’ll come back to that as we talk about the School of the Prophets. But that’s an important context for what they’re trying to achieve as a whole.

Hank Smith: 25:26 This is a I don’t know if it’s a reference to but on the Savior’s last night with his apostles in John 14, he says, “And I will pray to the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you forever.” Verse 18, “I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 25:49 Yeah, yeah.

Hank Smith: 25:50 You can see that tie in from what the Savior’s said to his apostles.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 25:53 You can. And even in this, we’ll talk about this parable, the Lord is, in essence, saying, “I’m going to manifest myself to my people in their order and in their time and in my own way, and it is all about him, though, manifesting himself to his people, personally.” Verse 6, you just got to love verse 6, just in context of our Savior’s atoning empathy. How many of our prophets, seers, and revelators have testified that there is no pain, no sorrow, no mortal experience that you and I go through that Jesus himself does not perfectly empathize with through the awful arithmetic of the atonement, as Elder Maxwell called it. But in verse 6, speaking of Jesus, “He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things.” That’s a great atoning empathy verse right there as well.

Hank Smith: 26:58 I like that phrase, “Atoning empathy.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 27:02 Yeah. He’s in and through in all things. To be totally honest, verse 7 through 13, about this light of Christ, I’m not sure I grasp it but I just know it’s awesome.

John Bytheway: 27:18 Yeah, the light in the moon and you’re, “What?”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 27:21 Yeah. And the light and the sun and the star and the earth and how it moves. And it’s in everything and it quickens your understanding. It proceeds from God in verse 12. It fills the immensity of space. It’s the life and the law and it’s by everything that’s governed in the power of him. I mean, I’m not going to get into subatomic particles and wavelengths. I would just summarize this as saying, Jesus is the light, Jesus is the law, Jesus is the power. I think it’s just trying to say this is Christ’s world. These are his creations. He’s in and through in all things he’s governing. He’s in charge. He is the life, the light, the law, the power, the way, the truth, he’s all of this. That’s my simplistic way of summarizing through verse 13.

Hank Smith: 28:10 Yeah. And that’s a fun discussion to have with students or with your children, is how is Christ like light? Then talk about light and make the comparisons.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 28:20 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 28:20 Because no one likes to live in the dark. No one wants to be outside and you’re out like a campground with your family or with a church group or something. And we’re stumbling around in the dark, what do you need? You need light. So there’s so many parallels there that I-

John Bytheway: 28:42 And I love that, too, that he shares that nickname with us that I am the light of the world. And when he appears to the Nephi times, the light and the life of the world, and then he tells us, “Ye are the light of the world,” and-

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 28:59 I love that.

John Bytheway: 29:00 And he shares that with us. And then towards the latter in 3 Nephi, “Hold up your light that it may shine before men, I am the light that you shall hold up, and how it kind of I give unto you to be a light to this people,” he says in 3 Nephi. And Matthew, he’s like, “Ye are the light of the world.” But I think, “Wow, we get to share that nickname with him.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 29:25 Yeah. And we get to share priesthood power. If he’s the power, we call that priesthood. We get priesthood authority, we get priesthood covenants. There’s power that we all share with God. I like what you guys have just said. That’d be a fun thing for parents with their kids to say how is Jesus-

John Bytheway: 29:45 Like light.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 29:46 … like light? How is he like law? How is he like power? How is he like truth? How does he give us those things in our life?

John Bytheway: 29:54 Another fun part is is what eclipses light and what gets in the way of the light? I remember Joseph Fielding McConkie in my master’s program shaking his finger at us and saying, “Don’t ever become a spiritual eclipse.” If the moon gets in front of the sun, that’s an eclipse. But what happens if you or anything or anyone gets in front of the son, S-O-N? That’s a spiritual eclipse. That was a day you’ll never forget that we always want to be pointing to Christ, to the light.

Hank Smith: 30:27 I’ve always loved that there’s three days of darkness. Oh, I haven’t loved that. They probably didn’t love it. Three days of absolute darkness and then the voice comes.

John Bytheway: 30:37 And then He comes.

Hank Smith: 30:38 “I am the light.”

