It is also possible that Joseph Smith was the one privileged to record this vision for the inhabitants of this telestial world just as John the Revelator was the one ordained to record the vision to the end of the world (see 1 Nephi 14:25, 27). While several men have seen a vision of the beginning of the world to the end thereof (for example, see 1 Nephi 14:26), Joseph Smith’s vision went beyond the scope of this world and into the eternal worlds of varying degrees of glory. “Paul ascended into the third heavens, and he could understand the three principal rounds of Jacob’s ladder-the telestial, the terrestrial, and the celestial glories or kingdoms, where Paul saw and heard things which were not lawful for him to utter.” And even our knowledge of these two men having seen such a vision is dependent upon a statement by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Perhaps others have seen the same or similar vision, but there are only two other men recorded in our present-day scriptures to whom this great revelation was revealed: Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel (see Genesis 28:10–12), and Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles (see 2 Corinthians 12:1–7). Perhaps the most comprehensive vision of this dispensation, as well as others, was given to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon on February 16, 1832, at Hiram, Ohio, in the upper story of the Johnson home.

Visions of glory lds