Restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood

Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery testified that on May 15, 1829, John the Baptist appeared to them and gave them authority to baptize. According to Joseph Smith’s 1838 history, John told them that they did not as yet have “the power of laying on of hands, for the gift of the Holy Ghost, but that this should be conferred on us hereafter.”¹ This explanation echoed the Baptist’s statement in the New Testament, that though he baptized his followers “with water unto repentance,” one “mightier than I” would “baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.”² After ordaining Joseph and Oliver, John the Baptist explained that “he acted under the direction of Peter, James, and John,” who were stewards of this greater authority and that the power to give the gift of the Holy Ghost “should in due time be conferred on us.”³

The appearance of Peter, James, and John to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery is attested to in numerous sources. A revelation to Joseph Smith spoke of the visitation of Peter, James, and John, “whom I have sent unto you, by whom I have ordained you and confirmed you to be apostles and especial witnesses of my name, and bear the keys of your ministry.”⁴ In a blessing Joseph Smith gave to Oliver Cowdery that was recorded in October 1835, he spoke of Oliver’s receiving “the holy priesthood under the hands of they who had been held in reserve for a long season, even those who received it under the hand of the Messiah.”⁵ In several letters late in his life, Oliver Cowdery spoke of this sacred occasion. In one he related the sense of awe with which he stood “in the presence of Peter, to receive the Greater” priesthood.⁶

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Peter, James, and John appear to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery

It is impossible to precisely date this heavenly manifestation from existing sources. The only firsthand account from Joseph that gives details about the circumstances of the vision is an 1842 letter (now canonized as Doctrine and Covenants 128) in which he testified he heard “the voice of Peter, James, and John in the wilderness between Harmony, Susquehanna County, and Colesville, Broome County; on the Susquehanna river, declaring themselves as possessing the keys of the kingdom.”⁷ Modern readers have reached different conclusions from these various accounts as to the timing of the appearance of Peter, James, and John. Their estimates range from as early as a few weeks after the appearance of John the Baptist on May 15, 1829, to many months later.⁸ Although many of the accounts of this divine manifestation were produced years later, they are corroborated by earlier, though less detailed, references to angelic ministers who gave Joseph and Oliver a divine commission.⁹

Joseph Smith’s published history does not narrate the restoration of the greater authority in detail, but it recounts that sometime after his move to Fayette, New York, in the summer of 1829, Joseph and others “became anxious to have that promise realized to us”—that they would receive “the authority of the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.”¹⁰ The history explains that at the home of Peter Whitmer Sr. in Fayette, New York, after praying and asking God for direction, the voice of the Lord commanded them to ordain each other. They were instructed, however, to defer this ordination until those who had been baptized could meet and accept them as spiritual teachers.

When the Church was organized on April 6, 1830, Joseph and Oliver acted with divine authority both to baptize and to bestow the gift of the Holy Ghost. Those present at the organizational meeting accepted Joseph and Oliver’s leadership, and Joseph and Oliver ordained each other as elders as the Lord had instructed them to do. Around the same time as this meeting, Joseph Smith finalized the “Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ” (now Doctrine and Covenants 20), which declared that among their responsibilities as elders was “to confirm the church by the laying on of hands and the giving of the Holy Ghost.”¹¹