"Therefore, when knowledge about adoption was lost, so was the chance to avoid destruction on the coming day when those who will return will burn them up.  On that day only those whose 'hearts are turned to the fathers,' and who are regarded as their children, and held in rememberance by the 'fathers,' will be able to endure glory that would otherwise 'burn them as stubble, leaving neither root nor branch.'

"Brigham Young confessed he did not understand the doctrine. Inexplicably, he taught these matters would be attended to and sorted out during the Millennium.  He knew it needed to be done, didn't know how to do it, and concluded that when Joseph returned through the resurrection, it would all be sorted out.

"The obvious defect in this approach is the pre-Millennial return of Christ, and the returning "fathers" to a body who has not prepared for their return in advance.  The preparation must precede the return. In other words, if they are unprepared, or not recognized as desendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob through the sealing to the 'fathers' through Joseph Smith, they will be burned.  The Gospel was returned primarily to prepare a people for the retun. To say the preparation will happen sometime after the return, during the Millennium, suggests the coming day which will 'burn them up' is inconsequential, or can be ignored with impunity.

"In fourth phase Mormonism, Joseph's "adoption" theology has been converted into something altogether different. It is biological and genealogical, not priestly and dispensational. The church now markets itself as an institution that will 'strengthen families.' It does not inform its members, or prospective converts that the day will come they will be burned up unless they have connected to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob through Joseph Smith as the Dispensation head in a necessary priestly ordinance." (Denver Snuffer, Passing the Heavenly Gift, ch. 18, p. 485-486)