There are a lot of problems with Section 132. But not all of them have to do with its questionable provenance and unauthorized inclusion (by common consent) in LDS scripture.
On the theological level, the commandments of Jesus Christ (as contained in the scriptural canon) present a major problem for the logic and rationale of Section 132. This post will focus on verse 61 of that section.
To contextualize this verse, we must examine the commandment in place concerning adultery. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus updated the Mosaic law concerning the sin of adultery with a commandment that was far more holistic and complete on the matter of being chaste before God and having fidelity towards one's spouse.
From Matthew 5:
27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
29 And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them.30 But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.
22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
We can see from these teachings that Jesus was far more concerned with the internal righteousness of his followers than he was with technical obedience to his commandments.
Just as resolutely as he cleared the money changers from the temple, his New Testament teachings appear to be cleaning house with regards to the personal darkness, extortions, and excesses that sew sin and iniquity in anyone claiming to be his. Thus, these teachings represent a higher law than what was found in the Mosaic law.
With regards to the teaching above about chastity, apparently the new law was important enough to be repeated once for the Nephites at Bountiful, and then repeated twice more in 1831 for the saints in Kirtland. Both iterations, in section 42 and 63, also expanded upon the new law with further clarifications.
From Section 42:
22 Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.
23 And he that looketh upon a woman to lust after her shall deny the faith, and shall not have the Spirit; and if he repents not he shall be cast out.
From Section 63:
16 And verily I say unto you, as I have said before, he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, or if any shall commit adultery in their hearts, they shall not have the Spirit, but shall deny the faith and shall fear.
Both of these sections were presented to the church for a confirming vote of consent in the August General Conference of 1835. Then they were published, along with the lectures on faith, in that year's edition of the Doctrine and Covenants.
Taken together with all the other iterations, I'm not sure if there is a way for the Lord to convey this commandment that would make the higher law any more plain.
For those who support the idea of polygamy as a Godly principle, the comparison is often made that the commandment given to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, or the commandment given to Nephi to slay Laban, constitute exceptions to the commandment to not kill that were meant to test the obedience of these men.
Thereby, it is reasoned, these instances lay the groundwork wherein we are supposed to understand when to make exceptions to the old law for the sake of obeying the Lord.
The difference here is that we are talking about an updated law that has already been enhanced and clarified four times since Christ's ministry. We are not talking about a law given to Moses.
In addition to this, Section 49 adds the following:
16 Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation;
17 And that it might be filled with the measure of man, according to his creation before the world was made.
Why is this important? Because there appears to be no room in Christ's law for a man to desire additional women. It is monogamous marriage that creates a call and response equilibrium with the Earth that was designated before the Earth was made.
For married men to attempt to circumvent the "none else" part of Section 42 is to violate Christ's commandment as clarified. Our violation of these clarifications potentially changes the earth's response to our presence here. This should enhance our understanding of scriptures like Section 123:7, where it indicates that "the whole earth groans under the weight of its iniquity."
So, when we look at Section 132, we must scrutinize this document from the foundation laid by the words of Christ that preceded it:
61. And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.
I've emphasized three parts of this verse which violate Christ's law, wherein there is no allowance for desiring to espouse another. Hence, there is no such thing as either the Lord or the first wife giving consent for or justifying an additional wife, much less justifying the desiring/seeking of one.
This assumption in the verse that desire is the qualification that causes either the Lord or the first wife to give an additional wife to a man is also preposterous, because it indicates that it is acceptable for any of the parties in question to ignore the "none else" part of the already updated law.
Such logic can only be deployed by what the scriptures identify as the "carnal mind". It doesn't matter if the section also discusses Eternal Marriage if the path to such blessings is created by allowing men to ignore the "none else" part of the law, and to desire additional women in violation of the prior commandment.
In addition to this, the wording of this verse infers that extramarital desire by men constitutes some kind of perverse revelation from the divine. Such rationale is also steeped in carnality, and the effect of such is to deprive the man in question of having the Spirit to be with him.
Long before the reiterations in Kirtland, the Lord delivered a similar sermon in 3 Nephi. Included with that delivery to the Nephites was an additional warning in chapter 12:
29 Behold, I give unto you a commandment, that ye suffer none of these things to enter into your heart;
30 For it is better that ye should deny yourselves of these things, wherein ye will take up your cross, than that ye should be cast into hell.
