Transcription
The King Flet discourse, Joseph Smith's most famous, most well-recorded, and most controversial sermon. It was the last general conference sermon that Joseph gave before his death. Eldius thinkers have referenced its teachings on God for centuries. God was once a man. We have the divine potential to ourselves become gods. Children will reign on thrones as children. God has not always been God. But is this even what Smith was teaching?
Since the days of Joseph Smith, Christians have used the King Flet sermon as evidence to prove that Joseph really was a false prophet. And yet, Joseph was so confident about the sermon that he staked his claim of being a prophet on it. If what he said was false, then so was he. Today, we're going to take a closer look at the King Flet discourse. What's its history? What was Joseph actually teaching? And how have Latter-day Saints, both past and present, interpreted this very important sermon?
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For those of you who are sitting at your keyboards right now, ready to comment that we don't have the sermon recorded correctly, just wait. Going to address those concerns a little bit later on in the video. Joseph Smith preached the King Flet discourse, also called the KFD, on April 7th, 1844, just a couple months before he was killed. This was Joseph Smith's final general conference sermon, and it proved to be a charged event. Wilfrid Woodruff, who himself recorded some of the content of the sermon, said that there were more than 10,000 people present to hear Smith give the KFD. Some who were present there had been waiting for this conference as an opportunity to bring public charges against Joseph on account of his practice of plural marriage. But to their frustration, Joseph opened the conference by saying that no such charges against him would be heard.
The sermon itself was supposed to encourage people in the wake of the death of a man named King Flet, hence the name of the sermon. King Flet was not a king. That was just his name. And he died when he was digging a well and some rocks fell on his head. Joseph preached this to be essentially a kind of funeral sermon. He really wanted to encourage those who were mourning the deaths of loved ones. This was probably the most significant sermon that Smith ever preached. And he knew it, too. In fact, it was so important to him that he asked more people to record this sermon than any other sermon he ever gave. He actually asked them to brush up on their Hebrew so that they could accurately record what he was going to preach on. Considering his upcoming sermon to be of great importance, he had assigned three clerks to take minutes. Only one other occasion had any of his discourses been reported by more than one clerk.
Because there were a growing number of dissenters in Nauvoo who were questioning whether or not the prophet was actually a prophet. Joseph was sticking his neck out here in order to prove his validity. He claimed to be a man who by revelation was given insight into truths unknown by the wider Christian world. Specifically, truths about the nature of God. So confident was he that he hinged his status as a prophet on the truthfulness of what he was preaching. Here's what Joseph said. Quote, "My first object is to go back and find out the character of the only wise and true God and what kind of being he is. If I should be the man so fortunate as to comprehend God and explain to your hearts what kind of being God is so that the spirit seals it, then let every man and woman henceforth put a hand on his mouth, sit in silence, and never say anything or lift his or her voice against the servants of God again. But if I fail to do it and show I have no right to revelation or inspiration or to being a prophet, it becomes my duty to renounce all my pretensions to inspiration or to being a prophet. If I should do so, should I not be as bad as all the rest of the false teachers of the world, they will all be as badly off as I am."
So he's saying if this sermon is false, then Joseph really is a false prophet, just like all his accusers were claiming. In fact, he says if the spirit does not seal the truths of the sermon upon the hearts of the hearers, then he's just as bad off as all the rest of the false teachers. This is a bold claim. And using Smith's own standards here, if we evaluate the claims in this sermon, we should be able to ascertain whether or not Joseph was a true or false prophet.
Smith preached, "In order to understand the subject of the dead and to speak for the consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary to understand the character and being of God." Okay, but why? How does the character and being of God help comfort those who are mourning? Well, the reason is because Joseph links the nature of God with the nature of man. And if you rightly understand the nature of man, Smith claims, then you'll be able to be comforted if you're mourning loss. It's really the truth about man's nature that will provide comfort. If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend their own character. They cannot comprehend anything that is past or that which is to come.
