Temple & Ordinances

The temple is the ordinance center of the Gospel of the Father. The first principles of the Gospel of the Son bring men and women to Christ for salvation; the temple ordinances belong to the Father’s work of exaltation, eternal Family Order, and the Church of the Firstborn.

Because temple ordinances are sacred, this page presents the doctrinal framework without publishing ritual instructions, sacred words, signs, tokens, or ceremony text. The purpose is reverent study, not exposure.

Kirtland: Keys for the Work of the Father

The Kirtland Temple marks the turning point between the completed organization of the Church of Jesus Christ and the later opening of the higher temple order. In The Nauvoo Doctrine, the Kirtland dedication and the April 3, 1836 visitation of Christ, Moses, Elias, and Elijah are treated as the restoration of keys connected with Israel, Abraham, fathers and children, and the Work of the Father.1

That matters because the temple is not merely a building for solemn worship. It is the place where the higher Family Order is opened through keys, covenants, and sealing authority.

Nauvoo: The Ancient Order Restored

The Nauvoo Temple doctrine brought those keys into ordinance form. The Nauvoo temple work is summarized this way:

“It is through the ordinances of the Temple that families are bound together in an eternal union and government.”2

Those ordinances are then identified as belonging to God the Father’s work and to the Church of the Firstborn. This is the same distinction developed on the Two Gospels page: the Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, while the Nauvoo temple doctrine opens the Gospel of the Father.

The Higher Patriarchal Priesthood

Analyzing the Different Orders of the Patriarchal Priesthood distinguishes the Church Patriarchal office from the higher order and fulness of the Patriarchal Priesthood opened in Nauvoo. It cites Joseph Smith’s August 27, 1843 teaching: “Go to and finish the Temple, and God will fill it with power, and more knowledge concerning this Priesthood.”3

For that reason, Priesthood, temple, and family cannot be separated in the Nauvoo order. The temple is where men and women are brought into the order of kings and priests, queens and priestesses, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, under the laws of the Father’s house.

Endowment, Marriage, Adoption, and Crowning Blessings

The temple ordinances form a connected order. Celestial Marriage, Adoption, the Endowment, and Second Anointings are named among the ordinances by which the Church of the Firstborn is organized and governed.4

The Endowment introduces the Saints into the temple order. Celestial Marriage creates the eternal husband-wife union. The Law of Adoption orders those families into a larger Family Kingdom. The Second Anointing is then treated as the crowning temple blessing by which conditional promises are sealed through the Holy Spirit of Promise.5

The interior form of those ordinances remains undescribed. The doctrinal sequence is clear: salvation through Christ prepares the soul; temple ordinances of the Father organize the Family Kingdom for exaltation.

The Lecture at the Veil

President Brigham Young’s February 7, 1877 St. George discourse, often called the Lecture at the Veil, receives special weight. President Brigham Young’s Doctrine on Deity states that this sermon was added to the Lecture at the Veil and incorporated into the temple ceremony, and that most of this part was removed sometime between 1902 and 1905.6

The significance is that Adam-God, the Father’s identity, and the temple order belong together. See the Adam-God and Adam-God Sermons pages for the doctrinal witnesses.

Women and the Matriarchal Order

The temple order is Patriarchal/Matriarchal. It does not exalt men alone. Joseph’s Nauvoo work points to kings and priests, queens and priestesses, patriarchs and matriarchs, husbands and wives. The fuller treatment belongs on the Matriarchal Priestesshood page and in the Matriarchal Priestesshood publication.

In One Sentence

The temple is where the Gospel of the Father is administered in covenant form: sealing men and women into the Church of the Firstborn, the eternal family government of God.

Further Study

Notes

  1. Fred C. Collier, The Nauvoo Doctrine in Light of Book of Mormon Prophecy, Part 1: The Concept, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 3 No. 1 (November 1986), 42–44. ↩
  2. Collier, The Nauvoo Doctrine in Light of Book of Mormon Prophecy, Part 1: The Concept, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 3 No. 1, 31. ↩
  3. Fred C. Collier, Analyzing the Different Orders of the Patriarchal Priesthood, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 7 No. 8 (August 1991), iii–1. ↩
  4. Collier, The Nauvoo Doctrine in Light of Book of Mormon Prophecy, Part 1: The Concept, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 3 No. 1, 31. ↩
  5. Collier, The Nauvoo Doctrine in Light of Book of Mormon Prophecy, Part 1: The Concept, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 3 No. 1, 38–39. ↩
  6. Fred C. Collier, President Brigham Young’s Doctrine on Deity, 325–27. ↩