Sealing to children only makes sense when you look at the practice from the corporate bottom line: keeping active tithe payers. If you're looking at in any light other than that, you're bound for confusion.
If people are led to believe that they have to stay active and faithful to god's one true church so they can all be together after death, the church creates a built-in familial pressure to keep the tithing envelops full. It is full-on leveraging of innate and powerful guilt, brought to you by the makers of LDS Inc.
I wouldn't try to understand it any other way. To do so is to risk your grasp of reality.
Why are children sealed to their parents?
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_Some Schmo
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_Gazelam
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Blixa I think this is the second time you've had to straighten out my grammer. Much thanks.
Joseph Smith stated:
The doctrine or sealing power of Elijah is as follows: - If you have power to seal on earth and in heaven, then we should be wise. The first thing you do, go and seal on earth your sons and daughters unto yourself, and yourself unto your fathers in eternal glory, and go ahead, and not go back, but use a little wisdom, and seal all you can, and when you get to heaven tell your Father that what you seal on earth should be sealed in heaven, according to his promise. I will walk through the gate of heaven and claim what I seal, and those that follow me and my counsel . . .
The spirit of Elias is first, Elijah second, and Messiah last. Elias is a forerunner to prepare the way, and the spirit and power of Elijah is to come after, holding the keys of power, building the Temple to the capstone, placing the seals of the Melchisedec Priesthood upon the house of Israel, and making all things ready; then Messiah comes to His Temple, which is last of all.
What is the glory of God? To bring about the exaltation and eternal life of his children. What is our responsibility? To be pefect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect.
God asks us to emulate him by being married and making and keeping promises, as he does. God only is further exalted as we take upon us his name and are ourselves exalted to stand at his side, forever giving honor to him as our Father. When we go to the Temple and seal our names upon our spouse, then seal our name upon our children, we emulate our God. As previously stated, Abraham's name is exalted as a bringer of salvation, and his family, not merely himself, is honored.
Just as we regard Christ as the Father of salvation, so can we look at our more closely related family and say that Granfather Kimball, or Grandmother Pratt was a righteous Man or woman who brought the truths and salvation of the gospel to our family. This family member went to the temple and did my work for me, and should be exalted. A righteous Mother and Father who distill into and rear up a righteous generation will be looked upon with honor, and families as wholes will be viewed as worthy.
"You who are seated here will have opportunities of standing in the presence of multitudes, and I can easily imagine, yonder in the next life, after we have passed along perhaps a thousand years or more, that many of you who are here today will have an audience before you of your own posterity. I am as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you; I know it just as well as I know anything. Now we are starting in. Most of us, no doubt, have sons and daughters who will continue faithful to your counsels, and in the other life they will be with you and increase with you. - Lorenzo Snow, CR, p.55, October, 1898
Joseph Smith stated:
The doctrine or sealing power of Elijah is as follows: - If you have power to seal on earth and in heaven, then we should be wise. The first thing you do, go and seal on earth your sons and daughters unto yourself, and yourself unto your fathers in eternal glory, and go ahead, and not go back, but use a little wisdom, and seal all you can, and when you get to heaven tell your Father that what you seal on earth should be sealed in heaven, according to his promise. I will walk through the gate of heaven and claim what I seal, and those that follow me and my counsel . . .
The spirit of Elias is first, Elijah second, and Messiah last. Elias is a forerunner to prepare the way, and the spirit and power of Elijah is to come after, holding the keys of power, building the Temple to the capstone, placing the seals of the Melchisedec Priesthood upon the house of Israel, and making all things ready; then Messiah comes to His Temple, which is last of all.
What is the glory of God? To bring about the exaltation and eternal life of his children. What is our responsibility? To be pefect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect.
God asks us to emulate him by being married and making and keeping promises, as he does. God only is further exalted as we take upon us his name and are ourselves exalted to stand at his side, forever giving honor to him as our Father. When we go to the Temple and seal our names upon our spouse, then seal our name upon our children, we emulate our God. As previously stated, Abraham's name is exalted as a bringer of salvation, and his family, not merely himself, is honored.
Just as we regard Christ as the Father of salvation, so can we look at our more closely related family and say that Granfather Kimball, or Grandmother Pratt was a righteous Man or woman who brought the truths and salvation of the gospel to our family. This family member went to the temple and did my work for me, and should be exalted. A righteous Mother and Father who distill into and rear up a righteous generation will be looked upon with honor, and families as wholes will be viewed as worthy.
"You who are seated here will have opportunities of standing in the presence of multitudes, and I can easily imagine, yonder in the next life, after we have passed along perhaps a thousand years or more, that many of you who are here today will have an audience before you of your own posterity. I am as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you; I know it just as well as I know anything. Now we are starting in. Most of us, no doubt, have sons and daughters who will continue faithful to your counsels, and in the other life they will be with you and increase with you. - Lorenzo Snow, CR, p.55, October, 1898
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. - Plato