John Bytheway: 30:40 I know. It’s like when God does an object lesson, it’s like, “Whoo, I get the best object lesson.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 30:47 He’s got a few more tools at his fingertips than you and I do.

John Bytheway: 30:49 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 30:52 Right. I have a motion light outside. And I’ll go out there in the dark and I’m like, “Whoo, it’s kind of scary.” So I start waving around like, “Where’s the light? Turn the light on out here.” Because it brings a sense of peace and understanding and, oh, I can see what’s around me, I’m not in danger. So there’s just so many parallels that we could make there.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 31:13 I’m going to hold on to this for a second. But when he says he’s also the law, John, you just mentioned in 3 Nephi, “I am the life, I am the light.” In 3 Nephi, he also says, “I am the law.” And we’ll talk about this. A lot of Section 88 deals with law. And if we’re not careful, we’re existing in a culture right now that is very centered on everything is relative, whatever you want to do is fine, you do your culture.

John Bytheway: 31:46 No absolutes.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 31:47 We’d love to talk about Jesus is light, Jesus is truth. Jesus is power. We can never fail to teach Jesus is law. He is a God of law. And there are laws that are given to govern kingdoms in ways we live. And we don’t ever want to become legalistic and farcical. But we also can never dismiss Christ as the law and the requirements which he does expect of us to attain in the certain glories and blessings and powers in our life.

Hank Smith: 32:16 I’m starting to see it come up in these future verses.

John Bytheway: 32:21 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 32:22 The law, law.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 32:22 Yeah, law, law. And we’ll talk about those. I do want to show in verse 14 to 15, he’s going to shift now to the redemption of the earth. But 15, we touched on already, make sure you have that highlighted. I mean, that is a theological discourse in itself that our doctrine is that we believe that the soul isn’t just the spirit, that the soul also is your body, your temporal body. And thus, there are a lot of things that deal in this Church with temporal aspects of our bodies, whether that has to do with Word of Wisdom, or the Law of Chastity, or other things of how we treat the body.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 33:09 As Elder Holland one time said, “You cannot harm the body without harming the soul,” based on this doctrine in section 88, verse 15. I mentioned beforehand, if I can do a little plug here, I run a podcast for BYU religion called the Y Religion Podcast where BYU professors talk about their research publications. There’s a great one from Jordan Watkins called “The Eternal and the Temporal.” And he just talks about how you cannot separate temporal things from spiritual things.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 33:50 You can’t separate it. The spirit and the body is the soul. They are one together. And so, again, we have temporal things that direct us in this Church. But just one application I thought of as I was preparing for this podcast was just what a blessing your body is. And if we could really learn to embrace that doctrine, love your body as God created it, as he gave it, in all of its varied size, shapes, capacities, colors, inclinations, ways, your body is a gift from God as a whole.

Hank Smith: 34:28 That’s awesome. You mentioned Elder Holland. It’s a talk called “Personal Purity.” And I remember this because it was the late ’90s and I was a teenager. This is the quote. He says, “The body is an essential part of the soul.” This distinctive and very important Latter-day Saint doctrine underscores why sexual sin is so serious. “We declare that one who uses the God-given body of another without divine sanction,” that’s marriage, “abuses the very soul of that individual, abuses the central purposes and processes of life, the very key to life,” as president Boyd K. Packer once called it.

Hank Smith: 35:15 And then he makes this statement, “In exploiting the body of another, which means exploiting his or her soul, one desecrates the atonement of Christ which saved that soul and which makes possible the gift of eternal life.” And now you still remember sitting and hearing him say the next sentence. “And when one mocks the son of righteousness, one steps into a realm of heat hotter and holier than the noonday sun, you cannot do so and not be burned.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 35:48 Oh, Elder Holland bringing it.

Hank Smith: 35:51 Yeah, I remember that talk.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 35:55 You and I are the same age, Hank. And I was also a teenager and I remember that talk burned and seared into my soul. I think I actually called my bishop when that talk ended.

Hank Smith: 36:07 Yeah. I mean, I still remember him grabbing the pulpit. But it comes from that doctrine in Section 88.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 36:14 He’s referencing Section 88, verse 15. It’s a powerful one line verse alone just wedged in this huge section as a whole.

