Thursday, April 18, 2019

Charles L. Walker on Brigham Young Limiting Joseph Smith's Role in Judgment to those who Lived in This Dispensation Only


In my lengthy article Joseph Smith Worship? Responding to Criticisms of the Role and Status of the Prophet Joseph Smith in Latter-day Saint Theology, I discuss the few passages in the Journal of Discourses where Joseph Smith is said to play a role in final judgement, showing that early Latter-day Saints (e.g., Brigham Young) who spoke about such clearly limited his role to those who lived in this dispensation.

In his diary for 30 March 1862, Charles L. Walker noted the following from Brigham Young which further substantiates this:

In the P.M. Bro Brigham spoke in very clear and comprehensive manner on the judgment of the World. Showed that the Lord would not judge all the Word no more than he preaches to all the world but would do it by his Servants thro all the ramifications of his Priesthood. Showed that the saints were judged all the time here by those that were placed over them, so that if they were faithful here their sins were before them and if the servants of God remitted their sins here they would be remitted in heaven so that when the judgment day came there would be nothing found against them. Showed that the twelve Apostles would set upon 12 thrones and judge the 12 tribes of Israel, and that Joseph Smith Junior would be the grand Judge of their Latter day Dispensation, the Messiah in his Dispensation and so on. (Diary of Charles Lowell Walker, Volume 1, eds. A. Karl Larson and Katharine Miles Larson [Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1980], 222, emphasis added)