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S3B4 · Every Time A Bell Rings, An Angel Doesn't Get Their Wings
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Standard of Truth · Season 3 · Bonus 4 · 1:02:26

Every Time A Bell Rings, An Angel Doesn't Get Their Wings

The oldest Christian pictures of angels, in the catacombs of Rome, show them without wings, which matches the angels Joseph Smith described.

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The question ·

Does every time a bell rings really mean an angel gets its wings, and what do Latter-day Saints believe angels are?

Richard

Gerrit and Richard rerelease their earlier angels episode for the holidays, with a new opening about Thanksgiving drops, a missionary named Elder Johnson, and the BYU-Oklahoma game. In the original, Richard's favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, and Gerrit's mother's comment about the angel on their tree lead to one of the most unique Latter-day Saint teachings: angels are people, not a separate kind of being. Gerrit explains why that matters for the Jesus-and-Satan-as-brothers attack, then reads Joseph's teaching on detecting false angels by shaking hands. Richard brings in an art history article showing that angels gained wings only in the fourth century.

Who comes upMoroniJoseph SmithLuciferMichael the ArchangelJohn the BaptistJesus ChristPaulPeterBrigham Young
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Jimmy Stewart impressions

Gerrit and Richard explain why they're rereleasing an old angels episode on Thanksgiving.

