All are Alike unto God
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
Of the Quorom of the Twelve Apostles
I would like to say something about the
new revelation relative to our taking the priesthood to those of all nations
and races. "He [meaning Christ, who is the Lord God] inviteth them all to
come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto
him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the
heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile."
(2 Nephi 26:33.)
These words have now taken on a new
meaning. We have caught a new vision of their true significance. This also
applies to a great number of other passages in the revelations. Since the Lord
gave this revelation on the priesthood, our understanding of many passages has
expanded. Many of us never imagined or supposed that they had the extensive and
broad meaning that they do have.
I shall give you a few impressions
relative to what has happened, and then attempt—if properly guided by the
Spirit—to indicate to you the great significance that this event has in the
Church, in the world, and where the rolling forth of the great gospel is
concerned.
The gospel goes to various peoples and
nations on a priority basis. We were commanded in the early days of this dispensation
to preach the gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. Our
revelations talk about its going to every creature. There was, of course, no
possible way for us to do all of this in the beginning days of our
dispensation, nor can we now, in the full sense.
And so, guided by inspiration, we began
to go from one nation and one culture to another. Some day, in the providences
of the Lord, we shall get into Red China and Russia and the Middle East, and so
on, until eventually the gospel will have been preached everywhere, to all
people; and this will occur before the second coming of the Son of Man.
Not only is the gospel to go, on a
priority basis and harmonious to a divine timetable, to one nation after
another, but the whole history of God's dealings with men on earth indicates
that such has been the case in the past; it has been restricted and limited
where many people are concerned. For instance, in the day between Moses and
Christ, the gospel went to the house of Israel, almost exclusively. By the time
of Jesus, the legal administrators and prophetic associates that he had were so
fully indoctrinated with the concept of having the gospel go only to the house
of Israel, that they were totally unable to envision the true significance of
his proclamation that after the resurrection they should then go to all the
world. They did not go to the gentile nations initially. In his own
ministration, Jesus preached only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and
had so commanded the Apostles (Matthew 10:6).
It is true that he made a few minor
exceptions because of the faith and devotion of some gentile people. There was
one woman who wanted to eat the crumbs that fell from the table of the
children, causing him to say, "O woman, great is thy faith."
(Matthew 15:28; see also Mark 7:27, 28.) With some minor exceptions, the
gospel in that day went exclusively to Israel. The Lord had to give Peter the
vision and revelation of the sheet coming down from heaven with the unclean
meat on it, following which Cornelius sent the messenger to Peter to learn what
he, Cornelius, and his gentile associates should do. The Lord commanded them
that the gospel go to the gentiles; and so it was. There was about a quarter of
a century, then, in New Testament times, when there were extreme difficulties
among the Saints. They were weighing and evaluating, struggling with the
problem of whether the gospel was to go only to the house of Israel or whether
it now went to all men. Could all men come to him on an equal basis with the
seed of Abraham?
There have been these problems, and the
Lord has permitted them to arise. There isn't any question about that. We do
not envision the whole reason and purpose behind all of it; we can only suppose
and reason that it is on the basis of preexistence and of our premortal
devotion and faith.
You know this principle: God "hath
made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,
and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their
habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him,
and find him" (Acts 17:26, 27)—meaning that there is an appointed
time for successive nations and peoples and races and cultures to be offered
the saving truths of the gospel. There are nations today to whom we have not
gone—notably Red China and Russia. But you can rest assured that we will
fulfill the requirement of taking the gospel to those nations before the second
coming of the Son of Man.
And I have no hesitancy whatever in
saying that before the Lord comes, in all those nations we will have
congregations that are stable, secure, devoted, and sound. We will have stakes
of Zion. We will have people who have progressed in spiritual things to the
point where they have received all of the blessings of the house of the Lord.
That is the destiny.
We have revelations that tell us that the
gospel is to go to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people before the second
coming of the Son of Man. And we have revelations which recite that when the
Lord comes he will find those who speak every tongue and are members of every
nation and kindred, who will be kings and priests, who will live and reign on
earth with him a thousand years. That means, as you know, that people from all
nations will have the blessings of the house of the Lord before the Second
Coming.
We have read these passages and their
associated passages for many years. We have seen what the words say and have
said to ourselves, "Yes, it says that, but we must read out of it the
taking of the gospel and the blessings of the temple to the Negro people,
because they are denied certain things." There are statements in our
literature by the early brethren which we have interpreted to mean that the
Negroes would not receive the priesthood in mortality. I have said the same
things, and people write me letters and say, "You said such and such, and
how is it now that we do such and such?" And all I can say to that is that
it is time disbelieving people repented and got in line and believed in a
living, modern prophet. Forget everything that I have said, or what President
Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsover has said in days past
that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding
and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.
We get our truth and our light line upon
line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of
intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the
darkness and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don't matter
any more.
It doesn't make a particle of difference
what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of June of
this year (1978). It is a new day and a new arrangement, and the Lord has now
given the revelation that sheds light out into the world on this subject. As to
any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about
them. We now do what meridian Israel did when the Lord said the gospel should
go to the gentiles. We forget all the statements that limited the gospel to the
house of Israel, and we start going to the gentiles.
Obviously, the Brethren have had a great
anxiety and concern about this problem for a long period of time, and President
Spencer W. Kimball has been exercised and has sought the Lord in faith. When we
seek the Lord on a matter, with sufficient faith and devotion, he gives us an
answer. You will recall that the Book of Mormon teaches that if the Apostles in
Jerusalem had asked the Lord, he would have told them about the Nephites. But
they didn't ask, and they didn't manifest the faith; and they didn't get an
answer. One underlying reason for what happened to us is that the Brethren
asked in faith; they petitioned and desired and wanted an answer—President
Kimball in particular. And the other underlying principle is that in the
eternal providences of the Lord, the time had come for extending the gospel to
a race and a culture to whom it had previously been denied, at least as far as
all of its blessings are concerned. So it was a matter of faith and
righteousness and seeking on the one hand, and it was a matter of the divine
timetable on the other hand. The time had arrived when the gospel, with all its
blessings and obligations, should go to the Negro.
Well, in that setting, on the first day
of June in this year, 1978, the First Presidency and the Twelve, after full
discussion of the proposition and all the premises and principles that are
involved, importuned the Lord for a revelation. President Kimball was mouth,
and he prayed with great faith and great fervor; this was one of those
occasions when an inspired prayer was offered. You know the Doctrine and
Covenants statement, that if we pray by the power of the Spirit we will receive
answers to our prayers and it will be given us what we shall ask
(D&C 50:30). It was given President Kimball what he should ask. He
prayed by the power of the Spirit, and there was perfect unity, total and complete
harmony, between the Presidency and the Twelve on the issue involved.
And when President Kimball finished his
prayer, the Lord gave a revelation by the power of the Holy Ghost. Revelation
primarily comes by the power of the Holy Ghost. Always that member of the
Godhead is involved. But most revelations, from the beginning to now, have come
in that way. There have been revelations given in various ways on other
occasions. The Father and the Son appeared in the Sacred Grove. Moroni, an
angel from heaven, came relative to the Book of Mormon and the plates and
relative to instructing the Prophet in the affairs that were destined to occur
in this dispensation. There have been visions, notably the vision of the
degrees of glory. There may be an infinite number of ways that God can ordain
that revelations come. But, primarily, revelation comes by the power of the
Holy Ghost. The principle is set forth in the Doctrine and Covenants,
section 68, that whatever the elders of the Church speak, when moved upon
by the power of the Holy Ghost, shall be scripture, shall be the mind and will
and voice of the Lord.
On this occasion, because of the
importuning and the faith, and because the hour and the time had arrived, the
Lord in his providences poured out the Holy Ghost upon the First Presidency and
the Twelve in a miraculous and marvelous manner, beyond anything that any then
present had ever experienced. The revelation came to the President of the
Church; it also came to each individual present. There were ten members of the
Council of the Twelve and three of the First Presidency there assembled. The
result was that President Kimball knew, and each one of us knew, independent of
any other person, by direct and personal revelation to us, that the time had
now come to extend the gospel and all its blessings and all its obligations,
including the priesthood and the blessings of the house of the Lord, to those
of every nation, culture, and race, including the black race. There was no
question whatsoever as to what happened or as to the word and message that
came.
The revelation came to the President of
the Church and, in harmony with Church government, was announced by him; the
announcement was made eight days later over the signature of the First
Presidency. But in this instance, in addition to the revelation coming to the
man who would announce it to the Church and to the world, and who was sustained
as the mouthpiece of God on earth, the revelation came to every member of the
body that I have named. They all knew it in the temple.
In my judgment this was done by the Lord
in this way because it was a revelation of such tremendous significance and
import; one which would reverse the whole direction of the Church, procedurally
and administratively; one which would affect the living and the dead; one which
would affect the total relationship that we have with the world; one, I say, of
such significance that the Lord wanted independent witnesses who could bear
record that the thing had happened.
Now if President Kimball had received the
revelation and had asked for a sustaining vote, obviously he would have
received it and the revelation would have been announced. But the Lord chose
this other course, in my judgment, because of the tremendous import and the
eternal significance of what was being revealed. This affects our missionary
work and all of our preaching to the world. This affects our genealogical
research and all of our temple ordinances. This affects what is going on in the
spirit world, because the gospel is preached in the spirit world preparatory to
men's receiving the vicarious ordinances which make them heirs to salvation and
exaltation. This is a revelation of tremendous significance.
The vision of the degrees of glory begins
by saying "Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth."
