The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?Newman, John Philip
Religion
The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?
Newman, John Philip
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines; Polygamy -- Religious aspects
the heads of our first parents and all their posterity, hence, when God
gave to Adam his wife Eve, He gave her to him as an immortal wife, and
there was no end contemplated of the relation they held to each other
as husband and wife.
By and bye, after this marriage had taken place, they transgressed the
law of God, and by reason of that transgression the penalty of death
came, not only upon them, but also upon all their posterity. Death,
in its operations, tore asunder, as it were, these two beings who had
hitherto been immortal, and if God had not, before the foundation of
the world, provided a plan of redemption, they would perhaps have been
torn asunder forever; but inasmuch as a plan of redemption had been
provided, by which man could be rescued from the effects of the Fall,
Adam and Eve were restored to that condition of union, in respect to
immortality, from which they had been separated for a short season of
time by death. The Atonement reached after them and brought forth their
bodies from the dust, and restored them as husband and wife, to all the
privileges that were pronounced upon them before the Fall.
That was eternal marriage; that was lawful marriage ordained by God.
That was the divine institution which was revealed and practised in
the early period of our globe. How has it been since that day? Mankind
have strayed from that order of things, or, at least, they have done
so in latter times. We hear nothing among the religious societies of
the world which profess to believe in the Bible about this marriage for
eternity. It is among the things which are obsolete. Now all marriages
are consummated until death only; they do not believe in that great
pattern and prototype established in the beginning; hence we never hear
of their official characters, whether civil or religious, uniting men
and women in the capacity of husband and wife as immortal beings. No,
they marry as mortal beings only, and until death does them part.
What is to become of them after death? What will take place among all
those nations who have been marrying for centuries for time only? Do
both men and women receive a resurrection? Do they come forth with all
the various affections, attributes and passions that God gave them in
the beginning? Does the male come forth from the grave with all the
attributes of a man? Does the female come forth from her grave with
all the attributes of a woman? If so, what is their future destiny?
Is there no object or purpose in this new creation save to give them
life, a state of existence? or is there a more important object in view
in the mind of God, in thus creating them anew? Will that principle
of love which exists now, and which has existed from the beginning,
exist after the resurrection? I mean this sexual love. If that existed
before the Fall, and if it has existed since then, will it exist in
the eternal worlds after the resurrection? This is a very important
question to be decided.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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