The ordinances must match the final state

The men who currently hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven administer the ordinances based upon their perception of our current spiritual state. Those who exercise faith in Christ and repent get both their names and their works written in the earthly priesthood records; and through Peter’s keys of the kingdom of heaven those names and works are also recorded in the heavenly book of life. But should a man return to his sins, become inactive in the church and the church lose all contact and awareness of him and his return to iniquity, the man’s name and works remain on both the earthly priesthood records and the heavenly record, even if that man ends up dying in his sins, having entirely rejected his God. A person’s name and works are only blotted out if he or she is known to be a covenant breaker who refuses to repent.

Now, the final spiritual state is the instant of resurrection. Given that no one who holds the priesthood keys has power to know the final state, the ones who hold the priesthood keys leave it up to God to make the records match the conduct.

There are three things that are required for salvation: the power of the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the ordinances of the gospel and our own personal conduct. All three things must perfectly match. Our covenants bind us to Christ, which allows Him to save us, but our conduct must also be in keeping with the covenants. If we keep our covenants, we become a truly penitent person, which Christ can justifiably save, keeping the righteousness (justice) of the plan of salvation intact. If we do not keep our covenants, we remain in our sins, yet the covenants still bind us to Christ, which causes Him to save the wicked, not the penitent, thus destroying the entire plan of salvation, for Christ cannot justifiably save an impenitent person. If He were to try to save the impenitent, He would cease to be Christ. Should such a thing happen, the power of the atonement would be undone and all things would be destroyed. The conditions of salvation, then, are faith in Jesus Christ and repentance, which means that our conduct must match the covenants, otherwise God becomes an unjust God and all things cease to exist.

God’s plan for the perfection of the records

At the time of the end, God had always intended to send His emissary of justice (the Josephite), whose sense of justice was as acute as His own, and this servant would have a right to the priesthood and keys of the kingdom of heaven:

What is the root of Jesse spoken of in the 10th verse of the 11th chapter?

Behold, thus saith the Lord, it is a descendant of Jesse, as well as of Joseph, unto whom rightly belongs the priesthood, and the keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days. (D&C 113:5-6.)

Once in possession of all the necessary keys, the Josephite then would go about making a correction of errors, setting the house of God in full order:

And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God, and to arrange by lot the inheritances of the saints whose names are found, and the names of their fathers, and of their children, enrolled in the book of the law of God; (D&C 85:7.)

And again, let all the records be had in order, that they may be put in the archives of my holy temple, to be held in remembrance from generation to generation, saith the Lord of Hosts. (D&C 127:9.)

He will not alter the records according to the current spiritual state of the people, but according to their final state. He will have the gifts of the discerning of spirits and the gift to prophecy and the gift of the word of knowledge, to such an extent, that he will be able to perceive the final spiritual state of each and every person who ever lived, or who lives, or who ever will live, allowing him to make out the records perfectly, so that the earthly priesthood records (and through the keys, the heavenly book of life) and the final spiritual state of each person are an exact match.

Now, there is this idea among latter-day saints that the ordinances guarantee the final state, taken from this scripture:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man marry a wife according to my word, and they are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, according to mine appointment, and he or she shall commit any sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant whatever, and all manner of blasphemies, and if they commit no murder wherein they shed innocent blood, yet they shall come forth in the first resurrection, and enter into their exaltation; but they shall be destroyed in the flesh, and shall be delivered unto the buffetings of Satan unto the day of redemption, saith the Lord God. (D&C 132:26.)

If you’ve received all the ordinances of salvation and exaltation, being sealed in the temple to a spouse for time and all eternity, as well as having received all the other ordinances, and then commit all sorts of sins, but do not shed innocent blood, and then you die in your sins, do you enter into your exaltation? Everyone reads the above scripture and says, “Yes. It says they will enter into their exaltation, so they will enter into it.”

Others read the above scripture and say, “Wait a moment. It says IF you are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, so that must mean that God still has a say-so in it later. If He decides you are worthy, then the sealing becomes sealed forever.”

