Joseph Smith once said, “Could we read and comprehend all that has been writtn from the days of Adam on the relation of man to God & angels . . . in a future state, we should know very little about it.” His intent was not to discourage reading on the subject; it was rather to propose a profound alternative. Joseph went on to say, “Could you gaze in heaven 5 minute[s] you would know more—than you would by read[ing] all that ever was writtn on the subject.”[1] Only one well acquainted with a “gaze in heaven” could encourage this method of learning about the “future state.” Although the vision of Joseph’s family in the celestial kingdom on January 21, 1836, may have lasted only five minutes, it took years for the doctrine to be fully developed and for rituals to crystalize into formal ceremonies that ensure all families can be bound together throughout the eternities.

Joseph Smith’s experiences and ministry inevitably drew him into some of the most potent theological questions early Americans were struggling with. Although disagreement concerning a dualistic cosmos and the doctrines of original sin, infant baptism, and predestination of souls was common among Christian sects of the day, these positions were challenged through the Book of Mormon and Joseph’s revelations. Whether the gates of heaven in the afterlife would keep people out (meaning salvation was meant for only a select few) or allow people in (meaning salvation in the afterlife would be more universal) was a serious dilemma in nineteenth-century American religious society.[2] Ponderous concerns included whether marriage was an earthly institution or if it was possible and purposeful for couples to be together in the next life.[3] Likewise, opinions differed concerning the fate of the unbaptized or the unevangelized who had never been taught the tenets of Christianity.[4] For some of Joseph Smith’s contemporary Christian counterparts, their interpretations of scripture brought them to the inconceivable conclusion that unbaptized infant children who died prematurely would be denied access to God’s kingdom.[5] Incrementally this limited understanding was surpassed when the Prophet’s visions and revelations expanded accessibility to heaven while simultaneously contracting hell and limiting the number of souls who would dwell with the damned.

On February 16, 1832, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon experienced a vision that revealed to them a celestial kingdom within a three-tiered heaven. This vision reshaped and established much of the Saints’ beliefs and desires concerning the afterlife. However, there were doctrinal dilemmas that remained. In January of 1836, Joseph saw another doctrinally impactful vision of the celestial kingdom that is now canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants as section 137. This vision occurred in the Kirtland Temple, which represented a sacred place where the Lord could provide the promised endowment of power.[6] But just as the temple was incomplete when the vision was received, Latter-day Saint theology was only just emerging. Joseph explained in his journal that he saw the celestial kingdom and a representative sample of people who would end up there. He saw divine beings and biblical patriarchs in the celestial kingdom, but he also saw his parents, his deceased older brother Alvin, and infant children with God in heaven.[7] Over time, Joseph’s vision was ritualized, or in other words, God revealed rituals (through Joseph Smith) to make the vision of eternal families linked together in the celestial kingdom a practical reality. The impact of the vision can be determined by examining doctrinal development from January 1836 forward, specifically exploring how the celestial salvation of Joseph’s parents, his unbaptized brother, and his own infant children became a reality through the development of salvific rituals. The revealed rituals of eternal marriage sealings, proxy baptisms for the dead, and sealings of children to parents would become a complete temple liturgy intended to bind families beyond death and throughout eternity.

This study focuses on Joseph Smith’s family members envisioned in the celestial kingdom as prototypes for three categories of people—married couples, unbaptized or unevangelized dead, and infant children. Attention will be given to (1) each group with a contextual analysis of what Joseph Smith likely believed when he had the vision and to (2) the subsequent development of both doctrine and ritual practices that could make celestial salvation for each group a practical reality. This study asserts that Joseph Smith’s 1836 vision of the celestial kingdom was a revelatory catalyst that theologically expanded heaven and contracted hell, eventually developing into rituals that could bind families throughout the eternities.

Eternal Marriage and Sealing Rituals

By January 1836, when Joseph envisioned his parents in the celestial kingdom, his marriage theology may have evolved beyond a limited view of matrimony during mortality that dissolved at death and toward a more eternal union that could endure beyond the grave. Although no extant record exists in which Joseph spoke about how he interpreted seeing his parents in the celestial kingdom, if he saw his parents together in the celestial kingdom as a married couple and not just in the celestial kingdom together as separate individuals, he was likely not surprised. He not only embraced the possibilities of eternal marriage,[8] but he may have already married a couple for what he intended to be eternity.[9] Such an expanded view of heaven would have also provoked questions about the ritualization of eternal marriages and the purpose and potential of married couples in the afterlife. However, required rituals for perpetuating such relationships into the eternities were not transparent at the time of the vision. Robert Millet wrote, “It appears that Joseph Smith learned of the doctrine of eternal marriage—as he did in so many other matters—in a gradual way, precept upon precept.”[10]

