Monday, August 5, 2019

Lorenzo Snow's Prophetic Dream of Comfort and Clothing Imagery as an outward sign of an inward, not imputed, reality


While discussing prophetic dreams of comfort received by Latter-day Saints, Mary Jane Woodger, Kenneth L. Alford, and Craig K. Manscill in their book-length study of revelatory dreams in LDS history reproduced the following from Lorenzo Snow:

“HE IS WORTHY; LET HIM BE CLOTHED”
Lorenzo Snow

While the Saints were crossing the plains, they stopped at Mount Pisgah, in Iowa Territory, to replenish their supplies. While they were there Lorenzo Snow became so critically ill that his family thought he was delirious, and therefore they couldn’t trust what he was saying. But he was conscious and aware of his circumstances, and he had faith that would emerge from his illness.

During this period he had a dream in which he experienced the most acute suffering that the heart can conceive. “I was led,” he reported, “into the full and perfect conviction that I was entirely a hopeless case in reference to salvation, that eternities upon eternities must pass, and still I saw my case would remain the same. I saw the whole world rejoicing in all the powers and glories of salvation without the slightest beam of hope on my part, but doomed to separation”—and here we see his conviction about how crucial the family is—“from my friends and family, all I love most here, to eternity upon eternity. I shudder, even now, at the remembrance of the torments and agony of my feelings. No tongue can describe them, or imagination conceive. Those who were attending me at that time describe me as being in a condition of [death] . ..  My body was cool and my eyes and countenance denoted extreme suffering.”

Then came the contrast. His exquisite pain of spirit was followed by what he calls 2rapturous enjoyment.” He said, “My spirit seemed to have left this world and [I was] introduced into that of Kolob. I heard a voice calling me by name saying, ‘he is worthy, he is worthy, take away his filthy garments.’ My clothes were then taken off piece by piece, and a voice said, ‘Let him be clothed, let him be clothed.’ Immediately I found a celestial body gradually growing upon me until at length I found myself crowned with all its glory and power. The ecstasy of joy I now experienced no man can tell. Pen cannot describe it. I conversed familiarly with Joseph, Father Smith, and others, and mingled in the society of the Holy One. I saw my family all saved, and observed the dispensations of God with mankind until at last a perfect redemption was effected . . . My spirit must have remained, I should judge, for days, enjoying the scenes of eternal happiness.” (Truman G. Madsen, Presidents of the Church, 123-24 as quoted in Mary Jane Woodger, Kenneth L. Alford, and Craig K. Manscill, Dreams as Revelations [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019], 224-25, emphasis added)

This is important as it shows that, as with the biblical authors (but inconsistent with those who hold to forensic justification and imputed righteousness) that the metaphor of clothing is an outward sign of an inward (not merely reputed) reality. This is something I have discussed before, including:






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