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:
