Wednesday, January 3, 2024

John A. Widtsoe on the Essence of the First Vision in "Modern Revelations and Modern Questions"

  

Any person can repeat the first vision of Joseph Smith, and every person of this Church, sooner or later, should repeat that vision. If members of the Church fail to have that first great vision, then the Lord pity them; their lives will be empty.

 

What I mean by this is <that> any people think <that> seeing God and his Son was the essence of the first vision. That is contrary to that was <is> embodied in <the> that vision. The essence of the first vision is that Joseph Smith <as he> arose from his knees and knew <that> God was <is> a personal Being, that certain statements of religion were false, that certain others statements were true. ever he He had found the truth. I do not have to go to a grove in western New York and lie upon my knees <there> before I can <to> discover these truths. Any man and woman who has lives a righteous life, by the simple process of prayer, <the> approaching <to> God, may know with the same certainty that Joseph Smtih knew it, that God lives, that he spoke <speaks> to man, that he is a personal God, and that his truth may be distinguished from the untruth of the ages. . . . We too often fail to fail to grasp the essence of the revelations given to the Prophet Joseph Smith. (John A. Widtsoe, Lecture 1, “The Need and Nature of Revelation,” January 13, 1938, Modern Revelations and Modern Questions, 21, 22)