Take away: The Heavens are not Sealed
Study J.S. 1:1-26
Additional notes on lesson sections:
1. After the Apostasy, God prepared the way for the Restoration
-about the time of Renaissance there was a rebirth of learning & art which has the earmarks of the Holy Ghost which generates all light and truth. The Renaissance was a looking back to classical times, particularly Greek and Roman classicism as opposed to the Enlightenment, which jettisoned the past as ballast and looked forward to a new beginning based on reason (a belief in God was part of this ballast). The foundations of the Enlightenment were based on induction (experimentation) rather than deduction (pure math, particularly geometry) and was articulated in Francis Bacon's New Organon. An apt title for the Enlightenment given Aristotle's physics were from his book "The Organon" which had been the foundation of science for about 2000 years.
-As light was breaking in these times prior to the Restoration through Joseph Smith, the Lord was still working through other inspired men and women. He alludes to this in D&C 49:8 where the Lord says that he is working through "men ye know not of". The following quote from John Tyndale from Vilvorde prison where he was imprisoned until he was martyred shows a faith in Christ greater than very few:
I entreat your lordship and that by the Lord Jesus, that if I am to remain here [in Vilvorde] during the winter, you will request the Procureur to be kind enough to send me from my goods which he has in his possession, a warmer cap, for I suffer extremely from cold in the head, being afflicted with a perpetual catarrh, which is considerably increased in this cell. A warmer coat also, for that which I have is very thin: also a piece of cloth to patch my leggings: my overcoat is worn out; my shirts are also worn out. He has a woollen shirt of mine, if he will be kind enough to send it. I have also with him leggings of thicker cloth for putting on above; he also has warmer caps for wearing at night. I wish also his permission to have a lamp in the evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark. But above all, I entreat and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the Procureur that he may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Dictionary, that I may spend my time with that study.
2. God prepared Joseph Smith to be the prophet of the Restoration
- Joseph Smith Sr. was known by his family to be a visionary man as well, which is one reason why it is believed that he was so accepting of Joseph's visions. Specifically Joseph Sr. essentially saw Lehi's dream of his family and the tree of life (though I didn't write down the reference for this).
-The Smith family was impacted by the religous fervor of the day both in terms of their concern for their own salvation and as part of their efforts to provide for their family. As a family they were known to sell cakes and ale at the outskirts of some of the revivals in their areas (referenced in Mark Staker's history of Kirtland).
3. the First Vision ushered in the restoration of the gospel
Summary of First Vision Accounts (from Gospel Essays):
-2 published versions in J.S. lifetime (the version published in J.S. History is the best known)
-2 unpublished, one from his short autobiography and another from a later journal entry. Both of these were generally forgotten until the 1960's
-5 by contemporaries
A few specifics:
-Th brief 1832 version is in his hand. The focus is on the fact that the Lord appears and he is forgiven of his sins.
-1835 version-J.S. retells the story to Robert Matthews which is recorded by Warren Parish. Joseph mentions the appearance of angels.
-1838 version-published in the Times and Seasons. The focus is on Joseph's search for which Church to join and the subsequent rise of the Church in our day.
-1842 version-Part of the Wentworth letter
The First Vision was a key missionary tool in the very early Church. Great concern over whether one could know if they were saved. Specifically, this feeling known as "protestant angst" arose because each person needed to feel that they were saved, but how could they know that they knew? The message that the heaven were unsealed, that God had again spoken to Man and more importantly, that he would speak to you too had significant resonance for many. The BofM was a proof point for this revelation.
4. Many truths were revealed in the First Vision
In closing I shared that one of the evidences of a true Prophet was that they never back away from their testimony (witness Paul and the early Apostles, BofM Prophets, etc.).
On this point, I shared stumbling over "The Book on Adler" during my study of Kierkegaard who was a Christian but very skeptical of institutional Churches specifically the Lutheran Church in Denmark. He strove to make Christianity "harder", requiring great sacrifice. Those that thought of themselves as Christian simply because they were born into the Church weren't really Christians and "verily, they had their reward".
With this backdrop, he wrote a short book on his view of Adolph Peter Adler, a somewhat renegade Pastor in the Lutheran Church who claimed to have been visited by Christ, which he called a "vision of light" who had told him to "burn all of his books on the faith and that he (Christ) would dictate a new book to him. He shared this vision with great energy in several sermons.
Adler was persecuted for his claim and was suspended/deposed in 1845. In time he downgraded his vision to "strong impressions" and later still to a work of his personal genius.
Kierkegaard believed that Adler that a true Prophet, one that had received a direct revelation would never back away from the claim, that being persecuted and labeled a crazy simply went with the territory in all ages of time. He said, "Adler's later attitude and from his later works it can be sufficiently made out that he himself essentially does not believe it..." P. 169
Regarding persecution of those who receive direct revelations, he notes that even Christ himself would not be believed in our day. "It is often said that in case Christ were now to come forward in Christendom (state Churches), if in a stricter sense than in time gone by "He came unto his own," He would again be crucified - and especially by the orthodox. That is quite true...". P. 168.
Contrast Adler with Joseph Smith's ringing testimony in JS 1:23-26 that he couldn't deny what he had seen. At the end of a long interview with John Delin, Richard Bushman when asked to share his closing thoughts about Joseph Smith (after writing Rough Stone Rolling) said in essence, reasonable people could disagree about whether Joseph Smith had the First Vision and all that followed, but as a historian,he believed after all the years of study of Joseph's life, that he, Joseph, for certain, believed that he had had those experiences. (Fawn Brodie is an example of someone who believed Joseph believed his visions, but thought him mistaken.
Link to scan of lesson note:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B78D5btorZEedWxSMmxUNkV0Wkk
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