Chapter 38: A Closer Look at Eternal Marriage

Gospel Principles A Scripture Study Guide

by Robert M. Bowman Jr.
Copyright © 2011 Institute for Religious Research

In our examination of chapters 36 and 37 of Gospel Principles, we offered a broad comparison between the Mormon and evangelical views of marriage and family, giving full weight to both the similarities and the differences between them. In doing so we explained the larger theological context of the Mormon belief in eternal marriage and why this belief does not fit in an evangelical theology that takes the Bible as its doctrinal authority.

Turning now to chapter 38, which focuses specifically on eternal marriage, we will address two questions. (A) Is there any biblical basis or support for the doctrine of eternal marriage? (B) What is the real origin of the Mormon doctrine and practice of eternal marriage?

A. Eternal Marriage and the Bible

1. LDS Proof Texts from the Bible for Eternal Marriage

Chapter 38 of Gospel Principles bases its exposition of eternal marriage on

 Doctrine and Covenants 131 and 132 (see pp. 220, 223). However, the end of the chapter lists three texts from the Bible as additional support (223), and these and a few other biblical texts are cited in support in the LDS Church’s official Topical Guide under “Marriage, Celestial” (Genesis 1:26-28; 2:21-24; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Matthew 16:19; 18:18; 19:3-8; Mark 10:9; 1 Corinthians 11:11; Ephesians 5:31; 1 Peter 3:7).

These biblical texts do not teach that marriage is or can be for eternity, and they certainly do not even hint at the idea of temple marriages—the LDS claim that only some marriages, those performed in temples for worthy couples, will endure beyond the grave and forever. In sum, what can fairly be learned from these texts is that God ordained or instituted marriage, that marriage is a covenant relationship, and that God intends marriage to last until death. Let us examine these texts to see what they actually say of relevance to the subject.

• Genesis 1:26-28. In this passage, God makes human beings, both male and female, “in his own image,” and instructed them to “be fruitful and multiply.” This passage says nothing at all about marriage per se, although it does reveal that the union of a man and a woman by which children are born is God’s created intention for humanity.
• Genesis 2:21-24. This passage gives an account of God making the first woman from the rib of the first man, concluding that “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (v. 24 ESV). This statement is the Bible’s foundational affirmation that God instituted marriage as a union (“one flesh”) of a man and a woman, and as creating a distinct family unit (“shall leave his father and his mother”). Genesis says nothing about this marriage union continuing beyond death, nor does it say anything to suggest that some marriages are eternal while others are temporal. If this passage did teach eternal marriage, it would have to be understood to mean that all marriages are eternal—which the LDS Church explicitly denies.
• Ecclesiastes 3:14. From the statement that “whatever God does endures forever,” the LDS Church apparently infers that marriages blessed or authorized by God will last forever. Such an inference misses the point of the statement in its context in Ecclesiastes. That point is that nobody can overturn God’s work or thwart God’s design for his creation. The rest of the verse makes this point clearly: “nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken away from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.” Indeed, in the larger context of the chapter the writer argues that God has ordained that some things die: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die” (3:1-2).
• Matthew 16:19; 18:18. In these two verses, Jesus tells Peter and the whole group of apostles that they have authority from him so that whatever they “bind” or “loose” on earth will be “bound” or “loosed” in heaven. The context of both statements is Christ’s church (16:18; 18:17), not human marriage.
• Matthew 19:3-8; Mark 10:9. In these parallel accounts of the same event, the Pharisees asked Jesus if divorce was ever permissible. Jesus responded by quoting Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 (discussed above) and concluded, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:9 ESV). Jesus’ point is not that some marriages are merely temporal while other marriages are “joined” by God and so are eternal. Rather, his point is that God binds all married couples to one another and therefore it is wrong to break one’s marriage vow in divorce. (As a side note, this does not mean that God blames innocent persons whose spouses end the marriages through infidelity or abandonment.) Far from dividing marriages into two categories, temporal and eternal, Jesus here assumes that all marriages are alike: they are all covenants that human beings should not seek to dissolve. But that does not mean that the covenant continues after death.
• 1 Corinthians 11:11. “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God” (1 Corinthians 11:11-12 ESV). This passage simply teaches that neither the husband nor the wife are independent of each other; being a Christian (“in the Lord”) does not mean that a husband is freed from his relationship with his wife or she from her relationship with him. Some of the Corinthians evidently thought that being Christians freed them from all natural obligations and relationships; Paul is explaining to them that this is not so.
• Ephesians 5:31. This verse quotes Genesis 2:24, already discussed above. In context, Paul is arguing that the marriage relationship is a type or symbolic representation of the relationship between Christ (the bridegroom) and his church (the bride). That is, it is an earthly, temporal picture of the heavenly, eternal reality of the church as Christ’s people.
• 1 Peter 3:7. The apostle Peter tells Christian husbands to honor their wives, “since they are heirs with you of the grace of life” (ESV). This does not mean that a person needs to be married (let alone married in a temple) in order to be an heir of God’s grace. It means that a Christian man who is married should treat his wife with the respect due to a fellow Christian. All Christians are heirs together, with each other, of eternal life (Romans 8:17; Galatians 3:29; Ephesians 3:6; Colossians 1:12; Titus 3:7; Hebrews 1:14).

