Revealing the Priesthood

Yesterday in Sunday School we talked about the language of the first verse of D&C 2.  This contains the words of the angel Moroni to Joseph Smith in 1823 when he visited the 17-year-old boy.  Paraphrasing Malachi 4:5, Moroni told the young prophet, “Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”  The language here is not what we are used to; we speak of “restoring” the Priesthood in our common parlance in the Church, but we don’t typically talk about “revealing” the Priesthood.  What exactly was meant here by Moroni? 

              The only record of Elijah playing a part in the Restoration that I know of is the visit he made to Joseph and Oliver in 1836, nearly 13 years after Moroni’s statement.  By this time, though, the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods had already been restored through other angelic ministers, and the account of the visit of Elijah that we have doesn’t actually mention anything specifically about the Priesthood: “Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood before us, and said: Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come—To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse” (D&C 110:13-15).  Clearly we can see this as the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy, but how did this event “reveal” the Priesthood to Joseph?  Elijah            said to Joseph and Oliver, “The keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands” and so at least part of the “priesthood” that was given to Joseph at this time included the keys of the priesthood (D&C 110:16).  President Joseph Fielding Smith described the event this way: “Elijah came to restore to the earth, by conferring on mortal prophets duly commissioned of the Lord, the fulness of the power of priesthood. This priesthood holds the keys of binding and sealing on earth and in heaven of all the ordinances and principles pertaining to the salvation of man, that they may thus become valid in the celestial kingdom of God.”  So Elijah came in order to give to Joseph and Oliver the power in the Priesthood to seal on earth and in heaven, a power that we now know was to be used to seal families together.  In one sense then perhaps we can think of Elijah’s visit as revealing the purpose of the Priesthood.  Though it is likely that Joseph did not understand it all at the time, Elijah’s visit helped to reveal to him and Oliver one of the grand missions of the Priesthood—to create eternal families.  Even though they already had the Melchizedek Priesthood with the 12 apostles at this time, they still did not have the keys or understanding to bind families that Elijah brought.  As President Packer taught so many times, “The ultimate end of all activity in the Church  is to see a husband and his wife and their children happy at home, protected by the principles and laws of the gospel, sealed safely in the covenants of the everlasting priesthood.”  All that the Church and Priesthood is really about goes back to the sealing of families. 

              It’s interesting that even after the visit of Elijah, the Lord still told this to the Prophet Joseph in 1841, “For there is not a place found on earth that he may come to and restore again that which was lost unto you, or which he hath taken away, even the fulness of the priesthood” (D&C 124:28).  Even then there was still something about the Priesthood that Joseph lacked.  Joseph Fielding Smith said the following about this verse: “If we want to receive the fullness of the Priesthood of God, then we must receive the fullness of the ordinances of the house of the Lord and keep His commandments.”  So again the Priesthood is tied to the ordinances of the temple, and Joseph didn’t have everything the Priesthood had to offer until he had received all of the ordinances of the temple.  Ultimately for each of us the true purposes of the Priesthood are “revealed” gradually as they were to Joseph, and we won’t have all the Priesthood is meant to give us until we have received all of the ordinances of the temple.