We cannot have an informed temple discussion without first understanding the Mormon Heaven. The temple is the Mormon pathway to heaven. It is divided into the penthouse, main floor, and basement of heaven.

Mormons believe every temple ordinance is a “saving ordinance”. In other words, these ordinances are necessary for salvation. Without them, no one can enter the highest level of heaven. Join me for a rudimentary examination of these three levels, correctly called degrees of glory.

Pathway to Heaven in the Celestial Kingdom

The penthouse of the Mormon heaven is the Celestial Kingdom. This kingdom is the final destination for only the best of the Mormon people. Non-Mormons cannot enter.

⁵¹They are they who received the testimony of Jesus, and believed on his name and were baptized after the manner of his burial, being buried in the water in his name, and this according to the commandment which he has given— ⁵²That by keeping the commandments they might be washed and cleansed from all their sins, and receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands of him who is ordained and sealed unto this power;

Doctrine and Covenants 76:51-52, emphasis added

The top level of the Mormon heaven is for the very best Mormons. These have been made clean by their commandment keeping. Thus, zealous commandment keeping is their pathway to heaven. Other Mormon scripture describes the conditions to enter heaven where God is.

Keep my commandments continually, and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive. And except thou do this, where I am you cannot come.

Doctrine & Covenants 25:15, emphasis added

Abraham believed and it was accounted to him as righteousness. ¹ Does the promise of Romans 4 apply to the Mormon people? Paul taught, for those justified by commandment keeping, Christ will profit them nothing.² He also said, they are fallen from grace.³ Alternately, he taught that belief in Jesus is the sure pathway to heaven.

Ask Your Bishop

• Mormonism teaches that you will be saved by commandment keeping. Paul insists that the atonement of Jesus will be non-effectual for any who seek salvation through commandment keeping. One might be right or perhaps the other, but both cannot be true together. Which one do you choose?

This top level, the Celestial Kingdom, is where men become gods.

The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness we shall be blessed with the fullness of his kingdom. In other words, we will have the privilege of becoming like him. To become like him we must have all the powers of godhood; thus a man and his wife when glorified will have spirit children who eventually will go on an earth like this one we are on and pass through the same kind of experiences, being subject to mortal conditions, and if faithful, then they also will receive the fullness of exaltation and partake of the same blessings. There is no end to this development; it will go on forever. We will become gods and have jurisdiction over worlds, and these worlds will be peopled by our own offspring.

Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation 2:48, quoted in Achieving a Celestial Marriage Student Manual, 1976, p.132

The Celestial Kingdom is further subdivided into three levels. The Celestial Kingdom is available to all good Mormons, but with limitations for some.

Think of the Negro, cursed as to the priesthood. This Negro, who, in the pre-existence lived the type of life which justified the Lord in sending him to the earth in their lineage of Cain with a black skin, and possibly being born in darkest Africa–if that Negro is willing when he hears the gospel to accept it, he may have many of the blessings of the gospel. In spite of all he did in the pre-existent life, the Lord is willing, if the Negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If that Negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory.

Apostle Mark E. Peterson, “Race Problems – As They Affect the Church,” Address given at the Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level, delivered at BYU, August 27, 1954.

For black men and women, white skin is an essential part of the pathway to heaven. In the lowest part of the Celestial Kingdom, these people may live as servants of their white gods and nothing more. This eternity of servitude is the best they can hope for.

Unmarried women will suffer the same fate.

You will remember that you never got into the celestial kingdom without the aid of your husband. If you did, it was because your husband was away, and someone had to act proxy for him. No woman will get into the celestial kingdom, except her husband receives her, if she is worthy to have a husband; and if not, somebody will receive her as a servant.

Apostle Erastus Snow, October 4, 1857, Journal of Discourses 5:291

For women, having a white husband who qualifies for godhood is an essential part of her pathway to heaven.

In recent years, Mormon leaders made some changes. Black people and unmarried women are not limited as they once were. The Mormon promise that a man and woman can reign as god and goddess over their own world, has been taken away. In response, I point to Mormon scripture that insists “God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being.”⁴ The Bible agrees.⁵

Ask Your Bishop

• If God is an unchangeable being, how do you reconcile doctrinal reversals? How do you discern truth and error?

The Terrestrial Kingdom

Here we see the main floor of the Mormon heaven.

⁷⁵These are they who are honorable men of the earth, who were blinded by the craftiness of men. ⁷⁶These are they who receive of his glory, but not of his fulness. ⁷⁷These are they who receive of the presence of the Son, but not of the fulness of the Father.

Doctrine and Covenants 76:75-77

This is the heaven reserved for flaky Mormons. Honorable non-Mormon men and women may also enter. For these people, the pathway to heaven is not so steep. By all accounts, this is a pretty amazing place. But its inhabitants will not be exalted as gods and goddesses. It is interesting to note that God the Father will not visit this part of heaven. Jesus, however, may visit from time to time.

Telestial Kingdom

Wilford Woodruff was the fourth prophet of the Mormon Church. Referring to heaven’s basement, he said,

Br. Woodruff spoke. . . . He refered to a saying of Joseph Smith which he heard him utter (like this) That if the People knew what was behind the vail, they would try by every means to commit suicide that they might get there, but the Lord in his wisdom had implanted the fear of death in every person that they might cling to life and thus accomplish the designs of their creator.

