The Temple — God’s Way
A Father’s Day reflection on how earthly fathers mirror our Heavenly Father — and how the temple serves as God’s home, where He teaches His children His ways.
On this Father’s Day, I want to consider the characteristics shared by our earthly fathers and our Heavenly Father, and then consider what it means that God has a house — and what He teaches us in it.
Our Earthly Fathers
Characteristics of good fathers include: leadership, strength, helpfulness, teaching, tough love, loyalty, selflessness, protection, discipline, unconditional love, understanding, and being an example. Their responsibilities include giving life to their family, loving them, protecting them, providing for them, and teaching them.
Earthly fathers are imperfect — learning and growing and trying to be better. But the opportunity to become a father is itself one step in the plan our Heavenly Father has prepared for us, to teach us how to become like Him.
Enos 1:1, 3
“Behold, it came to pass that I, Enos, knowing my father that he was a just man — for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord — and blessed be the name of my God for it.”
“Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests; and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart.”
Our Heavenly Father — The Perfect Parallel
The Savior himself declared after his resurrection: “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17). This is a profound declaration: God is literally our Father. We are literally His children. He has given us life, loves us, protects us, provides for us, and — most importantly — teaches us.
John 3:16–17
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
The Temple as God’s Home
While we are on this earth, we live with our families in our homes — learning, growing, being taught by our parents how to live. The temple is God’s home, where we can learn of Him and how we should live our lives.
2 Nephi 12:2–3
“And it shall come to pass in the last days, when the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains… many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.”
What We Learn in the Temple
1. Equality in Salvation
We learn that God is not a respecter of persons. Through baptism for the dead, every person who has lived on this earth — no matter when or where they lived — has an equal and equitable opportunity to receive a remission of sins and return to God’s presence.
2. Progressive Learning
We learn that “as in our earthly home we learn line upon line, precept upon precept.” The endowment consists of instructions and covenants. We are instructed to return again and again so that we may understand the principles taught, as the dew from the heavens distills upon us — slowly, and according to the capacity of each individual.
Isaiah 55:8–9
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
3. Eternal Marriage
We learn that marriage is ordained of God and is an eternal, not merely temporal, concept. Civil marriages end at death; eternal marriages performed in the temple may exist forever. Our Heavenly Father is teaching us, in His home, that we too can be members of a family eternally — not only that, but that we may create our own eternal family as He has done.
Is this all we learn from the temple? No. Just as in life we should expect to learn from God as we return to His home regularly. Just as His word never ends, so neither does the knowledge and revelation we can receive from Him in His house.
Let us be a temple-attending and a temple-loving people — not only for our kindred dead but for the personal blessing of temple worship. In those hallowed walls, we learn the purpose of life and the significance of the atoning sacrifice of our Lord. Let the temple be our ultimate earthly goal and the supreme mortal experience.