Romans 8:17-18 (NASB, words in bold for emphasis):
17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ...
21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
30 … and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
2 Timothy 2:12 (NASB):
If we endure, we will also reign with Him …
1 Corinthians 6:3 (NASB):
Do you not know that we will judge angels? …
The Will to Glory
And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for the fear of the Lord shall come upon them and the glory of his majesty shall smite them, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
~ 2 Nephi 12:19
... that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them ...
~ D&C 109: 22
In The Gospels by Sarah Ruden, in the introduction she explains the following (words in bold my own for emphasis):
The Messiah was to be the successor of God’s chosen ruler, King David, who had presided over a powerful and united kingdom and passed it intact to his son Solomon, the builder of the First Temple. This was stinging history to Jews enduring Roman occupation in their homeland, whose only taste of anything approaching both unity and independence within the past eight or nine centuries had been under the recent, self-destructive Maccabean dynasty. The Dead Sea Scrolls, a cache of Jewish literature discovered in the mid-twentieth century, contains messianic passages indicating that the Jewish nation’s glory will be restored through a preeminent kingly or priestly figure. But particularly interesting in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as far as the Gospels are concerned, is the so-called Messianic Apocalypse, which pictures a healer, liberator, bringer of good news to the poor, and raiser of the dead; these elements are not original, but the combination of them makes for a striking similarity to Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels: someone remarkable not so much for the position he inherits and holds, but for the comprehensively benevolent and powerful things he does; he might be seen as a sort of apotheosis of the common man.
This dual process of the drive to return to Kingdom Glory and the apotheosis of the Common Man is part of what makes Nauvoo Mormonism unique in its qualities and endeavors. For Joseph Smith himself, like King David, is described in the Book of Mormon as someone like unto Moses. Yet the Saints themselves are mostly Common Folk working together to create a unified social synergy called Zion. The true King in Latter-day Saint scripture, and the revelations, is the Messiah Jesus: who restores his Kingdom through Joseph Smith's revelations, congregations, city planning, and temple building. So with the "restoration of all things," you have the healing Messiah within the vision of Zion and the conquering Kingdom-building Messiah with Joseph Smith's City of Nauvoo.
What I will show below is that in Mormonism, glory is the ultimate aim of man and Gods.
And they who keep their first estate [on earth] shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.
According to New Testament scholar Paul Middleton, one finds in the apostle Paul an emphasis on the ideal of living like him by seeking an ascetic lifestyle and denying your life in the body and accepting the risk of martyrdom. This attitude in Paul is understandable when we realize that he was writing in the specific context of his Christian followers experiencing persecution by Rome; wherein you could be taken before a Roman court and be asked to declare Caesar as Lord or Jesus as Lord; and if you gave the wrong answer you could be tortured and/or executed. Paul's message then, according to many biblical scholars, was to deny your life if it came to that. This made sense within the common apocalyptic worldview at that time. Paul believed that the return of Christ and the destruction of Rome was immanent. In other words, most objective biblical scholars agree that Paul was simply mistaken about the coming end of all mortal life in his lifetime. Because he believed that all organic life would end with the coming of the Messiah, he did not put an emphasis on this life as much as preparing for the soon to arrive new government under Yahweh and His Messiah, when only immortal beings would reside on a new earth (after all mortal beings had been annihilated). So, in his view, one should not cling to life that much but be willing to suffer and die as a martyr if necessary because all life on earth was soon coming to an end anyway.
Many early Christians embraced this worldview and took the brave stand of declaring Jesus as Lord and died for it. Their courage and conviction caused others to believe in Jesus as the Way which bolstered the testimony of other Christians. So it acted practically, as a kind of psychological warfare tactic against a larger foe (Rome). In other words, Paul's martyr-centric beliefs generated the practical result of inspiring early Christians to stand up to Rome which led to a transvaluation of Roman moral values, as Christian values overtime replaced Roman values.
So the martyr-centric attitude of the first century Christians was contextual and produced practical results in the specific context of Roman oppression. Unfortunately however, even after Roman power declined and Christian morality gained traction, the martyr-centric attitude later morphed into a theology of life-renunciation that lasted for centuries after Paul died.
Paul had encouraged celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7 (especially in verse 8 where he tells widows and the unmarried it is best not to marry) and martyrdom in the context of Roman oppression and his belief in the immanent return of Christ when all mortal life would end. But Paul was not anti-sex (see Maybe Paul Didn’t Hate Sex: A Response to Stephen Patterson by William O. Walker, Jr.). Paul was simply giving advice within his apocalyptical end-times perspective. After Paul's death and the return of Christ did not happen as expected; years later, biblical scholars argue that a person who was not Paul, writing in the name of Paul, wrote 1 Timothy 5:14–15: that says widows should marry, which contradicts 1 Corinthians 7:8. Despite these modifications in the texts, unfortunately, even with Paul's death and the Messiah not returning soon as Paul expected, and life rolling along for decades, there persisted a body-despising mentality in the Pauline churches which grew into antifamilial tendencies. The body-suppressing mentality made sense in the first century with the apocalyptic expectations and Roman oppression, but for it to continue for centuries became a pathological problem that persists till this day in some Christian circles.
Choosing not to marry and dying a martyr under Roman oppression by practicing freedom of religion and not giving into the bully tactics of Rome, that tried to get you to reject your faith in Christ, was brave given the poor quality of life and lack of freedom (slavery was legal then); it also made sense to hope for a better world in the afterlife. Again, Paul believed that Christ was returning in his lifetime (so the current social order would be overturned). So it was better to not marry or focus on wealth-building and starting a family, and so many early Christians chose celibacy and not having a family in expectation of the soon return of Christ. This was a reasonable approach to life at that time under Roman oppression in the first century with the apocalyptic expectations; but today things are different. We now live as Americans in the land of the free, home of the brave (by breaking free from Great Britain). Rome had long been destroyed. Everything the early Christians dreamed of as the Good Life is nearly realized today for the average American citizen. In his talk Is Paul's Legacy Relevant Today? (at Villanova University on October 21, 2009), New Testament scholar E.P. Sanders points out that Paul would have likely held different views on certain things if he saw how life turned out after his death. Today we do marry and have a family and focus on wealth-building and retirement. So today we need an American Gospel and I think philosophically, Mormonism checks all the boxes in balancing rationality and spirituality.
