False Doctrine

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  Some members of the Church are now teaching that priesthood is some kind of a free-floating authority which can be assumed by anyone who has had the endowment. They claim this automatically gives one authority to perform priesthood ordinances. They take verses of scripture out of context and misinterpret statements of early leaders—for instance, the Prophet Joseph Smith—to sustain their claims. What is puzzling is this: with all their searching through Church history, and their supposed knowledge of the scriptures, they have missed the one simple, obvious absolute that has governed the bestowal of priesthood from the beginning, said as simply as this: “We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.” The priesthood is conferred through ordination, not simply through making a covenant or receiving a blessing. It has been so since the beginning. Regardless of what they may assume or imply or infer from anything which has been said or written, past or present, specific ordination to an office in the priesthood is the way, and the only way, it has been or is now conferred. And the scriptures make it very clear that the only valid conferring of the priesthood comes from “one who has authority, and it is known to the church that he has authority and has been regularly ordained by the heads of the church.” Remember, it was the resurrected John the Baptist, “under the direction of Peter, James and John, who held the keys of the Priesthood of Melchizedek,” who came, in person, to restore the Aaronic Priesthood, and it was the resurrected Peter, James, and John who came, in person, to restore the Melchizedek Priesthood—facts in Church history except for which our claim to priesthood authority would be invalid. The Prophet Joseph Smith explained that the angel who appeared to Cornelius sent him to Peter to be taught because “Peter could baptize, and angels could not, so long as there were legal officers in the flesh holding the keys of the kingdom, or the authority of the priesthood”; and that while the Lord called Paul as “minister and … witness” on the road to Damascus, he sent him to Ananias to receive instruction and authority. The priesthood is an everlasting covenant. The Lord said: “All who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world.” Do not miss that one simple, obvious absolute: The priesthood ever and always is conferred by ordination by one who holds proper authority, and it is known to the Church that he has it. And even when the priesthood has been conferred, an individual has no authority beyond that which belongs to the specific office to which one has been ordained. Those limits apply as well to an office to which one is set apart. Unauthorized ordinations or settings apart convey nothing, neither power nor authority of the priesthood. If they seek to do mischief with the priesthood and with the sacred things of the temple, the Lord has said he would “blind their minds, that they may not understand his marvelous workings.

  Elder Boyd K. Packer

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  • False Doctrine

  21 Oct 2026