So then, what kind of being is man? Well, Joseph says, "We say that God himself is a self-existent God. Who told you so? It's correct enough, but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principle? Man existed in spirit. The mind of man, the intelligent part is as immortal as and is co-equal with God himself. I know that my testimony is true."
Now, generally speaking, Latter-day Saints agree with this idea. They agree with the thought that our essential selves, our intelligence is co-eternal with God. Smith says, "Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it. The first principles of man are self-existent with God. As God is self-existent, Joseph teaches, so are we." That means that you and I are not contingent beings. And that's what Christianity has historically taught. Namely, that you and I are dependent on God for our very existence moment to moment. I think about what Hebrews 1:3 says when it says that Jesus upholds the universe by the word of his power. Christians believe that if God were to stop existing, so would we. But Joseph is teaching that we are as self-existent as God is. According to Smith, we're kind of like little I ams, self-existent necessary beings. This is a dramatic claim and a bold departure from historic Christian teachings about both God and man.
Okay. So then how does this help comfort those who are mourning death? Well, Joseph's logic is like this. If we are self-existent, necessary, eternal beings, then death cannot be the end of our existence. I want to reason more on the spirit of man, for I am dwelling on the immortality of the spirit and on the subject of man, on the subject of the dead. Is it logical to say that spirit is immortal and yet have a beginning? Because if a spirit of man had a beginning, it will have an end, but it does not have a beginning or an end. This is good logic and is illustrated by my ring. I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man, the immortal spirit, because it has no beginning or end. Suppose you cut it in two. As the Lord lives, there would be a beginning and an end. So it is with man. All the fools, learned and wise men from the beginning of creation who say that man had a beginning prove that he must have an end. If that doctrine be true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, then I might with boldness proclaim from the housetop that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself.
Okay. So what is he saying here? Well, he takes a ring from his finger and he uses it as an illustration. He essentially says this is eternal, but if I cut a ring in half, it has a beginning and an end. So we too, if we have a beginning, we must have an end. The only other alternative is that we're eternal. If his Christian critics are right, and he calls them fools, learned and wise men who say that man had a beginning. Well, if the Christian critics are right, then Joseph surmises we must have an end because we're just like God, eternal, self-existent, unccreated beings, then we don't have a beginning and thus we don't have an end. We cannot be created or destroyed just as God cannot be created or destroyed. So, we can be assured that King Flet or anyone else who has died is not annihilated.
Now, as a Christian, I'd just like to ask why. He assumes that if you have a beginning, you must have an end. He never really proves that. He just takes it as an assumed given. I disagree with that assumption. I don't think the Bible teaches that. In fact, I'd argue that modern Latter-day Saints don't substantially believe that either. If our intelligences were given spirit bodies in a premortal life, well, then our spiritual selves had a beginning. And if our spiritual selves had a beginning by Joseph's logic, they will have an end. I just don't think that that logic tracks. And I don't understand why he assumes it as a given.
On the subject of providing comfort, Joseph makes some really shocking statements here about the resurrection of children. Some statements that are pretty controversial. Not only will adults persist into eternity because of their essential nature, but parents will receive their deceased children back in the resurrection as children. A question about parents receiving their children. Will mothers have their children in eternity? Yes. Yes, mothers, you will have your children. But as the child dies, so will it rise from the dead and be living in the burning of God and possessing all the intelligence of a god. It will never grow. It will be the child in its precise form as it was before it died out of your arms. Children dwell and exercise power throne upon throne, dominion upon dominion, in the same form just as you laid them down. Eternity is full of thrones upon which dwell thousands of children reigning on thrones of glory with not one cubit added to their stature.
To comfort parents who lost children, Joseph is teaching that those parents will receive their children back in the resurrection as children. They'll reign as gods on thrones into eternity, but they will retain the form they had when they were laid down in death. To put it plainly, if a baby dies, then that baby will be resurrected and will reign on the throne for eternity as a baby. He says that children will never grow. Now, this theology actually has some precedent in Joseph's teaching. William Clayton, who is one of Joseph's scribes, recorded just a year earlier, I asked the president whether children who die in infancy will grow. He answered, "No, we shall receive them precisely in the same state as they died in no larger. They will have as much intelligence as we shall but shall always remain separate and single. Always remain separate and single." That's pretty important. Fourth LDS president Wilfrid Woodruff recorded that Smith preached the same idea in a sermon back in 1842. Children will be enthroned in the presence of God and the lamb with bodies of the same stature that were on earth.
