The Holy Order

The Holy Order is the Priesthood order through which the Church of the Firstborn is administered on earth. It is not merely another name for ordinary Church membership, nor is it a poetic synonym for the Church of Jesus Christ. As Fred C. Collier elucidates regarding Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo work, it is the higher order of Priesthood, law, ordinance, and family government connected with the Church of the Firstborn.

The treatment here follows the foundational works The Church of the Firstborn and the Holy Order of God and The Nauvoo Doctrine in Light of Book of Mormon Prophecy, Part 1: The Concept.

Not Another Name for the Church of Jesus Christ

The Church of the Firstborn is not simply the Church of Jesus Christ under a different title. The two have one ultimate divine purpose, but they are not the same organization.

“… that these two names not only refer to different organizations, but that their missions are also different. That they have the same ultimate goal may be said in truth, even as the Father and the Son are one in purpose; yet still these two beings are separate and each has a different mission to perform in the accomplishment of their ultimate goal.”1

The Church of Jesus Christ prepares men and women through the Gospel of the Son. The Church of the Firstborn receives the faithful into the higher order of the Gospel of the Father. That distinction is the same framework treated on the Two Gospels page.

The Purpose of the Church of the Firstborn

The Church of the Firstborn is an organization of exaltation. It is a Family Kingdom, a Celestial order, and a government of fathers and mothers under God the Father. Its purpose is described this way:

“The Church of the Firstborn was established to Organize and thus Exalt man, that he might obtain a Fullness of Joy in his Existence, and it is in fulfillment to these basic desires that this Church exists today both in Heaven and on Earth.”2

That is why Article 5 speaks of the Ancient Patriarchal Order of the Priesthood, and Article 6 speaks of a Patriarchal/Matriarchal organization presided over by Patriarchs and Matriarchs, Priests and Priestesses, Kings and Queens.

Kirtland First, Nauvoo in Fulness

The restoration of the higher order did not begin with a single public sermon. The sequence unfolds in stages: the Church of Jesus Christ was legally organized on April 6, 1830; the Kirtland Temple restoration on April 3, 1836 brought keys connected with the gathering of Israel, the Gospel of Abraham, and the sealing power; and Nauvoo then brought those keys into fuller ordinance form.

In The Nauvoo Doctrine, Joseph Smith’s January 1842 anticipation of the “Ancient Order” and the April 7, 1842 revelation naming the Kingdom of God are connected to the first administration of the Nauvoo temple ordinances on May 4, 1842:

“On May 4th, 1842 (nearly one month after the above revelation was received) the ordinances of this Kingdom were, for the first time in this dispensation, administered to some of its leading officers, in the Prophet’s upper brick store at Nauvoo.”3

Joseph Smith’s own history says that on that day he was setting forth the “order pertaining to the Ancient of Days” and the principles by which one could secure the blessings prepared for the Church of the Firstborn.4

Names Used for the Nauvoo Order

The sources use several overlapping names for this Nauvoo order: the Quorum, the First Quorum, the Grand Quorum, the Anointed Quorum, the Council Pertaining to the High Priesthood, the Secret Priesthood, the Holy Order, and the Kingdom of God. The significance of the names should be preserved rather than flattened into one careless synonym:

“‘The Anointed Quorum’ signifies the medium through which this Priesthood was conferred and ‘The Secret Priesthood’ establishes the strict confidence under which it was had and discussed. ‘The Holy Order’ has strong connections in the Book of Mormon (Alma 13), the Doctrine and Covenants (D&C 84:12–25) and the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible (JST Exodus 34:1–2).”5

The Holy Order, then, is a term with special meaning and should be used with care. It is proper for Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo order and for the scriptural phrase “Holy Order of God.” It does not necessarily refer to every later prayer circle or private Utah-era meeting, because the higher order changed form after the Succession Crisis: the Council of Fifty, the endowment of thousands before the Nauvoo exodus, and the later Apostolic administration under President Young all belong to the story, but they should not be flattened into one undifferentiated label.