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Gerrit Hi, so this is the holiday season. Richard and I, one of our favorite holiday movies is It's a Wonderful Life. I don't know what it is about it. I think it's mainly because it's Jimmy Stewart, and he's fun to try to impersonate.
Richard I will say, before we hit record on this, we did about 15 minutes of Jimmy Stewart impressions of different parts of that movie, which is an absolute classic. I watch it every Christmas day.
Gerrit I mean, who doesn't want to hear him go, Mary, what happened to us?
Richard Mary, did you remember me?
Gerrit One of the lines, one of the great lines from that movie is that, the little girl saying, teacher says every time, I'm not going to try to impersonate her. Yeah, that's not happening. Maybe I should get my daughter up here. Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. And so I don't know how long ago we did this episode, was it?
Richard It was season one. Yeah, it was in-
Gerrit Back when our recording equipment was exactly the same as it is now, our standards were low, just like they are now. Our content, poor, just like it is now. We did an episode on angels because Latter-day Saint theology on angels is so incredibly unique. And so we thought, headed into the Christmas season, maybe we would send that out, re-release it as a bonus episode. Don't worry, we're not taking away your weekly episode. This is a bonus episode so you can maybe feast upon this a little bit.
Richard Well, so Gerrit, you referenced this episode in Moroni Part 5, which dropped earlier today. So this bonus episode will also come out on Thanksgiving Day, but it'll come out a little bit later in the day. And so you'll have-
Gerrit According to all metrics, no one listens to anything that drops on Thanksgiving. And so we thought we would also drop both of these on Thanksgiving. That's what our idea was. Oh, no one will listen? Well, at least now I'll be able to justify it to myself when I'm frying and looking for my Clarence to save me from the river. I'll be able to say, no, Gerrit, people didn't listen not because they don't like you or because you're uninteresting or because it's a terrible podcast. They were eating turkey, tryptophan. That's what it was.
Richard Well, it is funny. We have wonderful and loyal listeners, and we have a pretty good idea, plus or minus, a couple of percentage points about how many listens we get per week and then what that increase looks like every week. But then sometimes, we'll do an episode, and rather than doing introspection and saying that the topic wasn't interesting or that we were terrible at this, we say, I'm pretty sure there was a bank holiday in Indonesia and that drove the numbers way down.
Gerrit Oh, yeah. I mean, we drop an episode, not as many people listen, and we say things like, you know what, it was Arbor Day. I mean, you can't expect people to be planting trees and listening to this. I mean, no one can listen to a podcast while they're doing something else right. Kind of the entire genre is built upon being able to listen while you're planting a tree. But anyway, this episode, so just to give you a preface to it, so this is something that was back from our first season where we talk about the Latter-day Saint Theology of Angels, a little bit obvious, a little tongue-in-cheek, a little bit of a tip of the cap to Jimmy Stewart and the holiday classic, but also to talk about why it is we believe what we believe about angels and why it is so incredibly different from other Christians.
Richard And we also actually talk about the evolution of angels having wings from early, you know, in the ones, in the 100s, you know, all the way through from first and second century to almost to third, fourth and fifth century where angels start to develop wings more in art. And then it's kind of one of those things that just kind of snowballs a bit. So we talk about that as well. So we want to just do a little intro for something that we've already recorded just to give you a heads up. And again, we're really mostly doing this because Gerrit said we're going to do it. And we're nothing if not men of our word.
Gerrit I feel like there's all kinds of things that we've said we're going to do and that we haven't done, mainly in our marriages. But also with the podcast, we've also said we're going to do certain things that have not done them.
Richard This is actually the first time we ever said something in an episode and then actually followed through with it. Other than missionaries giving them access to the premium content.
Gerrit We've had lots of missionaries take us up on this. Our number of listeners that are missionaries is many because we are getting multiple emails a day. All of them seem to come from servers in Russia, but other than that, we are getting multiple emails a day from people saying, we need your premium content.
Richard So this one comes from Elder Johnson, actually. We just got this one just yesterday. Hey fellas, Elder Johnson here. Rumor on the street is you're giving away premium to missionaries for free. I would be very happy to receive it. Keep up the great work.
Gerrit Yeah. Rumor on the street. So I don't know where he's at on his mission. And you know, if a missionary, we hope the missionary tells us where they're at. When they, that way we can feel.
Richard Yeah, that would be, it would be awesome. It's able to connect with them a little more. So, so there's one requirement now to getting the free content. It's you tell us where you're serving. Cause we were just interested to know, and it makes it a little more fun. So please, please do. And also if you don't, we'll still give it to you, but please do. That'd be great.
Gerrit Yeah. We're getting our premium content is very similar to the telestial Kingdom. You know, everyone's getting there. You're getting it regardless. If you tell us where you're at, fine. If you're kind in your email, fine. If you're not fine, you know, it's all the same. I guess I'm sure that it's going to snowball though, eventually into people, you know, spoofing fake missionary email addresses, spending hours and hours of time just to try to trick us out of some premium content.
Richard Look, I've gone through a lot of fishing training in the various jobs that I've had. So I feel like I'll be able to spot them, but probably not.
Gerrit Well, I mean, it's a good thing that we're at where we're at right now with podcasting, because imagine if we were, you know, back in the 19th century church, because now we could always be like, I don't know, Elder Johnson, you've been a missionary for the past six years now. I know they let you extend a little bit, but they don't let you extend that long, you know what I mean? But if it was back in the 19th century, like, oh, five years? Yeah, that's called my first mission. You know what I mean? It wouldn't make any difference. Brigham Young's like, oh, no, you mean he's been on a mission for six or seven years? All Brigham did was missions. So, I mean, yeah, it is helpful that we will be able to perform an audit that way. Yeah. I mean, most of our kids going to college depends on this.
Richard Yes, exactly. Well, so-
Gerrit Being able to produce the podcast at all.
Richard So, we hope that you go back and listen. It's an interesting listen anyway, especially as we're going into the holiday season, right? A little bit to the cap, as Gerrit said. But we hope that you listen to it, you enjoy it. As you listen, that is both more handsome and thinner. Gerrit and Richard, it's really before- It's more than now. I'm not saying that it's incredible, but it is better. So, we're more youthful. There's more joy in our voices.
Gerrit Yeah, you'll probably hear a spring in my step. I will sound more melodious. It will certainly come more from the heart.
Richard So, we hope you enjoy it. It's a lot of fun. If you don't listen to it, that's fine. You can also go back and listen to the original, but this whole thing is to make it a little bit easier for you. So, we hope you enjoy it. We hope you have an absolutely wonderful and happy Thanksgiving as we go into the Christmas and New Year and distant third Hanukkah season.
Gerrit Well, look, I apologize if the only reason you clicked on this bonus content was you thought we were going to give you some betting lines advice for the Thanksgiving football games.
Richard Well, so I will say as an update, we talked about going to the BYU Oklahoma game and thought we'd lose by 50. It was a pretty good game. Pretty good.
Gerrit It kind of made us more mad though.
Richard 100% more mad.
Gerrit Because we would have won that game if we hadn't thrown a pick six on the one yard line about to score a touchdown. Or fumbled it.