2. Biblical Evidence against Eternal Marriage

The Bible never mentions the idea of eternal marriage, either to endorse it or to reject it. However, in a few places it does say things that prove, if we accept the Bible as authoritative and reliable, that the concept of eternal marriage is incorrect. The simplest and clearest evidence comes from two passages in Paul’s writings. Here is the first:

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress” (Romans 7:1-3 ESV, emphasis added).

This statement is explicit: marriage lasts only as long as both spouses are alive. When a woman’s husband dies, she is no longer married to him, and so is free to marry someone else. Paul would surely not have made such an unqualified statement if he believed that Christian women were meant to be bound for eternity to their husbands.

That Paul did not hold to the doctrine of eternal marriage may be seen from another angle. The doctrine of eternal marriage includes the idea that such eternal marriage is necessary and essential for those who would attain exaltation. Yet Paul was himself single and encouraged those believers who could remain chaste while unmarried not to pursue marriage:

“Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion…. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife” (1 Corinthians 7:6-9, 27 ESV).

Paul could hardly have recommended that unmarried Christians refrain from pursuing marriage if he had accepted anything like the LDS concept of eternal marriage. The combination of these two passages (Romans 7:1-3; 1 Corinthians 7:6-9, 27) leaves no reasonable doubt that Paul viewed marriage as an earthly, temporal relationship.

Paul’s view of marriage agrees perfectly with Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels. We can see this in one of the passages from the Gospels mentioned earlier that the LDS Church cites in support of its view. After Jesus explains that the Mosaic Law allowed divorce because of the hard hearts of the people and not because it was ever a good thing (Matthew 19:3-9), his disciples commented, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (19:10 ESV). Jesus’ response shows that he agrees with this conclusion:

“Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it” (19:11-12 ESV).

Being unmarried, far from a bad thing, according to Jesus can be a good thing for “those to whom it is given” to accept this idea. Just as Paul would later counsel Christians who were unmarried that such a condition can be a gift from God to some people (see 1 Corinthians 7, discussed above), Jesus here teaches that God gives some people the ability to choose to remain celibate for the sake of God’s kingdom. What Jesus says here, then, clearly contradicts the LDS doctrine that no one can attain the exaltation to which God calls us apart from getting married.

In another passage, Jesus specifically addresses the issue of marriage after death. On this occasion, some Sadducees, who denied the future resurrection of the dead, posed a trick question to Jesus on the subject:

There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”

And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”

Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him any question. (Luke 20:27-40 ESV)

The first thing we should notice is that the Sadducees’ scenario was based on a practice authorized in the Law of Moses in which a childless woman whose husband had died would marry his brother (Deuteronomy 25:5). This law presupposes that when the first husband passed away, the woman was no longer married to him and therefore was free to marry someone else. This is quite likely the “law” to which Paul referred in Romans 7:1-3 when he reminded those who knew “the law” that “a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.” The fact that marriage is an earthly, temporal relationship is therefore assumed by the law of Deuteronomy 25:5.

The Sadducees, however, tried to use the law as a pretext for an objection to the doctrine of a future resurrection from the dead. Their argument assumed that the resurrection would be simply a return to ordinary earthly life. If the widow married her first husband’s brother, and then all three of them were resurrected, to which of the men would she be married? To press home the absurdity of the resurrection, they imagined an incredible series of events in which a woman ended up marrying seven brothers, outliving each one in turn, before she herself died. To which of these seven men, they asked, would she be married in the resurrection?

Mormons commonly understand Jesus’ response to this question to mean that marriages will not be performed after the resurrection but must all be performed, here on earth, before that future event. The marriages themselves, Mormons reason, will continue after the resurrection for those who were worthy enough to be married in this life not just for this life but also for eternity.

One problem with this popular Mormon explanation of the passage is that the issue Jesus was discussing with the Sadducees was not when marriages would be performed but to whom individuals married to more than one spouse in this life would be married in the next. If we understand Jesus to be saying only that the time to perform marriages is in this life, then he didn’t answer the Sadducees’ question at all.