After Paul, Augustine and then Luther redefined the first century Christian "gospel" in ways that made it overly anti-sex and puritanical (which I don't think Paul would have supported). The Protestant preachers emphasized your worthless depravity before a disembodied Deity. The message was clear: God = No-body; your body = Bad. You were to praise this bodiless deity and glorify it by lowering yourself, diminishing yourself as a worthless wretch. In contrast, in Mormonism the goal is the glory of God through your own glorification through Abrahamic theosis. In LDS theology the goal is not your groveling before an Angry Vapor (without Parts or Passions) in terror as a worthless "filthy rag" (literally "menstrual cloth") without free agency (as with the Fundamentalist sects within Catholicism and Protestantism, who preach Augustinian/Calvinist predestination). In LDS theology you have actual free agency and haven't been predestined to "hell" for thoughtcrimes. Rather than groveling in fear and abjection, in LDS theology you are elevated and inspired and promised a crown of glory (D&C 104:7) and blessings and honor and great glory (D&C 124:17-18).
Then you have the doctrinaire atheist telling me I'm merely a soulless robotic vehicle "blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules [in me] known as genes"; and there's no such thing as objective Right and Wrong: as they say we live in a "universe of electrons and selfish genes", and "there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference." Then, they add the following for good measure:
[Man's] origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms ... that all [his] labours ..., devotion, ... inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system ... that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these [atheistic] truths, only [on] the firm foundation of unyielding despair ...
So I get to choose between thinking of myself as a worthless menstruating rag, or a soulless robot controlled by blind forces (a copy-machine for my genes) whose only purpose is to make genetic copies of my DNA and live in a world of pitiless indifference with unyielding despair; and then die and disintegrate and get recycled back to Ultimate Nothingness. How inspiring!
This led Bruce Sheiman, the author of An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off with Religion Than Without It, to say in an interview (to paraphrase), "Carl Sagan may feel inspired by thinking of himself as made up of the ashes of dead stars, but that does nothing for me!"
Call me crazy, but I personally find it much more inspiring and uplifting to think of myself as a Child of God, a god in embryo, a preexistent Intelligence; that became an embodied soul and is destined to become glorified and progress eternally.
Similar to the Eastern Orthodox Church that emphasizes theosis, the Mormon gospel emphasizes one's exaltation in glory and dominion.
In LDS theology the whole earth is full of God's glory (2 Nephi 16:3). The glory of God is intelligence (D&C 93:36). Joseph Smith described his First Vision experience as seeing two divine Personages, "whose brightness and glory defy all description" (JS—H 1:17, emphasis added). Hence the glorified Gods are tangible beings with bodies of flesh and bone, with knowledge and power as intelligent beings.
Unlike other versions of Christianity that describe God and heaven as a bodiless realm where sexuality and sociality ends. In LDS theology, organic Life is fully affirmed as "that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy" (D&C 130:2); for God the Father himself "has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s" (D&C 130: 22). So the goal is not discarding the body, denying the body nor "despising the body" (as with Catholicism and Protestantism), but embracing the body, loving the body, and applying the organic functions of the body to become glorified as one of the sensual Gods.
In the LDS Book of Moses 1:39 we read:
For behold, this is my [God's] work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life [exaltation] of man.
This is reemphasized later in Moses chapter 6, verses 58-59, 61:
Therefore I [God] give unto you a commandment, to teach these things freely unto your children, saying:
... ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven ... that ye might be sanctified ... and enjoy ... eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory ...
... Therefore it is given to abide in you ... the Comforter; the peaceable things of immortal glory; the truth of all things; that which quickeneth all things, which maketh alive all things; that which knoweth all things, and hath all power according to wisdom, mercy, truth, justice, and judgment.
To bring to pass the enjoyments of the eternal life of man, means the man and woman's glorification as tangible Gods of flesh and bone. "God" is our Heavenly Parents, a male and female God that "make love" and reproduce eternally. In the fullest affirmation of reproductive Life itself, as the verses above make clear, God's Spirit "maketh alive all things" and this force of life that "hath all power" abides in us. For this Comforter "is the promise...of eternal life, even the glory of the celestial kingdom ... which glory is...even of God ..." (D&C 88:4-5).
Similar to Arnold's Meaning of Life being to "not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to ... conquer." Friedrich Nietzsche, famously (or notoriously, depending on your perspective) said:
Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation - but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped?
Some scholars say he did not mean it in such amoral and harsh terms. Yet his constant criticism of egalitarianism and Christian compassion makes it hard not to come to that conclusion. Nietzsche's definition of reality as Will to Power is also telling:
“And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness” as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms striving toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self- creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself— do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!”
~Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power
Elsewhere in his unpublished notes he wrote:
“Well-meaning, helpful, good-natured attitudes of mind have not come to be honored on account of their usefulness, but because they are states of richer souls that are capable of bestowing and have their value in the feeling of the plenitude of life.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power
Yet despite the coldness and indifference of Reality, as Nietzsche describes it, there is much truth and utility in his vision of Reality as in part expanding Life itself. We all know this to be true on some level: we see grass grow, flowers bloom, and species reproduce producing a multitude of living forms; for example, the many cat and dog breeds are a form of microevolution. Life is in fact an expanding force. As the following dialogue in the movie Jurassic Park puts it:
Ian Malcolm: If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh, well, there it is.
John Hammond: Creation is an act of sheer will.
Ian Malcolm: "Life will find a way"
Others have attempted to describe the sheer will of the creative force of Life and its expanding growing nature. For example, Wayne Dyer's concept of God is that of an expanding force of power at the heart of the universe, that causes our nails to grow and planets to align, which he calls The Source in his PBS Presentation.
Joseph Smith encapsulates this abundantly expansive force of Life, and our expanding Universe, in a more poetic and balanced manner than anyone else in my view. For example, in D&C 88, Joseph Smith describes this cosmic reality, this expanding force of power, in terms of what I call the Will to Glory. Yet unlike Nietzsche, Joseph Smith defines this rising, upward, growing and expanding power in Judeo-Christian terms. Joseph Smith's expanding power is the Light of Christ, or an omnipresent Spirit Energy, that produces not just evolving life on planet earth but is also the Source of the unifying power of compassion and charity.
Section 88 describes what Nietzsche called Will to Power, and Dyer called the Source, in terms of what I call Christpower: the glory of Christ's light as an omnipresent empowering enlivening/"quickening" energy of power. For example, section 88 states:
6 He [Christ] that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth;
7 Which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made.
8 As also he is in the moon, and is the light of the moon, and the power thereof by which it was made;
9 As also the light of the stars, and the power thereof by which they were made;
10 And the earth also, and the power thereof, even the earth upon which you stand.
11 And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings;
12 Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space—
13 The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God ... who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.
