The Twin Strands of
Priesthood:
Authority and Power
Copyright © 1996
by Mark M. Thomase
I was 17 when I discovered that Christianity -- true Christianity-- has nothing to do
with rules and ceremonies.
I had been raised in a non-religious home, but nevertheless was intensely curious about
the subject of religion. I believe that I received my call to the ministry as a young man,
before I was a Christian and even before I could explain who Jesus is, when I would walk
past the doors of Our Lady of Grace Church a couple of blocks from my home; and, peering
in, would wonder what went on in there and imagining that someday I would be doing it,
whatever it was. As a teenager, I surveyed world religions but stayed away from the
"Jesus freaks" who hung out at my high school; Lord knows, I didn't want to be
like them! I took philosophy classes and applied Greek logic to the issue of God. I proved
to myself that a god existed, but this god was the "prime mover" of Aristotle
and Thomas Jefferson. And my philosophical musings could not take me any closer to
answering the question of which religion, if any, was the most true.
About this time I noted that my father was acting strangely. He was reading the Bible
an awful lot, especially those new translations that I mistook for religious novels. What
I didn't know that he had been born again, having been led to Christ by a guest at the
motel our family owned and operated. Two years later, we sold the motel and my dad was now
free to go to church on Sundays -- and he invited my mother and me along as we
church-shopped. We ended up at a Baptist church where I heard for the first time that
being right with God wasn't a matter of going to church, or living according to some moral
code, or being baptized. It was a matter of being adopted into God's family by an act of
willful submission to Jesus Christ: being born again, as the Baptists called it. Amid
unexpected cascades of tears, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
I have always recalled that experience as the foundational event in all that has
followed in my life, and have never deviated from it, even when I have fellowshipped with
groups that each that there is more to salvation that God's grace. Still, I prided myself
on my open mind -- so open, in fact, that my brains nearly fell out -- and continued to
investigate every two-bit cult that came down the pike.
After a few years as a Baptist, I met a beautiful teenage girl with whom I fell in
love. The problem was, she was a Mormon, and every responsible adult in both our Churches
repeatedly warned us that Baptists and Mormons should on no account get married. Being
young and mutually attracted to each other, Connie and I did not heed our elders' advice,
but discussed religion at great length. Shortly after we met, I led Connie to Christ. She
graduated from high school and went to college in Utah where she never attended the Mormon
Church but enthusiastically fell in to Campus Crusade for Christ meetings, which gave her
as thoroughly Biblical a foundation in Christ in as short a period of time as I believe is
humanly possible. In response, I studied Mormonism, especially its claim that it is the
only true Church with a divinely ordained authority to act on behalf of God.
I found much that was good in Mormonism, unfortunately mixed with a thoroughly
unbiblical soteriology. For a Mormon, the grace of God is not enough; one is not saved in
the highest degree until he has participated in certain secret temple ceremonies, then
endures to the end; and one may not enter the temple unless he is baptized in a Mormon
ceremony, is ordained to the priesthood in a Mormon ceremony, attends church regularly for
one year, abstains from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea, and tithes to the Church.
Loyalty to the Church is stressed more than relationship with Christ, and salvation is not
by grace alone, but grace plus works plus religious ceremony.
I left the Baptist church in a pique of childish anger, when I realized that my
born-again girlfriend Connie was doing everything she could to gain acceptance from
Baptists but was rebuffed on every hand because she had been a Mormon. I joined the Mormon
Church and tried my level best to be a good Mormon boy, renouncing iced tea and rising
rapidly in the Mormon priesthood. Later I joined the Mormon Church's distant cousin the
Reorganized Church. In both Churches I came to accept that God had restored his priesthood
ministry to the earth thru Joseph Smith, jr.
Unfortunately, the signs and wonders and excitement that seemed to follow Joseph Smith
around and that were duly recorded in the New Testament book of Acts seemed largely absent
in the Mormon and RLDS Churches of the 1970's and 1980's. Nothing was more unremittingly
dull than a Mormon sacrament meeting, unless it was a Mormon stake conference. RLDS
meetings were a little better, being reminiscent of the Baptist services where I met
Jesus. I was not aware that something was missing -- inexplicably absent -- until I began
to hear scattered reports from all corners of the church:
An RLDS missionary to Haiti spoke of prophecy, healings, and miracles being commonplace
there, with the Church growing explosively as a result.
