Jacob Hansen is a Latter-day Saint apologist who appeared on Allie Beth Stuckey’s “Relatable” podcast on April 27, 2026. The episode was put on YouTube with the title “Are Mormons Christians? LDS Apologist vs. Evangelical Christian.”
Hansen on the First Vision
Toward the beginning of the discussion, Stuckey asked Hansen about the First Vision. Here is how Hansen responded:
The Father and the Son appeared to him, and they essentially told him that the original church of Jesus Christ was not in its fullness on the earth. Okay, which means that the—and the way that I would understand that and the way that Latter-day Saints understand that isn’t the belief that there were no believers between the time of Jesus Christ and 1820, right? I did an entire debate on this with Joe Heschmeyer recently. And it’s the idea that the fullness of the ecclesiastical structure of Christ’s church was not on the earth. But we do believe that there has always been since the time of Jesus sincere believers in Jesus Christ. So when we talk about the church, I think it’s important that we distinguish between the church as a body of sincere believers which we believe has had a continual existence and the institution which we believe is necessary to govern those believers, the fullness of the institutional church. And that is what we believe was lost. (3:35–4:33)
As I shall show, what Hansen says here is a total misrepresentation of the “full story” about what Joseph claimed he was told during the First Vision.[1]
The First Vision in Joseph Smith—History
Let’s start with the official, canonical version of the story found in Joseph Smith—History. It is one of the short books in the LDS canon called The Pearl of Great Price.
. . . I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.” (JS-H 1:18–19)
According to Joseph, “the Personage” who answered his question (identified in verse 17 as Jesus Christ) made the following points:
- Joseph “must join none of” the sects.
- The sects “were all wrong.”
- “All their creeds were an abomination in his sight.”
- “Those professors were all corrupt.”
Then, via a quotation conflating a couple of biblical texts (Matt. 15:8–9 // Mark 7:6–7 [cf. Isa. 29:13]; 2 Tim. 3:5), the following statements are said to apply to the people in those “sects”:
- Their hearts are far from the Lord.
- They teach doctrines that are the commandments of men.
- They have a form of godliness but deny “the power thereof.”
Do any of these statements, or do these statements taken together, convey what Hansen claims?
“Fullness of the Institutional Church”?
Three times Hansen states what he claims was the point of the First Vision message:
“the original church of Jesus Christ was not in its fullness on the earth”
“the fullness of the ecclesiastical structure of Christ’s church was not on the earth”
“the fullness of the institutional church . . . is what we believe was lost”
What Joseph Smith—History 1:18–19 says stands in stark contrast to what Jacob Hansen claims it means. Joseph asserted that Christ told him that “all the sects” were “wrong.” They did not merely lack “the fullness of the institutional church,” but they were simply “wrong.” For that reason, Joseph should not join any of them. (Until an institution was created that had “the fullness of the institutional church,” why not join a church that had sincere believers in Jesus Christ and that was part of that “body of sincere believers”?) The reasons given for this judgment are harsh. Their creeds were abominations, their professors were all corrupt, and their hearts were far from the Lord. There is simply no plausible way to extract from the passage the idea that the problem was merely a lack of something that could be called “the fullness” of anything, let alone the fullness of the church as an institution. Indeed, there is no plausible way to reconcile Hansen’s view with the passage. The sects were wrong, not merely less than fully right. They professed abominable creeds, not just incomplete or inaccurate creeds. They taught manmade commandments, rather than a less than full teaching of God’s commandments.
The official LDS Church position on the matter is that what Hansen calls “the original church of Jesus Christ” did not exist on the earth at all at the time of the First Vision. The problem was not merely a lack of the church in its fullness, but the lack of any legitimate church. The LDS scripture called the Doctrine and Covenants claims that the Lord gave Joseph Smith and his associates “power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth” (D&C 1:30). According to this statement, the LDS Church was brought forth “out of darkness,” not out of some light into full light, and it is “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth,” not just the church in its fullness.
“Sincere Believers in Jesus Christ”?