15 And the spirit and the body are the soul of man.
18 Therefore, [the human body as an embodied spirit, a soul] must needs be sanctified from all unrighteousness , that it may be prepared for the celestial glory;
Note that the Sectarian Creeds at this time denied a God with a body and lifeward parts and passions, so that Joseph Smith said God considered these Creeds an "abomination" (see Joseph Smith-History 1:18–19). As Terryl Givens explains in a talk:
... when Joseph talks about the creeds of Christianity, he’s talking about the Westminster Confession and the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. It is these ‘creeds’ that state that God is a being ‘without body, parts, or passions.’ ...
Instead of a bodiless God, Joseph Smith revealed that the body and earthly matter was holy. His theology did not deny this earthly world and disparage it. In fact, he was so affirming of Life, that his study of the Bible led him to reveal the following in the King Follett Discourse, where he says the following (words in italics and brackets my own for emphasis):
We have imagined and supposed that God [according to the Creeds] was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see.
It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible. ...
In other words, God is not separated from Life and Man. Instead, God and Man are one spiritual species as eternal spirits or intelligences; God the Father has just progressed further than mortals as an exalted man. This radically affirmed Life and the body. God was not a part-less, passionless, no-thing, as the Creeds described the Divine; which leads to the view that man's goal should be to basically despise one's drives and passions as evil and deny one's body; and be prudish and/or celibate like Catholic Priests. Instead, in Joseph Smith's life-affirming theology, God has a body and so our bodies are good! God was once a man and became exalted as a body. Thus, in my view, to be sanctified from unrighteousness in verse 18 above means, in part, to not see the organic body as depraved and cursed with Augustine's teaching of Original Sin, which Smith rejected in Article of Faith #2 and with his Fortunate Fall doctrine in the Book of Mormon. Since all matter is spiritual matter, then the body can't be "depraved," but instead the body and its drives and passions are good. So that verse 18, in my view, in pointing out the body needs to be prepared for celestial glory, is referring to overcoming the puritanical indoctrination caused by the Sectarian Creeds that has led to body-shaming ideologies; and instead, embracing the new and everlasting covenant of plural marriage; as in part a social experiment to help the Saints overcome the "despising of the body" by the Creeds. As one reads in D&C 131: 2: "... in order to obtain the highest [degree of heaven], a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]." As I argue in my blog series, Sex, Gods, and Zion, I think Joseph Smith revealed plural marriage as a social experiment with the goal of reframing the minds of the Saints to see the parts and passions of the body as good. He was releasing the energies of the body and the flow of cosmic Life. LDS apologists call it an Abrahamic Test. In my view, it was a metaphorical sacrifice of one's puritanical mores on the altar of the new LDS theology. In other words, one was sacrificing their puritan ideology and Sectarian Creeds and puritanical norms (similar to God testing Abraham by asking for a sacrifice), in this case a mental/ideological sacrifice; in order to help purge the Saints of their puritanical creedal indoctrination of seeing the body and its parts and passions as depraved and inherently "bad." Thus Smith was ultimately affirming Life and empowering the the Saints with a body-affirming theology that would liberate them from the bondage of Augustine's body-rejecting dogma and the Sectarian Creeds. For more details, see my document Toward a Theology of the Body. With this in mind, we continue quoting from Section 88:
19 For after it [the body] hath filled the measure of its creation, it shall be crowned with glory, even with the presence of God the Father;
20 That bodies who are of the celestial kingdom may possess it [glory] forever and ever; for, for this intent [Moses 1:39] was it [the body] made and created [see D&C 132: 19, 63], and for this intent are they sanctified.
21 And they who are not sanctified through the law [see D&C 132: 19, 63] which I have given unto you, even the law of Christ, must inherit another kingdom, even that of a terrestrial kingdom, or that of a telestial kingdom [see D&C 132:15–20].
22 For he who is not able to abide the law of a celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory. ...
Notice that in verses 19- 20, we see that in the body fulfilling the design of its creation via plural marriage, it is sanctified. In other words, by living passionately and generatively in the body, one sanctifies the body! One learns how to be a God, for the same embodied "sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there [in heaven], only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy" (D&C 130:2).
In verse 25 below, we see Joseph comparing a human soul being crowned with glory when it fulfills its measure of creation like the earth that has fulfilled its measure of creation. So that the Light of Christ expands the soul of man just as it causes the stars to shine and earth to create as it does.
... 25 And again, verily I say unto you, the earth abideth the law of a celestial kingdom, for it filleth the measure of its creation, and transgresseth not the law
[the law of cosmic expansion toward growing with lifeward power in abundance]
28 They who are of a celestial spirit shall receive the same body which was a natural body; even ye shall receive your bodies, and your glory shall be that glory by which your bodies are quickened.
Fredrick Nietzsche also criticized the Protestant Creeds in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the sections titled The Despisers of the Body and The Preachers of Death, Nietzsche saw the puritanical Creeds as the rejection of life and the body. Similarly, Joseph Smith also sought to affirm life in the body which he did for example in D&C section 88, 130-132, that seeks to affirm life in the body. For more details on this important emphasis on the natural body filling its measure of creation, see my blog posts linked below:
Section 88 continues:
29 Ye who are quickened by a portion of the celestial glory shall then receive of the same, even a fulness.
30 And they who are quickened by a portion of the terrestrial glory shall then receive of the same, even a fulness.
31 And also they who are quickened by a portion of the telestial glory shall then receive of the same, even a fulness.
32 And they who remain shall also be quickened; nevertheless, they shall return again to their own place, to enjoy that which they are willing to receive, because they were not willing to enjoy that which they might have received.
... 40 ... intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; ...
41 He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever.
45 The earth rolls upon her wings, and the sun giveth his light by day, and the moon giveth her light by night, and the stars also give their light, as they roll upon their wings in their glory, in the midst of the power of God.
47 ... and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power.
50 ... I am the true light that is in you, and that you are in me; otherwise ye could not abound.
52 ... Go ye and labor in the field, and in the first hour I will come unto you, and ye shall behold the joy of my countenance.
... 60 Every man in his own order, until his hour was finished, even according as his lord had commanded him, that his lord might be glorified in him, and he in his lord, that they all might be glorified [compare D&C 132: 63].
67 And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things.
77 And I give unto you a commandment that you shall teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom.
78 Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand;
107 And then shall the angels be crowned with the glory of his might, and the saints shall be filled with his glory, and receive their inheritance and be made equal with him.
To be filled with God's glory and made equal with him means to become an embodied god (D&C 130-132; Book of Abraham 2 - 4). Note the following strong emphasis on life in the body, and increasing one's strength and vitality and intellectual learning via healthy habits which is aligned with an emphasis on Christian virtues like brotherly/sisterly charity and friendship:
118 ... seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.
119 Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;
123 See that ye love one another; cease to be covetous; learn to impart one to another as the gospel requires.
124 Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated.
