Joseph Smith's Reference to "nullifying [South] Carolina," January 2, 1844

Joseph Smith, Letter to John C. Calhoun, January 2, 1844, p. 2 (in the handwriting of Thomas Bullock):

Ye Spirits of the blessed of all ages, Hark! Ye shades of departed Statesmen, listen! Abraham, Moses, Homer, Socrates, Solon, Solomon, and all that ever thought of right and wrong, look down from your exaltations, if you have any, for it is said in the midst of Counsellors there is safety, and when you have learned that fifteen thousand innocent Citizens, after having purchased their Lands of the United States and paid for them, were expelled from a “Sovereign State” by order of the Governor, at the point of the Bayonet:— their arms taken from them by the same authority: and their right of Migration into said State, denied under pain of imprisonment, Whipping, Robbing, Mobbing, and even Death and no Justice or recompence allowed: and from the Legislature, with the Governor at the head, down to the Justice of the Peace, with a Bottle of Whiskey in one hand and a bowie knife in the other, hear them all declare that there is no Justice for a Mormon in that State, and Judge ye a righteous Judgment, and tell me when the virtue of the States was stolen; where the honor of the General Government lies hid; and what Clothes a Senator with Wisdom? Oh nullifying Carolina! Oh little tempestuous Rhode Island! would it not be well for the great Men of the Nation to read the fable of the Partial Judge. And when part of the free Citizens of a State had been expelled contrary to the Constitution, Mobbed, Robbed, Plundered and many murdered, instead of searching into the course taken with Joanna Southcott, Ann Lee, the French Prophets, the Quakers of New England, and Rebellious Niggers in the Slave States, to hear both sides and then judge, rather than to have the mortification to say, “Oh it is my bull “that has killed your Ox— that alters the case? I must enquire into it. And if, and if?”

Further Reading:

Resources on Joseph Smith's Prophecies

Samuel O. Bennion: Jesus paid the price of sin by his death on the cross

 

PAID PRICE OF SIN

 

To pay the price of sin, Jesus died on the cross, and by His sacrifice became the mediator between God and Man. As such He decreed that no man may come unto the father but by Him and He prescribed the laws governing our redemption. (Samuel O. Bennion, “Baptism For the Remission of Sins,” Spring 1938, in Fundamental Principles of the Gospel, 48, emphasis in bold added)

 

Thomas M. Finn on Baptismal Regeneration and the Harrowing of Hell in Odes of Solomon 42

 

The Odes of Solomon

 

The Odes, a collection of forty-two hymns, constitute perhaps the earliest Christian hymnal as well as the earliest nonbiblical book in Syriac. It may, however, have first been composed in Greek. Although dates ranging from the first to the third century are given, the second century seems right. Both Antioch and Edessa are proposed as the place of origin, with the latter preferred. . . . [Ode 42] is the last hymn of the collection, chosen because its undergirding theme is Christ’s death, burial, descent into Sheol, and resurrection, which together make of baptism a saving event. From his entombment Christ descends into Sheol, the very place of death, to liberate the just there immersed—the celebrated “Harrowing of Hell” first broached in 1 Peter 3:10 and addressed repeatedly in Syriac literature and in Cyril of Jerusalem’s fourth and tenth prebaptismal instructions. Just so, Christ descends into the tomb of the baptismal waters in which the candidates are immersed. In liberating them, he seals them on the head with the mark of his ownership. (Thomas M. Finn, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate: West and East Syria [Message of the Fathers of the Church 5; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1992], 115-16)

 

 

Odes of Solomon reads as follows (taken from Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2:770-71):

 

Ode 42

1 I extended my hands and approached my Lord,

because the stretching out of my hands is his sign.

2 And my extension is the common cross,

that was lifted up on the way of the Righteous One.

Christ Speaks

3 And I became useless to those who knew me [not],

because I shall hide myself from those who possessed me not.

4 And I will be with those

who love me.

5 All my persecutors have died,

and they who trusted in me sought me, because I am living.

6 Then I arose and am with them,

and will speak by their mouths.

7 For they have rejected those who persecute them;

and I threw over them the yoke of my love.

8 Like the arm of the bridegroom over the bride,

so is my yoke over those who know me.

