Chapter XV. Joseph the Revelator of Christ and Apostle of the Covenants

A Witness to this Generation. Testimony of the Living to the Living. Immortality the All-absorbing Question of Modern Times. Its Affirmation by Joseph.

But the chief significance of the apostleship of Joseph resides in the fact that he is the revelator of Jesus Christ to our own age.

Not as an echo of the word of God from the past, but as the living testament of Jesus to the present.

Nor as an apostle of Abraham, but of Christ ; nor as a minister of the imperfect law of Moses, which was given as a "schoolmaster" to rebellious Israel, but as the minister of the perfect law revealed through the "Only Begotten" of the Father.

Yet in Christ is the fulfillment of all the covenants of Jehovah made unto the patriarchs of the earth.

Therefore, being the chief minister of Christ in these last days, Joseph is an apostle of the covenants.

But as the revelator of Jesus unto the world, and

not as the instrument of archangels even, has Joseph come.

As Jesus, in the days of his flesh, was the revelator of the Father, so was Joseph the revelator of the Son, in the ministry of his resurrection.

fSIot a minister upon the testimony of apostles given eighteen hundred years ago, but a witness proceeding from Christ in our own day: a special witness to the world of the ministry and resurrection of Jesus: the revelator of the new and everlasting- covenant to Israel: the revelator again of God to man, continuing the testimony which Jesus bore of the Father: the messenger of God, proclaiming to mankind a present revelation and a living gospel.

Be it therefore declared unto all that Joseph, to modern times, is as the new testament of Jesus Christ, "who was before preached unto us:" that Jesus concerning whose ministry and resurrection the faith of all Christendom was but as a tradition, handed down through the ages of apostacy, in which the heavens uttered no certain voice.

Nigh two thousand years had passed since the Christian church as much as claimed a revelator.

The very name of Prophet was obsolete in current language.

The Prophet'was a personage of the past : to the people he was as the fabled unicorn.

One sent of God, shocked the faith both of priest and people ; and the ministration of angels in the experience of the disciples of Christ in our own times was considered more pernicious than the fables of the heathen.

Thus was it to the clay that the Prophet Joseph came, and it was this condition of the churches that consigned him at last to the martyr's grave.

Verily the world hath need that Christ be again revealed unto it. Else how shall immortality, to us be brought to light ? How shall eternal life abide in man ?

For this was Joseph sent of God into the world.

To be a special witness of the Father and his Son Jesus Christ was he sent unto us.

The living to the living, with the word of God. A present revelation of the existence and work of Christ.

Was not this the beginning of Joseph's testimony in these latter days ? Was not his first vision a witnessing of the Father and his only begotten Son ?

Herein is the supreme meaning of Joseph's ministry, and the worth of his apostleship.

But Joseph knew not at first the world's need of such a testimony. Hence was he astonished when Jesus told him that he acknowledged none of the sects who bore his name.

And the very reason assigned by the Lord was that the churches with their priests were not living witnesses of him. Theirs was no present testament of their Lord.

" They draw near to me with their lips and honor me with their mouths while their hearts are far from me ; and the)' teach for doctrine the commandments of men."

It was better in the Lord's si«rit that his servant should fellowship with publicans and sinners than with such disciples of his name ; for soon

indeed did they reject the living- witness sent unto them.

But it is to the great vision given to Joseph, and Sidney Rigdon (see Chap. XL), that we must go for the formal testimony ol Jesus, sent forth to the whole world in these last days by divine command :

"We, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, being in the spirit, on the 16th of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eio-ht hundred and thirtvtwo, by the power of the Spirit our eyes were opened, and our understandings were enlightened, so as to see and understand the thines of God — even those things which were from the begfinnincj before the world was, which were ordained of the Father, through his only begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, even from the beginning ; of whom we bear record, and the record which we bear is the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the Son, whom we saw and with whom we conversed in the heavenly vision. * * * And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony last of all which we give of him, that he lives : for we saw him." * *

This then is "the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ : " — the revelation of Jesus to the people in their own generation /

Nothing less than this is "the fullness of the gospel."

