Hank Smith: 00:00:00 Coming up in this episode:

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:00:02 I’m a missionary in Southern Florida. We knock on this guy’s door. The guy opens the door and says, guys, I’m a Lutheran minister. I don’t think you want to talk to me. And I was, you know, pretty fiery. And I stuck my foot in the door and said, actually, you’re exactly the kind of person that we want to talk to. And the guy goes, okay, tell me , if you had to stand before God and justify why you deserve to go to the celestial kingdom, or whatever you guys believe in, why you’re justified to be there. And I was 19 and very young and kind of dumb and I remember saying…

Hank Smith: 00:00:41 Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I am your host and I am here with my repenting co-host John Bytheway. John, have you ever read Doctrine & Covenants 20 verse 29? We know that all men, including John Bytheway must repent daily.

John Bytheway: 00:01:00 Hourly. Repent relentlessly.

Hank Smith: 00:01:03 I know you well and there’s not a lot of repentance to be done, but I I’m sure you could find something.

John Bytheway: 00:01:08 Oh contraire mon frere. There’s plenty. We’ll keep trying.

Hank Smith: 00:01:12 John we are joined today by our friend. Honestly, John, when I think of my favorite teachers in the church, the entire church I’ve ever heard, Casey Griffiths comes to mind. Dr. Casey Griffiths is with us today. Welcome Casey. 

Dr. Casey Griffiths: Thank you. Back at you. You two are two of my favorite teachers also. 

Hank Smith: We love having you with us. I’m sure a lot of people are very excited. Now let me ask both of you, John, we’re going to look at section 20 today. This is a pivot point for the church. Everything changes in Section 20. So John, what are you looking forward to?

John Bytheway: 00:01:47 Thank you for asking. Well, what I am hoping we can do, especially for the adults who listen, who have kids and grandkids who ask questions. Because the question I get a lot is, well, why do we need a church? Can’t we just believe in God and be good people? Why do we need a church? Why does it have to be an organization today when a lot of people have different feelings about organized religion? I’m excited to talk about why does the Lord say you’re going to have a church and this is what you’re going to do and this is what it’s about.

Hank Smith: 00:02:14 Hmm. That’s fantastic. Casey, as you’ve looked at these sections, I can’t imagine how many times in your career what stands out this time?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:02:23 This time. I just read through it again this afternoon and what stood out was how much the emphasis was on the Savior from the very beginning. Section 20 is through and through a document about Jesus Christ, what he does for us and how we can draw closer to him. Can I quote the restoration proclamation about this? They write, we declare that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints organized on April 6th, 1830, which is what is happening when this section is given, is Christ’s New Testament church restored. And then they wrote this, this church is anchored in the perfect life of its chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ, and in his infinite atonement and literal resurrection. And there’s no way a person could read Section 20 and not come away believing and knowing that we’re centered on Christ, that that’s what we’re all about, that that’s what we believe in, that he’s the central figure in our religion.

Hank Smith: 00:03:19 What a way to start. The Come, Follow Me manual has a great opener that I want to read for both of you and then Casey, let’s find out what you want to do. If you want to give us some background, if we want to just walk verse by verse, here’s how it starts. The Savior’s work of bringing forth the Book of Mormon was now complete, but his work of restoration had just started. In addition to restoring doctrine and priesthood authority, the Lord had made it clear through earlier revelations that he also wanted to restore a formal organization, his church on April 6th, 1830, more than 40 believers crowded into the Whitmer family’s log home in Fayette, New York to witness the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ. Some people may wonder why an organized church is even necessary. The answer may be found, at least in part, in the revelations connected with that first church meeting in 1830. They describe blessings that would have not been possible if the true church of Jesus Christ had not been regularly organized and established in the latter days. Huh, what a great kickoff. Casey, where do you want to go? How do we start to get the most out of this section?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:04:30 Well, let me take a minute and explain the significance of this section. Doctrine & Covenants 20 has been called the Constitution of the Church. It’s sort of the founding document, but on a practical level, this is the Doctrine and Covenants before there’s a Doctrine and Covenants. They don’t talk about making a Doctrine & Covenants until about a year and a half later. It’s the first church handbook too. It’s all those things combined together in one thing. If I were to try and capture its essence, I would also say it’s sort of desert island, Latter-day Saintism. I mean, imagine a scenario, this is what I bring up with my classes. If you were on a ship that was going down and everybody’s jumping off and you’re going to have to organize a branch of the church on this desert island and you can’t take anything with you, you’d open up your Doctrine and Covenants and tear out Section 20 because it gives you the basic operating instructions for a branch of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

  00:05:27 It’s got the basic history, it’s got the basic beliefs, and it has the most basic ordinances that we do, including baptism, confirmation, the sacrament and blessing children. This is about as essential as it gets. And for a lot of people, this was the motivation to create a Doctrine and Covenants as people were literally taking copies of Section 20 and folding them up and putting them in their pockets so that when missionaries were going around, they knew how to organize the church. Like this is the most basic set of operating instructions for the church that you can find in any of the four standard works.

John Bytheway: 00:06:03 I love Moroni six. It has a little bit of why we take everybody’s names and how we do our meetings, why we do our meetings, but this is a lot more we just say.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:06:15 Yeah, and it’s fair to say that Moroni six is a huge influence on this one scholar, Jack Welsh has done a little study where he compared the content of Doctrine & Covenants 20 with the content of the Book of Mormon, and about half of the section is a direct quotation from the Book of Mormon, which also demonstrates that they were taking the Book of Mormon really seriously and they were using it as a template for how they were going to set up the church. So some of those really influential passages like Mosiah 17, almost the entire book of Moroni were used as the building blocks to set up this church in the latter days. It’s got a close relationship with the Book of Mormon. And it’s probably fair to say that the reason why they waited until April 1830 to organize the church is they were waiting for the first copies of the Book of Mormon to be printed and to be in people’s hands so that they would know. And from the beginning, this is going to be a church that’s centered on the scriptures, and especially the Book of Mormon, which gives us that kind of Christ-centered approach that we want. 

Hank Smith: 00:07:16 What a week and a half earlier you have March 27th, right? 1830 you have copies of the Book of Mormon.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:07:22 Yeah, I think they were raring to go as early as Doctrine and Covenants five. The Lord had told them they were going to organize a church. Then Doctrine and Covenants 10, and then Doctrine & Covenants 18, the Lord’s telling them, okay, here’s the things the church needs. And at that point, which is the summer before the spring that this happens, Oliver Cowdery is told to draft a document that’s going to be the founding document for this church, and he puts it together. It’s kind of a unique fusion. Parts of it were definitely given by revelation. Joseph Smith describes it as a document given by revelation. In fact, here’s how he introduces it in his 1838 history, he says, in this manner, did the Lord continue to give us instructions from time to time concerning the duties which now devolved upon us and among many other things of the kind we obtained of him.

  00:08:12 The following that is articles and covenants by the spirit of prophecy and revelation, which not only gave us much information, but also pointed out to us the precise day upon which according to his will and commandment, we should proceed to organize his church once again here upon the earth. Doctrine & Covenants 20 is kind of a unique thing where we can find places where Joseph Smith told Oliver Cowdery to draft it, but then Joseph Smith says, but we also received it by revelation and then it has a big healthy chunk of the Book of Mormon, and it looks like it’s all three of those things coming together to create this foundational document for the church.

