Question
Dear Gramps,
An LDS seminary teacher once told me there is such thing as a second gift in addition to the Holy Ghost. He said that this gift can only be received in the temple and only upon being notified to receive it by the authority of the church. I think he may have called it the gift of Christ but I can’t remember exactly. Does such a thing really exist?
Emily
Answer
Emily,
At the Last Supper, Jesus gave His Apostles a discourse on love and related the principle of obedience with the reward of the Comforter.
“If ye love me, keep my commandments.
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:15-17).
This other Comforter (sometimes referred to as the First Comforter) is the Holy Ghost they received on the day of Pentecost (vs. 26). Jesus then increases the promised blessings by speaking of another Comforter. “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. … He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. … If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (18, 21, and 23). This Second Comforter is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
The Prophet Joseph Smith clarified the role of the Savior as the Second Comforter.
“The other Comforter spoken of is a subject of great interest, and perhaps understood by few of this generation. After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost, (by the laying on of hands), which is the first Comforter, then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted. When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and his election made sure, then it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter, which the Lord hath promised the Saints, as is recorded in the testimony of St. John, in the 14th chapter, from the 12th to the 27th verses” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.150).
Now with all that said, let me address this secret temple ordinance that is reportedly tied to having your calling and election made sure. I know of no such ordinance. All references I have read about receiving the Second Comforter (from the scriptures to Elder McConkie’s writings) make no mention of an ordinance that accompanies or precedes it.
There is an ordinance beyond the standard temple ordinances (baptism, confirmation, ordination, washing, anointing (initiatory), endowment, sealing) that I sometimes hear members hint at speak of in seemingly whispered rumors. They mention a so-called second anointing that fulfills the promises made in the other ordinances, usually in an effort to show a mastery of mysteries. To me it shows a great ignorance of order of things and irreverence towards holy things. The only official reference I have found to “other” ordinances beside the one I’ve mentioned is in Elder Talmage’s The House of the Lord. He mentions in passing that other ordinances are performed for the living and the dead in the Holy of Holies. The nature of this ordinance has not been revealed to the world, or even to the saints at large. Only those who receive it and administer it have knowledge of it – and they have mastered the mysteries enough to hold such things sacred. I think it is wisdom for us to do the same.
Gramps