Hank Smith: 36:23 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 36:24 I’d like to mention that the Book of Mormon appears not to be as careful about soul and spirit and differentiating them. And this is very clarifying that verse because, in fact, it’s footnoted. Footnote 15C has Alma 40:23 there where it says the soul and the body shall be reunited. And I remember Dr. Robert Millet just saying, sometimes the Book of Mormon uses soul and spirit interchangeably. And this verse helps to say, okay, just know that sometimes the Book of Mormon uses soul and spirit interchangeably, but the definition of the soul is body and spirit together.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 37:09 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 37:10 So it’s a clarifying verse for me. And I’m glad you said that, Tony, it’s a theologically important verse.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 37:15 It really is.

Hank Smith: 37:17 Well, I just love this idea because it fits very well with our doctrine of why the resurrection is so important.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 37:24 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 37:25 The spirit and the body unite again.

John Bytheway: 37:27 Yeah. And that goes to verse 27. We need to talk about the difference between a spirit body and a spiritual body.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 37:35 Yeah. And it’s also going to manifest itself later in this revelation with the school of the prophets when he says, “Wash your bodies. Be clean.” Hank’s favorite verse, “Go to bed early. Get up early. Don’t sleep longer than is needful.” These all come back to there’s a connection between the temporal and the spiritual. And you’ve got to take care of the temporal well.

Hank Smith: 38:05 That’s interesting. Yeah. I wonder what he would say today. Don’t live off Diet Coke. We’re going to get into this, Tony.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 38:13 Hank, I’ve got to correct that, what you just said, because remember-

Hank Smith: 38:17 Because the Lord has-

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 38:18 This who shall not be named were cleared in general conference. And then BYU shortly thereafter, allowed us to buy Coke on campus.

Hank Smith: 38:26 I’m not saying-

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 38:26 -closer to the restoration of all things, not a step further away.

Hank Smith: 38:30 -I said don’t live off. I didn’t-

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 38:33 -Oh, okay.

Hank Smith: 38:36 But you’re right in that if you’re… It’s really hard to feel the spirit for me, personally, if my body doesn’t feel well.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 38:45 It’s good to say in the best way we can, let’s try to treat the temporal well, because the temporal does affect the spiritual. Then these verses, in the 17-18, he’s like, “Hey, this earth is going to become the celestial kingdom. The meek will inherit it.” That’s our doctrine also. When we inherit the Celestial Kingdom, we’re actually going nowhere. We’re simply trying to have this prepared and make this world become ready for our king and have God’s will be done on this earth as it is in heaven. And this earth will become the celestial Kingdom and bodies that in verse 20, bodies who are the celestial kingdom may possess it forever and ever.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 39:31 So this is really important here where I would classify verse 18 all the way through 40 has to do with kingdoms and inheriting kingdoms and celestial, terrestrial, telestial law, judgment, we get caught up into all these things. And the way I would summarize these is we will in essence judge ourselves. These verses seem to be teaching that wonderful doctrine that Brad Wilcox frankly taught in his classic talk, “His Grace is Sufficient,” his BYU speech where sometimes we have this view of God stopping us or making these judgments upon us and us begging God, as Brad says, “Please let me enter.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 40:24 And it’s going to be the other way around. It would be God saying, “Please accept my Son. Obey the ordinances. Live the Law so that you can enjoy these blessings.” I mean, look at these. In verse 22, “He who was not able to abide the law of a celestial Kingdom cannot abide the celestial glory.” Same in 23 for terrestrial, same for telestial. There are certain laws and conditions which are expected to receive this glory, this power, this capacity, these blessings.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 41:00 And then if you even jump over to verse 32, “Even they who remained shall also be quickened, nevertheless, they shall return again to their own place.” And look at this line. “To enjoy that which they are willing to receive.” Because they were not willing to enjoy that which they might have received, in other words, the Lord’s like, you will go to the kingdom of the law and the conditions where you are using your agency to choose to live and accept and abide by. And the only reason why you’re not going to get other kingdoms and why I might not is because I am choosing to not enjoy that which is what I’m willing to receive. So in verse 33, verse 33 is not a Christmas verse. It’s a judgment verse, where the Lord talks about I’m not going to give somebody something they don’t want.

