President Joseph Fielding Smith described the significance of the name-title “I AM”: “When Moses was tending the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, at Horeb, the mountain of God, the Lord appeared to him in a flaming bush and gave him commandment to go to Egypt and lead Israel from bondage. Jesus Christ Is the Great I AM, Alpha and Omega This revelation was the Lord’s answer to those who wondered why they should move three hundred miles to the west in the dead of winter. He further revealed why He had commanded the Saints to move to Ohio: “There I will give unto you my law and there you shall be endowed with power from on high” ( D&C 38:32). In it the Lord said that He was “the same which had taken the Zion of Enoch into mine own bosom” ( D&C 38:4). During the third conference of the Church, the Prophet received Doctrine and Covenants 38. The fulfillment of the first requirement was begun on 2 January 1831. Two things were needed before Zion could be built in this dispensation, however: revelation from the Lord giving His law and the order of Zion, and the preparation and sanctification of the Saints. Chapters 6 and 7 dealt specifically with the establishment of Zion in Enoch’s day. He once said, “We ought to have the building up of Zion as our greatest object” ( History of the Church, 3:390).ĭuring the month of December 1830, Joseph Smith received by revelation the remainder of the book of Moses. From the time this commandment was first given until his martyrdom, the Prophet labored diligently to this end. The Lord had previously charged the Church to “seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion” ( D&C 6:6 11:6 12:6 14:6). As the year 1831 dawned, Joseph Smith envisioned “a prospect great and glorious for the welfare of the kingdom” ( History of the Church, 1:140).

Section 38 c 6