Hank Smith: 00:08:47 That’s fantastic. I remember two weeks ago, Brother Harper was here with us. If you look at the very beginning of section 18, the Lord tells Oliver Cowdery the things which you have written are true, which Dr. Harper said, that’s the Book of Mormon. And then in the next verse, he tells him to rely upon the things which are written. So it sounds like he did that very thing.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:09:09 Yeah. And the exact next verse in Section 18 for in them are all things written concerning the foundation of my church, my gospel, and my rock. One thing that Latter-day Saints sometimes don’t appreciate is the ecclesiology in the Book of Mormon. Ecclesiology is just a $10 word for the instructions on how to build a church. I was at a meeting once where some people from another restoration church got up and said, well, there’s no ecclesiology in the New Testament. There’s no specific instructions about what you’re supposed to do. And I raised my hand and said, well, there’s tons in the Book of Mormon. Don’t you guys use the Book of Mormon? And they were, they looked at me like I was from Mars or something. They were like, are you crazy? Doctrine & Covenants 20 is them essentially doing that. They’re following the Lord’s instructions, which are, hey, I gave you this book, now it’s time to start using it to do what I’ve asked you to do.

  00:10:00 Use the instructions in the book to set up the church and Oliver and Joseph as a testament to their sincerity, rely deeply upon the text of the Book of Mormon to structure what the church is going to look like. And the DNA that’s laid down in section 20, you can still see in every church meeting that you go to on Sunday, everything is right there from our practices to the offices that you see operating within the church to everything we do from baby blessings to blessing and passing the sacrament, it’s all kind of here. Wow. In the first meeting, the first of many meetings, I might point out too, like if you’ve ever looked up on the stand during the sacrament and seen the bishop staring down at his scriptures, he’s probably got D&C 20 open  because that’s where the sacrament prayers are. And we’ve all had that experience where you messed up on the sacrament prayers. This is where the operating instructions are. So any ecclesiastical leader needs to refer back to D&C 20 pretty quickly. It’s the handbook too.

Hank Smith: 00:11:03 Beautiful. Now John, we need to do something that Casey didn’t ask us to do and he wouldn’t do himself, so let’s do it for him. Casey, when it comes to resources that he has offered to the church, he’s prolific John. He’s a machine, especially when it comes to church history.

John Bytheway: 00:11:19 Yeah. Recently Scripture Central put out a Doctrine and Covenants commentary. Yeah, I think it’s called the Scripture Central Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants. 

Hank Smith: 00:11:29 It’s a pretty good name.

John Bytheway: 00:11:31 Which is like four volumes I think? That would be great because it’s the latest scholarship I would say. And you could find that at where Casey?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:11:42 Just about I mean anywhere fine Latter-day Saint Books are sold, but the publisher is Cedar Fort. They were great to work with. A shout out to the team there who were just absolutely wonderful and the book looks great. One request that I had was I wanted to include the text of the Doctrine & Covenants. So I hate it when I’m using a commentary and I forgot my scriptures and so I can’t refer back to the actual verses. One thing I love about the way they put it together was the actual text is there, so text and then commentary and you can have it all in kind of one place.

Hank Smith: 00:12:15 Yep. All you would need to do is go to Amazon, type in Casey Griffiths, and not only are you going to see those books, but you’re going to see a lot of other books that Casey offers. All of these are really well written. He has a way of teaching, a way of writing that is informative and natural and he’s actually pretty funny. John, if you don’t mind a little bit of Dad in him.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:12:38 I’m not as good at dad jokes as you Hank. I’m kinda like the weird uncle eccentric person. Uncle jokes. Yeah. But I will say too, we also on Doctrine & Covenants Central, which you mentioned John, have a ton of resources including a commentary and videos and maps and things like that that will help a person. Susan Easton Black wrote short biographies for everybody that’s mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants and that’s all free on Doctrine & Covenants Central. Go there, take advantage of that. We just wanted people to have a deeper understanding. Steve Harper, who you mentioned earlier, contributed some of our historical context and we’ve spent the last couple years filming videos at church history sites and other things to allow people to contextualize and understand the revelations. That’s all free. That’s wonderful. I tell my students, we live in the golden age of church history because you’re a couple clicks away from not just seeing the text of Doctrine & Covenants 20, but the earliest version of the text, which the Joseph Smith papers have gathered and digitized and placed on their website. It’s just incredible what we can do and the depth of study we can go to. Like you can go as far as you want to go. It is a little overwhelming, but that’s okay. Do what you can. Pace yourself and just enjoy it. There’s so much, so much to learn. I love it.

Hank Smith: 00:14:04 Moroni told Joseph Smith, your name will be known for both good and evil. We see the evil all the time, but there’s a lot of good, a lot of good being said, what a time to be alive.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:14:15 Right?

Hank Smith: 00:14:15 Yeah. John, you didn’t ask me to do this either, but let me just ask you a question. When you wrote your book on Moroni, what was it called again?

John Bytheway: 00:14:24 Moroni’s Guide to Surviving Turbulent Times.

Hank Smith: 00:14:28 All right. You need to get the Scripture Central people to help you out with your titles. It could be John Bytheway’s Commentary on Moroni. John, do you see Section 20 differently after writing that book?

John Bytheway: 00:14:42 Well, yeah. Like I mentioned, Moroni six is very brief, but it does have in there, it has the focus on Christ. It has the fact that we remember each other and that we’re baptized and then our names are taken so that we can be remembered so that we can be nourished by the good word of God. It speaks about meetings. There’s the tongue in cheek 14th Article of Faith. You guys have probably heard it a million times, that we believe in meetings, we hope for meetings, we have endured many meetings. We hope to be able to endure more meetings. And if there’s any justification for holding a meeting, we seek after these things. When I share that, I always say if that’s offensive, call me. We’ll have a meeting. But it talks about why they meet to fast and to pray and to speak one with another concerning the welfare of their souls. I just love that little glimpse Moroni gives us of why we meet and how we strengthen each other.

Hank Smith: 00:15:43 And it bridges into this. I love the bridge from the Book of Mormon to the restoration. Okay, Casey, what do we do now? Do we just start at verse one? Do we read the entire constitution here?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:15:56 Let me give you a little bit of a big picture idea. Okay. So it’s the constitution of the church, but the title that early church members would’ve used is the articles and covenants of the Church of Christ. It’s got at least five important things going for it. Number one, it gives us the original name of the church, which is the Church of Christ. That again, is going directly from the Book of Mormon 3 Nephi 27. The Lord says the church has to be called after his name. It has the foundational events of the church. So it’s the first history of the church that’s written. The earliest one. As a historian you’re going for earlier histories. It has the foundational doctrines of the church. So think Articles of Faith, but even an earlier and more distilled form. And then it has the foundational practices of the church.

