Families can be together forever through temple sealing

Start with what the Bible and the Church share. Paul writes to Christians in Thessalonica who had buried members of their church: “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). He ends: “so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (4:17-18).

That is the hope of reunion. It rests on Jesus’ own resurrection, and the risen Jesus was recognizable: “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself” (Luke 24:39). Revelation pictures the end as God dwelling with his people, where “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow” (Revelation 21:4).

The Bible and the Church agree that love survives death. They differ on what secures that future and what life in the resurrection is like, and the Bible speaks to both.

Some Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, brought Jesus a puzzle. Under the law of Moses, if a man died childless, his brother was to marry the widow (Deuteronomy 25:5). Suppose seven brothers married the same woman in turn: “in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her” (Matthew 22:28).

Jesus answered: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (22:29-30).

The Church reads this as describing those whose marriages were not sealed. Doctrine and Covenants 132:15-17 applies Jesus’ words to people married “not by me nor by my word,” who become “angels in heaven” rather than gods.

Luke’s account of the same answer bears on that reading. Jesus says, “they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:35-36). The people Jesus describes are the worthy ones, the “children of God,” and the reason he gives is that they “cannot die any more,” with no mention of which ceremony was used. The seven marriages in the puzzle were lawful under God’s own law, and Jesus does not ask which one was valid. He says the question misunderstands what resurrection life is.

If marriage does not continue in the resurrection, you might feel the Bible has taken something from you. It says instead that marriage was always pointing to something greater. Paul quotes Genesis, “they two shall be one flesh,” and then says, “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32). Every faithful marriage is a picture of Christ’s love for his people.

That picture comes true at the end of the Bible. “The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready,” and “Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:7, 9). The Bible does have an eternal marriage. It is between Christ and everyone he has redeemed.

Jesus also redefined family. “Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother” (Mark 3:35). In that family, no one is left out because they never married, were widowed, or have relatives who do not share their faith. Your husband or wife, your children, and your parents who belong to Christ will be there, and you will love them more fully than you can now, because nothing will stand between any of you and God.

In the Church’s teaching, the highest place in the celestial kingdom depends on a particular ordinance, meaning a sacred rite performed by priesthood authority. “In order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; And if he does not, he cannot obtain it” (Doctrine and Covenants 131:2-3). The Becoming Like God essay says exaltation is “available through the Atonement of Christ, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.” The Church also performs these ordinances on behalf of the dead, so it teaches that no one is shut out only because they never reached a temple.

The Church speaks often of grace, too, and so does the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 2:8). The difference is over what your highest future finally rests on. Paul answers: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Grace here means God’s favor given to people who have not earned it. Paul does not dismiss obedience. The next verse says we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (2:10). Good works follow from salvation; they are not the condition for receiving its fullness.

Paul also says who inherits: “we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17). The inheritance belongs to God’s children through the Spirit. John wrote so that believers could know they have eternal life now: “He that hath the Son hath life” (1 John 5:12).

Exaltation in the Church’s teaching includes becoming gods. Of those sealed by the new and everlasting covenant, Doctrine and Covenants 132:20 says, “Then shall they be gods, because they have no end.” The essay adds that Latter-day Saints believe “God’s children will always worship Him,” and that exaltation does not mean competing deities. That distinction is real.

The Bible’s promise uses some of the same words for something different. “We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Peter’s “partakers of the divine nature” is real, and he defines it in the same sentence: “having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:4). It is a share in God’s holiness and his undying life.

The Bible never says that redeemed people become gods. God says, “before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me” (Isaiah 43:10). Believers will be glorified, made like Christ, and will reign with him (Revelation 3:21). They remain forever creatures who worship their Creator. Whether exaltation is possible depends on who God is, which God was once a man takes up.