125 And above all things, clothe yourselves with the bond of charity, as with a mantle, which is the bond of perfectness and peace.
127 And again, the order of the house prepared for the presidency of the school of the prophets, established for their instruction in all things that are expedient for them, ...
... 132 And when any shall come in after him, let the teacher arise, and, with uplifted hands to heaven, yea, even directly, salute his brother or brethren with these words:
133 Art thou a brother or brethren? I salute you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in token or remembrance of the everlasting covenant, in which covenant I receive you to fellowship, in a determination that is fixed, immovable, and unchangeable, to be your friend and brother through the grace of God in the bonds of love, to walk in all the commandments of God blameless, in thanksgiving, forever and ever. Amen.
137 And ye are called to do this by prayer and thanksgiving, as the Spirit shall give utterance in all your doings in the house of the Lord, in the school of the prophets, that it may become a sanctuary, a tabernacle of the Holy Spirit to your edification.
140 And again, the ordinance of washing feet is to be administered by the president, or presiding elder of the church.
Note the simultaneous emphasis on lifeward expansion, power and glory, with the emphasis on humility and friendship-building through rituals like washing one another's feet in the school of the prophets.
Joseph Smith collected his revelations and combined them with The Lectures on Faith, so that the Lectures were the Doctrine portion of the book, and the revelations were the Covenants section of the combined book called Doctrine and Covenants (or D&C), published in 1835. One will note the similarity between the omnipresent Light of Christ in section 88 above, with the omnipresent Mind (or Spirit) that unites the Father and Son in Fifth Lecture on Faith (quoted below in the second paragraph). We see the emphasis on God's glory and Latter-day Saints acquiring the same glory in the following excerpts from each section of The Lectures on Faith:
... not only commune with him [God], and behold his glory, but be partakers of his power ... ... to enjoy the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, even that of eternal glory ... the divine communications made to man...were designed to establish in their minds the ideas necessary...and through this means to be partakers of his glory. ... the mind is led to rejoice amid all its trials and temptations, in hope of that glory...and in view of that crown which is to be placed upon the heads of the saints...that eternal weight of glory ...
The Father being...of spirit, glory and power ... The Father and the Son possessing the same mind, the same wisdom, glory, power and fulness: Filling all in all—the Son being filled with the fulness of the Mind, glory and power, or, in other words, the Spirit, glory and power of the Father—possessing all knowledge and glory ... the saints are, by the same Spirit, to be partakers of the same fulness, to enjoy the same glory; for as the Father and the Son are one, so in like manner the saints are to be one in them ...
Question 6: How do you prove that the Father is a personage of glory and of power?
Isaiah 60:19: The Sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. 1 Chronicles 29:11: Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory. Psalms 29:3: The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thunders. Psalms 79:9: Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name. Romans 1:23: And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible men.
Secondly, of power. 1 Chronicles 29:11: Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power, and the glory. Jeremiah 32:17: Ah! Lord God, behold thou hast made the earth and the heavens by thy great power, and stretched-out arm; and there is nothing too hard for thee. Deuteronomy 4:37: And because he loved thy fathers therefore he chose their seed after them, and [brought] them out in his sight with his mighty power. 2 Samuel 22:33: God is my strength and power. Job 26, commencing with the 7 verse, to the end of the chapter. He stretches out the north over the empty place, and hangs the earth upon nothing. He binds up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them. He holds back the face of his throne, and spreads his cloud upon it. He has compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof. He divides the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smites through the proud. By his Spirit he has garnished the heavens; his hand has formed the crooked serpent. Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? But the thunder of his power who can understand?
... his [a Latter-day Saint's] confidence can be equally strong that he will be a partaker of the glory of God. ...
... the whole visible creation, as it now exists ... continues in its organized form, and by which the planets move round their orbits and sparkle forth their glory ...
... We ask, then, where is the prototype? ... Christ ... is the prototype ... if he were any thing different from what he is he would...lose all his dominion, power, authority and glory, which...glory, authority, majesty, power and dominion which Jehovah possesses ...Thus says John, in his first epistle, 3:2 and 3:
Behold, now we are the sons of God, and it doth not appear what we shall be; but we know, that when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And any man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.—Why purify himself as he is pure? because, if they do not they cannot be like him.
... enjoy his glory ... no more than they could reign in his kingdom without his power.
... recorded in John's testimony ... recorded in the 17th chapter, gives great clearness to his expressions: He says, in the 20-23, and 24:
... And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one ...
... All these sayings put together, give as clear an account of the state of the glorified saints as language could give ... This fills up the measure of information on this subject, and shows most clearly, that the Savior wished his disciples to understand, that they were to be partakers with him in all things: not even his glory excepted. ... by making them one with him [Christ], as he and the Father are one.—In so doing he would give them the glory which the Father has given him ... Peter, in view of the power of faith, 2nd epistle, 1:1, 2 and 3 says, to the Former Day Saints:
grace and peace be multiplied unto you, through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us unto glory and virtue.
Source: Lectures on Faith 2:34; 4: 1, 3, 17; 5:2, Q&A; 6:6; 7:5, 9-12, 14-15, 17
We see early on that glory is a combination of the unification of the Saints as one (as the Father and Son are one), and also a crown of glory, a state of power and sparkling majesty and dominion. Thus, Joseph Smith ingeniously balanced the will to compassion and the will to glory, the Fruit of the Spirit and the Call to Dominion. He revealed a theology that does not negate life and despise the body, but champions organic embodied Life; wherein the goal of life is to be glorified just as the Gods are glorified, by imitating the tangible Gods. Joseph Smith made it clear, "You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves" (Discourse, 7 April 1844, as Reported by William Clayton; see Joseph Smith Papers). How do you be like the Gods? The Gods were glorified embodied beings of power, creativity, and expansion in dominion through creating worlds and generating progeny. The Gods were not like the Catholic priest, celibate and docile; nor like the Puritans, fixated on rejecting sexual pleasure. No! the Gods were male and female beings, who had bodies and made love and increased in glory. So if you are to be like the Gods, you were not to shrink in power and glory, flickering out as a monk hiding in a cave praying all day, nor avoiding life as a celibate life-renunciate. Gods no! You were to embrace your God-given sexual potency and fluid power through building upward and expandimg onward by living fully in the body on earth; and then in your exaltation and glorification, creating worlds and making love eternally. Rather than an emphasis on celibacy or asceticism, as was the tradition caused by the Creeds, the theology of Smith encouraged the joys of the body and bearing children on earth, so you would bring to pass your glorified exaltation and in turn glorify your Heavenly Parents. This is made clear in the Happiness Letter (History of the Church, 5:134-135) and D&C 132 (compare the excerpts above from the Lectures on Faith above to the following in D&C 132 on plural marriage:
4 ... no one can reject this [new and everlasting covenant] and be permitted to enter into my glory.