John Bytheway: 41:57 It reminds me of another kind of verse that sounds to me like it’s saying the same thing. Mormon 9 verse 4, “Behold, I say unto you that you would be more miserable to dwell with the holy and just God under a consciousness of your filthiness before him than you would to dwell with the damn souls in hell.” So, the idea that you’d be more miserable, saying, “I’m going to find a place where you’re not miserable,” and it’s a place that you’re going to go where you feel most comfortable. And when I teach that in Book of Mormon class, I reference 88:32. This is what you’re willing to receive, because we’re not willing to enjoy that which you might have received. They sound like parallel verses.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 42:36 Yeah. And at verse 40, again, verse 40 is a great judgment, scripture. “Intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence, wisdom receiveth wisdom, truth embraceth truth, virtue loveth virtue, light cleaveth unto light.” In other words, if you’re a person of intelligence, wisdom, truth, virtue, light, you’re going to go to a kingdom of intelligence, virtue, wisdom, light truth, because those things love each other. And it’s just a beautiful doctrine that the Lord will honor our agency where we will choose to live in the laws and the conditions and the kingdoms, which we are willing to receive.

Hank Smith: 43:19 This seems, Tony, like a little bit of an extension of section 76.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 43:24 Yeah. In what way, Hank?

Hank Smith: 43:26 It feels like a little bit of an addendum. They received Section 76, it was Dr. Harper who said, “You and I, we love it,” but the Saints back then were kind of like, “Whoa, wait, hold on.” And so, maybe there was a little bit of a lag time where the Lord’s like, “Well, we’ll talk more about that a little bit later. I’m going to let you digest 76 for a little while before I tell you even more about the heavens.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 43:55 Yeah. Yup. And you’ll see this again. I keep teeing this up to talk about the School of the Prophets. But again, that seems to be what the Lord’s going to do with the School of the Prophets. And what he’s going to teach them about the temple is that the temple teaches us laws that there are certain laws and conditions by which celestial beings abide by and live by so that we can receive these blessings.

Hank Smith: 44:21 Because they want to.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 44:22 Because they want to, because they choose to.

Hank Smith: 44:25 Yeah. I mean, look at verse 32. You go to your own place to enjoy that which they are willing to receive.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 44:35 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 44:35 It’s not about God saying, “Sorry. You’re going there even though you don’t want to go there.” God’s saying, “Where do you want to go? Where do you want to be?”

John Bytheway: 44:43 What law are you willing to live and that’s where you’ll be most comfortable.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 44:48 And I’m positive there are people listening to this podcast who are worried about family members, who are worried about friends, loved ones who either have left or are not part of the Church. The God that I worship, the God of the restoration is a God like this that just says, “If people are of light and truth and virtue and goodness, all mortal factors, all things that have blocked and gotten in the way and issues will be resolved by a God who completely understands and is fair and is merciful and compassionate. And if people love truth, if they love goodness, if they love virtue, if they love light, they will go to those kingdoms of virtue, goodness, love, and light. I have no doubt about it.”

John Bytheway: 45:33 Yeah. And this is a God who is our Father who loves his children and wants to give them all that he can if they’re willing to receive it. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 45:43 There’s a verse back that I don’t want to miss yet, because we’re going to turn the page here, that in Christianity, we always talk about the Second Coming of the Lord, the Second Coming of the Lord. But in verse 19, he seems to almost up the second coming of the Lord with another visitor, “For after I fulfilled the measure of his creation, meaning the earth, it shall be crowned with glory even with the presence of God the Father.” Now that’s new. That’s totally different… I shouldn’t say totally different but that seems to take the Second Coming to a whole new level of, yeah, the Second Coming, and then another coming following that.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 46:19 Yeah. And I may be wrong in this. And so forgive me if my doctrines are off here, but the way I’ve always understood it is the Second Coming will be where Christ comes to rule and reign as king of kings and lord of lords. And he’ll usher in the Millennium. But we’re going to work through this millennial period to continue to help God’s will be perfectly known and done and implemented on this earth. And it won’t be till the end of the Millennium that this earth becomes celestialized and truly becomes the kingdom of God that the celestial kingdom crowned with the presence of God the Father, because those who inherit the celestial kingdom will be in his presence. And so, I understand it as Second Coming as Jesus works through the Millennium preparing the crown with the presence of God and Father.

