
While there is much that can be said of the temple, my recognition of it as a truly divine place has increased drastically with continual study. The reason I say
truly divine is not to indicate that I didn't see it as divine before. I indeed saw it as God's house. I revered it as such. I worshipped in it as such. I truly felt that God's presence was there. However, my appreciation for the affective, personally transforming nature of the temple was sorely lacking (and not even knowingly). This newly realized purpose of the temple is reflected in the words of the Kirtland Temple dedication: "That they may
grow up in thee, and
receive a fulness of the Holy Ghost." (D&C 109:15; emphasis mine)
Fullness is always related to divinity. And fullness is always talked about in the context of the temple. Not only is the fullness of God there to be experienced, but to actually be received on an individual level. The higher ordinances of the temple are those in which we are made "kings and priests unto God and his Father." (Revelation 1:6) These higher teachings are in order to move past the milk and "go on to perfection;" (Heb. 6:1) to partake of the "strong meat" of the gospel. (see Heb. 5:12-14) M. Catherine Thomas (Ph.D., Early Christian History; Assistant Professor of Ancient Scripture, BYU) explains that the epistle to the Hebrews deals "with the upper reaches of spiritual experience and Melchizedek Priesthood temple ordinances." She notes that the epistle is "attempting to persuade the Hebrew members of the superiority of the Melchizedek law over the Aaronic" and that the author (supposedly Paul) "implies that an order of holy beings prevails in the eternal worlds that the Saints are called to enter. Christ belongs to this order as did Melchizedek."1 The references to Christ and the Melchizedek priesthood are coupled with Psalms 110:3: "in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." This psalm was "a key text for Christians," which "describes the process by which the Davidic king became the Son, the process by which a human became Yahweh."2
Analyzing this particular psalm reveals important concepts. To the early Christians, "becoming divine was described as birth."3 This idea sits well with King Benjamin's address, in which he preached that we are "spiritually begotten" through Christ, being "born of him." (Mosiah 5:7) In Ps. 110, "the Hebrew
yldtyk is ambiguous, and is usually rendered in English as ‘your youth’. The Greek translator, and thus too the early Christians, read the letters differently and understood it to mean ‘I have begotten you’,
exegénnēsá se. The place of this birth is also unclear in the Hebrew: was it ‘in glorious array’, or was it ‘on the holy mountains'...The Greek and Latin, which reflect the Christian understanding of the verse, understood that the birth took place in the glory of the holy ones, that is, amidst the angel host in the holy of holies."4 The NET Commentary recognizes that the Hebrew behind the birth's location should be rendered "the splendor of holiness," noting that "it may indicate degree or perhaps refer by metonymy to garments."5 The inclusion of garments in this spiritual rebirth would go along with the experience of Enoch: "Go and take Enoch from out of his earthly garments, and anoint him with his sweet ointment, and put him into the garments of my glory…and I [Enoch] looked at myself, and I was like one of his glorious ones."6 However, the NET also asserts that "mountains of holiness" is the better reading, seeing that this reading is "found in many medieval Hebrew mss and in some other ancient witnesses."7 Methodist scholar Margaret Barker finds that the Greek text of Ps. 110 "is a little clearer than the Hebrew: ‘In the glory of the holy ones… I have begotten you.’"8 She says, "To this translator, and so to the early Christians who used the Greek text, becoming the Melchizedek priest meant being born as the Son among the angels. In temple terms, this implies a ritual in the holy of holies, the place of the angels, in which the human became divine. The holy of holies represented the state of being that was both beyond and before the material creation, and this was where the Melchizedek priest was ‘born’...this verse described the making of the ancient Melchizedek priests who were described as Sons of God."9 This is why the Lord revealed that "you shall receive of [the Father's] fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father...And all those who are begotten through me are partakers of the glory of the same." (D&C 93:20, 22) It is in Psalm 110 that we witness "Yahweh and the human king becoming One."10