Still others reply to this, “No. The sealing of the Holy Spirit of promise isn’t something separate from the actual sealing given in the temple. So, it cannot be that. It must mean exactly what it says: you are guaranteed exaltation once you get these ordinances, unless you shed innocent blood.” But the sense of justice of the people who think the Holy Spirit of promise is separate bugs them and they refuse to accept such a premise.

Who is right and who is wrong? The people who state that the ordinance itself is the Holy Spirit of promise are the ones who are right. As long as that sealing is intact and you haven’t shed innocent blood, you are guaranteed to enter into your exaltation. Nevertheless, there is yet another variable to take into account: the ordinances do not become permanently written in the books until the Josephite comes forth and sets the records in order.

The Josephite is completely unbiased, for he is God’s arm of justice and justice is blind. He doesn’t care whether you have had an ordinance or not. All he looks at is your spiritual state at the very end. If his sense of justice indicates that you, in your final state, will be worthy of a particular ordinance, he will write that ordinance in. If you have received that ordinance and it is on the books, but he perceives that in your final state you are unworthy of that particular ordinance, because you didn’t repent in time, he will blot the work out of the books. And so it goes with everyone’s name and all the works, writing in the names and works of those who deserve to have their names and works written in, and blotting out the names and works of those who don’t deserve to have their names and works written in, all according to what he sees in your final state.

Your current spiritual state will be of no importance to the Josephite. You can think, “I have had the sealing ordinances and have not shed innocent blood. It doesn’t matter what sins I do; eventually I will repent, according to the guarantee of the ordinance, and despite whatever problems my sins cause me in this life, in the next life they will be eventually remitted and I’ll enter into my exaltation.” But this is not so.

Repentance must be done in this life, for if we wait until the next life, it becomes much, much harder to repent and to obtain the same blessings that were offered to us in this life. In other words, let’s say you procrastinate your repentance and then die; in the next life, because of the difficulty of repentance, whatever degree of repentance you will obtain, and thus reward, may or may not be to the same degree you could have obtained had you repented in this life, before the instant of your death.

This means, for example, for those who are sealed for time and all eternity in the temple, as married couples, that they must repent of whatever sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant of marriage before they die, for if they do not, there is a chance that they won’t be able to attain such a depth of repentance in the afterlife, before they are resurrected, and then the Josephite, looking forward and seeing that full repentance has not been achieved, will merely blot out the sealing, undoing it, making it so that it never existed.

What constitutes as a sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant of marriage?

“…and he shall rule over thee…” (Gen. 3:16)

This keeps the covenant:

The husband rules over the wife.

This sins or transgresses against the covenant:

The wife rules over the husband; the husband doesn’t rule over the wife; the husband refuses to rule over the wife; the husband isn’t allowed to rule over the wife; the wife refuses to be ruled over by the husband; the wife doesn’t allow the husband to rule over her; the wife isn’t ruled over by the husband; the husband is ruled over by the wife; the husband allows the wife to rule over him; the wife demands to rule over the husband; the husband demands to be ruled over by the wife; the husband and the wife establish an equal partnership in which nobody rules and all things are done by joint consensus; and so on and so forth.

Thus the marriage covenant is patterned after the “just king” model. It is a kingdom like in Esther chapter one. The Josephite, then, looking upon a married couple, whether they are sealed in the temple or not, will look at the final state of the couple, and if the two people abode by the new and everlasting covenant of marriage and have repented of their sins by the time of their resurrection, he will write their names in and write in the ordinance of the sealing of the Holy Spirit of promise, and then those two people, even if they have never married for time and all eternity in life, will find that in the day of resurrection they are now eternally married to each other.

On the other hand, if he sees a temple married couple, and he perceives that by the resurrection the wife has not repented of breaking the covenant, whereas the husband has, he will blot out the wife’s ordinance and write another woman’s name in her place, and the man will come forth and call for his wife and discover that it is someone else, who is worthy of the ordinance, and the two of them will enter into their exaltation while the woman will find that she is not called forth as a wife, for the records do not show her ever having been married, and she will not receive exaltation.