Curiously, as late as 1835, Joseph Smith approved a statement on marriage that appeared in the first published edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, conveying very traditional views of marriage and employing ceremonial wording.[11] The section titled “Marriage” was a type of policy statement on a few particular points, as well as a ceremony that could be followed by one officiating at a marriage. Although Joseph Smith and his followers considered their claims to authority to be a significant distinction between the Latter-day Saint faith and all other faiths, it is curious to note that in terms of marriage, this document states that the Church does “not even prohibit those persons who are desirous to get married, of being married by other authority.” Marriage must not have been viewed as eternal in the Church at this time, or one would be pressed to explain how “other authority” could be used to perform such marriages. Furthermore, the ceremonial wording asks the couple to mutually pledge their commitment to each other “during [their] lives,” suggesting mortality to be the intended duration.

On November 24, 1835, Joseph performed what historians believe to be his first wedding when he married Newel Knight and Lydia Goldthwaite Bailey.[12] While performing the ceremony, Joseph essentially adhered to the 1835 statement on marriage, but he broke from Protestant custom when he invoked “the everlasting Priesthood.” In the ceremony Joseph said, “[Marriage] was an institution of heaven first solemnized in the garden of Eden by God himself, by the authority of the everlasting priesthood.”[13] Although Joseph went on to call the couple to “covenant to be eachothers [sic] companions during your lives,” suggesting the marriage had temporal duration only, historian Kathleen Flake considers Joseph’s wording to be an indication that Latter-day Saint marriage was being seen as an everlasting institution as early as 1835.[14] Joseph’s late-1835 views of marriage were undoubtedly not the fully developed doctrine of marriage “sealings,” but they may have reflected an early phase of that theology. Once the doctrine was fully institutionalized in Nauvoo, Newel and Lydia Knight received the sealing ordinance, indicating that whether the 1835 marriage was considered eternal or not, they felt the sealing ordinance was necessary.[15]

Evidence suggests that an eternal marriage was performed for the already civilly married Benjamin and Melissa Johnson in Ramus, Illinois, on May 16, 1843. Substantial expansion and clarification of certain doctrines associated with eternal marriage were given at this time. Of the occasion, Benjamin Johnson recorded, Joseph Smith “called me and my wife to come and sit down, for he wished to marry us according to the Law of the Lord.”[16] Benjamin joked about his wife needing to court him if they were to be married again since he had done it all for their civil marriage previously. Joseph chided him for levity and demonstrated his sincerity as the Johnsons “stood up and were sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise.”[17] According to notes taken by William Clayton, Joseph “gave bro Johnson & wife some instructions on the priesthood.” Joseph explained to the Johnsons that

except a man and his wife enter into an everlasting covenant and be married for eternity while in this probation by the power and authority of the Holy priesthood they will cease to increase when they die (i.e.) they will not have any children in the resurrection, but those who are married by the power and authority of the priesthood in this life & continue without committing the sin against the Holy Ghost will continue to increase & have children in the celestial glory.[18]

Joseph then made a doctrinal statement to the Johnsons that eventually became canonized scripture when he said

In the celestial glory there was three heavens or degrees, and in order to obtain the highest a man must enter into this order of the priesthood[19] and if he dont he cant obtain it. He may enter into the other but that is the end of his kingdom he cannot have an increase.[20]

Not only were the Johnsons taught about a three-tiered heaven within the third tier of heaven, but the doctrine that salvation in this highest degree of the celestial kingdom was dependent on eternal marriage and included the prospect of posterity would have eclipsed all their understanding. Given the recorded statements and the doctrine taught on this occasion, it seems safe to conclude that Joseph performed what he felt was an eternal marriage that would endure beyond death and prepare the Johnsons for a celestial inheritance as he had envisioned in 1836. The setting was still quite intimate, but at this time eternal marriage was being introduced more publicly. It was in the same month as the Johnsons’ eternal marriage, on May 28, 1843, that Joseph and Emma entered a ritualized eternal marriage.[21]

There is at least one significant difference between the earliest marriage Joseph performed for Newel Knight and Lydia Bailey in 1835 and the Johnsons’ marriage in 1843—namely, the Johnsons were already married. Because the Church recognized civil marriages, performing a subsequent marriage for the Johnsons indicates Joseph felt something new and everlasting was necessary for the union to endure into the celestial kingdom.[22] It was not a rejection of the validity of civil marriage that drove Joseph’s actions; rather, he desired to ensure salvation in the celestial kingdom for all his worthy followers, and for marriage and family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave, as he had witnessed with his parents in the vision of 1836. Seeing his mother and father in the vision may have confirmed to Joseph Smith that God meant for marriage to endure beyond death. In the end, it was not just a theological transition from temporal to eternal marriage that Joseph revealed, but the ritual practices that would ensure the perpetuity of marriage relationships beyond the grave.

