The Reality of the Resurrection

It is a great pleasure to me to behold this vast congregation, composed chiefly of Latter-day Saints, gathered from different portions of the Church, also to listen to the remarks that have been made by our President. I was in hopes that he would have continued his remarks and taken up the time of our first session of this Conference, for several reasons. One of them is that I was doubtful, this morning, when I arose from my bed, whether I would be able to get here. I experienced a violent vertigo, attack of swimming of the head. In these troublous times and in the great and swift changes that are taking place, there is enough to turn anybody's head, bigger heads than mine a great deal. But I have been able, since coming into this congregation, to compose myself and to listen to the inspired utterances of our President, and they have had a splendid effect upon me, physically as well as mentally and spiritually. ¶

REJOICES IN CHANGES OF SENTIMENT IN FAVOR OF THE SAINTS. ¶

I rejoice in these changes which he has spoken of, that have taken place among the people who are not of our faith. So many are now beginning to understand a little about "Mormonism," that it does not consist of one peculiarity which has been proclaimed throughout the world as our chief tenet. They are beginning to understand that the Latter-day Saints, the "Mormons," are a practical people, that they have a practical faith, and that they do things, and the knowledge of this is coming to the nations of the earth more rapidly than I ever expected it to come. I always had faith, from the time that I was a boy and joined the Church -- the only one of my family who did so, that "Mormonism," as it is called, would prevail, that the kingdom of God, which it was and is to me, would overcome all things, and that the name of the true and the living God would be brought before the world ultimately for their adoration and their obedience. I never had a doubt about the triumph of this great organization, established by the Almighty, by the personal action of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost; and today I rejoice in my soul to see the evidence of the progress of this work, here on these tabernacle grounds, where people have assembled at our first session in such numbers that the Assembly Hall has to be used for an overflow meeting and the grounds themselves for another, at the beginning of our Conference. Thank the Lord, praises and blessings be to his Holy Name! ¶

GOD OUR ETERNAL FATHER AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST, ¶

The beautiful music we have just listened to called "The Lord's Prayer," brings before our attention that prayer which Jesus uttered; not that people were always to repeat it, although it is a mighty good ¶

thing that so many people do so, even if they do not realize what it means. Ever since I was a little boy, I have heard that prayer repeated in the churches in the world, before I ever knew anything of this work. It begins with a truth that all people ought to understand, and that is that God is our Father, that he dwells in heaven; that he is not and cannot be personally omnipresent, as is taught in the heathen and so-called Christian churches of the world; that he is a divine being, a personage, a perfect and perfected man so to speak. We do not say that God is a man; he is a perfected man; he is exalted above all mankind, and he is our Father. He begat us in our original being, as his sons and daughters, verily and literally and truly. Jesus Christ who uttered that prayer is his Son just as we are, in the spirit, only he was the first-born. There is a truth connected with that principle which we should all understand, for Jesus Christ himself has declared it. He says to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: "I also was in the beginning with the Father, and am the first-born. Ye also were in the beginning with the Father, that which is spirit." That part of mankind which is spirit was in the eternal world with the Father, before this world began, as we read in the first and second chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which I commend to your attention, my brethren and sisters. We learn a little of this fact: ¶

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, ¶

"Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; ¶

"Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." ¶

He was the firstborn in this great family of the Almighty, the Creator of the worlds, and they were made by him, through and by Jesus Christ, his Son. Some of our brethren get the idea that he could not have been the creator of this world, as is declared in the latter-day revelations, that he was with the Father in this work, and that "all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made," as we read in the opening chapter of the writings of John his beloved disciple and apostle. ¶

JESUS CHRIST THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER IN THE FLESH. ¶