6. ... [it] was instituted for the fulness of my glory ...
16 ... [they] who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory.
18 [they will] inherit my glory ...
19 ... and they shall pass by the angels, and the Gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever [see Abraham 2:11 and the LDS temple ritual, especially at the veil].
21 ... [who] attain to this glory ...
27 ... can ... enter into my glory
57 ... I was with Abraham, thy father, even unto his exaltation and glory.
31 This promise is yours also, because ye are of Abraham, and the promise was made unto Abraham; and by this law is the continuation of the works of my Father, wherein he glorifieth himself.
63 ... the ten virgins ... they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.
Here we see organic Life fully affirmed, with the procreative processes of the body being the way of the Gods themselves, and your exaltation and continuation of seeds/progeny glorifies the Father. In the Lectures on Faith above, we saw that the Saints are to acquire the same glory and fullness of the Father and Son, who possess the same Mind or Spirit. The Pratt Brother's did a good job after Joseph Smith's death explaining the Lectures on Faith in light of D&C 88 and 132. I found a slideplayer presentation that does an excellent job providing a synthesis of the early Nauvoo era LDS Godhead. In short, Joseph Smith and the Pratt Brothers held that there was a Divine Substance composed of spirit matter which was the omnipresent fullness that united the Father and Son. Because all matter was spiritual, there was no division between the bodily and the godly. The Creedal Sectarians, then and now, tended to view the body as depraved and ever separated from God's purity. In LDS theology, this division was collapsed and bodily flesh and earthly matter become one, and man and God become the same species, just different in their developmental growth and degree of glory.
Rather than being priests that are told they must be celibate, as in the Catholic Church, or Purity Culture in Evangelical Protestantism, Joseph Smith affirmed sensual joy in the sexual body (as he explains to Nancy Rigdon in the 27th of August 1842 "Happiness Letter"). He affirmed lifeward reproduction and worked toward affirming God's good creation toward building families on earth and throughout all eternity. Again, as referenced above, Smith produced a scripture in the Book of Abraham, in chapter 2 verse 11 where we read that Jehovah said to Abraham:
... in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal.
In other words, through the literal sperm (seed) of Abraham (which is defined as his Priesthood) and his procreative acts through plural marriage, shall their grow a Great People (the Israelites) who will produce the Gospels, etc. For more details see the LDS Dictionary, Abraham, covenant of.
LDS scholars point out that there is a difference between immortality (salvation) and eternal life (exaltation). One is saved/pardoned from their transgressions by grace ("despite all you can do"/regardless of your "works") and you then bring to pass your exaltation through the Laws and Ordinances of the LDS Gospel: which are essentially baptism and the temple ordinances which are rituals that affirm the reproductive body.
The temple is basically, in my view, a ritual focused on overcoming puritanical scrupulosity by endowing the adherent with the rights and privileges of becoming a godly king and priestess as creative Gods. The entire ritual is in my view designed to help the initiate overcome their Victorian puritanical sexual phobias. First, by having the sectarian God of the Creeds, a deity without parts and passions, criticized (this part has since been removed). Second, by being ritually anointed to have "strength in the loins." Thirdly, in the original endowment there were Masonic ritual penalties one acted out ritually, which I think were meant to detour one from disclosing the contents of the ritual, as the ritual was essentially about plural marriage (thus the need for secrecy at that time). Fourthly, the green fig leaf aprons worn in the ritual represented sexual potency, harking back to Abraham 2:11. The word "endow" means to "to endow, bestow, portion,' from dos (genitive dotis) 'marriage portion,' ... 'to give.' ... Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to give." So the entire ritual was a process of being given, being endowed with the power to be as fruitful polygamously as was Abraham and thus in the afterlife become a generative God. As one moves through the temple ritual, one makes covenants and performs rituals that are in my view meant to free one from the abominable Creeds that taught a deity without parts or passions; and taught that man is "punished for Adam's transgression" and despised the body as depraved (see LDS Article of Faith #2 which rejects this dogma). The temple ritual is meant to unravel these apostate ideas and affirm the generative body as the way of the generative Gods. Thus temple ritual culminates in the following recitation at the veil:
Health in the navel, marrow in the bones, strength in the loins and in the sinews, power in the Priesthood [see Abraham 2:11] be upon me and upon my posterity through all generations of time and throughout all eternity [see D&C 132: 19, 63].
In other words, Joseph Smith did not set up the idea of you earn your salvation by being ascetic but that "you have got to learn how to behave like the Gods" in order to expand Lifewardly and become exalted. You are saved (delivered from Death) and your imperfections, and mistakes are blotted out, through Grace; you become like God (exalted) by overcoming ascetic puritanism by practicing plural marriage (in the 1840s). That was original Mormonism. Today, of course, Mormons are not required or expected to practice plural marriage but I believe that the original LDS theology can still be respected and lived out through monogamy by rejecting prudish puritanism and Augustinianism. In my view, plural marriage was an experiment aimed at liberation. It was part of the restoration of all things by returning to the original Hebrew concept of God the Father having a body and the biblical view before Augustine shamed the sensual body. By implementing plural marriage, I believe that Joseph Smith was moving the Saints away from belief in an asexual bodiless deity and an Augustinian attitude of despising the body to instead affirming the body with an Abrahamic mindset and a return to the original Hebrew belief in a God of parts and passions. Thus, as I see it unfolding, plural marriage was an experimental method for moving the Saints toward embracing a God with a body and overcoming puritanical body-shaming and affirming God's good creation as expressed by the Hebrews. The early Latter-day Saints, in acting our plural marriage and performing the temple ritual, were overtime able to change their minds and no longer despise the body and God's good creation; as they moved toward a more pro-body attitude. There were other reasons too, like raising up "seed" (Jacob 2:30), etc.
In Joseph's Book of Abraham, Abraham was saved from death on the altar of Elkenah in Abr. 1:8–20 (as depicted here). This story of the polygamous Abraham nearly sacrificed on an altar was in my mind a metaphor for the metaphorical-sacrifices and mental afflictions that God required of the Saints in Nauvoo. As Smith dictates the words of the Lord in D&C 132 in 1843:
48 And again, verily I say unto you, my servant Joseph, that whatsoever you give on earth , and to whomsoever you give [i.e. endow] any one on earth, by my word and according to my law [of plural marriage], it shall be visited with blessings and not cursings, and with my power, saith the Lord, and shall be without condemnation on earth and in heaven.
