MARRIAGE—A DIVINE INSTITUTION, AND DESIGNED TO BE ETERNAL.
Marriage is ordained of God unto man, that the earth might answer the end of its creation, and "Be filled with the measure of man, according to his creation before the world was made;" Doc. & Cov. 49. 15-17.
Outside of marriage the salvation of man would be incomplete: "Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord;" 1 Cor. 11. 11. All the works of God receive the impress of eternity: "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it;" Eccl. 3. 14.
When the Creator joined Adam and Eve together, as the progenitors of the human race, we do not learn that he set any limit to the continuance of their marriage relations. We have no reason to doubt that the gift of Eve, to Adam, was designed to be as eternal as himself.
Man, in his fulness, is a twofold organization—male and female. Either being incapable of filling the measure of their creation alone, it requires the union of the two to complete man in the image of God, for in Gen. 1. 27, it expressly says, that he was created male and female in the image of God. Therefore, without the proper union of the sexes, man would be less than what God created him.
There is a comprehensive significance in, "The Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone;" Gen. 2. 18. It speaks of no particular period of man's life, and has no limit in its application. The entire narrative of the union of Adam and Eve, in the second chapter of Genesis, intimates the designed inseparable relationship between man and wife, in marriage as ordained of God.
Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;" 2. 23. He evidently well understood this eternal relationship with Eve, when he answered the Lord's question, "Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" and he replied, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat;" Gen. 3. 11, 12.
Here Adam tells the Lord, by way of apology, that in order to keep his commandment, that he and the woman should remain together, he was compelled to partake of the forbidden fruit after her. This is evidently the view the apostle Paul took of the subject: "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression;" 1 Tim. 2. 14.
This inseparable connection between man and wife, in marriage as ordained of God, is further exemplified by the same apostle in Eph. 5. 22-33: "The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church." That is, as Christ is eternally the head of the church, so is the husband eternally the head of the wife. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church. * * so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh. * * Let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself."
The principle of inseparable connection is fully expressed in Adam's answer to the Lord as rendered in the writings of Moses, translated by Joseph, the Seer. "The woman whom thou gavest me, and commanded that she should remain with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and I did eat;" P. of G. P., page 8.
We further read, on page 13, "In the day that God created man, (in the likeness of God made he him), in the image of his own body, male and female, created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam." Here we are informed that it required the male and female, united, to make one image of his own body, and that male and female were necessary to form one Adam, who was in the dual image of God his father. We also find by referring again to Gen. 1. 27, that it required the male and female to make an image of God.
The Lord has ever manifested a great interest in the marriage relations of his chosen people and Priesthood, and has protected the sexual relations by stringent laws and regulations. The importance of marrying in the same lineage, as themselves, appears to have been well understood by the patriarchs. For this reason, doubtless, Abraham married a near relation, and sent his servant, Eliezer, to his kindred to obtain a wife for his son, and heir, Isaac; Gen. 20. 12. Chap. 24.
Isaac also commanded Jacob to go to Padanaram, and take one of his cousins to wife; Gen. 28. 1-6. Twice the Lord interfered, in a miraculous manner, to prevent the wife of Abraham from being defiled; Gen. 12. 17-20. Chap. 20. 2, 3. Evidently for the reason that she was the foreordained covenant wife of Abraham, and destined mother of the Lord's chosen people. Israel was forbidden to marry with the Canaanites; Deut. 7. 3.
The Lord gave special commandments regarding the marriage of priests and their families. A priest's daughter that profaned herself was to be burned with fire; Lev. 21. 9. The High Priest was required to take a virgin of his own people to wife; verse 14. The sons of Aaron were commanded not to take a wife that was a whore, or profane, or a woman put away from her husband; verse 7.
"If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die;" Deut. 22. 22. If a man lay with a virgin, in the city, that was betrothed to an husband, they were both stoned to death; verses 23, 24. If a man lay with a virgin not betrothed, and thereby humbled her, he was required to pay her father fifty shekels of silver, and take her to wife, without the possibility of divorcing her; verse 28, 29.
The eighteenth chapter of Leviticus is chiefly occupied with forbidding the unlawful indulgence of the passions. The Nephite prophet, Alma, told his son that harlotry was "most abominable above all sins, save it be the shedding of innocent blood;" Alma 39, 5. Jesus told his Nephite disciples "It is better that ye should deny yourselves of these things, wherein ye will take up your cross, than that ye should be cast into hell;" 3 Nephi 12. 30.