We should understand this, that Jesus the Christ came into the world, in the meridian of time, to be the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh. That is a doctrine established in this Church, and we have received it by revelation, so we can put aside any doubts or speculations or contentions in regard to it. That was when he came and tabernacled, being in the image of his Father, the "express" image of his Father before he came into the world; and with power, as the heir of all things, God honored him and loved him, and he knew the faith- ¶

fulness in all the work entrusted to him, and knew beforehand what he would do when he came on the earth to be the Redeemer of mankind. This is a subject that I do not want to dwell upon now, because I do not want to take up too much time, but it is a most important thing in the progress and development of the purposes of the Almighty. Jesus, as we call him, the Nazarene, the son of Mary, of the offspring of David -- therefore the Son of man -- was the Son of God, who is the Father of his spirit. So, in the beginning he was with God and was the firstborn of this great family, and on the earth he was the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh. He lived and died as a Son of God in all things, and was raised from the dead and appeared to his disciples. In these last days he appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith, in his boyhood, and has manifested himself personally several times, on several occasions, and he lives as the Son of God and our eldest brother in the spirit. The declaration of the doctrines of the Church in that remarkable condensation of principles which are called The Latter-day Saint's faith, begins with: "We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in his Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." ¶

THE HOLY GHOST, A PERSONAGE OF SPIRIT. ¶

In regard to the Holy Ghost, I want to say a few words this morning, since I have this grand opportunity, in reply to questions and letters that come to us, in the President's office, concerning this matter. There seems, in spite of all the preachings and writings and explanations and expoundings of the Church, some confusion of mind in regard to this question about the Holy Ghost. "Is the Holy Ghost a personage?" So we are told in the 130th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants, which contains several grand principles uttered by the Prophet Joseph Smith. One is that God is a personage of tabernacle, the Son also, but the Holy Ghost is "a personage of spirit." This seems to create great wonderment among some of our people, because they confound the two terms "Holy Spirit" and "Holy Ghost" and think that there is a difference in their meaning. There is a difference in one sense of the word. We attach the words "the Holy Ghost" to the personage of spirit; and we attach the name "Holy Spirit" to that universal means by which God and Jesus Christ are omnipresent. That divine, beginningless and boundless essence is called the Holy Spirit; but the two terms really mean the same thing, so far as language is concerned. Brother Lund used to talk a good deal about the one German word which means the Holy Ghost as well as the Holy Spirit. The word means "Ghost" but it attaches to the influence which we call spirit, 'the spirit of man, and to the Holy Ghost the Comforter. Now let me say just two or three words on that point, to settle this question. In the fifth chapter of the first epistle of John, the beloved disciple, we read this: ¶

"There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word," -- that is the name that John generally attached to the Savior -- ¶

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." That is applied to the Son, the first born in the spirit and the only begotten in the flesh-- "There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one." Some people get very much confused in regard to that oneness or unity. There are three persons united as one God, one Deity, and it takes three of them to bear record in heaven; or rather, as the Prophet Joseph Smith explained very fully, that in all the presidencies that are divine, there are three. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are three personages. Two are persons of tabernacle. Now, questions arise as to whether the Holy Ghost will ever get a body. I do not know anything about that, because the Lord has not revealed it; and if our brethren, while trying to be wise when they are not always so, would leave out of their preachings and their speculations that which they think may be in the future, but do not know, there will be a good deal of contention avoided. ¶

The Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit, as Jesus Christ was when he was Jehovah. He was Jehovah from the beginning of the world, according to the history we have in the Old Testament scriptures. He was a personage of spirit, and he came here to the earth that he might be exactly like his brethren and like his Father, and have a body made out of the lower elements of the universe. The elements of his body are eternal, and the elements of the spirit are eternal, without beginning; but there was a beginning to his body, when he was born of the virgin Mary, and God was his Father. His power overshadowed the virgin and, as she was told by the angel Gabriel, the offspring was the Son of God. Jesus Christ taught that doctrine to his apostles and made it very plain, I think, as it stands in the New Testament: "Our Father which art in Heaven" -- not our Father who personally is throughout all space, without center and without circumference; but his dwelling place is in heaven. The Lord says: "Heaven is my throne; the earth is my footstool;" and to the ancient Jews he cried: "Where is the house that ye build unto me, and where is the place of my rest?" Our Father is a personage of tabernacle. He has a spiritual body, as well as a spiritual existence besides the physical body; the elements in him are joined inseparably. One of the revelations of God, the 88th Section in the Doctrine and Covenants, declares that "the elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably, connected, receiveth a fulness of joy; and when separated man cannot obtain a fulness of joy." ¶

