Chapter 3

Priesthood Keys
and the Holy Apostleship

The Twelve Apostles . . . officiate . . . under the direction of the Presidency of the Church . . . holding the keys.

—Doctrine and Covenants 107:23, 33, 35

On Thursday, October 8, 2015, on the fourth floor of the Salt Lake Temple, in my first meeting of the Council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, all fourteen living Apostles placed their hands on my head and, with President Thomas S. Monson acting as voice, I was ordained an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sister Renlund was present for the experience, which for us was Pentecostal.

Part of the ordination included this statement: “We give you every right, gift, authority, and the keys of this sacred office, including the keys of prophet, seer, and revelator to be shared with your Brethren in this circle.”1 I have since pondered what it means to share the keys of prophet, seer, and revelator with the other living Apostles. It is an important point in Church governance—important for me as a new member of the Twelve, and equally important for all members of the Church. Understanding this phrase, “the keys of prophet, seer, and revelator to be shared with your Brethren,” is foundational to understanding how the doctrine of the Church is established, how we can know God’s will in the Church, and who has a right to declare new doctrine and officially proclaim God’s will to the Saints.

The idea of “shared apostolic keys” could have several meanings. First, it could mean that there is just one set of keys that is passed around. This is suggested in Bertel Thorvaldsen’s masterpiece sculptures of the Christus and the Twelve Apostles in Vor Frue Kirke (the Church of Our Lady) in Copenhagen, Denmark; it is only Peter who is portrayed holding keys. Second, it could mean that each new Apostle is given a set of keys that he can exercise in any way he wants. In this situation, the keys would be considered “shared” because all hold the same keys. Third, it could mean that each Apostle has a set of keys but that they are used and exercised only in harmony with the others and under the direction of the President of the Church. In this third meaning, limits or constraints are placed on the exercise of the keys an Apostle has been given.

The historical record of the Restoration answers the question of how apostolic keys are shared. Many aspects of the Restoration took a long time to unfold; it was and is a process, not an event. We can liken it to a large, 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. Over time, the Lord directs the placement of the puzzle pieces, until the whole picture is clear. But which puzzle piece is needed at any given time becomes evident only as the outline for its need is known. The scriptures refer to this process as learning line upon line and precept upon precept (see Isaiah 28:10, 13; 2 Nephi 28:30; Doctrine and Covenants 98:12; 128:21).

One of the first questions that arose after the Church was organized was, “Who can receive revelation for the Church?” An early convert, Hiram Page, professed to be receiving revelations concerning the building of Zion and the order of the Church. Several members, including Oliver Cowdery, were deceived by his declarations. In September 1830, Joseph Smith received a revelation directed to Oliver Cowdery. In this revelation, the Lord stated that “no one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church excepting my servant Joseph Smith, Jun.” The revelation also made it clear that Hiram Page’s revelations were “not of [God] and that Satan deceiveth him” (Doctrine and Covenants 28:2, 11; see also section heading).

This revelation clarified who was authorized to receive revelation for the Church. At that time, it was Joseph Smith Jr., the Church’s first elder. He alone was God’s spokesman.

As the Restoration continued, Joseph Smith received direction to organize not only a First Presidency but also a Quorum of Twelve Apostles. In addition to the functional assignment of being a traveling high council in preaching the gospel, the Twelve were given priesthood keys. At the time of the organization of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in February 1835, each of the Apostles received the keys of the kingdom—all the keys that Joseph had received up to that point. It is also clear that the same keys were held by each member of the Twelve.2 Therefore, this refutes the notion that there is just one set of apostolic keys that is passed around.

Additional keys were given to Joseph Smith after 1835, including those received by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple on April 3, 1836 (see Doctrine and Covenants 110:11–16 and section heading). These additional keys were also conferred on the Twelve Apostles. Wilford Woodruff reported a meeting of the Apostles with Joseph Smith in March 1844. Elder Woodruff stated:

I remember the last speech that [Joseph Smith] ever gave us before his death. . . . [Joseph] said: “I have had sealed upon my head every key, every power, every principle of life and salvation that God has ever given to any man who ever lived upon the face of the earth . . . Now,” said he, addressing the Twelve, “I have sealed upon your heads every key, every power, and every principle which the Lord has sealed upon my head. . . . I tell you, the burden of this kingdom now rests upon your shoulders; you have got to bear it off in all the world, and if you don’t do it you will be damned.”3

The Woodruff account is corroborated by Parley P. Pratt. He wrote:

[Joseph Smith] was led, before his death, to call the Twelve together, from time to time, and to instruct them in all things pertaining to the kingdom, ordinances, and government of God. He often observed that he was laying the foundation, but it would remain for the Twelve to complete the building. Said he, “I know not why; but for some reason I am constrained to . . . confer upon the Twelve all the ordinances, keys, covenants, endowments, and sealing ordinances of the priesthood. . . . The kingdom of God will roll on, as I have now finished the work which was laid upon me.”4

During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, he alone was God’s spokesman. But, under the direction of heaven, he prepared the Church for his absence by conferring all the keys and authorities that he had received on each member of the Twelve. He did not confer the keys on any one member but on each one of them. Every member of the Quorum of the Twelve held all the keys of the kingdom of God and had the priesthood authority necessary to hold every position in the Church.5

Because each Apostle held equivalent keys, confusion arose about who could speak for the Church and who could declare doctrine that would be binding on Church members. Could each exercise his keys any way he wanted? This question was the subject of a meeting of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve before April conference in 1860. Two days were spent discussing to what extent individual members of the First Presidency and the Twelve were free to express their own views on certain doctrines in their public discourses.

At one point, Orson Hyde verbalized ambivalent feelings as he said: “When the Prophet pronounces upon (revealed) doctrines, it is for us to repudiate ours, and sustain his. . . . As to whether we should sustain the Prophet in every scientifical subject, contrary to our own judgment, it might not be policy to say that, as (it) involves a principle of absolutism which would not look well.”6

After two days of deliberation, the Apostles came to an agreement. They said that they would “keep as far away from the precipice” as possible by avoiding the public discussion of debatable subjects “that could put one in a rough place.” They also signed the following statement: “No member of the Church has the right to publish any doctrines as the doctrines of the Church . . . without first submitting them for examination and approval to the First Presidency and the Twelve.”7

While this statement clearly resolved the issue regarding members other than the Council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, the deliberation did not fully resolve the question as to whether individuals who had been ordained as prophets, seers, and revelators needed to follow the same process as other members. Could they authoritatively and independently promulgate doctrine to and for the Church? The answer is definitively spelled out in the third official proclamation from the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, issued in 1865. This proclamation is a thorough rebuke of Orson Pratt, who was one of the original Apostles in this dispensation, ordained in 1835.

Orson Pratt had written several articles over the years that the First Presidency and Twelve found objectionable. The proclamation cites many of these teachings at length. A representative writing by Orson Pratt is this one:

Each part of [the God-like] substance is all-wise and all-powerful . . . when we worship the Spirit, we do not merely worship a personal substance or a widely diffused substance, but we worship the attributes and qualities of this substance . . . a living, self-moving fluid substance . . . each particle of this Holy Spirit knows, every instant, how to act upon the other materials of nature with which it is immediately associated: it knows how to vary the gravitating tendency of a particle of matter, every moment, precisely in the inverse ratio of the square of its distance from every other particle in the universe.8

The First Presidency and the Twelve took issue. They said:

We have quoted some of the items . . . which strike us as being most objectionable. They are self-confounding and conflict one with another. . . . There are great and important truths connected with the eternities of our God and with man’s existence past, present and future, which the Almighty, in his wisdom, sees fit to conceal from the children of men. [The ideas that Orson Pratt had espoused] are mere hypotheses, and should be perused and accepted as such, and not as doctrines of the Church. . . . No member of the Church has the right to publish any doctrines, as the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, without first submitting them for examination and approval [by] the First Presidency and the Twelve.

