It might be difficult to limit Joseph Smith's faith to the definition one might find in a modern dictionary or in a typical response to a question in a Sunday School class, Ronald O. Barney observed in a Church History Department lecture in Salt Lake City on May 10.
"The popular perception of faith, being a belief in a sure thing that is not vividly apparent or for which there is no outward palpable evidence, cannot be considered the singular feature characterizing the Prophet's intimate contact with Deity," said Brother Barney, who until last year was a historian and archivist with the Church History Department and a volume editor in the Joseph Smith Papers project. His talk was the latest in the monthly "Men and Women of Faith" lecture series at the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City.
Joseph Smith said he saw and conversed with God and Jesus Christ and other heavenly messengers, not to mention his discovery and recovery of the golden plates that were in his possession for most of two years, Brother Barney observed.
"Some may assume this sure knowledge, including his tactile experience with the plates, precludes the exhibition of faith required of everybody else yearning for God's power in their lives," he said. Yet his demonstration of faith in God and Jesus Christ parallels the acquisition of the kind of faith taught in the scriptures that is available to everyone, he added.
"What became the sacred texts of Mormonism make explicit that faith for all of us is derived from a step-by-step advance in belief, understanding and knowledge," Brother Barney explained, "the result being an increase of what we may abbreviate as faith."
One cannot discuss the Prophet's faith without including the essential components, understanding and knowledge, he said. "And the feature that makes all of this worth discussing is that there doesn't appear to be an alternative to this procedure for prophet, priest or publican." Brother Barney said the faith he was discussing "may be the aspiration of us all."
Many of the truths revealed to Joseph Smith came by way of his demonstration of faith, understanding and knowledge, Brother Barney suggested. However, the virtues of patience and confidence are synonymous with those words, he added "both of which became descriptors of the style and ministry of the Prophet."
He quoted this from a sermon given by Joseph in April 1843: "Knowledge does away with darkness, suspense and doubt. For where knowledge is, there is not doubt nor suspense nor darkness. There is no pain so awful as the pain of suspense. This is the condemnation of the wicked. Their doubt and anxiety and suspense causes weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. In knowledge there is power."
Brother Barney expressed the hope that his listeners would see "that faith, understanding and knowledge acquired by Joseph provided the enduring virtues that allowed the Lord Jesus Christ to work through this young prophet for the rest of his life."
He explained, "It is my premise this evening that Joseph Smith's faith equipped him with the patience and confidence to keep himself in the receptive circumstances where the Savior could reveal to him the plan of knowledge and salvation — not all at once, which may not have required the kind of faith demonstrated by the Prophet during his lifetime — but incrementally, the principle of which Joseph himself taught."
Of his heavenly visitors, Joseph Smith said that they "all declared each one their dispensation, their rights, their keys, their honor, their majesty and glory and the power of their priesthood, giving line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little," Brother Barney noted.
He quoted the late Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve: "In your testimonies of Joseph, make allowance for how much came through him, more at times than he could have immediately and fully comprehended."
To illustrate the patience and confidence inherent in Joseph's faith, Brother Barney spoke of the period when the Prophet under divine inspiration revised the biblical text and produced what today is called the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. "The process from 1830 to 1833, we believe, triggered countless queries by the Prophet to the Lord for clarification and understanding."
For example when Joseph came to John 3:5, he deleted only the word "of" from the verse and let the concept stand that except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Similarly, when he came to New Testament passages pertaining to salvation for the dead, he altered them very little if at all.
"What I am suggesting here is that what we know today as the plan of redemption for all of God's children was apparently not known by Joseph in the early period of his ministry," Brother Barney said.
It was during this period of biblical revision that Joseph Smith received the revelation that is today Doctrine and Covenants 76, "a configuration of the post-mortal world that challenged considerably what was the then-current Christian world's conception of heaven and hell," Brother Barney said.
"The negative aftermath of receiving that revelation surely could have dampened any enthusiasm he may have had for boldly declaring new instruction on doctrine," he said. "To rebound from that resistance stemming from the revulsion of some of his own people required an enormous amount of faith, understanding and knowledge."
