Thirty-Seven (1842)The biblical story goes that once the children of Israel had rejected the “higher law,”
they received strict principles, rituals, and ordinances that had nothing to do with reality.
The busy work gave them a feeling that they were serving God and keeping his
commandments, not in the way they treated each other in their day-to-day interactions, but
in how well they kept the rituals and received the ordinances. There were no temples before
the Israelites rejected the “higher law.” Temples originated from the tent-like tabernacles
that they constructed while traveling from place to place in the wilderness. Eventually, the
tabernacle^38 would become a temple “made with hands”^39 and was adorned with “gold, or
silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.”^40
God Does Not Dwell in Manmade Structures (including Temples)
Christ came among the Jews and completely usurped the authority of the church
and the significance of the temple as a place to worship God. He taught the people that
“the kingdom of God is within you”^41 and that God does not dwell in any house made
by man. A letter attributed to the apostle Paul describes what he learned of Christ’s
gospel from the other apostles:
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of
heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is
worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing [sic], seeing he
giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the
times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should
seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be
not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our
being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his
offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to
think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and
man’s device.^42It was the absence of temples and altars “made with hands” that reflected the
“higher law” rejected by the Jews; then, again rejected by them when given the “higher
law” by the voice of Christ himself; and then rejected by the Nephites and Lamanites;
then given again through Joseph and the Book of Mormon, and finally rejected by the
LDS/Mormon Saints. The people wanted their temples, which are indeed a part of “the
gospel of repentance and of baptism, and the remission of sins, and the law of carnal
commandments, which the Lord in his wrath”^43 allowed Joseph to give to them.
However, it was not for their salvation, but to their condemnation.
The LDS People Desire Temples and Self-Aggrandizement
The LDS people put the Book of Mormon aside for the promises of receiving the
ritualistic Endowment in the Temple. Their hearts, their minds, their desires, all of the
Church’s doctrine and emphasis were/are centered around a temple and receiving what
was/is accepted as the only passage into the Celestial kingdom. The Saints no longer accept
the notion of any other “righteous” kingdoms and glories other than the Celestial one. They