Diary of Charles Lowell Walker, ed. by A. Karl Larson and Katherine M. Larson [Logan, Ut.: Utah State University Press, 1980], vol. 1, pp. 465-66.)” (Robert L. Millet and Kent P. Jackson, eds., Studies in Scripture, Vol. 1: The Doctrine and Covenants, pp. 305-8

Eldred G. Smith served as the “Patriarch to the Church” from 1947 to 1979. He affirmed a belief that is still popular among the Mormon people today.

I cannot for a minute conceive the telestial being hell, either, because it is considered a heaven, a glory. The Prophet Joseph Smith told us that if we could get one little glimpse into the telestial glory even, the glory is so great that we would be tempted to commit suicide to get there.

Eldred G. Smith, March 10, 1964, BYU Speeches of the Year, 1964, p. 4

While preparing this paper, I was unable to find the Joseph Smith quote mentioned above. Perhaps it is nothing more than a “faith-promoting rumor”. However, I have heard it preached routinely by Mormon men of authority. I am compelled to ask, is this lower level of Mormon heaven so wonderful? Let us begin by examining who will be cast into this heavenly basement.

These are they who are liars, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and whoremongers, and whosoever loves and makes a lie.

Doctrine & Covenants 76:103

That passage reminds me of another passage.

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

Revelation 21:8

Ask Your Bishop

• Mormon leaders teach that the most reprehensible people will inherit telestial glory. Jesus, through the Apostle John said, these same people have their part in the lake of fire. He said the lake of fire is the second death. Since you hold Wilford Woodruff and John the Revelator to be prophets, how do you reconcile this contradiction?
• The Mormon Telestial kingdom and Biblical hell are places where the most vile humans live for eternity. In these places, they will be outside the presence of God. When we contrast these two, do we see a difference without a distinction?
• Is this pathway to heaven an upward climb or a downward fall?

Outer Darkness, Fallen From the Pathway to Heaven

Sin is not the cause of being cast into outer darkness. It is not a loss of faith in Jesus that causes one to condemned. During my excommunication hearing, A Mormon leader asked if I had any witnesses to speak on my behalf. I named Jesus and Mormon authorities rejected Him. They sent Jesus, my God packing. My love and devotion to the King of Kings had only increased. The great “wickedness” that caused my fall to Mormon hell was the loss of confidence in Mormon leaders.

One of the High Priests that judged me that day, affirmed that I was a son of perdition and bound for Outer Darkness.

The lower circle, the one that resembles a cancer biopsy, is my only Mormon inheritance.

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

Matthew 7:13, KJV

Ask Your Bishop

• We have accounted for everyone from the best and worst Mormons, to the best and worst non-Mormons. Since the Mormon plan saves all but a few Mormon apostates like myself, where are the many who pass through the wide gate and on to destruction?

Final Observation

Let us now examine the Holy Spirit of Promise.

The Holy Spirit of Promise is the Holy Ghost who places the stamp of approval upon every ordinance: baptism, confirmation, ordination, marriage. The promise is that the blessings will be received through faithfulness.

If a person violates a covenant, whether it be of baptism, ordination, marriage or anything else, the Spirit withdraws the stamp of approval, and the blessings will not be received.

“Every ordinance is sealed with a promise of a reward based upon faithfulness. The Holy Spirit withdraws the stamp of approval where covenants are broken.

Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:45).

Clearly, Grace and I were sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise as described above. It is also undeniable that we have broken and rejected our temple covenants.

The Mormon people often remind us of all we lost because of our broken covenants. Oh, contraire is my reply as I turn to sacred Mormon scripture.

²⁶Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man marry a wife according to my word, and they are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, according to mine appointment, and he or she shall commit any sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant whatever, and all manner of blasphemies, and if they commit no murder wherein they shed innocent blood, yet they shall come forth in the first resurrection, and enter into their exaltation; but they shall be destroyed in the flesh, and shall be delivered unto the buffetings of Satan unto the day of redemption, saith the Lord God.

Doctrine and Covenants 132:26, emphases added

If Joseph Smith is a prophet of God as the Mormon church insists, I have no worries. I was sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise. I have committed many sins, transgressions, and blasphemies against Mormonism. Nevertheless, I will take a few whacks from Satan and rise in the first resurrection to my exaltation and Mormon godhood. This is my Mormon get out of hell free card.

Ask Your Bishop

• The Mormon church holds Joseph Smith Jr. and Joseph Fielding Smith to be prophets of the Mormon god. How do you account for their differing teachings about life after apostasy?
• Per Joseph Smith, my pathway to heaven embraces any sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant whatever, and all manner of blasphemies. Does this seem feasible?

I place my trust in neither of the Smiths. Instead, I lean on the words of Jesus as received through the Apostle John.

¹³ These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

1 John 5:13, KJV

1. Romans 4:3
2. Galatians 5:2
3. Galatians 5:4
4. Book of Mormon: Moroni 8:18
5. Hebrews 13:8