Primary Sources in Mormon History: David Whitmer’s An Address to All Believers in Christ

12 min readDec 30, 2015

David Whitmer was an early supporter of Joseph Smith, hosting Joseph and Oliver Cowdery for most of the translation of the Book of Mormon. He was subsequently chosen to became one of the Three Witnesses.

Whitmer affirmed this testimony of the Book of Mormon throughout his life. In 1887, Whitmer published his magnum opus, An Address to All Believers in Christ (by a Witness to the Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon), in part to set the record straight. Whitmer wrote that

It is recorded in the American Cyclopaedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, that I, David Whitmer, have denied my testimony as one of the three witnesses to the divinity of the Book of Mormon; and that the other two witnesses, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, denied their testimony to that Book. I will say once more to all mankind, that I have never at any time denied that testimony or any part thereof.”

This is the only part of the 75 page Address that most Mormons are familiar with. Particularly well-read members may also know that the Address is also where we get Whitmer’s description of the translation of the Book of Mormon.

But Whitmer went on:

If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon; if you believe that God spake to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June, 1838, God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens, and told me to “separate myself from among the Latter Day Saints, for as they sought to do unto me, should it be done unto them.”

Modern church members are used to hearing that “if the Book of Mormon is true, then Jesus is the Christ, Joseph Smith was His prophet, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, and it is being led today by a prophet receiving revelation.” What are we to make of one of the Three Witnesses who rejects a primary link in this chain of validation?

David Whitmer’s Misgivings

Whitmer had begun to lose faith in the Prophet when Joseph stopped using his seer stone to receive revelation, in favor of dictating revelations directly from God with no intermediary. He saw the 1837 collapse of the Kirtland religious commune and the failure of Joseph’s prophecies regarding Zion as proof that Joseph was no longer in tune with God’s will. Joseph’s first plural marriage, to Fanny Alger, also came to light around this time, resulting in the excommunication of Oliver Cowdery (who denounced this relationship as immoral). Whitmer and his brother, Church historian John Whitmer, sided with Cowdery and were also excommunicated.

In the Address, Whitmer looks back at the early Church, as if to determine where Joseph and his followers lost (from Whitmer’s perspective) their divine approval. He concludes that God became displeased with them because they corrupted God’s doctrine in several ways, including:

Introducing the practice of polygamy.
Changing the definition of priesthood and adding the non-Christian office of High Priest.
Centralizing power under Joseph.
Modifying early revelations to allow (2) and (3).

Polygamy is too large a topic to address here (but see the essential readings page for where to go to learn more). The other claims will be new to most readers and will be discussed here.

Changing Priesthood Offices

The theory and practice of priesthood evolved significantly during Joseph’s lifetime. To give context to Whitmer’s claims, here is a partial timeline:

1829: Oliver Cowdery writes that he has authority “given me of Jesus Christ” to baptize. Those holding this authority (including Whitmer) are referred to as apostles.

1830: Joseph organizes the Church, with himself and Cowdery as First Elder and Second Elder, respectively. Licenses to preach are given to two teachers, three priests, and five elders. Deacons are subsequently added. “Elder” and “apostle” are initially synonymous, but by the end of the year the apostle term is dropped. There is no concept of “priesthood” per se, just different offices in the Church.

1831: Joseph and Sydney Rigdon revise Genesis, adding sixteen verses about Melchizedek. The office of high priest is introduced, synonymous with the Order of Melchizedek. Some elders are ordained to this High Priesthood, the first use of the “priesthood” term. (There is still no concept of “priesthood” aside from the state of being a [high] priest.) The office of President of the High Priesthood is created for Joseph.

1832: A revelation introduces the concept of a “lesser priesthood,” meaning a priest who is not a high priest, with authority to baptize. Teachers and deacons are made appendages to this.

1834: A high council is created, consisting of twelve high priests. Joseph states that the Church of Jesus Christ has been established “according to the order of heaven.”

1835: The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Quorum of Seventies are organized. A revelation introduces the terms of “Aaronic Priesthood” and “Melchizedek Priesthood,” which come to be understood in the modern sense of formal authority. Earlier revelations are edited to claim that John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John bestowed the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, respectively, on Joseph.

Whitmer objected (in retrospect) to all of the changes after 1830, but particularly to the introduction of the office of high priest, on the grounds that the office of high priest was part of the preparatory gospel of Moses, and anachronistic to Christianity:

High Priests were only in the church before Christ; and to have this office in the “Church of Christ” is not according to the teachings of Christ in either of the sacred books: Christ himself is our great and last High Priest.

