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Work for the Dead


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I've been going to the temple at least a few times a week (advantages of being a college kid with no job) and as I've gone through a few session I've had a lot of time to think. 

I've always heard that in the millennium, among other things, we will be doing work for the dead in our temples, this brought to my mind a couple of questions. First of which is that if the millennium consists of sitting in an endowment session for a couple hours thousands of times then, while I might be happy to help, I will be intensely bored. I LOVE the endowment and have gathered so much knowledge from its teachings, but there are times were I find myself wishing it would move a little faster. I've just started to wonder why we need to go through the whole presentation? Though I figure the covenants, tokens, and signs may need to be given by proxy the spirits who will accept the ordinances can get the story from the spirits in Heaven (maybe Adam himself! Though I think he may already be very resurrected.).

To add to that if we only need to do the ordinances for those who have accepted baptism and such in the spirit world why go through the time to perform the ordinances for every single person? We know we won't get through everyone (not even close) So why not wait for revelation to perform an ordinances and then wait for the millennium when we will literally have angels getting us through the work quicker. Again I LOVE the Temple and the feeling of the Spirit that I personally have experienced and I mean no ill will. However it seems like a lot of the work we do is either not needed OR, if we need just work through names quickly, could be streamlined. 

Maybe I'm crazy but I'm curious about your thoughts.

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13 minutes ago, SettingDogStar said:

I've been going to the temple at least a few times a week (advantages of being a college kid with no job) and as I've gone through a few session I've had a lot of time to think. 

I've always heard that in the millennium, among other things, we will be doing work for the dead in our temples, this brought to my mind a couple of questions. First of which is that if the millennium consists of sitting in an endowment session for a couple hours thousands of times then, while I might be happy to help, I will be intensely bored. I LOVE the endowment and have gathered so much knowledge from its teachings, but there are times were I find myself wishing it would move a little faster. I've just started to wonder why we need to go through the whole presentation? Though I figure the covenants, tokens, and signs may need to be given by proxy the spirits who will accept the ordinances can get the story from the spirits in Heaven (maybe Adam himself! Though I think he may already be very resurrected.).

To add to that if we only need to do the ordinances for those who have accepted baptism and such in the spirit world why go through the time to perform the ordinances for every single person? We know we won't get through everyone (not even close) So why not wait for revelation to perform an ordinances and then wait for the millennium when we will literally have angels getting us through the work quicker. Again I LOVE the Temple and the feeling of the Spirit that I personally have experienced and I mean no ill will. However it seems like a lot of the work we do is either not needed OR, if we need just work through names quickly, could be streamlined. 

Maybe I'm crazy but I'm curious about your thoughts.

I think that more seems to be said about what will go on in the millennium than can be found in revealed word. 

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43 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

I think that more seems to be said about what will go on in the millennium than can be found in revealed word. 

Agreed. Unless I'm missing something, which is likely, I think there is a substanstial amount of understanding that we lack about that period of time. The only things we seem to truly know is that it will eventually arrive.

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1 hour ago, SettingDogStar said:

I've been going to the temple at least a few times a week (advantages of being a college kid with no job) and as I've gone through a few session I've had a lot of time to think. 

I've always heard that in the millennium, among other things, we will be doing work for the dead in our temples, this brought to my mind a couple of questions. First of which is that if the millennium consists of sitting in an endowment session for a couple hours thousands of times then, while I might be happy to help, I will be intensely bored. I LOVE the endowment and have gathered so much knowledge from its teachings, but there are times were I find myself wishing it would move a little faster. I've just started to wonder why we need to go through the whole presentation? Though I figure the covenants, tokens, and signs may need to be given by proxy the spirits who will accept the ordinances can get the story from the spirits in Heaven (maybe Adam himself! Though I think he may already be very resurrected.).

To add to that if we only need to do the ordinances for those who have accepted baptism and such in the spirit world why go through the time to perform the ordinances for every single person? We know we won't get through everyone (not even close) So why not wait for revelation to perform an ordinances and then wait for the millennium when we will literally have angels getting us through the work quicker. Again I LOVE the Temple and the feeling of the Spirit that I personally have experienced and I mean no ill will. However it seems like a lot of the work we do is either not needed OR, if we need just work through names quickly, could be streamlined. 

Maybe I'm crazy but I'm curious about your thoughts.

