Friday, June 5, 2020

Brigham Young on the Priority of Inscripturated Revelation over "The Living Oracles"

In a sermon dated May 25, 1862, Brigham Young said the following:

 

With us the Bible is the first book, the Book of Mormon comes next, then the revelations in the book of Doctrine and Covenants, then the teachings of the living oracles, yet you will find, in the end, that the living oracles of God have to take all things of heaven and earth, above and beneath, and bring them together and devote them to God, and sanctify and purify them and prepare them to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Gold and silver, houses and lands, and everything possessed by the Saints will be purified and cleansed by the power of God, and prepared to enter into the new Jerusalem when the earth is sanctified. We have to learn to handle all things which pertains to the heavens and earth in a way to glorify God, and devote all to the building up of his kingdom, or we cannot magnify our Holy Priesthood and calling. (JOD 9:297-98)

 

What is important about this text, about from the eschatology (teaching, not “heaven-going” as a reward for the faithful, but a paradisical/celestialised earth), but that, in terms of authority, living oracles are subordinated to the books of scripture. Such should give pause to those who abuse some comments by Brigham Young (which are wrested from their context) that all his sermons are en par with inscripturated revelation (cf. The Immediate Negative Reaction of Church Leadership to Ezra Taft Benson's "Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet"). Notwithstanding, Brigham also (correctly) teaches that, unlike inscripturated revelation (which are passive sources of teaching and authority), living oracles are active, an advantage they have over Scripture, and one of the reasons why Latter-day Saints reject Sola Scriptura (on this, see Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura).