The “One Mighty and Strong” Prophecy

The “One Mighty and Strong” Prophecy is a promise in Section 85 of The Doctrine and Covenants that God will send an empowered figure to “set in order the house of God.” Rather than remaining only a scriptural assurance, it becomes a contested claim to leadership: Mormon Fundamentalists see the prophecy as a possible restoration of a church they believe has gone astray, and Robert Crossfield’s revelations apply it to his own authority. Its force in the book lies in the distance between the brief promise and the competing, concrete claims made in its name.

Scriptural Promise and Interpretive Force

In Section 85, the promised figure appears in language of visible authority and extraordinary truth. The Lord declares: “I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God.” The prophecy supplies an identity by title and a task, but does not name the person who will carry it out. That combination leaves room for later believers to identify a fulfillment while presenting the identification as an answer to an existing religious crisis.

The promised work is not merely to inspire individuals: it is to put the house of God in order. The language therefore links spiritual authority with institutional change. The scepter signifies power; the figure’s words are presented as eternal and grounded in truth; and the closing charge makes the restoration of order the measure of the mission. In the book’s treatment, that combination helps explain why the prophecy can support claims to leadership, rather than only private religious hope.

The text’s scriptural standing lends those claims weight. Joseph Smith received Section 85 on November 27, 1832, and the passage is identified as one of the most frequently cited scriptures among Mormon Fundamentalists, surpassed in their use only by Section 132 of The Doctrine and Covenants. Section 85 supplies a language of future correction; Section 132 is associated with the plural-marriage principle that fundamentalists believe the established church abandoned. Together, the citations connect the expectation of a coming restorer with a specific dispute over religious doctrine and authority.

A Prophecy Claimed by Fundamentalists

The promise becomes especially consequential against the break between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Mormon Fundamentalists. The mainstream church eventually rejected plural marriage and urged government agencies to prosecute polygamists. Fundamentalists regard that change as a compromise made for political acceptance, and present themselves as guardians of what they see as essential doctrine. In that setting, a figure who will “set in order the house of God” can be understood as the agent who will reverse the perceived departure and restore the church to its proper course.

The expectation is not confined to a distant, undefined future. The book reports that many fundamentalists believe the one mighty and strong is already living among them and will soon lead the Mormon Church back to the right path. This conviction makes the prophecy a present-tense test of authority: the community’s awaited restorer is imagined as already on earth, though his identity remains a matter of competing belief. The promise’s open wording allows adherents to connect it to their own leaders without the passage itself settling which leader, if any, fulfills it.

In Colorado City, that reading attaches to Rulon Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly known as the United Effort Plan. His followers trace his divinely ordained leadership in an unbroken chain back to Joseph Smith and believe that he is the prophesied figure. The contrast between his frail, ninety-two-year-old appearance and the prophecy’s radiant, powerful imagery is part of the account: the community’s conviction, rather than outward resemblance, establishes the identification for believers. Here the prophecy validates an existing line of leadership and sustains the expectation that the community’s religious order will ultimately prevail.

Robert Crossfield’s Claim

Robert Crossfield’s history shows how the same prophecy can authorize a challenge not only to the mainstream church but also to a fundamentalist leadership. After he began attending prayer meetings with polygamists in Creston, God told him in March 1962: “I will raise up one mighty and strong among you, having the scepter of justice in his hand, who shall grind in pieces all those who would oppose My work, for the prayer of the righteous shall not go unheeded.” The revelation directly invokes the language of Section 85, but makes its application sharper: the figure is to arise “among you,” and opposition to his work will be crushed. Crossfield did not explicitly announce in public that he was the one mighty and strong, yet the book says his published revelations leave little doubt that he privately entertained that possibility.

Crossfield’s claims developed into an explicit challenge to recognized authorities. By 1972, he had received twenty-three significant revelations and gathered them in The First Book of Commandments, which he paid to have printed and distributed to libraries and religious bookstores in Canada and the western United States. The book reached LDS President Mark E. Peterson, after which Crossfield was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He continued attending for a time, despite the excommunication, until he was told he could no longer come. The sequence makes the dispute more than a disagreement about interpretation: Crossfield’s published revelations asserted an authority that the institution answered by ending his membership and excluding him from worship.

In 1974, Crossfield received revelations declaring that his version of the One True Church was correct and that Uncle Roy’s version was wrong. A commandment in 1975 called him Onias, declared him the true prophet and rightful leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and said he had been placed on earth “to set in order My Church.” In this account, the prophecy’s promised task becomes an explicit warrant for a rival claim to leadership. Crossfield’s revelations did not simply identify a future restorer; they assigned that work to him and instructed United Effort Plan leaders to take direction from him.

Rival Restorations and Their Consequences

Crossfield’s claim was rejected by the leaders of the community whose authority he challenged. Uncle Roy and the other men who administered the United Effort Plan in Creston and Colorado City did not accept his revelations as orders. The leader of the Creston fundamentalists told him he was no longer welcome at the prayer meetings, and Crossfield was expelled from the United Effort Plan. He moved to Idaho and, in the early 1980s, to a town outside Provo, Utah. The prophecy’s language promised that the house of God would be set in order, but its competing applications produced a dispute over who had the right to define that order.

The contrast between Rulon Jeffs and Onias reveals the prophecy’s particular usefulness and instability. In Colorado City, it confirms a leader whom followers understand as the culmination of a chain reaching back to Joseph Smith. In Crossfield’s revelations, it supports a new prophet who claims the existing fundamentalist leaders themselves have gone astray. The same scriptural promise can thus reinforce established authority or be turned against it. Its power depends not only on the text but on whether a community accepts the interpreter who declares the fulfillment.

The prophecy also fits a broader Mormon expectation that religious truth and ecclesiastical authority proceed through continuing revelation. The official title of the supreme leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is “President, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator,” reflecting the central place assigned to divine communication. Against that background, the promised restorer is not an isolated figure in an otherwise settled tradition: he stands within a religious world in which claims of revelation can establish, renew, or contest institutional authority. Section 85 supplies a compact promise; the rival identifications of Rulon Jeffs and Onias show how much depends on who is believed to speak for its fulfillment.