From: ACUS10@WACCVM.SPS.MOT.COM (Mark Fuller)
Subject: Re: Are Mormons Christians? (Was: WANTED: Former LDS, ...)
Organization: Motorola Inc.
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 21:47:43 GMT

From: psyrobtw@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Robert Weiss)
> In article <1992Oct14.151642.9653@infonode.ingr.com>, tensmekl@infonode.ingr.c
> >In article <Bw3Juu.6x6@acsu.buffalo.edu> psyrobtw@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Robe
> > The first part of the quoted material expresses the sentiment,
> > that salvation and exalation are not the same thing,
> >
> > You can be saved and not be in the Celestial Kingdom. And yes there
> > will be many in the Celestial Kingdom who are not married.
> >
> 	I recall during an investigators meeting with two LDS
> missionaries, that it is taught that when the Bible uses the phrase
> 'eternal life' that it refers to exaltation. Sister Johnson and Sister
> Curtiss couldn't answer a question that I had. If exaltation is as a
> result of one's performance and endeavors, why does Jesus in John
> 10:28 say that eternal life is a gift? "I give them eternal life, and
> they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand."

        Robert, you are correct in your statement that the LDS
call 'eternal life': 'exaltation' -- and this being available only to
those who are married in a Mormon temple.  Kermit is playing games
with the words 'Celestial Kingdom', 'saved', 'exaltation' and
'eternal life'.  (actually there is a "you have a second chance"
clause for those people who, through poor luck in this life, were
unable to except Joseph Smith's purported restoration.  They
can do it in the afterlife.)

        In fact, Mormon leaders believed that God himself had to
go through these ceremonies to become Diety.

        Mormon leaders have always proclaimed that the temple ritual--
often referred to as the "temple endowment" because the recipients are
supposed to be "endowed with power from on high"--was given to Joseph
Smith, the first Mormon prophet, by revelation. The ordinances in this
ritual, which are performed for both the living and the dead (by proxy),
are considered to be "most sacred." A person has to go through these
ceremonies before becoming a missionary and those who desire to be
married in the temple for "time and eternity" must first have their
"temple endowments."

        Mormon theology teaches that those who are married in the temple
can eventually become Gods and rule over their own creations. Apostle
Bruce R. McConkie affirmed that the righteous who are married in the
temple "for time and eternity" have "gained eternal life (exaltation),
the greatest of all the gifts of God... Those so inheriting are the sons
and daughters of God... They are joint-heirs with Christ... becoming
gods in their own right.'- (Mormon Doctrine, 1979, pp. 117-18) President
Joseph Fielding Smith, the 10th prophet of the church, made the matter
very clear:

                "It fills my heart with sadness when I see in the paper
   the name of a daughter or a son of members of this Church, and
   discover that she or he is going to have a ceremony and be married
   outside of the temple of the Lord, because I realize what it means,
   that they are cutting themselves off from exaltation in the kingdom
   of God.... These young people who seem to be so happy now, when they
   rise in the resurrection--and find themselves in the condition in
   which they will find themselves -- then there will be weeping, and
   wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and bitterness of soul...
                "Civil Marriage Makes Servants In Eternity.... Celestial
   Marriage Makes Gods In Eternity.... it is open to us; it is a free
   gift; it doesn't cost us anything: only righteousness, faith,
   obedience; and surely we can pay that price." (Doctrines of
   Salvation, vol. 2, p. 60-63)

        Mormons who go through the temple ceremony and are sealed in
marriage for eternity believe that they will not only become Gods, but
will also continue to have children throughout all eternity. They will
people other worlds with their spiritual children and these children
will worship and pray to the husband as God. Mormons feel that the God
of the Bible was not always God and that he also had to pass through the
same endowments to achieve deity. Wilford Woodruff, who became the 4th
prophet of the Mormon Church, proclaimed that "the Lord had His
endowments long ago; it is thousands and millions of years since He
received His blessings... He is far in advance of us." (Journal of
Discourses, vol. 4, p. 192)

        According to a revelation given by Joseph Smith, those who will
not submit to Celestial Marriage are "appointed angels in heaven, which
angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of
a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory... these
angels... remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their
saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not Gods, but
are angels of God forever and ever." (Doctrine and Covenants 132:16-17)

        Although faithful Mormons have written many articles and books
on temples, they have been very careful not to tell what actually goes
on in the endowment rilual. One of the most revealing and concise
statements, however, comes from comments President Brigham Young made in
1877. These comments were recorded in the diary of L. John Nuttall. The
2nd prophet of the church remarked:

                "When we got our washings and anointings under the hands
   of the Prophet Joseph at Nauvoo, we had only one room to work in,
   with the exception of a little side room or office where we were
   washed and anointed, had our garment placed upon us and received our
   new name; and after he had performed these ceremonies, he gave the
   key-words, signs, tokens, and penalties. Then after, we went into the
   large room... Joseph Smith divided up the room the best that he
   could, hung up the veil, marked it, gave us our instructions as we
   passed along from one department to another, giving us signs, tokens,
   penalties, with the key-words pertaining to those signs." (Statement
   of Brigham Young, recorded in the diary of L. John Nuttall, Feb. 7,
   1877, as cited in _God, Man, And The Universe_, by Hyrum L. Andrus,
   1968, p. 334)

        The reader will notice that President Young mentioned washings,
anointings, garments, the new rame, the key-words, signs, tokens and
penalties. He also stated that there was a "veil" with certain marks on
it. On another occasion, Brigham Young made it clear that the endowment
contains secret information that the initiated need to get into heaven:
"Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the
Lord... to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father,
passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them
the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood,
and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell." (Journal
of Discourses, vol. 2, p. 31) Those who have actually been through the
ceremony affirm that secret grips, signs and key-words are learned
during the ceremony which will be needed after death for a person to
gain entrance into God's presence. It is at the "veil" that the Lord
himself questions the candidate who desires to enter into his presence.

Mark
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