  00:16:45 And the last thing is it gives Joseph Smith five titles and explains what they are. So if you’re breaking down section 20, you can easily break it into three different sections. Okay? Verses one through 16 is the history of the church. Verses 17 up to about verse 36 is the foundational beliefs of the church. That’s kind of the proto articles of faith. And then verse 37 to the end are the foundational practices of the church from verse 37, verse 84, this is where we get into baptism, how to baptize, how to confirm somebody, how to do the sacrament, how to do a baby blessing, and also the basic offices of the church, starting with elder, priest, teacher, deacon. When you look at it that way, it’s not quite as daunting. And if you’re teaching it, it’s easiest to kind of break it down that way. Okay? What did verses one through 16 say about the history of the church to this point, which this is the birthday of the church. So what led us here verses 17 to 36, what do we believe? What makes us different? What makes us unique? What brings us together as believers and makes us a church? Because a church is just a group of people, and then what are we going to do? What are the practices? That’s everything from verse 37 on to verse 84, which explains how things are going to go.

Hank Smith: 00:18:16 Casey, I want to throw in all three of us, and I’m sure many, many people listening love this church. Everything that I love and adore has come because of this organization and of course the Lord. So those of you who love this church, it’s kind of fun to say, okay, this was the beginning. I’m excited to just gaze into the past and say the beginning of something that has impacted every area of my life.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:18:47 I’m glad you brought that up Hank, because maybe we should set the scene too. This is all written down before, but like Joseph Smith said, they were told by Revelation the very day they should organize the church. April 6th, 1830, imagine the Whitmer farmhouse. I know both of you have been there. There’s a little replica on the Whitmer farm today that was built for the 1980 general conference of the church, the 150th anniversary. You might even be old enough to remember that they held a session of general conference in the recreated Whitmer farmhouse. I don’t remember it. I was two years old. But we may have someone here who remembers.

Hank Smith: 00:19:29 Lemme look around.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:19:31 I was trying to like gently John, do you remember this?

John Bytheway: 00:19:35 I watched it live. It was a type of a thing because you just don’t do it, you just don’t broadcast general conference from any place but the tabernacle and all of a sudden there was President Kimball with you know, a not very good resolution TV in 1980 and there was President Kimball in the Peter Whitmer farm. I still remember all of us going, so I guess I was probably what Hank 17 or something like that. And I remember how cool that was to see him broadcast from there. When you see the picture from the outside, I dunno if you guys agree, it looks smaller. When you get inside, it feels a little bigger, but it still doesn’t feel like it can fit as many people as were there.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:20:21 Yeah, you imagine 40 people in there. I mean a significant number of them. Their last name was Smith or Whitmer. In fact a couple years ago there was an article in the Ensign where they tried to figure out who were the original six members of the church because that’s how many you actually have to have to organize a religious society in the state of New York. And there’s several different lists given like people don’t always agree on who the original six members are. And by the way, we have one list that comes from David Whitmer and one that comes from Joseph Knight and one that comes from Brigham Young, who wasn’t even a member of the church until a couple years later. All the lists include three people, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and Hyrum Smith. Everybody agrees that they were there. Brigham Young said that Samuel Smith, this is Joseph’s little brother and Joseph Smith Senior, Joseph’s father, and this is interesting.

  00:21:18 Porter Rockwell were among the original members. Joseph Knight says, yes, Samuel, but then he says Peter Whitmer and David Whitmer were the other ones, and the last list includes John Whitmer and Christian Whitmer. Richard Lloyd Anderson, who’s the person who did all this great research, said the most likely lists of the six original members are Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Hyrum Smith, David Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, and Samuel Smith. That’s not important. There’s not going to be an exam or anything on this, but it is kind of wonderful to visit that site and think of this small organization of mostly family members and that this church which was going to grow to several million members in hundreds of countries around the world really just started out with these six disciples of Christ.

Hank Smith: 00:22:13 I love it. Wouldn’t you love to go visit? Just get to, you know, look in the window and watch this happen.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:22:20 Yeah, be a fly on the wall and witness it and some cool things happen. Joseph Smith receives section 21 during the organizational meetings. He actually dictates and they record the revelation that becomes section 21. The same day they go down to a body of water, probably Lake Seneca, which is nearby and they hold the first baptisms. One of the most moving passages I’ve ever read in the history of the church was Joseph Smith seeing his father be baptized. You’ll recall, Joseph Smith’s father was a seeker. He hadn’t really committed to any religion. He was a sort of universalist when he was growing up, but he just wasn’t satisfied with organized religion. And here’s, he’s seeing his dad join it. In fact, Joseph Smith writes, oh my God, I have seen my father join the Church of Christ, which to me is just really powerful, really sweet.

  00:23:15 It kinda gets at the essence of what the church is, which is a place where families come together and where they experience life events that matter to them. And you guys both started out by saying, so grateful for the church. I’ll say, Hey, I’m grateful for the church and the experiences I’ve had there with my family. And we get to see that the first day of the church is very similar to every Sunday in the church. Five years from now, it’s going to be the bicentennial. Maybe the picture will be a little clearer than it was in 1980 if they choose to do that again.

John Bytheway: 00:23:50 Mm-Hmm. Hank, what was the line that you quoted a couple of weeks ago? Elder Holland had said it’s not 1830 anymore and there aren’t only six of us.

Hank Smith: 00:23:59 Right? Yeah. I think it’s the idea that I’m scared to go and I think it was a missionary or someone who was nervous to go talk to a high ranking government official and he said, Hey, just remember it’s not 1830 and there’s not just six of us anymore.  

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:24:15 And I’ll flip that, a friend of mine, Taunalyn Ford likes to say it’s always 1830 in the church somewhere.

Hank Smith: 00:24:21 Yeah.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:24:22 Yeah. So somewhere out there, there’s a single family home with a bunch of people crowded into it, and that’s the church wherever they are. Section 20 kind of for me captures the essence of what it means to be a member of the church. That you get together with people that believe the same as you, and you with authority participate in ordinances that help you draw closer to God. That’s the core of what we’re all about. 

Hank Smith: 00:24:47 And hopefully, like you said Casey, it’s an uplifting, powerful, uniting time. I’ve had those times. So Casey, we’re going to walk through these three sections: history, beliefs and practices.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:25:01 We can do history relatively quickly because that’s what you’ve been doing the last couple weeks. But let me point out a couple highlights. Verse two Commandments were given to Joseph Smith, Jr. who was called of God and ordained an apostle of Jesus Christ to be the first elder of this church, and Oliver Cowdery who was called of God an apostle of Jesus Christ, to be the second elder of the church. That’s the church hierarchy. Sustaining went much faster. Hey, we’ve got two sustainings to do today, the first elder and the second elder, and that’s the end of the list. That’s how complicated the church was when it was first set up. There’s a couple things hinted at in here that I wish I could talk to them and say, Hey, what were you referencing this for instance, verse five says, after it was truly manifested unto this first elder that he had received a remission of his sins.

  00:25:51 This could be the earliest account of the first vision. I know you had Maclane Heward on a few weeks ago, and he probably talked about how the earliest accounts, the main message for Joseph was God knows me and my sins are forgiven. This is earlier than the 1832 account or ‘35 or any of the others. This might be the first time Joseph tiptoes towards saying, I learned that God knows me and that he forgave me my sins. He summarizes, he was entangled again in the vanities of the world. So again, he’s setting up the idea this church isn’t led by perfect people, but after appending and humbling himself sincerely through faith, God ministered unto him by a holy angel whose countenance was like lightning and whose garments were pure and white above all other whiteness. So now we move into the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and he’s just giving us the basics of what we need to know that commandments were given.

