ABSTRACT
Jesus would have established a kingdom in his own day if only the Jews had accepted him, but they ‘would not receive that kingdom and acknowledge him as their king’. For Tyler the kingdom of god sweeps from Moses’ day to contemporary Utah, albeit bypassing what might have seemed its optimum phase during Jesus’ life-time, a potential hint at a sense of failure. Andrus invokes Joseph Smith’s affirmation that, ‘the powers of spiritual darkness which Satan controls are real’, to emphasize that ‘Jesus suffered the full powers of spiritual death or hell for all men’, in order to redeem them ‘from spiritual death or hell’. The role of devil and evil spirits cast from heaven at the time of the heavenly apostasy was, indeed, influential in early Mormon thought. Such a millennial judgement increasingly took precedence over that of hell as Mormonism established itself as a religious human potential movement preferring positive messages over the traditional negations of Christian hell-fire.
