Elder Bruce R. McConkie on Priesthood Restoration and the Doctrine of Keys

Unpublished typescript of Mormon Doctrine class lecture given at University of Utah Institute, 23 October 1967

Moroni brought the Book of Mormon; John the Baptist brought the Aaronic Priesthood; Peter, James, and John brought three things: number one, they brought the Melchizedec Priesthood; number two, they brought the keys of the Kingdom; and number three, they brought the missionary commission. The chief reference on this is section 27:12-13. Everybody in the Church knows that they brought the Melchizedic Priesthood, that isn’t a problem in that regard. Most everybody knows they brought the keys of the kingdom, or they aught to know that because it’s recited in so many words in this passage in [D&C] section 27. On this matter of the missionary commission, let’s just think a little bit and see what’s involved. The Lord said to Peter, James, and John, and all of the apostles: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.” [Mark 16:15-16] So in that dispensation a charge had been placed on the apostles to go into all the world; that was the commission that they had. That was their obligation for that dispensation. Well that’s exactly what they brought back—a missionary commission. A commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel, and as soon as they [Peter, James, and John] had come back and the organization [of the Church] was affected we began missionary work. We didn’t wait for anything else; the Church got set up in April of 1830 because they had the keys of the kingdom, and immediately began to do missionary work. We have the same commission that they had to spread the same gospel that had now been restored….

Let us take some time to read section 128—a summary statement about the Prophet’s [unintelligible] about the restoration of various things. Let’s begin in the middle of the 18th verse: “it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed…shall be revealed….”

Now drop down to verse 20: “And again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from Cumorah! [we’re starting out on a list here] Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfillment of the prophets—the book to be revealed. A voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca county, declaring the three witnesses to bear record of the book! The voice of Michael [let’s add to our list] on the banks of the Susquehanna, detecting the devil when he appeared as an angel of light! The voice of Peter, James, and John in the wilderness between Harmony, Susquehanna county, and Colesville, Broome county, on the Susquehanna river, declaring themselves as possessing the keys of the kingdom, and of the dispensation of the fulness of times!” Actually we should say four, they had the keys of the dispensation of the fulness of times, also, because Peter, James, and John restored that.

“And again, the voice of God in the chamber of old Father Whitmer, in Fayette, Seneca county, and at sundry times, and in divers places through all the travels and tribulations of this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! And the voice of Michael, the archangel; the voice of Gabriel, [here is another one] and of Raphael [we’ll add him], and of divers angels, from Michael or Adam down to the present time, all declaring their dispensation, their rights, their keys, their honors, their majesty and glory, and the power of their priesthood; giving line upon line, precept upon precept [v.21].”

All right, he [Joseph Smith] said “divers angels.” Some other people came and one of them was named Moses. And one of them was Elijah. One of them was named Elias. This is section 110 now, in the D&C. When Moses came, he brought the keys of the gathering of Israel; he restored them, and also the keys of the leading of the ten lost tribes from the land of the north. So when the ten tribes come back, they will come back under the direction of the President of the Church. He will arrange that. It won’t be someone else that will come and join the Church. The keys were brought by Moses to the Church and keys are the right to govern. Elijah came and he brought the keys of the sealing power. The sealing power is the power to make all ordinances binding in time and in eternity. The chief thing involved in the sealing power is Celestial Marriage. We get married in the temple because Elijah came. We can have a marriage that is binding on earth and in eternity. Baptism is valid because Elijah came to bind on earth and seal in heaven. Next comes Elias, and this time it is a man named Elias. It says that he brought back the gospel of Abraham. That’s a very strange thing. It doesn’t say he brought back the gospel of Christ; it says he brought back the gospel of Abraham. That is the exact language of the revelation. So we ask ourselves: what is the gospel of Abraham? It’s a little strange usage of words, but what this means is that he brought back the commission and power that Abraham had—whatever Abraham had, somebody named Elias brought back.

Here is something that nobody really knows—who this Elias was. A man named Elias. Somebody says [speculates] he was Gabriel, somebody says he was someone else; let’s not worry, it doesn’t matter who he was. All that matters to our presentation is that he brought back something that is called the gospel of Abraham; meaning the commission that God gave Abraham. Abraham had some kind of a commission that God gave to him, and this man Elias brought it back. When Elias gave [Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery] his commission, he said to them, “in us and in our seed all generations of the earth will be blessed.” That is the commission that God gave Abraham. It’s not too hard to figure out what that means. Elijah brought back Celestial Marriage. Abraham brought back plural marriage. That’s what Abraham had; that’s what the Lord said to Abraham when he instituted plural marriage with him—through Abraham’s seed and through this order of marriage all nations of the earth would be blessed, which is what happened to Abraham.

I have done all the talking and deliberately so I guess, to get the whole picture before us: now we have that picture before us. We have a promise (there was an Old Testament scripture that we don’t know anything about that is lost) that says Elias shall come before the second coming of Christ and restore all things. The Jews knew all about it and Christ quoted it and confirmed that it was true and said that the ancient prophets had written about it, that Elias would come and restore all things. And that this restoration would be before the second coming of the son of man…..

