Revelation is Information, Not Emotion

As described at the outset, there is a discrete quantity of knowledge that has to be gained via personal revelation in order for a man to be saved. You cannot get there through accumulating emotion, but rather knowledge. The exclusive mechanism designed to convey that knowledge is individual revelation through the Holy Ghost. Therefore, it is supremely important to understand what is and what is not revelation.

The 2014 priesthood and relief society manual quotes President Benson as teaching “We hear the words of the Lord most often by a feeling. If we are humble and sensitive, the Lord will prompt us through our feelings.”¹ This is false doctrine.

Revelation is informational, not emotional. It consists of the conveyance of knowledge, intelligence, light, and truth. As Joseph taught, “This first comforter or Holy Ghost has no other effect than pure intelligence.”

Joseph taught that it wasn’t easy to recognize the Holy Ghost’s effect. He said that the key to learning to recognize the Holy Ghost is to notice when pure intelligence flows into you: A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.,) those things that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus. (Joseph Smith, TPJS, p. 151.)

Joseph indicated that at least some of the intelligence conveyed through revelation consists of predictions about the future. These predictions serve as signposts to validate the other instructions received in the same “sudden strokes of ideas.” Notice that Joseph omits the description of feelings as an indicator of the Holy Ghost or revelation. To Joseph, revelation was informational, not emotional. It is this information that is required to bring a fallen man up to the character of Christ, which is required to merit salvation. For, as quoted before,

A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power in the other world, as evil spirits will have more knowledge, and consequently more power than many men who are on the earth. Hence it needs revelation to assist us, and give us knowledge of the things of God. (Joseph Smith, TPJS, p. 154.)

The essentiality of personal revelation for salvation is the driving force behind the need for baptism. Baptism gives access to the channel through which God will teach us what we need to know to come up from our lost and fallen state to where we need to be to merit salvation. Nephi describes baptism as the entrance to the way or path to eternal life. The receipt of constant additional knowledge through the Holy Ghost advances us along this path, which culminates in a personal encounter with Christ:

For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do. Behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and there will be no more doctrine given until after he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh. And when he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh, the things which he shall say unto you shall ye observe to do. (2 Nephi 32:56.)

This same journey is depicted in the endowment ceremony, where Adam and Eve progress along the path by heeding the light and truth they have already received, and receiving more. Never in the endowment does God send Adam and Eve feelings to advance them along this path. Instead, God sends messages consisting of new information that helps them become more like Christ.

One stumbling block that prevents recognition that revelation is not emotion is the concept that the fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.” (Galatians 5:17.) Therefore, one may conclude, if I feel love, joy, or peace (all feelings), I am receiving revelation and/or am under the persuasion of the Holy Ghost. Unfortunately, this common understanding is taken out of context and, as will be explained momentarily, has damning consequences. Because emotions are a product of the carnal natural man, they lead one in a course away from God by both encouraging ungodly behavior that feels good and by discouraging godly behavior that is difficult or painful. Receiving emotions as revelation blinds the individual to their true state before God: they both cannot see that they do not receive any or much real revelation and are shielded from the productive conclusion that repentance of false tradition or willful sin is required in order to receive real revelation.

When Paul uses the words love, joy, and peace, he is not describing what it feels like to have the Spirit with you. He is describing the works of one who is guided by the Spirit, and contrasting that to the works of one who is guided by the flesh:

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. (Galatians 5:19-23.)

Just as the fruit of the tree of life is not the iron rod, but the result of walking the iron rod, peace, love, and joy are the fruits received by those who respond obediently to the information conveyed by the Holy Ghost. Incidentally, Paul also describes the “fruit” of the Spirit in another letter, here again speaking of them as what a person guided by the Spirit will produce in their lives, not what it feels like to have the Spirit communicate something to you:

Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. (Ephesians 5:6-10.)

Emotion, peace, or love are not the voice of the Spirit. Rather, a person might respond with these emotions upon hearing the information communicated by the voice of the Spirit. Emotions are not the content of revelation, although they can be a reaction to it.

A telltale sign that a message is from God is that a person is edified afterward. What is edification? God told Oliver and Joseph:

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, blessed art thou for what thou hast done; for thou hast inquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit. If it had not been so, thou wouldst not have come to the place where thou art at this time. Behold, thou knowest that thou hast inquired of me and I did enlighten thy mind; and now I tell thee these things that thou mayest know that thou hast been enlightened by the Spirit of truth; (D&C 6:14-15.)

In other words, you can know you were enlightened by the Spirit of truth, because your mind received instruction that you did not have before. Edification, then, is knowing more than you did previously.

The most pure and noble emotions can be summoned on demand, and then can evaporate just as quickly as they came, all without causing any lasting change in the person, all without effecting a change in that person's character. A mundane movie can elicit high emotion, but the effects are fleeting. Truth, on the other hand, changes people. It edifies them, because as a result of embracing it they become more like Jesus in thought, word, and deed. If it comes by any other way, it is not of God.