Richard Twice.
Gerrit Yeah. Over and over.
Richard It was still fun. Go Cougs. And we hope you enjoy this episode.
Gerrit Yep. Take care.
Richard Take care.
Other Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. In this week's podcast, it's getting close to the holiday season, and my favorite holiday movie is It's a Wonderful Life. I absolutely love it.
Gerrit So this is gonna be just a movie review show now.
Richard That's what this is. It's turning into a cinephile podcast where I'm just talking about Frank Capra.
Gerrit We ran out of church history, or out of church history that's either interesting, we especially spent it all on all the politics for the last three. So now-
Richard So now we're gonna talk about that, when that gym floor separates and the pool's beneath it. We're gonna talk about that.
Gerrit All right, so It's a Wonderful Life.
Richard I do love that movie. It is actually my favorite movie. And the idea of everybody coming together at the end and that no man is alone that has friends, it's a beautiful movie and kind of theme to the movie. But there's a part to the movie where it's kind of repeated several times. And it's the idea that every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. And so we wanted to talk a little bit about angels in this podcast.
Gerrit Yeah, and being an expert that I am, no, I mean, part of the reason why I want to talk about it is that I'm guessing that, you know, as you're setting up your Christmas tree, I don't know whether or not, you know, you do that after Thanksgiving. There are probably still some of you who wait until actually Christmas Eve because it's a tradition to trim the tree on Christmas Eve. Although I'm guessing nearly all of us do it earlier, but that, you know, what do you put it at the top of the tree? Well, you put an angel at the top of the tree, a star at the top of the tree, you know, that there's two different ways that you can, you can, well, many different ways you can top the tree. Well, I remember having a conversation with, with my, my mom about the angel that we had on top of our tree when I was a little kid. And we had watched it to Wonderful Life. But, but the, the conversation was about the fact that we had an angel that had wings on it. And my mom said something to the effect of that, well, you know, angels don't really look like this.
Gerrit They don't really have wings. And, you know, I, I, I was kind of crushing, right? Because in my life, that's the only way I'd have really thought about angels. And I mean, how are angels supposed to fly? I mean, if they're flying, they've got wings. I mean, that's when you're a kid, I mean, things with wings fly and things without wings, they fall and that's, you know, or anything you attempt to do, it just falls. So that was one of the thoughts. And so I think it's kind of an interesting thing to maybe take the podcast today and talk about that one of the most unique aspects of Latter-day Saint Theology is our understanding of angels. There are lots of things that we can talk about and heaven knows we've talked about some of them that make Latter-day Saints as blasphemous as anyone's ever been as far as a Christian's concern. I mean, we haven't even we haven't talked about the King Follett sermon yet. That's that's a future like eight podcast series probably. But we did do Doctrine and Coven section 93. We did Doctrine and Coven section 76.
Gerrit The reality is there are these theologies that are so far outside of the Christian mainstream that they they place Latter-day Saints in a category all their own. A doctrine that makes an example that's an example of this is is the idea of a pre-existent life. No other Christians believe that we existed before we were born. Outside of the fact that God knew he was going to create us. And so we exist in that regard. So that's a very radical doctrine makes makes our understanding of who we are very different. Maybe it doesn't matter to us as much. And maybe it's a little bit, you know, you might even think it's kind of trite, but Latter-day Saints have an understanding of angels that is entirely different from the rest of the Christian world. And they actually they actually factor really prominently in early Latter-day Saint history. Who are the people that are visiting Joseph Smith? How is Joseph Smith receiving all of these keys that he's receiving?
Gerrit He's receiving them from these angels. So I think I want to talk a little bit about how our theology of angels differs from standard Christian theology. So I think one of the places to start talking about this difference is you have to kind of get outside of your own Latter-day Saint mold, and that's really hard to do because you have always, well, I don't indict everybody. I'm sure that there's half the people listening, I've always known this, but at least for me, whenever I've thought about angels, ever since the conversation with my mom when I was a little kid, I've thought of angels as being people. And not just like looking like people, but that angels are essentially, you know, dead people that came back to visit basically. And this is reinforced, of course, for Latter-day Saints, because who is it that's there in Joseph's room talking to him about the fact that there's gold plates buried in a hill?
Gerrit Well, it's an angel standing in the air, but that angel is actually Moroni. So this isn't just, hey, I'm an angel sent here as a messenger for you, Joseph. It is, hey, I know where they're buried because I'm the one who buried them. I don't need to get a map. I'm literally the same person who did it. And you're thinking, well, yeah, that's what angels are. Angels are deceased people who used to live on this earth. It's probably going to come as a surprise to at least some of you. Again, I know that there's some of you right now yelling at the podcast saying, not me. I already knew all of this. I'm sure you did. But Christians don't believe that angels are the spirits of departed people. Christians believe that angels, like humans, are created beings that God created out of nothing.
Gerrit He created them specifically for the purpose of aiding God in his relations with mankind. That's why the pre-existent life, understanding that there's not a pre-existent life, matters a lot, because Latter-day Saints believe that we've always existed. That's why we talked about Doctrine and Covenants section 93. Well, in that sense, we are in some way co-eternal with God's. We are the same type of being that God is. So already as a Latter-day Saint, you are so far down the blasphemy rabbit hole that, you know, you can't even take the right pill to get to the right size anymore. You're so far away from where Christians are on that point. Well, our understanding of angels follows the similar pattern where the beings that reside in the afterlife and for us, the pre-mortal life are not mythical, crazy creations that, you know, have 18 horns and 15 legs and seven wings.
Gerrit They're all the same type of being. They're people. They are people who are either spirits who have not yet received a body, spirits who have received a body and then have become disembodied, or they are spirits who have been resurrected and now have a perfected body.
Richard So as an example of this, Gerrit, when we read a passage about a third of the hosts of heaven falling, a Latter-day Saint reads that as evidence of the pre-mortal existence.
Gerrit Yeah, a Latter-day Saint sees, you know, because look, the idea of the third of the hosts of heaven falling is not strictly found in Latter-day Saint scripture. You can find it in Jude in the New Testament, a description of the hosts falling. You find it in Revelation, right? You have the discussion of Lucifer falling. A Latter-day Saint, because of their doctrine of the pre-existence, views that as, here are a third of our Heavenly Father's spirit children who rebel against him and follow a different plan. They refuse to follow the Father's plan, which involves the Savior, and therefore they rebel and are cast out. That is just not how a Christian reads that. The way Christians read it, again, the fundamental principle you start with is God created everything out of nothing, and nothing has a pre-existence.
