JS consistently taught that people who were alive before the establishment of the early Christian church knew of and worshipped Jesus Christ. Both the Book of Mormon and JS’s revision of the Old Testament included teachings about Christ and Christian worship predating New Testament times. There were, according to JS, “dispensations and keys and powers and glories” that had been “revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time,” Adam having been the person to whom “Christ was first revealed.” (Book of Mormon, 1840 ed., 103–104, 157–158, 310–311 [2 Nephi 25:18–30; Mosiah 3:7–20; Alma 34:2–16]; Old Testament Revision 1, pp. 13–14 [Moses 6:50–62]; Letter to the Church, 7 Sept. 1842 [D&C 128:18]; Instruction on Priesthood, ca. 5 Oct. 1840.)

JS elaborated on earlier instruction, given in 1840, that “the keys of the Kingdom of God” were on the earth “in all ages of the world” and constituted the means by which “all knowledge, doctrine, the plan of salvation and every important truth is revealed from heaven.” According to JS, this pattern of revealing truth to humanity would continue “to the end of time.” (Instruction on Priesthood, ca. 5 Oct. 1840.)

JS’s reference to the church as the kingdom of God in this sermon responded to various disputes in the nineteenth century among American Protestants regarding the original founding date of Christ’s church and earthly kingdom. Most dated the organization of the ancient church to the day of Pentecost, when the apostles began to baptize converts, while others suggested that the church organization had existed previously. Some assumed that the day of Pentecost fulfilled Christ’s declaration to the apostles that they would receive a baptism of the Holy Ghost in addition to the water baptisms that John had performed. (See, for example, Hopkins, Primitive Church, 1; Blakeney, Protestant Catechism, 14; Coleman, Antiquities of the Christian Church, 439; “Notices of New Publications,” Evangelical Repository, May 1859, 684; Gould and Drapier, Debate between Rev. A. Campbell and Rev. N. L. Rice, 216, 341–348; Garrett, Baptist Theology, 256; Irving, Day of Pentecost, 1–10; Acts 1:5; and Chapman, Sermons, 153–154.)

Hopkins, John Henry. The Primitive Church, Compared with the Protestant Episcopal Church, of the Present Day. . . . Burlington, VT: Smith and Harrington, 1835.

Blakeney, R. P. Protestant Catechism; or, Popery Refuted and Protestantism Established by the Word of God. London: Hatchard, 1854.

Coleman, Lyman. The Antiquities of the Christian Church. Translated and Compiled from the Works of Augusti, with Numerous Additions from Rheinwald, Siegal, and Others. Andover, MA: Gould, Newman, and Saxton, 1841.

“Notices of New Publications.” Evangelical Repository 17, no. 12 (May 1859): 678–686.

Gould, Marcus T. C., and A. Euclid Drapier. A Debate between Rev. A. Campbell and Rev. N. L. Rice, on the Action, Subject, Design, and Administrator of Christian Baptism. . . . Lexington, KY: A. T. Skillman and Son, 1844.

Garrett, James Leo. Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009.

Irving, Edward. The Day of Pentecost; or, The Baptism with the Holy Ghost. . . . London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1831.

Chapman, G. T. Sermons upon the Ministry, Worship, and Doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 2nd ed. Hartford, CT: F. J. Huntington, 1832.

Five days later, on 22 January, JS noted that questions had arisen at the Nauvoo lyceum regarding whether John had baptized for the remission of sins and “wether the kingdom of God was set up before the day of Pentecost or not till then.” It is unclear which meeting of the lyceum JS was referring to. Since this 17 January meeting was held on a Tuesday, the traditional day of the week for lyceum meetings, he could have been referring to this meeting. He also could have been referring to a previous meeting of the lyceum. (Discourse, 22 Jan. 1843.)