Different conditions, different laws, even in the earthly kingdom. We now have ways of doing things suited to the kingdom in a telestial world preparing a people for the operations of he kingdom in a terrestrial world (the literal Second Coming Millennium, unique to what all dispensations have in common, which is preparing a people for exaltation). I think the rules will change on how things get done in a terrestrial environment. The effort and labor required will always be sufficient to provide a probation for the children of the kingdom to progress, no matter the glory found upon the earth.

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Well if you want a glimpse of the 1000 years go to Family Search and click on the help in the upper right hand corner.  In the search box type in format names.  One of the articles you will see is "How to format names to remove the Needs more information status" which if you read explains that you can do Temple sealing for a child without a first name (same for a wife sealing with only a first name and no unmarried name).  I asked a Temple Sealer how does this work on the other side and he said why do you think we will have a 1000 years.  

Edited by Metis_LDS
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57 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

What is the benefit of Jesus having atoned for the sins of people whom He knows will never repent?

The work and glory of God is more than just the immortality and eternal life of man.

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1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

What is the benefit of Jesus having atoned for the sins of people whom He knows will never repent?

Look there was  not a single drop of blood wasted.  He atoned for the sins of the elect.

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14 minutes ago, blueglass said:

Look there was  not a single drop of blood wasted.  He atoned for the sins of the elect.

This is not the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ.

John Taylor: 'The suffering of the Son of God was not simply the suffering of personal death; for in assuming the position that He did in making an atonement for the sins of the world He bore the weight, the responsibility, and the burden of the sins of all men, which, to us, is incomprehensible'.

Russell M. Nelson: 'He took upon Himself the weight of the sins of all mankind, bearing its massive load that caused Him to bleed from every pore'.

Atonement of Jesus Christ (from Gospel Topics): 'In Gethsemane He submitted to the will of the Father and began to take upon Himself the sins of all people'.

'The Living Christ: the Testimony of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints': 'He gave His life to atone for the sins of all mankind'.

D&C 19:16: 'For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent'.

D&C 18:11: 'For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him'.

2 Nephi 9:21: 'And he cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam'.

 

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2 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

What is the benefit of Jesus having atoned for the sins of people whom He knows will never repent?

It would not be an infinite atonement in that case. It is a concept I have a difficult time with, but in the dim recesses of my spirit there is a glimmer of something that says an infinite atonement was necessary, even if there be people that do not take advantage of it. Just like the work for the dead. It must be accomplished for all who missed their chance during mortality even though some will not take advantage of it.

Glenn

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11 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

It would not be an infinite atonement in that case. It is a concept I have a difficult time with, but in the dim recesses of my spirit there is a glimmer of something that says an infinite atonement was necessary, even if there be people that do not take advantage of it. Just like the work for the dead. It must be accomplished for all who missed their chance during mortality even though some will not take advantage of it.

Glenn

I think looking at the atonement as a prison wall that is built by the world’s sin being shattered rather than a debt that is paid so those in prison can leave one by one makes more sense. The door is open for all but those who won’t walk through it with repentance won’t access the Gift. 

The atonement is infinite because the wall is gone and won’t be rebuilt. It had to be infinite and not limited because we are all interconnected and one person’s sin affects us all, even when we are not culpable in it. The atonement allows us to cast off all effects of sin, our own if we repent and others if we accept the gift. 

Edited by Calm
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1 hour ago, Calm said:

I think looking at the atonement as a prison wall that is built by the world’s sin being shattered rather than a debt that is paid so those in prison can leave one by one makes more sense.

This metaphor feels, to me, like it de-individualises the Atonement. I think it is important to know that the Saviour has literally suffered for my sins.

David A. Bednar: 'There is no physical pain, no spiritual wound, no anguish of soul or heartache, no infirmity or weakness you or I ever confront in mortality that the Savior did not experience first. In a moment of weakness we may cry out, "No one knows what it is like. No one understands". But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He has felt and borne our individual burdens'.

Alma 7:12: 'And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities'.

 

Edited by Hamba Tuhan
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If you think of the stones the wall is built with as our individual sins, perhaps that might work for you.

But metaphors can be very personal so I don't expect it to be a fit for everyone.  I see it as important to emphasize both the individual personal nature of the Atonement and the more global aspects that include everyone, not just the elite.