Gerrit Now, in this sense, angels can pre-exist the world and us because God created them, but there was a time when all angels didn't exist. God creates them for the purpose of helping him carry out his work, bringing him glory, whatever the reason why he creates them doesn't matter. What matters is they are not people. They're not people. They are beings. Some of them might be created to look more like people because they're going to be interacting with people, but there's a reason why it's not a real difficult thing for a Christian to envision an angel the way that it's described in parts of the Bible, with a seraphim with multiple sets of wings and four different faces and the face of an ox and the face of a man and the face of a lion. The reason why you can conceive of that if you're a Christian is an angel isn't a person.
Gerrit An angel is a separate type of being, and in fact mankind is lower than the angels, right, according to that.
Richard But so this also goes to the fact that, you know, another significant difference is this idea that mankind, we are also a creation like an angel.
Gerrit Yeah, we're all creations, just different types of creations. Now man's this favored creation of God as far as Christians are concerned, but angels and people are not the same thing. And that's the fundamental, this dividing point. Before Joseph Smith knows anything about what will be revealed to him as a theology, one of the first things he knows in 1823, one of the first things he knows in 1824, the first thing he knows is that this being that's standing before him is a person who used to live on this earth. So he's not just, you know, there are no wings, even though he's floating in the air, there is no multiple faces, there's not six and seven wings covering him. He's a person and introduces himself as such, right?
Gerrit That he is this, that he's someone who used to live. Joseph is going to have multiple encounters with angels. From John the Baptist and Peter, James and John to Michael the Archangel, Joseph's going to have multiple experiences with angels. All of them are not these mythical beast-like creatures, but in fact, they're people. And that is radically different from what Christians, at least theologically believe. Now look, if you ask your average Christian, they might think, well, I think of my grandpa as being a guardian angel kind of thing. I'm not talking about what your average Christian believes. I'm talking about theologically, the difference between an angel and a person in Christian theology. In Christian theology, people are creations and angels are creations. And so when they talk about Satan or Lucifer falling from heaven, they don't mean one of father's spirit children who rebelled against him.
Gerrit They mean one of the archangels that God created, rebelled against him and was cast out with other angels.
Richard So this actually brings up the theological point. Well, so to go back in the presidential election in 2000, it's always back to politics. It always is. If we could bring it back.
Gerrit Yeah, we're talking about angels. We're going to talk about the atonement. Is there anyone who can talk about politics? Well, I've got it right here.
Richard That's perfect. So in 2012, when Governor Mike Huckabee, Governor of Arkansas or former Governor of Arkansas, was running for president against then former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, in an interview, I believe it was with the New York Times, he asked a question of the reporter, knowing full well the answer, by the way, but he asked, don't Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers? And what you're describing here, there might be Latter-day Saints that hear that and say, well, that seems like a silly thing to even say. Why was it that he would do that? So it's such an offensive thing. Well, I know why he did it.
Gerrit So surprisingly, sometimes people make political statements in order to tarnish their opponents.
Richard Interesting.
Gerrit It rarely happens, but occasionally people will say things negatively, simply to besmirch their opponent.
Richard Let me rephrase. Not why did he say it? Why was it kind of this thing that he would say?
Gerrit Well, and it's not just him. I mean, I would guess that there's at least a considerable number of you living. Well, I hope you're not alive. Stop listening to this podcast right now.
Richard We need as many listeners as we can get.
Gerrit Actually download it even though you're dead, which means you could be an angel. But the I was going to say, I guess most people have probably heard someone say that. You might have on a mission heard someone say that. You might have a friend who said something like that because it's kind of a throwaway line for a Christian to make Latter-day Saint faith seem ridiculous. Now, when they say that to you, it's really frustrating because it's like, well, I guess, yeah, technically, Jesus and Satan are brothers because we're all brothers and sisters, because we're all the spirit children of God. Now, they're saying that because how could you possibly equate the Son of God Jesus, who has always existed in Christian theology, who is God in Christian theology, with a dirty, fallen, horrific creation of God, which is Satan.
Gerrit And so what they're doing when someone says that, I mean, maybe they're asking a very honest question, but in his case he wasn't. What they're really trying to do is they're attacking your belief in the divinity of the Savior, right? That if you're saying that a created being that had the ability to become evil is even related to, I mean, look, none of us want to be blamed for what our relatives do. I mean, my goodness. I mean, if we were all condemned for the things our relatives do, none of us would ever come out in public at all, right? I mean, so it's not that. That's not so much the point. The point that's trying to be made is you Mormons think that Jesus and Satan are even similar to one another in what they are, right? And they're not as far as Christians are concerned. God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Jesus is forever being begotten from the Father.
Gerrit And there was never a time when he was not. And that's part of what is said in those early Christian councils. There is only Jesus from the beginning. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, right?
Richard That's of the same substance, of the same everything. So the idea...
Gerrit Homo ousion. It is same substance as the Father. They're the same one God. Well, Satan as an angel, Lucifer as an angel of God, is none of those things. He's not of the same substance. He's not eternal. He was created by God. He's a created being. He is... That's what the word creature means. He's a creature. And so when someone says that, what they're really denigrating is, how could you possibly think that the Savior of mankind is even the same type of being as this created being, Satan? Now, of course, the other thing they're carrying with it too, is someone might hear that and not realize that in Latter-day Saint Theology, because we believe everyone is a spirit son or daughter of a Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, which is also blasphemous, that we're all brothers and sisters.
Gerrit All of us are brothers and sisters from the best to the worst, from the least to the greatest, and including those evil spirits, including Lucifer, who rebelled against the Father in the pre-mortal life. In many ways, Latter-day Saint theology injects humans into the role of angels prior to this life in the way that Christians perceive it. So Christians are able to perceive of angels doing God's bidding before this world is created, living up with God, doing whatever God wants them to do. But people, of course, are only created at the moment of conception or birth, depending on who you talk to. But for angels, no, they are these creations. For Latter-day Saints, we are saying, well, the Prophet Joseph Smith is teaching and our continued prophetic utterance is that we are all spiritual beings that had a pre-mortal existence with our Father and some of those beings who are the children of heavenly parents, they rejected the plan of the Father.
Gerrit They rejected the plan of happiness and they chose to follow Lucifer as Lucifer is cast out. That rebellion in the war in heaven isn't a rebellion of angels. It's actually far, far worse than that. It's a rebellion of the children of God. It's a rebellion of Father's own sons and daughters. So that places all angels, whether fallen or still serving God, in a completely different category. And that's one of the things that Joseph Smith is going to spend a lot of time teaching. So I think most of people are familiar with, and maybe I'll start with this because people are familiar with it, Doctrine and Covenants, Section 129. This is something that's excerpted from a journal and it's later added to the Doctrine and Covenants. But at least we're familiar with it. Joseph's teaching, there are two kinds of beings in heaven, namely angels who are resurrected personages having bodies of flesh and bones.