49 For I am the Lord thy God, and will be with thee even unto the end of the world, and through all eternity; for verily I seal upon you your exaltation, and prepare a throne for you in the kingdom of my Father, with Abraham your father. 50 Behold, I have seen your sacrifices, and will forgive all your sins; I have seen your sacrifices in obedience to that which I have told you. Go, therefore, and I make a way for your escape [see Abr. 1:8–20 (as depicted here)], as I accepted the offering of Abraham of his son Isaac.
In other words, I interpret these verses as Smith engaged in a kind of midrash or bricolage (as Terryl Givens puts it). In Genesis, an angel stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, but in the restoration of all things through bricolage and visionary experiences, an angel encourages Smith to perform the "sacrifice" of practicing plural marriage at the threat of death. So that whereas, an angel rescues Isaac from Abraham's knife, now the angel wields a sword in order to push Joseph Smith to overcome his puritanical Victorian sensibilities. Whether this actually happened is of course a matter of faith or skepticism; I myself believe Smith dreamed this experienced or experienced it through his "spiritual eyes." Meanwhile, through bricolage, Abraham is recast as himself a near sacrificial victim in Abraham chapter 1 (quoted above), which I believe symbolically is meant to represent Smith himself as he sacrifices his life in teaching and practicing plural marriage; as his practicing plural marriage is in deed what led to him getting killed (starting with dissidents starting a newspaper condemning Smith for practicing polygamy). Smith was also sacrificing peace in his home and friendships, as many ended up rejecting the doctrine of plural marriage (including his first wife Emma). He was also sacrificing social custom, as polygamy was against the Protestant customs of the day. Yet, the scripture explains below, that if Joseph makes this sacrifice of going against his Victorian sensibilities and his society's mores risking his life, God will provide a way to escape from his puritanical angst and Smith live a few years practicing polygamy (long enough to solidify the practice which Brigham Young and others continued). In my view, the scripture has God justify him despite his fear of offending puritanical social mores. God further explains that plural marriage is a method to prove the Saints:
51 Verily, I say unto you: A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice.
60 Let no one, therefore, set on my servant Joseph; for I will justify him; for he shall do the sacrifice which I require at his hands.
The word "prove" in the 1828 dictionary means "To try; to ascertain some unknown quality or truth by an experiment, ... To evince, establish or ascertain as truth, reality or fact ... To experience; to try by suffering or encountering; to gain certain knowledge by the operation of something on ourselves, or by some act of our own." I think this verse above means that plural marriage was meant to establish by way of experience, a way to try by suffering in order to to gain a certain knowledge by its operation that sex itself is not depraved and evil, and the body does not offend an intangible deity without body parts or passions; but in fact God is a passionate and procreative exalted body on high.
I think it is clear that the verses above on "sacrifice" was the purging of Smith's psyche of the guilt producing sectarian Creeds that despised the human body with their bodiless deity and doctrines like Augustine's Original Sin. Joseph and the Nauvoo Saints needed to "sacrifice" those ideas on the actual altar) in the plural marriage sealing room in the temple). In order to instead grow to see the sensual body and sexual pleasure as good and holy, by doing what God commanded in practicing plural marriage. Thus plural marriage was simply a method, a sacrificial practice, meant to metaphorically "purge" one's puritanical attitudes and cause one to grow to embrace a God the Father and Mother with tangible sexual bodies. Thus one could grow to embrace an ancient Hebrew mindset, wherein one's sexual body was holy and good.
Most members are familiar with The Book of Mormon stating, "For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts [Armies], raise up seed unto me, I will command my people [to practice plural marriage]; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things” (Jacob 2:30). And that is one of the motivations of plural marriage (to raise up seed); yet another principle is that through affliction one learns by experience and grows from it (See 2 Nephi 2:2 and D&C 98:3; 121:7-8; 122:5-7). So in this sense, I think Smith (in his scriptural productions) framed the afflictions of plural marriage as the turbulent pathway to exaltation and glory. In other words, to overcome the despising of the body and the Augustinian dogma of depravity, one needed to be proven and afflicted in one's puritanical conscience by practicing polygamy; in order to grow a new, more Hebraic conscience and theology, wherein God had a body and sex was not seen as inherently sinful. The body as inherently "sinful" was caused mostly by Augustine who distorted the original Hebrew theology of the Bible. So in order to purge themselves of the body-shaming effects of the abominable Creeds (and the Churches of the Devil that slander God's good creation and deny the way of procreative Life). It is then that the Saints would learn to be like a God themselves, a shameless tangible body of glory in the making.
Today, Latter-day Saints no longer need to practice the Abrahamic sacrifice of plural marriage because the early Saints already made the purging sacrifice at the metaphorical altar in the Nauvoo temple; thus purging themselves of Augustinian Puritanism and the Creeds through plural marriage. This allowed the Saints to then migrate to Utah and practice plural marriage up to about 1900, which further redeemed their conscience from the body-shaming affects of Augustinianism and restored to their conscience the original Hebrew theology. Thus they began to have an eye toward the glory of the tangible Gods. They then spiritually passed on this new Hebraic conscience to future generations of Mormons who today no longer worship a god without parts or passions and reject Augustine's despising of the body. So that the altar of plural marriage is no longer necessary to sacrifice puritanical attitudes and Creeds today. So instead monogamous marriage is performed at the altars in LDS temples.
In short, the Sectarian Creeds had led to an uptight anti-life attitude about the body. Joseph Smith tried to explain to Nancy Rigdon, in proposing to her, that "God is more liberal in his views." In other words, God is more "liberal" than the sectarian puritanical Creeds that preach a bodiless God without body parts or passions. Again, today Brighamite LDS members can only practice monogamous marriages in the LDS temples; plural marriage is illegal and against the policy of the Utah-based LDS church today. But they can honor their polygamist ancestors by not despising the body and honoring the sacrifices of the Former-day Saints in further learning to more glorify the body through sensual joy and familial bonds. In other words, Latter-day Saints, can fulfill the "spirit of the law" of plural marriage by instead practicing monogamous marriage and doing so with an eye toward the Joy of Sex and enjoying having a family.
So once again, we see organic Life and its sensual reproductive nature fully affirmed in LDS scripture. In the context of Abraham 2:11, quoted above, we return to Abraham 3:26 quoted at the start of this post:
And they who keep their first estate [on earth] shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.
Rather than Augustine's sexual "hang ups" and the antifamilial tendencies that made its way into the Christian tradition that denied organic Life; Smith on the contrary, fully affirmed this life, the family, the reproductive body, and all the organic energies of Life with a sex-positive and Life-affirming theology of the body. For more details, see my article Toward a Theology of The Body.