The Council of Fifty Connection

The Holy Order and the Council of Fifty are connected, but they should not be collapsed into the same thing. The note to the April 7, 1842 revelation in Unpublished Revelations of the Prophets and Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, volume 1 explains that the Council of Fifty’s 1844 organization was a further development of what had already begun in Nauvoo:

“… in fact the Organization of the Council of Fifty in March of 1844, was but a further organization and development of the Holy Order, which was organized two years earlier, on May 4th, 1842.”6

The Council of Fifty belongs to the political and kingdom-government side of the same larger Restoration movement. See the Council of Fifty page for that organization in its own right.

President Heber C. Kimball’s Witness

President Heber C. Kimball’s August 2, 1857 discourse receives particular weight in this question. President Kimball did not describe the Church of the Firstborn as a vague heavenly ideal. He spoke of an order restored through Joseph Smith and connected with Kirtland and Nauvoo:

“Here, in the Territory of Deseret, is the kingdom of God, and here are all the officers pertaining to that kingdom; and here is an organization that is organized after the order of God, and it is organized after the order of the Church of the First Born.”7

President Kimball then said that this was the same order Joseph Smith organized “in the beginning in Kirtland, Ohio,” and that the officers later received endowments together and had keys placed upon them. That wording shows President Kimball cannot have meant the Church of Christ organized at Fayette, New York, on April 6, 1830.

Legal Authority and Hidden Keys

The final question is practical: if Joseph restored this order, where are its keys now? That question connects to President Kimball’s statement after Joseph Smith’s death that there were men in Nauvoo with higher authority whose names should not be publicly identified:

“There are men here brethren who have got authority, but we don’t want to mention their names, for the enemy will try to kill them.”8

Fred’s 1977 treatise closes by returning to Joseph Smith’s law of authority: ordinances are not valid merely because they are desired; they must be administered by one legally authorized of God.9 The Holy Order question is therefore not theoretical. It is the question of where the legal administrators of the fulness are found.

Women and the Matriarchal Order

The Holy Order is not only patriarchal; the doctrine is explicitly Patriarchal/Matriarchal. Article 6 names Patriarchs and Matriarchs, Priests and Priestesses, Kings and Queens. The more detailed treatment belongs on the Matriarchal Priestesshood page and in the Matriarchal Priestesshood publication.

Endowment, Second Anointing, and the Anointed Quorum

The Holy Order is closely related to the Anointed Quorum, the Endowment, and the Second Anointing. These terms should not be collapsed into one careless synonym, but they belong to the same Nauvoo world of covenant, Priesthood, temple blessing, and the Father’s Family Kingdom.

The essential doctrinal point is that the Saints were being prepared to become kings and priests, queens and priestesses, fathers and mothers in the Church of the Firstborn. The sacred details of ordinance administration remain outside the scope of this page.

Further Study

Notes

  1. Fred C. Collier, The Church of the Firstborn and the Holy Order of God, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 1 No. 4 (January 1977), 2–3. ↩
  2. Collier, The Church of the Firstborn and the Holy Order of God, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 1 No. 4, 1–2. ↩
  3. Fred C. Collier, The Nauvoo Doctrine in Light of Book of Mormon Prophecy, Part 1: The Concept, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 3 No. 1 (November 1986), 47. ↩
  4. Joseph Smith history, May 4, 1842, as quoted in Collier, The Nauvoo Doctrine in Light of Book of Mormon Prophecy, Part 1: The Concept, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 3 No. 1, 47; compare Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 237. ↩
  5. Collier, The Nauvoo Doctrine in Light of Book of Mormon Prophecy, Part 1: The Concept, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 3 No. 1, 48. ↩
  6. Fred C. Collier, ed., Unpublished Revelations of the Prophets and Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, volume 1, Part 61 note, 139. ↩
  7. Heber C. Kimball, August 2, 1857, Journal of Discourses 5:129–30, as quoted in Collier, The Church of the Firstborn and the Holy Order of God, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 1 No. 4, 15–16. ↩
  8. Heber C. Kimball, Times and Seasons 5:663–64, as quoted in Collier, The Church of the Firstborn and the Holy Order of God, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 1 No. 4, 18. ↩
  9. Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 274–75, as quoted in Collier, The Church of the Firstborn and the Holy Order of God, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 1 No. 4, 18–19. ↩