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Continue ShoppingWhen Joseph Smith Returns He Will Help Organize Zion in the Second Coming
Elder Neal A. Maxwell succinctly stated, “Death is a mere comma, not an exclamation point!” Joseph Smith (as with all who have laid the mortal body aside) is not dead, just in another realm of existence. He is still a prophet, a seer, and now a messenger with greater territory. “There are two kinds of beings in heaven,” he said before his death. “Angels, who are resurrected personages, having bodies of flesh and bones” and “spirits of just men made perfect, they who are not resurrected, but inherit the same glory.”
Therefore, Joseph Smith, with a host of others, can be, are, and will be messengers sent to mortality to help the work of the Jesus Christ push forward. Joseph Smith understood this before going to the world of the spirits. If righteousness and truth are going to flood the earth, there will have to be a joint venture involving many individuals. “Men and angels are to be co-workers in bringing to pass this great work” he said. And “Zion is to be prepared, even a new Jerusalem, for the elect that are to be gathered from the four quarters of the earth, and to be established an holy city, for the tabernacle of the Lord shall be with them.”
The Prophet Joseph Smith not only saw and understood the Zion ideal, but he also saw that many people would help bring it about. The gathering of the elect from the four corners of the earth to a holy city will require the aid from other realms of existence. One of the greatest seers and servants of the Lord has not been absent or disinterested or released—so to speak. Joseph Smith is a key player in what is unfolding. “Millions shall know ‘Brother Joseph’ again,” W.W. Phelps penned shortly after the prophet’s martyrdom. Perhaps it might be more accurate to say “billions.” Notwithstanding, Elder Neil L. Anderson affirmed, “In our society beyond the veil of death, we will clearly understand the sacred calling and divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith.”
Brigham Young observed the significance of Joseph Smith’s life thus:
It was decreed in the counsels of eternity, long before the foundations of the earth were laid, that he, Joseph Smith, should be the man, in the last dispensation of this world, to bring forth the word of God to the people, and receive the fulness of the keys and power of the Priesthood of the Son of God. The Lord had his eyes upon him, and upon his father, and upon his father’s father, and upon their progenitors clear back to Abraham, and from Abraham to the flood, from the flood to Enoch, and from Enoch to Adam. He has watched that family and that blood as it has circulated from its fountain to the birth of that man. He was fore-ordained in eternity to preside over this last dispensation.
We should not limit Joseph’s foreordination to thirty-eight years of mortal life, including a fourteen-to-seventeen-year ministry. Brigham Young didn’t. He understood that Joseph would preside over the last dispensation.
“Joseph Smith, Junior, will again be on this earth dictating plans . . . and he will never cease his operations, under the directions of the Son of God, until the last ones of the children of men are saved that can be, from Adam till now.”
“There is an almighty work to perform in the spirit world. Joseph has not yet got through there. When he finishes his mission in the spirit world, he will be resurrected, but he is not yet done there. . . . When his spirit again quickens his body, he will ascend to heaven, present his resurrected body to the Father and the Son, receive his commission as a resurrected being, and visit his brethren on this earth, as did Jesus after His resurrection.”
Joseph Smith is not dead. He has an intimate interest in the unfolding events leading up to the organization of the people of God upon the land of Zion in the holy city. He will help set forth the laws and commandments by which Zion will be governed. He is not the only one. The presiding “President of the office of the High Priesthood” will also be called upon. But, Joseph Smith does have a position of authority in the dispensation of the fulness of times. He and others will be sent to help organize and inspire the work of those in flesh (mortality) that will need to be accomplished.
The following was taken from the book, The New Jerusalem: A Holy City Not Forsaken, by Ryan Jenkins, currently on sale at cedarfort.com.