Gerrit For instance, Jesus said, handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have. Secondly, the spirits of just men made perfect who are not resurrected but inherit the same glory. So Joseph is presenting these two separate classes in heaven. So in heaven, where God dwells, there are men and women who have been resurrected and have bodies and are perfected. And there are men and women who have not yet been resurrected but are the spirits of just men made perfect, meaning that it's all but the resurrection for them. They're all ready to go. But notice that neither of those classes is a creation. All of the angels are, in fact, related to us. We go to a Joseph Smith sermon that he gives where he illustrates this.
Gerrit He says, he's talking about baptism for the dead and how important it is. But he says, he explained the, this is being recorded, he explained the difference between an angel and a ministering spirit. The one, a resurrected or translated body with its spirit ministering to embodied spirits, the other, a disembodied spirit, visiting and ministering to disembodied spirits. Jesus became a, this is where it's going to start running off the rails. If you're a Christian listening in and just trying to figure out what Latter-day Saints believe, Jesus Christ became a ministering spirit while his body laying in, while his body was laying in the sepulcher to the spirits in prison, to fulfill an important part of his mission without which he could not have perfected his work or entered into his rest. After his resurrection, he appeared as an angel to his disciples. Translated bodies cannot enter into rest until they have undergone a change equivalent to death.
Gerrit Translated bodies are designed for future missions. The angel that appeared to John on the Isle of Patmos was a translated or resurrected body. Jesus Christ went in body after his resurrection to minister to translated and resurrected bodies. There has been a chain of authority of power from Adam down to the present time. So it, it, it, Joseph's using this terminology almost exactly backwards from the way a Christian would use it. A Christian is saying an angel is a completely separate entity created by God. Joseph is saying angel is actually a status. It's, it's a, it's a way of describing the state of one of our Heavenly Father's children, even to the point where Joseph is, you know, as far as a Christian's concern, spewing blasphemy by saying that Jesus is an angel when he appears to his, to his disciples.
Gerrit Why? Because he has a resurrected body. And so that's that, that definition that's going to be much more stark, that angels are, are resurrected beings. In fact, Joseph's going to teach, if we go forward a little bit here, I might pull this up, that these angels are all connected to this world. In fact, let me actually go to this sermon first. Joseph Smith, talking about this, he says, this is in 1839, he's talking to the twelve, for the twelve, he wants for their benefit, in their experience, in their travels in the flesh, which is as follows. In order to detect the devil, when he transforms himself nigh unto an angel of light, now that phraseology comes from the New Testament, that the devil can transform himself into an angel of light, as a way of deceiving people.
Gerrit In fact, Paul will reference this when he says to the Galatians, that we, or an angel of the heaven, preach another gospel unto you, let him stand a curse. But Joseph has also had this experience. What's covered in Doctrine and Covenants section 128, is an experience that sounds incredible, that we don't know anything about. Joseph is listing off the many experiences. This is where the voice of God was heard in the chamber of Father Whitmer. We have a record of that. This is the angel Moroni proclaiming the gospel. This is the voice of the Lord declaring the truthfulness of the book with the Three Witnesses. You've got all these things that are listed off, and all the angels and all their keys as they come. And one of the things that Joseph lists is that Michael, the archangel, appearing and detecting Satan when he had appeared as an angel of light on the banks of the Susquehanna River.
Gerrit We have no account of this except Joseph's letter to the church that later becomes doctrine in section 128. Well, if it's on the banks of the Susquehanna River, I mean, that means it's something that happened very early in the church's history. In fact, it probably almost certainly means it happened before there was a church. Actually, it happened so early in the church's history that there wasn't even a church because Joseph, you know, the Susquehanna is Harmony. Joseph's in Harmony in 1828 and until April of 1829. And after that, he moves to Fayette. He goes back to his farm occasionally to go work the farm down in Harmony. But for the most part, he's gone. And so the most likely time that this experience happened where where Lucifer appeared to Joseph trying to deceive him as though he were an angel is probably in 1828 or 1829.
Gerrit And then Michael, yet another, an actual angel is going to appear and say, and say, you know, this is this is the evil. This is Lucifer. So this is something that's very much on Joseph's mind. You'll notice Joseph has many angelic ministers coming to him, giving him keys, teaching him things. He's receiving revelations from angels. Doctrine and Covenants Section 27 is received from an angel. Doctrine and Covenants Section 3 is received as an angel comes and returns Joseph Smith, the Urim and Thummim, as well as the gold plates shortly thereafter. So Joseph is going to receive revelations from angels, as well as them factoring into the theology, giving keys. So Joseph is actually concerned with the fact that he knows that evil spirits, including Lucifer, can and will and have attempted to deceive people by appearing as though they are angels.
Gerrit Joseph knows this firsthand because it's happened to him. So one of the things he's worried about is how will you know if an evil spirit appears to you and tries to tell you? In order to detect the devil, this is Joseph, when he transforms himself nine to an angel of light, when an angel of God appears unto a man face to face in personage and reaches out his hand unto the man and he takes hold of the angel's hand and feels a substance the same as one man would in shaking hands with another, then he may know that it's an angel of God. And he should place all the confidence in him. Such personages or angels are saints with their resurrected bodies. But if a personage appears unto a man and offers him his hand and the man takes hold of it and he feels nothing or does not sense any substance, he may know that it is the devil. For when a saint whose body is not resurrected appears unto man in the flesh, he will not offer his hand for this is against the law given him in keeping in mind that these things that we may detect the devil that he be not deceived.
Gerrit This pattern that's put forward is something that Joseph is going to express on more than one occasion.
Richard So as you were reading that, I was brought back to many discussions on my mission. Now I served in the only true mission, the California Riverside Mission, and it was surprising how often this topic came up in district meetings and companionship swaps. How many angels have appeared to you, Elder? Now Elder, you got to know if you get, I mean, how many visitations are happening? So this didn't happen in Wisconsin. You didn't have the, because it was like, well, why don't you work on your area plan, Elder? Well, we've been really busy studying whether if we get a visitation, whether we shake its hand or not.
Gerrit I think in Wisconsin, things were in such a bad state, we would have taken even the hands we couldn't shake. We would have taken that.
Richard Well, he's got a really good point.
Gerrit At least someone's trying.
Richard Anyways, you read that it was funny. Maybe it was just the time where the missionaries I was around, but it came up, those specific things came up all the time to where it was like, is this really something that we think is a main focus for you, Elder? Oh, absolutely.
Gerrit Well, I mean, maybe they were having a lot of visitation.
Richard Well, that's what I'm saying, possibly.