An RLDS member returning from Independence and Tulsa to tell of unusual, contemporary
worship services that were drawing inactive members back to church.
Radio preachers who sounded perfectly sane and Biblical, but who spoke of healing,
prophesying, and speaking in tongues as a matter of course.
My own visit to a Boulder church which did more than sing a few songs out of the
hymnbook: I experienced true worship of God for the first time in my life.
In 1990 my family and I attended a charismatic RLDS meeting in Missouri where we
worshipped God thru praise and worship music. I witnessed healings, and even participated
in a few. One man's prayer halted a rainstorm. I led a 17-year-old Mormon girl to Christ.
And, most significantly for my life, two elders from Tulsa laid their hands on the heads
of Connie and me and we were baptized in the Holy Spirit.
The same Spirit that we encountered in Odessa, Missouri, was at work in the 1st Century
church and in Kirtland, Ohio, when the Mormons were there. It was the authenticating
witness of God's authority. A study of the early days of the revival led by Joseph Smith
allowed me to identify these things as identical to what was going on then, and that which
happened in Bible and Book of Mormon days. Less comfortably for my theology, they also
occurred at the great revival at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801; during the ministries of
John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards in the 18th Century; and most spectacularly, among
Pentecostals and charismatics in this century, absent all authoritative priesthood in the
Mormon sense of the term.
As I studied history and became more involved in the charismatic movement, it became
clear to me that something was seriously wrong with Mormon theology. Mormons and RLDS
could trace their priesthood back to Jesus Christ and his apostles, but they did not have
the slightest idea of what it meant to worship God. And when it came to having the power
of God, they were almost as bad off as the Baptists. The Mormons had the priesthood, but
the Pentecostals and charismatics had every sign that should accompany it!
Since 1990 I have struggled with the question of how this could be. I have had
conversations with prophets and scholars. I have searched the Scriptures and prayed
fervently. In my search I have had a sentence here and a verse there pop out at me; but I
still couldn't grasp the whole picture. Then the Lord showed me everything in a flash of
insight.
Mormons and Protestants readily admit that the First-Century church went into apostasy.
Today, the Catholic Church and most of the Protestant Church that came out of her cling to
the form of the priesthood, ordaining to offices such as deacon and elder. Unfortunately,
history teaches that the medieval church valued the kingdoms of this world over the
Kingdom of God; for many centuries the priesthood of the Church, both Catholic and
Protestant, was a powerless shell. Even so, God sometimes anointed men and women with his
power. These were often so unusual by their infrequence that an anointed healer or
visionary was canonized!
Even more startling than their infrequence was the fact that such anointings seemed to
take place outside the structure of the priesthood as often as not. God touched women,
laymen, and, with the coming of Protestantism, so-called heretics. The most notable
concentration of manifestations in the early Protestant era was among the 17th-Century
Quakers, a group that taught that an ordained ministry was not only unnecessary, but
positively undesirable! Clearly, God was at work outside the so-called authoritative
priesthood; the legal authority had been separated from the charismatic authority.
For a season these two lines of authority were reunited, as the result of the great
Joseph Smith revival. A careful study of Smith's live indicates that he was called to do
three things:
To bring forth the Book of Mormon. The full implications of this work are only now
coming to light, and will be discussed in detail later.
To restore the priesthood authority, and reunite it, by bringing forth a new line of
authority from heavenly messengers, to go forth with unction and anointing with signs and
wonders, and to restore certain lost offices, especially the office of apostle. The office
of apostle brings with it the authority to confer the baptism in the Holy Spirit, an
authority which had been lost for centuries.
To bring forth Zion, the New Jerusalem, in Jackson county, Missouri. The fact that the
saints not only failed to do this, but seem to have lost interest in it, accounts in part
for the apostasy of Mormonism and the redivision of the legal and charismatic lines of
divine authority.