9 And as the bridal feast is spread out by the bridal pair’s home,

so is my love by those who believe in me.

10 I was not rejected although I was considered to be so,

and I did not perish although they thought it of me.

11 Sheol saw me and was shattered,

and Death ejected me and many with me.

12 I have been vinegar and bitterness to it,

and I went down with it as far as its depth.

13 Then the feet and the head it released,

because it was not able to endure my face.

14 And I made a congregation of living among his dead;

and I spoke with them by living lips;

in order that my word may not fail.

15* And those who had died ran toward me;

and they cried out and said, “Son of God, have pity on us.

16 “And deal with us according to your kindness,

and bring us out from the chains of darkness.

17* “And open for us the door

by which we may go forth to you,

for we perceive that our death does not approach you.

18 “May we also be saved with you,

because you are our Savior.”

19 Then I heard their voice,

and placed their faith in my heart.

20 And I placed my name upon their head,

because they are free and they are mine.

Doxology

Hallelujah.

 

God Sharing His Glory with the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:11

Rev 21:11, speaking of the New Jerusalem, reads:

 

It has the glory of God (ἔχουσαν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ θεοῦ) and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. (NRSV)

 

Here, the New Jerusalem has the glory of God; in other words, God is sharing HIs glory with something (or, more properly, something else). As Harrington noted:

 

Because of its heavenly origin, it reflects the divine glory. For that matter, it is filled with the presence of God (vv. 22–23). See Isa 60:1–2; Ezek 43:2. (Wilfrid J. Harrington, Revelation [Pagina Series 16; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2008], 213)

 

Such should give pause to those who misread Isa 42:8 as if it means God will never share his glory ever (instead, the context is about false gods and idols).

Grant Hardy on how the Book of Mormon Helps Clarify the BIble

  

The Book of Mormon clarifies ambiguities and fills in gaps in the Bible with regard to a number of key doctrinal issues such as the restoration of Israel (1 Ne. 22; 2 Ne. 10; 3 Ne. 16; 20-21); the fall and the atonement (2 Ne. 2; Mosiah 3); the resurrection and judgment (2 Ne. 9; Alma 12; 34; 40-41); the purpose of the law of Moses (2 Ne. 25; Mosiah 12-13; 3 Ne. 15); church regulation (Mosiah 26; 3 Ne. 18); the nature of faith (Alma 32; Ether 12; Moron. 7); the reconciliation of God’s justice and mercy (Alma 42); and proper procedures and liturgical wording for baptism, the Eucharistic, and ordination (3 Ne. 11; Moro. 2-6; 8). Strikingly, several Nephite prophets insist that God’s covenants with Israel will remain in force even after the establishment of the Christian Church (1 Ne. 19:13-16; 2 Ne. 29:5; 3 Ne. 29; Moro. 10:31), and that salvation for Gentiles will come as they are adopted into the house of Israel. (Grant Hardy, “How the Book of Mormon Responds to the Bible,” in The Bible and the Latter-day Saint Tradition, ed. Taylor G. Petrey, Cory Crawford, and Eric A. Eliason [Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2023], 147-48)

 

Samuel O. Bennion on Baptismal Regeneration (1938)

 

Baptism is the one way revealed in scripture by which we may come under the atoning power of the blood of Christ. It is the ordinance chosen by God as the means through this phase of the atonement becomes effective upon us individually. Therefore it is specially designated as being for the remission of sins. . . . (Samuel O. Bennion, “Baptism For the Remission of Sins,” Spring 1938, in Fundamental Principles of the Gospel, 47)

 

W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson on Hebrews 10:31 (cf. 6:4-6; 10:26-29) and the Restoration of the Apostate

  

The preceding passage (from v. 26) and the similar passage, vi. 6-6, have proved perplexing to many readers; and were such a stumbling-block to Luther, that they caused him even to deny the canonical authority of the Epistle. Yet neither the passage asserts the impossibility of an apostate’s repentance. What is said amounts to this—that for the conversion of a deliberate apostate, God has (according to the ordinary laws of His working) no further means in store than those which have been already tried in vain. It should be remembered, also, that the parties addressed are not those who had already apostatized, but those who were in danger of so doing, and who needed the most earnest warning. (W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, The Life and Epistles of St. Paul [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1964], 809 n. 9)