(D&C 76:1.) In other words, in that revelation the Lord was announcing
truth to heaven and to earth because those principles of salvation operate on
both sides of the veil; and salvation is administered to an extent here to men,
and it is administered to another extent in the spirit world. We correlate and
combine our activities and do certain things for the salvation of men while we
are in mortality, and then certain things are done for the salvation of men
while they are in the spirit world awaiting the day of the resurrection.
Well, once again a revelation was given
that affects this sphere of activity and the sphere that is to come. And so it
had tremendous significance; the eternal import was such that it came in the
way it did. The Lord could have sent messengers from the other side to deliver
it, but he did not. He gave the revelation by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Latter-day Saints have a complex: many of them desire to magnify and build upon
what has occurred, and they delight to think of miraculous things. And maybe
some of them would like to believe that the Lord himself was there, or that the
Prophet Joseph Smith came to deliver the revelation (see Time, 7 Aug. 1978, p. 55), which was
one of the possibilities. Well, these things did not happen. The stories that
go around to the contrary are not factual or realistic or true, and you as
teachers in the Church Educational System will be in a position to explain and
to tell your students that this thing came by the power of the Holy Ghost, and
that all the Brethren involved, the thirteen who were present, are independent
personal witnesses of the truth and divinity of what occurred.
There is no way to describe in language
what is involved. This cannot be done. You are familiar with Book of Mormon
references where the account says that no tongue could tell and no pen could
write what was involved in the experience and that it had to be felt by the
power of the Spirit. This was one of those occasions. To carnal people who do
not understand the operating of the Holy Spirit of God upon the souls of man,
this may sound like gibberish or jargon or uncertainty or ambiguity; but to
those who are enlightened by the power of the Spirit and who have themselves
felt its power, it will have a ring of veracity and truth, and they will know
of its verity. I cannot describe in words what happened; I can only say that it
happened and that it can be known and understood only by the feeling that can
come into the heart of man. You cannot describe a testimony to someone. No one
can really know what a testimony is—the feeling and the joy and the rejoicing
and the happiness that comes into the heart of man when he gets one—except
another person who has received a testimony. Some things can be known only by
revelation, "The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of
God." (1 Corinthians 2:11.)
This is a brief explanation of what was
involved in this new revelation. I think, I can add that it is one of the signs
of the times. It is something that had to occur before the Second Coming. It
was something that was mandatory and imperative in order to enable us to
fulfill all of the revelations that are involved, in order to spread the gospel
in the way that the scriptures say it must spread before the Lord comes, in
order for all of the blessing to come to all of the people, according to the
promises. It is one of the signs of the times.
This revelation which came on the first
day of June was reaffirmed by the spirit of inspiration one week later on
June 8, when the Brethren approved the document that was to be announced
to the world. And then it was reaffirmed the next day, on Friday, June 9,
with all of the General Authorities present in the temple, that is, all who
were available. All received the assurance and witness and confirmation by the
power of the Spirit that what had occurred was the mind, the will, the intent,
and the purpose of the Lord.
Well, this is a glorious day. This is a
wondrous thing; the veil is thin. The Lord is not far distant from his church.
He is not far removed.
President Kimball is a man of almost
infinite spiritual capacity—a tremendous spiritual giant. The Lord has
magnified him beyond any understanding or expression and has given him His mind
and His will on a great number of vital matters which have altered the course
of the past—one of which is the organization of the First Quorum of the
Seventy. As you know, the Church is being guided and led by the power of the
Holy Ghost, and the Lord's hand is in it. There is no question whatever about
that. And we are doing the right thing where this matter is concerned.
There has been a tremendous feeling of
gratitude and thanksgiving in the hearts of members of the Church everywhere,
with isolated exceptions. There are individuals who are out of harmony on this
and on plural marriage and on other doctrines, but for all general purposes
there has been universal acceptance; and everyone who has been in tune with the
Spirit has known that the Lord spoke, and that his mind and his purposes are
being manifest to the course the Church is pursuing. We have already called our
first Negro elder. He has been assigned to serve in the Florida Ft. Lauderdale
Mission. We have already called our first Negro sister, assigned to Brazil Rio
de Janeiro Mission. This race and culture now is going to be one with us in
bearing the burdens of the kingdom.
We talk about the scriptures being
unfolded—read over again the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard
(Matthew 20) and remind yourselves that those who labor through the heat
of the day for twelve hours are going to be rewarded the same as those who came
in at the third and the sixth and the eleventh hours. Well, it's the eleventh
hour; it's the Saturday night of time. In this eleventh hour the Lord has given
the blessings of the gospel to the last group of laborers in the vineyard. And
when he metes out his rewards, when he makes his payments, according to the
accounts and the scriptural statements, he will give the penny to all, whether
it is for one hour or twelve hours of work. All are alike unto God, black and
white, bond and free, male and female.
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