The ways in which polygamy destroys women are well documented. But this part of 3 Nephi underscores the way that both the practice and the expectation of practicing polygamy destroys men, by the allowing of such desires to enter their hearts.
Certainly a heart that is accustomed to accommodating lust-dressed-as-piety receives a god. But it is not the god of Section 42.
While allowing extramarital desire to enter into your heart is forbidden by Jesus, it does in fact follow the logic of an ancient tradition of false doctrines presented in scripture. Examine these two verses from Alma 30:
17 And many more such things did he say unto them, telling them that there could be no atonement made for the sins of men, but every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime.
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53 But behold, the devil hath deceived me; for he appeared unto me in the form of an angel, and said unto me: Go and reclaim this people, for they have all gone astray after an unknown God. And he said unto me: There is no God; yea, and he taught me that which I should say. And I have taught his words; and I taught them because they were pleasing unto the carnal mind; and I taught them, even until I had much success, insomuch that I verily believed that they were true; and for this cause I withstood the truth, even until I have brought this great curse upon me.
Because the logic of Section 132 accommodates the natural man, it ultimately denies the faith by bringing the section into harmony with the doctrines of Korihor. Anything that pleases the carnal mind results in a great curse being brought upon those who believe the evil thing to be true, or righteous.
This Anti-Christ not only preached the principle of "the management of the creature" (that was all about serving the natural man), but also admitted in writing (after he was struck dumb) that he taught these false doctrines "because they were pleasing to the carnal mind".
Ultimately, the result these unrighteous desires yield is the curse described in the clarification added in Section 63, that these men shall deny the faith and shall fear.
The arm of flesh cannot protect us from the Judgment. Under the leadership and tradition of prominent polygamists like Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, it is still common for LDS men to fully expect authorized polygamy to be an integral part of the establishment of Zion, and of life in the Celestial Kingdom.
Attendant with this set of expectations is some kind of imaginary circumvention of Section 42:22 that allows men in the interim to desire any woman (single or married) as a potential prospect for a supposed time when "authorized" polygamy is eventually restored.
A desire to be exempt from that verse, however, cannot be understood as being within the context of righteousness. Any subversion of His words can only serve the enemy of God identified in Mosiah 3:19, and pleases the carnal mind idealized by Korihor.
The spiritual purity and authenticity of Section 132 is therefore negated by the words of Christ.
Some point to Jacob 2:30 as if it constitutes a loophole for authorized polygamy, but Steve Reed has done a robust, logical study on that verse that indicates that this is not the case.
In the meantime, this off-and-on openness to entertaining extramarital desire can undermine a man's relationships with God, with his wife, and with his children in all the ways described in Jacob 2:
35 Behold, ye have done greater iniquities than the Lamanites, our brethren. Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children, because of your bad examples before them; and the sobbings of their hearts ascend up to God against you. And because of the strictness of the word of God, which cometh down against you, many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds.
Harboring such desires can yield decades of of a man being kept at bay by the Spirit of God while he remains ensnared in a false tradition that was taught to him by churchmen, not by God. This awful state is brought about by trusting in the arm of flesh. Examine 2 Nephi 4:
34 O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm.
This is the acknowledgement of a prophet (Nephi) who is described as having had a long, proven revelatory relationship with the Lord. The poison being discussed here resides deep in the hearts of many men who view Section 132 as authentic scripture without having the type of relationship with God that Nephi had. This creates an awful crucible for men who have lived and died with these desires in their hearts, and are thus ensconced in this tradition.
Verse 30 of 3 Nephi 12 (quoted above) underscores the gravity of the updated law, and has the potential to blindside entire generations of LDS men with destruction.
One doesn't need to look very hard to find dead hearts, pierced with deep wounds in either 19th century polygamous Utah, or in modern polygamy. It is a practice that harms all involved.
For those of us that are now living, we have a limited probationary period to eliminate this tradition of subtle lechery from our hearts. We must take this fleeting opportunity to put off the natural man, to repent, and to follow the commandment to cleave unto our wives in monogamy and full fidelity so that we can be redeemed by the Atonement.
There is no way around Jesus' words. We cannot justify unrighteousness by pointing to an inauthentic document that Joseph Smith never canonized, that was never put up to be ratified by common consent, and that ultimately does not pass the basic litmus of Christ's law of chastity.
