Did Joseph Smith Follow the Laws of Polygamy in D&C 132?
Doctrine and Covenants 132—the revelation Joseph Smith claimed to receive from God on plural marriage—lays out specific conditions: additional wives must be virgins, never married, and taken only with the consent of the first wife. Yet historical records, along with the LDS Church’s 2014 essay “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo,” admit that Joseph Smith married women who were already married to living husbands and that his wife Emma was often unaware of these secret unions. Estimates suggest Smith was sealed to 12 to 14 women still married to other men. To complicate matters further, this revelation was not even written down until 1843—years after many of Smith’s plural marriages had already taken place.
This raises a troubling question: Did Joseph Smith obey the very revelation he claimed came from God, or did he bend and rewrite the rules to justify his desires?
The Bible gives clear, unchanging standards for marriage:
- “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)
- Jesus confirmed this design: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Matthew 19:4–6)
- “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife.” (1 Timothy 3:2)
- “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” (Hebrews 13:4)
Far from allowing men to collect wives in secrecy, Scripture calls for truth, purity, and faithfulness. Deception, adultery, and coercion directly violate God’s commands. Leaders who misrepresent God’s Word for personal gain are condemned:
- “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.” (Jeremiah 23:1)
- “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” (Matthew 7:15)
This video examines the stark contradictions between Joseph Smith’s actions and the revelation he claimed to receive, showing how his practices conflicted not only with D&C 132 itself but also with God’s eternal Word. Was this truly divine command—or religious exploitation cloaked in revelation? The Bible leaves no doubt: God’s design for marriage is pure, faithful, and unchanging. Furthermore, Scripture provides a direct test of a prophet’s authenticity:
- “But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” (Deuteronomy 18:20–22)
By this standard, Joseph Smith’s contradictions and failed revelations expose him as a false prophet, not a messenger of God.
