McIntire Minute Book[1]

Next Meeting … Joseph Said th they wiked will Not all be Distroyed at the Coming of Christ & also there will be wiked During the Melenium [2]—for instance Isaiah says the Days of an infant shall be as the age of a tree [3] also Zarch.—says all who Does Not Come up year by year with their Gifts to the preasts of the tabernicle that No Rain shall fall upon them—& that Jesus will be a Resident on the Earth a thousand [years] with the Saints is Not the Case but will Raign over the saints & come Down & instruct as he Did the 5 hundrd Brethern [4] (1st Cor. 15) & those of the first Resurrection will also Raign with him over the saints—then after the Little Season is Expired & the Earth underGoes its Last Change & is Gloryfyed then will all the meek inherit the Earth wherein Dwelleth Righteous [5]—he says satan Cannot Seduce us by his Enticements unles we in our harts Consent & yeald—our organization such that we can Resest the Devil If we were Not organized so we would Not be free agents. [6]

—16 March 1841

Notes

[1] This report of the Prophet's remarks at the Nauvoo Lyceum is here published for the first time.

[2] As President Joseph Fielding Smith has pointed out (Teachings, p. 268 n), revelation through Joseph Smith applies the term wicked (D&C 84:53 [49-53]) to individuals who in other revelations are referred to as the "honorable men of the earth" (D&C 76:75). Apparently those who, as President Smith says, are "without Gospel ordinances" are "wicked." They are tolerable for the millennial, terrestrialized earth; however, this ultimate sense of the term wicked will eventually apply when terrestrial individuals are prevented from entering the celestialized, glorified, permanent residence of Christ (D&C 130:9). See note 4, this discourse.

[3] Isaiah 65:20-22.

[4] Zechariah 14:16-19; Revelation 5:10* (20:4, 6); 1 Corinthians 15:6. Twenty one months later, in December 1842, Joseph Smith made essentially the same statement. While the statement as published in the History of the Church, 5:212 (or Teachings, p. 268) is somewhat equivocal—"They ["Christ and the resurrected Saints"] will not probably dwell upon the earth, but will visit it when they please, or when it is necessary to govern it."—however, neither the McIntire account here presented nor the original source for the History of the Church are as tentative. In the Prophet's diary kept by Willard Richards, the statement reads, "Christ & the Resurrected saints will reign over the earth, but not dwell on the earth visit it when they please or when necessary to govern it" (Joseph Smith Diary, 30 December 1842, Church Archives).

[5] Revelation 20:3; D&C 43:22; 88:17-26; 110:16; 130:9; Matthew 5:5.

[6] Genesis 2:17; Moses 3:17; 7:32; Abraham 5:12, 13; 2 Nephi 2:11-27.