  00:26:41 Verse eight gave him power from on high by the means which were prepared to translate the Book of Mormon. And then it gives us this introduction of the Book of Mormon, which I think is perfect too. It contains the record of a fallen people and the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, of the Gentiles and the Jews. Also nice summary of the Book of Mormon, it’s to teach the gospel, but it’s the record of a fallen people and then a stated purpose for the Book of Mormon. Jump down to verse 11, why another book of scripture? One, to prove to the world that the holy scriptures are true and that God does inspire men to call them to his holy work in this age and generation as well as in generations of old, thereby showing that he is the same God yesterday, today and forever.

  00:27:27 There’s the Lord basically saying, here’s why we needed another book of scripture. It’s supposed to prove that the scriptures are true. It’s looking backward and it’s supposed to prove that God still speaks to people. Today it’s looking forward. I think just about how last night I was on Reddit or something and somebody was talking about how hey, maybe Jesus was just this really incredible magician who tricked a bunch of people into thinking he was amazing and somebody else chimed in and said, no, no, no, no. That’s not what happened. Jesus was a good guy, but they added in all this stuff about him being the son of God and him being resurrected later on like they reconned the narrative. The Book of Mormon flies in the face of all that. If the Book of Mormon is true, the stories about Jesus in the New Testament, being the Son of God, miraculously healing people and dying for our sins are all true. So if you’ve got a record on this side of the world and a record on this side of the world that talk about the same Savior, it’s pretty hard to refute those two independent witnesses that testify that not only was Jesus a great moral teacher, but Jesus was the son of God. I mean, if the Book of Mormon is true, Jesus flew here to America, it’s pretty  pretty hard to imagine that happening by accident or being embellished in the story. If the two records line up.

Hank Smith: 00:28:48 That’s wonderful. And having come off a year of Come, Follow Me in the Book of Mormon, you and I still have that excitement from the Book of Mormon, all that we learned, all that we saw.

John Bytheway: 00:28:59 In fact this phrase proving to the world that the holy scriptures are true. I’ve got in my margin, Mormon 7:9. Hank, do you remember me back in Book of Mormon saying why was six afraid of seven? because 7, 8, 9. Which will only make sense in English, but look up the verse Mormon seven, eight and nine, therefore repent, be baptized in the name of Jesus. Lay hold upon the gospel of Christ which shall be set before you, not only in this record, but also the record which shall come unto the Gentiles from the Jews. Which records shall come from the Gentiles unto you. And Casey, what you are saying. Look, I love verse nine. For behold this Book of Mormon is written for the intent that you may believe that, the Bible and if you believe that, the Bible, you will believe this, the Book of Mormon also. And if you believe this, you will know concerning your fathers and the marvelous works which were wrought by the power of God among them. I love that verse because that’s what it just said right there. Here’s the Book of Mormon backing up the Bible saying to your Reddit poster, not so fast my friend, those miracles were real and Jesus is the son of God.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:30:11 Yeah, John, you made me think of another verse. This is in first Nephi 13 where Nephi seeing kind of his big vision, the overview, you know, before you get into the story, he sees the Book of Mormon coming forth, but the way he phrases it is unique. He says, these last records, which I’m assuming includes the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, which now is seen among the Gentiles, that’s us, shall establish the truth of the first, meaning the Bible, the record of the Jews, which are of the 12 apostles of the Lamb and shall make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues and people that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, the Savior of the world, and that all men must come unto him or they cannot be saved.

  00:30:56 I don’t know, maybe it’s an old rusty analogy, but I remember as a missionary saying, you know, if you had a sign and you had one nail in it, you can turn it any which way you want to go. But if you have two nails in it, then it points the way and it can’t be adjusted. The Book of Mormon is a second witness. Later on, we’ll add the Doctrine and Covenants as a third, and we continue to receive scriptural witnesses. Like that’s one of the stated purposes here is that the Book of Mormon is also supposed to prove that the day of miracles is not passed. That miraculous things like a new book of scripture or healings or manifestations are still things that can happen in our time. So that’s a pretty great introduction to what we’re all about in the latter days.

Hank Smith: 00:31:37 And the setting that you set for us, Casey just seems to fit. The Lord of the Bible, the God of the Bible. If you look at Abraham, this incredible figure, he was just a, just a guy, an immigrant and his wife, and then we’ll get Mary in Nazareth. It was just out in the middle of nowhere, just some normal everyday person out there. And then here’s this cabin with a farmer being the first elder.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:32:06 Yeah, the weak things, the Savior’s going to call them in Doctrine and Covenants. One, nothing big, nothing flashy, not the king rolling in with an entourage and an army. It’s these small people who hold big and important ideas that are really going to transform the world and cast down the corrupt systems that have ruled for thousands and thousands of years. It’s beautiful. It’s those couple first verses. The last ones introduce an idea of witnesses. In fact, it says this, verse 13, having so great witnesses by them shall the world be judged even as many and shall hereafter come to a knowledge of this work. Now this could be a reference to the witnesses of the Book of Mormon who most of whom are present at the organizational meeting, but the Book of Mormon is the witness. And that explains a little bit about how the early church operated, which was you probably noted most people didn’t talk about the first vision when they were introducing the gospel.

  00:33:03 The early missionaries always talked about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, because the first vision provides a great pattern for how a person can get answers to questions, but there’s no proof there. It’s a story that you accept or don’t accept. The proof of the restoration is this book. This is the point where Joseph Smith could say, hey, I’m not just telling stories. I have a 500 page record here that was revealed to me that came forth under miraculous circumstances. And you can read it for yourself. And that in a basic sense is still what we do. We use the first vision to teach people the process of revelation, but the Book of Mormon is the witness that God has given that the latter-day work has begun again and that the church has been restored.

Hank Smith: 00:33:47 Casey, correct me if I’m wrong, you know the history, but there’s people in Joseph Smith’s day and age having visions, reporting visions.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:33:56 He’s different. He has this book. That’s actually one of the criticisms of the first vision is sometimes people will say, well, there are a lot of people saying that they had experiences with God and that they saw visions and things. And I’m saying, yeah, because God loves all his children, not just this one kid that lives in Palmyra. And there were a lot of people, I’ll say during this time too, some notable figures like Alexander Campbell who were trying to restore the church from the New Testament. And they all have interesting ideas and they all have interesting stories I’ll say too, but none of them really have anything like the Book of Mormon and none of them make claims as bold as saying, an angel brought us this book and we have a new book of scripture and that might explain why none of them seem to endure the type of persecutions that we do.

  00:34:46 Like nobody’s making big claims like we are. Boy, it does seem like a sword that cuts asunder. People have strong feelings about Latter-day Saints. There’s not a lot of people that go, yeah, you know, whatever. Because people that think seriously about our message realize that, oh, I’ve gotta make a choice whether or not I accept this or not. Maybe you’ve heard that old story with Hugh B. Brown. Hugh B. Brown was the mission president in London when the second World War was breaking out and he was friends with a barrister there, an English lawyer. The lawyer came to him and said, it looks like there’s going to be a war. If there’s a war, you’re going to have to go home. So I respect you, but I don’t understand your beliefs. Lay them out for me. And Hugh B. Brown prepared this legal brief that is just awesome.