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16 hours ago, SettingDogStar said:

................................  if the millennium consists of sitting in an endowment session for a couple hours thousands of times then, while I might be happy to help, I will be intensely bored. I LOVE the endowment and have gathered so much knowledge from its teachings, but there are times were I find myself wishing it would move a little faster. I've just started to wonder why we need to go through the whole presentation? Though I figure the covenants, tokens, and signs may need to be given by proxy the spirits who will accept the ordinances can get the story from the spirits in Heaven (maybe Adam himself! Though I think he may already be very resurrected.).

To add to that if we only need to do the ordinances for those who have accepted baptism and such in the spirit world why go through the time to perform the ordinances for every single person? We know we won't get through everyone (not even close) So why not wait for revelation to perform an ordinances and then wait for the millennium when we will literally have angels getting us through the work quicker. Again I LOVE the Temple and the feeling of the Spirit that I personally have experienced and I mean no ill will. However it seems like a lot of the work we do is either not needed OR, if we need just work through names quickly, could be streamlined. ...........................

There has already been some streamlining during the past century or more, but that really misses the point of all the time-consuming baptism, confirmation, ordination, washing, anointing, endowment, sealing, etc.  All of that isn't so much a "presentation" as a dramatic ritual, a rite of passage, same as with the mystery religions of late antiquity.  All of them go back to prehistoric times (cf. the Göbekli Tepe Temple), were pervasive in ancient Egypt, and continue even today in the many Hindu temples in India.  The Bible, Book of Mormon, and Gospel of Philip contain that same sequence, though nearly no one recognizes it.  As the late Frank Moore Cross said:

Quote

Israel's religion emerged from a mythopoeic past under the impact of certain historical experiences which stimulated the creation of an epic cycle and its associated covenant rites of the early time.  Thus epic, rather than the Canaanite cosmogonic myth, was featured in the ritual drama of the old Israelite cultus.  Cross,  Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard Univ., 1973), Preface.

According to Jane Harrison, "all the rites de passage have the same schema, birth, marriage, initiation, death, they are initiations: and true myth as opposed to legends have the schema," i.e., "entry, sanctification, exit," or "preliminal - liminal - post-liminal" (JEH Papers, ca. 1910, Newham College, Cambridge Univ.).  In his Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell saw this as "separation - initiation - return" (2nd ed., Bollingen Series 17 [Princeton, 1968], 10, 30). 

Of course the repetitions can be boring, but that time can be best used as a time of meditation and reflection on the deep things of God, just as the many years of the constant spinning of prayer-wheels and chanting of Tibetan Buddhist monks can become a joyful and transformative act of intercession of the Saints -- piercing space & time, and going well beyond the veil.

Pres. David O.McKay said:

Quote

“I think we pay too little attention to the value of meditation, a principle of devotion. … Meditation is the language of the soul. It is defined as ‘a form of private devotion or spiritual exercise, consisting in deep, continued reflection on some religious theme.’ Meditation is a form of prayer. …....

“Meditation is one of the most secret, most sacred doors through which we pass into the presence of the Lord” (Man May Know for Himself, compiler Clare Middlemiss [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1969], 22–23).

 

Edited by Robert F. Smith
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16 hours ago, SettingDogStar said:

I've been going to the temple at least a few times a week (advantages of being a college kid with no job) and as I've gone through a few session I've had a lot of time to think. 

I've always heard that in the millennium, among other things, we will be doing work for the dead in our temples, this brought to my mind a couple of questions. First of which is that if the millennium consists of sitting in an endowment session for a couple hours thousands of times then, while I might be happy to help, I will be intensely bored. I LOVE the endowment and have gathered so much knowledge from its teachings, but there are times were I find myself wishing it would move a little faster. I've just started to wonder why we need to go through the whole presentation? Though I figure the covenants, tokens, and signs may need to be given by proxy the spirits who will accept the ordinances can get the story from the spirits in Heaven (maybe Adam himself! Though I think he may already be very resurrected.).

To add to that if we only need to do the ordinances for those who have accepted baptism and such in the spirit world why go through the time to perform the ordinances for every single person? We know we won't get through everyone (not even close) So why not wait for revelation to perform an ordinances and then wait for the millennium when we will literally have angels getting us through the work quicker. Again I LOVE the Temple and the feeling of the Spirit that I personally have experienced and I mean no ill will. However it seems like a lot of the work we do is either not needed OR, if we need just work through names quickly, could be streamlined. 

Maybe I'm crazy but I'm curious about your thoughts.