So the LDS gospel is first and foremost the pathway to glorious godhood through sexual fecundity and growing in dominion as essentially a Supercouple. From a pro-organic-life perspective, it is a repudiation of the acetic ideal in Augustinian Protestantism and Catholicism -- with their celibate priests and life renunciation -- through the promotion of Abrahamic plural marriage from the 1840s to the 1900s. Again, around 1900, the Latter-day Saints stopped practicing plural marriage. In short, I argue that plural marriage was a method utilized by Joseph Smith to rescue the Saints from puritanical prudery and anti-human sectarian Creeds; in order to move their consciousness away from anti-body Augustinianism and towards seeing that their body was not depraved; but that their human sexuality was good, as long as it was funneled through an orderly and righteous cause. So Nauvoo Mormonism, as a Christian restorationist movement, was in part designed to repudiate Augustinian depravity and prudery, which was largely accomplished; and even though plural marriage is no longer practiced by Latter-day Saints today, it is still a practice that is still revered by many Saints in honor of their polygamist ancestors; and it's still a useful topic of conversation in that it forces one to deal with their own residual prudish puritanism.
For the women reading this, it is important to note as well that Joseph Smith himself did not just allow men to have more than one spouse but he also practiced polyandry: wherein the woman had more than one spouse.
What the subject of polygamy does, even today, is radically shift one's consciousness by forcing them to rethink the Protestant Puritan concepts of an allegedly depraved and disgusting and filthy body (that is punished by Adam's transgression with Original Sin, which Joseph Smith rejected); by instead reframing human sexuality and reproduction as not depraved but something God the Father Himself experiences. While presenting plural marriage, a concept that even the Old Testament Patriarchs going back to Abraham, experienced, that is having multiple wives and concubines which was sanctioned by God.
In other words, the very concept of plural marriage, even though it is no longer practiced by Latter-day Saints, still retains a "purifying" effect on the Augustinian Puritan mind by removing the notion that human sexuality and reproduction is inherently sinful and depraved; by instead pointing to the fact that because God sanctioned it in the Old Testament (the Early-day Saints) and among early Latter-day Saints (1840-1900), then one can better realize that the tangible body of flesh and bone with its sexual parts and passions is not depraved nor sinful as taught by Augustine and Luther; for we did not inherit Adam's original sin; and in fact we are right now in our bodies, holy and good.
The Will to Antifragility
I am like a huge rough stone...and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force...thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty.
Joseph Smith also said:
Never be discouraged. If I were sunk in the lowest pits of Nova Scotia, with the Rocky Mountains piled on me, I would hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage, and I would come out on top.
D&C 136: 30-31 states:
30 Fear not thine enemies, for they are in mine hands and I will do my pleasure with them.
31 My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom.
So the goal is to grow into a spiritually antifragile divine being. For example, affliction works for us toward a far more exceeding and "eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17; D&C 63:66).
Reading the book on Joseph Smith's life titled Glorious Persecution, I was able to see that the Latter-day Saint "gospel" is first and foremost a "praising of the man" Joseph Smith, as he embodied masculinity and exuded manhood:
So did the Jewish heroes of the Hebrew Bible; and the Hebrew God himself, as we read in Exodus 15:3 (EXB):
The Lord is a warrior [man of war];
the Lord [Yahweh; 3:14–17] is his name.
See my blog post: "Praise to Man" as Revering The Way of Men & Joseph's Accomplishments, where I list Joseph Smith's accomplishments as he lived out the Will to Glory and embodied the energies of expanding Life.
You are the Man!
To praise to the man is also a reverence for male virility and kingly power which are biblical concepts. As we read 2 Samuel 12: 7-8 (NIV; words in bold my own for emphasis) :
Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: `I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. …'
So the Mormon gospel entails a respectful praising of masculine achievement and earned higher status, as in "you are the man!" There is also the respect of kingship. Along with the masculine power through divine aid to be delivered from the hands of one's enemies and overcoming obstacles and striving to be great (as Joseph's life accomplishments demonstrates); while being sexually potent as if having wives put into your arms as God did with David.
This is combined with Pauline theosis (deification) and an Abrahamic sexuality. This is the Latter-day Saint Plan of Happiness, which is the sensual sociality of the Gods.
The Arnold Schwarzenegger of Christianity
On the BYU Religious Education YouTube Channel, in the episode Doctrines of Exaltation: Doctrine and Covenants, Sections 76, 84, 88, 93, 137, we see that Joseph Smith presented a theology where the ultimate aim is glory, a degree of Glory. The Highest Glory being the Celestial Kingdom where one has an increase of seeds/lives, power and dominion. For Smith, this life was about imitating the Gods who had become exalted by living rich lives on another earth and growing toward their exaltation. This makes me think of the documentary of the 1980 Mr. Olympia, titled The Comeback, where Arnold Schwarzenegger says, "I'm a strong believer in the Western Philosophy of conquering, of achieving, of climbing, of getting higher and higher to the top ... because that's in my opinion is what Life is all about, living, rich, rather than just existing, wasting away your life ..." (see YouTube Clip). So I personally see Joseph Smith as the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the Christian tradition. He did not do as Origen is "reported" to have done, which is castrate himself (remove his testicles). He did not renounce life as a pillar-saint or a Christian ascetic, who in the early centuries of Christendom, lived on pillars high above the ground to avoid the world while fasting and praying. He didn't hide from life and suppress his bodily passions and ambition as a monk in a monastery. He fully embraced life!
Anthony Sweat explains that this 1847 diagram is one of the earliest LDS visual depictions of LDS doctrine. At the top is the symbol of a crown representing kingship and each prong moving upward is is meant to convey the idea of each person sealed to the Latter-day Saint male, in the temple, basically elevates his status and dominion; as a kind of dynastic or kingdom-building idea in an upward trajectory toward Divine Glory.
Hence, just as Arnold speaks of climbing higher, LDS theology is a theology of exaltation, of increase, of expansion, of eternal progression, power, and dominion.
A Pro-Life Godhead
If you think about it, the sectarian Godhead is anti-Life. It presents a bodiless Father deity without organic parts or passions and emphasizes a celibate Jesus and puritanical sexual repression as the ideal for mankind. Augustinian Original Sin teaches that we all sexually-inherited a curse (which is an absurd idea that vilifies sex and reproduction). In contrast, Smith rejected Original Sin in the second LDS Article of Faith, and Latter-day Saints have long speculated that Jesus likely married, which many biblical scholars agree with. Furthermore, the LDS Godhead is not a Lifeless no-thing, a bodiless vapor, but God the Father is a tangible exalted man. The LDS Godhead is not a single dad in the sky and bachelor son and a chorus of all male angels; with the goal of becoming a celibate asexual angel (as one finds in Catholicism and Protestantism). Instead, the Mormon Godhead is the equivalent of a two-parent home, not a house without any mother or feminine energy. For if you were a child orphan which type of household would you prefer, which would feel more whole, a house with two tangible and real loving parents (who weep for you) or an angry, invisible, single dad?
