“No Person Is to Be Ordained to Any Office in This Church . . . without the Vote of That Church”
Doctrine and Covenants 20:65–67
65 No person is to be ordained to any office in this church, where there is a regularly organized branch of the same, without the vote of that church;
66 But the presiding elders, traveling bishops, high councilors, high priests, and elders, may have the privilege of ordaining, where there is no branch of the church that a vote may be called.
67 Every president of the high priesthood (or presiding elder), bishop, high councilor, and high priest, is to be ordained by the direction of a high council or general conference.
Elder Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjödahl wrote:
“These verses [D&C 20:65–67] were added some time after those preceding them. The organization of the Church was not completed at one time. Revelations were given gradually, as the Church required them.
“The Lord teaches us in these paragraphs that no person can assume authority or take honor unto himself. All things are done by common consent and every man appointed, or ordained, to office must receive his calling by proper authority. Any other course would lead to confusion and disintegration of the Church. President Joseph F. Smith has said:
“‘The house of God is a house of order, and not a house of confusion’; and it could not be thus, if there were not those who had authority to preside, to direct, to counsel, to lead in the affairs of the Church. No house would be a house of order if it were not properly organized, as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is organized. Take away the organization of the Church and its power would cease. Every part of its organization is necessary and essential to its perfect existence. Disregard, ignore, or omit any part, and you start imperfection in the Church; and if we should continue in that way we would find ourselves like those of old, being led by error, superstition, ignorance, and by the cunning and craftiness of men’ [“Come, Follow Me”, p. 185].”
(The Doctrine and Covenants Commentary, rev. ed. [1951], 109.)
