Righteous Dominion

What the Lord says about Himself clears up what righteous dominion in D&C 121 is.  It’s a verse found in D&C 15 and 16.

I speak unto you with sharpness and with power, for mine arm is over all the earth.

What caught my eye is the word sharpness.  There is a much-discussed verse in D&C 121 that uses the same term.

Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost

The whole passage is describing the ideal authority and its very winsome, he’s full of love, he doesn’t push people around, etc., but then there is this about reproving betimes with sharpness.  A number of Saints have manfully striven to argue that sharpness means something other than speaking cuttingly, but these attempts have run up against the brute fact that speaking sharply means what it means in English.

D&C 15 and 16 tie it all together though.

The Lord doesn’t just say that he speaks with sharpness and power in D&C 15 and 16.  He says why.  “For my arm is over all the earth.”    “Why” is always tricky.  Theories of causation suggest that any one “why” can have multiple answers and this one is no different.

The Lord could be saying that he speaks with power and sharpness because he owes it to himself due to his high position.  Like the king explaining why he sits on a throne.  “Because I am the king.”
The Lord could be saying that he speaks with power and sharpness because he owes it to the people he has control over.  Sort of a duty that comes with authority.

But he could also be saying that because he is supreme, everything he says naturally is powerful and sharp.  Maybe even inevitably so.  Any parent will have had an experience where expressing any disapproval or correction to a child even in the slightest and kindest possible terms can still result in a flood of tears, because  you are the parent and your disapproval hits like a blow no matter what you do.  If you are supreme over  the whole earth, everything you say is powerful no matter how much you try to cushion it.  If you are supreme over the whole earth, any rebuke you give is sharp, no matter how much you try to soften it.

Lets turn to D&C 121.  One way to interpret those passages is that unrighteous dominion is when a calling or role is your basis for exercising authority or control over people.  In contrast we have righteous dominion, someone who is able to rule through kindness and whose reproofs are sharp and so powerful that they need to be followed up by an increase of love afterwards.  What kind of person is this?  Apparently someone who is powerful enough in their person that people don’t have to be forced to follow them, and whose rebukes sting.  So that’s my theory about what righteous dominion is.  It’s natural dominion.  Natural authority.