Sealing
See this page in the original 1992 publication.
[This entry consists of three articles: Sealing: Sealing Power Sealing: Temple Sealings Sealing: Cancellation of Sealings The first article, Sealing Power, explains the meaning of sealing in the Church and the authority required to perform an ordinance so it will be considered sealed; what is a temple sealing and how it is obtained is presented in the second article, Temple Sealings; and the third article, Cancellation of Sealings, is a brief statement on who may cancel a sealing.]
Sealing: Sealing Power
Author: YARN, DAVID H., JR.
Signets and seals have been used from early antiquity to certify authority. The word "seal" appears many times in the scriptures. Jesus Christ was "sealed" by God the Father (John 6:27), and Paul reminded ancient Saints that God had anointed and sealed them (2 Cor. 1:21-22) and told others they "were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest [assurance] of our inheritance until the redemption" (Eph. 1:13-14). John spoke of the servants of God being sealed in their foreheads (Rev. 7:3). In the apocryphal Acts of Thomas (verse 131), Thomas prayed that he and his wife and daughter "May receive the seal" and "become servants of the true God." Even today licenses, diplomas, legal documents, and the like bear seals that officially attest to their authenticity.
For Latter-day Saints, the ultimate sealing power is the priesthood power given to authorized servants of the Lord to perform certain acts on earth and have them recognized (sealed) or validated in heaven. They believe it is this authority the Lord Jesus Christ described when he said to Peter, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16:19).
The President of the Church holds and exercises the keys of sealing on earth. When a man is ordained an apostle and set apart as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, sealing is one of the powers bestowed upon him. Other General Authorities of the Church, the presidencies of temples, and a limited number of officiators in each temple receive this sealing power during their tenure. After one is approved by the First Presidency to receive the sealing power, the President of the Church, one of his counselors, or a member of the Twelve Apostles specifically designated by the President confers the sealing power upon him by the laying on of hands. This is the specific authority to perform the temple sealing ordinances.
This is the authority by which "all covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations" can be "made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise" and receive "efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection of the dead" (D&C 132:7).
In this dispensation of the fulness of times, the sealing power was restored by Elijah, the last prophet of the Old Testament period to hold it (TPJS, pp. 339-40). He bestowed that authority on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple on April 3, 1836 (D&C 110). As each man who has been President of the Church was ordained an apostle and became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, he had the sealing power bestowed upon him, and thus it has been transmitted to the present (D&C 110:13-16;128:11).
What might be called the general sealing power is also vested in the President of the Church. Everyone who receives the priesthood obtains this general sealing power to a degree. For example, as Elder Bruce R. McConkie said, "All things that are not sealed by this power have an end when men are dead. Unless a baptism has this enduring seal, it will not admit a person to the Celestial Kingdom…. All things gain enduring force and validity because of the sealing power" (MD, pp. 615-616).
Bibliography
Packer, Boyd K. The Holy Temple. Salt Lake City, 1980.
Smith, Joseph Fielding. "Elijah: His Mission and Sealing Power." DS, Vol. 2, pp. 115-28. Salt Lake City, 1955.
DAVID H. YARN, JR.
Sealing: Temple Sealings
Author: HYER, PAUL V.
A "sealing," as a generic term, means the securing, determining, or establishment of a bond of legitimacy. Among members of the Church sealing refers to the marriage of a husband and wife and to the joining together of children and parents in relationships that are to endure forever. This special type of sealing of husband and wife in marriage is referred to as "eternal marriage" or "celestial marriage." It contrasts with civil and church marriages, which are ceremonies recognized only by earthly authority and are only for the duration of mortal life.
The sealing together of husband, wife, and children in eternal family units is the culminating ordinance of the priesthood, to which all others are preparatory. It must be performed by one holding the sealing power and today in an LDS temple dedicated to God. The Savior referred to this sealing power when he gave his apostle Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, saying that "whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" (Matt. 16:19). In modern times this sealing authority was restored to the earth in the Kirtland Temple on April 3, 1836, by the prophet Elijah, who was the ancient custodian of this power (D&C 110:13-16).
Both ancient and modern prophets have observed that if families are not sealed together in eternal units-if the hearts of the children and the fathers are not turned to each other (as alluded to in Malachi 4:5-6)-then the ultimate work and glory of God are not attained and the highest purposes of the creation of the earth are not achieved. "For we without them [ancestors or progenitors] cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect" (D&C 128:16-18).
To Latter-day Saints, the spirit world is as real as this world. By divine mandate, temple sealings are not only available to living persons, but are extended also to the deceased progenitors of a family through proxy ordinances performed in the temples. This process is known as salvation of the dead. Children born to parents who have been sealed in the temple are born in the covenant and thus are bonded to their parents for eternity without a separate ordinance of sealing.
To receive temple sealing ordinances, Church members must receive a temple recommend from a proper Church authority attesting that they are living prescribed Church standards. They then visit a temple and receive initiatory ordinances and the blessing referred to as the temple Endowment. This entails the receipt of instruction and being put under covenant to obey eternal laws set forth by God, which, as observed, will ensure a superior standard of morality, marriage, and family life. The sealing ordinances can then be administered, the full benefit of which can be secured only by continued obedience to the divine laws set forth in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
A sealing ceremony is an inspiring and solemn ordinance performed in specially designated and dedicated rooms of a temple. The couple to be married or the family to be sealed kneel at an altar. The officiator is one who has received the sealing power under the highest priesthood authority in the Church (see Prophet, Seer, and Revelator; Sealing: Sealing Power).
For members of the Church, sealings endow life with greater purpose and give marriage a sense of divine partnership with spiritual safeguards. Bringing children into the world becomes a divinely inspired stewardship. Sealings can sustain a family in life and console them in death. They establish continuity in life, here and hereafter.
Bibliography
Derrick, Royden G. In Temples in the Last Days, chap. 3. Salt Lake City, 1988.
Smith, Joseph Fielding. DS 2:119. Salt Lake City, 1954-1956.
Talmage, James E. The House of the Lord, pp. 84-91. Salt Lake City, 1976.
PAUL V. HYER
Sealing: Cancellation of Sealings
Author: POELMAN, RONALD E.
The keys of the kingdom of heaven, conferred upon Peter by the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 16:19) and restored to the earth in recent times (D&C 110) by the prophet Elijah, who was custodian of this power anciently (see Mal. 4:5-6), include the authority to "bind and loose" on earth, with corresponding effect in heaven. Currently this power is held and exercised only by the president of the church and others upon whom it is conferred by him or at his direction. Once a sealing ordinance is performed, only the First Presidency can approve a change in sealing status, including the cancellation of a sealing (General Handbook of Instructions, 6-5 through 6-7).
The First Presidency may cancel temple sealings when the circumstances of a request for cancellation warrant it.
Bibliography
General Handbook of Instructions. Salt Lake City, 1989.
RONALD E. POELMAN
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