Doctrine & Theologymarriagesealingfamilykeys

Eternal Marriage and Sealings

Is temple sealing a Victorian sentiment, or does the Bible already bind marriage to heaven’s authority?

Bible

The Bible answers

Bible · Matthew 19:6

KJV + NRSVUE

King James Version
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

NRSVUE
So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.

Bible · 1 Corinthians 11:11

KJV + NRSVUE

Neither is the man without the woman, in the Lord.

King James Version
Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.

NRSVUE
Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman.

Book of Mormon

Also restored

Doctrine and Covenants 131:1–4
The highest degree requires it. That is why we build temples.
In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; And 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. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase.

Doctrine and Covenants 132:19
Married by my word and the new and everlasting covenant — of full force when they are out of the world.
And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood… it shall be done unto them in all things whatsoever my servant hath put upon them, in time, and through all eternity; and shall be of full force when they are out of the world.

Ancient witnesses

Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.

Second Temple marriage, Malachi 4, and sealing language

Malachi’s promise that Elijah would turn the hearts of fathers and children is read in the Restoration as sealing work. Jewish marriage was covenant, not contract only, and the hope of resurrection made family more than a mortal convenience.

The Restoration’s distinctive is not that marriage matters. It is that priesthood keys can make the Lord’s joining survive death. Civil vows and even Christian weddings without those keys do not, of themselves, claim eternity. That is Matthew 16:19 applied to Matthew 19:6.

Faithful answers

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Gospel Topics

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Eternal marriage is not a denial of singleness in the Lord’s economy of mercy. It is the revealed order of the highest glory. God seals families because He is a Father, not a solitary essence.

In the temple, a husband and wife may be sealed for time and all eternity. Through this ordinance, and by faithfulness, their family relationship can continue beyond death.

Jesus answers the Sadducees’ trick about seven brothers by denying a particular mortal arrangement in the resurrection—not by making family meaningless. He says they “neither marry nor are given in marriage” there; He does not say sealings done by keys on earth are void.
Paul’s “neither the man without the woman” is the Restoration’s anthropology.
D&C 131 makes the highest degree of the celestial a marriage glory. That is why temples occupy the center of Latter-day Saint hope.
Sealings of the dead extend the same mercy as baptism for the dead: God is not stopped by a missing ordinance in mortality.

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