This statement makes it clear that even members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve must first submit proposed doctrinal opinions to the First Presidency and the Twelve for approval before promulgating them as official.

The proclamation continues:

There is but one man upon the earth, at one time, who holds the keys to receive commandments and revelations for the Church, and who has the authority to write doctrines by way of commandment unto the Church. And any man who so far forgets the order instituted by the Lord as to write and publish what may be termed new doctrines, without consulting with the First Presidency of the Church respecting them, places himself in a false position, and exposes himself to the power of darkness by violating his Priesthood . . . [and] will be liable to lose his Priesthood.9

The crux of the proclamation is this statement: “There is but one man upon the earth, at one time, who holds the keys to receive commandments and revelations for the Church, and who has the authority to write doctrines by way of commandment unto the Church.” It informed Orson Pratt, as well as the world, that he was out of bounds. He had no right to stand as a prophet, seer, and revelator and espouse his own thinking without sanction by the Council of the First Presidency and the Twelve.

Orson Pratt must have been embarrassed. But he was also sufficiently humble to issue the following statement: “I, therefore, embrace the present opportunity of publicly expressing my most sincere regret that I have ever published the least thing which meets with the disapprobation of the highest authorities of the Church.”10

Poor Orson Pratt was the test case not only for all future Apostles but for the whole Church. His experience taught every member, including the Apostles, that an Apostle can only speak authoritatively for the Church under the direction of and with the sanction of the First Presidency and the Twelve.

I know, better than anyone else, that not every thought I have is inspired of heaven. I still need to work to clarify revelation and inspiration. But if I were to inform Sister Renlund that the Holy Ghost works through the intermediary of the Higgs boson subatomic particle and that it in turn interacts with spiritual matter with a force that is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the spiritual fluid, she (and everyone else) should know that such ideas can be discounted as opinion and not as revelation.

We will always be on the right path when we follow those we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators. I have observed that members of the Twelve frequently confer with their quorum members to ensure that their individual directions are in harmony with the quorum. It is now well established that members of the Quorum of the Twelve do not individually pronounce doctrine that is not in harmony with their Brethren. In other words, there are limits or constraints placed on the exercise of the keys an Apostle has been given. These constraints involve the primacy of the senior Apostle and the requirement of unanimity.

Just like Joseph Smith, the senior Apostle, the President of the Church, is the only one on earth authorized to exercise all priesthood keys. President Russell M. Nelson notes: “When a President of the Church dies, the First Presidency is dissolved and the counselors take their places in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The Quorum of the Twelve then presides over the Church until the First Presidency is reorganized. That period of time is known as an apostolic interregnum. Historically, that interval has varied in length from four days to three and a half years.”11

Beginning with the administration of Lorenzo Snow in 1898, Presidents of the Church have been formally set apart or ordained by the other living prophets, seers, and revelators. Before this time, it was not felt to be necessary since the senior Apostle already held all the keys necessary to lead the Church as its President.

George Q. Cannon recorded the change in policy as follows:

President [Lorenzo] Snow had expressed a desire to be ordained (to use his own words) as President of the Church. I related to the brethren [that when] . . . I had been selected as one of [Brigham Young’s] counselors . . . I had asked him whether it was necessary to be set apart for that position. His reply to me was that he had not set apart . . . any of his counselors, for the reason that they held their position by virtue of their Apostleship. The feeling, however, today [1898] was that it would be a very appropriate thing for Brother Snow to be ordained, and a vote was taken to the effect that it should be done.

We all laid our hands upon him, and at his request I pronounced the blessing upon him and set him apart to preside over the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was then set apart to be his First Counselor, and President Joseph F. Smith was set apart to be his Second Counselor.12

Elder Franklin D. Richards recorded that all ordained Apostles placed their hands on President Snow’s head as he was set apart and blessed.13

Since 1898, every Church President has been set apart under the hands of his fellow Apostles. In 1951, when David O. McKay became Church President, the term ordain began to be used instead of or in addition to the term set apart.14 This practice has continued to the present day.15 It is not only a comfort and blessing to the President of the Church, it is also a formal submission by each of the Apostles to the Presidency of the senior Apostle, submitting their individually held keys to his authority and position. This action “ordains” one Apostle to be the only one on earth authorized to exercise all priesthood keys. The principle involved has been emphasized by many over the years.