By mid-July 1843, Joseph Smith was engaged in full public discourse on the doctrine of eternal marriage. On July 16, Franklin D. Richards recorded Joseph saying, “No man can obtain an eternal Blessing unless the contract or covenant be made in view of Eternity All contracts in view of this Life only terminate with this Life. . . . Those who keep no eternal Law in this life or make no eternal contract are single & alone in the eternal world.”[23] Of this same discourse William Clayton recorded in his diary, “[Joseph Smith] showed that a man must enter into an everlasting covenant with his wife in this world or he will have no claim on her in the next. He said that he could not reveal the fulness of these things until the Temple is completed.”[24] Just days before this sermon, at the request of his brother Hyrum, Joseph dictated a revelation that detailed the doctrine of eternal marriage. The revelation is preserved as the most complete statement about eternal marriage produced by the Prophet. Historian Kathleen Flake said of this revelation, “Eventually canonized in the LDS Doctrine and Covenants as Section 132, the statement is believed by historians to summarize more than a decade of Smith’s thoughts and experience.”[25] Where Joseph arrived regarding the theology of marriage in Nauvoo is evident in sections 131 and 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. These revelations not only represented a culmination of Joseph’s marriage doctrine, but they also had ontological implications that extended beyond the possibility of marriage in heaven to address the purpose of marriage in heaven. Flake points out that the revelation expanded beyond the principles of eternal marriage: “When Smith undertook to explain the eternal significance of marital sealings, his emphasis was not on enabling spousal continuity but on inculcating divine, life-engendering capacity; the latter was essential, the former accidental to it.”[26] Notions of the eternality of marriage, eternal posterity, and marriage as essential for salvation in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom expanded heaven far beyond the concept of marriage and family relationships enduring beyond death.

Positioning the vision of the celestial kingdom as the sole catalyst for the doctrine of eternal marriage and ritual sealings is not the intent here. Joseph’s reception of the vision is not entirely clear, and he never said the vision was the basis for the doctrine. Nevertheless, his development of the doctrine, and the ritualization of eternal marriage with the intent to bind families beyond death in the celestial kingdom, may have first been envisioned in January 1836. The vision fits within the context of the ritualization of eternal marriage, and the trajectory of the public unfolding can be traced back to events in Kirtland and not just the Nauvoo period. This marriage doctrine comes like a flood publicly, presumably after Joseph had received the revelation from God and worked out the complexities personally and privately. It developed precept upon precept, but essential to include in the development, and perhaps as an early catalyst, was the vision of the celestial kingdom in which Joseph saw his parents in the highest heaven.

The Unbaptized and Unevangelized Dead and Vicarious Rituals

Another of Joseph Smith’s theological positions that seems to be expanded by what he experienced in the vision of the celestial kingdom was the doctrine concerning the fate of the unevangelized or the unbaptized who died without the opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ or receive the ordinance of baptism in mortality.[27] Common sentiments among contemporary Christians were that the gates of heaven were shut for such souls. The difficult obstacle for Joseph would have been that the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and his own revelations contained in the contemporary Doctrine and Covenants seemed to support the belief.[28] However, there was one revelatory vision in 1832 that showed heaven to be more accessible than previously thought.

On February 16, 1832, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon received what was known at the time as simply “the Vision” in the Johnson home in Hiram, Ohio. This vision, now known as Doctrine and Covenants 76, significantly altered the afterlife beliefs of Joseph Smith and his followers and included the firm establishment of the doctrine of kingdoms of glory, including a thorough description of qualifications for each kingdom. Historian Richard Bushman said of the vision, “The doctrine recast life after death. The traditional division of heaven and hell made religious life arbitrary. One received grace or one went to hell. In Joseph’s afterlife, the issue was degrees of glory. A permanent hell threatened very few. The question was not escape from hell but closeness to God. God scaled the rewards to each person’s capacity.”[29] Notably, the vision’s three-tiered expansion of heaven was not a problematic doctrine for people to accept. Instead, it was practically universal salvation to one degree or another, causing a contraction of hell that upset people.[30] Joseph, in his preface to the vision, stated that “if God rewarded every one according to the deeds done in the body, the term ‘heaven’ . . . must include more kingdoms than one.”[31] Clearly, Joseph had preconceived “more kingdoms than one,” which is confirmed by the vision. However, the premise “God rewarded every one according to the deeds done in the body” is subtly challenged through the vision. The vision speaks of certain people who will receive “no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come,” seemingly opening the possibility of postmortal forgiveness for some, if not grouped with the “sons of perdition.” The revelation also speaks of people inheriting the second-tier kingdom of heaven if they “received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it” in the postmortal world. The vision might have led Joseph to reject the idea that mortality was the sole basis for eternal judgement, yet none of these postmortal opportunities seemed to permit access to the celestial kingdom, and the revelation unmistakably requires one to be “baptized after the manner of [Christ’s] burial, being buried in the water in his name,” as a condition of celestial inheritance. These baptismal parameters began to burst, and Joseph was awestruck when the 1836 vision of the celestial kingdom included his unbaptized brother Alvin.