By about 1834 or 1835 the Mormon people, recently expelled from Jackson, began to take
their eyes off of God and off of the building of Zion. They began to speculate about
marriage in the afterlife and polygamy, and the nature of the Godhead and our own godlike
attributes in the hereafter. Despite the plain warnings of the Book of Mormon against
secret combinations such as the Masonic Order, Smith and many other prominent Mormons
actually became Masons and later introduced Masonic-like secret rituals into the Church as
essential for salvation. At Nauvoo, the Mormon people violated another tenet of the Book
of Mormon by putting their trust in the arm of flesh: fine brick houses flourished,
protected by the unusually large Nauvoo Legion. And then as now, the people began to
concentrate far more on building "the Church" than on building Zion.
Revelation to the Church, which was almost exclusively focused on the building of Zion,
all but ceased when the focus on Jesus and his Zion ceased. Leaders built up elaborate
priesthood structures which were unknown to the early church; the First Presidency, and
quorums of Twelve and Seventy. Joseph left such a confused organization that confusion was
inevitable when he died.
To make a long story short, more than 99% of all saints gravitated toward two groups
after Joseph's death: The Mormon Church, which claimed authority by having a majority of
the Quorum of the Twelve, and the RLDS Church, which called a new quorum of apostles by
revelation and which claimed legitimacy by having the holy Smith family as members,
especially Joseph Smith III, Joseph jr.'s designee as prophetic successor. Each group had
a sizable number of lesser priesthood holders.
Even loyal RLDS members will admit that Brigham Young's claim to govern the Church in
his capacity as President of the Twelve is very strong. Brigham even received a revelation
for the Church, directing the evacuation of Nauvoo (Utah D&C 136). However, nothing in
scripture or Church law existed to allow Brigham to appoint a new First Presidency, with
himself as President. Such could only be done by revelation, and revelation had already
designated Joseph III (or, alternatively, David Whitmer) to that calling. Brigham's action
was clearly out of order. Never again would Brigham Young present revelation to the Church
for approval in conference as the word of God.
Even worse, according to Mormon Church scriptures, was Brigham's dictatorial methods,
both in Nauvoo and later in the Salt Lake Valley. Young moved quickly and shrewdly to
consolidate all power in his person; dissidents could be dealt with gently, roughed up, or
even killed as occasion demanded.1 In so doing, Young and the apostles who followed him
forfeited their priesthood authority according to Utah D&C 121: "when we
undertake . . . to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the
children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves
. . . Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man."
Yet, the Bible promises that "the gifts and the calling of God are
irrevocable." (Romans 11:29)2 The apostles ordained by revelation to Joseph Smith
remained apostles, even if their anointing was taken. By this measure, the last surviving
apostle ordained by Smith's authority was Wilford Woodruff, who died in 1898.
Just two years later, an obscure minister named Charles Parham founded a Bible school
in Topeka, Kansas -- the outskirts of the land of Zion. Parham, a Methodist of Quaker
upbringing, and his disciples were concerned about the lack of power in Christianity, and
a study of the New Testament showed them that Protestants had lacked the laying on of
hands for the gift of the Holy Spirit (an ordinance that in New Testament times required
an apostle to perform, and which Joseph Smith had restored and delegated to any elder.)
Accordingly, Parham's students laid hands on Miss Agnes Ozman, and prayed for the gift of
the Holy Spirit. Startlingly, Ozman began speaking in what was described by onlookers as
Chinese; for several days she lost the ability to communicate in English. Parham and
several other students also received this baptism in the Holy Spirit with signs following.
In other words, Parham and his students received an apostolic anointing two years after
the last regularly ordained apostle had died!
Charles Parham's Pentecostal revival quickly swept Kansas City, the land of Zion. From
there it spread to the interestingly-named Zion, Illinois, to Los Angeles, to Norway, and
worldwide. Today the large majority of converts to Christianity are won by
Pentecostalists; Pentecostalism may have already supplanted Catholicism as the dominant
form of Christianity in Latin America.
