Sacred Texts: Mormons

Doctrine and Convenants: 112. Revelation through Joseph Smith to Thomas B. Marsh, Kirtland, Ohio, July 23, 1837.

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This is Section 112 of the *Doctrine and Covenants*, a canonical scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, consisting of a divine revelation addressed specifically to Thomas B. Marsh, then-President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, dated 1837. The text follows the genre of prophetic oracle or divine commission, structurally similar to biblical epistolary revelations, in which God speaks directly in first person to instruct and authorize a church leader. The core content is a personal charge to Marsh: his sins are forgiven, and he is appointed to carry the gospel abroad to all nations as the key-holder of the Twelve's missionary authority, functioning where Joseph Smith and the First Presidency cannot go. The revelation extends its address to the entire Quorum of the Twelve, commanding humility, submission to Joseph Smith's prophetic authority, and urgent worldwide preaching, while warning that apocalyptic judgment is imminent and will begin within the Church itself before spreading to the world. A distinctive claim is the assertion that the priesthood keys held by the Twelve represent the culmination of a chain of divine authority stretching back through all dispensations to the creation itself, framing this moment as the final, fullest restoration of sacred power. The closing eschatological urgency—darkness covering the earth, vengeance coming swiftly—gives the missionary mandate a crisis-driven intensity unusual even within the broader Latter-day Saint scriptural corpus.

Doctrine and Convenants: 112. Revelation through Joseph Smith to Thomas B. Marsh, Kirtland, Ohio, July 23, 1837.

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