With this last, Whitmer is referring to an argument from the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Jewish high priest was responsible for offering the atoning sacrifice of Yom Kippur; the author of Hebrews explained that Christ, as the great high priest, sacrificed himself and made further sacrifice unnecessary. Whitmer continues:

Brethren — I will tell you one thing which alone should settle this matter in your minds; it is this: you cannot find in the New Testament part of the Bible or Book of Mormon where one single high priest was ever in the Church of Christ. The office of an Elder is spoken of in many many places, but not one word about a High Priest being in the church.

Whitmer was also concerned that at the same time as Joseph was redefining the meaning of priesthood, he also changed the model of church governance from one where he and Oliver were first among equals, to one where power was increasingly concentrated in his own hands:

There is nothing in the New Testament part of either the Bible or Book of Mormon concerning a one-man leader or head to the church… And we had no such an office in the church in these last days for the first eight months of its existence, until Brother Joseph went into this error on April 6, 1830, and, after unwittingly breaking a command of God by taking upon himself such an office, in a few years those revelations were changed to admit this high office, which otherwise would have condemned it. They were changed to mean something entirely different from the way they were first given and printed in the Book of Commandments; as if God had not thought of this great and important office when he gave those revelations.

Changing Revelations

Many of the above changes in Church organization and theology conflicted with the earliest revelations taught by Joseph and published in The Evening and the Morning Star and the 1833 Book of Commandments. These conflicts were addressed for the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. (I am unaware of substantive revisions made before that, even though in some cases very early doctrine was already an awkward fit when published in 1833.)

Whitmer was troubled by the 1835 changes. He explains,

[W]hen the Book of Commandments was printed, Joseph and the church received it as being printed correctly. This I know. In the winter of 1834 they saw that some of the revelations in the Book of Commandments had to be changed, because the heads of the church had gone too far, and had done things in which they had already gone ahead of some of the former revelations. So the book of Doctrine and Covenants was printed in 1835, and some of the revelations changed and added to.

Whitmer also preempted a common apologetic response:

I see that some of you claim that the same power which gave these revelations, had authority to change them, and refer to Jer. xxxvi:32. By reading this passage you will see that the words which were added were “like words;” words which conveyed the same meaning — were added to that book by Jeremiah when he was writing it over again, because it had been burned in the fire by the king.
But the words added to the two former revelations are not “like words,” as they change and reverse the original meaning.

Whitmer was not the only one to be concerned by human meddling with divine revelation. Joe Geisner notes,

On July 31, 1832, Joseph wrote a letter to W. W. Phelps, warning and instructing Phelps: “I will exhort you to be careful not to alter the sense of any of them for he that adds or diminishes to the prophecies must come under the condemnation written therein.” The manuscripts themselves declare these are the words of Jesus Christ and they are not to be tampered with: “Behold, and lo, these are the words of Alpha and Omega, even Jesus Christ. Amen” (D&C 81:7), “listen to the words of Jesus Christ, your Lord and your Redeemer” (D&C 15:1), and “These sayings are true and faithful: wherefore transgress them not, neither take therefrom” (D&C 68:34).

Whitmer gives four examples of changes between the Book of Commandments (BC) and Doctrine and Covenants (D&C).

No Other Gift

In BC 4, God declares,

And [Joseph] has a gift to translate the book, and I have commanded him that he shall pretend to no other gift, for I will grant him no other gift.

This was important to early followers like Whitmer who were suspicious of being drawn into an organization led by a man with vast, unaccountable powers. But the revision in D&C 5 removes this limitation:

And you have a gift to translate the plates; and this is the first gift that I bestowed upon you; and I have commanded that you should pretend to no other gift until my purpose is fulfilled in this; for I will grant unto you no other gift until it is finished.

This change opened the way for Joseph to name himself Seer and Prophet and President — and later to become Mayor, Chief Justice, and General of Nauvoo, as well as to secretly elevate himself to king.

All Things Are Written

God tells His saints in BC 15 that

I give unto you a commandment, that you rely upon the things which are written; for in them are all things written, concerning my church, my gospel, and my rock. Wherefore if you shall build up my church, and my gospel, and my rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. [emphasis added]

This is corroborated by other early revelations. For instance, Joseph wrote that the angel Moroni told him that “the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in [the Book of Mormon].” But D&C 18 relegates the Book of Mormon to a “foundation” upon which additions can be made at will:

I give unto you a commandment, that you rely upon the things which are written; for in them are all things written, concerning the foundation of my church, my gospel, and my rock; wherefore, if you shall build up my church upon the foundation of my gospel and my rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you.