  00:35:33 It’s called Profile of a Prophet. Go read it. Amazing stuff where he laid out, Hey, here are several reasons why I think Joseph Smith is a prophet and lays down a devastating legal case. But the part that’s always resonated with me is that after he’s done laying out this legal case, the barrister looked at him and said, do you realize that if what you’re saying is true, this is the most important message since the angels announced the resurrection of Christ? And then the guy, well the way Hugh B. Brown says it was, he wept and said, I would to God. Like I don’t know if he convinced the guy that it was true, but the guy at least got the point, which is this is a big deal and it’s difficult to have a neutral opinion about. I use that to comfort myself when I take a beating on the internet or Reddit or something like that, that it’s supposed to produce strong feelings at people. 

Hank Smith: 00:36:31 Yeah, a third option isn’t open to you. It’s either what it claims to be or it’s not. And John, I think you’ve done this before, like oh, there was an angel there. There was an angel. Oh yeah, there was John the Baptist. You’re John the Baptist, yeah, yeah. Oh, Peter, James and John and Moses and Elijah right? 

John Bytheway: 00:36:49 And Elias. The audacious just keeps going. Yeah.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:36:55 Yeah. One of my favorite passages in the Doctrine and Covenants is section 128 when Joseph Smith says, and Michael detecting the devil is an angel of light on the banks of the Susquehanna and then doesn’t say anything else about it. And you’re like, is Michael having a rematch with Satan? Not a big enough deal for you, for you to pause and tell the story. That’s just something you mentioned in passing. Remember that guys? But I think at that point Joseph Smith was the momentous was mundane to him that the extraordinary was kind of a, yeah, we’ve had some fun times, haven’t we?

Hank Smith: 00:37:28 And we just walk around with this knowledge every day like it’s Yeah. How is this news?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:37:33 Yeah, yeah, maybe occasionally we need to pause and recognize it and how significant it is. I like that. And then the history section concludes, if we jump down to verse 16, the Lord God has spoken it and we, the elders of the church, and remember there’s only two elders. There’s Joseph and Oliver , but he’s probably making reference to the fact that a lot of the people at this meeting are going to become leaders and a lot of the people at this meeting are witnesses of the Book of Mormon. We have heard and bear witness to the words of the glorious majesty on high to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. A reference probably to the witness experiences and that the second elder, Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith had not only seen the plates, but they’d heard God testified that the book was true. And now they feel this obligation to share what they’ve learned. This is the earliest history of the church. It’s a great little here’s where we come from. Here’s our mission statement. Here’s what we do. Here’s why we think there needs to be a new church and a new scripture. Here’s what we’re all about.

Hank Smith: 00:38:44 And yet again, it shows Joseph Smith in an interesting light. He was again entangled in the vanities of the world, this beginning of the Doctrine and Covenants. It’s not a great look for Joseph, right?  section three, section 10, why are you doing all these things wrong? Then again here he’s entangled in the vanities of the world. This isn’t someone who is trying to come off as I am your liaison with God.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:39:11 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:39:11 Let’s remind everyone of that and let’s canonize it.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:39:15 Yeah. Yeah, let’s canonize my biggest mistake and put it at the first of the book. I think it was the Lord putting in our face the idea of infallibility is not going to fly in this church. These are fallible people, but it is a little hard on Joseph. I mean, I don’t get up before my classes and say, hi, I’m your instructor and I was kind of a bad kid in high school or something like that. Yeah. But Joseph has all of his youthful foibles kind of put out there and then his first stumbles as a prophet, it is a message that we have to have repeated again and again because so often well-meaning, but maybe misguided, Latter-day Saints invest too much in the perfection of the leaders of the church. And that’s not what we believe. We believe in flawed, weak people that are made extraordinary through Jesus Christ.

Hank Smith: 00:40:04 That’s wonderful. I remember once my mother-in-law, she wasn’t a very tall woman, she was 5’1”, 5 foot. She said, I met a prophet once and I shook his hand and sadly he just looked right over my head. I was just too short. And I was looking up at him, but he didn’t look down at me and she said, I walked away from that going, oh, I wish I could have talked to him longer. And then she said, you know, I just love the prophet. I just liked her saying, yeah, I met him. I wish he would’ve noticed me, but he’s human and he’s still the prophet. It was just a little testimony of, yeah, they’re not perfect because I think some might go into a, I’m going to meet a prophet and he’s going to call me by name and tell me where I served my mission and probably give me a patriarchal blessing right there. Right on the spot. Yeah. It was just wonderful to see her. She didn’t have some sort of grand idea that he’s perfect.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:41:00 Yeah, my mission president told this story, what, where an apostle came and stayed in their home and he didn’t ever say who the apostle was, but he said he was getting ready to go to bed and he saw the guy kneel down and he just kind of held back and said, oh, I’m going to get to hear an apostle pray to the Lord. So he held back and he heard the apostle go, Father in Heaven, I am so tired, I’m going to talk to you in the morning in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. And for him it was a wonderful humanizing moment to realize, oh, these people get tired. We don’t want to oversell. They’re good qualities, but we also don’t want to undersell that they are really good.

Hank Smith: 00:41:41 Alright, Casey, what do we do next?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:41:43 The next part of the revelation is the basic beliefs of the Church of Christ. So it’s basically verses 17 to 36. This would be a great place to point a person to, to say, Hey, here’s what Latter-day Saints are all about. In fact, some stuff that we still emphasize from time to time, and some of this shouldn’t be surprising. Verse 17, there is a God in heaven who is infinite and eternal from everlasting to everlasting, same unchangeable God the framer of heaven and earth. Verse 18, he created man, male and female after his own image and in his own likeness created he them and gave unto them commandments that they should love and serve him. We’ve got creation. Is this sounding like a familiar pattern? Yeah. Verse 20, by transgression of these holy laws, man became sensual and devilish and became fallen. Men Creation Fall, and you probably know what the next thing is going to come.

  00:42:36 Wherefore the Almighty God gave his only begotten son as it is written in those scriptures which have been given of him. So Creation, Fall, Atonement, here’s the basic beliefs of the church. I can point out a couple little interesting things here. It seems like the Book of Mormon is already affecting them, and I don’t want to over claim here, but in verse 20, it’s interesting that they don’t use the word sin, they use the word transgression, and I’m not claiming that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had done a deep dive into second Nephi two at this point, or anything more than just read it, but they’re already kind of softening the language a little bit to where there’s a difference between a transgression and a sin. I might be wrong here, they could be synonyms, but it does seem like they’re starting to inch towards this idea of the Fall being something that was progressive. Yes, it caused us to Fall, it brought death into the world, but it was part of the plan, which is what the Book of Mormon basically puts forward.