But by the early 1900s, the very idea of a static eternal existence without progression was tantamount to damnation. In fact, DNC32 states that those who remain separate and single are not exalted. That's the same phrase Smith used to describe these children. According to William Clayton, some Latter-day Saints opposed Joseph's idea of child resurrection precisely because it implied a kind of damnation. In some versions of the Kingflet discourse, the paragraph on child resurrection was altered or in some cases removed altogether. Presidents Brigham Young, Joseph F. Smith and even guys like Apostle Orson Pratt questioned the validity of this teaching. Maybe the prophet Joseph just got this one wrong. President Joseph F. Smith actually proposed that perhaps this part of the sermon was not written down correctly. Remember that Smith hinged his status as a prophet on the truthfulness of this sermon. If what he said was false, then he was a false prophet. Despite this, LDS leaders and thinkers have had no problem questioning and rejecting this particular teaching of Smith.
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Okay. So, Joseph established that we are of the same essential nature as God. We're self-existent and we're eternal. Well, he takes it a step further by saying that we follow in the same course as the father and the son. As they progressed, so too must we progress. He makes his point logically by beginning with Jesus. He says that what Jesus is doing is only what Jesus saw the father doing. Therefore, what Jesus is now doing, the father logically once did. Here's what he wrote. What did Jesus say? As the father has power in himself, even so has the son power in himself to do what? Why? What the father did? That answer is obvious. Even in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus does what the father did on another world. Take on flesh, die, and resurrect. And when Jesus is exalted to where the father is, the father's kingdom will grow in glory and dominion. The idea is everlasting progression.
Joseph says, "Contemplate the saying that they will be heirs of God and joint hes with Jesus Christ." What is it to inherit and enjoy the same glory, powers, and exaltation until you ascend a throne of eternal power and arrive at the station of a God, the same as those who have gone before? What did Jesus Christ do? Why, I do the same things that I saw my father do when worlds came rolling into existence. Saw the father do what? I saw the father work out his kingdom with fear and trembling. And I am doing the same too. When I get my kingdom, I will give it to the father and it will add to and exalt his glory. He will take a higher exaltation and I will take his place and am also exalted so that he obtains kingdom rolling upon kingdom so that Jesus treads in his tracks as he had gone before and then inherits what God did before. God is glorified in the salvation and exaltation of his creatures.
Notice how he applies the same basic trajectory to us. As God once did, Jesus does. And as God and Jesus have done, so too must we do. Jesus treads in the tracks of his father. And we follow in these same tracks of Jesus, joint hes with him. All of us pressing towards greater progression and exaltation. Joseph has said, "When you climb a ladder, you must begin at the bottom rung." The father started at the bottom rung and has worked his way up. Christ follows behind him, starting at the bottom and working his way up. We too must work our way up following their steps rung by rung toward greater dominion and exaltation. That's why Smith famously says, "You have got to learn how to make yourselves gods in order to save yourselves and be kings and priests to God. the same as all gods have done by going from a small capacity to a great capacity, from a small degree to another, from grace to grace until the resurrection of the dead, from exaltation to exaltation till you are able to sit in everlasting burnings and everlasting power and glory as those who have gone before sit enthroned."
Smith even seems to tie this idea to proxy works. As Christ has saved all of us through his work, we can help save others by means of proxy work, most especially proxy baptism. Here's what he says. God has made a provision that the spirits of our friends and every spirit in that eternal world can be fared out and saved. Every man who has got a friend in the eternal world can save him unless he has committed the unpardonable sin. You can save any man who has not committed the unpardonable sin. So you can see how far you can be a savior.