Doctrine & Covenants, Section 76 describes the inhabitants of the celestial kingdom as follows: "They are they who are
priests and kings, who have
received of his fulness, and of his glory; And are priests of the Most High, after the
order of Melchizedek, which was after the
order of Enoch, which was after the order of the
Only Begotten Son. Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods, even the
sons of God-Wherefore, all things are theirs, whether life or death, or things present, or things to come, all are theirs and they are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s...These are they who are come unto
Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly place, the
holiest of all. These are they who have come to an innumerable
company of angels, to the general assembly and church of Enoch, and of the
Firstborn...These are they who are just men made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood. These are they whose bodies are celestial, whose glory is that of the sun, even the glory of God, the highest of all, whose glory the sun of the firmament is written of as being typical." (D&C 76:56-59, 66-67, 69-70; emphasis mine) The temple, it seems, is the place where creators are indeed created and begetters are indeed begotten.11 By means of the temple, we are invited to become "heavenly beings" and members of "the council of the holy ones." (Ps. 89:6-7, NRSV)12 The Lord describes the Davidic king as the one whom "with my holy oil have I anointed...With whom my hand shall be established." (Psalms 89:20-21; the Hebrew could also be translated "with whom my hand will be firm") The Lord also says, "He shall cry unto me,
Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Also I will make him my
firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven." (Ps. 89:26-29; emphasis mine) We see here that the Davidic king was perceived as God's 'son': an idiom which "reflects ancient Near Eastern adoption language associated with covenants of grant, by which a lord would reward a faithful subject by elevating him to special status, referred to as “sonship.” Like a son, the faithful subject received an “inheritance,” viewed as an unconditional, eternal gift."13 This "Spirit of adoption" allows us to "cry, Abba, Father" just as Christ did. We become "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." (Romans 8:15, 17) Paul also stated that we "are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have
put on Christ." (Gal. 3:27; emphasis mine. Interestingly enough, "put on" is the Gk
enduo, meaning "to clothe." Joseph Smith's personal writings interchange the spellings "endowment" and "endument.") Moroni recorded that the sacramental prayer (the ritual itself being a renewal of our baptismal covenants) should include the promise to the Father that we "are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he hath given them." (Moroni 4:3) Truman G. Madsen recognized that "you are required as disciples of Christ to come once in seven days and covenant anew to take upon you the name of Jesus Christ. In the house of the Lord you come to take upon you his name in the fullest sense...We are promised that in the temple the Lord's name will be put upon us. It means at root that we become his...You are the son or daughter of a king. The Father himself. Through the ordinances you are begotten spiritually through his Son. You become heir to his throne...To receive [Christ] fully is to receive the fullness of his atonement."14 Joseph Smith taught that "being born again, comes by the Spirit of God through ordinances."15 We become sons of God by taking on the name of
the Son of God in a very real fashion. Dr. Madsen (whose love for the temple can be felt in his writings and lectures) explained, "In the temple ritual setting, names are not seen as mere labels. They mark degrees or attributes or roles in one's transformation process. They are symbolic of new births or beginnings. Thus, an individual, while retaining his identity, may take on several names as he moves through stages toward the divine."16

King Benjamin taught his people, "There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives. And it shall come to pass that whosoever doeth this shall be found at the right hand of God, for he shall know the name by which he is called; for he shall be called by the name of Christ." (Mosiah 5:8-9) This name is the embodiment of salvation, glory, and exaltation. And it is this name that we are invited to share. Rabbi Akiba ben Yossef of the 2nd century AD was considered one of the fathers of rabbinical Judaism. It is interesting to find in his writings this link between deification and sacred names: "The Holy One, blessed be He, will in the future call all of the pious