Although Mormonism lost all authority in the higher quorums in 1898, only to see that
anointing appear spontaneously and with great power elsewhere, there remained the
Reorganized Church. There, as in Mormonism. there was no immunity against dictators in the
presiding quorums. Joseph Smith III died in 1914 and designated his son, Frederick Madison
Smith, to succeed him. Fred M. ran the Church with an iron hand. In 1919 he silenced a
priesthood member and refused to reverse the silence, even when the Quorum of the Twelve
and his own counselors voted unanimously to do so. In 1922 he presented a revelatory
document to the Church. It was rejected by the Twelve, the Presiding Bishopric (all three
of whom resigned in protest), and the Seventy; by Church law it should have been a dead
issue, but Fred M. imposed it on the Church by force of will. In 1925 he assumed supreme
directional control over all areas of the Church, a move that his opponents compared to
papism and Brighamism. Fred M.'s reign, as one apostle observed, was "tantamount to
apostasy."
Nevertheless, Fred M.'s apostasy did not end the anointed line of Smith descendants in
the First Presidency. The holy family continued to reign over the Church until 1996, when
Wallace B. Smith retired as president of the Church and was succeeded by W. Grant
McMurray.
When Apostle Wilford Woodruff died in 1898, a revival of unprecedented power broke out
just a few years later in the land of Zion. As history is our guide, we can expect a
similar Holy Ghost outbreak within a few years of Wally B.'s resignation.3 In the next few
years, I submit, we will see another reunification of the legal and charismatic authority
lines that will eventually usher in the final harvest and the second coming of Christ!
Now let us look at the testimony and prophecies of Pentecostal scholars and prophets.
One of the most interesting phenomena to sweep the Pentecostal/charismatic community in
recent years is the recognition of certain men and women as prophets. Although the
so-called prophetic movement is considered a move of God's Spirit for the 1980's, the
ministries of some of these prophets goes back to the immediate post-World-War-II era.
Most notable, for our purposes, of these forerunner prophets, was a resident of
Independence, Missouri, named Bob Jones (no relation to the founder of Bob Jones
University in South Carolina.)
As early as the 1950's, Jones prophesied a great revival among the RLDS people. Jones
even went so far as to approach the President of the RLDS Church, Israel A. Smith, in his
Independence office, to tell him to prepare his people. Smith, unable to distinguish a
true prophet from the parade of false ones that constantly present themselves to Mormon
leaders, threw Jones out. In a parting prophecy, Jones warned Smith that if the RLDS
Church did not prepare for the coming revival, God would send it anyway, among RLDS
priesthood leaders, or, if they were rejected by the Church, among those the Church
rejected! Bob Jones deserves honor as one of the great forerunners of the coming revival.
It is interesting, and significant, that the two great prophets of this revival have had
the most common names in the English language: Smith and Jones. Surely this is symbolic
that the Lord's Spirit is being poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17)!
In his sweeping vision of the last days, The Harvest, Rick Joyner prophesies:
For example, it was because of one righteous act by Harry S. Truman, when he recognized
the new state of Israel against the counsel of almost everyone in his government as well
as world opinion, his home state of Missouri will be favored as a center of revival in the
U.S., and his home town of Independence MO. (Kansas City area) will become a blessing to
many other nations.4
The state of Israel has figured into latter-day prophecy before, of course, with many
Pentecostals and charismatics figuring the birth of Israel in 1948 as an important time
marker. For Dr. Bill Hamon, it was that, and more: Hamon explicitly teaches that the
Aaronic priesthood order was restored in 1948.5 Mormons, of course, teach that the Aaronic
priesthood was restored some 120 years earlier. Is it possible that there were two
restorations: the first one because Christendom had lost the power and authority of God,
and the second one in 1948, because Mormons had done the same? If so, can we expect a
second restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood? According to Bob Jones, yes, we can!