President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “Only the President of the Church has the right to exercise [the keys] in their fulness. He may delegate the exercise of various of them to one or more of his Brethren. Each has the keys but is authorized to use them only to the degree granted him by the prophet of the Lord.”16 This protects all members of the Church because they know who can pronounce doctrine for the entire Church.

The other protection that the Lord has provided is the requirement of unanimity in the presiding councils of the Church.17 In 1938, Elder Stephen L Richards taught this principle. He said:

In formulating their interpretations and decisions they [the First Presidency] always confer with the Council of the Twelve Apostles who by revelation are appointed to assist and act with them in the government of the Church. When, therefore, a judgment is reached and proclaimed by these officers it becomes binding upon all members of the Church, individual views to the contrary notwithstanding.18

Elder James E. Faust further explained: “This requirement of unanimity provides a check on bias and personal idiosyncrasies. It ensures that God rules through the Spirit, not man through majority or compromise. It ensures that the best wisdom and experience is focused on an issue before the deep, unassailable impressions of revealed direction are received. It guards against the foibles of man.”19 In understanding the will of the Lord, both the primacy of the senior Apostle and the requirement for unanimity are recognized as protections for the Church.

Some have taught that the keys, authority, and power given to each member of the Twelve lie dormant20 “until he becomes [the] senior apostle and is [then] in a position of presidency to direct the labors and the work of all others.”21 However, in isolation or without a full understanding, this may lead some to a false notion that the conferral of authority and keys on each Apostle is simply God’s backup plan and that those keys, and those Apostles, are of little utility until some future day. On the contrary, each Apostle exercises the keys he has been given to the full extent possible, in harmony with his fellow Apostles, and as constrained by the direction of the President of the Church.

Understanding the role of the senior Apostle and the requirement of unanimity among all prophets, seers, and revelators, members may know God’s will for His Church in the following ways:

First, when God’s will is declared by the prophet and sustained by the Council of the First Presidency and the Twelve, it can be considered doctrine. In the past, we have seen two official declarations, one regarding polygamy and the other about the priesthood. The Church has accepted Doctrine and Covenants 138 as doctrine in a similar manner.22 More commonly, we see God’s will conveyed in a letter from the First Presidency.

Second, when all the prophets, seers, and revelators, acting as one, make doctrinal pronouncements, they can be considered official. “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”23 and “The Living Christ”24 are examples of this.

Finally, in this modern era, general conference addresses by members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve expound, clarify, and emphasize established doctrines. The messages are scrutinized, reviewed, and approved by the First Presidency and members of the Twelve before being given. Given the extent to which these messages are prepared and delivered in compliance with the following criterion, they merit special attention: “And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation” (Doctrine and Covenants 68:40).

For this reason, President Ezra Taft Benson taught at the conclusion of the April 1988 general conference, “For the next six months, your conference edition of the Ensign should stand next to your standard works and be referred to frequently.”25

As an ordained Apostle, holding the keys of prophet, seer, and revelator to be shared with the others who are similarly ordained, I am grateful for the clarifications and constraints that have been revealed over the decades. These provide the protections God intended in this, the only true and living Church on the face of the earth (see Doctrine and Covenants 1:30). In the Lord’s living Church, the standard is very high. God’s will is not revealed to just one individual. It must be revealed to all fifteen prophets, seers, and revelators. All so ordained must labor to receive the revelation and achieve the unity God requires. Additionally, all Church members can, if they will, receive confirmatory revelation of the will of God as it has been revealed through His servants.