Hank Smith: 47:16 Yeah. For Joseph Smith for this, what do we say, 27-year-old?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 47:21 Yup.

Hank Smith: 47:21 For him to expand even the Second Coming. Well, was it you? Tony, it was someone who said, “The audacity of this kid.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 47:30 Yeah, the audacity of this 27-year-old, unbelievable.

Hank Smith: 47:35 Yeah.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 47:37 Then if you guys want to talk 41 to 44, planets, everything like that, 45, some beautiful line,”The earth rolls upon her wings,” that sounds like something you should include in a love letter. I mean, that’s a beautiful line. The sun gives us the light by day. And then he says, verse 47, all these are… Any man who has seen any or the least of these has seen God moving in his majesty and power, 40, he has seen him. There seems to be almost a tie here to the Lord’s likening these kingdoms. If you look at the end of verse 43, here he seems to be likening them to planets. Verse 42, they have times and seasons are fixed. They have laws and revolutions.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 48:27 But a little tying of the first vision when in one of the accounts of the first vision and Joseph history is 1832 account, he seems to hint as Richard Bushman said that Joseph had a brush a little bit with not atheism necessarily but maybe questioning the existence of God. In his 1832 account, Joseph said, but when he looked at the moon, the stars, the earth, the creatures, the people, that the Spirit spoke to him that there is a great God, and that only a fool would proclaim that there is no God. This seems to be the Lord saying a similar thing like if, “You want to see God, just look around you, look at the beautiful light, law, the universe, planets, everything, testifying to you all things to note there is a God,” another Book of Mormon tie in there.

John Bytheway: 49:24 Yeah, it’s there. It’s there. Alma 30:44 is footnote 47C where he says, “The planets which move in their regular motion, a witness there’s a supreme creator.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 49:36 Yup. So, just another beautiful thing, he seems to shift though. We’re going to talk kingdoms for a sec. He’s going to give a parable in 51. “Behold I will liken these kingdoms.” Now, is he talking planets or is he talking… I’ll show you where he might be talking dispensations here. He’s going to liken these kingdoms, which are either planets, different worlds or maybe they’re different dispensations on this world, unto a man in a field.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 50:06 “And he sent forth his servants into the field to dig in the field. He said on the first, ‘Go ye and labor in the field. In the first hour I’ll come unto you and ye shall behold the joy of my countenance.’” Remember, back to the verses that teed off this revelation, “I will manifest myself to you. You are going to come into my presence. You will see me. There will be another Comforter. You will know God. You will know Jesus.” So he says first-hour laborers, second, third, all the way in verse 55, and so forth to the 12th.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 50:39 Verse 56, “And the Lord of the field went to the first in the first hour and tarried with him that hour and was made glad.” And he does that from the first all the way in 59 to the last, 60, “Every man in his own order until his hour is finished.” Sixty-one, “Therefore, unto this parable I will liken all these kingdoms, and the inhabitants thereof, every kingdom in its hour, and in its time, and in its season, even according to the decree which God hath made.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 51:09 So this parable seems to be saying if we’re talking about it in planets, other worlds, that Jesus himself manifested himself to all his people that they in their time enjoy his presence. Or if we’re not going there, at minimum, every dispensation, the Lord manifests himself on this earth. And where I’m getting this dispensational one, jump over to verse 70, “Tarry ye, tarry ye in this place, and call a solemn assembly, even of those who are the first laborers in this last kingdom.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 51:50 So right there, he likens this kingdom to this dispensation. That’s where I’m getting a dispensational read of it. So we could maybe read it as in the parable, the Lord manifested himself to Adam and Eve, and he manifests himself to Lehi and Sariah and Abraham and Sarah. He’s also manifesting himself to Joseph and Emma in this dispensation, and this round of the elders. You guys have all heard the parable of the laborers in the New Testament. And sometimes we liken that to people who are baptized, like some people who joined the Church early and then there’s people who get baptized and joined the Church, everybody, that’s an appropriate application.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 52:37 But using Section 88, verse 70, the Lord just called us the “Last-hour laborers”. That’s what he just called us. So this is like a parable of dispensations. You and I are the 11th and 12th-hour laborers. You and I are coming in after Adam and Eve, and Abraham and Sarah, and Lehi and Sariah, and everybody else has done all this work for thousands and thousands of years, and we get a swoop up here in the dispensation of the fullness of times in the 11th hour and have all this tools and technology and establish the global church and kingdom and marching to heaven equally if Adam and Eve be an 11th-hour laborers.

