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CHRISTINE77
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That’s what I was afraid of. Even the geneology records aren’t very reliable. I wouldn’t go to that site to research my ancestry.
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ParkerD
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Christine,
Yes.
Joseph F. Smith, the son of Hyrum Smith, was the president of the LDS church when he had a vision of the spirit world and learned more details about Christ’s visit there to begin the teaching of the gospel in the spirit world as had been explained by Peter in his first epistle.
This vision of Joseph F. Smith is explained in D & C 138, which concludes with the following concepts:
58 The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God,
59 And after they have paid the penalty of their transgressions, and are washed clean, shall receive a reward according to their works, for they are heirs of salvation.
60 Thus was the vision of the redemption of the dead revealed to me, and I bear record, and I know that this record is true, through the blessing of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, even so. Amen.
You will remember that the LDS belief is that only a few souls remain in “Outer Darkness” (meaning the spirit world place of punishment for sins and for rejecting Christ) at the end of the Millenium. There will be a merciful rescue from that place of torment for those who finally confess their sins and bow the knee in acceptance of the atoning mercy of Jesus Christ. Their torment will have seemed never-ending (think of over a thousand years of torment), but their rescue was promised by Christ in Isaiah 61:1-3 which Christ Himself quoted in the Jewish synagogue at the beginning of His ministry.
Part of that rescue will require being “washed clean” through an authorized baptism by immersion on earth of someone in their behalf, and also receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost since they will dwell eternally in a place where they have the presence of the Holy Ghost with them. This is a conditional salvation, with no Personal presence of God but also without the torment of their guilt from sin forever. Christ’s love and forgiveness extends to even them, but it is not a way I would want to participate in getting there and not a place I would want to eventually receive. There are much more glorious places than that, for those willing to repent and change their lives during this mortal life.
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Janet1983
Guest
I wouldn’t either… I do know however that my father in law for example has very extensive records, mostly not prepared by himself, but someone in his family (before the internet).
In comparison to the chaos that you’ll find online that was rather reliable and started several generations back. In the way he does it all he has to do is add his information on to it because the information of people before him was already stated.
They got their information from everywhere including the census and contact with local registers in Germany (his great-grandfather was an immigrant as well as his great-great grandfather). Through diaries, authorities, lists of soldiers, etc.
A friend of mine in Britain actually used a professional to trace back his ancestry and found out that he is related to Charlemagne… That was way before the internet was publicly used too… A cousin of my grandmother visited her about 15 years ago, introduced himself and showed her a genealogy that was several hundred pages long and went back into the mid-18th century. He did use reliable methods too, by just going into the archives and finding the birth records. My grandmothers great-grandmother actually had 21 children… (Well during that day and age there was a high infant mortality too however.) One of her children moved from a region that was Germany back then (and is now Belgium) to the village I grew up ion and stayed there…
If you put enough effort into it (and that is what Mormons and non-Mormons who are interested do) you will certainly be able to get the material together and leave it for those who come after you to look into it and add their information to it.
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CHRISTINE77
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Thanks Parker - so Outer Darkness really isn’t Hell then? Is is more like Catholic Purgatory. Because it sounds like after a period of cleansing, a person can enter Heaven. However, in Catholicism, once you are cast into Hell, it’s forever. Is there a parallel for Catholic Hell in the LDS church?
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zerinus
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Your question isn’t very clear. We believe it is possible to repent in the spirit world (after being duly punished for the sins committed, and not repented of, in this world). There is only one sin that is not forgivable in this world or the next, and that is the sin against the Holy Ghost. Now when you say “a really bad person,” how “bad” did you thinking him to be?! As long as he has not committed the unpardonable sin, he can still repent and be forgiven, and the vicarious ordinance of baptism can help save him.
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CHRISTINE77
Guest
I agree. My great uncle on my father’s side traced our ancestry way back in history. They were all Methodists and Lutherans (Norweigans). My mother’s side is much more difficult to trace because they came from Sicily and the records are very scant, for example birthdays are wrong, names different. I have some info from the Ellis Island website, but I’m afraid that the documents just don’t exist very far back. That’s the difference between Sicilians and Norweigans! Anyway on my mom’s side they were ALL Catholic I am absolutely sure. Not a Mormon among them. Neither on my Dad’s!
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CHRISTINE77
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I’m thinking like a mass murderer or a child murderer or something equally evil. I’m sure you can imagine.
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ParkerD
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Christine,
It seems pretty important to understand that the term “Heaven” as used in the Bible can mean the “Third Heaven” mentioned by Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:2 which is the “Heaven” described in Revelation 21:1-3 (which LDS would describe as exaltation in the Celestial kingdom to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in extended and sealed family relationships), or it can mean the pre-mortal life where spirits lived in the presence of God and waited to come to earth (Revelation 12:7 is an example), or it can mean simply a kingdom of glory in the hereafter (Telestial, Terrestrial, or Celestial).
Telestial Glory–The relief from being in “Hell” will be no doubt such a feeling of rescue that those who receive that rescue will feel tremendous gratitude to the Savior, but they will also feel tremendous regret that they will not be in the presence of Jesus Christ nor have the close association of their loved ones. The kind of “glory” they receive will depend on how they lived their life using the knowledge and understanding they had. This is not one place, but many thousands of different places with different levels of “light” like the stars differ as we look at them.
