“Saving Ordinances”

Modern church leaders counsel members to “fix our focus on the temple. There we receive the highest blessings that God has in store for His faithful children.”¹ According to them, exaltation is dependent, at least in part, upon obtaining and “remaining faithful to the ordinances and covenants of the temple.” This focus creates a lot of discomfort in members when analyzing the historical basis for such faith in modern temples. After all, one’s salvation and family is at stake. But is exaltation dependent upon the ordinances and covenants of the modern temples? Is the eternal integrity of one’s family at stake?

The scriptural basis for this focus is unclear. Perhaps most obvious is the point that if the temple ordinances are, in fact, the key to eternal life, which temple ordinances? Those that Joseph revealed, those that Brigham wrote in 1877, the very different ordinances we have today, or any version in between? If one is right, the others are not. From a different perspective, we note the absence of any requirement for temple ordinances in the scriptures.

LDS leaders quote Joseph Smith in an attempt to claim that temple ordinances are required for salvation:

If a man gets a fullness of the priesthood of God he has to get it in the same way that Jesus Christ obtained it, and that was by keeping all the commandments and obeying all the ordinances of the house of the Lord. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 308.)

But does this quote support the modern endowment? First, the ordinances of the Israelite temple at the time of Jesus were completely dissimilar to the modern endowment. If the Israelite temple ceremonies are “the ordinances of the house of the Lord,” then the LDS endowment is not, and vice versa. Second, the Israelites had long lost the fullness of the gospel by Jesus’ time. We know that Melchizedek keys are required for temple ordinances. Joseph taught that the Israelites in Jesus’ time no longer had even Aaronic priesthood keys.² Thus, if Jesus’ exalted status came from his mortal reception of apostate temple ordinances from priests without keys, why would God need to affect a restoration? Why couldn’t mankind be saved through receiving apostate ordinances from Catholic priests without keys?

If Jesus did not receive the fullness of the priesthood by obeying the religious ceremonies of the Israelite temple, how did he get it? It turns out the answer lies in the quote from Joseph. The original quote reads much shorter than the elaborated version reprinted above and found in TPJS. The original quote is found in Wilford Woodruff’s diary from 11 June 1843: “if a man gets the fulness of God he has to get [it] in the same way that Jesus Christ obtain it & that was by keeping all the ordinances of the house of the Lord.” (See WOJS). In the doctored quote, the list for getting the fullness includes two things: keeping all the commandments and obeying the ordinances of the house of the Lord. A distinction is made between keeping God’s commandments and making and keeping temple covenants made in modern temples. Yet, the original quote has only one requirement: “keeping all the ordinances of the house of the Lord.” Although the word “ordinance” can mean religious rite or ceremony (how it is used in the church today), the 1828 Webster’s dictionary lists this as the last possible definition. The first definition is a permanent rule of action established by authority; In other words, God’s commandments are ordinances. The word “house” is commonly understood to mean the temple. Though the Lord does use this meaning in the D&C (see D&C 124:23, for example), he also uses the meaning “family.”⁴⁴⁶ The house of the Lord can mean a building, or it can mean a group of people. Since Jesus received the fullness of the priesthood through “keeping all the ordinances of the house of the Lord,” and since that cannot refer to the apostate and limited Israelite temple ordinances, “the ordinances of the house of the Lord” has to mean something other than “receiving the ordinances of the temple.” For instance, Jesus could have received whatever this refers to on the Mount of Transfiguration. So instead of the typical interpretation, “the ordinances of the house of the Lord” could simply mean, “the commandments kept by those in the family of God.”³

When preaching against the priests of King Noah, Abinadi asked them if it was obedience to the law of Moses that brought salvation. The priests believed it was. Abinadi explained:

And now ye have said that salvation cometh by the law of Moses. I say unto you that it is expedient that ye should keep the law of Moses as yet; but I say unto you, that the time shall come when it shall no more be expedient to keep the law of Moses. And moreover, I say unto you, that salvation doth not come by the law alone; and were it not for the atonement, which God himself shall make for the sins and iniquities of his people, that they must unavoidably perish, notwithstanding the law of Moses. (Mosiah 13:2728.)

Although the law of Moses was a tool that could assist in obtaining what (or who) actually saves, it was not necessary or sufficient in and of itself. After all, there are saved beings like Abraham and Seth who never had the law of Moses. The same can be accurately said of temples. The temple itself can save no one. The ordinances in the temple do not save, either. It is Jesus, and only Jesus, that can save.

O then, my beloved brethren, come unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous. Behold, the way for man is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him, and the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name. (2 Nephi 9:41.)

Though the temple can teach us how to come back to Christ, it cannot take us there. Nor can it be said that it is necessary to have access to the temple in order to make the journey. Jesus showed through his own mortal life that salvation is attainable without a temple.

Temples are a useful tool to help individuals come closer to Christ, but when they are adulterated in their ceremonies or become an end in and of themselves, they actually make the participants less likely to re-enter God’s presence than they would be without a temple. This is because, in addition to all the challenges of overcoming the natural man organic to this life, they must also overcome false traditions instilled in them through adulterated temple worship.

As for individuals, so for families. The spousal sealing ordinance is widely regarded as the means by which a couple becomes sealed for eternity. However, both in the wording of the ordinance itself and in leaders’ description of it, it is obvious that the modern temple sealing is conditional on the faithfulness of the couple to God.⁴ Thus, in order to obtain the unconditional sealing described in D&C 132:19, something more is required. Upon receiving a temple sealing, the couple possesses nothing more upon exiting the temple than they had upon entering: an invitation (already in the scriptures) to remain true and faithful with the promise that if they do so, eventually God will seal them together eternally.⁵ Would the same process still required of a couple after temple sealing not yield the same result for an unsealed couple?

Given that modern temples are not essential for salvation and do not provide anything unobtainable outside them, it is somewhat surprising that they are given pre-imminence in modern Mormonism. God gave Isaiah a vision of a time when men would cease to focus on dead ordinances, and remember that it is Jesus, and not temples, that saves.

In that day men will have regard to their Maker, and their eyes look to the Holy One of Israel, and regard not the altars, the works of their hands, nor look to things their fingers have made—the idols of prosperity and the shining images. (Isaiah 17, Gileadi Translation.)

Perhaps that day is soon upon us.