Furthermore, Jesus’ explanation of why there will be no marriage in the age to come is not that eternal marriages must be performed in this life but that in the resurrection the redeemed will be immortal: “for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36). Jesus’ answer may be summed up as follows: marriage is for mortals, not for immortals; it is for “this age,” not for “the age to come” (vv. 34-35). In this age, mortals are born, get married, have children, and die, and that cycle repeats each generation; in the age to come, God’s people will be resurrected to live forever in immortality and that cycle of birth and death will be left behind. Marriage, according to Jesus, is part of that cycle of mortality.

The point of Jesus’ answer, then, was simply this: in the resurrection, the woman in the Sadducees’ hypothetical scenario would not be married to any of the seven men to whom she had been married in mortality, because as an immortal, resurrected person she would be done with marriage. Understood in this way, Jesus’ comments are a direct answer to the Sadducees’ question. They had falsely assumed that to believe in a future resurrection meant to believe that old relationships and old lives would merely be resumed. Jesus explains that the resurrection will usher in the age to come in which we will be personally transformed into immortal beings and our relationships will change appropriately.

Both Jesus and Paul, then, understood marriage to be a covenant that ends when one of the spouses dies, an understanding also implicit in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 25:5). This does not mean, of course, that a husband and wife will be strangers in eternity. If they are both redeemed, they will live forever and know and love each other very well—in some ways better than they could know each other in their mortality, since sin will no longer be an impediment in their relationship. But the specific, distinctive functions of marriage are temporal functions fulfilled in this life.

 

B. The Mormon Origin of Eternal Marriage

The LDS concept of eternal marriage, then, is found nowhere in the Bible, and conflicts with the biblical teaching that the marriage covenant ends when one of the spouses in the marriage dies. However, Mormons believe in modern revelation and specifically believe that the revelations given especially through Joseph Smith clarify or even correct what they see as limited revelation imperfectly preserved in the Bible. On this basis, Mormons are likely to argue that they are not troubled by learning that their modern revelations contain doctrines such as eternal marriage that go beyond the Bible and even differ from its teachings in some ways.

Even granting this theological perspective for the sake of argument, what should nevertheless trouble Mormons is the fact that the doctrine of eternal marriage originated as a theological rationale for Joseph Smith’s practice of plural marriage. The connection between eternal marriage and plural marriage (or polygamy) is absolutely clear in Joseph Smith’s “revelations,” but Mormons today typically ignore that connection. For example, the chapter on eternal marriage in Gospel Principles cites Doctrine & Covenants 132 three times (220, 223) but never even mentions plural marriage, which is the main subject of that revelation (see especially D&C 132:1-3, 29-40, 51-57, 61-63, 65). That eternal marriage was a theological rationale for plural marriage is clear enough from simply reading all of D&C 132, but some historical background will help confirm this conclusion.

The LDS Church’s preface to D&C 132 states, “Although the revelation was recorded in 1843, it is evident from the historical records that the doctrines and principles involved in this revelation had been known by the Prophet since 1831.” This statement probably refers to a comment that Joseph Smith reportedly made on 17 July 1831, when he told a small group of married LDS men that one day it was going to be God’s will that they take “wives of the Lamanites and Nephites.” We therefore have pro-LDS sources informing us that Joseph had an interest in polygamy as early as 1831 (the year after the Book of Mormon was published).

In this light, we should take very seriously the historical evidence that Joseph Smith was pursuing intimate relationships with women besides his wife Emma in the early 1830s. These women included Eliza Winters, Nancy Marinda Johnson, Vienna Jacques, a Miss Hill, and especially Fanny Alger (see Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History, 2nd ed. [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989], 4-6). Smith does not appear to have approached such women with a proposal of “eternal marriage,” or even to have had such a concept, for most of the 1830s. “Smith evidently viewed all marriages prior to this time [1841], including his own to Emma, as valid for ‘time’ only. As late as 1840 he occasionally signed letters to Emma with the benediction ‘your husband till death’” (Van Wagoner, 6).