You're treading down some dangerous territory if you want to keep an unquestioning testimony in tact.  Most concepts about the Millenium and the afterlife don't make a whole lot of sense when you think about them too deeply.  

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2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

You're treading down some dangerous territory if you want to keep an unquestioning testimony in tact.  Most concepts about the Millenium and the afterlife don't make a whole lot of sense when you think about them too deeply.  

I think they only don't make sense because we have so little information on them. If my ideas and concepts don't make sense in the millennium then I most likely have the wrong ideas. I assuredly don't have an unquestioning testimony, I've probably had to rewrite my personal understanding over a hundred times in the past couple years. 

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14 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

It would not be an infinite atonement in that case. It is a concept I have a difficult time with, but in the dim recesses of my spirit there is a glimmer of something that says an infinite atonement was necessary, even if there be people that do not take advantage of it. Just like the work for the dead. It must be accomplished for all who missed their chance during mortality even though some will not take advantage of it.

Glenn

I agree. I think, if I understand it correctly, he had to suffer for all in order to truly become the Savior. If he didn't suffer for everyone then technically the people on earth, who probably wouldn't have chosen to repent anyways, would cry out that they didn't even have the option to repent. The Savior suffered for all sins so that all would have the option and those that didn't repent would actually be truly condemned for their actions since they had the chance to change their ways.

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20 hours ago, SettingDogStar said:

First of which is that if the millennium consists of sitting in an endowment session for a couple hours thousands of times then, while I might be happy to help, I will be intensely bored. I LOVE the endowment and have gathered so much knowledge from its teachings, but there are times were I find myself wishing it would move a little faster.

It's quite possible it could be further sped up. There's still a lot of trappings that could easily be cut for the dead. But there's also the issue of what the population would be and how long it'd take to do the work for  them. Estimates for the number of dead people historically vary but they're usually around 100 billion or so. (Note that includes people from 100,000 BC to around 7000 BC - but the main growth in populations was from around 8000 BC - 1900 AD so it doesn't change things that much) That seems like a ton, but if the average population in the Millennium is on the order of 4 - 7 billion (which itself seems pretty conservative) and about half are members then you'd do all the work for all humans in less than 50 years if people did just one name a year. (2 billion people, 

Of course that's an ideal case. In practice getting the information for work for the dead might be trickier. I'd also suspect the initial population would be much smaller than 4 billion. Although if birth rates match lds birth rates in the 90's it wouldn't take long to get to 4 billion. But of course you'd also expect people on average to do more than 1 name per year.

The point being it really wouldn't take long to do all the work. The harder part is honestly the records which requires the veil to spirit prison to be quite thin.

Edited by clarkgoble
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1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

The harder part is honestly the records which requires the veil to spirit prison to be quite thin.

I wouldn't be surprised if records have been kept and will be brought from the other side that are more thorough and accurate than records we have kept here.

Edited by pogi
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3 hours ago, SettingDogStar said:

I think they only don't make sense because we have so little information on them. If my ideas and concepts don't make sense in the millennium then I most likely have the wrong ideas. I assuredly don't have an unquestioning testimony, I've probably had to rewrite my personal understanding over a hundred times in the past couple years. 

Yes, we only have so little information is one way to interpret what you're seeing.  Or perhaps that the information that we have isn't logical and doesn't make sense to our eyes as those ideas represent the culture and worldview of a different time and place and it seems very foreign to us.  

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1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

It's quite possible it could be further sped up. There's still a lot of trappings that could easily be cut for the dead. But there's also the issue of what the population would be and how long it'd take to do the work for  them. Estimates for the number of dead people historically vary but they're usually around 100 billion or so. (Note that includes people from 100,000 BC to around 7000 BC - but the main growth in populations was from around 8000 BC - 1900 AD so it doesn't change things that much) That seems like a ton, but if the average population in the Millennium is on the order of 4 - 7 billion (which itself seems pretty conservative) and about half are members then you'd do all the work for all humans in less than 50 years if people did just one name a year. (2 billion people, 

Of course that's an ideal case. In practice getting the information for work for the dead might be trickier. I'd also suspect the initial population would be much smaller than 4 billion. Although if birth rates match lds birth rates in the 90's it wouldn't take long to get to 4 billion. But of course you'd also expect people on average to do more than 1 name per year.

The point being it really wouldn't take long to do all the work. The harder part is honestly the records which requires the veil to spirit prison to be quite thin.

You think 4 billion people will survive into the Millenium? You are an optimist.

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