Editorial note — Front matter

[Footnote G: Doc. & Cov. 124:30.]

[Footnote H: Some of those who would destroy the work of God, have declared that the Church was rejected, with its dead, because the temple at Nauvoo was not finished; and, say they, the Lord, in this revelation, declared that he would give the Saints sufficient time to build a house (temple) unto him, and if they failed to build it in the sufficient time, they would be rejected with their dead. The fact is, that the Nauvoo Temple was built, and many of the Saints received their endowments in it, and labored for their dead before they were finally driven from Nauvoo by their enemies. But the meaning of this revelation is perverted; the Lord did not say he would reject the Church, with its dead, if they failed to build the temple, but that they would be rejected if they did not perform the ordinances for their dead in the temple when it was prepared for that purpose. Here is the commandment in question (sec. 124:31-35):

"But I command you, all ye my Saints, to build a house unto me; and I grant unto you a sufficient time to build a house unto me, and during this time your baptisms [i.e. outside of a temple] shall be acceptable unto me.

"But, behold, at the end of this appointment [i.e. the sufficient time] your baptisms for your dead shall not be acceptable unto me [i. e. outside of a temple] and if ye do not these things [i. e. temple ordinances] at the end of the appointment, ye shall be rejected as a Church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God.

"For verily I say unto you, that after you have had sufficient time to build a house to me, wherein the ordinances of baptizing for the dead belongeth, and for which the same was instituted from before the foundation of the world, your baptisms for your dead [i.e. in any other place than in a temple] cannot be acceptable unto me, for therein are the keys of the holy priesthood ordained that you may receive honor and glory.

"And after this time [when a house is prepared] your baptism for the dead, by those who art scattered abroad, are not acceptable unto me, saith the Lord." [Bold face and brackets are mine. J.F.S.]

And if ye do not these things at the end of the appointment, obviously does not mean "if ye do not build a temple at the end of the appointment," as our critics infer it does, but it refers to the ordinances that were to be performed in the temple, and the failure on the part of the Saints to perform these ordinances for their dead was the thing that would cause their rejection with their dead, and not the failure to build the temple, which was merely the edifice in which the saving principles were to be performed. This is in harmony with the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, who said that if we neglect the salvation of our dead "we do it at the peril of our own salvation! Why? Because we without them cannot be made perfect." (Doc. & Cov. sec. 28:15.)

The virtue of salvation for the dead is not in the structure of the temple, but in the ordinances which are performed in the temple. The temple is to the ordinances just what the vessel is to the life-giving nourishment it contains. Those who would reject us on a technicality, because, as they say, "we did not finish the temple," neither build temples nor perform the ordinances for the dead, wherein they prove their rejection by the Lord, according to the revelations of Joseph Smith, the prophet.]