Hank Smith: 00:43:37 If I’m a new member of the church. Is the church’s stance on the fall of Adam and Eve, different  than especially in Joseph’s day, is that different than what people taught?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:43:50 Yes. If we’re saying in Joseph’s day, and that includes the introduction of the temple ordinances, and I hope I’m not going too far, but spoiler alert, everybody, Creation, Fall and Atonement are what are discussed in the temple ordinances. It does seem to be introducing this more positivistic view of the Fall. I mean just the simple phrase in the Book of Mormon that Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy immediately takes this from being an original sin that really offended God and completely threw off God’s plans and designs to something that no, God intended to happen and that God turned into a good thing and that eventually became a way for us to experience good and evil, but learn from that, overcome it and come back to God knowing good from evil, if that makes sense. This is our first tiptoe. Section 29 is going to pick up on this a little bit, but I will say, yeah, based on the Temple Endowment, which is kind of the last iteration of Joseph Smith’s exploration of the Fall, I can’t get into what the temple says and I, I won’t, but it does present a much more positive view of the Fall and its purposes being something and it does stuff like take Adam and Eve to messed up God’s plan and caused each of us to experience sorrow to people who had to experience and know joy and sorrow in order to be whole and complete.

  00:45:16 Maybe I’m reading too much into the use of the word transgression, but it is interesting that if you view the church leaders, they’ve always kind of hued away from saying original sin, which is what most Christians would say and say transgression. There is a difference between a transgression and a sin, though sometimes they’re used interchangeably. Let me tell a story when this comes up in my class and someone says, what’s the difference between a transgression and a sin? My wife was pregnant, she woke me up in the middle of the night and said my water broke. I got her in the car and it was 3:00 AM and I drove to the hospital and I was going on a road where I knew it was 35, going about 85 was the action that I took a sin or was it a transgression? On the one hand, I knew what the speed limit was.

  00:46:01 I knew that it might be a little dangerous, but I feel like the law that thou shalt not go faster than 35 miles per hour is less important than the thou shalt not let thine wife die while she is in labor with thine child. Adam and Eve acted out of necessity and it wasn’t necessarily against God’s plan and they’re sort of hinting at that here, but later people will get into the Book of Mormon and realize the texts like Second Nephi two really changed the game. If you have that different perspective on who Adam and Eve were, you have a different perspective on humanity. Now this does say, and the Book of Mormon does have other passages that say, man became central and devilish and became fallen. It doesn’t shy away from the introduction of evil into the world, but it’s again, hinting at maybe a higher purpose for the Fall.

Hank Smith: 00:46:46 I really like that there may be some out there in the history of Christianity that taught you know, a fortunate fall, but not many. This goes against the mainstream of Joseph’s day and even today.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:47:00 Yeah, and that’s okay and it’s an interesting discussion to have with people. I remember talking with people as a missionary saying, well, God’s original plan failed, so he came up with a backup plan and that just doesn’t mesh with my theology. I think that all of it was part of the plan from the beginning, but that God couldn’t just shove us out of his presence. We had to make a choice, and that’s how we deal with and introduce a number of complex questions like why is there evil? Why do bad things happen in this? Why is there sorrow and death? It’s just so beautifully presented in our theology to say that, yeah, these things are bad, but they’re necessary for us to know the opposites for us to experience opposition. It shows the impact of the Book of Mormon on their thinking, their theology.

Hank Smith: 00:47:45 I think you’re right. Also, John, you remember when Ammon and Aaron both teach to the Lamanites, this is how they do it, Creation, Fall, Atonement.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:47:55 Yeah. This is the Nephite plan of salvation. They don’t draw the circles and lines. They draw the bridge, which has three pillars, the creation of the earth, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the atonement of Jesus Christ. And again, here in our constitution, here’s what we believe. God created us in His image, we fell, but there was a way for us to be saved. Verse 24, he gave his only begotten Son.

John Bytheway: 00:48:22 I like the phrase that you used Hank of Fortunate fall, our friend and colleague Brad Wilcox, remember that really quotable thing? He said the Atonement was not plan B which God came up with to clean up the mess Adam and Eve made of the world, but it was plan A. He referenced Mosiah four six, and I’ve noticed this ever since Brad pointed that out, how often in the Book of Mormon when it says, this is Mosiah four six, so King Benjamin, and also the atonement which has been prepared from the foundation of the world. In other words, that was always the plan.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:48:58 It really does impact your worldview, right? If you view the progenitors of the human race to be incredibly dumb, or if you view them as taking an action that was necessary for them to know good from evil, to know love and also know loss. I’m not trying to downplay the unpleasant aspects of life. We all experience those, but there’s a lot of joy to be found in life too. And if I walked around thinking this was all just a big mistake that would affect my worldview a little bit and I’d be a little bit more negative. At the same time, we’ve got to be careful that the scriptures say even this scripture, that man became sensual and devilish and then all are fallen and come short. It was a fall downward, but it was a fall forward, might be the best way to put it, but it caused progress and I’m glad you brought that up.

  00:49:48 You’re referencing Doctrine and Covenants 138, which is the grand finale where everybody shows up. It’s the Avengers End Game, and it is really comforting that the first two people that Joseph F. Smith describes being in paradise are Adam and our glorious Mother Eve. And I also think of that passage in Moses five, where Eve finally has the Atonement explained to her and says, were it not for our transgression we never would’ve known seed. And the joy that she ties those two things directly, I don’t know exactly when that little episode with the angel happened. It was probably before she knew what it was like to lose a child, which she does eventually experience, but just the idea that they belonged together and that the Fall was going to help them. There’s this beautiful book by Mark Twain called The Diary of Adam and Eve, and most of it’s just jokes about men and women, but there’s a beautiful scene at the end where Adam is watching his children and Eve has passed away and Adam thinks to himself, the truth was there never was a choice because wherever Eve was, that was Eden.

  00:50:57 Boy, that captures better than anything our view of the Fall, that they weren’t choosing  to sin against God. They were choosing each other. They were choosing to experience what it really was to know love. That’s what the Book of Mormon brings up, is that in the garden there was total equilibrium. There was no joy nor sorrow. And so we have to conclude, I don’t know if they knew love. There’s nothing as joyful and as sorrowful as being in love with somebody and having to process those emotions. Boy, I love what the Book of Mormon brings to the Fall.

Hank Smith: 00:51:30 And you did tell us Section 20 does pull.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:51:33 Yeah, this is the Reader’s Digest Book of Mormon, I guess you’d say. Let’s condense the Book of Mormon down to 84 verses, and he even has that little introduction. Here’s where it came from, here’s what it teaches. Here’s what you’ve got to do now, get baptized.

Hank Smith: 00:51:47 Well, let’s keep going, Casey, what’s next?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:51:48 The summary of Jesus Christ’s mission, which Joseph Smith is going to quote later on. You’ll notice in verse 23, he says He was crucified, died and rose again, third day, and ascended into heaven to sit down on the right hand of the Father to reign with almighty power according to the will of the Father. This is going to get quoted by Joseph Smith again and you hear it quoted again and again and again, sometimes three or four times in a general conference. In 1838, Joseph Smith, he did like a q and a in the Elders Journal. What do Latter-day Saints believe? This is the statement that he makes. He’s quoting Section 20, which is pulling from the Book of Mormon. He said, the fundamental principle of our religion are the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ that he died was buried and rose again the third day and ascended into heaven.

