Are persons who enter the terrestrial and telestial kingdoms entering into an eternity of solitude?

Question

Dear Gramps,

As an addition to the previous question, are persons who enter the terrestrial and telestial kingdoms entering into an eternity of solitude, forever cut off from their families and loved ones?

Shane

Answer

Dear Shane,

Persons who are not sealed together in the holy temple live separately and singly for the remainder of eternity. Whether they inherit the celestial kingdom as single individuals, or in the terrestrial or telestial kingdoms, they will never be part of any family relationship. But they certainly will not live a life of solitude. Concerning the status of those who are not married for eternity, but who yet obey all the other principles and ordinances of the gospel, the revealed word of God tells us the following—

Therefore, if a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not by me nor by my word, and he covenant with her so long as he is in the world and she with him, their covenant and marriage are not of force when they are dead, and when they are out of the world; therefore, they are not bound by any law when they are out of the world.

 

Therefore, when they are out of the world they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory.

 

For these angels did not abide my law; therefore, 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 (Doctrine & Covenants 132:15-17).

Those who are the good people of the earth, but who have not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and have not become members of the kingdom of God on the earth through the baptism of repentance by the requisite priesthood authority, will also necessarily live as separate individuals in a terrestrial kingdom throughout eternity. And the same fate with respect to any family relationships awaits the wicked, who are not resurrected until the end of the millennium, and who then are consigned to a telestial world.

Will these single individuals recognize those who were their family relations during mortality? Of course. There may be all sorts of cordial associations between the single individuals in those realms, but there will be no family structure as we know it. However, there will be no imposed solitude. The eternities in each of these three realms of glory will be filled with GLORY! Concerning those in the celestial kingdom, John tells us

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

 

And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

 

Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

 

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

 

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes (Revelation 7:13-17).

Then we read in Doctrine and Covenants 76 concerning the lowest of the three degrees of glory,

These are they who receive not of his fullness in the eternal world, but of the Holy Spirit through the ministration of the terrestrial;

 

And the terrestrial through the ministration of the celestial.

 

And also the telestial receive it of the administering of angels who are appointed to minister for them, or who are appointed to be ministering spirits for them; for they shall be heirs of salvation.

 

And thus we saw, in the heavenly vision, the glory of the telestial, which surpasses all understanding (Doctrine & Covenants 76:86-89).

We live now in a telestial world. Can we imagine what this world would be like if there were no wars, no plagues, no natural disasters, no animosity between individuals? It would surely surpass all understanding. As a matter of fact, that condition already exists to a degree. Try to explain to anyone who lived only a hundred years ago the marvels of our own age. They could not be made to comprehend it. Both the automobile and airplane had been invented. Steam-operated locomotives were running. The industrial revolution was in full swing. Scientists were of the opinion that all scientific knowledge had already been discovered. The only thing left for scientists to do was to refine the measurements of that which existed.

Try to tell them that today someone could sit by himself on a mountaintop, with what we call a lap top and a cell phone, and talk with anyone in the world, and see anything that was happening any place in the world, where there was a TV camera operating. He would have at his fingertips essentially all the world’s knowledge, as he could access university libraries, museums, concert halls and a storehouse of almost unlimited information via the internet. Try to tell them that we have a power source of almost unlimited power that lasts for years and years without the need of replenishment. Naval submarines can travel the worlds oceans submerged, surfacing only for the necessity of the crew to reenlist. Certain types of airplanes can circumnavigate the globe without refueling. Others can fly five to ten times faster than the speed of sound. Others can carry a thousand people in one airplane. Men have walked on the moon, and have sent exploratory instruments to other planets. A farm of several thousand acres may be plowed, with the plowshare dropping one inch during every 100 feet of travel for proper irrigation, and the tractor pulling the plow, would also pull a harrow and a disk, followed by a fertilizer container that would add the proper fertilizer mix to the soil that had been sampled and analyzed between the tractor and the fertilizer container, and all this followed by the seeder that would plant the grain as the tractor moved along. A 5000 acre farm could be fully managed by only four people! Try to tell them that we can store hundreds of full size complex colored photographs in a container less than half an inch square and a few thousands of an inch thick. And the list goes on and on.

By the same token, we who live now could not be made to understand the technology that will exist only 50 years from now. And that progress of knowledge and technology in the telestial kingdom will never cease to increase–throughout all eternity!

Gramps