The spirit of man is the offspring of God. It has affinity with spiritual things. In its spiritual being and nature it is above earthly things, but when tabernacled in a body, it becomes, to a great extent, subject to the laws that govern earthly things. When death comes as we call it, the separation of the spirit and the body, as we learn in the Scriptures, "the body without the spirit is dead," when that separation comes, then the spirit goes back to its former condition, to this extent, ¶

that it is without the natural body until the resurrection. But the necessity for the resurrection is shown, very plainly, when we understand that only by these affinities can we obtain a fulness of joy. That which is spirit in our nature has affinity with things that are above. The natural body has affinity with the things that are grosser or beneath. But when the two, spirit and element, are inseparably connected-- quickened by the Holy Spirit -- and I mean by that the spirit which is called the spirit of life and light, then perfection can come to the individual, and without that union there cannot be obtained a fulness of joy. ' ¶

Now the pattern of it all is in the life and service and devotion and death of Jesus our Redeemer, and his resurrection from the dead, his return into the presence of God, where he sits with him on the everlasting throne. But about the Holy Ghost, what about that? Why, he is a personage of spirit, an individual, a being, and he bears witness of the Father and of the Son and makes them plain to man. He is called by the Savior, the "Comforter." If you read the writings of John, the 15th, 16th and 17th chapters, there you will see that he is called the Comforter. He is a personage. "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, he will teach you all things and he will show you things to come." John calls him "He" and "Him." He is a person. "If I go not away," said Jesus to his disciples, "the Comforter will not come, but if I go away, I will send him to you, and he shall bear witness of me and of the Father;" for that is his office and calling. The understanding we have is that the Holy Ghost, as a personage, came on the day of Pentecost, and that he was manifested in the sign of the cloven tongues, as he was to John the Baptist by the sign of the dove, when the Savior was baptized in the river Jordan. Now then, understand that the personage spoken of there, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is an individual, the third person in the trinity, and it takes the Father and the Word and the Holy Ghost to make a complete record in the heavens; but the apostle John goes on to say, "there are three that bear witness, on the earth -- the spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one. Now as to the oneness I was just touching upon, it is clearly explained in the prayer of the Savior, offered to the Father before he went to the garden of Gethsemane. He prayed for his apostles: ¶

I pray "for them * * * which thou has given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me; and the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one." (John 17:9, 20, 23.) ¶

There is the oneness of Deity, the three in one; not as some preachers try to expound it, in the doctrines of the outside world, in ¶

the Article of Faith that they have, making them one immaterial spirit -- no body, no real personage, no substance. On the contrary, they are three individuals, one in spirit, one in mind, one in intelligence, united in all things that they do, and it takes the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to make the perfect Trinity in one, three persons and one God or Deity, one Godhead. ¶

THE HOLY GHOST BESTOWED IN CONFIRMATION. ¶

Now about the Holy Ghost bestowed in confirmation. It is required of people who are baptized in water, to be baptized with "the Holy Ghost and with fire." Of course, the word "fire" does not mean a literal blaze to burn you up; it is a divine fire, and all people know, who have been baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost, bearing witness of the Father and the Son, (and in these times, to the divine mission of the Latter-day Prophet, Joseph Smith) that this Spirit is in the Church, and each individual member receives it as a gift. The Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost if you please, is "the true light that enlighteneth every man that comes into the world." So John teaches in that fine treatise that he wrote, called the Gospel of St. John. Now then, the light that is in the stars, that light that shines dimly in these lamps here this morning -- what is it? Why, it is one manifestation of that divine essence called the Holy Spirit, and it permeates all things, not only on this globe, but in all the worlds that have been made. For we read in the Doctrine and Covenants, take the 29th Section and read it carefully, that God created all things by that Spirit, firstly spiritual and afterwards that which is temporal. That Holy Spirit, so we read in the 88th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, "is in all things, and through all things, and round about all things, and is the law by which all things are governed. It is the light of Christ, and it is in the sun, and the moon and the stars, and the earth on which ye stand." It permeates all things throughout the vast domain of space, which has no bounds. It is the spirit that gives life, it is the spirit that gives light; and when we came into the world and breathed the breath of life we became "living souls." ¶