What about Hansen’s claim that the First Vision story allows for there to be many “sincere believers in Jesus Christ”? That may be Hansen’s personal belief, but it does not agree with what Joseph said that Christ told him. According to Hansen, the church existed in Joseph’s day in the sense that there were “sincere believers in Jesus Christ.” According to Joseph, to the contrary, “those professors were all corrupt” and “their hearts are far from” the Lord. Here we must be sure to define the term professors correctly. The word could be used in Joseph’s era, as it is almost exclusively used today, in reference to academic teachers. However, during Joseph’s era the term’s primary meaning was, as the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary stated, “One who makes open declaration of his sentiments or opinions; particularly, one who makes a public avowal of his belief in the Scriptures and his faith in Christ, and thus unites himself to the visible church.” This meaning clearly is the applicable sense of the term professors in Joseph’s account, since it refers to them as part of “the sects” (i.e., parts of the visible church) who professed faith in Christ as expressed in “their creeds” (which were said to be “an abomination”). This is such an important point that I will elaborate on it in a separate post.
Joseph quotes Christ as censuring the members of the various sects in no uncertain terms. “They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” This statement is a classic line that Christ in Matthew used to describe people he called “hypocrites” (Matt. 15:7–9). These are not people who have sincere faith at all, but rather people whose hearts are far from God. The other the biblical texts to which Joseph alluded in his account is 2 Timothy 3:5:
- “having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof” (JS-H 1:19)
- “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Tim. 3:5 KJV)
This description also cannot be understood to mean that they were sincere believers but lacked the fullness of something (such as the institutional church). Rather, the description is a repudiation of the genuineness of their faith. It impugns their sincerity by characterizing them as people whose outward appearance (their “form”) is that of religious piety but who are inwardly unbelieving. They do not merely lack “the power thereof” but instead deny it. Here is the line in its context in Paul’s epistle to Timothy:
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Tim. 3:2–5 KJV)
Joseph’s 1832 Account
We next compare the canonical account in Joseph Smith—History with the 1832 account that surfaced in the 1960s.[2] It confirms the later account’s unflattering view of Christianity. In the earlier account, Joseph states regarding “those of different denominations” that he “discovered that they did not adorn their profession by a holy walk and godly conversation.” (Note the use of the word profession here, in the same context as the later account’s use of professors.) He describes “mankind” as a whole in harsh terms: “the contentions and divisions, the wickedness and abominations, and the darkness which pervaded the minds of mankind.” (Notice the use of the term abominations, which Joseph used in the later account specifically with regard to the creeds.) He goes on to say that he had “found that mankind did not come unto the Lord, but that they had apostatized from the true and living faith.” According to this statement, the people, not merely the institutions, were apostate. When “the Lord” speaks to Joseph, he says much the same thing about those who profess to be believers as in the later account:
Behold, the world lieth in sin at this time, and none doeth good, no not one. They have turned aside from the gospel and keep not my commandments. They draw near to me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me.
The 1832 account does present (as Joseph’s opinion even prior to hearing from the Lord) the idea that none of the churches was right—that there was no authentic institutional church in his day. “There was no society or denomination that built upon the gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament.” This comment does not support Hansen’s view that the problem was a lack of “the fullness” of the institutional church. All forms of the church in Joseph’s day, Joseph claimed, had rejected the gospel (not just had a less than full expression of the gospel), and their members were apostates characterized by wickedness and abominations.
Jacob Hansen is free to believe whatever he wants. The same applies to all members of the LDS Church. However, the first responsibility of someone who claims the mantle of an apologist for his religion is to represent his own religion accurately. On this issue of the meaning of the First Vision, Jacob failed to meet that obligation.
Notes
[1] On the question of the historicity of the First Vision, see my book Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions: Examining the Foundations of Christianity and Mormonism (Tampa, FL: DeWard, 2020).
[2] See Robert M. Bowman Jr., “Suppression of Documents: Joseph Smith’s 1832 First Vision Account versus the Noncanonical Gospels,” RobertBowman.net (blog), April 18, 2020.