Has not Joseph, in this view, blazed forth the light of God upon the world ?

And it is the revelation of Jesus Christ, through witnesses and apostles who have seen him and heard the wondrous affirmation of himself from his own voice.

These can bear testimony that he still lives and is the great High Priest and mediator of the everlasting covenant.

Not enough for the spiritual life of the world that he was preached unto the people ages ago ; not enough that his resurrection was witnessed unto the Gentiles by those who saw him after the crucifixion.

Stephen, the martyr, saw the heavens open, and beheld the Son sitting- on the right hand of the Father. But the modern world will not be judged by the testimony of Stephen.

Not Peter ! Not Paul ! Not Stephen !

They are not sufficient witnesses to us of the resurrection of Jesus, though they were wondrous witnesses to their own generation.

Christ will not judge the modern world by their testimony.

A revelator to declare his present existence ! Apostles to declare the continuation of his work in his own person ! These are the chief spiritual needs of the world to-day.

Of what avail to us is the testimony of the past? or what doth it profit us that they who are now dead bore witness, in the ancient times, concerning the resurrection of their Master.

If they witness to us to-day, as did Moroni, or as did Peter, James, John, and Moses and Elias, to Joseph, then are they ministering angels to the present : if they do not so witness, then are they neither ministering angels nor apostles to us.

In this view the Prophet Joseph has enunciated sterling truths that ought never to expire in the faith of the race. Rightly has he declared the

continuation of the testimony of Jesus, by present revelation, to be "the fullness of the gospel." For if Christ be not risen in our own experience, then have we but a dead faith.

If the living, who have believed on his name, have not seen him, nor any stood in his presence for nigh two thousand years, then is Christ dead indeed to us.

What shall it profit the world that he was crucified if he be not risen from the dead?

Is not this the very question that the apostle Paul brought home to the saints in his day? And the whole burden of his testimony was, " Am not I an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord?"

It was the fact that he had seen his Lord that made him an apostle of his resurrection. It gave the force to his apostleship. It was the testimony of the living to the living, else had it been but the dead record that he bore and not the living word of a special witness.

And that which was true in spiritual philosophy in the days of the apostle Paul, is true in the days of the prophet Joseph.

If for seventeen centuries the world has been without a special witness of Jesus, then is it the simple truth that the so-called Christian world has been without knowledge of God and his Christ.

" I am sick of the name of this man Jesus!" exclaimed a famous infidel, in conscientious disgust.

But he was sick of the sacred name of Jesus only in that his personal existence in the present was not a fact to his intellect.

Had Christ been indeed risen from the dead in

the actual knowledge of the churches who bore his name, then had this man (with evidence of that fact) been quickly at the feet of his Lord.

Is it enough to beet the faith of intellect that men testified of the resurrection of Christ eighteen centuries ago ? Verily nay.

Yet to none could the knowledge of immortality possibly come more welcome than to the infidel. Infidelity is the very cross of the skeptic, and not his throne.

And this question of immortality has become the all-absorbing question of modern times.

"Shall we live again?" Ah, the intellectual agony that racks the human mind, on that point, to-day !

If Christ be living to-day, then shall the countless millions live after the grave has swallowed up their corruptible bodies. Intellect reaches such a conclusion at a leap, and, in spite of the agonies of doubt, exults at least in that certainty.

A revelator, then, such as Joseph Smith was, is truly the one person needful to this all-enquiring age, over which the priests of a dead record of immortality have no longer sufficient influence to wrap even the rags of sectarian faith around the body of society.

But this is the fullness of the gospel to us — this revelation of Jesus in our own times.

" And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony last of all which we give of him, that he lives / "

Let this testimony of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon fairly come before the best intellects of the age. 'Tis the new testament of Jesus Christ to the Nineteenth Century.

And the Prophet, at the period of which we write, was about to call his twelve apostles, to send them forth to the nations, to preach the fullness of such a gospel ; and with them went also the promise of the Holy Ghost to the believer, as the endowment from on high, to accompany this living word of God.