When Jesus Christ lived upon the earth in mortality, he set up his church according to laws and principles that had been in place from before the giving of the law to Moses in Sinai. Jesus’ ascension into heaven enabled the new and everlasting covenant—made back through Abraham, back through Noah, back through Enoch, and all the way back through Adam—to have full force and efficacy on the earth. His kingdom was to be an everlasting kingdom as prophesied from the beginning.
But then something happened that seemed to threaten that prophecy: the apostles were killed and the truth and the priesthood were forced to go into hiding. Eventually the intense persecution of Christians ended with the adoption of Christianity by the Roman empire, giving the truth a time of respite, but even that was short-lived when the previously pagan empire began to meddle with plain and precious principles and priesthood. The Nicene Creeds, which codified certain precepts of men as foundational doctrines, forced the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ back into obscure corners until the last lines of true power in the priesthood finally went out around the year AD 570 (Times and Seasons 5:732), when the previous patriarchal orders were replaced with the pure papacy.
The earth remained in darkness for 1,260 years. That is until April 6th, 1830, in upstate New York, when the original church of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth in the latter days. This church is called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
This church brought back all the original covenants, laws, and principles that existed under the direction of Jesus Christ when he called his Twelve Apostles in the old world. To it was restored the new and everlasting covenant through the ministration of resurrected beings who held the keys of the priesthood when they lived—including Moses, Elias, and Elijah, fulfilling the prophecy that God would send the likes of Elijah “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD” (see Mal. 4:5). Through this church the hearts of the children would turn to the promises of the new and everlasting covenant made to the fathers, such as Adam, Enoch, and Noah.
And how was this church set up? By the priesthood given to an unlikely young man, a mere plowboy with minimal schooling: Joseph Smith Jr.
Joseph Smith was born on the 23rd of December, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont. A natural seer, Joseph displayed gifts of clairvoyance from a young age that brought him some recognition as someone who could at times see the unseen and benefit his fellow man thereby. Though some would later deride him as a conman, the truth is that he never played the conman role of ever attempting to dupe people into giving him money and then running away before demonstrating his gifts; Joseph’s reputation as a reliable seer preceded him and he only ever employed his gifts in his local community where everyone knew him (something a conman would never do). Joseph always had a mind for the sacred, unlike the money diggers with whom he was superstitiously associated, and kept his young mind in the pondering of scriptures. A religious revival in the country sparked a question in his mind: which church of all the churches was the true church of God? Reading one day in the first chapter of James, he read the following:
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5).
After reading those words, Joseph recalled:
“Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible. At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God” (JS History 1:12 – 13).
This was in the spring of 1820, when Joseph was only 14 years old. He went into a grove of trees to pray and attempted, for the first time in his life, to pray aloud. As he began to pour out his soul to God, he heard footsteps approaching him, which he thought was one of his brothers. But looking about him, he saw no one. He attempted to resume praying, but was then seized by an invisible being who attempted to overpower him and destroy him. With all the energy of his soul, he called out in desperation to God to be saved from this unseen enemy. Describing what happened next, he said:
“Just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (JS History 1:16 – 17).
In this amazing theophany, Joseph saw that God the Father and the Son were two different people, immediately breaking the first great error of the Nicene Creed, that the trinity was three persons in one. Joseph asked them which church he should join, and he was told to join none of them, for “their creeds were an abomination in his sight;… they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof” (JS History 1:19). Joseph learned that God intended to restore his original church to the earth and, in time, that Joseph himself would be the means of that restoration.
And so it was that from the establishment of the church in 1830 up through Joseph’s martyrdom in 1844, the original church of Christ was restored to the earth.
