My View on the Eternal Nature of Marriage and Family

by: Norberto Betita

At the Manila Philippines Temple - December 13, 1986

There is and will always be a great difference of the world’s views and the Lord’s doctrines of marriage and family. Logic and reason could not fully explain, nor could it lead us to some conclusive evidences that would prove the eternal truths of God, beyond reasonable doubts. It is by the Spirit that we obtain a desire to believe. And after we obtained a hope in Christ, then we shall understand and know the truths of God if we seek them by study and also by faith.

As a Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and in my limited mental capacity, I made an experiment on the words of God, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, I have come to know the truth of this doctrine on marriage and family, and many other truths that I desired to know.

I thought that even if I will have to live a hundred or a thousand years of a poverty stricken life on earth, living and obeying the commandments of God, and performing all the necessary ordinances required for exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom of God, that I would so willingly do according to the limits of my human nature. At least I have one sure hope for an everlasting life and happiness with my loved ones. I have all to gain and nothing to loss, for if these things do not exist, I would be like the rest of humanity. But if these truths do exist, and I believe by the power of the Holy Ghost that these do exist, then together with my family and all those who share in my belief, we will have the opportunity to live with God in His eternal sphere of existence.

Early in life, even before I married, I treasured the words in Matthew 19:5-6, “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife and they two shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” My understanding of these verses was perhaps similar to the many logical beliefs, that no divorce, annulment or whatever processes should separate a man and a woman under covenant to live for better or for worse till death do they part. In my marriage, I carried the same conviction and promised to be true to my wife until death would separate us. However, as I become converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and grow in maturity and spiritual progress, I came to a deeper and clearer understanding of the doctrine of the eternal nature of marriage and family. I understood that marriages and family relationships are intended to last forever, that even death never have power to separate a man and a woman and their children who loved each other and bound by an eternal covenant performed by the sealing power of the Holy Priesthood of God in His Holy House.

‘Many people consider marriage only to be a social custom, a legal agreement between a man and a woman to live together’ for life. But I believe that ‘marriage is the most sacred relationship that can exist between a man and a woman, and affects our happiness now and in the eternities’ (Gospel Principles Chapter 28). This knowledge even added my love and faithfulness to my wife and family.

John the Beloved said, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it know him not. Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him: for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)

At the Cebu Philippines Temple

If we are God’s sons and daughters as has been described many times in the canon of scriptures, and by our faith and works are purified through the atonement of Jesus Christ, receiving the sanctifying ordinances of salvation in His Holy House, therefore we are heirs of all that the Father has, even His powers, dominions and kingdom. And, as has been promised to Abraham, our seeds will continue forever and ever.

This knowledge of the revealed truths of God motivates me to place my wife and family in highest veneration and make them my utmost priority.

When I knelt at the holy altar at the sealing room of the Manila Philippines Temple with my wife and Children, I was filled with excitement being in the House of the Lord for the first time.  In such a hallowed setting my wife and I were again pronounced as husband and wife, no longer till death, but for time and all eternity, and our children sealed to us forever by an ordinance of the Holy Priesthood. Then as we stood together between the mirrors of eternity in that holy room after the sealing ordinance for our family, I saw the unbroken and unending reflections of our most happy glowing faces, notwithstanding tear-filled eyes. It was in such a most solemn moment in our family life that I understood best the meaning of the eternal nature of marriage and family more than any words or phrase could explain. My thoughts did go beyond the bounds of mortality to the glorious promise of eternity for me and my family to be united together to live forever and ever.