hey guys, so if you're familiar with latter-day Saint temple practices you're
probably aware that important temple ceremonies like the endowment, have
undergone various changes throughout the years, considering our belief that the
endowment was received by revelation from God some people wonder if it's okay
that changes have been made. Let's talk about it.
So the idea that the endowment ceremony should never change in any way because
it was revealed by God exhibits a bit of a misunderstanding of what revelation is
and how it is received. Isaiah outlined an extremely important principle: the
word of the lord was unto them precept upon precept ... line upon line; here a
little and there a little and we see this kind of revelation all over the
place in scripture. The Jaredite barges, Peter's revelation about missionary work,
Nephi's vision of the Tree of Life, Joseph Smith received the temple
endowment through a similar gradual piece-by-piece process. That process
implies a progression of changes, adjustments and modifications. In fact,
after the first endowment was administered in May 1842 Joseph told
Brigham Young: Brother Brigham, this is not arranged right. But we've done the
best [we] could under the circumstances in which we are placed and I wish you to
take this matter in hand and organize and systematize all these ceremonies. In
other words, Joseph knew from the beginning that future changes would need
to be made. He knew things weren't exactly as they should be and that was
fine. That's how a restoration works it; it takes time you do your best and the Lord
keeps you pointed in the right direction. Sometimes I think we humans in many ways
are like bowling balls and God sort of acts as the bumpers as we seek to
discover His will. Sometimes we wish we could just fly straight down the middle
and nail that strike, but in reality we often follow a jagged path bouncing back
and forth between the bumpers until we finally end up somewhere acceptable to
God. And so as time goes on the church continues to make course corrections as
needed, most past adjustments have been quite minor there's a lot of instruction
that goes on in the endowment and as the culture of teaching and learning has
changed over the decades changes have been made to reflect that. But there also
have been more substantial changes made as we've come to a better understanding
of the purpose of the covenants we make there. For example, for a long time Saints
would covenant to pray that God would avenge the blood of the prophets it was
added in a time when the Saints were heavily persecuted and frankly ready to
fight back I
think this covenant reminded the Saints in a very sacred setting that vengeance
belongs only to the Lord. It was ultimately based on revelation 6 I saw
under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for
the testimony which they held and they cried with a loud voice saying how long
O Lord holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell
on the earth unfortunately documentation of early
temple ceremonies is scant. Impossible perhaps the archives are incomplete. Some
people say the oath of vengeance called for the Saints themselves to avenge the
prophets, which is obviously contrary to everything the gospel is about but
because the ceremony wasn't even written down until 1877, we don't know, but it's
certainly possible that the wording of this covenant could have varied at
different times and/or there may have been some misunderstanding among the
saints. Whatever the case may be, it was not a covenant essential to exaltation
and was removed from the ceremony about a hundred years ago. Some elements of
Freemasonry Joseph adopted for the endowment for various reasons were also
dropped as masonry as a teaching tool ran its course for our membership. For
example, the five points of fellowship were removed as well as some symbolic
penalties associated with breaking certain temple commitments. The imagery
of those penalties was quite graphic compared to the rest of the temple you
were essentially saying I'd rather die than reveal certain things about the
temple. They were basically the equivalent of saying cross my heart and
hope to die. Nobody actually dies for breaking those commitments but those
penalties were removed because they understandably made people uncomfortable
and weren't essential. The First Presidency recently reminded us details
associated with temple work have been adjusted periodically prophets have
taught that there will be no end to such adjustments as directed by the Lord to
his servants. Back in 2014, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave us another reminder:
Sometimes, we think of the restoration of the gospel as something that is complete,
already behind us. Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he
received priesthood keys, the church was organized. In reality, the
restoration is an ongoing process; we are living in it right now. It includes all
that God has revealed, all that he does now revea,l and the many and important
things that He will yet reveal. Hopefully that answers some of your questions, make
sure to check out the resources in the description and have a great day.