Revelation (Latter Day Saints)
Latter Day Saints teach that the Latter Day Saint movement began with a revelation from God. They also teach that revelation is the foundation of the church established by Jesus Christ and that it remains an essential element of His true church today. Continuous revelation provides individual Latter Day Saints with a "testimony", described by Richard Bushman as "one of the most potent words in the Mormon lexicon."
In response to an inquiry on the beliefs of the church, Joseph Smith, Jr. wrote what came to be called the Wentworth Letter, the last section of which was canonized as The Articles of Faith. The fifth, sixth, seventh and ninth articles state the essence of Latter Day Saint belief concerning revelation.
- 5 We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.
- 6 We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.
- 7 We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.
- 9 We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
Latter Day Saints believe that the Lord ‘will yet reveal many great and important things’ to His church through modern Apostles and Prophets; that all leaders of the church are ‘called of God, by prophecy’; and that each member of the church can receive personal revelation to strengthen their faith and guide them in their own lives.
Read more about Revelation (Latter Day Saints): Doctrine, Practice, Future Scripture, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words revelation and/or day:
“They threw off their clothes, and he gathered her to him, and found her, found the pure lambent reality of her for ever invisible flesh. Quenched, inhuman, his fingers upon her unrevealed nudity were the fingers of silence upon silence, the body of mysterious night upon the body of mysterious night, the night masculine and feminine, never to be seen with the eye, or known with the mind, only known as a palpable revelation of living otherness.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
““Interesting, but futile,” said his diary,
Where day by day his movements were recorded
And nothing but his loves received inquiry....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)