Sealing?

[Cal]

Sealing? Sounds like glue. Do us LDS believe we are going to be super-glued in the hear after? I know this sounds facecious, but has anyone bothered to examin this claim? What meaning does it have that we can relate to?

Does it imply that without this ceremony you won't be allowed to associate with certain people? If that is the case, show me the scriptural authority for that.

[Dravin]

Sealing? Sounds like glue. Do us LDS believe we are going to be super-glued in the hear after? I know this sounds facecious

That's because it is, come on now, you know that when people go into the temple to get sealed that giant tubes of super glue aren't busted out and applied, nor in the here after.

The sealing of a man and wife together with their children is exactly that, they are now forever more Husband and Wife and their Children are their Children, and nothing I know of (which is limited in these matters I will admit) would prevent you in the here after from associating with your best friend as a best friend. If however you aren't sealed to your wife you don't associate with her as a wife, same would apply to your children.

If this is wrong I'm sure somebody with a better grasp on doctrine will be along shortly to correct me, so take the above with a grain of salt.

[john doe]

Yes, that is exactly what it means, we will all be super-glued to each other after we die. and then our collective inner lights will shine so bright and hot that we will become as bright as a star. This is how our sun was formed, silly. The stars are really just good people glued together for eternity, and this is how the universe works. Don't you want to be a good boy so you can become a part of our new star? Why do you think astronauts are so afraid to fly into the sun? They just aren't righteous enough to live there. That and the fact that they don't have the exact formula for the sealing super-glue. Heck, they can't even glue heat shields tight enough onto the space shuttle to get back to earth every time. Maybe they should all convert and go to the temple so they can get the right formula.

[Guest Traci]

Originally posted by john doe@Sep 19 2004, 11:52 AM

Yes, that is exactly what it means, we will all be super-glued to each other after we die. and then our collective inner lights will shine so bright and hot that we will become as bright as a star...

Sarcastic TBMs seem slightly oxymoronic to me. Don't know why. Is anything really beyond the realm of possibility to them?

[john doe]

Oh, sorry, I didn't know there was a rule allowing only anti's to be sarcastic here. Can you please refer me to the exact source of that rule so we can all read it?

[Guest Traci]

Originally posted by john doe@Sep 19 2004, 05:24 PM

Oh, sorry, I didn't know there was a rule allowing only anti's to be sarcastic here. Can you please refer me to the exact source of that rule so we can all read it?

Nothing sarcastic about this question: Is anything really beyond the realm of possibility to them [TBMs]? Rhetorical, perhaps, but never sarcastic.

[john doe]

What's that old saying? "With God, anything is possible".

You just need to stop limiting yourself with your closed-mindedness. If you don't believe in cosmic superglue, you will never be sealed to the rest of us.

[Guest curvette]

I've kind of wondered what it means too. Really, it seems that the only "sealing" relationship that can be in force is that of the spouse. If children marry and are sealed to their spouse they wouldn't be actually living with their parents in the hereafter, they'd be with their own companion. "The two shall be one flesh, etc..." It seems that if eveyone in the world is sealed to someone that it shouldn't matter if we are sealed to our children or not because we'd all be together as a human race. The whole doctrine doesn't really make any sense if it's veiwed in eternal terms. It does give comfort though to those who lose children because it's an assurance that they will be reunited with their child in heaven.

[Dravin]

Originally posted by curvette

I've kind of wondered what it means too. Really, it seems that the only "sealing" relationship that can be in force is that of the spouse. If children marry and are sealed to their spouse they wouldn't be actually living with their parents in the hereafter, they'd be with their own companion.

The assumption that one must live with each other to be family is flawed.

One of my sisters is moved out and married, she has children of her own, however she is still my parents child even if she lives somewhere else and has a family of her own, the relationship between my parents and sister are much different than the relationship my parents have with the married couple with kids acrossed the street, same applies to the kids involved, my sisters offspring will always be treated differently than the neighborhood kids and this will always be the case no matter how well they come to know and even love their neighbors.