Hank Smith: 53:21 Yeah.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 53:22 Let’s have a little dispensational humility for everybody who’s come before us that we are coming in as the last-hour laborers.

Hank Smith: 53:31 Oh, I can’t tell you how fun it is in my New Testament class to flip that on my students. Because I say, “What’s it like when someone didn’t have to go to seminary for four years and they didn’t have to serve it?” And they’re like, “Yeah. See, that’s not fair.” And I’m like, “Wait, wait. What if you’re on the other side of the equation? What if you’re the last-hour workers? Are you sure it’s not fair?” And I’m like, “Adam and Eve, they’ve been doing a lot of work for a long time. Abraham, Noah, they’ve been doing a lot of work for a long time. For me it seemed to be the ones that are coming to the party late.” And then all of a sudden, it’s, “No, it’s fair.”

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 54:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll take equal pay to Abraham. Sure, please.

John Bytheway: 54:11 Yeah. Let’s restate that then. So that parable can have a couple of applications when we come into the church, for those in our lifetimes, and dispensationally, that’s really… What did you say? Dispensational humility?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 54:26 A little dispensational humility. We are standing on the shoulders of amazing women and men who have come to set us, teed us up for success for thousands and thousands of years. So those are just an example of just some of these awesome… As I said, heaven, what are we learning about heaven? But then there’s going to be a major shift in this revelation about how do you and I therefore prepare ourselves for heaven?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 54:55 And this is where there’s a shift to some practical stuff that’s going to start centering in on a temple and a School of the Prophets. And to be frank, Hank, that’s why when you said which one, I said 88. Because we’ve got a grasp of what the Lord is trying to do with the temple and with the School of the Prophets and the endowment here to grasp what’s happening today with the temple. And the modern School of the Prophets and the modern endowment, it’s so, so powerful as a whole.

Hank Smith: 55:27 I want to mention one thing that I’ve used in verse 40. And you can correct me if I’m taking this out of context. But when some of my students have come to me and said, “I want to find someone great to marry.” They’re all looking for Mister and Missus Perfect to marry. And I’ve always said this idea of if you want to marry an intelligent, wise, someone who loves truth, someone who loves virtue, someone who loves light, then you have to be all those things, because intelligence cleaves to intelligence. It’s attracted to it. Wisdom is attracted to wisdom. Truth embraces the truth. So, for anyone listening, who says, “Oh, I want to marry this type of person,” wonderful. Of course, you do. I think that’s great. Probably the best way is to be that person.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 56:21 Yeah. I mean that’s Elder Bednar. Isn’t it Elder Bednar who said, “Become the kind of person you want to date and marry?”

John Bytheway: 56:28 Stop trying to find the right one and focus on trying to become the right one, type of thing.

Hank Smith: 56:34 Yeah.

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 56:36 Verse 40 I like to call it the Greatest Judgment and Dating Scripture of all time.

Hank Smith: 56:42 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 56:42 Wait, wait. What verse?

Dr. Anthony Swe…: 56:44 Verse 40, the light cleaveth the light.

Hank Smith: 56:46 My favorite dating scripture is Abinadi, “Touch me not or God shall smite thee.” That’s my favorite dating scripture for my daughter anyway.

John Bytheway: 56:56 Please join us for Part II of this podcast.