The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship

The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship

by David John Buerger

Copyright © 1994 Smith Research Associates. All rights reserved.

David John Buerger is a graduate of Brigham Young University, former editor-in-chief of Communications Week, and a free-lance journalist and consultant in the computer industry. His research on Mormon history has appeared in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and Sunstone magazine, and he is the recipient of a Best Article Award from the Mormon History Association.

Preface

Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the keys words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell.

—Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 2:31

For faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the modern temple endowment ceremony is a sacred and powerful ordinance. One official Mormon source calls it a temporal stepping stone which all people must traverse to achieve exaltation in heaven.¹ Since those who enter the temple agree to treat the ceremony with respect, I will confine my discussion to published accounts, journal and diary entries, autobiographies, and other public sources. I will not treat in any significant detail the speculative theological significance, spiritual meanings, or symbolic dimensions of the endowment, important though they are in the lives of Latter-day Saints.

Some readers may feel that any discussion of these ceremonies is inappropriate given their sacred nature. Certain aspects of the ritual are guarded by vows of secrecy. Although I do not wish to offend readers who may not share my understanding about what is appropriate, I have decided that, given exaggerated claims about the temple and its origin by some enthusiastic apologists, a degree of specificity in detail is unavoidable. Hopefully readers will see that I have tried to achieve a balance of scholarly objectivity, reverence for the sacred, regard for the sensibilities of others, and adequate documentation and development of the points to be discussed.

In 1912, one year after the LDS First Presidency asked James E. Talmage to write a book about temples, the church published The House of the Lord. In his chapter on ordinances, Talmage summarized the endowment as follows:

The Temple Endowment, as administered in modern temples, comprises instruction relating to the significance and sequence of past dispensations, and the importance of the present as the greatest and grandest era in human history. This course of instruction includes a recital of the most prominent events of the creative period, the condition of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, their disobedience and consequent expulsion from that blissful abode, their condition in the lone and dreary world when doomed to live by labor and sweat, the plan of redemption by which the great transgression may be atoned, the period of the great apostasy, the restoration of the Gospel with all its ancient powers and privileges, the absolute and indispensable condition of personal purity and devotion to the right in present life, and a strict compliance with Gospel requirements.

Following this overview, Talmage stated more specifically:

The ordinances of the endowment embody certain obligations on the part of the individual, such as covenant and promise to observe the law of strict virtue and chastity, to be charitable, benevolent, tolerant and pure; to devote both talent and material means to the spread of truth and the uplifting of the race; to maintain devotion to the cause of truth; and to seek in every way to contribute to the great preparation that the earth may be made ready to receive her King,--the Lord Jesus Christ. With the taking of each covenant and the assuming of each obligation a promised blessing is pronounced, contingent upon the faithful observance of the conditions.²

In the discussion that follows I hope to expand this brief summary and enhance understanding of the temple for both Latter-day Saints and others by providing a history of the endowment, its origins and development, and possible directions for the future.

1. Gospel Essentials, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1979), 247.

2. James E. Talmage, The House of the Lord (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1912), 99-100.

Chapter 1: Prelude to the Endowment

The Lord Almighty . . . will continue to preserve me . . . until I have fully accomplished my mission in this life, and so firmly established the dispensation of the fullness of the priesthood in the last days, that all the powers of earth and hell can never prevail against it.

—Joseph Smith, Jr., 1842¹

For Joseph Smith and successors in the presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the temple was at the heart of the Mormon restoration. Both in Kirtland, Ohio, and later in Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith labored to complete holy edifices where the Saints might be endowed with power from on high.² Ceremonial washings, anointings, and sealings were first administered in the Kirtland temple (or House of the Lord) in 1836, and other temple instructions and rites were added in Nauvoo in 1842 and 1843. Both have continued to the present in the LDS church. Not unexpectedly, given the developmental character of other early concepts, preliminary stages can be identified in the implementation of these rituals.

