Calling & Election

D&C 67:10–13 . “You Shall See Me and Know That I Am”

One remarkable truth of the restored gospel is that the heavens are not sealed, that God still speaks to His children and reveals His will to them. And one amazing aspect of that knowledge is that God will reveal Himself to individuals who meet certain prerequisites. The scriptures record that many ancient prophets saw God, and the present dispensation was opened by a vision in which God and Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove. But several places in the Doctrine and Covenants, including section 67, teach that this privilege is not reserved for prophets alone but for anyone willing to pay the price required in personal righteousness (see D&C 50:45–46 ; 88:68–69 ; 93:1 ; 130:3 ). The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “after a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost, (by the laying on of hands), which is the first Comforter, then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted. When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and his election made sure, then it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter, which the Lord hath promised the Saints, as is recorded in the testimony of St. John, in the 14th chapter, from the 12th to the 27th verses . . . .

“Now what is this other Comforter? It is no more nor less than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and this is the sum and substance of the whole matter; that when any man obtains this last Comforter, he will have the personage of Jesus Christ to attend him, or appear unto him from time to time, and even He will manifest the Father unto him, and they will take up their abode with him, and the visions of the heavens will be opened unto him, and the Lord will teach him face to face, and he may have a perfect knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God; and this is the state and place the ancient Saints arrived at when they had such glorious visions—Isaiah, Ezekiel, John upon the Isle of Patmos, St. Paul in the three heavens, and all the Saints who held communion with the general assembly and Church of the Firstborn.” ( Teachings, pp. 150–51.)

Such a privilege does not come easily. A high level of righteousness and commitment must be demonstrated in the life of an individual before God will appear to him, and yet step by step a person can reach that degree. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught how this growth can occur: “We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; and that the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin; and like the ancients, arrives at that point of faith where he is wrapped in the power and glory of his Maker and is caught up to dwell with Him. But we consider that this is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment: he must have been instructed in the government and laws of that kingdom by proper degrees, until his mind is capable in some measure of comprehending the propriety, justice, equality, and consistency of the same.” ( Teachings, p. 51.)