Gerrit Well, so it is interesting that this idea is so important that it is taught to them. And again, I think it's important to Joseph because not only has he had numerous visitations from true angels who had keys to deliver or messages to deliver, he's clearly also had false angels, false spirits pretending. And it's actually such an ingenious idea, right? That an evil spirit can't help but try to deceive you. So when he appears to you claiming to be an angel and you go to shake his hand, he's going to try to shake your hand because he can't help but try to deceive you. And in the very fact that you don't feel anything as your hand goes through it, well, then you know you're dealing with an evil spirit, right? Whereas if it's a spirit of a just man made perfect, whether it's a righteous spirit, but without a body, he won't attempt to take your hand because that would be deceiving you.
Gerrit Or if it's an angel, essentially, look, you're always on the best grounds. If you go to shake their hand and the angel grabs your hand, well, then if you can feel a hand there, then you're doing better. This is a discussion that's further held in Doctrine and Covenants, Section 130, where Joseph describes something even further, right? Not only are all angels people, right? Not only they are all people, that they are all people that are part of this earth. They're not part of something else. So D&C 130, verse 4, an answer to the question is not the reckoning of God's time, angels' time, prophets' time, and man's time, according to the plan on which they reside. I answer, yes, but there are no angels who minister to this earth, but those who belong or have belonged to it. Okay, so anyone who's an angel is not a creation of God.
Gerrit They are a person who is either, you know, either a spirit who's going to eventually be a part of this earth or a spirit who has been a part of this earth, but that's it. They're all people. Angels are people. This is also discussed in another Joseph Smith sermon I'm going to pull up here. So this point is made all the clearer in an October 1843 sermon that's recorded. Joseph says, A great many men suppose there is no difference between an angel and a spirit of a just man made perfect. But Paul makes a distinction in the 12th chapter of Hebrews. He tells us that the Hebrew church had came into the presence of God and angels and to the spirits of just men made perfect. The spirit of a just man made perfect.
Gerrit If he made his appearance, he would appear or be enveloped in flaming fire. And no man in this mortal state could endure it. But an angel could come and appear as an other man. For Paul says, Be careful to entertain strangers, for some have entertained angels unaware. But to prove spirits, view the Savior after his resurrection when he appeared to his disciples. They were afraid and thought that they had seen a spirit. But he convinces them of their mistake by telling them to handle him and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones you see me have. So part of this theology of angels is not to say that we can't have experiences with angels. Latter-day Saints believe in the ministering of angels. I mean, our entire theology of keys is based upon the fact that angelic ministerants have come and delivered those keys to other people.
Gerrit So we absolutely believe that that angels can appear to people, that it's not just to a prophet that an angel is going to appear. Now, Joseph, of course, makes that very clear distinction. We talked all the way back into our first or second podcast when he's writing to John Carter and tells him that if you have a heavenly manifestation or visitation from a heavenly being, that it's for your own prophet and instruction, but not for the church. So while we believe angels can appear to anyone and look, there are people listening to this that have had some kind of experience from the other side, where they have seen or spoken to a departed friend, loved one, ancestor, or perhaps they've had this angelic experience where they've seen an angel. So we believe that you can see angels.
Gerrit This is not a matter of whether or not angels are only the provenance of prophets and apostles. It's just that when that angel appears to you, he's not going to contradict what the prophet is teaching. Because if the prophet needs something to be taught them from an angel, then the angel is going to go to the prophet. It's not going to come to you. I don't know if we've exhausted the discussion on angels. I tell you all the time that my mom is essentially the only person who listens. Thankfully, she clicks it four or five times trying to get it right. I asked her last time. She was listening to the one where we're talking about Joseph Smith's presidential run, the first one where we're heavily talking about politics and where we learned Richard doesn't know the phrase tippecanoe and Tyler II, but does know Richard Mentor Johnson's camp.
Richard Rumsy dumsy rumsy dumsy.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah.
Richard Colonel Johnson shot the cumsy.
Gerrit It's an inconsistency that really can't be explained in this life or the next. And my mom, my mom's like, oh, I just finished listening to your podcast. I'm like, oh, what'd you think? And she paused the way mothers pause when they're trying to figure out how to provide criticism, but also not crush someone. And then she hesitatingly said something to the effect of, well, I like politics, but I don't know that everyone else does, which was her saying this was really boring. So now you can have a really boring, a really boring podcast about angels as well. But one of the things that I want to before we finish, I want to spend a little bit of time because there's a pretty cool intersection here. And that is Latter Day Saints don't have the same theology as other Christians do when it comes to angels. There's a reason why we don't have images of angels with wings in most of our Latter Day Saint art, because we recognize that angels are in fact people, and they look like people and they don't just suddenly grow wings when they get resurrected bodies.
Gerrit But what's very interesting is that this understanding of angels looking like people and being people, rather than being some kind of mythical creature, is actually something that has some historical presence. I'm going to throw that over to Richard.
Richard Well, yeah, I know in an attempt to not be boring, I'm going to pull up an academic article on art history.
Gerrit At this point, people have already shut off the podcast.
Richard That's a fair point.
Gerrit Yeah, the only people listening now are people who fell asleep listening to the podcast, and it's just playing its white noise in the background. Perfect. So we're a box fan to them.
Richard Renee Dirkmaat. Gerrit's mom. So essentially, there was an interesting, there's an interesting article. We were looking kind of to this idea of the Genesis, and as Gerrit mentioned, angels, cherubims, they're mentioned throughout Scripture. They're mentioned in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Different types of creations and creatures all throughout. And we found an article in 2000. It's called The Development of Winged Angels in Early Christian Art. And we'll put the link to the article. It's only about 20 pages. And like any good article, about a third of it is actually pictures, illustrations. So that does help.
Gerrit Luckily, it's an art history article.
Richard It's true. So it's by Dr. Therese Martin, and she earned her PhD in art history at the University of Pittsburgh. She works at the Spanish National Research Council, and she published this paper when she was a professor at the University of Arizona. And so I'll just read just a little bit here from that article. It was pretty interesting. During the first centuries of Christianity, a specifically Christian iconography began to develop that included visual representations of angels. Borrowing from classical imagery and Jewish sources, a new Christian art was created to illustrate the most important lessons from the Bible. The oldest surviving images of angels are in the Catacombs of Rome. They date to the second half of the third century and the beginning of the fourth century. Because angels must take some form in order to be perceived as humans, they are often anthropomorphized. The earliest Christian angels are visually undifferentiated from men.
Richard Only a knowledge of the iconography allows the viewer to recognize that some of the figures that appear to be men are actually angels. Wings, which would soon become the most essential visual aspect of an angel, had not yet put in an appearance. The shift to winged angels took place during the fourth century, a time that saw the first legalization of Christianity, and then the conversion of the Roman Empire to this relatively young religion.
