There are a lot of reasons why I love the LDS Church but there’s one concept in particular that I love more than any other. This one concept that I’ve fallen in love with in Mormonism is foreign to all other Christian churches and religions. This concept is doctrinally denounced by the Christian leaders of the world. Pastors and priests don’t teach it at all. In fact they teach against it based on their traditions and understanding of the scriptures. But I learned by experience…that this concept, this doctrine, this truth, is burning bright in the hearts of those people who attend those churches.
When I was about ten years old, I got dressed up in white clothes and went to an LDS temple. I had no idea what I was doing. We entered into this big beautiful building and walked through the halls. I don’t remember a lot of the details but I remember one thing as if it was yesterday. We entered a room where gigantic mirrors were setup on walls directly across from one another. We knelt on some cushions with an alter in the middle of us and a man in white made some promises to us. When we stood, the man asked me to look into the mirrors and asked me to describe what I was seeing. All these years later…I don’t remember how I answered him but I do remember what I saw and what I felt. I saw my family…together…extending for what looked like an eternity in those mirrors.
That day…I was “sealed” to my parents and my sister with the promise that I could be with them, know them, and love them forever. These people I had been through so much with, and became so close to, weren’t going to become angelic strangers when we died. We weren’t destined to lose our identities and associations in this life. In fact, these relationships were destined to grow stronger.
This doctrine was sweet to me…even at such a young age. Even before I knew it was a doctrine. It was a spiritual knowledge that I knew in my heart was true without yet understanding it intellectually. I never realized that this doctrine was unique to Mormonism. I never realized that pastors and priests from other denominations would preach from their pulpits telling their members that there would be no marriage, no families, and no identity in the next life. I never realized that many religions banished little children or ignorant grandparents to eternal hell because of the time period in which they lived.
For me…immediate, extended, and adopted families were the very fabric of our existence both in heaven and on earth. So it was hard to believe that Christianity as a whole was rejecting the idea and hope of a perpetual family.
It wasn’t until I started personally knocking on doors in the bitter Michigan cold when I realized that most people don’t believe what their pastors are telling them about the family. Over and over again, I would knock on a door, my jaw almost frozen shut…and in the off chance someone opened the door, I’d ask them for the opportunity to share a message with them about families.
Time and time again, people of different denominations would tell me they “already believed in their hearts” that they would be with and know their families in the eternities. Regardless of what their pastor taught regarding the cessation of marriage and family in heaven…for them…they couldn’t envision a place being heaven without their families. It was a concept that burned within their hearts. Even thought they still attended their church, and still revered their pastor, they were unwilling to surrender the burning within them that told them they have a family in heaven.
I think people would fall in love with the LDS Church if they realized just how similar it’s teachings are to what they already believe in their hearts. The end game of the entire Church is sealing families. It was never about Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon or the appearance of Peter, James, and John on the banks of the Susquehanna. Yes…those are super important historical details that undergird the restoration of the gospel, but all of that, was always and will always be about families being together on earth and in heaven through the binding power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. All of the other important people, places, and pieces of the restoration existed to do just one thing. Preserve, protect, bind, and seal the family together…forever.
Christians follow the Word. If the Bible states it, that settles it. Jesus declared after the Resurrection, we are no longer married to our spouse but as angels.We also know as believers we through our belief, we become sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. Read Ephesians 1.13-14..The real eternal family is the Body, the Bride of Christ for us which includes our saved family..We will be eternally linked to our Bridegroom, Jesus. Paul also stated that we are all married to one another..Hope this gives you the truth of what God revealed in the Bible..
You will need to show me where Jesus said sealed marriages don’t carry into eternity.
Actually what Christ said is that after the resurection there are no marriages MADE. Nothing is said in that part about marriages that were made before the resurection ending. God married Adam and Eve before there was death, clearly intending it to be an eternal marriage. God also told various prophets that he had given them power that whatever they seal on earth would be sealed in heaven as well. That power can seal a marriage so that it continues even after the resurection.
This has also been my experience. Most people believe that “until death do you part” is only a statement of fidelity, not eternity. When they love each other they believe and know that their love will overcome death, even if they do not know the means whereby this will become reality. When love has faded, they might be ready to part ways. Even then the miraculous act of being co-creators with God and bringing another human being into this world really goes much deeper than DNA. There is “spiritual DNA” that Gregor Mendel, Crick, nor Watson could understand without the prophetic explanation of modern prophets.