In Doc. & Cov., the passages are numerous in which adultery is forbidden. The Lord has given much instruction to the Latter-day Saints concerning the intercourse of the sexes. They are required to keep themselves strictly within their marriage covenants.
From the sacred writings, it would appear that in all dispensations of the Priesthood, the laws regulating this matter have been substantially the same, and have been calculated to strictly guard the issues of life; that all those who would keep them might be "perfect in their generations."
If, on the one hand, what the Lord does is eternal, because he is an eternal and infinite being, then what man does of himself, he being finite, must be limited to this life. Therefore, it is necessary that man and wife, to be eternally united, should be married in the way God has appointed, and by a man whom he has authorized to act in his stead.
It would not be consistent with the character of God, as the spiritual and natural father of mankind, to have no law regulating the marriages of his children, that they might be crowned with the blessings of eternal life and increase.
The Lord brought Abraham forth abroad, "And said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be;" Gen. 15. 5. This was a promise of infinite and eternal increase. If we could count the stars, and grasp infinitude, we might comprehend the result of the promise.
We find that the Lord confirmed blessings to Abraham, and to his seed, by recorded ordinance and covenant. For this reason it is not probable that a blessing of such magnitude, as the sealing upon man and wife the power of eternal increase, is an exception. Abraham, in his own record, translated by Joseph the Seer, says, "I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same." One of these blessings was, "To be a father of many nations, a prince of peace;" P. of G. P., page 26.
Abraham understood that this right could only be bestowed by ordination, by one of the fathers who had received it from the fathers in regular descent from Adam. He states that this right was conferred upon him from the fathers, according to his desire. That this right included the authority to regulate the marriage relations, in the future generations of his children, is evident from the further statement, "I sought for mine appointment unto the Priesthood according to the appointment of God unto the fathers concerning the seed." That is, he sought for that especial authority in the Priesthood, through which he had obtained the power of eternal increase.
The priest's office was bestowed upon Aaron and his posterity forever, by ordinance and covenant; Exodus 40. 15. Could this have been the case unless his posterity was made an eternal heritage through the everlasting covenant of marriage? This power of uniting husband and wife by an everlasting covenant of marriage, and by that ordinance giving them an eternal right over their posterity, descended from Abraham through the fathers, until Israel, by transgression, forfeited the blessing.
From the sharpness with which the prophet Nathan reproved David, and the statement that the Lord had given him the wives of his master Saul; 2 Sam. 12. 1-12, it is probable that the prophet held this authority.
The great sin of David, apart from the murder of Uriah, was, that he had taken from another man that which the Lord had given him, and stepped outside of his own covenant limits.
Whether the prophet Malachi held the keys of this power or not, he evidently saw in prophetic vision, that it would be taken from the earth, and be restored again, that the broken links of past generations might be welded together. For the Lord said, through him, "I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse;" 4. 5, 6. Or as it is rendered in P. of G. P., page 50, "And he shall plant in the hearts of the children, the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers; if it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming."
Evidently a very important part of these promises was, that the children would open up the way of salvation to the fathers, through the ordinances of the Gospel, and through them the broken links of past generations would be connected.
Centuries of darkness passed away in which we hear nothing of the order of the holy Priesthood, or of any saving ordinances for the dead, when an obscure man, Joseph Smith, Jun., appeared in the United States of America, and claimed that to him was committed the authority to open up the Dispensation of the fulness of times, in which all the keys and powers of the holy Priesthood should be restored to the earth.
He professed to be a fulfiller of prophecy, and numerous facts, which have become a part of history, prove him to be what he professed. He asserts that in the temple in Kirtland, Ohio, Elias appeared and committed the dispensation of the "Gospel of Abraham," "Saying, that in us, and our seed, all generations after us should be blest." In this we see the needed preparatory work for sealing, upon men the power of eternal lives, through the everlasting covenant of marriage, through which Abraham sought "To be a father of many nations."
Then at the same place appeared Elijah, and said, "Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi, testifying that he (Elijah) should be sent before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come, To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse. Therefore the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands;" Doc. & Cov. 110. 11-16. Thus we see that the way has been opened for the complete reunion and salvation of all the generations or men, through the keys of the Holy Priesthood which have been bestowed upon Joseph Smith, Jun. This is the designed glorious culmination of the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage—the eternal union of the generations of the righteous in bonds never to be broken.
In Doc. & Cov. sec. 128. Joseph, the Seer, gives instructions for restoring the past; in sec. 132, he tells the world how future generations may come forth in unbroken succession, each succeeding intelligence, the heritage of its fathers, worlds without end.