There are three major ways in which Latter-day Saints have understood the ideas that Smith was teaching here. Here are the three. First is the equivalent view. Joseph referred to every facet of the son's experience. The father was previously a savior like Christ and we must follow in the tracks of the father and the son becoming little saviors. This mindset led some latter-day saints to believe in things like Adam God andor multiple mortal probations. Second is the moderate similarity view. Some exalted gods have been sinless saviors while others were once sinful mortals. Smith was making a more general generic point. All those who are worthy make progress on the latter to godhead. Though the specifics vary from being to being. The third view is the distant similarity view. The members of the Godhead have always been defined. They did not progress from being men to being gods. Although they took on physical bodies, their experience is something we cannot fully replicate. Their exaltation differs from ours because they have eternally been gods while we've not. While we can become like them, we cannot enjoy the same type of godhood that they have.
Wilfrid Woodruff two years before Smith gave the Kingfall discourse said that Joseph essentially held to the equivalence view that father, son, and spirit all had to be sinless saviors at some point and we also need to do the same. He wrote, "Joseph the seer taught the following principles that the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ was once the same as the son or holy ghost, but having redeemed a world became the eternal God of that world. He had a son Jesus Christ who redeemed this earth the same as his father had a world which made them equal and the Holy Ghost would do the same in turn. And so would all the saints who inherited a celestial glory. So there would be God's many and Lord's many." Franklin D. Richards also recorded Joseph also said that the Holy Ghost is now in a state of probation which if he should perform in righteousness he may pass through the same on a similar course of things that the son has. So the father, son, and holy ghost are all on different rungs of the latter progressing upward and we follow on those same tracks.
Joseph extrapolates from this logic of progression back to the nature of God. And he claims that understanding the nature of God is actually pretty important. Here's what he writes. What kind of being is God? If the declaration of the apostle be true, he will realize that unless he knows God, he has not eternal life. For there can be eternal life on no other principle. If we follow a parallel track to God, well, that tells us something about the essential nature of God in the past. That's exactly why Smith says first God himself who sits enthroned in yonder heavens is a man like unto one of yourselves. That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today and the great God that holds this world in its sphere and the planets in their orbit and who upholds all things by his power, if you were to see him today, you would see him in all the person, image, fashion, and very form of a man like yourselves. It's also why he says, "We have imagined that God was God from the beginning of all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see. And why he says that you and I have got to learn to become gods just as all gods before us have done." It's the same ladder or track logic applied backward to the nature of God. He once was a man like one of us and that God himself, the father of us all, once dwelled on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did in the flesh and like us.
After the KFD, the Nauvoo Expositor was published. It was a newspaper headed up by William Law, who had previously been a part of the first presidency, but he had been excommunicated shortly after the Kingflet discourse. The goal of the paper to expose what was going on in Nauvoo, specifically to expose polygamy and blasphemy in specific response to some of what Joseph was teaching in the King Flet discourse. The expositor accused Smith of teaching that there were gods above our God. Here's what it said. "and in as much as they have introduced false and damnable doctrines into the church such as a plurality of gods above the god of this universe." The idea of a regress of gods is tied into this whole thing. If God was once a man like we are, then logically god has a god above him. In fact, after the expositor's publication, Joseph preached a follow-up sermon called the sermon in the grove. In this sermon, he stated, "Intelligences exist one above another so that there is no end to them." And my object was to preach the scriptures and preach the doctrine there being a God above the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some notion of a regress of gods has been the predominant understanding of LDS leaders for the majority of LDS church history.
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When I talk with Latter-day Saints on the street about whether or not God has a God above himself or how the Godhead works or what God's life as a man was really like, most people say something like, "It doesn't really matter. It's just speculative. That's deep doctrine. It's not something that we talk about or think much about." But the details of exaltation and progression were not minor speculative points of Smith's theology. In fact, he refers to these things as the first principles of the gospel. He says, "The first principle of truth and of the gospel is to know for a certainty the character of God." Smith rightly understands that whatever we believe about God will necessarily trickle down into every other area of theology. For us to take up beginning at the creation, it is necessary for us to understand something of God himself in the beginning. If we start right, it is very easy for us to go right all the time. But if we start wrong, we may go wrong, and it is a hard matter to get right. When he speaks about our progression to godhood, he likewise states, "It is plain beyond comprehension, and you thus learn that these are some of the first principles of the gospel."