The evolving ceremonies can probably best be understood within the context of the similarly developing LDS concept of salvation.³ Prior to mid-1831 Mormon theology was not predestinarian. The Book of Mormon, for example, does not employ calling and election, elect, destined, predestined, or predestinate when speaking of afterlife, judgment, or salvation. The sole use of the phrase calling and election in a June 1831 revelation published in Doctrine and Covenants 53:1, 7 (hereafter D&C) avoided eschatological implications.

Some time between June and November 1831, however, LDS salvation theology changed, tied to the 3 June 1831 conferral of High Priesthood on church elders.⁴ According to later testimony by Book of Mormon witness David Whitmer, the introduction of the High Priesthood (an event he considered to be an aberration from scriptural sources) originated in the mind of Sydney Rigdon: Rigdon finally persuaded Brother Joseph [Smith] to believe that the high priests which had such great power in ancient times, should be in the Church of Christ to-day. He had Brother Joseph inquire of the Lord about it, and they received an answer according to their erring desires.⁵

Despite the controversy which surrounded this event, High Priesthood came to be regarded as the power to seal or perform earthly ordinances which were ratified in heaven. [T]he order of the High priesthood, explained Smith on 25 October 1831, is that they have power given them to seal up the Saints unto eternal life. And said it was the privilege of every Elder present to be ordained to the High priesthood.⁶

This notion, when taken with key Book of Mormon passages, represented a departure from biblical precedent. In the New Testament, for example, the terms to seal and to place a seal on referred to the ancient practice of placing a wax or mud seal to close and protect a document from misappropriation. The confirmation effect of a sealing is seen in several Pauline passages in which God seals Christians by giving them the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit of Promise as a ratification of future blessings and promises to come. The Apocalypse of John depicts the servants of God receiving the seal or imprint of God in their forehead. In all pertinent New Testament references, however, it is God who applies the seals. There is no clear reference to a human intermediary performing the sealing function. (See, for example, Rom. 4:11; 2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13 and 4:30; and Rev. 13:16-18.)

Key players in the sixteenth-century Reformation used many of these sealing passages as evidence for their belief in predestination. Liberal reaction to Calvinist doctrine arose early in the seventeenth century when Arminians rejected this view, asserting that God’s sovereignty and human free will were compatible, that such sealings depended on choices of the individual believer. The Arminian doctrines of free will and individual works continued to be propagated on the American frontier through such nineteenth-century groups as Alexander Campbell’s followers and other primitivist Seekers. In 1829, when Joseph Smith was working on the Book of Mormon manuscript, these issues were important throughout the so-called burned-over district of western New York where he resided.⁷

With the exception of obvious non-figural usages of the term (as in sealing up a book or plates or hiding an object), the Book of Mormon employs this term similarly to the New Testament but in a more fully developed sense. Mosiah 5:15 (1st ed., 67) closely followed New Testament usage but emphasized works in opposition to Calvinistic themes: I would that you should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, that you may be brought to Heaven. . . . Joseph Smith clearly defused predestinarian overtones by having the devil seal the wicked to damnation (Alma 34:35; 1st ed., 321): [I]f ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance, even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the Devil, and he doth seal you his; . . . and this is the final state of the wicked.

The most significant development in Book of Mormon sealing theology was God’s sealing power granted to Nephi, the son of Helaman (Hel. 10:7; 1st ed., 435). This story parallels biblical passages in several ways,⁸ but the most important in our present context can be seen by comparing the passage in the Book of Mormon with Matthew 16:17-19: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona. . . . And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and . . . whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Helaman 10:4- 7 reads: "Blessed art thou, Nephi, . . . Behold, thou art Nephi, and I am God. . . . whatsoever ye shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven (emphasis added). The term seal here, probably substituted for bind in order to remove any Catholic papist leaning of the text,⁹ does not carry the soteriological and eschatological overtones usually associated with the figurative usage in the New Testament. Instead the sealing power is depicted as permitting miraculous physical events (such as the famine caused by drought in Helaman 11:4) in order to bring people to repentance. This same shift can be seen in 2 Nephi 33:15 (For what I seal on earth, shall be brought against you at the judgment bar"). The New Testament had emphasized that God does the sealing, the Book of Mormon allows a human agent (i.e., Nephi) to seal at God’s command. By allowing a human to be associated with this power, a way was prepared for further theological innovation by Joseph Smith.

