D&C 130:1-7

Here is another section by Joseph Smith expounding doctrine, the IM gives some interesting background saying, "On the 2nd of April, 1843, the Prophet Joseph attended a meeting at which Orson Hyde spoke and, alluding to the coming of the Savior, said, 'When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, etc. He will appear on a white horse as a warrior, and maybe we shall have some of the same spirit. Out God is a warrior. It is our privilege to have the Father and Son dwelling in our hearts.' At dinner time the Prophet called the attention of Orson Hyde to these statements and told him that he would offer some corrections. Orson Hyde replied that they would be thankfully received, whereupon the Prophet gave the explanations contained in these paragraphs, first privately and afterward in the meeting.' Still later in the evening, after a meeting, the Prophet answered some questions and gave the additional instructions found in Doctrine and Covenants 130:18-23." I don't really understand what Orson Hyde was teaching. It’s hard for me to follow because it just seems to go from one topic to another, but I’ll try.


130:1-3 - JS sets straight that when we see the Savior he will look like us "we shall see that he is a man like ourselves."  The IM also says that Jesus will have flesh and bones like us, but he will be resurrected. Then JS goes to the meaning of John 14:23, the IM says, “The passage in question quotes Jesus as saying: ‘If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.’ The Prophet Joseph explained that this statement is literal, not a figure of speech. It is a promise that the Father and the Son will appear to a person.” Interesting, I wonder if that means mostly in the next life.



130:4-7 - Now we get to the topic of time and space, which is really interesting but difficult for me to follow and understand. The IM has an enormous explanation on this subject that is huge, but very interesting. The question is, “Is not the reckoning of God’s time, angel’s time, prophet’s time, and man’s time, according to the planet of which they reside? I answer, Yes.” Ok here’s the IM’s take on it saying, “Several scriptures suggest that they way we perceive time on earth may not be the way time really is throughout the universe. Alma 40:8 suggests that only men measure time and that to God all time is as one day. Other scriptures suggest that all things are present before the Lord. Verses 4-7 in section 130 suggest a similar concept, namely that past, present, and future are continually before the Lord and that time is relative to the planet on which one resides. In the twentieth century, the field of physics began to speak about time and space in a way that may help explain these revelatory statement. Albert Einstein, in the early part of this century, developed what is known as the theory of relativity. Einstein postulated that what men had assumed were absolutes in the physical world- space, gravity, speed, motion, time- were not absolutes at all but were interrelated with each other. That is why the theory was called the theory of relativity. Physicists now agree that a person’s time reference will vary depending on his relative position in space. According to Einstein’s theory, if a body moves at very fast speeds (those approaching the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second), that body’s time slows down in relation to the time of a body that is on earth; and for the body in motion, space contracts or shrinks. In other words, time and space are not two separate things but are interrelated. Physicists refer to this as the space-time continuum. If an astronaut were to journey out into space at speeds approaching the speed of light, though to himself all would seem perfectly normal, to someone on earth it would appear as though his clock were ticking slower, his heart were beating slower, his metabolism operating slower, and so on. He would actually age more slowly than would a person who remained on the earth. Though the finite mind tends to reject such concepts, Einstein’s theory suggests that reality to us is a product of our relative position in the space-time continuum. According to this theory, if a being achieved the speed o light, to that being all space would contract to the point that it would be ‘here’ for him, and all time would slow down until it became ‘now’ for him. The theory of relatively thus may suggest how, for a being of light and glory like God, all space and all time could be present. As difficult as such a concept is to understand, increasingly sophisticated experiments continue to substantiate Einstein’s theoretical description of the realities of the universe. Lael Woodbury, dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications at Brigham Young University, talked about man’s perception of time and God’s perception of time in an address sponsored by the Church Educational System: ‘The evidence suggests that God… perceives time as we perceive space. That’s why ‘all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things.’ Time, like space, is ‘continually before the Lord.’… Right now we experience music in time as a blind man perceives form in space- sequentially. He explores with his fingers, noting form, texture, contours, rhythms. He holds each perception in his mind, one by one, carefully adding one to the other, until he synthesizes his concept of what that space object much be life. You and I don’t do that. We perceive a space object immediately. We simply look at it, and to a certain degree we ‘know it. We do (not) go through a one-by-one, sequential, additive process. We perceive that it is, and we are able to distinguish it from any other object. I’m suggesting that God perceives a time as instantaneously as we perceive space. For us, time is difficult. Lacking higher facility, we are as blind about time as a sightless man is about space. We perceive time in the same way that we perceive music- sequentially. We explore rhythm, pitch, amplitude, texture, theme, harmonies, parallels, and contrasts. And from our perceptions we synthesize our concept of the object or event- the musical artwork- that existed in its entirety before we began our examination of it. Equally complete now is each of our lives before the Lord. We explore them sequentially because we are time-blind. But the Lord, perceiving time as space, sees us as we are, not as we are becoming. We are, for him, beings without time. We are continually before him- the totality of our psyches, personalities, bodies, choices, and behaviors.’ Einstein’s theory is only a theory, although it is being substantiated again and again as a valid representations of reality. How God operates through the vastness of space and the eternity of time has not been revealed in specific detail, but what information man has been given can be harmonized with what physicists are discovering about the interrelationship of space and time.”