While facets of this discussion are speculative within LDS theology, Joseph here is clearly stating that the nature and character of God is one of the most essential parts of the gospel. So when evangelicals critique the historic LDS positions on this, we're not dealing with side ancillary unimportant issues, even according to Joseph's own standards. We're dealing with the very first principles of the gospel. Joseph never claimed that these ideas were just speculation. I agree with Smith on this point. There is no topic more essential to Christianity than the nature of God.
There are three major areas of historic controversy concerning Joseph's teaching in this sermon. The first rose to prominence during what some have termed middle Mormonism from 1840s right after Smith's death up until the turn of the century in 1900. Soon after Smith's death and the LDS church's relocation to Utah, LDS leaders and thinkers began to adjust what Joseph taught about our essential nature. Part of what quickly shifted was the belief that we not only had a heavenly father, we also had a heavenly mother and that both heavenly parents were somehow involved in our existence through spirit birth. But if we began to exist as individuals through spirit birth, then were we really self-existent in the way that Joseph taught? Spirit birth theology quickly became associated with polygamy shortly after it became public in 1852. You see, if we were to populate worlds without end with our own spirit offspring, and if some kind of spirit birth was a part of that process, then having multiple wives would help populate these worlds. But spirit birth theology raised an interesting theological problem. If we follow in the tracks of our father and we were spiritually born at some point, well, what does that mean for God? Well, two predominant theories about this emerged. Brigham Young's theory was that this necessitated an infinite regression of gods. God was once a man who had been spiritually begotten to his father and that God was once a man who had been spiritually begotten to his father and so on and so forth on into eternity past. Orson Pratt on the other hand believed that intelligence particles self-organized and optimized their form into a first god at some point in the past. So Orson Pratt denied infinite regression, but he did hold to a limited regress of gods. The discussion about man's essential nature and spirit birth came to a head in the 1900s in a controversy between Eldius Apostle Charles Penrose and 70 BH Roberts. This controversy actually led to President Joseph F. Smith halting the printing of the King Flet discourse in 1912. Despite this, BH Roberts view eventually won out and became the predominant LDS view today. You see, Roberts tried to harmonize Smith's view that we are self-existent eternal beings and spirit birth theology. He taught that we eternally existed as individual intelligences and then we were begotten to heavenly parents as spirit children and then eventually we were born with physical bodies here on earth.
The second major controversy over the sermon had to do with the resurrection of children idea that I was talking about earlier. That teaching was another reason why Joseph F. Smith halted the printing of the King Flet discourse. He actually ordered that it be removed from history of the church which was put together by BH Roberts in 1912 and this was actually done without BH Roberts knowledge much to his frustration and disappointment. He also ordered that it ceased from being reproduced in future periodicals. That was later undone and actually his son Joseph Fielding Smith was the one who put the King Flet discourse in teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith which is the way that most people know about the sermon today. While today's discussions about the sermon really revolve around the eternal nature of God and God's tenure as a man and what that was like, the controversies of the 18 to 1900s were totally different. It really had nothing to do with the idea that God has not always been God and much more to do with our nature as self-existent beings and the issue of child resurrection.
The third controversy is far more modern. Eldest philosopher Blake Oler teaches that Smith never said that there was a regress of gods. Rather, he taught that the father has always been God, that he was the first to create a world, and that he took a physical form on that earth, and that he is now the adoptive father of our spirits. Osler's position rejects any regress of gods. He rejects the notion that heavenly father has a heavenly father. Some have labeled this view monarchial monotheism. Though currently popular in some LDS philosophical circles, this view has little if any support from the historic teachings of LDS apostles and prophets.