The death of Alvin would have surely stirred Joseph’s soul about salvation early in his life.[32] However, the redemption of the dead may not have been a dominant concern in the first decade following the organization of the Church. Joseph “marveled” when he saw his unbaptized brother in the vision of the celestial kingdom, suggesting that Joseph had not reconciled the necessity of baptism articulated in the scriptures with the billions of souls who had never received the ritual. Most likely for Joseph Smith, the fate of the unbaptized and their hopes for salvation in the highest kingdom were unsettling and unsettled questions at the time of the 1836 vision. Seeing Alvin in the vision confirmed that the unbaptized dead could be admitted into the celestial kingdom. The question provoked by the vision was how to ensure that the unbaptized would be admitted. Joseph’s vision of January 21, 1836, which revealed that the celestial kingdom was possible for the unbaptized, would have spurred him to ponder the possibilities and practicalities of redeeming the dead.

The first of many public statements made by the Prophet regarding the salvation of the unbaptized or unevangelized dead did not appear until over two years after the vision. “We cannot help but conclude,” Robert Millet said, “that the Prophet must have spoken of this doctrinal matter since the time of his vision of Alvin more than two years earlier, but we have no record of such a conversation.”[33] In 1838 Joseph Smith commented on the subject by responding to a series of questions. He was asked, “If the Mormon doctrine is true what has become of all those who have died since the days of the apostles[?] Answer. All those who have not had an opportunity of hearing the gospel, and being administered to by an inspired man in the flesh, must have it hereafter, before they can be finally judged.”[34] It is deducible from this glimpse into the Prophet’s understanding that Joseph believed in the necessity of postmortem evangelism to provide an opportunity for all to hear the gospel. Joseph’s statement about the departed having “it hereafter” seems to be referring to both the opportunity of hearing the gospel and “being administered to.” Whether Joseph understood more than is stated here is unclear, but it is significant to note, however, that in 1838 he did not speak directly of baptism for the dead. The focus of the Prophet shifted from that point forward. He was not preoccupied with the fact that the dead can be redeemed and that they are having the gospel preached to them in a postmortal realm, but he endeavored to discover and reveal what would be necessary for the dead to be redeemed, and even the role that the living play in the redemption of the dead.

The first public discourse by the Prophet Joseph on the doctrine of the redemption of the dead was given on August 15, 1840, at the funeral for Seymor Brunson. Simon Baker gave a reminiscent account of the Prophet reading from 1 Corinthians 15, after which Joseph remarked, “The apostle was talking to a people who understood baptism for the dead, for it was practiced among them. He went on to say that people could now act for their friends who had departed this life, and that the plan of salvation was calculated to save all who were willing to obey the requirements of the law of God.”[35] Joseph had taught not only that the dead could be redeemed but also what ritual would be necessary for the dead to be redeemed, and he did so on several occasions between August 1840 and June 1844.[36]

After baptism for the dead was publicly introduced, very little time elapsed before the principle was put into practice; however, time and experience brought increased formality. Historian Richard Bennett said concerning the implementation of the ritual, “The first documented baptism for the dead occurred less than a month after Brunson’s funeral when on 12 September 1840, Jane Neyman requested Harvey Olmstead baptize her in behalf of her deceased son, Cyrus Livingston Neyman.” Bennett added, “Many other such baptisms soon followed with men and women being baptized indiscriminately for deceased friends and ancestors, regardless of gender.”[37] The earliest rites were performed with enthusiasm in the Mississippi River, but in time the ritual would become more formalized as Joseph Smith issued clarifying statements and requirements for the proper performance and recording of the rituals.[38] The Nauvoo Temple was never fully completed and dedicated during the lifetime of Joseph Smith, but he indeed moved the work forward when in the October 1841 general conference he stated, “There shall be no more baptisms for the dead, until the ordinance can be attended to in the font of the Lord’s House.”[39] One scholar has said, “Joseph Smith may have suspended the baptisms to motivate the Saints to press forward with the temple since it was just one month later that the baptismal font in the temple’s basement was finished and dedicated.”[40] The urgency to construct and dedicate the font showed that the Saints sincerely desired to follow the instructions given in the revelations; however, it also showed how far Joseph had come theologically. When the Kirtland Temple was dedicated in March 1836, Joseph had not conceived of the need for a baptismal font in the temple for the living, and certainly not for the dead. In the vision of the celestial kingdom, God revealed an expanded heaven where even the unbaptized or unevangelized dead like Joseph’s brother Alvin could be saved in the celestial kingdom. In time, vicarious baptisms for the dead became the practical way to make redeeming the dead efficacious.

Infant Salvation and Child-to-Parent Sealings

Joseph and Emma Smith sadly knew all too well the pain of losing children. Infant mortality in the Smith family was such that “of the eleven children of Joseph and Emma—nine born to them and two adopted—only five would live to adulthood.”[41] One wonders what Joseph knew about the redemption of his young children before his vision of the celestial kingdom in January 1836. Even though he had translated the Book of Mormon in its entirety, been visited by multiple heavenly messengers, officially organized the Church, provided his inspired translation of the Bible (increasing his doctrinal understanding significantly), and received more than 110 revelations by January 1836 that are currently canonized as scripture, the fact is that he was still receiving revelation about the salvation of infant children. In the 1836 vision of the celestial kingdom, he beheld that all children who die in infancy are saved in the celestial kingdom. An intriguing question is whether we can conclude that Joseph beheld his and Emma’s infant children in the celestial kingdom. We cannot say with certainty, but the familial nature of the vision suggests a possibility. If so, it would perpetuate the pattern of the Smith family, envisioned in the celestial kingdom, with Joseph and Emma’s children becoming the prototype for eternal posterity. Joseph’s vision in January 1836 may have been a catalyst for him to pursue eternal families united in the celestial kingdom based on biological associations since he beheld his family members in the vision; nevertheless, it took time for the associated theology to unfold.

Joseph Smith believed the gates of heaven were wide open for children who died as infants, with no need for baptism, when he had the vision in 1836.[42] Although this theological position ran counter to the doctrines of original sin, the predestination of souls, and infant baptism that many contemporary Christians embraced in his day, it seems he would have welcomed the distance from those troubling doctrines as well as the confirmation and clarification he experienced when he beheld the vision in 1836. It is significant to note, however, that although Joseph clearly understood the assurance of salvation for children who die prematurely, there would have been some complexities to reconcile. For one thing, he did not yet know how to forge eternal family links in the celestial kingdom between parents and their posterity. It took time for God to reveal rituals that ensured that children who died in infancy, children who lived to maturity, and the generations yet unborn could be united with their families in the afterlife.

The link between the parents and the unborn was eventually determined to automatically exist through the blessings promised to a couple sealed in an eternal marriage. In a discourse in August 1843, Joseph made it clear that the sealing of parents in an eternal marriage secures their unborn posterity for eternity. According to a record kept by William Clayton, Joseph said, “When a seal is put upon the father and mother it secures their posterity so that they cannot be lost but will be saved by virtue of the covenant of their father.”[43] This doctrine alleviated concerns for the unborn children; however, what remained was the issue of how to ensure eternal bonds between parents and their children who were born before the marriage sealing took place.

Joseph taught that living children could be brought into the family chain through temple rituals, and he promised the ceremonies would be performed in the completed Nauvoo Temple. The need for the temple seems to be the primary factor that delayed the introduction of the ritual of child-to-parent sealings. Jonathan Stapley, a scholar with a specialization in Latter-day Saint temple liturgy, noted, “While [Joseph] taught that children were to be sealed to their parents, he also refused to perform child-to-parent sealings until the temple was finished—something that did not occur until after his death.”[44] Joseph had plenty of reasons to rush the ritual since he had biological as well as adopted living and dead children of his own who were not yet sealed to him. According to Stapley, “When Smith introduced sealing rituals in Nauvoo, however, virtually all church leaders were married and had children already. All of the children were thus outside of the covenant and needed to be sealed to their parents by a ritual similar to that performed for marriage. Joseph and Emma Smith had one child born in the covenant—David Hyrum Smith—who was born four months after Joseph was killed. The rest of their children remained unsealed.”[45]

