In a meeting in his home near Commerce (later Nauvoo) on 29 September 1839, Joseph Smith touched upon the concept of “redemptive suffering,” as well as that suffering is not necessarily a sign of divine judgment. James Mulholland recorded the content of Joseph’s discourse in a journal he was keeping for the prophet. Here is the transcript:
Spoke and explained concerning uselessness of preaching to the world about judgements but rather preach the simple gospel—Explained concerning the coming of the son of Man &c that all will be raised to meet him but the righteous will remain with him in the cloud whilst all the proud and all that do wickedly will have to return to the earth, and suffer his vengeance while he will take upon them this is the second death &c &c Also that it is a false idea that the saints will escape all the judgements whilst the wicked suffer—for all flesh is subject to suffer—and “the righteous shall hardly escape” still many of the saints will escape—for the just shall live by faith—yet many of the righteous shall fall a prey to disease to pestilence &c and yet &c by reason of the weakness of the flesh and yet be saved in the kingdom of God So that it is an unhallowed principle to say that such and such have transgressed because they have been prayed upon by disease or death or all flesh is subject to death and the Saviour has said, “Judge not “lest ye be judged”. (The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents volume 7: September 1839-January 1841, eds. Matthew C. Godfrey; Spencer W. McBride; Alex D. Smith; Christopher James Blythe [Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2018], 15-16, emphasis added)
In a footnote (p. 17n. 66), we read:
In discussing the connection between physical ailments and divine punishments, JS addressed a longstanding theological debate. The Bible contains several passages that ascribe physical suffering to divine punishment for sin, while other passages state that not all physical suffering occurs because of wrongdoing. During JS’ time, the notion that an unexpected and painful death indicated divine displeasure persisted in the United States, in part as a remnant of seventh-century Puritan theology, which informed religion in New England and throughout the northeastern part of the country. JS’ letter to the church written six months earlier from the jail at Liberty, Missouri, indicated that God sometimes physically punished the wicked but that the righteous would escape neither the calamities that would precede the Second Coming nor the vicissitudes of life. At least one previous church council had explicitly debated whether disease was “of the Devil” and had decided that it was not necessarily so. (See Deuteronomy 28:58-62; Zechariah 14:12; 1 Kings 17:17-23; John 9:1-3; Hall, Words of Wonder, Days of Judgment, 91, 125, 196-200; “Extracts from Heber C. Kimball’s Journal,” Times and Seasons, 15 Feb 1845, 6:804; 15 Mar 1845, 6:838-840; Letter to the Church and Edward Partridge, 20 Mar. 1839, in JSP, D[ocuments]6:362, 366 [D&C 121:6, 16-20]; and Minute Book 2, 21 Aug. 1834).
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