by their names, and give them a cup of elixir of life in their hands so that they should live and endure forever...And the Holy One, blessed be He, will in the future reveal to all the pious in the World to Come the
Ineffable Name with which
new heavens and a new earth can be created, so that all of them should be able to
create new worlds. The Holy One, blessed be He, will give every pious three hundred and forty worlds in
inheritance in the World to Come."17 Referring back to the Psalms, we find the Lord saying of the Davidic king, "I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers." (Ps. 89:25) This seems to allude to the king's earlier praise of the Lord: "Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces." (Ps. 89:9-10, NRSV) Job drew on this imagery when he said, "By his power [the Lord] stilled the Sea; by his understanding he struck down Rahab." (Job 26:12, NRSV) To fully understand this, we must know that Rahab is identified with Leviathan elsewhere and also within Canaanite mythology. "In [West Semitic mythology] Leviathan is a sea creature that symbolizes the destructive water of the sea and, in turn, the forces of chaos that threaten the established order. In the OT, the battle with the sea motif is applied to Yahweh’s victories over the forces of chaos at creation and in history."18 LDS author and historian Matthew B. Brown recently presented information surrounding this connection between God and the Davidic king. He finds that "in Israelite cosmology God was viewed not only as a King but it was considered that His royal status was connected with His defeat of the Chaos Monster at the time of creation. The Chaos Monster was an "insolent" serpent who dwelt in the sea and...was God's antagonistic enemy...According to Professor Nicolas Wyatt of the University of Edinburgh Psalm chapter 89 verse 25 seems to speak of the Israelite king sharing with the heavenly King in the primeval victory over chaos. 'We may even conjecture," he said, "that in an appropriate ritual, the king [of Israel] was handed the weapons of . . . [God] at this juncture in the liturgy.'"19 Here we see that the power and tools of creation are passed to those who become kings, priests, and sons of God.

The temple is where we enter into the realms of deity. It is where the divine nature within us all is given the light, knowledge, and holiness needed to grow. It is where the children of God are nurtured to maturity, seeing that exaltation is "fundamentally about a process of human growth and progress...All persons who come into this world possess already the capacity to grow up and become just like their Heavenly Parents—with all the same powers and abilities. But, as with the children we see every day, this growth and progress can only take place in radical dependence on the love and grace of God the Father, by freely accepting his "great plan of happiness," a plan whose heart and center is the person of Jesus Christ, whose atonement then enables us to attain the full measure of our existence—to become a god."20 To partake of Christ's atonement is to partake of Christ; to become at-one with Christ and the Father: "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us...I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one." (John 17:21, 23) The ordinances of the temple have the ability to channel the power of the atonement. They make it possible for Christ to "seal you his, that you may be brought to heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life." (Mosiah 5:15) Worship in the temple requires that we "putteth off the natural man" in both literal and symbolic ways (i.e. the removal of street clothes) and "becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord." (Mosiah 3:19; keep in mind that "saint" comes from the Latin
sanctus, meaning "holy, consecrate, set apart." This is applied to both Greek and Hebrew words for "holy ones" in the biblical texts) This sanctifying and exalting atonement confirms "that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent" (Mosiah 3:17) According to the 3rd century Gnostic text
The Gospel of Philip, the one who receives the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost "is no longer a Christian but a Christ;"21 literally a
christos or "anointed one." We take on His name that we might become what He
is.

