Question
Gramps,
What is the significance of parents being sealed to children? Inasmuch as we will all be adults in the hereafter, what are the benefits derived from such a sealing? And what happens to that parent-child sealing if the parents receive a temple annulment and both get sealed to other spouses? Thanks,
C.L.
Answer
Dear C.L.
I’m sure that you meant children being sealed to parents rather than the other way around. While here in mortality, does the family relationship dissolve when the children become adults? True, they may move out of the home and start their own families, but normally the ties to parents remain for a lifetime. Even after parents have passed on, care and concern remain and the hope for eventual reunion never seems to dim.
So in the eternities, those who bind their families together by the authority of the holy priesthood and remain true and faithful to the covenants associated with those binding ordinances, will live in family arrangements. The patriarchal order of the priesthood will obtain, and each son will act under the priesthood authority of his father. In the state of exaltation in the celestial kingdom there will be an unbroken chain of priesthood authority from father to son, beginning with Adam and extending to the latest generation. Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote the following:
“Those who shall hereafter rule and reign in eternity as exalted beings will form a patriarchal chain which will begin with Father Adam and spread out until every exalted person is linked in. Exaltation consists in the continuation of the family unit in eternity, and every family which so continues will find its proper place in the eternal organizational framework which the Almighty has ordained. None will be forgotten. Unworthy mortal links will be dropped in eternity, for there is no family in which all generations will attain exaltation; later generations of worthy families will be welded into the links formed by their ancestors who became worthy of a like exaltation with them.” (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p.558)
In answer to your second question, all temple sealings of wives to husbands are conditioned on the faithfulness of those who make eternal covenants. If the covenants are violated, the sealings are not valid. In cases where sealed children are sealed to parents who turn to wickedness, the children will be sealed to other worthy parents in the unbroken chain of priesthood authority.
Gramps
