Digital Only
Meeting Jesus Christ in the House of the Lord
From a devotional address given to students at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA, on October 10, 2023. To find the full address, visit speeches.byu.edu.
Gratefully, even though we are imperfect, we are invited as His guests into His house.
President Russell M. Nelson described the importance of temples and all that happens in them with these words:
“The temple lies at the center of strengthening our faith and spiritual fortitude because the Savior and His doctrine are the very heart of the temple. Everything taught in the temple, through instruction and through the Spirit, increases our understanding of Jesus Christ. …
“… Everything we believe and every promise God has made to His covenant people come together in the temple.”
Our Father in Heaven has always wanted and planned for a sacred space where He could instruct and make covenants with His children. Certainly we can seek and receive God’s guidance and help from virtually any location, but there is something unique about those spaces that God has both declared to be His own and sanctified by His presence.
The Garden of Eden was such a space—a space selected, planted, and beautified by God (see Genesis 2:8, 15–18) and a place of both instruction and covenants for Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve spoke face-to-face with the Father and the Son in the garden, were taught about the Father’s plan for His children, and were sealed together as husband and wife for eternity (see Genesis 2:21–24; Moses 3:20–25). Prior to being required to leave the garden to face the challenges of mortality and the constant attacks of the adversary, each was given a coat of skins—or, as we would call it today, a garment (see Genesis 3:21; Moses 4:27). The significance of the giving of a garment by God to His covenant children and the receiving and wearing of that garment by His covenant children should not be considered ordinary. It is a most sacred exchange.
In our day the Lord appeared as a resurrected and glorified being in the Kirtland Temple after its dedication and declared, “For behold, I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here; and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house” (Doctrine and Covenants 110:7).
Since “God is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Mormon 9:9), I am confident that the Lord also accepts all His temples today. Gratefully, even though we are imperfect, we are invited as His guests into His house. He extends this invitation to us again and again, and if we accept it, it will—as promised by President Nelson—bless our lives “in ways nothing else can.” We should want to enter His house often because Jesus Christ is anxious to meet with us there.
Thankfully, the blessings available to us through Christ’s Atonement make it possible for all of us to be prepared to enter the house of the Lord. There will be opposition to any such plan because, as President Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) said, “Temples are the very center of the spiritual strength of the Church. We should expect that the adversary will try to interfere with us … as we seek to participate in this sacred and inspired work” and come to know the Savior in a more intimate and sacred way in His house.
I have learned over the years, however, that just attending the temple is not enough. Something needs to happen to us because of our spending time in the house of the Lord. We need to leave His house different than when we entered, but that result is not always easy to achieve.
Fully Benefit from the Temple Experience
Several years ago I read a book titled The Temple: Where Heaven Meets Earth, written by the late Truman G. Madsen, who spent much of his life studying about the ordinances and covenants of the temple. In that book, Brother Madsen identified three things that he felt at one time prevented him from fully benefiting from the temple experience.
1. Study the Scriptures about the Temple
The first challenge he identified as preventing him from fully recognizing and receiving the unique blessings of the house of the Lord—or, as the great patriarch Jacob described it, “the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:17)—was that he had never made the effort to “carefully read the scriptures about the temple.”
I too have learned that the best source of insight and understanding about the temple comes from a careful, temple-focused study of the scriptures. For example, let me share three scriptures that might help you gain a greater appreciation for the significance of the anointing that occurs in the temple:
1. “And [Moses] poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron’s head, and anointed him, to sanctify him” (Leviticus 8:12).
2. “Then Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon [Saul’s] head …, and said, … the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with [the company of prophets], and shalt be turned into another man” (1 Samuel 10:1, 6; see also verse 5).
3. “Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed [David] in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13).
For those who are seeking to understand and connect with temple ordinances in a more meaningful way, spend more time reading the scriptures that talk about the temple and temple ordinances. If you do, you will be amazed what the Lord will reveal to you. After all, He is a God who has promised to reveal “all things pertaining to [His] kingdom” to His covenant children (Doctrine and Covenants 76:7).
2. Sacrifice Your Sins on the Altars of the Temple
The second problem that Brother Madsen identified was that he was “afflicted with various kinds of unworthiness and not too anxious to change all that.” The Lord has declared the following: “I give unto you … a commandment that you … sanctify yourselves; yea, purify your hearts, and cleanse your hands and your feet before me, that I may make you clean” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:74).
President Henry B. Eyring has taught that “if you or I should go to the temple insufficiently pure, we would not be able to see, by the power of the Holy Ghost, the spiritual teaching about the Savior that we can receive in the temple.” So repentance is essential to temple revelation, and temple revelation is essential to the change that we all should experience from meeting Jesus Christ in the temple.
Weekly participation in the ordinance of the sacrament can also help us become and remain clean. When we partake of the sacrament worthily, we renew among other covenants the baptismal covenant, and the Lord renews the cleansing that occurred when we were born of the water and of the Spirit. I believe that approaching the sacrament with greater reverence is essential if we desire to become more worthy of temple revelation.
The two covenant moments, that of the sacrament and the temple, are inextricably connected. Both point us toward the Savior and His atoning sacrifice. If we listen to the Spirit as we partake of the sacrament, it will whisper to our spirits what it is that we need to change to benefit more fully from our time in the temple. When that happens, we have two choices. We can seek to cover our sins as Adam and Eve sought to cover their nakedness with fig leaves (see Genesis 3:7), or we can do as the father of King Lamoni did and “give away” (Alma 22:18) all those sins the Spirit has called to our attention. Being willing to sacrifice our sins—to effectively place them on the altars of the temple—can result in our having the same experience in the house of the Lord that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had in the Kirtland Temple when the Lord declared, “Behold, your sins are forgiven you; you are clean before me; therefore, lift up your heads and rejoice” (Doctrine and Covenants 110:5).