The same goes for a man who breaks the covenant and doesn’t repent by the resurrection, whereas the wife keeps the covenant even until the resurrection. The man will find that he has no wife and no exaltation, whereas the woman will find that she is the wife of another man and she will enter into her exaltation with the other man.

The current state of the records is immaterial

To the Josephite, the records, as they are currently constituted, are of no use to him, for they are made out only according to the limited perceptions of the humans who possessed the keys before him, which were according to the current spiritual state they perceived. Given that one’s spiritual state can change from time to time, the only state of importance is the final state, for that will be the eternal state, and so that is the state that the Josephite will base his assessment on.

The most dangerous man in existence

Given this power to alter all the records, both those of the past, present and future, the Josephite will be the most dangerous man in existence. If he blots out your name, you don’t get saved. Those whose names aren’t written in the earthly priesthood records don’t have their names written in the heavenly book of life, and thus they don’t receive eternal life, but instead receive the second death, to be cast out into the lake of fire and brimstone at the day of judgment by the destroying angel, Abaddon. The Josephite, then, judges all things, and decides who he will destroy, and what reward each person will receive, by writing in the works that pertain to the various rewards available.

God can entrust nobody but the Josephite with this very important job, because any other angel or servant of God would be tempted to write the names of the wicked in the books, for penitent people such as holy angels and saints cannot bear to have anyone suffer the pains of a damned soul. Therefore, should God give to any other angel or servant power to make out the books permanently, as the Josephite will have, that angel or servant would cause the destruction of all things because they would end up writing in the names of the wicked, so that nobody would get cast into the lake of fire and brimstone and nobody would cease to exist, thus frustrating the plan of God’s justice. But as the Josephite is, essentially, merciless, and actually enjoys his job of destroying souls, he has no qualms about blotting out a person’s name eternally if they deserve it; therefore to him goes the job of filling out the books.

The enemies of the Josephite, then, not understanding how dangerous he is, thinking the man can only affect the here and now, this life only, and not the hereafter, or the afterlife and eternal state, fight him. But the proper response to a man who wields such godly power is to grovel before him, as I have stated before on this blog, so that he writes your name and all the works of the gospel for you in the books, so that you obtain every blessing available.

Unlike the current leaders who possess keys, who sometimes write a person’s name in, and also some works, and then later, based upon altered behavior, blot out some works or blot out a person’s name, and then later write the names and works back in, according to more altered behavior, the Josephite’s ordering of the books will be the permanent record. There will be no alterations once he gets started writing and blotting. What he writes in, stays written. What he blots out, stays blotted out. And if he has cursed you so that nobody can write your name in, making you accursed, there will be no power on earth or in heaven to get you saved. His decision will be final.

What this means for us

We ought not to become complacent in keeping our covenants. As long as we are continually striving to keep all of the covenants we have made, aligning our lives with the scriptural principles as best we can, then on the day of our death, having fully repented of our sins, we will find that our spiritual state in the instant of our death, being worthy of the ordinances, will match our spiritual state in the instant of our resurrection, and we will leave this life firm in the hope of our salvation and exaltation. But if we become complacent, thinking that we don’t have to exactly conform to God’s words and his commandments and our covenants, and we procrastinate the day of our repentance, we might find that our spiritual state in the instant of our death does not match our spiritual state in the instant of our resurrection, and we will find that what we receive in the day of resurrection as far as reward goes is vastly different and far less than what we thought we were going to get in the instant we died, all because the Josephite has “set in order” the records, and made them match or conform to our spiritual state in the instant of resurrection.

For those who are in an unequal marriage, in which one or more of the parties are not keeping the marriage covenant, the only thing that matters is that you keep that covenant. The Josephite will only judge individually, and so whoever is striving to keep the covenant, despite opposition from a spouse, gets the sealing, and whoever isn’t keeping the covenant, gets made as if they never were sealed.

Complete List of Articles authored by LDS Anarchist

Advertisement

4 Comments

Comments RSS