Eventually, Church doctrines became associated with Joseph’s experience with Elijah in early 1836 in Kirtland,[46] but it took time to come to that realization and longer for Joseph to ritualize child-to-parent sealings. In 1844 Joseph addressed this when he spoke of the Malachi prophecy that Elijah would return “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.”[47] Joseph said of the prophecy:

Now the word turn here should be translated [bind or seal] But what is the object of this important mission or how is it to be fulfilled, The keys are to be deliverd the spirit of Elijah is to come, The gospel to be established the Saints of God gatherd Zion built up, & the Saints to come up as saviors on mount zion but how are they to become Saviors on Mount Zion[?] By building their temples erecting their Baptismal fonts & going forth & receiving all the ordinances, Baptisms, confirmations, washings anointings ordinations, & sealing powers upon our heads in behalf of all our Progenitors who are dead & redeem them that they may come forth in the first resurrection & be exhalted to thrones of glory with us, & herein is the chain that binds the hearts of the fathers to the children, & the children to the Fathers which fulfills the mission of Elijah.[48]

Commenting on how Joseph’s understanding of the prophecy in Malachi and the role of Elijah changed over time, Charles Harrell, a scholar specializing in the development of theology within the restored gospel, observed the following:

A discernible progression is evident in Joseph’s explications of Malachi’s prophecy. . . . In September 1842, he saw Elijah’s mission as turning the hearts of those in the present and past dispensations to each other through the institution of baptism for the dead. In 1843, Elijah was seen as having restored the power to seal individuals, either living or dead, to eternal life. In March 1844, [Joseph] finally expressed that Elijah restored the power to seal children to their parents, living or dead.[49]

Ultimately, Joseph envisioned child-to-parent sealings for the living and the dead, but unfortunately, his life was cut short and he never witnessed the performance of these sealing rituals in the Nauvoo Temple. Upon completion of the temple, sealing rituals for married couples and between parents and their children were carried out in earnest. The Latter-day Saint heaven had expanded, and child-to-parent sealings had finally become fully institutionalized.

Conclusion

Tracing the development of eternal marriages, rituals for redeeming the dead through vicarious ordinances, and child-to-parent sealings reveals that the trajectory may have begun back in Kirtland with Joseph’s 1836 vision of the celestial kingdom. That vision, coupled with the visitation from Elijah shortly after, can be viewed as a pivot point prodding Joseph toward the development of the Nauvoo temple liturgy. While the complexities seem to have taken time for Joseph to comprehend and convey to his followers in the form of doctrine and ritual practices, he left a robust theological framework for making salvation sure for progenitors, parents, and their posterity, just as he had envisioned.

The theological implications of the vision of the celestial kingdom altered the afterlife for the Smith family specifically and for the restored gospel more generally. The term theological implications is intended to mean the impact or significance of the vision on the cosmology of the restored gospel. The overarching impact of the vision could be summarized as an afterlife with nearly universal salvation and eternal families in the celestial kingdom. For Joseph, the highest heaven was expanded and possible for married couples, the unbaptized or unevangelized dead, and children who died young. Thus, hell was contracted and had a claim on far fewer souls than contemporary Christians thought. In the vision, Joseph saw the gates of the celestial kingdom, and they were open and allowing souls in, not shutting people out. Members of the Smith family envisioned in the celestial kingdom became the prototypes for parents and posterity being bound together as eternal families. Samuel Brown, a scholar specializing in Joseph Smith’s theological development, said, “As Smith unveiled his priesthood, his temple rites, and his heaven family through the 1840s, he made it increasingly clear that humans had a magnificent potential. . . . The Saints would rise, through the relationships they created and sealed, to a status beyond their wildest imaginings.”[50] Joseph Smith gazed into heaven, and his vision of the celestial kingdom can be viewed as a revelatory catalyst in the conception of an expanded heaven with eternal families and a contracted hell, where even the unbaptized or unevangelized dead could be redeemed through ritual practices. Joseph Smith’s visionary gifts and prophetic calling prepared his family, his followers, and the whole human family for an afterlife with exalted couples and eternal families in the celestial kingdom of heaven.

Notes

[1] Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Brent M. Rogers, eds., Journals, Volume 3: May 1843–June 1844, vol. 3 of the Journals series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2015), 109; hereafter JSP, J3. All JSP quotations herein preserve their original spelling and other stylistic features unless updated within brackets.

[2] E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 218–33; and Kathryn Gin Lum, Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).

[3] In the nineteenth century, “explaining how marriage continued in heaven in spite of the New Testament denial comprised an important element in their theological discussions.” Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang, Heaven: A History, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 229. See chapters 7 and 8 therein for the historical development of a “modern heaven” that was more domestic than theocentric.

[4] This problem of limited salvation is not new. Porphyry, a fourth-century philosopher critical of Christians asked, “If Christ declares Himself to be the Way of salvation, the Grace and the Truth, and affirms that in Him alone, and only to souls believing in Him, is the way of return to God, what has become of men who lived in the many centuries before Christ came?” He continued, “What, then, has become of such an innumerable multitude of souls, who were in no wise blameworthy, seeing that He in whom alone saving faith can be exercised had not yet favoured men with His advent?” Quoted by Saint Augustine in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 1:416; found in Robert L. Millet, “The Soteriological Problem of Evil,” Religious Educator 2, no. 2 (2001): 75. See also Gabriel J. Fackre, Ronald H. Nash, and John Sanders, eds., What About Those Who Have Never Heard?: Three Views on the Destiny of the Unevangelized (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995), 8.

[5] “The question of infant baptism and the status of unbaptized infants were controversial and charged subjects in early nineteenth-century America. While only a component of the larger argument about predestination, the image of infant damnation was particularly horrifying; consequently, it became a ready slur for one denomination to throw at another.” Amy Easton-Flake, “Infant Salvation: Book of Mormon Theology in a Nineteenth-Century Context,” in Abinadi: He Came Among Them in Disguise, ed. Shon D. Hopkin (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018), 246.

[6] The Lord commanded, “I will give unto you my law & there [Ohio] you shall be endowed with power from on high.” Revelation, 2 January 1831 (D&C 38), in Michael Hubbard MacKay et al., eds., Documents, Volume 1: July 1828–June 1831, vol. 1 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee et al., 232.

[7] The text now canonized in Doctrine and Covenants section 137 is an excised portion of the full journal entry of January 21, 1836. For the full journal entry, see Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen, eds., Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839, vol. 1 of the Journals series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman, 166–71.

[8] W. W. Phelps shared the understanding he undoubtedly acquired from Joseph Smith. Phelps said in an 1835 letter to his wife, “A new idea, Sally, If you and I continue faithful to the end, we are certain of being One in the Lord throughout eternity. This is one of the most glorious consolations we can have in the flesh. Do not forfeit your birthright.” W. W. Phelps to Sally Phelps, May 26, 1835, quoted in Brian C. Hales and Laura H. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Toward A Better Understanding (Sandy, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2015), 23. The digitized original letter can be viewed at the Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/SCMisc/id/54662.

[9] Kathleen Flake, “The Development of Early Latter-day Saint Marriage Rites, 1831–53,” Journal of Mormon History 41, no. 1 (January 2015), 77–102.

[10] Robert L. Millet, Precept upon Precept: Joseph Smith and the Restoration of Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016), 322.

[11] Matthew C. Godfrey et al., eds., Documents, Volume 4: April 1834–September 1835, vol. 4 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Ronald K. Esplin and Matthew J. Grow, 475–78.

[12] Newel Knight was at the time a 35-year-old widower living as a boarder in the home of Hyrum and Jerusha Smith, while Lydia Bailey was a 23-year-old boarder in the same home who had previously married an abusive drunkard who abandoned her more than three years earlier. A recent convert who had been taught by Joseph Smith during his proselyting trip to Canada, she later joined the Saints in Ohio against the wishes of her family. William G. Hartley, “Newel and Lydia Bailey Knight’s Kirtland Love Story and Historic Wedding,” BYU Studies 39, no. 4 (2000): 10–13.

[13] Karen Lynn Davidson et al., eds., Histories, Volume 1: Joseph Smith Histories, 1832–1844, vol. 1 of the Histories series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman, 132–33.

[14] Flake, “Marriage Rites,” 84.

[15] The sealing was performed in the Nauvoo Temple on January 19, 1846, by Brigham Young. Lisle G. Brown, Nauvoo Sealings, Adoptions, and Anointings: A Comprehensive Register of Persons Receiving LDS Temple Ordinances, 1841–1846 (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2006), 174.

[16] Benjamin F. Johnson, My Life’s Review: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Johnson (Provo, UT: Grandin Book, 1997), 85–86; quoted in Terryl L. Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 276.

[17] Johnson, My Life’s Review, 85–86.

[18] David W. Grua, et al., eds., Documents, Volume 12: March–July 1843, vol. 12 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Matthew C. Godfrey et al., 308; hereafter JSP, D12.

[19] In the 1876 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, Orson Pratt inserted here “the new and everlasting covenant of marriage.”

[20] JSP, D12:308–9.

[21] Joseph Smith, Journal, 28 May 1843, in JSP, J3:25

[22] Richard Bennett argues this point with a comparison to requirements for baptisms to be redone when converts joined the Church. After citing Doctrine and Covenants 22:1–3, he said concerning marriages, “Although the Church recognized such unions [civil marriages performed by clergy], it did not regard them as divinely authorized ordinances, certainly not ones that would extend beyond the grave.” Like baptism, such marriages would need to be redone, eventually, by one holding proper keys and authority so that what was done on earth would be “bound in heaven.” Richard E. Bennett, Temples Rising: A Heritage of Sacrifice (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019), 85.

[23] JSP, D12:488.

[24] JSP, D12:487.

[25] Flake, “Marriage Rites,” 92.

[26] Flake, “Marriage Rites,” 92.

[27] The temple rite most easily connected to the vision of the celestial kingdom is the practice of proxy baptisms, which developed from the doctrine of the redemption of the dead. As M. Guy Bishop noted, “This heavenly decree [the vision of the celestial kingdom] would be the genesis of the Mormon practice of baptism for the dead” (“‘What Has Become of Our Fathers?’: Baptism for the Dead at Nauvoo,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23, no. 2 [Summer 1990]: 86). Relatedly, Richard Bennett observed, “[One of the] causal factors for his Nauvoo pronouncement of the ordinance of baptism for the dead” was “Joseph Smith’s vision of Alvin in the Kirtland temple” (Bennett, Temples Rising, 56–58).

[28] Several Bible and Book of Mormon scriptures teach the necessity of baptism by water as a prerequisite for salvation, and damnation as the destiny of the unbaptized; furthermore, revelations that Joseph himself received asserted similar tenets. See Mark 16:16; John 3:5; 3 Nephi 11:33–34; Doctrine and Covenants 49:13.

[29] Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 199.

[30] Mark Lyman Staker, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations (Sandy, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2009), 332–33.

[31] Matthew C. Godfrey, et al., eds., Documents, Volume 2: July 1831–January 1833, vol. 2 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman, 180.

[32] As was common in the day, the funeral sermon for Alvin Smith was delivered by a preacher representing Lucy’s Presbyterian faith. According to the historical record, it appears that because Alvin had not been baptized, the minister preached damnation rather than salvation as the condition of Alvin’s soul, which served as a call to piety for the living. Joseph Smith’s brother William recalled that his mother’s minister, ReverendBenjamin Stockton, “intimated very strongly that he [Alvin] had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a Church member.” William said Joseph Smith Sr. “did not like it.” Steven C. Harper, “1836: Joseph Smith and the Kirtland Temple,” in Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Kent P. Jackson, eds., Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2010), 243.

[33] Millet, Precept upon Precept, 266.

[34] Elders’ Journal, July 1838, 43, www.josephsmithpapers.org.

[35] Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980), 49.

[36] Matthew C. Godfrey et al., eds., Documents, Volume 7: September 1839–January 1841, vol. 7 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Ronald K. Esplin, Matthew J. Grow, and Matthew C. Godfrey, 469–70; see also Times and Seasons, 15 April 1842, 759–61, www.josephsmithpapers.org; and Alex D. Smith et al., eds., Documents, Volume 14: 1 January–15 May 1844, vol. 14 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Matthew C. Godfrey, R. Eric Smith, and Ronald K. Esplin, 339–40.

[37] Bennett, Temples Rising, 60–61.

[38] Doctrine and Covenants 124:30–31; 127; and 128.

[39] Brent M. Rogers et al., eds., Documents, Volume 8: February–November 1841, vol. 8 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Ronald K. Esplin et al., 289.

[40] Bishop, “What Has Become of Our Fathers?,” 92.

[41] Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2007), 173.

[42] Mosiah 3:18, “The infant perisheth not that dieth in his infancy”; Mosiah 15:25, “Little children also have eternal life”; Moroni 8:8, “The whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them.” See also Easton-Flake, “Infant Salvation,” 233–62.

[43] Christian K. Heimburger et al., eds., Documents, Volume 13: August–December 1843, vol. 13 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Matthew C. Godfrey et al., 38.

[44] Jonathan A. Stapley, The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 37.

[45] Stapley, Power of Godliness, 40.

[46] Doctrine and Covenants 110:13–16.

[47] Malachi 4:5–6.

[48] JSP, D14:105–6.

[49] Charles R. Harrell, “This Is My Doctrine”: The Development of Mormon Theology (Sandy, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2011), 78–79.

[50] Samuel Morris Brown, In Heaven As It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 265.