[Cyra]

I think that I have a fairly good understanding of sealings. But I am concerned about friends. I am glad that we can be sealed to our family, except that my family are anti-Mormon Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians. But I have some very dear friends who I love with the same intensity that I love family members and we can't be sealed to them, only family. I grew up with the belief that "we would all see eachother in heaven, friends, neighbors, family, everyone who gets there" and now since becoming a latter day saint, some of my old beliefs don't jive with the LDS beliefs and doctrines and I become very concerned, confused, and frustrated.

Cyra

[Faerie]

I don't think any one knows how "non familial" relationships will work...just something I chalk up to "i'll know when I get there and no sense worrying about it now"...lol

[Guest curvette]

Originally posted by Dravin@Sep 22 2004, 10:38 AM

The assumption that one must live with each other to be family is flawed.

One of my sisters is moved out and married, she has children of her own, however she is still my parents child even if she lives somewhere else and has a family of her own, the relationship between my parents and sister are much different than the relationship my parents have with the married couple with kids acrossed the street, same applies to the kids involved, my sisters offspring will always be treated differently than the neighborhood kids and this will always be the case no matter how well they come to know and even love their neighbors.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that the billions of parents who go to the afterlife without being sealed to their children suddenly stop being parents? I'm sorry, but I don't believe that at all.

[Dravin]

They will not associate as parents, they will associate as fellow children of God, as you say, otherwise there is no point to it.

[Guest Traci]

Always reassuring to have a point put on something, dontcha think?

[Dravin]

Originally posted by Traci@Sep 23 2004, 05:05 AM

Always reassuring to have a point put on something, dontcha think?

Yep, tis the reason I have a deep abiding love of pencil sharpeners.

[Guest Traci]

Originally posted by Dravin+Sep 23 2004, 09:59 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Dravin @ Sep 23 2004, 09:59 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Traci@Sep 23 2004, 05:05 AM

Always reassuring to have a point put on something, dontcha think?

Yep, tis the reason I have a deep abiding love of pencil sharpeners.

It's even more reassuring when you can cite an accepted scripture (God's word) for something like the concept below:

They will not associate as parents, they will associate as fellow children of God, as you say, otherwise there is no point to it.

[Guest curvette]

Originally posted by Dravin@Sep 22 2004, 07:42 PM

They will not associate as parents, they will associate as fellow children of God, as you say, otherwise there is no point to it.

They will not associate as parents? What does this mean? Once a person is grown, the parents assume a different role than they have when the child is growing up. I assume that we will all enter the afterlife as adults (at least if we die as adults.) I would think that a functional parent would treat their child as an equal after the child is grown up. Once they are on their own, the parent has no authority over the child.

[Dravin]

They will not associate as parents? What does this mean? Once a person is grown, the parents assume a different role than they have when the child is growing up.

Do you honestly believe people do not interact with their parents differently than they interact with friends and siblings even when fully grown? The role is different but it is still that of a parent.

It's even more reassuring when you can cite an accepted scripture (God's word) for something like the concept below:

Originally posted by Doctrine and Covenants 132:7

7 And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity, and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment through the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power (and I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the last days, and there is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred), are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead.

The bolding is of course my own and not found in the original.

[Guest curvette]

Originally posted by Dravin+Sep 23 2004, 01:02 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Dravin @ Sep 23 2004, 01:02 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

They will not associate as parents? What does this mean? Once a person is grown, the parents assume a different role than they have when the child is growing up.

Do you honestly believe people do not interact with their parents differently than they interact with friends and siblings even when fully grown? The role is different but it is still that of a parent.

It's even more reassuring when you can cite an accepted scripture (God's word) for something like the concept below:

<!--QuoteBegin-- Doctrine and Covenants 132:7

7 And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity, and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment through the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power (and I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the last days, and there is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred), are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead.

The bolding is of course my own and not found in the original.

Please give me a scenario of what life will be like in the afterlife with one's parents if they are sealed and one if they are not. You still are making no sense. Are you saying that the love that exists between parents and children will only exist in the next life for sealed Latterday saints?

