In Ether 3:6, when the veil was taken from the eyes of the Brother of Jared and he saw the finger of the Lord, he fell to the ground in fear. In Ether 3:6–8, the record says, “I feared lest he should smite me.” He had asked the Lord to touch the stones in verse 4 but had apparently not expected to see the finger perform the action.
Subsequently, the Lord showed himself fully to the brother of Jared in person, presented in what biblical scholars call a “prophetic call” narrative: “He showed unto the brother of Jared all the inhabitants of the earth which had been, and also all that would be; and he withheld them not from his sight, even unto the ends of the earth.” David Paulsen published an interesting article in the Harvard Theological Review about the logic of divine embodiment. Latter-day Christology has always held that the Lord Jesus Christ had a spiritual body before he had an earthly one, and that he was the one who communicated with the ancients.
David L. Paulsen, “Early Christian Belief in a Corporeal Deity: Origen and Augustine as Reluctant Witnesses,” The Harvard Theological Review 83, no. 2 (1990): 105–116.