Gerrit So, it, unboxing that a little bit there, what she's saying is through viewing that terminology iconography is, you know, it's a giant word, but meaning images, right? And, you know, paintings, stained glass, sculptures, ways of representing things from the divine, that what her study demonstrates is that the earliest Christian images of angels, angels are actually represented looking just like men.
Richard She goes on in the article to talk about in the pre fourth century depictions of angels, that they are just more brilliant in terms of kind of their essence or whatever it is.
Gerrit So they look just like people but have more glory, which is exactly the way that Joseph Smith describes them and describes the angel Moroni when the angel Moroni appears to him in his room. I think that's an interesting tidbit that I would guess even most Christians don't know, that there's a development in the way that angels are depicted. They aren't always depicted with wings. They eventually come to be depicted with wings. And I'm sure someone who's an ancient historian listening, you're not listening, but if you were, first of all, there's no one who's an ancient historian. And secondly, if you were, you weren't listening. But thirdly, if they were listening and paying attention, they might shed a lot more light on this. But, you know, the, the, the Eagles wings wings in general are seen as a symbol of power in, in, especially in the pagan Roman Empire, that the, the legions march out under standards that are under Eagles wings. It makes a lot of sense to me that as Christians are trying to convey the sense of power to these pagan Romans that they're trying to convert as the, as the, the, the Empire becomes Christian under Constantine or at least it becomes officially tolerated and then eventually becomes the religion of the Empire.
Gerrit As that's going on, it would make sense to depict your heavenly beings that have power in a way that would convey the idea of power more readily to the pagans that you're trying to influence. When she says, you actually can't tell the difference between an angel and a person in the earliest Christian iconography or the earliest Christian art. Well, that's a problem, right? Because the purpose of art, especially, especially in the third and fourth and fifth century, when almost no one is literate. Yeah, Christianity is a religion of the book. It's a religion of these writings that will come to perform the Bible. But almost no one can read. This is a problem all the way up through much of the next thousand years that very, very, very few people can read.
Gerrit So the purpose of iconography, the purpose of images, is how do you have get someone to have a spiritual experience without their ability to read it? Clearly, people can be converted without reading. Porter Rockwell, who will talk about in some future podcast, just to keep you coming back, he is utterly illiterate. And I mean, he's not just kind of illiterate. He's not illiterate like Jonathan Hadley criticizing Joseph Smith, saying that he's illiterate because Joseph Smith has a hard time spelling any words right, including his own brother's name. I mean, Porter Rockwell can't write anything. When we have documents that Porter Rockwell signs, it is legitimately an X, like a cartoon. He signs an X and someone underneath it will write this X on behalf of Porter Rockwell. So he's completely illiterate, but he's absolutely certain Joseph Smith's a prophet.
Gerrit Absolutely certain that the church is true, but is not educated enough to even be able to read. Now, that's a much more rare thing in the 19th century. Most adult Americans are going to be illiterate to a certain degree, but in the early ages of the Roman Empire and what we would call sometimes called the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages, the reality is almost no one can read. Reading is incredibly expensive skill to acquire because you need a private tutor, there's not public schools. So images are part of the way that churches can convey a story. There's two ways, right? You can tell people the story. Let me tell you about Adam and Eve, but that requires me to be there to tell you about Adam and Eve. But if I can show you a stained glass image of Adam and Eve being cast out of the garden, well, having heard the story before in my head, I can see that image and know exactly what's going on because of the oral story that I've heard, even if I can't read.
Gerrit So images matter a lot. And you can see that if part of the way that you're going to be converting these previously pagan people into accepting Christianity as this most powerful religion, that's the reason why you're joining, because that God is the real God, the only actual God, that depicting the heavenly ministers of that God in a way that is more and more powerful is a way of conveying power to that God. So it makes a lot of sense to me, but also I thought it's a pretty interesting tidbit of historical information that at least in the earliest Christian images, the depictions of angels are far more like Latter Day Saints will have than perhaps Clarence getting his wings as he helps Jimmy Stewart come to the realization of how important his life is.
Gerrit It's an interesting theology that we have when it comes to the afterlife in general. Brigham Young teaches that the spirit world is all around us, that this is the spirit world, that obviously people don't immediately gain all the light and knowledge when they die. That's the reason why we have people ministering to people in the spirit world and teaching them. And so it's somewhere in those vagaries of the different states that people are in before they come to earth, after they come to earth, and before the resurrection that we have these different types of ministering spirits. It's probably not something you've thought of before and probably something you'll never think of again. In fact, you'll probably say, I've just wasted my life. But it is a very unique aspect of Latter-day Saint theology that because of Joseph Smith, because of his teachings and revelations, we don't think of angels as being separate from humans.
Gerrit We think of angels as being humans in a different state, essentially. Everyone is a spirit child of our Heavenly Father and in various different states. The idea that we can have these angelic manifestations, I think, is a thrilling idea and something that I very much, it's one of the great aspects of belief. Believing that we can have these visitations, these experiences with angels, that you can receive revelation in this way, Joseph certainly did, is something that I think we can all relate to. I don't mean to kill anyone's Christmas if they're putting that angel on top of their tree and it's got the giant angel wings so that you know that it's an angel. That's exactly the point that's being made in that article. How do you know that the person on top of the tree is an angel? Well, because they have wings. Exactly. That is an image that's used to convey instantly to someone, this is an angelic being because they have wings.
Gerrit For Latter-day Saints, since we believe angels are the resurrected spirits of people who used to live on this earth, just like Moroni or Adam or Moses when they're coming to return keys, then the wings aren't necessary. In fact, the power is conveyed in the glory of their resurrected body. As Joseph talks about the room being lit up all around Moroni when he appears, that power is already conveyed in the glory that represents them, not by whether or not you can see their wings. Anyway, hopefully this was an interesting podcast for everybody. Like I said, we're going to at some point dive into some of these other issues. I know I keep saying that every episode, and I think that I'm just going to keep doing that. I think we're going to compile a list of the things that we said we'll talk about, but won't ever actually talk about.
Richard We have been called out by a good friend of ours, Brady Peterson, brings us up again and again. He's like, are you even keeping track of the things you claim you're going to talk about? And I said, most certainly not.
Gerrit Not even close. Yeah, like most people who are trying to deceive, we're throwing out whatever we can in any moment that we can in order to get out of the situation. But maybe we'll talk about Porter Rockwell. Maybe we'll talk about, at some point, we might even talk about plural marriage.
Richard We will not.
Gerrit Okay, we won't. We won't ever do that because that would be a 95 part podcast. And that would only be the first day of talking about plural marriage in Nauvoo. But hopefully everyone gains something from this. And we look forward to seeing you again next week. Thank you.
Other Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