In this context, the introduction of High Priesthood was one such innovation. In November 1831 these various concepts came together in a priesthood ritual allowing one to seal [people] up unto eternal life (D&C 68:2, 12; see also 1:8-9). Thus Mormon priesthood bearers themselves could perform a ritual paralleling what strict Calvinists, for example, reserved solely to God. This can be seen as one precursor for the endowment ceremony which would eventually be performed in the Kirtland temple.

Zebedee Coltrin’s 1831 diary provides evidence that Mormon elders wasted no time in implementing this sealing ordinance: Tuesday came to Sha[k]ersville held a meeting in the Evening with the Br and after laboring with them some length of time Br David seeled them up unto Eternal life.¹⁰ Jared Carter recalled during his mission to Benson, Vermont, in 1831-32, being

directed to pray most earnestly that God would grant unto us sealing grace. After this I felt directed by the spirit to declare unto the brethren that that day was a sealing time with them, as I had prayed in faith, that they might be blessed. My communication to them caused some of the brethren to tremble, for this was something that they had never before experienced; but I exhorted them to call more earnestly on the Lord. We then began to pray, but the spirit, as I viewed it in my mind, was not yet poured out; therefore, I again arose and devoted a few minutes to call upon the Lord with one accord. Accordingly, all of us lifted our voices to God, and while we were praying, the Spirit rested down upon us. We then administered the Sacrament and it appeared to me that the Church of Christ in that locality was sealed up to the Lord, and it was likewise made plain to me that every one of us present should meet again in Zion. I then felt as though I could leave them without fear, for I had a testimony that God would keep them.¹¹

Orson Pratt also remembered when in 1833 some other brethren from other towns, met together and called upon the Lord; and the Lord heard their prayers and moved upon his servant Lyman Johnson by the power of the Holy Ghost to seal them up unto eternal life. And after this the brethren arose one by one and said that they knew that their names were sealed in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and they all did bear this glorious testimony save two or three.¹²

Clearly this ordinance was not a one-on-one ceremony. A priesthood bearer was empowered to simultaneously seal a whole group of people to eternal life. Moreover, this ritual was a spoken one. No physical contact between officiator and recipient was mentioned.¹³

A second precursor to the Kirtland endowment came in an 1832 revelation (D&C 88) commanding that a School of the Prophets be established to instruct church leaders. On 23 January 1833 a number of men met in Kirtland in the upper room of Newel K. Whitney’s store to organize the school. Those attending included Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams, Joseph Smith, Sr., Hyrum Smith, Samuel H. Smith, William Smith, Ezra Thayer, Newel K. Whitney, Martin Harris, Zebedee Coltrin, John Murdock, Lyman Johnson, Orson Hyde, Solomon Humphrey, Sylvester Smith, Orson Pratt, and Levi Hancock.¹⁴ The 1832 revelation described ritual washing in detail:

74. And I give unto you, who are the first laborers in this last kingdom, a commandment that you assemble yourselves together, and organize yourselves, and prepare yourselves, and sanctify yourselves; yea, purify your hearts, and cleanse your hands and your feet before me, that I may make you clean;

75. That I may testify unto your Father, and your God, and my God, that you are clean from the blood of this wicked generation; that I may fulfil this promise, this great and last promise, which I have made unto you, when I will. . . .

