Question: Does D&C 132 state that polygamy is required for our exaltation?

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Question: Does D&C 132 state that polygamy is required for our exaltation?

The verse that is cited as supporting this cannot be logically read as a support of polygamy being required for exaltation

Some critics have claimed that D&C 132:4 supports the notion that polygamy is required for exaltation in the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The text reads as follows:

For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory

There are a number of problems with the assumption that this supports polygamy. The following points should demonstrate the appropriate context and thus provide a better exegesis of the relevant passages:

• An 1831 revelation through Joseph Smith defines the everlasting covenant as “the fulness of my gospel, sent forth unto the children of men, that they might have life and be made partakers of the glories which are to be revealed in the last days” (D&C 66:2; see also 133:57). All mortal who inherit celestial glory will enter into this covenant (D&C 76:101; D&C 131:2), which is comprised of bonds that cannot be broken (D&C 78:11).

• The everlasting covenant existed even before the world was organized. “Wherefore, I say unto you that I have sent unto you mine everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning” (D&C 49:9; italics added). From the beginning, God has made covenants with mortals on earth and as they comply with them, they are blessed with exaltation (D&C 6:1, 14:7, 132:23). Compliance begins with baptism (D&C 22:1-4) and is completed through temple ordinances including eternal marriage sealings (D&C 131:2, 132:4, 18-20).

• The Lord's pattern is to reveal the everlasting covenant to believers on earth. Then, when it is lost through apostasy, He reveals it again to a living prophet as a “new” covenant. That prophet is authorized to teach and is given priesthood authority to administer the requisite ordinances. Joseph Smith taught “…in all ages of the world, whenever the Lord has given a dispensation of the priesthood to any man by actual revelation, or any set of men, this power has always been given” (D&C 128:9).

• The scriptures indicate that this covenant was made with Adam (Moses 6:54-55), Enoch (JST Genesis 9:21-23, 13:13), Noah (Genesis 9:16), Abraham (Genesis 17:7, 13, 19), Jacob (1 Chronicles 16:17), and Moses and the Children of Israel (Leviticus 24:8, Numbers 25:13, Jeremiah 32:40). Although Christ came in the meridian of time, He is the mediator of this covenant (Hebrews 13:20). Joseph Smith taught that the everlasting covenant would be reestablished through him (D&C 1:17-22; see also 15) “to be a light to the world, and to be a standard for my people, and for the Gentiles to seek to it, and to be a messenger before my face to prepare the way before me” (D&C 42:9).

• The first public references to the new and everlasting covenant of marriage came in May 1843 when the Prophet taught that “[w]e have no claim in our eternal comfort in relation to eternal things unless our actions and contracts and all things tend to this end.” Then two months later, on July 16, he became more specific. According to William Clayton, “He [Joseph Smith] showed that a man must enter into an everlasting covenant with his wife [notice the use of the singular] in this world or he will have no claim on her in the next.”

• The verses surrounding verse 4 explain that once the covenant is revealed to a people, this covenant must be obeyed—that is, once the sealing ordinance is introduced among God’s followers on earth, they must marry according to that covenant or incur divine condemnation. The revelation reads:

4 For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.

5 For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world.

6 And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.

• Later verses in the revelation demonstrate that the “covenant” that must be obeyed is eternal marriage, not plural marriage. Verse 19 promises exaltation to a man who marries a wife monogamously by proper authority and they live worthily. The threat of damnation in these verses is directed at individuals who have the opportunity to be sealed in eternal marriage, but instead choose a civil union or some other form of matrimony. They are “damned” in the sense that they “remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity” (D&C 132:17) and are not married in the next life. This threat of eternal consequences is similar to that accompanying other covenants and ordinances. For example, a person cannot reject baptism when the opportunity is presented and thereafter expect a second chance to accept it without penalties (see Alma 34:33-35; D&C 45:2).

• The revelation further explains how a husband and “a wife” will be exalted if they are sealed by proper authority and they live worthily: “Verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, . . . [it] shall be of full force when they are out of the world; and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things” (D&C 132:19). Modern polygamists are all condemned because their marriages are not authorized. See D&C 132:18, 38.

Verse 19 does make use of the indefinite article "a wife" instead of a possessive pronoun (i.e. "his wife") or the definite article (i.e. "the wife" which wouldn't make sense grammatically), but that can simply be because both monogamous and polygamous marriages are in harmony with the covenant.

What all of these points should demonstrate is that the covenant of eternal marriage was necessary for exaltation and not specifically polygamous sealings.

D&C 132 itself says that a man must marry a wife "by [God's] word, which is his law". Thus, it is likely that plural marriage was necessary for exaltation when commanded (and exaltation would be an appropriate reward for keeping such an extremely difficult commandment) and it is not necessary for exaltation now since the commandment was rescinded by the Lord's word to his prophet Wilford Woodruff in 1890.

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