As the LDS Proclamation on the Family makes clear, everyone "is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, ..." So "God," as Terryl and Fiona Givens use the term, is our Heavenly Parents: a Mother and Father deity. In other words, organic Life itself is affirmed by declaring that the Creator is a heterosexual couple that spiritually "make love" and reproduce which is a mirror of reproductive Life itself. Hence, Mormonism at its core is Pro-organic-Life.
In the LDS heaven there is no puritanical shame or prudery. Instead, God himself is glorified through sexual acts of reproduction. Again, Joseph Smith made it clear that "You have got to learn how to be a God yourself." To be a "God" is to live an embodied life of sexual fecundity and powerful growth amidst adversity toward your glorious dominion.
The Will to Glory as The Plan of Glorification
The plan of happiness in the Book of Mormon is essentially the plan of glorification. "Happiness is the object and design of our existence," Joseph once said, and the path of happiness in Nauvoo was the laws and ordinances of the Temple: which aimed at endowing one with glorification as a tangible God of parts and passions.
Not Perfectionism but Expansionism
Note in the verses below, that the goal is not perfectionism, purity culture, nor flawless behavior; otherwise Adam would have remained with Eve in the Garden knowing not Good or Evil by making mistakes and apologizing and improving their character. In other words, the goal is not perfectionism but expansion, not prudery but growth and joy. The philosophical goal is mastering and balancing the "yin and yang" of Life through free will. The Book of Mormon defines being a Christian as "Awakening" from the captivity of the miserable-making negativity of the devil: who represents selfishness, excessive pride, lawlessness, iniquity injustice/unfairness, nihilistic atheistic philosophies, and murderous Cain-energy. So the opposite of devilish energy is Christ-energy, the power of faith and spiritual strength:
1 Nephi 7:
17 But it came to pass that I [Nephi] prayed unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren; yea, even give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound.
18 And it came to pass that when I had said these words, behold, the bands were loosed from off my hands and feet, and I stood before my brethren ….
1 Nephi 17:50:
If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done.
Alma 26:12:
… I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.
The spiritual energy of Christ also brings joy and happiness (words in brackets are my own):
2 Nephi 2:13-29:
13 And if ye shall say there is no law [of Moses], ye shall also say there is no sin [to miss the mark/error]. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. ... And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for their could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.
14 And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon [the law of cause and effect].
15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.
16 Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself [i.e. have free will]. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other [i.e. able to make choices].
17 And I, Lehi, according to the things which I have read, must needs suppose that an angel of God, according to that which is written [i.e. according to tradition], had fallen from heaven; wherefore, he became a devil, having sought that which was evil before God [i.e. a "devil" opposes the plan of happiness].
18 And because he had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind. …
[A "devil" is basically a negative person/group that stands in opposition to the good and justice/fairness: and in a state of rebellion against righteous Authority counteracts the joy that comes from following the Good Path by focusing on selfish immediate gratification and thus a constant spiral downward into miserableness]
… Wherefore, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies, wherefore he said: Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.
19 And after Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit they were driven out of the garden of Eden, to till the earth.
20 And they have brought forth children; yea, even the family of all the earth.
21 And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God [i.e. God willed/planned for Adam and Eve to consume the dichotomy of the sweet and the bitter], that they might repent [re-choose] while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of probation [or incubation, as "gods in embryo," knowing good from evil, the sweet from the bitter], and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men [i.e. the commandments are not mere restrictions but intended to empower and expand the life of man making him more generative]. For he gave commandment that all men must repent [re-choose/change your mind]; for he showed unto all men that they were lost, because of the transgression of their parents [See Articles of Faith # 2].
22 And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. [In other words, they would have remained docile like children and would have never grown up to have children and expand in glory by awakening and receiving the empowering spirit of Christ].
23 And they would have had no children [hence no expansion, no increase; no "continuation of the seeds forever" toward their "glory" (See D&C 132: 16, 19, 30-31, 57, 63]; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.
24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.
25 Adam fell [chose and errored/transgressed] that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
26 And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem [awaken] the children of men from the fall [into yin-yang duality and choosing the wicked path to miserableness or the good path to happiness]. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.
27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life [Christ brings life more abundantly, John 10:10], through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil [rebellious insubordinate attitudes and vice habits that provide immediate gratification but generate long-term misery]; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
28 And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments [i.e. Love God, love thyself, and esteem your neighbor as yourself]; and be faithful unto his words [in the Gospels and 3 Nephi], and choose eternal life [life in abundance], according to the will of his Holy Spirit;
29 And not choose eternal death, according to the will [knee jerk impulses] of the flesh and the evil [potential to cause harm] which is therein, which giveth the spirit [or negative emotional contagion] of the devil power to captivate [enslave through negative attitudes, bad habits, and destructive addictions], to bring you down to hell [degeneration], that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.
[Note that D&C 19: 6-12 makes it clear that the "hell" language in the Book of Mormon is merely metaphorical; with the Lord's intention being to use the Protestant language of hell in order to motivate people to change their ways. Therefore, in the context of other Book of Mormon verses, "hell" is a metaphor for the state of unhappy miserableness of those who are not "awakened out of a deep sleep and not [awoken] unto God'' with a "changed heart" with "their souls illuminated by the light of the everlasting word[/Logos]," and are instead stuck in a hellish "midst of darkness …" (Alma 5:7)]
From this we can see that Joseph Smith was inspired to produce the words of the Book of Mormon which, contrary to the more negative theologies like that of John Calvin at that time which rejected free will, Joseph Smith produced a book of scripture that intended to empower the reader to see that he/she is not depraved with Original Sin -- which Joseph Smith makes clear in the Articles of Faith #2 -- but instead humanity was designed to be fallible and yes make mistakes; and in fact the divine plan all along was for mankind to have the ability to make choices and thus make mistakes: in order to learn from those mistakes and apologize and seek forgiveness and grow from them; and learn to follow the path to joy and happiness and avoid the path of wickedness toward hellish miserableness and self-destruction (or death). The message of the Book of Mormon is to awaken to grow and swell like a seed grows into a fruit bearing treat.
So from the Book of Mormon (published in 1830) to the Book of Abraham presented in the 1840s, the consistent theme of Smith's philosophical theology was the Will to Glory.
Suggested Reading:
