But sadly, Elder McConkie has written elsewhere, “the book is sealed; as contents are being kept from men in this day. Indeed, it is not even now in the possession of mortals; it was returned by Joseph Smith to Moroni, its divinely appointed custodian. Nor did even Joseph Smith either read or translate it. We know of no one among mortals since Mormon and Moroni who have known its contents. It was known among the Nephites during he nearly two hundred years of their Golden Era. But for the present, the book is kept bent us; only the portion upon which no seal was placed has been translated.”
“And Behold the Book Shall Be Sealed”
This same or like knowledge is contained in the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon. For aught we know the two sealed books are one and the same. Of this much we are quite certain: when, during the Millennium, the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon is translated, it will give an account of life in preexistence; of the creation of all things; of the fall and the atonement and the Second Coming; of temple ordinances, in their fulness; of the ministry and mission of translated beings; of life in the spirit world, in both paradise and hot of the kingdoms of glory to be inhabited by resurrected being and many such like things.(The Bible—A Sealed Book, “ CES Address, August 1984.)”
“Shall Be Sealed”
After the brother of Jared had seen a vision of things from premortality to the end of the Millennium, including “all the inhabitants of the earth which had been, and also all that would be”—a vision surely not unlike, if not identical with, those of Enoch (Moses 6:36), Abraham (Abraham 3), Moses (Moses 1), John (the book of Revelation), and Joseph Smith (D&C 76)—he was told to seal up his record in such a manner that it could be read only by those to those the Lord should give the privilege (see Ether 3:22-28; Ether 4:4-7).
This vision of the brother of Jared—an account hidden from but a few of earth’s inhabitants for over four thousand years-is what is known as the “scaled portion of the Book of Mormon.”