There is no time now to talk about this creation, as we read of it in the book of Genesis. However, when man was formed out of the dust, and afterwards by eating the products of the earth and becoming earthly thereby, when he came into his being on the earth, he breathed the breath of life, and "man became a living soul,"thereby. So we, you and the rest of us, when we were born into this world, when we came to the condition that we could breathe the breath of life and be quickened by it in our mortal being, we were living souls; and when we are resurrected from the dead we will still be living souls, but in a more perfect state. If we are worthy of the celestial glory we shall be quickened thereby when we are raised. As Paul puts it, "the body is sown in dishonor, it is raised in power; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in strength; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual ¶

body." So, when we are raised from the dead, the body that is sown in the grave, in weakness, is raised in power, glorified like the glorious body of the Son of God. These are simple things taught in the Scriptures, and when we go beyond them and make theories of our own, we get into the dark. ¶

The Holy Ghost, spoken of in the 88th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants is in all things, round about all things, throughout the immensity of space. What is it? Why it is a spiritual essence which gives life and light to all things, to animals and vegetables as well as to human beings; but that is not the Comforter that Jesus said he would send, because it was here already, and is the light that enlighteneth every person that comes into the world. It is the essence of ordinary life; it is the very essence of life in the fulness of its manifestations around the personality of God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son; in heaven, where they dwell. Therein is the glory of God. ¶

In its smaller or lesser manifestations, it is the same Spirit but not to the same degree. When we are born by water baptism into the Church, born of God, then we are baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, we have an additional manifestation of light and power in that Holy Spirit which is given to us in the confirmation -- '"Receive ye the Holy Ghost" -- as a gift from God, as a light to your feet, a lamp to your path, as a perpetual witness, an additional gift of light and truth. Don't I know in my own being that I received that gift? I certainly do, a swell as I know that I see things naturally by those manifestations of light that come from the sun and the moon and the stars and the lamps that we light, and the electric light that we bring forth by touching the button. We do not create that light, we do not bring it into being, we only bring it into action. It is governed by law, and when the laws are fully understood and we live by them, and we are quickened by that power to the full, in body and in spirit, we will be like our Father and like Jesus Christ his beloved Son: "Beloved," says the Apostle John, "now are we the Sons of God. It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, and every man that has this hope purifieth himself even as he is pure." ¶

By keeping the commandments of God, as we were exhorted to do six months ago, and today also, by keeping the commandments of God and walking in his ways, that spirit is developed in us. Its light is clearer and plainer and it shines out and reveals the things of God. "No man knoweth the things of man but the spirit of man that is in him, and no man knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God, and the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God." That is good plain scripture. ¶

Now my brethren and sisters do not get into confusion about this matter. The Holy Ghost is an individual, is a personage of spirit, one of the great Three that the Prophet Joseph Smith spoke so plainly about so many times just before his death. ¶

