Mormonism and prophets/Revelation after Joseph Smith/Must all apostles literally see Christ

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Apostles literally seeing Christ


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Question: Must a man see Christ literally in order to be called as an apostle? Mormonism and prophets/Revelation after Joseph Smith/Must all apostles literally see Christ/Post-Joseph Smith Divine Manifestations

President Harold B. Lee responds to these questions

Harold B. Lee,   'Stand Ye in Holy Places'


May I bear my own testimony. Some years ago two missionaries came to me with what seemed to them to be a very difficult question. A young Methodist minister had laughed at them when they had said that apostles were necessary today in order for the true church to be upon the earth. They said that the minister said, “Do you realize that when the apostles met to choose one to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Judas, they said it had to be one who companied with them and had been a witness of all things pertaining to the mission and resurrection of the Lord? How can you say you have apostles, if that be the measure of an apostle?”

And so these young men said, “What shall we answer?”

I said to them, “Go back and ask your minister friend two questions. First, how did the Apostle Paul gain what was necessary to be called an apostle? He didn’t know the Lord, had no personal acquaintance. He hadn’t accompanied the apostles. He hadn’t been a witness of the ministry nor of the resurrection of the Lord. How did he gain his testimony sufficient to be an apostle? And the second question you ask him is, How does he know that all who are today apostles have not likewise received that witness?”

I bear witness to you that those who hold the apostolic calling may, and do, know of the reality of the mission of the Lord. To know is to be born and quickened in the inner man.[1]



To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here

Notes

  1. Harold B. Lee, Stand Ye in Holy Places (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1974), 64–65.


Further reading and additional sources responding to these claims