3. Seek the Spirit to Understand What the Lord Is Trying to Teach You through Symbols
The third obstacle Brother Madsen identified was that he “had a built-in hostility to ritual and to symbolism.” It is OK to admit that when we first experienced the ordinances of the temple, the ritual and symbolic aspects of the ordinances were a little confusing and may have made us feel a little uncomfortable. But that initial reaction doesn’t mean we should abandon our efforts to understand what it is the Lord is trying to teach us or, more importantly, bestow upon us. As President Nelson taught, “If you don’t yet love to attend the temple, go more often—not less.” And, I would add, along with increasing your frequency, go to the temple seeking the Savior.
The Lord has declared that “this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God.
“Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest” (Doctrine and Covenants 84:19–20; see also verses 21–22).
The beautiful symbolic aspects of temple ordinances can help us understand and feel the literal power of godliness inherent in those ordinances. They are not of recent vintage but rather were “ordained and prepared [by the Lord] before the foundation of the world” (Doctrine and Covenants 128:5). As Orson F. Whitney of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught, “God teaches with symbols; it is his favorite method of teaching.”
If we invite the Spirit into our hearts and minds, I testify that we will discover that the ritual and symbolic aspects of the temple ordinances are in fact very familiar to us, and we will recognize that the power of godliness that flows into our lives as we honor them ensures our ability to return and dwell in the presence of our Father in Heaven. As President Nelson counseled: “The temple endowment was given by revelation. Thus, it is best understood by revelation, vigorously sought with a pure heart.”
4. Seek Jesus Christ While Participating in Temple Ordinances
I would like to add my own fourth mistake that too many of us make when we come to worship in the temple. We too often ignore the reality that all the symbolism in the temple points us toward Jesus Christ, His Atonement, and His role in “bring[ing] to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). Perhaps that is why the Lord declared to the Prophet Joseph Smith “that all the incomings of thy people, into this house, may be in the name of the Lord;
“That all their outgoings from this house may be in the name of the Lord” (Doctrine and Covenants 109:17–18; see also verse 19).
Many of the challenges people have with not feeling what they want to feel in the temple stem from their failure to seek the Lord while participating in temple ordinances. He is why we come to the temple. He is who our Father in Heaven desires us to meet in the temple. He is at the center of every symbol, every ordinance, every covenant, and every hoped-for blessing in the temple. Seeking Christ in the temple enables us to understand why we are in the temple and why we should return.
In his epistle to the Hebrews, Paul declared the following with reference to gaining access to the most holy part of the ancient temple:
“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
“By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh” (Hebrews 10:19–20).
John provided further clarity to this scripture when he quoted Jesus as stating that “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). When we stand at the veil of the temple, He who is our advocate with the Father symbolically stands between us and the Father, saying:
“Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified;
“Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life” (Doctrine and Covenants 45:4–5).
The moment when we symbolically access God’s presence through the veil helps us appreciate why Joseph Smith taught that “we need the Temple more than anything else.”
Faithfully Honor and Wear the Temple Garment
Anciently, sacred clothing was worn to help God’s covenant children to “remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes” (Numbers 15:39). It is no different today. What an amazing, sacred moment it is to be given a garment while in the house of the Lord, with all its symbolic meaning—the most important of which is a remembrance of the Savior’s sacrifice in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross and His glorious Resurrection. “The temple garment is a physical reminder of sacred promises [we] have made with [our] Heavenly Father, and it reminds [us] of the blessings [we] can receive if [we] honor [our] commitments.” The garment also helps us to honor the sacramental covenant to “always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given [us]; that [we] may always have his Spirit to be with [us]” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:77).
President Nelson taught something very profound about the temple garment that he gave me permission to share: “Your garment is symbolic of the veil [of the temple]; the veil is symbolic of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when you put on your garment, you may feel that you are truly putting upon yourself the very sacred symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ—His life, His ministry, and His mission, which was to atone for every daughter and son of God.”
We find our Savior in the temple, in every aspect of it, and we find Him in the symbolism of the garment. In wearing the garment, we declare to God that we rejoice in having Jesus’s name placed upon us in His holy house (see Doctrine and Covenants 109:26), and we remember Him always.
In the temple you can receive power to withstand and overcome the spiritual attacks of the adversary through the making and keeping of covenants. In the temple, you can receive a garment, not just any garment but rather the garment of the holy priesthood. And in the temple you can meet Jesus Christ.
President Nelson taught that “every time a temple is dedicated, more light comes into the world.” I do not believe that he was talking about the lighting on the exterior of the temple. I think he was talking about us, God’s covenant children, because each time we come to the temple worthily, we receive and leave with more light.
I witness that God is eager to enter into a covenant relationship with us in His temple, one that will, as President Nelson testified, change “our relationship with Him forever” and bless “us with an extra measure of [His] love and mercy.” I witness that as we prepare and purify ourselves, Christ will reveal Himself to us in His house in powerful and personal ways. I witness that the consistent honoring and wearing of the temple garment will enable us to remember Jesus Christ, to be “armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory” (1 Nephi 14:14), and to obtain the spiritual protection needed to increase our hope of one day becoming joint heirs with Him in our Father’s kingdom (see Romans 8:16–17;Doctrine and Covenants 84:38).