The Church: Its Organization, Order and Discipline

General Conference the Highest Authority

The matter of private judgment and union with the body is plainly stated in Testimony for the Church 1:492, published in the year 1875: “I have been shown that no man’s judgment should be surrendered to the judgment of any one man, but when the judgment of the General Conference, which is the highest authority God has upon earth, is exercised, private independence and private judgment must not be maintained, but be surrendered.” COOD 95.3

These words are not be understood that a conference of men who were led by human wisdom and had the “mold of men,” was the “highest authority of God on earth.” Nay, verily; for such assemblies have been declared “not the voice of God.” It is rather an assembly of representatives of the work, “gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ” with them (1 Corinthians 5:4, 5), whose decisions are ratified by the Lord. COOD 95.4