And also those to whom these commandments
were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring
it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church
upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased,
speaking unto the church collectively and not individually. (D&C 1:30)
Commenting
on D&C 1:30, Neal A. Maxwell wrote:
This was, and is, a designation so significant
that the key words contained within it must not be passed over lightly.
The word only
asserts a uniqueness and singularity about The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints as the exclusive ecclesiastical, authority-bearing agent for
our Father in heaven in this dispensation.
Had the Lord said the Church is a true and
living church (or if the name given had been A Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), this would have
implied there are other fully acceptable alternatives available to man. Thus
what was said by the Lord in 1830, not surprisingly, was consistent with the
instructions given in the grove to Joseph Smith in 1820; the answer to Joseph’s
prayer about which church to join was, “Join none of them.”
When the Lord used the designation “true,” he
implied that the doctrines of the Church and its authority are not just
partially true, but true as measured by divine standards. The Church is not,
therefore, conceptually compromised by having been made up from doctrinal debris
left over from another age, nor is it comprised of mere fragments of the true
faith. It is based upon the fullness of
the gospel of him whose name it
bears, thus passing the two tests for proving his church that were given by
Jesus during his visit to the Nephites (3 Nephi 27:8.)
When the word living is used, it carries a divinely deliberate connotation. The
Church is neither dead nor dying, nor is it even wounded. The Church, like the
living God who established it, is alive, aware, and functioning. It is not a
museum that houses a fossilized faith; rather, it is a kinetic kingdom
characterized by living faith in living disciples. (Neal A. Maxwell, Things as they Really Are [Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1978], 46-47, italics in original; on 3 Nephi 27 and the name of the Church, see The Church of the Uncertain Name?)
