We are taught as early as primary that in his First Vision, Joseph Smith (age 14) saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. We come to understand via Sunday school lessons and seminary instruction that, on that occasion in the grove of trees, Joseph received a personal visit from the two: that is, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ physically came to speak with Joseph in their immortal flesh-and-bones bodies. We assume that, given the knowledge he gained about God’s nature in that experience, all his sermons and writings on that subject would reveal a knowledge of the flesh-and-bones truth.
In reality, Joseph Smith’s understanding of the physical vs spiritual nature of God evolved over time, which his sermons and writings show. The changing nature of his understanding about God suggests that whatever his First Vision experience was, it was subjective–as dreams are subjective–rather than “a sure knowledge of the nature of God.”
Among early converts to the church, there was no preaching about a First Vision. The experience wasn’t something Joseph shared with others for a long time. It appears unlikely that he ever supplied it as “evidence” of his understanding of the physical nature of God. Apostle and early convert Heber C. Kimball preached in 1857 (13 years after the Prophet’s death): “Do you suppose that God in person called upon Joseph Smith, our Prophet? God called upon him; but God did not come himself and call, but he sent Peter to do it. Do you not see? He sent Peter and sent Moroni to Joseph, and told him that he had got the plates.” (Journal of Discourses, vol.6, p.29) The members in general, including church leadership, did not equate Joseph’s visionary experience with a “visit” from God.
Here’s Joseph’s earliest written account (hand-written in 1832 but never circulated) of what later became known as The First Vision:
. . . when I considered all these things and that (that) being seeketh such to worship him as worship him in spirit and in truth therefore I cried unto the Lord for mercy for there was none else to whom I could go and to obtain mercy and the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in (the) attitude of calling upon the Lord (in the 16th year of my age) a pillar of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the (Lord) opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph (my son) thy sins are forgiven thee. go thy (way) walk in my statutes and keep my commandments . . . my soul was filled with love and for many days I could rejoice with great Joy and the Lord was with me but [I] could find none that would believe the hevnly (sic) vision nevertheless I pondered these things in my heart. (Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, Compiled by Dean Jesse, Deseret Book, 2002, p.17)
What Joseph experienced at that young age must have been more of a personal spiritual witness (or vision) of God’s love for him than an actual visit of a resurrected Jesus and God the Father. The latter case would have been so monumental in importance that Joseph would certainly have proclaimed it to his early converts as the basis of the church. James B. Allen, an assistant church historian, admitted in 1966, however, that the story of the First Vision “was not given general circulation in the 1830′s.” (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Autumn 1966, p.33). He stated that “none of the available contemporary writings about Joseph Smith in the 1830′s, none of the publications of the Church in that decade, and no contemporary journal or correspondence yet discovered mentions the story of the first vision….”
A personal visit from resurrected deity would have also been so informative of the natures of God and Jesus that Joseph would never have changed his opinion about their natures. But he did. Church members now believe and read in D&C 130:22 : “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.” That is something Joseph wrote about late in his life (April 1843, I believe). However, in the “Lectures on Faith” discussed in the Kirtland School of the Prophets (which Lectures constituted the “Doctrine” portion of 1835 Doctrine and Covenants), God is described as a personage of spirit while Jesus is a personage of tabernacle [flesh]:
LECTURE FIVE. (2) There are two personages who constitute the great, matchless, governing, and supreme power over all things, by whom all things were created and made. They are the Father and the Son: the Father being a personage of spirit, glory, and power, possessing all perfection and fulness. The Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, is a personage of tabernacle, made or fashioned like unto man, being in the form and likeness of man, or rather man was formed after his likeness and in his image . . . He is called the Son because of the flesh possessing the same mind with the Father, which mind is the Holy Spirit that bears record of the Father and the Son. These three are one; or, in other words, these three constitute the great, matchless, governing and supreme power over all things. (emphasis added)
There is no evidence, to my knowledge, that at the age of 14 Joseph Smith believed God had a body.