Terrestrial Glory–The loving presence of Jesus Christ. A second level of Heaven, with joy but not a fullness of joy.
Celestial Glory–The loving and glorified presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, with a fullness of joy.
Those who have completely rejected Christ’s offering of rescue from punishment and torment because they side with Satan will remain in Hell eternally. (Revelation 20:10 and John 17:12) They are the sons of perdition.
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amontoya
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I noticed that St. Elizabeth’s information was very disjointed. What I mean, is that it appears that all of her family’s “ordinances” have been done, but the names aren’t connected in the “pedigrees” or “family charts.” In a good genealogy, I would be able to see, at least, all of her children, siblings, and parents, but I had to type in each name, individually, to see a record of them. If I didn’t already know about her family, I wouldn’t have learned about them from this database.
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benidict
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how true. doesnt concern me much, but if true i hope they found him a decent wife!
sorry i couldnt help myself! no direspect to my mormon friends. i hope yall have a sense of humor.
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CHRISTINE77
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Okay Parker, I guess my question is: If a son of perdition is baptized after death, will it do him any good? And how do you know if you are baptizing or sealing a dead son of perdition to a wife? Do you have some kind of moral knowledge of the person who is baptized after death? Do you know if he was a son of perdition or not? And if you know, how do you know?
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kalt
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If the site is listing a sham baptism and fake husband, why would we rely on any other information from that source, even if it were easy to find?
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zerinus
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Committing murder or “shedding innocent blood” is included in the unpardonable sin (see Alma 39:5; D&C 42:79). But all killing does not necessarily fall into that category. There are some tribes in Africa who kill each other for sport! They think that is good fun! They don’t know any better. That is not in the same category as someone who kidnaps a child and murders him. God decides who has committed the unpardonable sin.
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CHRISTINE77
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If God decides, how do living people know who’s baptizable after death?
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ParkerD
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Christine,
Those are good questions. A son of perdition would mean that someone had the complete knowledge by the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, meaning the Anointed One Who was chosen in the pre-mortal council in heaven because of His love and perfection and complete unified agreement with Heavenly Father’s plan, to become the Savior for all of us who come to earth. Having received that knowledge, when a person rejects that knowledge and fights against everything Jesus represents and joins Satan in open defiance, then they are a son of perdition. So this would mean they either did that fighting in the pre-mortal life and still do it as evil spirits who never gain a body, or they have been given the Holy Ghost in this life and progress to receive full understanding, and then openly rebel and defy Christ and fight against Heavenly Father’s plan.
So as for mortals, only those would qualify who had the full gospel while they lived on earth, and they would have been baptized in order to have received the Holy Ghost, then they would have had to qualify to receive a complete testimony by revelation that Jesus is the Christ, and later reject that testimony and rebel against it. So if records have been kept or are later restored to the earth during the Millenium about everyone who has ever lived, then such a person would have been baptized so no temple work would be done for them. But if it were done in error for someone who had already been baptized while they lived and who became a son of perdition, then the temple ordinance would be absolutely void and mean nothing.
Those who committed the kind of grievous sins you cited earlier, if they did not completely repent and completely change their behavior during mortal life through sincere repentance, will suffer the horrible suffering of Hell, then after their resurrection if they were not a son of perdition they will have been rescued from spirit prison and torment, but will have what one might call a p(name removed by moderator)rick of light and glory and will have no loved ones around them and will have received a just recompense for the evil that they did.
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CHRISTINE77
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Thanks Parker for your very thorough reply. I must say, your religion is an amazingly forgiving one!
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why_me
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The point Anna is that for Mormons, god’s will trumps the people who think that proxy baptisms are disrespectful. Mormons take their cue from revelation and from what it says in I Corinth. about baptism for the dead.
But since Mormons believe that they belong to the true church of christ, and since mormons believe in modern revelation, god’s will needs to be obeyed. Thus, mormon relatives will do the work for their ancestors.
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why_me
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The mormon hell is rather empty. And that would make sense. And most will inherit a kingdom of glory.Thanks Parker for your very thorough reply. I must say, your religion is an amazingly forgiving one!
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zerinus
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In LDS doctrine hell is a place of punishment in the afterlife. How long you stay there, and what degree of punishment you receive, depends on the nature of the sin committed. It is like going to jail here on earth. Some jail terms are forever. It is called a life sentence. Others are of a shorter duration. Some jail terms come with “hard labor,” and some don’t. When we die, our spirits go to the spirit world where they await the resurrection. In the spirit world we can be happy or unhappy depending on how we lived our lives in this world. That unhappy condition is variously called “hell,” and “outer darkness”. After that there is the resurrection and a final judgment. The wicked will be assigned to hell and the righteous to heaven. In LDS theology hell can be permanent or temporary depending on the nature of the sin for which one is being punished.
Mormon doctrine is different from Catholic with regard to heaven too. To you heaven is all one place. To us heaven is graded. You receive the reward in heaven that you are worthy of—or the punishment in hell that one deserves. Neither heaven nor hell is all one place.
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CHRISTINE77
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Thanks Zerinus - this is very informative. I still think it’s kind of interesting about the waiting period in Purgatory for Catholics and Hell for Mormons, both are sort of like a jail term. In Catholicism, other Catholics can pray for their loved ones who may or may not be in Purgatory. Can living Mormons make any intercession for their dead loved ones who may or may not be in Hell?
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