Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Loren Blake Spendlove on "A House of Order" (cf. D&C 132:8)

The following comes from Loren Blake Spendlove, "Mine House is a House of Zion and not a House of Babylon!" Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 48 (2021): 314-18:

A House of Order

It is apparent from the scriptures that order is important to God. Reflective of Paul’s teaching to the Saints in Corinth to “let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40), the Lord repeatedly instructed the Saints that all church matters were to “be done in order” (see D&C 20:68, 28:13, 58:55). Twice in the Doctrine and Covenants we find the following counsel:

 

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting,  a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God. (D&C 88:119 and 109:8)

 

Paralleling this message, the Lord also instructed the church to “set in order the churches” (D&C 90:15) and to “set in order all the affairs of this church and kingdom” (D&C 90:16). If the message was not yet clear, the Lord also stated that “mine house is a house of order” (D&C 132:18).

 

We also encounter this message of order within the church in the Book of Mormon. We are told that Alma2 ordained priests and elders in the church in Zarahemla “according to the order of God, to preside and watch over the church” (Alma 6:1). While this “order” could be a reference to the “priesthood of the holy order of God” (Alma 13:6), based on its context it may refer to a general sense of orderliness within the church itself.2 In verse 4, we read, “And thus they began to establish the order of the church in the city of Zarahemla” (Alma 6:4).3 In this passage, the phrase “the order of the church” likely applies to orderliness within the organization and operation of the church. We know that soon after Alma1’s arrival in the land of Zarahemla, “king Mosiah granted unto Alma that he might establish churches throughout all the land of Zarahemla; and gave him power to ordain priests and teachers over every church” (Mosiah 25:19). Since priesthood authority was fundamental to the proper operation of the church in Zarahemla, we cannot infer that “the order” that Alma2 “began to establish” represented the implementation of a new or different “order” of the priesthood within the church. Rather, it appears from context that the “order” that Alma2 “began to establish” was greater orderliness within the church that most likely resulted from improved organizational structure and doctrinal understanding. Along the same vein, Elder Hyrum G. Smith related the following in a General Conference talk:

 

We have in the Church a number of men who have been called and ordained to administer blessings unto the people, blessings of comfort, blessings of prophecy, when they are directed so to do. These men are given an office in the priesthood, and just because they have this office, it does not mean that they can bless everywhere and everybody, but, like the bishops, elders, and other officers in the priesthood, they are given their particular field of labor. So we would have the Latter-day Saints understand that in the Church, which is a part of the kingdom of God, there is order, and the officers of the priesthood are the men who should establish and maintain this order in the Church, that the work of the Lord may go on with his blessings upon it. There are a number of members of the Church who go about from place to place, from one ward and from one stake to another, seeking their blessings, which may be permissible if done in strict accordance with the established order of the Church; otherwise they are out of order.”4

 

Just as Alma2 established “the order of the church in the city of Zarahemla,” Elder Smith explained that “the officers of the priesthood” have a responsibility to “establish and maintain this order in the Church” today. After preaching and working with the church in Zarahemla, Alma2 moved on to the land of Gideon. Mormon informs us that while in the land of Gideon, Alma2 “established the order of the church, according as he had before done in the land of Zarahemla” (Alma 8:1). Later, as Elder Smith would no doubt approve, we are told that “Helaman and the high priests did also maintain order in the church” (Alma 46:38).

 

President Boyd K. Packer wrote the following regarding the interrelatedness of the words ordinance and ordain and how they are associated with the principle of order, especially in the house of the Lord:

 

The word ordinance means, “a religious or ceremonial observance”; “an established rite.” The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, England, 1970) gives as the first definition of the word order, “arrangement in ranks or rows,” and as the second definition, “arrangement in sequence or proper relative position.” At first glance that may not strike a person as having much religious significance, but indeed it has.

 

Among the ordinances we perform in the Church are these: baptism, sacrament, naming and blessing of infants, administering to the sick, setting apart to callings in the Church, ordaining to offices. In addition there are higher ordinances, performed in the temples. These include washings, anointings, the endowment, and the sealing ordinance, spoken of generally as temple marriage. The word ordinance comes from the word order, which means, “a rank, a row, a series.” The word order appears frequently in the scriptures. Some examples are: “… established the order of the Church” (Alma 8:1); “… all things should be restored to their proper order” (Alma 41:2); “… all things may be done in order” (D&C 20:68); “mine house is a house of order” (D&C 132:8). Mormon even defined depravity as being “without order” (Moroni 9:18).

 

The word ordain, a close relative to the other two words, has, as its first definition, “to put in order, arrange, make ready, prepare”; also, “to appoint or admit to the ministry of the Christian church… by the laying on of hands or other symbolic action.” From all of this dictionary work there comes the impression that an ordinance, to be valid, must be done in proper order.5

 

In addition to the etymological connection, order and ordinances are also linked in a cause-and-effect relationship: faithful participation in ordinances helps create order in our lives. President Packer added that an ordinance is “the ceremony by which things are put in proper order,”6 with the accompanying counsel to “make sure, in other words, that valid ordinances become a part of your life; that everything in this regard, for you, is in proper order.”7

 

Orson Pratt explained that the New Jerusalem, the latter-day Zion, is to be built differently from other cities on this earth. Rather than decaying and wasting away, the Lord will protect, preserve, and sanctify latter-day Zion to prepare it to join a higher, “perfect order”:

 

It is intended that it will be taken up to heaven, when the earth passes away. It is intended to be one of those choice and holy places, where the Lord will dwell, when he shall visit from time to time, in the midst of the great latter-day Zion, after it shall be connected with the city of Enoch. That then is the difference.

 

The Lord our God will command his servants to build that Temple, in the most perfect order, differing very much from the Temples that are now being built. You are engaged in building Temples after a certain orderapproximating only to a celestial order; you are doing this in Salt Lake City. One already has been erected in St. George, after a pattern in part, of a celestial order. But by and bye [sic], when we build a Temple that is never to be destroyed, it will be constructed, after the most perfect order of the celestial worlds. And when God shall take it up into heaven it will be found to be just as perfect as the cities of more ancient, celestial worlds which have been made pure and holy and immortal. So it will be with other Temples.8

 

Notes for the Above

 

2. With respect to “the order of God,” John Taylor taught, “The principle of ‘heirship,’ which President Young preached about today, is a principle that is founded on eternal justice, equity, and truth. It is a principle that emanated from God. As was said by some of our brethren this morning, there may be circumstances arise in this world to pervert for a season the order of God, to change the designs of the Most High, apparently, for the time being, yet they will ultimately roll back into their proper place — justice will have its place, and so will mercy, and every man and woman will yet stand in their true position before God.” Journal of Discourses, 1:222 (emphasis added).

 

3. President Joseph F. Smith related the following: “I want to say to this congregation, and to the world, that never at any time since my presidency in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have I authorized any man to perform plural marriage, and never since my presidency of the Church has any plural marriage been performed with my sanction or knowledge, or with the consent of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and therefore such unions as have been formed unlawfully, contrary to the order of the Church, are null and void in the sight of God, and are not marriages. I hope you will put this down in your note-book of remembrance, and bear it in mind henceforth.” Joseph F. Smith, in Conference Report, 21 (emphasis added), https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1918sa/page/20/mode/2up.

 

4. Elder Hyrum G. Smith, in Conference Report, October 1918, 71–72 (emphasis added), https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1918sa/page/72/mode/2up.

 

5. Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1980), 155–56 (emphasis in original).

 

6. Ibid., 156.

 

7. Ibid., 157.

 

8. Orson Pratt, in Journal of Discourses, 21:153 (emphasis added).