In an address in 1971, President Joseph Fielding Smith, then serving as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said: “I think I can pay no greater tribute to [President Lorenzo Snow and Elder Erastus Snow] than to preach again that glorious doctrine which they taught and which was one of the favorite themes, particularly of President Lorenzo Snow …We have been promised by the Lord that if we know how to worship, and know what we worship, we may come unto the Father in his name, and in due time receive of his fulness. We have the promise that if we keep his commandments, we shall receive of his fulness and be glorified in him as he is in the Father. This is a doctrine which delighted president Snow, as it does all of us. Early in his ministry he received by direct, personal revelation the knowledge that (in the Prophet Joseph Smith's language), 'God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens,' and that men 'have got to learn how to be Gods …the same as all Gods have done before. After this doctrine had been taught by the Prophet, President Snow felt free to teach it also, and he summarized it in one of the best known couplets in the Church …This same doctrine has of course been known to the prophets of all the ages, and President Snow wrote an excellent poetic summary of it.” It is clear that the teaching of President Lorenzo Snow is both acceptable and accepted doctrine in the Church today.

Gerald N. Lund