While visiting in Phoenix, Arizona two weeks ago, Joyce and I saw the Mormon temple there. We collected some material and saw several couples outside the temple who had just participated in celestial marriage (marriage for heaven). Of course, we could not go into the temple, but an impressive building  in front of it gave propaganda about Joseph Smith’s religion.

A leaflet explaining the purposes of temples said: “In the temple, families can be united in the most sacred of all human relationships—as husband and wife and as children and parents—in a way that time cannot limit and death cannot end.”

“The Articles of Faith” of the Mormon church explains that celestial marriage is essential to eternal progression. That is the reason  angels cannot progress in heaven. “They cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever” (p. 445). Devout Mormons believe that they can be sealed in the temple to their wives and children for eternity and this enables them to progress to becoming “gods.”

What does the Bible say about marriage? Paul wrote, “For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband” (Rom. 7:2).

When the Sadducees asked about which of seven brothers the woman would have in the resurrection, Jesus said “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven” (Mt. 22:31). Mormons try to get around this by saying that she had to be married before the resurrection, but Jesus did not tell them about “celestial marriage.”

Luke’s account is more explicit than Matthew’s on this subject. “And Jesus answered and said to them, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection of the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Lk. 20.34-36). If angels in heaven are not married, neither will the sons of “that age” be married! Writers of the Pulpit Commentary summarized it well: “Marriage is, according to our Lord’s teaching, but a temporary expedient to preserve the human race, to which death would soon put an end. But in the world to come there will be no death and no marriage...The complicated earthly relations shall give place to the simplicity of sonship” (Vol. 16, pg. 169, 18). All will be “sons of God” and “equal to the angels,” in heaven—not husbands and wives!