Law of Adoption

The Law of Adoption is the sealing law by which the Saints are organized into an eternal Family Kingdom under fathers and mothers in the Patriarchal/Matriarchal Order. It is not merely a sentimental image of belonging, nor is it only modern genealogical sealing to one’s biological ancestors. In the Nauvoo and early Utah framework, Adoption is the vertical family covenant that joins sons and daughters into the ordered household of God.

The treatment here follows Adoption: Law of the Kingdom and related discussions in Celestial Family Union and a Perfect Law of Theocracy.

An Extended Family Kingdom

The available documentary treatment traces the doctrine to Nauvoo. Joseph Smith was not only organizing another church office structure; he was introducing the Saints to the ancient order of God’s Kingdom, the earthly counterpart of the Church of the Firstborn.

“Essentially, this ‘Ancient Order’ of God’s Government (as it came to be established among the Saints) was an extended family kingdom.”1

That observation is key. The Church of the Firstborn is not held together merely by institutional appointment. It is organized as family: fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, and kindred, sealed in covenant order. See also the Two Gospels and Holy Order pages for the larger framework.

Marriage and Adoption Together

Early Latter-day Saint temple doctrine treated Marriage and Adoption as companion covenants. Celestial Marriage creates the husband-wife family unit. Adoption orders that family unit into a larger chain of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and Family Kingdoms under legal Priesthood heads.

The relationship is stated plainly:

“In the economy of Heaven, Adoption is as vital as the marriage covenant. In fact, neither the marriage or adoption covenant is valid independent of the other.”2

Together, these covenants create what Joseph Smith called “a perfect law of theocracy”: Priesthood government vested in righteous parents who administer endless lives to the sons and daughters of Adam.3 This is why the Law of Adoption belongs with Celestial Marriage, the temple ordinances, and the Priesthood line rather than with ordinary social kinship alone.

Not Merely Blood Descent

The old Law of Adoption explicitly distinguishes covenant sealing from simple biological descent. The dead could be sealed to living descendants through vicarious temple work, but the living Saints were also to be adopted into a line reaching back to Joseph Smith, who had received the blessing of Abraham in this dispensation.

“… the living Saints were to be adopted in a line going back to the Prophet Joseph Smith who had received the blessing of Abraham, to be ‘the Father of the faithful’ in this dispensation, thus the Sealing or Adoption did not always follow blood lines.”4

That is why the old adoption doctrine cannot be reduced to genealogy alone. Biological ancestry matters, but in the Nauvoo order the higher order also includes Priesthood fatherhood, covenant sonship, and legal connection to the head of the dispensation.

Joseph Smith as Father in This Dispensation

Key sources identify Joseph Smith as the father of the faithful in this dispensation. The point is not rhetorical praise. It is a sealing claim: Joseph received the Abrahamic promise that in him and in his seed the kindreds of the earth would be blessed, and the Law of Adoption reads that promise as covenant Family Order.

“The Prophet Joseph Smith received the greatest blessing to be had in this dispensation, for he stands at the head, and as such he is the Father of all the Faithful in our day and generation.”5

This also explains why succession, Priesthood line, and the One Anointed and Appointed question matter. Adoption is not a free-floating feeling of attachment. It requires lawful sealing authority and a living line of administration. That line is treated more fully on the Priesthood Line page.

No One Becomes “Of Age” in Heaven

One of the most striking parts of the doctrine is permanent sonship. Parley P. Pratt taught that celestial Family Order is not based on children aging out of their father’s authority:

“We talk, in this ignorant age, of children becoming ‘of age,’ as it is called; and we consider when they are ‘of age’ they are free from the authority of their father. But no such rule is known in the celestial law and organization, either here or hereafter.”6

This is not meant to describe arbitrary domination. In this doctrine, each faithful father is also a son. Authority runs through covenant union, obedience, love, and righteousness. A son who becomes a father receives stewardship over his own family, while still remaining in order under his father.

Women in the Law of Adoption

The Law of Adoption is not a male-only salvation system. The doctrine is Patriarchal/Matriarchal. Women enter the Family Order through Celestial Marriage and sealing, and the source notes that women were adopted as well as men. After marriage, a woman’s sealing line follows that of her husband, and his parents become her parents.7

This is why the Church of the Firstborn’s Articles of Faith speak of Patriarchs and Matriarchs, Priests and Priestesses, Kings and Queens. The Adoption covenant orders the family; it does not erase the Mother side of that order.

Why the Doctrine Was Forgotten

Adoption became a forgotten doctrine because the old Nauvoo and early Utah practice was later replaced by a genealogical-only model. One note says that in 1894 Wilford Woodruff “finally did away with the old practice of the law of adoption,” while still instructing the Saints, after they had carried their genealogy as far back as possible, to seal themselves and their dead to Joseph Smith.8

For the Church of the Firstborn, that history matters because it shows both loss and residue: the broader adoption order was discontinued, but the need to connect the Saints to Joseph Smith remained visible even in the 1894 change.

In One Sentence

Celestial Marriage creates the eternal family unit; the Law of Adoption orders those families into the Church of the Firstborn under the fathers and mothers of the Kingdom.

Further Study

Notes

  1. Fred C. Collier, Adoption: Law of the Kingdom — Forgotten Doctrine of Mormonism, Part 1, 1. ↩
  2. Collier, Adoption: Law of the Kingdom, 2. ↩
  3. Collier, Adoption: Law of the Kingdom, 2; compare Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 322. ↩
  4. Collier, Adoption: Law of the Kingdom, 1. ↩
  5. Collier, Adoption: Law of the Kingdom, 8. ↩
  6. Parley P. Pratt, as quoted in Collier, Adoption: Law of the Kingdom, 2–3. ↩
  7. Collier, Adoption: Law of the Kingdom, note vii. ↩
  8. Collier, Adoption: Law of the Kingdom, note v; see also Fred C. Collier, Celestial Family Union and a Perfect Law of Theocracy, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 30 No. 7 (July 2013), 3. ↩