Essentials in Church History: A History of the Church from the Birth of Joseph Smith to the Present Time (1922), with Introductory Chapters on the Antiquity of the Gospel and the "Falling Away"Smith, Joseph Fielding
History
Essentials in Church History: A History of the Church from the Birth of Joseph Smith to the Present Time (1922), with Introductory Chapters on the Antiquity of the Gospel and the "Falling Away"
Smith, Joseph Fielding
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- History
"For there is not a place," said the Lord, "found on earth where he may
come and restore again that which was lost unto you, or which he hath
taken away, even the fulness of the Priesthood," which fulness can only
be obtained in the house of the Lord.
The Kirtland Temple and its Mission
This declaration from the Lord would indicate that the purpose for
which the Kirtland Temple was erected was now fulfilled, and its
mission completed; and this was indeed the case. The Kirtland Temple
served temporarily only. It was built because a house was necessary
where the Lord could come and restore the various keys of former
dispensations, that the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times might
be made complete. In the Kirtland Temple the Lord gave a partial
endowment, but not in the fulness, that the apostles and others might
be endowed with necessary power to go forth "to prune the vineyard
for the last time." But the great object was the restoration of the
keys of former dispensations. When these were bestowed, then greater
light was revealed, and the full purpose of temples and ordinance work
therein was made known. It then became necessary that a house of the
Lord should be built that would be perfect in all its parts, which was
not the case in the structure of the Kirtland Temple. That edifice,
although one of the most important ever erected by the Church, was
not a complete structure as temples are understood through increased
revelation. In it there were no provisions for the salvation of the
dead; it had not a baptismal font--a fundamental part of the perfect
temple--and therefore, since it had filled the measure of its creation,
the Lord declared in the revelation of January, 1841, that there was
not a house on the earth where he could come to bestow the fulness of
the Priesthood and introduce the essential ordinances for the salvation
of both the living and the dead. Moroni, John the Baptist, Peter, James
and John, all came before there was a temple; but their coming was
necessary that the foundation might be laid and the Church established.
The Lord has made provision that in the sacred grove, the forest, and
on the mountain top, such keys may be bestowed, when there is no temple
erected to his name, and in the poverty of the people. Otherwise such
keys are to be received only in the temple reared to his holy name.
Baptism for the Dead
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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