Celestial Kingdom
- "For he who is not able to abide the law of a celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory."
- 3 degrees within the celestial kingdom.
- Temple marriage necessary to enter into the highest degree.
- More detail.
- Few find exaltation.
- Joseph Smith, compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith, "Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith", pp. 106-107
- Joseph Smith's vision of the Celestial Kingdom. He sees his brother Alvin there and wonders because he was not baptized. "All who have died without a knowledge of this Gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the Celestial Kingdom of God..." (Children who die before the age of accountability are also so saved.)
Notes
One of my many idiosyncratic ideas has been that clusters of neurons behave like neurons. As a consequence of this, I assert that people are neurons, and I would further assert that angels and Gods are neurons too. From this I further conclude that Joseph Smith's emphasis on the importance of our interpersonal relationships seems profoundly reasonable, because they form the basis for a neural network which is our society, and that the ability to form and maintain healthy enduring relationships is one of the key abilities necessary to become like God, because a society free of abusive relationships is paramount to the joy and power which those in the Celestial Kingdom enjoy; that, as those in each kingdom must be able to obey the law of each Kingdom, the law of the Celestial Kingdom has a great part to do with our ability to develop trust with each other, to both trust and be trusted. (Inasmuch as our ability to establish such relationships has been found to promote both our health and happiness, an inability to establish such relationships must be a personal hell, and could easily be a great part of the reason that lesser kingdoms are described as entailing less joy.)
In Elder's Quorum one day, we were discussing the Prodigal Son and it struck me that perhaps the experience of the Prodigal Son was akin to what it might be like to earn our exaltation through completing the required ordinances, but fall short of obtaining our place with the father because we neglected to keep our covenants and destroyed the trust of those who loved us. Perhaps then, the process of paying for our sins in eternal torment will mean living as amongst those who earned their glory as one who is not accepted, until we have earned their trust, and become trustworthy, by diligence through suffering. This then might also be part of the lesson of Job and the reason why it is said that we cannot hope to qualify for exaltation until we have passed through the refiners fire and suffered even as the saints of old suffered.