These “diverse angels” could be, among others, Moses, Elijah, and Elias, and so on. What does it mean that there is going to be an Elias of the restoration, who will proceed the second coming of Christ and restore all things? If you take this whole picture you begin to see that no one man restored all things. There is a revelation that says that John the Revelator will restore all things; that he is to be the Elias that is to restore all things. Here is another revelation that says Gabriel will be the Elias that will restore all things. Well what does it mean?—it means that they are all part of a great group of people who restored all things. The Elias of the restoration is all of the prophets who have come; and all the angels and all the men who have held keys and powers to bring to pass the restoration….

The point is we can figure it out. The key to it is that word “all” and the simple real vision that no one prophet restored all things. It took all of them together. Line upon line, precept upon precept, things [keys] come, until we get the restoration of all things.

Now there are some things that we don’t know about. We don’t know what Michael restored. That is an interesting thing—Michael or Adam. What do you think Adam restored? I don’t know what Adam restored, but I can guess. I am not supposed to guess when I’m teaching, but—don’t you quote me but I know you will—I don’t know what Adam restored, but the only thing Adam could have restored is what Adam had. We’ve got a pattern here. Every one of these people who had something, restored what they had. Moroni had the Book of Mormon and he brought it; John the Baptist had the Aaronic Priesthood and he brought it; and Peter, James, and John had certain things and they brought it; and all the rest. Moses had the power to gather Israel in his day and he gave that power again; Elijah had the sealing power in his day and he brought it back. Every time a prophet comes to restore something he brings what he had. What did Adam have that we’ve got to have this day? Well, I don’t know that anybody can say this categorically; you can’t prove it out of the revelations; you can’t read it in any scripture; but what Adam had was the Garden of Eden. Adam had an Edenic earth. We are going to get a Garden of Eden again. And the whole earth will become a Millennial earth and be the same thing as the Garden of Eden. That’s what our Article of Faith says. The earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory [see A of F 10]. It will go back to the way it was in the Garden of Eden. That is part of the restoration of all things. It’s just logical and obvious that that is what Adam restored—the power to change the earth back to its paradisiacal glory.

We don’t even know who Rafael was—but if we’re not too stupid we could do a little guessing and come pretty close. If you want to figure out who Raphael was all you have to do is list all the dispensations that you know anything about. After you have made the whole list of all the dispensations that you know anything about, you discover that somebody came from every one of those dispensations except one. You can read about somebody on this list who came from every dispensation of the past except one—you have one man to spare. We know the principle that somebody came from every dispensation. We don’t know who came from Enoch’s dispensation. I don’t know who Rafael was but it seems quite logical that it was either Enoch or somebody else in his dispensation—who was bringing back what Enoch had. What did Enoch have? Everybody restores what they have. What did Enoch have that nobody else specialized in? Enoch got translated; his whole city got translated. Somebody brought back the power of translation, presumptively. Maybe I’m speculating, but on the other hand it’s the only thing that fits into the whole picture. Somebody brought back the power of translation. And that is what is going to happen when the Millennium arrives—everybody is going to be translated. Every living soul who remains on earth is going to have a change wrought in their bodies so death doesn’t come and they’re going to live on the earth in effect in a translated condition until they’re a hundred years of age when they’re changed in the twinkling of an eye from mortality to immortality.

[Answer to question regarding what Gabriel restored] I can’t prove it, I can only guess. What did Noah have? What did Noah have in his day that is not had since then? He had the earth in one place. It wasn’t divided until after the flood [see 1 Chron. 1:19]. At the second coming of Christ the earth is going to be united again and the land be in one place. I don’t know what Noah brought back—I just think I know what Noah brought back. You come to your own conclusions, but that is what I think. It fits into the picture. We know the principle that everybody brought back what they had. The restoration or restitution of all things involves the return of everything that there has been.

It will be interesting someday to get some actual location in scripture on these things. It very well could be that the sealed part of the Book of Mormon could tell us a lot of things about this. The [brass] plates of Laban, incidentally, are preserved. The Book of Mormon says they will never be destroyed. Someday we’ll get what’s on the plates of Laban. Obviously it’ll be the prophecies of Nehum and Zenos and Zenock and these prophets that are quoted in the Book of Mormon that we don’t have any record of in our Old Testament. Maybe there are records that will tell us about the doctrine of Elias that the Jews knew about. They might tell us a lot of things when we get them and the sealed part of the Book of Mormon and so on. They will fill out the picture where these things are involved.

[Answer to question] The keys come once in a dispensation and they stay as long as the dispensation lasts.

[Answer to question] The key of plural marriage is still here. That’s why we don’t practice it, because it’s still here. The key is the power of authorizing it to be practiced, or denying it to be practiced. The key governs in that field; so the man who holds the keys—the President of the Church—could say: “yes you can practice plural marriage, [or] no you can’t.” Because he holds the keys. That is what authorizes him to say there will be no more plural marriages—because he holds the keys and nobody can perform a plural marriage without the approval of the man who holds the keys.

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