First [God] will bring the five-fold [ministry], but there is a ministry after the
five-fold called the Ministry of Perfection: the Melchizedek Priesthood. You that are here
now, you'll be moving into the five-fold ministries, but your children will be moving into
the ministries of perfection.6
With the lapse of priesthood authority in the higher quorums of the RLDS Church,
latter-day prophecy now states that its priesthood holders will lead a revival that will
sweep the earth like none before it. The last time such a revival swept the earth was the
Pentecostal revival after the death of Wilford Woodruff. This Independence revival will be
charismatic in nature, with ex-RLDS ministers receiving the fullness of the gospel thru
the baptism in the Holy Spirit, with speaking in tongues and other signs following, as it
was at Kirtland, Azusa Street, and in the days of the New Testament and the Book of
Mormon. In other words, this revival will consist of a second restoration of the
Melchizedek Priesthood, and the legal authority of that priesthood will be reunited with
the charismatic authority of signs and wonders, together forming a force unstoppable on
earth or hell.
Finally, a word on the Book of Mormon. All Christians embrace the Bible, especially the
New Testament, as Scripture. The Doctrine and Covenants is a blueprint for building a
Zionic society. But what are we to do with the Book of Mormon? This is a question that has
dogged believers since its publication in 1830. Most Christians, of course, reject the
Book of Mormon, calling it (at best) a work of religious fiction. Mormons use it as a
missionary tool, saying that the book proves that the Mormon Church is the only true
church -- a startling non-sequitur. Others, including many believers in the Book, are
embarrassed by it, wondering why Joseph Smith was given two seemingly unrelated tasks: to
bring forth the Book of Mormon and to restore the true Church (a common, but unfounded
assumption, as we have seen. To repeat, his task was to restore the office of apostle,
with the power to confer the baptism of the Holy Spirit.)
Of course, the Book of Mormon is (as its Mormon Church subtitle proclaims) a second
witness of Christ. But the sovereign God needs no such second witness! The Mormon Church
has made this second witness a stumbling block by identifying the plain and precious
truths of the Book with the corrupt Mormon system of multiple gods and
salvation-by-temple-works. The truth of the matter is that the Mormon Church is under
condemnation because you have treated lightly the things you have received . . . and this
condemnation resteth upon the children of Zion, even all. And they shall remain under this
condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and
the former commandments which I have given them, not only to day, but to do according to
that which I have written. (Utah D&C 84:54-57)
The true prophet Ezra Taft Benson repeatedly affirmed that the Mormon Church was yet
under this condemnation, its mind darkened.
What is the nature of this rejection of the Book of Mormon? Indisputably, the Mormon
Church has flooded the earth with the Book. But they have yet to "do according to
that which I have written" and have forgotten the new covenant that is in that which
is written (i.e., not any unwritten temple covenants!) Mormons use the Book to convert
investigators, but neglect the teachings of simple faith in Jesus for salvation, with
tongues and other signs following. This is the message that permeates that Book! Hence,
Mormons pursue salvation by following the Mormon religious system rather than thru simple
trust in Christ's grace, and have their minds darkened (D&C 84:54) so they cannot see
or acknowledge the great works of God bursting loose around them, apart from the Mormon
system!
Yet even this great message of grace and power is not the purpose of the Book of
Mormon, for grace and power are also taught in the New Testament. Here is the key: just as
the Book of Doctrine and Covenants is a blueprint for the building of Zion, the Book of
Mormon is a hidden blueprint for all of God's dealings with humanity, as Sterling Allan
has demonstrated.7 There are amazing parallels between Book of Mormon events and other
events in sacred and secular history, some of which no human being could have forged.
Startlingly enough, this hidden message of the Book of Mormon suggests that we are in an
era when the Mormon and RLDS Churches will reject the truth and be themselves rejected. We
will endure a time of increasing economic and political insecurity, leading up to a great,
latter-day prophet or body of prophets who will restore the Zionic kingdom and make way
for the great Second Coming of Christ himself.
Together, these three books -- the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine
and Covenants (or latter-day prophecy in general) -- provide a cord of three strands; the
New Testament teaches the way to personal salvation, the Book of Mormon provides the big
picture of the coming temporal kingdom, and present-day revelation gives the 'marching
orders' for our time. This work is given for further fine-tuning. Here is what the Spirit
is doing and is about to do; will you accept the challenge?
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