As late as the 4th century AD, Athanasius of Alexandria (one of the leading theologians behind the Nicene Creed, ironically) taught, "For [the Son of God] has become Man, that He might deify us in Himself...that we may become henceforth a holy race, and 'partakers of the Divine Nature,' as blessed Peter wrote."22 The temple literally bears the Lord's name with the inscription THE HOUSE OF THE LORD. Then, to emphasize the state of such a place, it reads HOLINESS TO THE LORD. May we understand the implication of this statement. The Lord's name rests upon this sacred place. Those that enter into it are to "be holy, even as [He] is holy." (Lev. 11:45) Those that covenant within it are called "[His] people" because they are "willing to bear [His] name; for in [His] name shall they be called; and they are [His]." (Mosiah 26:17-18) Then, in our "celestial condition...the glorious privilege of priesthood, parenthood, and godhood" will "come together as one." Exaltation (including the doctrine of eternal families) as a child of God is "the crowning ordinance of the house of God" and is therefore "the crowning truth of the gospel."23

1. M. Catherine Thomas, "Hebrews: To Ascend the Holy Mount,"
Temples of the Ancient World: Ritual and Symbolism, 1994
2. Margaret Barker, "Who Was Melchizedek and Who Was His God?" Temple Studies Group Symposium, St. Stephen's House, Oxford, 8 Nov. 2008
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Commentary on Ps. 110:3, tc3,
New English Translation, 2005
6. 2 Enoch 22:8-9
7. Commentary on Ps. 110:3,
NET, 2005
8. Barker, "Who Was Melchizedek and Who Was His God?" 2008
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. "And again, 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...[they] shall come forth in the first resurrection...and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths...and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads,
which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever...Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them." (D&C 132:19-20; emphasis mine) Daniel O. McClellan (BA, Ancient Near Eastern Studies; currently pursuing master of studies in Jewish Studies at Oxford) has also written on the procreating powers of gods: "As in early Syria-Palestine, theogony plays a central role in Mesopotamian literature. Several titles address the creation of heaven and earth as well as of other gods. In some epithets, and even some prose, the procreative aspect of this creation is explicit. Anu is described in one text as inseminating the heavens, which then gives birth to the earth...It is clear that creation and procreation were often conceived of as synonyms." See "
The Assyro-Babylonian Context for qoneh as 'Begetter'" at
Maklelan: Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Other Stuff blog. On a more spiritual, philosophical note, Truman G. Madsen stated, "The Savior said that he came that men might have life, and have it more abundantly. Life, abundant life, is pluralized in the teachings of Joseph Smith as "eternal lives"...It is the creative life. It is lodged in the cry of ancient Israelite fathers and mothers: "Give me children, or I die." This is the life of creation and procreation." See source #14. Fertility is a major temple theme.
12. "Heavenly beings" is rendered from the Hebrew
bene 'elim, literally
"sons of God." In an article dedicated to the textual criticism of Deuteronomy 32, Evangelical scholar Michael S. Heiser explains, "The texts...are all the more convincing once the Ugaritic terminology for the divine council is compared with the vocabulary of biblical Hebrew. Such a comparison yields both semantic congruences and exact philological equivalents...The members of the assembly at Ugarit are unambiguously classified as ‘ilm ("gods"), bn ‘il ("sons of El"), and bn’ ilm ("sons of the gods"). Specifically in the Keret Epic the Canaanite chief deity El sits at the head of the assembly and four times he addresses its members as either) 'ilm ("gods") or bny ("my sons")." See Heiser, "Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God,"
Bibliotecha Sacra 158 (January-March 2001)
13. Commentary on Ps. 89:26, 1sn, NET, 2005
14. Madsen, "The Temple & the Atonement," Abridged from a lecture delivered in Saratoga, California, October 16, 1994
15.
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., 1938
16. Madsen, "Putting on the Names: A Jewish-Christian Legacy,"
By Study and Also By Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, 1990
17. Midrash Alpha beta diRabbi Akiba BhM 3:32 (emphasis mine)
18. Commentary on Ps. 74:14, 1sn, NET, 2005
19. Brown, "The Israelite Temple and the Early Christians," FAIR Conference 2008. Brown further explains in connection to the temple, "But since the implication of Proverbs 8:27 is that the Lord overcame chaos by inscribing a circular boundary upon the sea it is just as logical to conclude that during the Israelite king's enthronement he was handed not a weapon, but rather the implied instrument used by the Lord to conquer chaos—an architect's compass."
20. Jordan Vadja, "'Partakers of the Divine Nature': A Comparative Analysis of Patristic and Mormon Doctrines of Divinization," Master's Thesis, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, 1998. It should be noted that Vadja wrote this while serving as a Dominican Catholic priest. He has since joined the Church.
21. "The Gospel of Philip,"
The Nag Hammadi Library, James M. Robinson, ed., 1990
22. Athanasius, Letter 60, to Adelphius. In relation to the development of the Trinity, Christopher Stead in
Divine Substance (1977) recognizes that the Greek
homoousios ("same substance") can simply mean "made of the same...kind of stuff."
23. Madsen, "The Temple & the Atonement"