Holy Ghost

The Godhead Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. According to revelation, as documented elsewhere on this site, the Father is Father Adam, the Son is Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost is Joseph Smith: the third distinct personage of the Godhead, the Witness and Testator appointed to preside over the seventh dispensation.

The fullest treatment appears in Fred C. Collier’s The Trinity and the Holy Spirits, which presents the complete argument and source chain for Joseph Smith’s identity as the Holy Ghost and the ministry of subordinate Holy Spirits.

God the Third: Witness and Testator

Joseph Smith taught that an everlasting covenant was made before the organization of this earth between three personages: God the First, the Creator; God the Second, the Redeemer; and God the Third, the Witness or Testator. The Trinity and the Holy Spirits applies that framework to the Godhead Trinity and states the office plainly: “God the Third is called the Holy Ghost and the Witness or Testator.”1

The titles identify the mission. The Holy Ghost bears witness of the Father and the Son, leads the faithful into light and truth, and stands as the presiding Spirit over others called to minister in that same work. His mortal mission belongs to the seventh dispensation, where the fulness of the Gospel is restored and the Testator seals his witness with his blood.2

Joseph Smith in Probation

The Prophet’s August 27, 1843 teaching is central to the doctrine: “the Holy Ghost is now in a state of Probation which if he should perform in righteousness he may pass through the same or a similar course of things that the Son has.”3 This statement makes the Holy Ghost a personage capable of mortality, righteousness, and progression, not an impersonal force.

A January 30, 1842 discourse preserved by Wilford Woodruff gives the same larger divine sequence. Joseph taught that the God and Father of Jesus Christ had redeemed a world, that Jesus Christ redeemed this earth in the same pattern, and that “the Holy Ghost would do the same in his turn & so would all the Saints.”4 That statement clarifies why the Holy Ghost may be spoken of as in probation while still belonging to the Godhead order.

In the Nauvoo discourses that followed, Joseph Smith repeatedly used the titles Witness, Testator, and Holy Ghost in ways that point back to his own mission. He spoke of a witness over the whole world, of keys and testimony committed in the last days, and of a Testator whose witness would gain force through death.5

Holy Ghost and Holy Spirits

This doctrine does not deny that many righteous spirits administer as Holy Spirits to mortals. Rather, it distinguishes the presiding personage from those who serve under the same ministry. Joseph Smith, as Holy Ghost, presides over other spirits who bear witness, comfort, teach, and lead souls toward truth.

That distinction also explains why the Holy Ghost can take upon himself mortality while the ministry of the Holy Ghost continues among the Saints. The office has a Head, and the ministry includes other spirits called to participate in that work.6

President Franklin D. Richards, then President of the Quorum of the Twelve, articulated the same distinction in an 1899 council meeting recorded by Rudger Clawson: “the Holy Ghost presides over all righteous spirits,” and when the Holy Ghost is conferred upon a man, President Richards understood it to be “a righteous spirit, or in other words, a Holy Ghost under the direction of the Holy Ghost.”7

President Brigham Young used similar language in 1854, rendering praise to “the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost; or in other words, Holy Spirits,” then adding that he did not pretend to say how many spirits the Lord had sent forth.8 The statement is not as explicit as President Richards’s later explanation, but it preserves the same vocabulary of the Holy Ghost and Holy Spirits.

Zina D. H. Young’s Witness in Women of Mormondom

Women of Mormondom preserves Zina D. H. Young’s witness of the Comforter remaining with the Saints after the martyrdom and during the August 8, 1844 transfiguration. Zina said that “the sweet spirit — the comforter — did not forsake them,” and that after the transfiguration “the comforter remained.”9 Read together with Fred C. Collier’s treatment, her account belongs to the same witness-bearing doctrine: Joseph Smith as presiding Holy Ghost, with other righteous spirits ministering under that office.

Why This Matters

If Adam-God identifies the Father, and the Two Trinities framework distinguishes Creation Trinity from Godhead Trinity, this doctrine identifies the third member of the present Godhead. It also gives meaning to Joseph Smith’s dispensation: he is not merely an inspired founder, but the Witness and Testator over the whole world in the last days.

For that reason, references to the Holy Ghost should be read in light of Joseph Smith’s presiding identity and the ministry of the Holy Spirits who act under that headship.

Further Study

  • The Trinity and the Holy Spirits — the full doctrinal treatment of the Godhead, Joseph Smith as the Holy Ghost, and the plurality of Holy Spirits.
  • Two Trinities — the framework distinguishing the Creation Trinity from the Godhead Trinity.
  • Adam-God — the Father’s identity as Father Adam.
  • Nature of Deity — the larger doctrine of embodied, familial Deity.

Notes

  1. Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 190, as discussed in Fred C. Collier, The Trinity and the Holy Spirits, Doctrine of the Priesthood (1987; third edition printed 2000), 22. ↩
  2. Collier, The Trinity and the Holy Spirits, 22. ↩
  3. Joseph Smith, August 27, 1843, Words of Joseph Smith, 245, as quoted in Collier, The Trinity and the Holy Spirits, 37. ↩
  4. Joseph Smith, Discourse, January 30, 1842, in Wilford Woodruff, “Book of Revelations,” pages 5–6, Wilford Woodruff Papers page 5 and page 6; see also Joseph Smith Papers transcript. ↩
  5. Collier, The Trinity and the Holy Spirits, 37–41; see also Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 364–65. ↩
  6. Collier, The Trinity and the Holy Spirits, 37 note 20. ↩
  7. Rudger Clawson diary, January 11, 1899, in Stan Larson, ed., A Ministry of Meetings: The Apostolic Diaries of Rudger Clawson (Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1993), 21. ↩
  8. President Brigham Young, February 12, 1854, in Teachings of President Brigham Young 3:237; quoted in Collier, The Trinity and the Holy Spirits, 4. ↩
  9. Edward W. Tullidge, Women of Mormondom (New York: Tullidge & Crandall, 1877), 325–27; discussed in Collier, The Trinity and the Holy Spirits, 53–54. ↩