  00:52:37 And all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages. When Joseph Smith’s mind, if the teachings of the church are like a tree, the trunk of the tree is that Jesus died, was buried and rose again the third day and ascended into heaven. Everything else, even major things like temple work is a big branch and missionary work. And then there’s little branches like ward socials and green Jello salad and stuff like that. But we ought to follow his example and maybe use the Doctrine and Covenants 20 as a text where, hey, what do you guys believe? Well, fundamental to our religion is this idea that Jesus died, was buried and rose again the third day. He’s sticking with the basic message here too. And sometimes we go off on little theological tangents, which can be really fun and interesting, but we need to continually circle back to these ideas of, hey, this is really why we meet together and why we serve and why we venerate Jesus because of what he did for us.

Hank Smith: 00:53:38 Yeah, when someone says, I have a lesson coming up. I don’t know what to teach. What should I teach? Well, if you don’t know what to teach, why don’t you talk about the Savior, the begotten son of God that he suffered temptations, he was crucified, died, rose again on the third day. That is why we do everything we do. When he says appendages Casey, wouldn’t you also say then that they only have their power from that? The branch has no power of itself.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:54:05 Yeah, everything has meaning because of that. The church is just a social club really. If we don’t have the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ, if we don’t have the Savior as the center of our worship, and that’s not a terrible reason to go to church every Sunday. I like the people in my ward and they’re my friends and I’m happy to see them. But it’s those few moments when we recognize what Jesus did for us. The broken bread and the water that represents his blood. I think John, you wrote a book that says, hey why are we doing this? What’s the core? Yeah, it’s that little moment when we come together to recognize Jesus died, was buried and rose again the third day.

Hank Smith: 00:54:46 So if you’re going to have family night, you don’t know what to talk about.

John Bytheway: 00:54:49 Yeah, there’s an idea.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:54:52 Yeah, it’s a good story. Yeah. It’s a gripping narrative and now he’s going to expand and a lot of the basic belief section is talking about you go to verse 27, the gifts and calling of God of the Holy Ghost. Spiritual gifts are going to be part of our teaching. In verse 28, father, son and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite, eternal without end, which the Book of Mormon teaches that idea. We just have to nuance what we mean by them being one God and then getting into the basic principles of the gospel. Verse 29, all men must repent and believe on the name of Jesus Christ and worship the Father in his name and endure in faith on His name to the end or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God. Then the next two verses are the two verses that I kind of like hone in on because this is where they start to say a little bit about what they believe about the Atonement and how it works.

  00:55:43 And I remember an an old teacher of mine, Craig Ostler, talking about how understanding the gospel is sometimes understanding the terms that we use. There’s two terms here used in verse 30, in verse 31 that could be misunderstood. And once you understand them, it does expand a little bit about how Latter-day Saints view the Atonement. We know that justification through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is just and true. And we know also that sanctification through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is just and true to all those who love and serve God with all their might, mind and strength. And I would say that a lot of our discussion with other churches, especially Protestant and evangelical friends, centers around this idea of grace, how grace works, what we believe about grace. And these two verses have led to me having a number of wonderful conversations with my friends of other faiths about the difference between justification and the difference between sanctification.

  00:56:49 Craig Ostler, I remember in his class actually opening up a 1828 dictionary. That’s when Noah Webster published the first dictionary of the English language and saying, well, okay, I don’t know if this is exact, but hey, here’s how maybe Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery thought of justification and sanctification. Here’s the definition. Justification according to an 1828 dictionary in theology, remission of sin, an absolution from guilt and punishment, or an act of free grace by which God pardons the sinner and accepts him as righteous on account of the atonement of Christ. Just like it says here, justification comes through grace. This is a place where we agree with all of Christianity, that it’s not us that saves us. We do a terrible job explaining this to people, not just non-members, but I think to our own children. We do a terrible job explaining this idea. Let me share an example.

  00:57:52 I’m a missionary in southern Florida. We knock on this guy’s door. The guy opens the door and says, guys, I’m a Lutheran minister. I don’t think you want to talk to me. And I was, you know, pretty fiery. And I stuck my foot in the door and said, actually, you’re exactly the kind of person that we want to talk to. And the guy goes, okay, tell me if you had to stand before God and justify why you deserve to go to the celestial kingdom or whatever you guys believe in, why you’re justified to be there. And I was 19 and very young and kind of dumb. And I remember saying, I would say to him, I’ve done everything that you’ve asked me to do. I hope that I’m worthy to enter your presence. And the guy looked at me and he said, and that’s what’s wrong with Mormons. You think you’re going to save yourself? And he closed the door. I was pretty devastated  because I gave a really poor answer.

Hank Smith: 00:58:51 You didn’t mention Jesus, right?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:58:53 I never said Jesus. Right.  Why do you deserve to be here? I never brought up Jesus Christ. I never said the words grace. I never mentioned the Atonement. It was a terrible answer. Objectively, it caused me to do a lot of reflection and studying, and I’d answer that question completely differently today. But how many of our kids do get that idea that there’s some kind of eternal scoreboard and you’re just trying to get enough points so that you’re justified in going to heaven? That’s really scary. Our friends of different faiths, especially evangelicals, are correct in saying that we don’t save ourselves. We don’t. We’re justified through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which is just and true. If we examine those words, justification according to the definition we read is a pardon. Boy, there’s a lot of discussions about pardons back and forth in our current discourse, but a pardon fundamentally isn’t a person saying this person isn’t guilty of what they’ve done.

  00:59:56 It’s sometimes you saying, yeah, they’re guilty, but we’re just not going to punish them for it. We’re going to set aside this. A president pardons somebody. It’s not us saying they’re innocent. It could be us saying they’re guilty. Like the example I use in class is Gerald Ford pardons Richard Nixon. And President Ford wasn’t trying to say Richard Nixon didn’t do the things that he did. His justification was I think this would put the country through too many problems. And so I’m just going to pardon him. He’s lost the presidency. That’s enough. We’re going to move on. Justification means that Jesus Christ covers you for your sins and it’s not anything that you earn. It means that you’re square with the law of justice. In fact, that’s what the root of the word is. When we think of justice, we think of that statue with the sword and the scales and she’s blindfolded.

  01:00:49 It’s just basically us saying, no, you’re never going to be righteous enough to earn your way into heaven. Please don’t think that you are justified through Jesus Christ. You are going to be there because of what Jesus Christ did and not because of anything you did. That attitude does raise the question of, well then why do we keep the commandments? Why don’t we just accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and then move on? I mean, you’ve all seen those little comic books they used to put around where you’d sign at the end your name and you would’ve accepted Jesus Christ and his grace and you’re saved. And full disclosure, I did sign one of those once just to make sure I’m covered. Get your bases covered.