Some people claim that the King Flet sermon was not recorded correctly and thus it really isn't a reliable source. They appeal to the fact that the sermon was 2 hours long and yet we don't have two hours of content. It was windy, a fact that Smith points to multiple times in the sermon. And maybe that meant that people couldn't quite hear him properly. But this sermon is without a doubt the best recorded sermon of Smiths that we have in existence. We have four key accounts of the KFD. Thomas Bullocks, William Clayton's, Wilfr Woodruff's, and Willard Richards. You can find them all in the Joseph Smith papers project and I've included a number of them on the screen throughout this video. For this video, I used an amalgamation text created by Stan Larson for a BYU publication. He said, "The reports have no irreconcilable parts. No contradictory statements, and it is sometimes quite amazing how easily the various accounts combine. A high degree of agreement and harmony exists among them. There is no evidence that any account was made by copying and or expanding any other account. Every indication points to the Bulock, Clayton, and Richard's versions being written as Joseph spoke, this fact deserves emphasis." So, while there might be parts missing from the sermon, the things that we have recorded are almost certainly accurate. The fact that they show up in multiple different accounts, I think, is a point that deserves emphasis. I hear Latter-day Saints appeal to the idea of two or three witnesses often. I mean, we have two or three witnesses on all of these things that I was referencing in this video.
If you're curious to dive into the textual history of the King Falllet sermon, there's a book called The King Falllet Sermon, a biography written by William V. Smith. At the very end of that, there's an appendix that has a critical text where it shows all of the various audits. He calls them, the the different records of the sermon. He puts them all together and kind of marks off who says what. It's an excellent resource and a lot of that book helped me understand the development of the ideas of the Kingflet discourse throughout LDS church history. So if you're at all interested in this topic, I recommend that book to you.
The point of the sermon was to offer comfort to people. And I think the way that Smith went about this is totally wrong. True comfort does not come from our nature. Rather, it comes from what God has done on our behalf. Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. Do you believe this? Our hope is not that we are little I ams. It's rather in the gospel. We are rebellious, weak, pitiful, sinful creatures. And yet this great I am has chosen to save us as an act of grace. It's not because of who or what we are. Rather, it's because of who he is and what he's done. If you want to be comforted in death, don't look to your own nature. Look to what God has done. True hope and comfort for death is not found in these blasphemous ideas that Smith taught. Rather, it's found in the true gospel of grace. That you can be resurrected to life eternal by simply trusting in what Jesus has done and clinging to him for salvation. These are words of true comfort. When Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the [Music] life."
Well, this entire video has been about the claims of the King Flet sermon. Joseph claimed at the beginning that if these things were not true, then all of his accusers were correct and he really was a false prophet. Well, Joseph was in fact wrong, which means that we are bound to reject his teachings. and you are bound to reject all his pretensions as a prophet according to his own standards. If Joseph was wrong about babies reigning on thrones for eternity as babies, then he is a false prophet. If Joseph was wrong about God having once been a man on a previous world, but now being exalted and growing in glory and dominion, well, then he's a false prophet. If Joseph was wrong about man being a self-existent eternal being, a little I am, then Joseph is a false prophet. I could go on.
Joseph sought to comfort people by limiting God's power and inflating the nature of man, saying that we're different from what we really are. But Jesus sought to comfort us not by limiting God's power, but rather by pointing to God and glorying in how God is the creator and sustainer of the universe. How he is the only one who is able to raise us from the dead. Just consider this. If God created the universe, then God is able to sustain the universe for eternity. If God created us, we will forever exist because God allows us to. If God alone is from eternity to eternity, everlasting to everlasting, then he alone is the only being worthy of worship. We are not eternal. We do not have these attributes and thus we will never be worthy of worship.
I want to end this video by reading for you the end of Romans chapter 11. I I think it's very relevant. Paul says this, "Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how uncarchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways? For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." God never had to become the kind of being who has never been taught. God never had to become the kind of being who has never been given a gift. But you and I are not like that. All things are from God and for God. That is just not true of us. To God alone belongs all glory, dominion, power, and authority now and for all time.
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Hey,