 |
Gramps,
A question was recently asked in a Relief Society discussion of a lesson I
was teaching. I was wondering if you could answer this question. Were
relations foreordained in the pre-mortal life? Donna |
Dear
Donna,
We
can find no specific scriptural reference that would indicate that we somehow
chose our family relationships in the spirit world. However, reason dictates
that there must have been familial commitments made in the spirit world that
were to be honored in mortality and in eternity. Just to consider one example,
Abraham declared:
Now
the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized
before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great
ones; And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of
them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that
were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou
art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born
(Abraham 3:22-23).
To
be a ruler in eternity requires that sacred covenants be made in the holy
temples in mortality. If these covenants are honored by those who make them,
they will inherit the promise to become rulers in eternity. That promise is
confirmed upon those who are sealed together as husband and wife for time and
for eternity. (Please see D&C 132:19)
It
is difficult to image that the promises made to many of the noble and great
ones in the grand council in heaven were made without any regard to the
eternal partnerships that would be involved therein.
We
do know from the words of the Prophet that callings to positions of service in
the holy priesthood in mortality are the fulfillment of callings in the spirit
worlds to become such.
“Every
man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained
to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was. I
suppose I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council” (Teachings
of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Six 1843–44, p.365).
We
make commitments in this life with the promise of attendant blessings in the
life to come if we continue faithful. Each phase of our existence is somehow a
type of that which is to come. I would imagine that many of the blessings
associated with the gospel of Jesus Christ that we receive in this life are the
result of faithful compliance with sacred promises made in the pre-mortal spirit
world.
Gramps