Endowment Ceremony

August 23, 2009 in Temple by Greg | 8 comments

Writing in a book heralding the richness of women’s heritage in helping lay the foundation of the latter-day kingdom, Carol Cornwall Madsen quoted John A. Widtsoe who provided one of the most “explicit descriptions” of the LDS temple endowment ceremony.1 She wrote:

Carol Cornwall Madsen As the message of the temple became clearer, the Saints came to understand that it was not enough to live Christ-like lives and to develop their own private relationship with the Savior. As meritorius as this life pattern might be, it alone could not assure them a place in the celestial kingdom, the dwelling place of the Father. However, accompanied by the saving ordinances of the gospel, it promised a meaningful life here and eternal life hereafter. Thus in Mormon doctrine the temple is the heart and core of the gospel, and all else derives meaning and purpose from it. Yet not all were ready to receive this saving knowledge. “There are a great many wise men and women too in our midst,” Joseph Smith lamented, “who are too wise to be taught; therefore they must die in their ignorance, and in the resurrection they will find their mistake. Many seal up the door to heaven by saying, So far God may reveal and I will believe.”2 Had the Saints been more spiritually prepared, Joseph explained, he could have revealed more to them sooner than he did.3

Although he did not live to see the completion of the Nauvoo Temple, where these priesthood ordinances would be appropriately performed, Joseph Smith left behind both the authority for and the knowledge of every element of temple work. As Zina Young had exclaimed in 1845: “He hath established his work upon the Earth no more to be throne down.”

The ordinances and rites of the temple are held sacred by Latter-day Saints and are thus guarded by vows of secrecy. Yet much has been publicly written and spoken about them in an effort to provide understanding of their significance in the lives of church members. John A. Widtsoe has given one of the most explicit descriptions of the temple ceremony: “The Temple Endowment relates the story of man’s eternal journey; sets forth the conditions upon which progress in the eternal journey depends, requires covenants or agreements of those participating, to accept and use the laws of progress; gives tests by which our willingness and fitness for righteousness may be known, and finally points out the ultimate destiny of those who love truth and live by it.”4

Sources:

  1. Madsen, Carol Cornwall in Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Lavina Fiedling Anderson, eds. Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective. University of Illinois Press, 1987. 89.↩
  2. Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 309.↩
  3. History of the Church, 2:309-10, 426. George A. Smith told a congregation of Saints in Salt Lake City in 1855 that, at the time of the completion of the Kirtland Temple, had the Lord “revealed one single sentiment more, or went one step further to reveal more fully the law of redemption, I believe He would have upset the whole of us. The fact was, He dare not, on that very account, reveal to us a single principle further than He had done, for He had tried, over and over again, to do it.” 18 March 1855, Journal of Discourses 1:215. Note: For a more complete explanation, see Elder George A. Smith’s comments in the post O Jerusalem – Ed.↩
  4. John A. Widtsoe, Priesthood and Church Government (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1939), p. 351.↩
Series Navigation«Gift of the Holy Ghost a Higher Endowment

Tags: Carol Cornwall Madsen, Covenants, George A. Smith, Joseph Smith, Priesthood, Temple Endowment

  1. Anthony E. LarsonNo Gravatar on August 24, 2009 at 1:31 am

    In my opinion, the endowment is a rehearsal of the ascension motif of all prophetic visions. They are all patently cosmological, as Nibley so ably pointed out. That’s what the books of Moses and Abraham reveal. They are individual ascension visions. In our temple ceremony, we ritually duplicate the experience of all the prophets–all visionaries from the past, in fact–wherein they ascend to heaven via a mountain, ladder, stairway or other symbolic device. Our temple ascension, from room to room, duplicates that related in those prophetic visions. Interestingly, all the rituals enacted in temples of ancient cultures–Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian, etc.–did the same. And it all has to do with planets, stars and other cosmological imagery. This is the commonality between ancient religious tradition and the endowment of modern temples. It is the very connection Joseph sought so earnestly to establish. It is to the difficulty he had explaining this connection and its cosmological ascension ramifications to early Saints which Joseph referred in his “… too wise to be taught …” quote by Sis. Madsen from TPJS. Most of today’s Saints are no different. They resist mightily any cosmological or astral associations with our endowment, in spite of the fact that the evidence is scattered throughout modern revelation and latter-day temple iconography.

  2. GregNo Gravatar on August 24, 2009 at 7:29 pm

    Hi Anthony – I think you’ll see some dileneation between most of the posts tagged on this blog as endowment versus temple endowment. While it is not always possible to differentiate between the two, some attempt has been made. Also along these lines, you might enjoy reading What is an Endowment?.

  3. Chas HathawayNo Gravatar on August 31, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    Very good post! Thanks for sharing. I’ve always loved the temple endowment. I think it empowers everyone who receives it to receive all the blessings they need in this life, and plants in them the seeds of eternal life.

    - Chas

  4. GregNo Gravatar on September 1, 2009 at 7:54 am

    Thanks Chas – glad you like it.

  5. Martha TalbotNo Gravatar on September 10, 2009 at 7:27 am

    “Thus in Mormon doctrine the temple is the heart and core of the gospel, and all else derives meaning and purpose from it.”

    This statement caused me to reflect on a comment made by a pastor’s wife here in Maine a few years ago. The comment was made BEFORE she realized I was a member of the LDS Church as she spoke of with such ingnorance. :)

    Her comment went something like this: I have friends who live in Utah and they say that everything the Mormons do in life centers around their temples….

    I smiled and made a brief comment to her on the importance of temples and introduced myself as one of those “Mormons” and then watched as her mouth almost hit the floor.

    Isn’t that a WONDERFUL compliment?

    Imagine as members, if ALL our lives DID center around the saving ordinances, teachings and blessings that come from the teachings of the Savior in His temples? OH what a world this could be…..

  6. GregNo Gravatar on September 13, 2009 at 9:21 am

    Hi Martha – To me, I think you just provided an excellent description of Zion.

  7. VelskaNo Gravatar on November 21, 2009 at 4:26 pm

    Symbolism is strongly present in the temple, as well as the Scriptures. One could think of it as an onion — yet another symbolic reference — that you can peel layer by layer. Then you can look at what you have.

    Did numerology and astrology come from this? They realized that the stars have some role in the gospel, and they didn’t want the part where you submit to God. So they created the idea that stars and numbers direct our lives instead of our actions.

    I’m sure we all realize, that the Spirit will reveal to us as much as we are prepared to absorb. The same symbols often are interpreted differently by different individuals, and they could all be right in some sense or point. There are many questions I’d like to ask, but it’ll have to wait.

    Meanwhile I keep pealing. In the end, I figure that the love that Heavenly Father has for us is what’s under all those layers. Lucifer could not understand it; he didn’t understand that Jehovah would submit to all that with pure motives.

    Is it any wonder, by the way, that prime numbers are so popular among mystics. There seems to be independent power in being indivisible by any other number.