PERTAINING TO THE STATEMENT IN THE LECTURES ON FAITH. ¶

There is one little point in regard to that which I will mention: In the book of Doctrine and Covenants we have a number of lectures inserted in the first part; which are not revelations. There are seven lectures, and in the fifth lecture, particularly, we are told that there are two personages in heaven, the Father and the Son, and that the holy spirit is the mind of God. That is true, so far as it goes. But the revelation through the Prophet Joseph Smith as to the personality of the Holy Ghost came many years after; it was given in 1843. In that revelation we are clearly instructed concerning the third personage in the Trinity. Now, as far as Sidney Rigdon, and some others who delivered those lectures, went, they spoke the truth. There are two persons in the heavens, the Father and the Son, but the Holy Spirit is passed by almost, as the "mind of God." It is true that the Holy Spirit conveys the mind of God; that is, I am speaking now of this universal spirit which is the life and the light of all things, which is in and through and round about all things, and God says he made the world by the power of that spirit. That is his agent; but the personage, the Comforter, which Jesus Christ said he would send when he went away, that was a personage of the Trinity. He promised to send this Comforter to reveal the things of the Father and to bear witness of the Father and the Son. ¶

When Joseph the Prophet saw the Father and the Son in the grove where he was praying, the Holy Spirit made them manifest. When he commenced to pray, or tried to pray, he could not say anything. He was seized upon by an opposing power which seemed to almost overcome him, but he struggled against it and continued to pray, until a light came, a pillar of light, the manifestation and presence of the Holy Spirit, and by the power of that Spirit, which quickened his spiritual vision, he saw two personages in that cloud of glory, and they conversed with him, or rather one did. The Father does not converse much with mankind individually. He said: "This is my beloved Son, hear him;" and he is the person we want to hear and to obey as representing the Father. As we read in the Book of Mormon he is, in some respects, both the Father and the Son. He represents the Father to the full. We are in the image of God, but the Christ, the great Jehovah, is the express image of the Father's person, God manifest in the flesh, and he has gone into his glory. We will follow him to that glory if we will keep his commandments. He is the resurrection and the life. God has entrusted that to him, given him that power and made him heir of all things, in the heavens and in the earth. "All power is given to me, in heaven and upon the earth. Tarry ye at Jerusalem, until ye are endowed with power from on high." That is what he told his apostles. ¶

THE LIGHT OF GOD MANIFESTS THE THINGS OF GOD. ¶

I hope, in what I have said on this subject, I have made this matter clear. All I want to do when I get up to talk before my brethren and sisters, is to make the things that are clear in my own mind, clear also to them, if I can. It is the light of the Lord that manifests the things of God, and if we live in that light and walk in its rays we will keep the commandments of God. That is the tendency of it. In the operations of natural light, displayed by the spectrum, there are seven different colors or rays, as I remember being taught, when I was a boy at school -- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet; they are all one in a pencil of light, and that is a manifestation of the Spirit of God. In that there are, as in the higher revealings, various operations, as the apostle teaches in the twelfth chapter of First Corinthians: ¶

"For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another knowledge by the same Spirit; ¶

"To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healings by the same Spirit; ¶

"To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues; ¶

"But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." ¶

So, my brethren, if we receive that gift, when hands are laid upon us, after we have been baptized into the Church and it is said unto us: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," that gift is sealed upon us. The gift is ours whether we act upon it or receive it or not, the gift is given to us by the Holy Ghost, which explains and manifests and enlightens our souls in regard to these things that are divine. It searches all things, yea, even the deep things of God. I know it in my own being and have known it ever since I was baptized into the Church. That gift was sealed upon me, and in all my labors and duties, spoken of by the President this morning, it has only been by the power of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the living God, the light of the Almighty, through Jesus Christ his Son, that I have been able to bring people to an understanding of and obedience to the truth, and to conduct affairs with wisdom and in the light that I have received from God. ¶

A TESTIMONY. ¶

I know that God lives, I know that he is my Father, I know he has guided me on land and sea, that he has been with me in all my travelings at home and abroad, and that his Spirit is with me today. Thanks and praise be to his holy name. All I care for, of position or office in this Church, is to build up the work of the Father through Jesus Christ his Son, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Truly we believe in God, the Father, and in his Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost; and to God the Father, to Jesus Christ his Son, and the Holy Ghost, be honor, praise, glory, and dominion forever, Amen. ¶