A House of the Lord

When the Saints were commanded to gather in Ohio, the Lord promised that they would receive an endowment of power there (see Doctrine and Covenants 38:32). By December 1832, nearly two years after coming to Kirtland, they had not yet received that endowment.

On the evening of December 27, 1832, Joseph Smith met with the high priests of the Church in the upper story of the N. K. Whitney & Co. Store. “To receive revelation and the blessing of heaven,” Joseph taught, “[it] is necessary to have our minds on God and exercise faith and become of one heart and of one mind.”

Joseph invited all present to pray separately and vocally to the Lord “to reveal His will unto us concerning the upbuilding of Zion, and for the benefit of the Saints and the duty and employment of the elders.”¹ During a series of meetings over the next week, the revelation that is now Doctrine and Covenants 88 was received.

In this revelation, the Lord explained that the reception of the endowment required solemn assemblies conducted in the house of the Lord. “Organize yourselves,” the Lord directed. “Prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:119). The time had arrived for the Saints to build a temple so the Lord could endow them with power, which included the restoration of priesthood key.

With the commandment to build the temple came many challenges. In general, Church members at the time were intelligent, hardworking women and men. Some were talented craftspeople, and many had worked at various times to construct homes for themselves and others. None, however, had built anything on the size or scale of the temple.

By June 1833, temple construction had not yet begun. On June 1, Joseph Smith received a revelation in which the Lord revealed the dimensions of the temple (Doctrine and Covenants 95:13–17). Shortly after, the First Presidency oversaw the drawings of plans for the building.²

Hyrum Smith and Reynolds Cahoon began digging the foundation trenches for the temple and George A. Smith quarried the first load of stone from the nearby Stannard Quarry.³

Then, on June 6, a conference of high priests appointed Hyrum Smith, Reynolds Cahoon, and Jared Carter to serve as the Church building committee to oversee the project and instructed them to begin construction immediately.⁴

After the meeting, Hyrum Smith went to his parents’ home and found a tool. When his mother asked where he was going in such a hurry, he replied, “We are preparing to build a house for the Lord and I am determined to be the first at the work.”

By July 23, the foundation of the temple was dug, and the First Presidency presided over a cornerstone-laying ceremony for the building.

The Kirtland Temple was built from local sandstone cut from a creek bed south of the building. Irregular blocks of stone were cut quickly and then stacked and mortared to create the massive walls of the building. The irregular stones were hidden by thick coats of exterior stucco and interior plaster.

In late 1833, the Saints built a sawmill on Stoney Brook, a fast-moving tributary of the Chagrin River running through the flats near the Whitney Store. The sawmill provided employment for new converts just arriving in Kirtland and produced the lumber necessary to build the temple, including beams, floorboards, and roofing shingles.

Wood from a nearby forest purchased by the Church in March 1833 was harvested and floated down the Chagrin River to the sawmill, where it was milled into lumber. Here, talented craftsmen also created intricate woodwork appliqués that formed much of the interior decoration of the temple. The pulpits that sit at either end of the upper and lower courts of the temple were also first built at the sawmill.

“There was but one mainspring to all our thoughts, and that was building the Lord’s house,” Lucy Mack Smith recalled of this time.⁵

As construction on the temple continued, the entire community pitched in to work. For example, men worked in the quarry to cut stone and to haul it to the construction site. Heber C. Kimball recalled working alongside Joseph Smith in the quarry: “He did not put his hands in his pockets, but he put on his [work clothes] and went into the quarry.”⁶

As construction began on the temple, Joseph and Emma Smith moved their family to their own home on the hill near the temple. From their kitchen window, Joseph and Emma were able to watch as the temple rose above the landscape.

While Joseph spent a significant amount of time at the temple site and in the quarry helping the work to progress, he was also continuing to receive revelations, overseeing the publication of the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants and a second edition of the Book of Mormon, and organizing the Quorum of the Twelve and the Seventies Quorums.

“As my life consisted of activity and unyielding exertion,” Joseph wrote of this time, “I made this my rule: when the Lord commands, do it.”⁷ Many of the revelations received and the meetings that Joseph held during this time were directed toward preparing the Saints for the temple.

By late 1835, the temple was complete enough that Joseph Smith and others began holding meetings in the building. On January 21, 1836, while administering newly revealed ordinances on the third floor of the temple, Joseph Smith received a vision of the celestial kingdom and learned that those who died without baptism in this life would still have the opportunity in the next (see Doctrine and Covenants 137). As the temple neared completion, Joseph learned that the Lord still had more to reveal.

On March 27, 1836, an overflowing crowd of Saints met in the Kirtland Temple for the dedication. In the dedicatory prayer, Joseph Smith said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, … in whose name alone salvation can be administered to the children of men, we ask thee, O Lord, to accept of this house, the workmanship of the hands of us, thy servants, which thou didst command us to build” (Doctrine and Covenants 109:4).

The Lord did accept the house. In an outpouring of angelic and divine manifestations that day and in the days that followed, the Saints were blessed with a season of Pentecost.

On April 3, one week after the temple was dedicated, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery retired to the pulpits on the west end of the building and bowed in solemn and silent prayer. After they had closed their prayers, a vision opened to them of the Savior Jesus Christ.

He stood upon the breastwork of the pulpit before them and declared: “Let the hearts of your brethren rejoice, and let the hearts of all my people rejoice, who have, with their might, built this house to my name. For behold, I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here; and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house” (Doctrine and Covenants 110:6–7).