[Dravin]

No you will still love them, but the associations will be different. You'll have to ask somebody else for a more exact picture, as I don't exactly have a memory of such exsistance, and I'm far from an expert on the matter.

[Guest Traci]

Originally posted by Dravin@Sep 23 2004, 03:10 PM

... I'm far from an expert on the matter.

Now, this I'm having trouble believing!

[Dravin]

Originally posted by Traci+Sep 23 2004, 08:30 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Traci @ Sep 23 2004, 08:30 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Dravin@Sep 23 2004, 03:10 PM

... I'm far from an expert on the matter.

Now, this I'm having trouble believing!

Isn't it though? Hard to beleive I don't know everything that is.

[Ray]

Originally posted by curvette+ Sep 23 2004, 02:05 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (curvette @ Sep 23 2004, 02:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Please give me a scenario of what life will be like in the afterlife with one's parents if they are sealed and one if they are not.

Scenario 1 (parents and their children who are sealed together):

An eternal family begins when a young couple kneels at an altar in the holy temple of God and makes covenants with each other and with God and receives His greatest promises. This sealing is preceded by each making and receiving covenants which, if they continue worthy, will bless them in this life as well as in the life to come.

The father and mother are equal partners with different roles in nurturing and teaching their family members on the journey to immortality and eternal life. To have full meaning, how can life be other than an eternal process? – President James E Faust, 167th Annual General Conference Saturday Morning session, “Eternity Lies before Us”

I envision this “eternal process” as a relationship wherein parents teach and counsel their children about all the good things they have already learned for themselves, with the children being receptive to the counsel their parents have to share, while the parents (who are children themselves of other parents) are receptive to what their parents have to share…etc, forever.

Scenario 2 (parents and their children who are NOT sealed together):

Basically this would be anything other than the scenario above.

Without a welding link of some kind between parents and their children - because they would not make the choice to bind together as a family unit by going through the ordinance that binds them together as a family unit, or because they had changed their minds about honoring the covenant that binds them together as a family unit, and more specifically a righteous family unit wherein every one of them is member of a family unit as our heavenly Father would have them be a member of their family unit, a sealing being the ordinance that binds parents and children together as members of a righteous family unit - parents and their children would not be in the type of relationship or of the mindset wherein they would assist each other and benefit from each other as members of a family unit should. The persons might still be involved with each other in some way, or still have something to do with each other, but those persons would not be a family unit in the same way that our heavenly Father wants them to be, with parents counseling their children and children learning from their parents in the “eternal process” of eternal life.

I speak as someone who is not sealed to any of my parents, or at least not any of my immediate parents, and thereby not benefiting from the type of relationship I would otherwise have if I had more immediate parents who were more receptive to becoming a family unit as our heavenly Father would like us to be. My immediate parents have never been honorable members of the Church, in which case I would have been born to them “in the covenant”, and they have yet to learn even the little that I know about what our heavenly Father wants to share with all of us. We still get together sometimes, and we still somehow manage to get along together, but we are not nearly as close as I would like us to be. And as I see it, there is no way we ever will be as close as I would like us to be unless or until we all somehow learn what our heavenly Father desires and tries to share with all of us.

<!--QuoteBegin--curvette@ Sep 23 2004, 02:05 PM

You still are making no sense. Are you saying that the love that exists between parents and children will only exist in the next life for sealed Latterday saints?

The love that exists between my parents and I will probably always remain as it is now, without us becoming any “closer” than we are now, unless or until we all learn more about what our heavenly Father wants to share with all of us and then act upon that greater knowledge by doing whatever we can to receive the greatest blessings we can receive.

[Guest curvette]

Nice thoughts. Thanks Ray. :)

[Ray]

Then I’ll recommend that you read or re-read the talk given by the Primary President during that morning session too. :)

“Caring for the souls of children” - President Patricia P. Pinegar

To me, General Conference talks are the best public discourses in the world.