This month’s message teaches us about the importance of eternal families, the role they will play in eternity, and touches on how The Fall made it all come together.

Mormons are all about the earthly, biological family we all have, and keeping those families intact throughout eternity. “Families are Forever” is one saying they like to use to reel people into the Church, because if the Church is all about the family then it must be approved of by God, right?

As a Mormon I was taught that the fall of Adam and Eve had to happen, because if it didn’t they wouldn’t have been able to have children, or be able to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). Which when you think about it, runs in direct conflict with what we learn in Genesis 1:28. Right after God is finished with His Creation, He tells Adam and Eve to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” before they sinned against God. They didn’t need to disobey God, before they learned how to procreate.

Mormons also believe that (Mormon) families in Heaven will be part of governments set up by God.  Elder L. Tom Perry said:

“We also believe that strong traditional families are not only the basic units of a stable society, a stable economy, and a stable culture of values—but that they are also the basic units of eternity and of the kingdom and government of God.

“We believe that the organization and government of heaven will be built around families and extended families” (Ensign, May 2015)

Why would we need to be governed in Heaven? The need for a government implies that there is lawlessness, and something is needed to keep people in check. When all of us are in Heaven Satan will be defeated, there will be no more evil or sin, and we will be at peace because of the work of Jesus Christ.

It’s perplexing to me how Mormons want to apply everything we have here on earth to eternity. They don’t want to let go of this life, and don’t understand that God has something so much better for us than what we have here and now.

They believe families are everything to God, and that He wants those marriage relationships, in particular, to continue on into eternity. When I learned about eternal marriage as a Mormon, and what it meant for me after I died, I felt exhausted. As a Mormon woman in eternity I would be expected to support my husband in his creation of a universe, continue to have (spirit) children, raise them, and send them off to the earth my husband created to be born to my other (spirit) children.

It sounds nuts and confusing I know, like something out of a science fiction movie, but that’s what I was taught. Don’t think about it too much, it will give you a headache.

In all their work to create a family built for eternity they miss out on what God has said makes an eternal family.

It’s through Jesus that we are adopted into God’s family, not through anything else. We aren’t born children of God, we become His child through repentance and accepting the work that Jesus did on the cross for all of us. It’s through His blood we are saved, and become part of the family of God. (Ephesians 1:5)

Join with me in prayer today for the Mormons to desire to be part of the realfamily of God.

In Christ,
Melissa Grimes

Reference:

October Visiting Teaching Message

L. Tom Perry, Ensign, May 2015