Is there such a thing as an ideal family? Yes, the family of God is the ideal family. What was the home environment in "God's house"? What is the purpose of our earthly families. Why did God ordain marriage and family as a foundation for creating and nurturing life in our mortal environment? Don't we call God our Eternal Father?
Did God have a "gospel" in mind for his family before the earth was created? Yes, we know the gospel of Jesus Christ was to send Jesus to the earth to save God's children? See Ephesians 3:15) How did the fact that we are part of God's family become lost to the Christian community following the Savior's death?
What characteristics would an ideal family have? How did love come to be a key attribute of God and how are our Heavenly Parents manifesting their perfect love for us. Looking at marriage as a central component and a stable foundation for a man and a woman that love each other to bring new life into the world? Love begins as a covenant commitment to each other and a desire to seek each other's interests. Their mutual commitment is to cleave to one another. This is patterned after God's love. Marriage and fidelity are commanded by God to be associated with human creation by safeguarding intimacy as part of a sacred covenant?
It is a matter of history that the nature of God became a mystery after the death of Jesus Christ. Rather than God being a Father to his Son, the existence of divine order in the heavens became known as a mystical force. Holy beings became an incorporeal essence, a non-created presence in the universe outside of time and space. The Trinity was not a teaching of Old or New Testament prophets or apostles but of councils of men following their deaths. The existence of this mysterious power became the means of forming beings to fill the roles of Creator, Savior and Testator in early centuries following the ministry of Jesus and his apostles.
This foundational teachings of a mystical God underwent some doctrinal amendments by the reformers in the 16th century which have persisted to the present day in biblical based Christian seminaries. Were these precepts really the foundational teaching of Jesus and his apostles regarding the fatherhood of God? History demonstrates that these teachings are the works of clergy and philosophers that had no real authority from God.
Jesus referred to himself as the "Son" of God and to God as "his Father in Heaven". Are these metaphorical declarations, or actual relationships?
We see fundamental aspects of God's nature in his creations. While stating that man is the image-bearer of God, modern theologians ignore the simple biblical declarations that men and women are created in the image of God. An image is something we behold with our eyes. It involves sight. Jesus was the image and likeness of God, the express image of the Father. They are both male beings, not a mysterious invisible force.
With this idea in mind, consider why has God given us the opportunity to create life and have families of our own.
What characteristics would an ideal family have? How did love come to be a key attribute of God and how are our Heavenly Parents manifesting their perfect love for us. Looking at marriage as a central component and a stable foundation for a man and a woman that love each other to bring new life into the world? Love begins as a covenant commitment to each other and a desire to seek each other's interests. Their mutual commitment is to cleave to one another. This is patterned after God's love. Marriage and fidelity are commanded by God to be associated with human creation by safeguarding intimacy as part of a sacred covenant?
Real love is a developmental process. It requires commitments of time and emotional energy. It will bring a couple to want to solidify their commitment by covenant, long-held as marriage in the "presence" of witnesses and God. Without this foundation as the authority to join together in creation, the world and its societies place themselves in the precarious position of destabilizing activities. Without trust and commitment, people undermine the commitments and discipline required to enjoy the most uplifting relationships, those of having children and nurturing them in such a way that leads to a lasting peace in the world.
Mainstream theologians claim the order of heaven is presided over by a triune genderless being. Latter-day Saints know that fatherhood and motherhood are divine stations ordained by God because he is the ultimate example of fatherhood and such a title can only be held with motherhood as a companion principle.
When God placed the first man and woman on the earth he wasn't inventing a new concept or pattern. He didn't make the two genders different as a temporary experiment and it wasn't a curiosity factor. He didn't tell them to "multiply and fill the earth" as a new commandment he had just invented. All aspects of our human relationships came from heavenly concepts including marriage, children and the declaration of men and women to be one flesh.
Latter-day Saint theology teaches that our individual spirits are the literal offspring of our Eternal Father and Eternal Mother. Their love is the center and power of creations. Men are created the image of the Father. Fatherhood is dependent on motherhood. The idea and doctrine of "Eternal Parents" consisting of the Father and a Mother are unique to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church is the only Christian organization with a doctrinal understanding that our family relationships including marriage can be eternal for those willing to make such a commitment.
The Bible doesn't teach much and modern clergy doesn't tend to speculate much about the nature of heaven and hell except to say that they exist. Nor, does it speak much about our spiritual beginning other than to say it is as mystical as God is. Scholarly efforts of theologians have debated and discussed biblical ideas and have arrived at many conclusions, many of them contradictory. Modern day Christian theologians and clergy educate themselves based on the musings and conclusions of monks and philosophers.
One basic conclusion is that heaven is as good as it gets and hell is as bad as it gets. The traditional creedal derived doctrines state that there are no families as we know them in heaven and therefore earthly marriages must end at death. The traditional concept of heaven is filled with men and women with no capacity to progress beyond predetermined barriers set by God.
These conclusions come from not understanding why family relationships are part of God's plan. Catholic and Protestant scholars have claimed to be spokesmen for God. Do they have any such authority? Their good intentions and access to the Bible doesn't constitute authority to act for God in teaching true doctrines. Latter-day Saints understand through modern revelation that our family relationships can be eternal. The bonds of love we form here can continue into eternity.
The foundation of the Church Jesus established on the earth wasn't from a book. Yes, there was the Old Testament scriptures, but, the foundation was the apostles he called and He was the "chief cornerstone". The authority Jesus held as the Son of God was delegated to men on the earth to lead after he was gone. Modern Christian apologists have concluded that God no longer needs or calls prophets with apostolic authority to guide the church.
One key conclusion that demonstrates they do not understand why God's creation revolves around the family is that men and women are mere creatures. Such teachings imply that we were created by some random dictate that took place only some 6000 years ago. They teach that Adam and Eve were the first act of human creation ever performed in all of eternity.
While alive and even after his resurrection, Jesus taught and guided those apostles in their special calling. He appeared to them after his resurrection and continued to teach them. We don't know the full extent of any additional appearances to them. We do know that he promised another comforter would come, a testator and teacher called the Holy Ghost. Eventually, however, the apostles were killed and the authority they held was lost temporarily from the earth. After that time many of the pure doctrines pertaining to the family were replaced by mystical powers of an unknowable force.
Where in the modern world do we find the foundational pattern of Jesus's church? It is in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Apostles and prophets have again been called to lead and guide those souls willing to covenant with God to do his work. What is His work? It is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life" of his children, his spirit offspring, and this requires a resurrected physical body. This can only happen through the power of our Savior's infinite atonement. This requires and a voluntary "fall" into mortality. This is why we are here. Mortality with its travails is an essential part of God's plan for our eternal happiness.
Prophetic authority and its companion gifts of revelation and communication with heaven are again on the earth. God is revealing the lost truths and mysteries of eternal principles. Fatherhood and Motherhood are not strange ideas nor are they new. They are the most obvious pro-creative elements of life.
Our efforts to form families and to create ideal circumstances can be guided by the Holy Ghost. As we seek its influence and strive to live by making choices congruent with eternal principles revealed in the scriptures and God's prophets, we build our lives on a foundation of God's gospel. This will bring happiness and peace, and an eternal glory attainable only through the love of God and the mercy afforded to us by the atonement of Jesus Christ.
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