Whitmer explains,

When the Book of Doctrine and Covenants was compiled, the church had then received many revelations to establish new offices and doctrines that are not even mentioned in the New Covenant of either of the two sacred books [Bible and Book of Mormon]. They changed this revelation in order to sustain these new doctrines: If they had not made this change, the plain language of the original revelation would have condemned the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. I want to repeat that I was present when Brother Joseph received this revelation through the stone: I am one of the persons to whom it was given, therefore I know of a surety that it was changed when printed in the Doctrine and Covenants.

The concept of Church presidency was added to D&C 48 (BC 51), and high priesthood to D&C 17 (BC 4) and 20 (BC 24). The new Aaronic and Melchizedek concepts were also retroactively injected into D&C 24 (BC 28).

Whitmer also sees the judgement of God falling upon the Saints for violating God’s original command:

[W]e were commanded to rely upon the “things which are written” in building up the church; [and thus] “the gates of hell shall not prevail against you.” But we did not rely upon the written word in building up the church; but Joseph went on in the persuasions of men, … and so we did not establish His (Christ’s) church, His gospel and His rock, so the gates of hell did prevail against the church, and it finally landed in Salt Lake in polygamy.

Show Not These Things Unto the World

Whitmer next cites the changes made to BC 16:

I command you that you preach naught but repentance; and show not these things, neither speak these things unto the world, for they cannot bear meat, but milk they must receive: wherefore, they must not know these things, lest they perish. [emphasis added]

Whitmer explains,

Publishing the early revelations, or any of them, was contrary to the will of the Lord… The Lord told us not to teach them for doctrine; they were given mostly to individuals, the persons whom God chose in commencing His work for their individual instruction, and the church had no need of them. They should have been kept with the sacred papers and records of the church, and never published in a book to become public property for the eyes of the world.
In the revelations themselves are positive commands to keep these things from the world, that they are sacred, etc. A revelation was given to Oliver Cowdery in April, 1829, in which he is told that he would be granted a gift “to translate even as my servant Joseph,” warning him as follows: “Remember, it is sacred, and cometh from above. Trifle not with sacred things. Make not thy gift known unto any, save it be those who are of thy faith.” [emphasis Whitmer’s]

D&C 18 updates BC 16 to read “… show not these things unto the world, until it is wisdom in me.” Whitmer describes what he sees as the consequences of violating the divine command to keep these revelations hidden:

The main reason why the printing press was destroyed, was because they published the Book of Commandments. It fell into the hands of the world, and the people of Jackson county, Missouri, saw from the revelations that they were considered by the church as intruders upon the land of Zion, as enemies to the church, and that they should be cut off out of the land of Zion and sent away. The people seeing these things in the Book of Commandments became the more enraged, tore down the printing press, and drove the church out of Jackson county. (See D&C, Sections 52 : 9, 64 : 7, 45 : 15.) Which is the land of your inheritance. Which is now the land of your enemies.

Like Unto the Church in the Days of Old

Finally, Whitmer points out the change made to BC 4 regarding the organization of the Church:

[I]f the people of this generation harden not their hearts, I will work a reformation among them, and I will put down all lyings, and deceivings, and priestcrafts, and envyings, and strifes, and idolatries, and sorceries, and all manner of iniqui ties, and I will establish my church, like unto the church which was taught by my disciples in the days of old. [emphasis Whitmer’s]

This paragraph was removed entirely from D&C 5. While today’s Mormonism retains a folk teaching that its organization matches that of the primitive Christian church, Whitmer correctly observes that within months of the Church’s organization this was no longer the case. The divine declaration from BC 4 was in conflict with this new reality and was therefore removed.

Whitmer’s Testimony

Whitmer survived Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris by decades, and thus is by far the most-interviewed of the Three Witnesses. While the details of his statements sometimes changed (e.g. as to whether he saw the angel and gold plates “as plain as I see this bed” versus “in a vision, or in the spirit”), he never wavered in his belief in the divine nature of the Book of Mormon and Joseph’s early, seer stone revelations.

Whitmer’s Address to All Believers remains a unique look at Mormonism from one of Joseph Smith’s earliest followers. Whitmer was a sincere man with deeply held Christian convictions; his Address serves as his penultimate testimony.

Whitmer died at his home in Richmond about a year after publication, aged 83. He had The Testimony of Three Witnesses engraved on his tombstone.