God the Father: From “a personage of spirit” to “a body of flesh and bones”

The defining contrast

Two descriptions of the Godhead, both printed as Doctrine and Covenants

From 1835 to 1921, the Lectures on Faith were bound into the Doctrine and Covenants as its first part, under the heading “On the doctrine of the church of the Latter Day Saints.” The preface, signed by Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams, says they were included “in consequence of their embracing the important doctrine of salvation.”

Section 130 entered the Doctrine and Covenants in 1876. For 45 years the two descriptions of the Father were printed in the same book.

The later teaching

Where Doctrine and Covenants 130 comes from

On April 2, 1843, at Ramus, Illinois, Joseph Smith corrected a sermon by the apostle Orson Hyde. Willard Richards’s entry in Joseph Smith’s journal records: “the Father has a body of flesh & bones as tangible as mans the Son also, but the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit.” Richards was not present; the Joseph Smith Papers note that he apparently relied on William Clayton’s notes and on conversations with people who were. The 1876 edition canonized this material as section 130.

The same teaching appears earlier. Notes from about March 9, 1841 report Joseph Smith saying “the Son Had a Tabernicle & so had the father But the Holly Ghost is a personage of spirit without tabernicle.”

The Church’s current Godhead overview follows section 130: “The members of the Godhead are three separate beings. The Father and the Son have tangible bodies of flesh and bones, and the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit.”

The institutional explanation

“Never presented to nor accepted by the Church”

The 1921 edition’s explanatory introduction states that the Lectures on Faith “were bound in with the Doctrine and Covenants in some of its former issues” and “are not included in this edition.” It says they were prepared for the School of the Elders in Kirtland in the winter of 1834–1835, “but they were never presented to nor accepted by the Church as being otherwise than theological lectures or lessons.” The introduction gives no doctrinal reason for the removal and does not mention Lecture 5.

The 1835 record differs. The minutes of the August 17, 1835 General Assembly, printed in the book itself, record that Elder John Smith testified “that the revelations in said book were true, and that the lectures were judiciously arranged and compiled, and were profitable for doctrine.” The Kirtland high council then “accepted and acknowledged them as the doctrine and covenants of their faith.” Each quorum then voted to accept the book, which included the lectures.

Joseph Smith was absent from that assembly. Some testimonies that day mention only the revelations. The minutes nonetheless show that the lectures were presented to the assembly as part of the book, discussed as doctrine, and included in the book it accepted.

What changed

Body, number, and canon

The Father’s nature. Lecture 5 contrasts the Father as “a personage of spirit” with the Son as “a personage of tabernacle, made, or fashioned like unto man.” In the lecture, the tabernacle is the human form, and it is assigned to the Son. Section 130 gives the Father “a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s.”

The Holy Spirit. Lecture 5 says “two personages” make up the supreme power. It describes the Holy Spirit as the mind the Father and Son share, not as a third personage. Section 130 and the current Church call the Holy Ghost “a personage of Spirit” and the third of “three separate beings.”

Canonical status. The lectures were printed as the doctrinal part of the Doctrine and Covenants and accepted with the book in 1835. In 1921 the Church removed them and said they had never been accepted as more than lessons. The teaching that conflicts with current doctrine was removed from scripture; the teaching that matches it stayed.

The 1921 introduction does not say the Godhead teaching was the reason for the removal. That connection is our inference from the content of Lecture 5 and the timing, not a stated Church position.

Biblical context

“God is spirit”

In John 4:24 (ESV), Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The conversation is about where true worship takes place, Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim; Jesus’ answer is that worship is not bound to a place. Mainstream Christian traditions have read the verse as describing the Father’s nature. Lecture 5’s “personage of spirit” stands closer to that reading than section 130 does.

In Luke 24:39 (ESV), the risen Jesus says, “a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” The statement concerns Jesus’ own resurrected body. Section 130 uses the same “flesh and bones” language but applies it to the Father as well.

Finding

A teaching revised, then removed from scripture

From 1835 to 1921, the Doctrine and Covenants taught that the Father is “a personage of spirit,” that the Son is the personage of tabernacle, and that the Holy Spirit is the mind they share. By 1841 Joseph Smith was teaching that the Father has a body, and section 130, canonized in 1876, says so. In 1921 the Church removed the Lectures on Faith and said they had never been accepted as more than lessons, although the 1835 minutes record their acceptance with the book. The current Church teaches three separate beings, with the Father embodied, matching the 1843 teaching and not the 1835 lecture.