In a recent post on the “Restoration Fellowship” facebook group, Anthony Buzzard’s son-in-law, Carlos Xavier, posted
the following image (click to enlarge):
No doubt that Xavier believes this
reflects a contradiction between Latter-day Saint Scripture and the Gospel of
John. However, apart from begging the question (assuming that something must be
explicated in the Bible for it to be true—the false doctrine of Sola Scriptura
[do a search on “sola scriptura” on this blog to see many of the key “proof-texts”
refuted, exegetically]), but it would have served him much better if he
interacted with leading LDS scholarship and apologetics (which I am sure he is
rather ignorant of).
John A. Tvedtnes, in his essay, “Ancient Texts in Support of the Book of Mormon” wrote the following:
We learn of the apostle John's translation in 3 Nephi 28:6–9, where
Christ promises three of the Nephite disciples that they will not die and
compares their situation to that of John. That John may have been spared death
is merely hinted at in John 21:20–23, which cautions that while "this
saying [went] abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet
Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I
come, what is that to thee?" A revelation given to Joseph Smith in April
1829 confirmed that John had, indeed, been translated (Doctrine and Covenants
7).58
A fourth-century Christian document, the Discourse on Abbatôn, first
published in 1914, confirms that John had been translated. The preface speaks
of "the Holy Apostle Saint John, theologian and virgin, who is not to
taste death until the thrones are set in the Valley of Jehoasaphat."59 The
text itself has the resurrected Jesus saying, "And as for thee, O My
beloved John, thou shalt not die until the thrones have been prepared on the
Day of the Resurrection. . . . I will command Abbaton, the Angel of Death, to
come unto thee on that day. . . . Thou shalt be dead for three and a half
hours, lying upon thy throne, and all creation shall see thee. I will make thy
soul to return to thy body, and thou shalt rise up and array thyself in apparel
of glory."60
Notes for the above:
[58] See also
chapter 5 of John Whitmer's unpublished History of the Church, in
which it is recorded that in the early part of June 1831 "the Spirit of
the Lord fell upon Joseph in an unusual manner, and he prophesied that John the
Revelator was then among the Ten Tribes of Israel who had been led away by
Shalmaneser king of Assyria to prepare them for their return from their long
dispersion to again possess the land of their fathers." That this is John's
role was subsequently confirmed in a revelation given in March 1832 (see
D&C 77:9, 14).
[589] Sir Ernest
A. Wallis Budge, Coptic Martyrdoms (London:
British Museum, 1914), 475.
[60] Ibid.,
492–93. I am grateful to Matthew Roper for bringing this passage to my
attention.
A related argument would be that why
Latter-day Saints believe in a "Great Apostasy" when John the
Revelator, as well as the three Nephites, were translated and are still on the
earth.
The "problem" is (humorously) summed up in the following video from "Lutheran Satire":
According to President Harold B. Lee:
"There has never been a moment of time when there hasn't been someone
holding the priesthood on the earth with power to check Satan and to hold him
within bounds. Now that doesn't mean that the kingdom of God was present,
because these men did not have the authority to administer the saving
ordinances of the gospel to the world. But these individuals were translated
for a purpose known to the Lord. There is no question but what they were here. (Address
delivered at Brigham Young University to Seminary and Institute personnel, 8
July 1964.)
Joseph Smith said:
"Many have supposed that the doctrine of translation was a doctrine
whereby men were taken immediately into the presence of God, and into an
eternal fullness, but this is a mistaken idea. Their place of habitation is
that of the terrestrial order, and a place prepared for such characters He held
in reserve to be ministering angels unto many planets, and who as yet have not
entered into so great a fullness as those who are resurrected from the
dead" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 170).
So even though these four prophets of God
did hold the priesthood during their mortal lives they do not have the
authority to pass it on or perform ordinances without the kingdom of God on the
earth; they are only to act as ministering angels to help bring people into the
gospel. There is no "problem" to LDS claims to Apostasy and Restoration.