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Back when our recording equipment was exactly the same as it is now, our standards were low, just like they are now. Our content, poor, just like it is now.

GerritBanter

We're getting our premium content is very similar to the telestial Kingdom. You know, everyone's getting there. You're getting it regardless.

GerritBanter

So this is gonna be just a movie review show now.

GerritBanter

So already, as a Latter-day Saint, you are so far down the blasphemy rabbit hole that, you know, you can't even take the right pill to get to the right size anymore.

GerritBanter

That rebellion in the war in heaven isn't a rebellion of angels. It's actually far, far worse than that. It's a rebellion of the children of God.

GerritInsight

Joseph is saying angel is actually a status.

GerritInsight

Now I served in the only true mission, the California Riverside Mission

RichardBanter

I think in Wisconsin, things were in such a bad state, we would have taken even the hands we couldn't shake.

GerritBanter

It's just that when that angel appears to you, he's not going to contradict what the prophet is teaching.

GerritInsight

In fact, the power is conveyed in the glory of their resurrected body.

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More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are brothers, so they must not think Jesus is divine.
When good people die, they become angels and get their wings.
Christians have always pictured angels with wings.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

Latter-day Saints believe angels are people (premortal spirits, departed spirits, or resurrected beings), while traditional Christian theology teaches that angels are a separate order of created beings.

D&C 130:5 teaches that no angels minister to this earth except those who belong or have belonged to it, so every angel who visits us is, in a sense, family.

Joseph's handshake test for false angels (D&C 129) grew out of experience; D&C 128 mentions Michael exposing the devil as an angel of light on the banks of the Susquehanna.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Free premium for missionariesElder Johnson heard the rumor on the street; Gerrit says premium content is like the Telestial Kingdom, since everyone gets there regardless (5:24, 6:06).
Nobody listens on ThanksgivingBoth episodes drop on Thanksgiving so a low count can be blamed on turkey and tryptophan, not the podcast (2:03).
Gerrit's mom, the listenerShe clicks each episode four or five times and gently reviewed the politics episodes: 'well, I like politics, but I don't know that everyone else does' (47:01); Richard names her as a remaining listener (48:50).
Rumpsey Dumpsey, againRichard's slogan returns, 'an inconsistency that really can't be explained in this life or the next' (46:57-47:01).
Mission rivalryCalifornia Riverside, 'the only true mission,' vs. Gerrit's Wisconsin, where they'd have taken any visitation (39:27-40:18).
Dead listenersGerrit's line to listeners comes out garbled ('I hope you're not alive'); Richard says they need as many listeners as they can get, and Gerrit says to download it even if you're dead, since then you could be an angel (24:29-24:40).
Always back to politicsRichard finds a way to steer angels back to presidential elections (23:07-23:24).
We're a box fanThe only people left are asleep, using the podcast as white noise (48:41).
The promised-topics listTheir friend Brady Peterson asks whether they track everything they've promised; 'most certainly not,' and plural marriage would be 95 parts (1:01:03-1:01:33).
The gym floor sceneRichard's proposed tangent about the floor opening over the pool (10:41).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

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Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 128Come to the Lord in His Holy HouseElder Gerrit W. GongElder Gong lays out three doctrinal foundations for temple worship: eternal families, moral agency, and the Holy Spirit of Promise, which makes honored covenants binding.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 93I Am a Child of GodElder Hutch U. FaleElder Fale teaches that every person is a beloved child of heavenly parents, illustrating God's unearned love by showing his children their baby pictures: they did nothing to earn their parents' love and can do nothing to lose it.October 2026 General Conference · cites Hebrews 12The Ninety and TenElder Michael A. DunnElder Dunn recalls a 100-mile ultramarathon in which, at mile 90, he wanted to quit until his running partner Ted promised to get him to the finish.

Summaries, themes and lessons for every talk are on What Did They Say?

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Deep dives the episode points toward
Michael exposing Satan on the Susquehanna (D&C 128:20): what we can piece together about an event with no other account (27:11).
How winged angels developed in early Christian art, from the catacombs to Constantine (49:40, 52:00).
Homoousios and the creeds vs. Latter-day Saint teaching on the nature of Christ and the premortal spirits (27:11).
The King Follett Sermon, teased as 'like eight podcasts' (11:19).
SOT Litner · S3B4.