I was a Catholic as a little girl. My Mom had a baby girl in 1964 who died at one day old before she had been baptized. Unfortunately for her, our Priest said she will have to spend eternity in limbo (or purgatory). She could never get to heaven through no fault of her own. For this purpose, my Mother started to search many different religions. When she found the doctrine of the LDS religion that this precious innocent soul does not go to limbo, but in fact she gets to go to the Celestial or highest kingdom where God lives. She felt the truth of that and joined the Church. I am forever grateful for her decision as now my children and husband are sealed with me forever. It is ALL about the eternal family and living again with God.
This is a really poor strawman argument. If strawman arguments shouldn’t be used against the Mormon church, they also shouldn’t be used for it.
There is considerable confusion about this among good Christian believers everywhere. Primarily because preachers graduated from theological schools and seminaries teach an un-illuminated version of what the New Testament says and then people having heard that all their lives in church find themselves conflicted because of what they have been told versus what they believe in their hearts.
And Trimble is absolutely correct when he states that people intuitively know what the truth is. As soon as this is explained to them, they know it and understand it at a core level.
Matthew 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
So Matthew is letting us know that Jesus Christ taught that ordinary (mortal) marriages are only in effect while both parties are present and alive on the earth. When either one dies, that is the end of that union. That marriage is over and done. Matthew is saying there that if in the Resurrection, a couple decided that they now want to be married after they died, no such marriage can take place in that setting.
This is the reason why in all such earthly marriages, when the pastor, reverend, bishop, rabbi or state official performs such a marriage, it is made clear that this is only in effect until death do them part. Simply put, that official has no authority to perform a marriage that goes beyond the death of either of the two parties. He or she does not have the power to do that or to make that promise, and so they don’t.
As was revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith during the process of restoring the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth in the 1800’s, the only way that the marriage covenant will be in force beyond mortality is if the marriage ordinance was performed by one having the authority to do so. That authority has to come from the Savior of the world. He has given that authority to worthy men and it is called the Priesthood after the Holy Order of God and such a marriage can only be performed in a dedicated Temple of God under the direction of one who has the keys and is authorized by the Lord to do so. That is one of the major reasons why you see Mormons building temples. They have been commanded to do so, so that these and other essential ordinances can be performed properly.
Under those circumstances, a couple can not only have their marriage sealed for this life and all eternity but their progeny are also sealed to them and they have the potential to become an eternal family, forever. To my knowledge, this principle is unknown and not claimed outside the LDS faith. It is there because that is the way God designed it.
After all, we are talking about an official act that will be in force and effect beyond this life and for all eternity. So, to avoid chaos and confusion it will obviously be an act that needs to be done by the proper authority, in the proper manner, and in the proper place.
Let me add here, that the invitation is open to all men and women now married to each other, or planning to be married to each other, to be so married in a Temple of the Lord, if they are willing to abide by his standards.
Fortunately, for the billions of loving people who have died and who then desire to have their marriages in force and effect beyond this life, Heavenly Father has provided a perfect way to accomplish just that. One of the most important tasks taken care of in the earthly Temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are proxy marriages performed on behalf of those who are no longer in mortality and cannot do this for themselves. Of course, if such a proxy marriage is performed, and either of the two persons did not agree to the eternal union, then it will not be in force and effect. The agency of the individual is always respected and honored by God.
I think that many people believe they will be with their loved ones after death because it is true–without the secret handshakes and ritual ceremonies that exclude loved ones from attending . Additionally, I have known many temple-married couples in miserable marriages, as well as couples married outside LDS temples with beautiful and sacred marriages. I think that God is bigger than the LDS temple marriage or sealing and will honor their desire to be together throughout eternity.
When I was 8 my mother died in a car wreck. We weren’t members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I never stopped wondering how it would affect our family. Later as a teenager still seeking answers I became aware of Mormons and this theology of eternal families. It made perfect sense. Why would God allow us to invest so much emotionally only to take it away at death? I learned that orthodox Christian theology and the pastors that lead the Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical churches were based on the opinions of Bible scholars. Scholarship is the essence of their theology not revelation from God. The Mormon church is the only church that teaches we are eternal beings and can have eternal relationships based on how we form them here on earth because God has revealed to prophets that such is the case. http://endlesstimeandspace.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-are-families-important.html