Across the library

The vision of the redemption of the dead

October 3, 1918: Joseph F. Smith had buried his son in January, the war had killed millions, and the flu pandemic was killing millions more. The day before general conference, sick and six weeks from his own death, he recorded a vision of the world of the dead. It became Doctrine and Covenants 138. Every quote links to its source.

If you want to know why Latter-day Saints build temples and do ordinances for dead people, this is the text that answers it, and the story of how it arrived is as striking as the text. It is also the most recent revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants, and the record around it — the conference where it was announced, the magazines that printed it — is all in this library.

The setting

Joseph F. Smith was 79 and dying. His son Hyrum Mack Smith, an apostle, had died suddenly in January 1918, and the year around him was the worst in living memory: the World War's dead ran to the millions, and the influenza pandemic was on its way to killing far more. Smith spent most of 1918 too sick to appear in public. Then he stood up at the opening of general conference on October 4 and said this:

I have not lived alone these five months. I have dwelt in the spirit of prayer, of supplication, of faith and of determination; and I have had my communication with the Spirit of the Lord continuously.

Joseph F. Smith, opening general conference, October 4, 1918; quoted in "The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead", October 2018 general conference

What he was referring to had happened the day before. On October 3, he sat reading the passage in 1 Peter about what Christ did between his death and his resurrection:

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah…

1 Peter 3:18–20, King James Version

For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

1 Peter 4:6, King James Version

The vision

As I pondered over these things which are written, the eyes of my understanding were opened, and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon me, and I saw the hosts of the dead, both small and great.

Doctrine and Covenants 138:11, October 3, 1918

These things which are written are the Peter verses above — the vision quotes them before it corrects them. The old reading had Christ personally preaching to the spirits in prison. Smith saw it differently, and the difference is the whole system of Latter-day Saint temple work:

And as I wondered, my eyes were opened, and my understanding quickened, and I perceived that the Lord went not in person among the wicked and the disobedient who had rejected the truth, to teach them; But behold, from among the righteous, he organized his forces and appointed messengers, clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men; and thus was the gospel preached to the dead.

Doctrine and Covenants 138:29–30

The work does not stop at death, in either direction. For a man who had just buried an apostle son, the next verse reads like the personal center of the whole vision:

I beheld that the faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption, through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God, among those who are in darkness and under the bondage of sin in the great world of the spirits of the dead.

Doctrine and Covenants 138:57

From a sick man's study to the canon

Smith dictated the vision to his son Joseph Fielding Smith, and on October 31, 1918 it was read to the First Presidency, the Twelve, and the church patriarch, who accepted it unanimously. It was published that year — the Improvement Era carried it — and Joseph F. Smith died on November 19, six weeks after receiving it. Then it sat outside the canon for two generations. Not until 1976 did a general conference vote add it to the standard works, and it entered the Doctrine and Covenants as section 138 in the 1981 edition. The last revelation in the book was canonized within living memory, and every step of its paper trail is in the library.