  01:01:30 I got my bases covered, right? If this whole restoration doesn’t work out, I’m good with that particular church that left that comic book in that Denny’s. Again, it raises the question of, do you just sign the paper and then that’s the end of your life? What’s the role and why was Jesus so insistent on righteousness and sincerity and keeping the commandments? And that’s where verse 31 comes in. We know also that sanctification through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is just and true to all those who love and serve God with all their might, mind and strength. We’re saved by grace but to borrow from our friend Brad Wilcox are we changed by grace? A justification means you’re saved, you’re going to be okay no matter what happens. Sanctification means, did we actually change something like going back to my 1830 dictionary in that dictionary sanctification is defined as the act of making holy in an evangelical sense, it’s the act of God’s grace by which the affections of men are purified and alienated from sin and the world and exalted to a supreme love of God. We’re saved. We don’t have to worry about going to hell. But the question is, when we get to heaven, are we going to be the kind of people that feel comfortable and belong there? And that’s where sanctification comes into play. Once you have accepted Christ as your Savior, have you actually changed to where it has made a difference to you?

Hank Smith: 01:03:05 Sometimes when I’m questioned about the same subject, I’ll say, I don’t live the gospel so I can get into the Celestial kingdom. I live the gospel, so I’ll choose the Celestial kingdom. When it is offered to me that I’ll say that’s what I truly want, that’s where I want to be. And Casey, if we continually teach our children and grandchildren about some sort of celestial scoreboard, it’s defeating. It comes from a place of fear, I think.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 01:03:40 Yeah. And it’s caused a lot of problems. Like one word that I don’t think anybody knew 20 years ago is scrupulosity. It’s the idea that some people almost get a religious OCD where they feel like if they don’t say prayers three times a day or they fall asleep while they’re reading their scriptures, that they’re going to get in trouble with God, that they have to check every single little box and these verses, by introducing the terms justification and sanctification do free us up a little bit to the point to where we have to get across the idea that we’re not earning our way into heaven. We’re learning what it’s like to be in heaven. We’re trying to become celestial. Both of you are probably familiar with Stephen Robinson, he’s a wonderful theologian. He wrote an amazing book that everybody should read called Believing Christ. He talks about how he was trained at a Baptist seminary.

  01:04:34 That’s where he did his graduate work, and then he came to BYU. He noticed at BYU that a lot of students believed in this model of grace where you do everything you can and then grace carries you the rest of the way. We’re saved by grace after all we can do. He realized that was causing them to have major anxiety over, am I doing enough? Like he even realized that his own wife, he said his wife came home one day and she was one of those ladies that had like the big giant church binder and she chucked her binder down and started crying and said, I can’t do this. Man this is too much. I’m supposed to be a perfect wife and a perfect mother and have a church job, and it’s way too much.

Hank Smith: 01:05:16 And I think she said something, I’ll just settle for the telestial kingdom. Yeah. Like I’m just not celestial material.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 01:05:22 Yeah, and if you realize that even a person as great as his wife was fundamentally didn’t get it, like you don’t have to be perfect. What you do is you have to be sincere. And sanctification is just us basically saying, yeah, I accept your grace and that I’m going to be saved because of what Jesus did, but I’m going to try and be a better person. I’m going to try and live the commandments. But there’s no scoreboard or timer or anything like that. There’s just you and the Savior and you saying I’m sincerely trying the best that I can. Once I came to understand that, it freed me up a lot to say, hey, if I fall asleep before I say a prayer at night, or if I stub my toe and I let loose a word that I shouldn’t have used, it doesn’t take off my righteousness points.

  01:06:17 There’s no such thing as righteousness points. There’s just you and the Savior and the level of sincerity that you have. D. Todd Christofferson gave this awesome talk where he likened the whole thing to Les Miserables. If you’re familiar with that, at the first of the play, Jean Valjean robs this priest. He steals from the priest, he gets caught and gets dragged back when the cops are basically saying, this guy robbed you, didn’t he? The priest says, no, actually, I gave him these candlesticks too. And at that point the cops have to let him go. And Jean Valjean is like, why did you do that? And the priest explains, because I want to give you a chance, that’s justification. Jean Valjean is still the sort of guy that steals from priests, but at this point, he’s been given a new lease on life. He’s not going to be punished for his past transgressions.

  01:07:07 And then he goes out and he tries to live a life that matches what that priest did for him. And then the way Elder Christofferson describes it, at the end of the play, Jean Valjean sees all the people that he’s helped and all the lives that he’s affected, and that’s sanctification. That is okay. He’s changed. He’s not the sort of person that robs priests anymore. When my students come in, a lot of times, and a really common question, especially when I taught high school seminary, was how do I know if I’ve repented? And sometimes we do get into a little bit of trouble with our checklist model. You have to realize you’ve committed the sin. You have to confess the sin, you have to make restitution for the sin, and then you don’t do the sin again. And if that gets you to where you need to be, awesome.

  01:07:51 I just think the problem is, is that it’s sort of missing the point of the whole thing. Like I had a colleague at BYU who said he was in a bishopric, and this girl came up to him before sacrament meeting started and said, hey, can I talk to you, Bishop? He goes, okay, do we need to go in my office? She’s like, no, we can do this right here. Last night I broke the law of chasity and he said, we need to, we need to have a conversation about this. And she goes, no, I realize what I’d done was wrong. I apologized to the person I’m confessing to you and I’m not going to do it again. We’re good. Right? That’s still us trying to do justification. The truth is the real question that you should be asking is, well, am I the sort of person that would do that?

  01:08:33 Again, have I changed into the sort of person who wouldn’t commit that sin? This is another idea in the Book of Mormon, when King Benjamin’s people accept Christ, they don’t say, hey, we’re never going to sin again. They say, we don’t have any desire to commit sin, and that seems to be what we’re aiming for here. It’s not a perfect sinless life. That’s just not possible, and it’s not necessary. Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sins, but a sincere life where we strive and don’t deliberately sin or at least try to get to that point to where we don’t have the desires to sin anymore.

Hank Smith: 01:09:10 I really like that. John, another talk, Jesus knows I’m Christian. I remember this because you had a conversation with a man on an airplane who said, you’re not a Christian.

John Bytheway: 01:09:21 Yeah. He said, you guys believe in the Jesus of the gaps. The way my mind works. I thought, I don’t know where Jesus shopped. I don’t think it was the Gap , but he was talking about this very thing. You think you’re going to do all this and then he’s going to make up the difference. He’s going to make up the gap in the end. I thought, oh, I know where he gets that. That’s after all we can do. Thankfully, there’s been a lot of really helpful discussion in teaching about that, what Nephi meant there. You’ve got to read the next verse too. After that, I went home. I took out my triple, and I found every reference to merits. I would recommend anybody do this who wants to really have a wonderful experience about this idea. And every time I found a verse about meriting salvation, it was never our merits. It was always through the merits and mercy and grace of Christ. And it was such a cool thing to say, there’s no gap. I got no chance except for the grace of Christ and his merits. It was really cool to go through every verse and what was a little bit astonishing, or as the Book of Mormon might say exceedingly astonishing about it, was that the seven different references were from seven different characters in the Book of Mormon. Pretty cool. So it was consistently and broadly taught. 

Coming up in part two of this episode.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 01:10:50 Elder Merrill and I found this in his journal, went to a meeting in Salt Lake Temple. This was in, I believe 1943, was ushered into the room and quickly told by a member of the first presidency that Richard Lyman had committed a really serious transgression that they were considering his membership in the church.