85. Verily, I say unto you, let those who are not the first elders continue in the vineyard until the mouth of the Lord shall call them, for their time is not yet come; their garments are not clean from the blood of this generation. . . .

138. And ye shall not receive any among you into this school save he is clean from the blood of this generation; 139. And he shall be received by the ordinance of the washing of feet, for unto this end was the ordinance of the washing of feet instituted.

140. And again, the ordinance of washing feet is to be administered by the president, or presiding elder of the church.

141. It is to be commenced with prayer; and after partaking of bread and wine, he is to gird himself according to the pattern given in the thirteenth chapter of John’s testimony concerning me. Amen.¹⁵

At the first meeting of the school this ordinance was administered as directed. The revelation did not state a relationship between washing of feet and the ritual of sealing which had been in practice for over a year, but when Smith actually implemented the washing ordinance in January, the minutes show him linking it to being sealed up unto eternal life:

Opened with Prayer by the President [Joseph Smith] and after much speaking praying and singing, all done in Tongues proceded to washing hands faces feet in the name of the Lord . . . each one washing his own after which the president girded himself with a towel and again washed the feet of all the Elders wiping them with the towel. . . . The President said after he had washed the feet of the Elders, as I have done so do ye wash ye therefore one anothers feet pronouncing at the same time through the power of the Holy Ghost that the Elders were all clean from the blood of this generation but that those among them who should sin wilfully after they were thus cleansed and sealed up unto eternal life should be given over unto the buffettings of Satan until the day of redemption. Having continued all day in fasting & prayer before the Lord at the close they partook of the Lords supper.16

The official account of this first meeting reads:

On the 23rd of January [1833], we again assembled in conference; when, after much speaking, singing, praying, and praising God, all in tongues, we proceeded to the washing of feet (according to the practice recorded in the 13th chapter of John’s Gospel), as commanded of the Lord. Each Elder washed his own feet first, after which I girded myself with a towel and washed the feet of all of them, wiping them with the towel with which I was girded. Among the number, my father presented himself, but before I washed his feet, I asked of him a father’s blessing, which he granted by laying his hands upon my head, in the name of Jesus Christ, and declaring that I should continue in the Priest’s office until Christ comes. At the close of the scene, Brother Frederick G. Williams, being moved upon by the Holy Ghost, washed my feet in token of his fixed determination to be with me in suffering, or in journeying, in life or in death, and to be continually on my right hand; in which I accepted him in the name of the Lord.

I then said to the Elders, As I have done so do ye; wash ye, therefore, one another’s feet; and by the power of the Holy Ghost I pronounced them all clean from the blood of this generation; but if any of them should sin wilfully after they were thus cleansed, and sealed up unto eternal life, they should be given over unto the buffetings of Satan until the day of redemption. Having continued all day in fasting, and prayer, and ordinances, we closed by partaking of the Lord’s supper. I blessed the bread and wine in the name of the Lord, when we all ate and drank, and were filled; then we sang a hymn, and the meeting adjourned.¹⁷

Zebedee Coltrin, one of the school’s original members, later recalled these meetings:

The salutation, as written in the Doctrine and Covenants was carried out at that time, and at every meeting, and the washing of feet was attended to, the Sacrament was also administered at times when Joseph appointed, after the ancient order; that is, warm bread to break easy was provided, and broken into pieces as large as my fist, and each person had a glass of wine and sat and ate the bread and drank the wine; and Joseph said that was the way that Jesus and his disciples partook of the bread and wine; and this was the order of the church anciently, and until the church went into darkness. Every time we were called together to attend to any business, we came together in the morning about sunrise, fasting, and partook of the Sacrament each time; and before going to school we washed ourselves and put on clean linen.¹⁸

It was announced that the School of the Prophets was to be held in a new edifice built to house the school and to endow those whom I have chosen with power from on high (D&C 95:8). Over the next two years Smith encouraged completion of this House of the Lord with such glimpses of its potential as in the 5 October 1835 entry of the History of the Church:

I returned home, being much fatigued from riding in the rain. Spent the remainder of the day in reading and meditation, and in the evening attended a Council of the Twelve Apostles; had a glorious time, and gave them much instruction concerning their duties for time to come; ... also this fall to attend the solemn assembly of the first Elders, for the organization of the School of the Prophets; and attend to the ordinance of the washing of feet; and to prepare their hearts in all humility for an endowment with power from on high; to which they all agreed with one accord, and seemed to be greatly rejoiced.¹⁹

The following exhortation from 15 February 1835 similarly looks forward to and underscores the importance of this elusive endowment:

Remember, you are not to go to other nations till you receive your endowments. Tarry at Kirtland until you are endowed with power from on high. You need a fountain of wisdom, knowledge and intelligence such as you never had. Relative to the endowment, I make a remark or two, that there may be no mistake. The world cannot receive the things of God. He can endow you without worldly pomp or great parade. He can give you that wisdom, that intelligence, and that power, which characterized the ancient saints, and now characterizes the inhabitants of the upper world.²⁰

Even before the House of the Lord was dedicated on 27 March 1836 (see D&C 109), Smith introduced ordinances which Mormons today have come to think of as the first version of the endowment ritual. Clearly Smith and contemporaries considered these ceremonies to prepare the way for the real endowment of power—visions, prophesying, speaking in tongues, and feeling the Holy Ghost—which would follow dedication of the new temple.²¹

1. Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 vols., ed. B. H. Roberts, 2d ed., rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1973), 5:139-40 (hereafter HC).

2. Ibid., 2:197; remarks made on 15 February 1835 by Oliver Cowdery.

3. I am indebted to D. Michael Quinn and Anthony A. Hutchinson for assistance with the following discussion of salvation concepts, as well as the composition of the fullness of the priesthood ordinance and the conditional/unconditional nature of the ritual discussed below.

4. HC, 1:175-76.

5. David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Richmond, MO: the Author, 1887), 64, 35; see also 32, 49, 62, 63, and 65.

6. Far West Record, 25 Oct. 1931, archives, historical department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter LDS archives); see also Donald Q. Cannon and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., Far West Record: Minutes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1844 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1983), 20-21. Most of the research for this book was done during the late 1970s and early 1980s when temple-related materials housed in LDS archives were more accessible than they are today. Because it is now virtually impossible for researchers to consult the originals of these materials, I have included lengthy quotations from diaries and manuscript sources in this book and have deposited a copy of all research materials in the David J. Buerger Papers, Ms. 622, Manuscripts Division, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. The collection has no access restrictions.

7. See discussion of the term seal in Rex Eugene Cooper, Promises Made to the Fathers: Mormon Covenant Organization (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990), 64. Cooper emphasizes the comparison between Mormon and Puritan use of the term: To Puritans it meant the visible symbol of a covenant; to Mormons it meant the authoritative ratification of covenental promises, in a sense similar to that of Matthew 16:19, in which Christ gives Peter the keys of the kingdom. . . . After the [LDS] church was organized in 1830, the term appears to have first been employed about assurances of eternal salvation.

8. The story clearly is patterned on the account of Elijah the Tishbite sealing the heavens by drought in 1 Kings 17; also compare the Nephi-Elijah connection in Helaman 5:30 and 1 Kings 19:11-12. Additional parallels to Matthew 16:17-19 are Mark 8:29, Luke 9:20, and loose parallels in John 6:67-71 and 20:22-23. See also Gen. 14:26-32 in Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible (hereafter JST).

9. For other passages which describe Roman Catholicism from the perspective of anti-papist frontiersmen, see 1 Ne. 13:4-9, 24-29; 14:10-17; and 2 Ne. 28:18-28.

10. Zebedee Coltrin Diary, 15 Nov. 1831, LDS archives. See also Journal of Joseph Knight, Sr., summer 1831, LDS archives.

11. See