Notes

1. Ordination of Dale G. Renlund, October 8, 2015, by President Thomas S. Monson. Personal record.

2. Minute Book 1 (Kirtland Council Minute Book), February 14, 1835, Church History Library. Orson Hyde and William Smith were both told in their ordinations that they were “equal with [their] brethren in holding the keys of the kingdom.”

3. Wilford Woodruff, in Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith (2007), 532.

4. Parley P. Pratt, “Proclamation to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” January 1, 1845, in Millennial Star, 5, no. 10 (March 1845): 151.

5. See Harold B. Lee, in Conference Report, April 1970, 123.

6. Orson Hyde, in Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (1986), 304–5.

7. In ibid.

8. “Proclamation of the Twelve,” as published in Millennial Star, 27, no. 42 (October 21, 1865): 661.

9. Ibid., 662–63.

10. Orson Pratt, “To the Saints in All the World,” Millennial Star, 27, no. 44 (November 4, 1865): 698.

11. Russell M. Nelson, “Sustaining the Prophets,” Ensign, November 2014, n. 15.

12. George Q. Cannon journal, October 10, 1898, Church History Library.

13. See Franklin D. Richards journal, October 10, 1898, Church History Library.

14. “President Kimball then took his seat in the middle of the room, and as all those present placed their hands upon his head . . . then, with President Benson being mouth, in a beautiful prayer and blessing, Spencer Woolley Kimball was ordained and set apart as prophet, seer, and revelator and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (N. Eldon Tanner, “Chosen of the Lord,” Ensign, May 1974). “But authority to exercise those keys is restricted to the President of the Church. At his passing, that authority becomes operative in the senior Apostle, who is then named, set apart, and ordained a prophet and President by his associates of the Council of the Twelve” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “Come and Partake,” Ensign, May 1986). “Then more recently, the day after his funeral, in July 1972, there came to the Presidency of the Church . . . newly ordained and set apart prophet and President, Harold B. Lee” (Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball [1982], 467). “President George Albert Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Presiding High Priest of the Church, the prophet, seer and revelator, ordained and set apart thereto by those having authority will now close this conference with his final instruction” (J. Reuben Clark Jr., in Conference Report, April 1950, 167).

15. Interestingly, Doctrine and Covenants 107:22, when speaking of the First Presidency, uses the word ordain. At the time, ordain and set apart were often used interchangeably. Nonetheless, the passage reads: “Of the Melchizedek Priesthood, three Presiding High Priests, chosen by the body, appointed and ordained to that office, and upheld by the confidence, faith, and prayer of the church, form a quorum of the Presidency of the Church.”

16. Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Church Is on Course,” Ensign, November 1992.

17. Doctrine and Covenants 107:27–29 states, “And every decision made by either of these quorums must be by the unanimous voice of the same; that is, every member in each quorum must be agreed to its decisions, in order to make their decisions of the same power or validity one with the other—A majority may form a quorum when circumstances render it impossible to be otherwise—Unless this is the case, their decisions are not entitled to the same blessings which the decisions of a quorum of three presidents were anciently, who were ordained after the order of Melchizedek, and were righteous and holy men.”

18. Stephen L Richards, in Conference Report, October 1938, 116.

19. James E. Faust, “Continuous Revelation,” Ensign, November 1989.

20. Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3 vols. (1954–56), 3:157.

21. Bruce R. McConkie, “Succession in the Presidency,” January 8, 1974, BYU Speeches of the Year.

22. See Doctrine and Covenants, Official Declaration 1, Official Declaration 2, and section 138. Doctrine and Covenants 137 and Doctrine and Covenants 138 were approved to be added to the Pearl of Great Price by the Council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in March 1976. The revelations were presented at the April 1976 general conference to the Church and were sustained as part of the standard works of the Church.

23. “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Ensign, November 2010.

24. “The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Ensign, April 2000.

25. Ezra Taft Benson, “Come Unto Christ, and Be Perfected in Him,” Ensign, May 1988. The talk was read by President Gordon B. Hinckley due to President Benson’s poor health.