Exaltation (Mormonism)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The exaltation (also Eternal Life or Eternal Progress , English exaltation ) is a doctrine of faith in Mormonism , especially among the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . It says that man can be deified and live in the presence of God in his family. This is the highest level in the heavenly realm .

Content of teaching

In the Church of Jesus Christ, people are viewed as literal spirit children of a Heavenly Father and Mother. They have the potential to reach the abilities and the size of their parents, i.e. to develop their divine potential. Exaltation implies that marriage is eternal and also associated with eternal procreation. Exaltation means that a person is able and allowed to live in the direct presence of God the Heavenly Father and to create worlds for his own spirit children. Man is thus heir to God and co-heir to Christ.

To prepare for exaltation, it is necessary to receive a series of ordinances (sacraments) and to live righteously by improving oneself in character, emotionally, and spiritually. The following lines, written by President Lorenzo Snow, are often used to shorten this fact : “As man is today, so was God once; as God is today, so can man one day become. ”The endowment shows man's path from a premortal existence in the presence of heavenly parents to a return to the divine realm .

The Church plays an important role in this endeavor by helping its members achieve this perfection and by providing the necessary ordinances. Those who want less than the increase do not need membership in the church.

It is in the nature of things that exaltation is only possible as a married couple. As Paul says, the man is nothing without the woman and the woman is nothing without the man. Those who have lived to deserve the exaltation, but for whatever reasons, through no fault of their own, could not have a spouse, will be blessed with a spouse after this life.

References in the scriptures

Genesis 1:27: And God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; and created them male and female.

Galatians 4,7: You are no longer a servant, but a child; but if a child, then inheritance through God.

Revelation 21: 7: He who overcomes will inherit all, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

Doctrine and Covenants 93:20: For if you keep my commandments, you will receive of his fullness and be glorified in me as I in the Father; therefore I say to you, you will receive grace for grace

Doctrine and Covenants 132:20: Then they will be gods because they have no end; therefore they will be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue to exist; then they will be above everything because everything is subject to them. Then they will be gods because they have all power and the angels are subject to them.

Statements of modern prophets

Joseph Smith : Rather, he will be an heir of God and co-heir to Jesus Christ. And what does that mean? It means that one inherits the same power, the same glory, the same exaltation until one has attained the state of god and ascended the throne of eternal power like those who have gone before.

John Taylor : He does not come from a chaotic mass, movable or immobile, but he came here and possessed - in the embryonic state - all the properties and all the power of a god. And once he is made perfect and fully developed, he will be like his father - a god, since he is his descendant.

Lorenzo Snow : I believe that we are the sons and daughters of God and that he endowed us with the ability to attain infinite wisdom and knowledge because he gave us a part of himself.

Heber J. Grant : All of these duties and responsibilities are designed to make us like God in our being. They are there to make gods of us and to empower us and prepare ourselves so that, as we are promised, we can become joint heirs of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and through all the countless ages of eternity to dwell with him in the presence of God, the Eternal Father.

Relation to early Christian theosis

In early Christianity, the doctrine of deification, that is, that man can become a god, was widespread and much discussed, as some quotes from Church Fathers illustrate.

Irenaeus of Lyon : At the beginning we were not made gods, we were made human first, then, in the end, gods.

Clement of Alexandria : Yes, I say the word of God became a person, so that you can learn from a person how to become a god and ... if you know yourself, you will know God, and knowing God means to become like God [...] Being is beauty, true beauty, because it is God, and that man becomes God, since God wills it.

Justin Martyr : […] In the beginning men were made like God, free from suffering and death, and therefore they were considered worthy to become gods and to have power to become the sons of the Most High. [...]

Athanasius : The word was made flesh that we might be qualified to be made gods. [...]

Augustine of Hippo : So if we were made sons of God, then we were made gods too.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ New Testament, Romans 8:17
  2. ↑ Eliza R. Snow Smith: Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow. 1884, p. 46; see also The Grand Destiny of Man, Deseret Evening News, July 20, 1901, p. 2.
  3. ↑ Article How to Become God on the Church website
  4. ↑ 1 Corinthians 11:11
  5. Jump up ↑ Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith, Frankfurt am Main 1983 (translation), p. 355.
  6. ↑ Doctrines of Presidents of the Church, John Taylor, Chapter 1, Origins and Destinies of Mankind, p. 3 (also at lds.org ).
  7. ↑ Doctrines of Presidents of the Church, Lorenzo Snow, chapter 5, The Exalted Destiny of Those Who Are Faithful, p. 91 (also at lds.org ).
  8. Jump up ↑ Teachings of Presidents of the Church, Heber J. Grant, chapter 3, Walking the Path That Leads to Eternal Life, p. 32 (also located at lds.org ).
  9. ↑ Henry Bettenson: The Early Christian Fathers: A Selection from the Writings of the Fathers from St. Clement of Rome to St. Athanasius (The early church fathers: A selection from their writings of Clement of Rome to Athanasius). Oxford University Press, London 1956, ISBN 0192830090 , pp. 95-96.
  10. ↑ Clemens of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, Der Lehrer, 3.1 see also Clemens, Stromateis, 23.
  11. ↑ Bettenson
  12. ↑ Bettenson, 324
  13. ↑ De Principiis 4,1,36, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 4,381.
  14. ↑ Refutation of All Heresies 10 : 29-30, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 5,152.

Web links

literature

Robert L. Millet: Do Latter-day Saints believe that men and women can become gods? Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1998, ISBN 0934893322 .