Indeed, right until the end of his life Joseph never acknowledged that he was practicing plural marriage and went out of his way on several occasions to deny it. In 1835, Joseph had a statement on marriage placed in Doctrine & Covenants that acknowledged the accusation and that affirmed the Saints’ belief in monogamy. “Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy; we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.” By the end of 1841, Joseph had at least three wives in addition to Emma, and he took at least eleven more women as wives in the first eight months of 1842. Yet in August 1842 Joseph published an article in the Mormon newspaper Times and Seasons quoting the D&C statement as an answer to the accusation of polygamy. The statement was later removed from D&C. Joseph took at least sixteen more wives in 1843, bringing the total number of women whom Joseph claimed as wives besides Emma to thirty. That same year, Joseph wrote a revelation affirming the practice, but it was not made public until 1852 and was not officially added to D&C until the 1870s. Right up to the end of his life, Joseph publicly denied having more than one wife. A month before he died, Joseph gave a speech in which he said, “What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one” (History of the Church 6:411).

This evidence shows that the idea and practice of plural marriage probably came first and that the theological principle of eternal marriage came later. In any event, Joseph first articulated the two ideas together in the revelation dated 1843 (D&C 132), and he may have been developing the idea in his own mind for a couple of years prior to that date.

“Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines—Behold, and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter. Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same” (D&C 132:1-3, emphasis added).

We see here that Joseph explicitly introduces this revelation (the only revelation in the LDS scriptures discussing eternal marriage) as explaining the basis on which God “justified” the Old Testament saints in having a plurality of wives. There can be no plausibly denying, then, that in this context eternal marriage is presented as the rationale or justification for plural marriage. Joseph issued this revelation in 1843, when his practice of plural marriage had become an issue of intense controversy among Mormons. Opposition to the practice from within his own religion was the occasion or situation that prompted Joseph Smith to justify his actions by offering a religious or theological reason for them.

A careful reading of D&C 132 shows that it was indeed Joseph’s own conduct that was at issue. Joseph strongly asserts his divine, exclusive authority to put into effect such marital contracts:

“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” (D&C 132:7).

The marriage of a man who marries a woman outside the LDS faith is “not of force when they are dead” (v. 15). Even those who think of themselves as marrying “for time and all eternity” are married for time only unless their covenant is sealed “through him whom I have anointed and appointed unto this power” (v. 18), that is, through Joseph Smith (at that time). Joseph is explicitly compared to the patriarch Abraham as a model polygamist: “Abraham received promises concerning his seed, and of the fruit of his loins—from whose loins ye are, namely, my servant Joseph” (v. 30).

“I am the Lord thy God, and I gave unto thee, my servant Joseph, an appointment, and restore all things. Ask what ye will, and it shall be given unto you according to my word…. And if she hath not committed adultery, but is innocent and hath not broken her vow, and she knoweth it, and I reveal it unto you, my servant Joseph, then shall you have power, by the power of my Holy Priesthood, to take her and give her unto him that hath not committed adultery but hath been faithful; for he shall be made ruler over many. For I have conferred upon you the keys and power of the priesthood, wherein I restore all things, and make known unto you all things in due time…. And again, verily I say unto you, my servant Joseph, that whatsoever you give on earth, and to whomsoever you give any one on earth, by my word and according to my law, it shall be visited with blessings and not cursings, and with my power, saith the Lord, and shall be without condemnation on earth and in heaven” (v. 40, 44-45, 48).

The remainder of the revelation focuses on Joseph’s wife Emma, instructing her to accept Joseph’s practice of plural marriage and to welcome his additional wives into their home (vv. 51-65).

It is quite evident, then, that the revelation of eternal marriage was primarily and essentially a revelation of plural marriage, with marriage “for eternity” as the theological justification for that practice. Moreover, the focus of the revelation was specifically on justifying Joseph’s personal practice of taking additional wives for himself: the revelation repeatedly insists that God had uniquely authorized Joseph Smith to “restore” polygamy, and it also insists at length that Joseph’s one legal wife, Emma, accept his practice of polygamy despite her obvious misgivings.

A century and a half later, Mormons view eternal marriage as an essential aspect of their religious faith. Yet the original context of eternal marriage as the religious basis for polygamy is quietly ignored. Eternal marriage was not a divine principle revealed by God and restored through Joseph Smith so that worthy monogamous couples could look forward to having their families together forever. That is a sanitized reinterpretation of eternal marriage developed by the LDS Church in the twentieth century after it was forced to abandon polygamy. Rather, eternal marriage is an unbiblical concept invented by Joseph Smith as a pretext for his shocking practice of claiming to “marry” some thirty women. It simply makes no sense to accept the teaching of D&C 132 on eternal marriage while ignoring its teaching on polygamy.

 

For Further Study

Joseph Smith Page. Includes some articles on Joseph Smith’s plural marriages.

Mormon Families Forever: Too Good to Be True? IRR’s Joel Groat raises some important questions about the LDS Church’s claim that faithful Mormons will have their families living with them forever.

 

 

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