In his position as patriarchal
head of his own church, [Ross Wesley] LeBaron sees himself as preparing the way
for the great man who will hold the special Mighty and Strong office. “I am not
the prophet spoken of as the One Mighty and Strong,” he as emphatically
written, “my work is that of an Elias or forerunner to this great prophet—much as
John the Baptist was before the coming of Christ” (Ross W. LeBaron, Letter to John
Wolf, February 14, 1959). (Lyle O. Wright, “Origins and Development of the
Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times” [MA Thesis; Brigham Young
University, 1963], 40)
Elias
Maurice Lerrie Glendenning, who
heads the Order of Aaron as a purported firstborn son of Aaron, claims to
receive revelations from Elias. Glendenning teaches that the One Mighty and Strong
is Christ, the great Elias. (James R. Christianson, “The Aaronic Order and/or
The True Order of Aaron, Term paper, Brigham Young University, 1959). (Lyle O.
Wright, “Origins and Development
of the Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times” [MA Thesis;
Brigham Young University, 1963], 41)
[on “The Right of the Firstborn”]:
LeBaronism maintains that Moses
held this authority and that it was this office of “Right of the Firstborn”
that fulfilled the promise to Abraham that through him and his seed all the
families of the earth should be blessed—that is, they would be blessed in the
priesthood which Abraham and his seed were to hold.
The holding of this office is
said to have been what constituted Abraham the “father of the faithful.” It was
this office that was supposedly taken out of Israel with Moses, yet after the loss
of the office all three departments of ecclesiastical government—spiritual,
civil, and temporal—were carried on under the patriarchal authority of the
priesthood of Aaron. No prophets between Moses and Christ held the office Moses
held, but it was conferred upon Christ by Moses, according to the LeBarons.
Christ bestowed the office upon John the Revelator, who as “Elias” completed
Joseph Smith’s power of restoration by bestowing the office upon Joseph in the
Kirtland Temple in 1836.
Table 2 lists the men from Adam
to the present said to have held this office, the early history of which Joel
LeBaron has summarized by declaring their belief to be that:
. . . Adam brought a certain
office with him, which of course is the Melchizedek office . . . that Adam left
this office with Enoch, that Enoch left it with Lamech, his grandson; that
Lamech left it with Noah, his son; that Noah passed it to Melchizedek;
Melchizedek passed it to Abraham; that Abraham gave it to Esaias and through a
line of prophets to Jethro; and Jethro gave this to Moses; Moses gave this
personally to Christ, and Christ gave this personally, after the same pattern
exactly, to John his beloved disciple; that John his beloved disciple gave it
to Joseph Smith April 3, 1836, in the Kirtland temple; that there was no man on
the face of this earth in the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith that could give
that office to another but himself, following the same pattern exactly as it
came down form the days of Adam to him, no change. (Joel F. LeBaron,
Tape-recording of an address given at Ogden, Utah, in 1961, a copy of which is
in the writer’s possession; the original is in the possession of Wendell L.
Hansen, Ogden, Utah.) (Lyle O. Wright, “Origins and Development of the
Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times” [MA Thesis; Brigham Young
University, 1963], 139-40)
Further Reading:
