The Latter-day Saint belief in exaltation -the belief that we will one day become gods- is one of the most meaningful, important, and controversial doctrines in our theology and it was something that the Prophet Joseph Smith placed special emphasis on throughout his life. The most famous example of his teaching the doctrine of exaltation may be the King Follet Discourse, an address given near the end of the Prophet’s life where he teaches about the origin and potential destiny of the spirits of mankind, but other examples include D&C 76 (where we discover that those in the Celestial Kingdom are “gods, even the sons of God- wherefore all things are theirs” and Gods makes us all “equal in power, and in might, and in dominion”) and D&C 88 (where we discover that the Saints will be filled with the glory of Christ and be “made equal with him.”) But there is another place where this truth is not only taught, but ritually acted out and lived, where for a brief moment we are made actual members of the councils of Heaven before communing directly with God Himself. I am talking about the Endowment.
The Divine Council
Before we can understand this aspect of the Endowment we have to understand something called the Divine Council. In the Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings, Hebrew Bible scholar Dr. Michael S. Heiser explains the Old Testament Divine Council this way (pg. 292):
The term divine council is used by Hebrew and Semitics scholars to refer to the heavenly host, the pantheon of divine beings who administer the affairs of the cosmos. All ancient Mediterranean cultures had some conception of a divine council. The divine council of Israelite religion, known primarily through the Psalms, was distinct in important ways.
The Divine Council is the collection of divine beings who meet together to administer the universe. According to Heiser, the Old Testament Divine Council operated in three distinct tiers. At the top is El (“God”), whose wife, Asherah, may or may not have had part. In the second tier are the elohim who was the “royal family” of the “sons of El” -that is the sons of God- and who were overseen by a “vicegerent” who was unique among all the other sons of God as he held the delegated authority of El, could act in all the authority of El, and acted as El’s representative to the rest of the elohim. In Heiser’s understanding this vicegerent was also Yahweh in some way. The third tier were the angels of El. (Pg. 295)
Now, to the Latter-day Saint (LDS) there are some obvious parallels. LDS beliefs that Heavenly Father and Mother sit at the top of a divine family, that Yahweh/Jehovah/the pre-mortal Jesus acted as a unique son of God with delegated divine authority from His Father to act in His name and speak as God Himself who is the head of the rest of the children of God, and then a lesser divine community of angels in Heaven who carry out God’s will are all ideas that the Saints are all very similar to what Heiser describes as the Divine Council. The major contradiction -that Yahweh and El are the same being in some manner- is one that can be addressed. Dr. Margaret Barker argues that the ancient Israelites worshipped a Divine Family consisting of El the Father, a Holy Mother Asherah, and Yahweh the Son. Later in Israelite history El and Yahweh, the Son of El, were combined. (See Barker’s Mother of the Lord pgs. 121-125) Dr. Mark S. Smith has argued that Yahweh was originally subordinate to El in the Divine Family and that Yahweh was the head of the Sons of God:
The author of Psalm 82 deposes the older theology, as Israel’s deity is called to assume a new role as judge of all the world. Yet at the same time, Psalm 82, like Deut 32:8-9, preserves the outlines of the older theology it is rejecting. From the perspective of this older theology, Yahweh did not belong to the top tier of the pantheon. Instead, in early Israel the god of Israel apparently belonged to the second tier of the pantheon; he was not the presider god, but one of his sons.
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts Page 49.
At some point during or after the Babylonian Captivity, (Barker argues for this process starting before the Captivity and accelerating through it) El and Yahweh were combined into a single being, which is what I would suggest Dr. Heiser sees when he reads these ancient texts and mistakenly equates Yahweh and El, the Son and the Father. This would all seemingly establish room enough for an LDS interpretation of the Divine Council where El presides alongside His Wife with Their Son, Yahweh/Jesus Christ, acting as the head of the sons of God as El’s vicegerent, with El and Yahweh/Jehovah not being the same deity. That these beliefs can only be rooted out of the text by studying the work of multiple people who have advanced knowledge of both Hebrew and the ancient historical context of the biblical works – both things Joseph Smith did not have – are further testimonies of the prophetic nature of Joseph’s calling.
For the Latter-day Saint, perhaps the most obvious example of this in our theology is the Grand Council in Heaven as seen in Abraham 3. There you have the Father, surrounded by all His children who can become/already are gods-i.e. us- with Yahweh/Jehovah being presented as the Savior of Mankind and the one who will represent the Father to humanity and act in His name by His power. Here the Father presents the Plan of Salvation, including the Creation, Fall, and Atonement, with Yahweh/Jehovah being the appointed Savior. In the King Follet Discourse, the Prophet Joseph described the Grand Council this way:
The Head One of the Gods called together the Gods and the grand councilors sat in grand council at the head in yonder heavens to bring forth the world and contemplated the creation of the worlds that were created at that time. …In the beginning the Head of the Gods called a council of the Gods. The Gods came together and concocted a scheme to create this world and the inhabitants.
Here the Prophet Joseph Smith taught that the Head God called the gods together to begin the work of Creation- an idea heavily lambasted by traditional Christianity but which, as we have seen, is actually exactly what the Bible teaches. Further, as we understand today, angels are not a separate class of being but are the children of God -the sons and daughters of El- on assignment. Some, like the Angel Moroni, are resurrected beings, while others are righteous spirits either not yet born or not yet bodily resurrected. Thus, in the Grand Council you also had angels -i.e. us – and perhaps even those of other worlds who had been resurrected but not deified. The three tiers are clearly present.
That said, LDS scholar Stephen Smoot suggests that the best example of the Divine Council is not the Grand Council in Heaven, but the actual Creation itself as laid out in Genesis. Smoot explains (I’m using the transcripts for quotations) :
But really I guess a prominent example of the divine council in the biblical record would be actually the very beginning in the book of Genesis where in Genesis 1 you have God saying, “Let us make man in our image after our likeness,” and then it goes on to say that, “God made man and woman after His own image,” and so forth (Genesis 1, 26 and 27). You’ll notice that God uses the plural “let us,” and “we will do this” and so forth. In this instance, the divine council seems to be composed of God, the Father, and His angelic hosts (the angels that were with Him at the creation), and He’s addressing His divine council, sort of instigating or signaling what His intentions are to carry out with the aid of the divine council and the creation.
The LDS conception of the Creation makes the Divine Council aspect of the Creation even clearer as the LDS Creation account includes God the Father, Yahweh/Jehovah as God’s vicegerent and representative of the sons of God, and then the Archangel Michael as representative of the angels. More about this in a moment when we discuss the endowment, but it is enough here to note that this represents all three of Heiser’s tiers and explains who God the Father is speaking to and why He talks about man being in “our image” – i.e. the image of the gods. Smoot makes another point that we need to understand about the Divine Council before we begin talking about the Endowment- mortals are sometimes a part of the Divine Council. Smoot explains that, “there are other instances where prophets are brought up into the divine council, and they are considered members of the divine council.” The example Smoot provides is from Isaiah 6 where Isaiah is brought before the throne of God, sees the angels surrounding God’s throne, is purged of his sins, and is called to his work on the Earth. Other great examples include Moses, in Moses in Moses 1 and Moses 4, as well as Abraham in Abraham 3. As Smoot says, when you know what to look for the Divine Council is everywhere in the scriptures, but here it is important to note that repeatedly humans are made members of the Divine Council as well because of what that holds for the meaning of the Endowment.
The Endowment
The Endowment is one of the temple rituals of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is a ritual re-enactment of the Creation of the world, the Fall of Adam and Eve, and the expulsion from Eden. As part of the ritual, Latter-day Saints make covenants with God to live chaste lives dedicated to His service and to building the Kingdom of God on the Earth. As the church website on the Endowment states, “In this sacred ceremony, Church members make covenants ‘to keep the law of obedience, the law of sacrifice, the law of the gospel, the law of chastity, and the law of consecration.'” Because of the sacred nature of the Endowment ceremony I will proceed with only a basic sketch of the events of the ceremony itself, carefully avoiding any discussion that doesn’t directly relate to events also portrayed in the scriptures. The key here isn’t just what is presented, but the relationship of the individual to the events being presented.
The Endowment begins with the Creation of the world. God the Father tells Jehovah (Yahweh) and Michael to create the world in seven specific stages. Each time they carry out His commands and then return and report on the success of their endeavors to the rest of the Divine Council. Then God the Father and Jehovah create Adam, whose spirit is the same as the Archangel Michael (remember that in LDS teaching angels are either people already born or not yet born). Eve is created. Satan tempts Eve, Eve tempts Adam, the Fall occurs. Then Adam and Eve, now banished from Eden and under constant temptation by Satan, are ministered to by angels sent from God and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The culmination of the ritual is when the individual person is brought into the Celestial room, the Celestial Kingdom, and the direct presence of God from whom he or she can learn all truth.
What is relevant about the Endowment is how the entire thing is presented. We don’t just get to see the Divine Council, we get to participate in it. When the Creation takes place we are there in the Divine Council as God, Jehovah, and Michael discuss the work, not as third person, over the shoulder viewers, but as first person participants watching everything unfold in front of them. Likewise, when Jehovah and Michael go down to create the Earth, we go with them, see the created world, and return when they do. The Endowment places us in the position of the prophets, in the same role that Isaiah, Moses, John, and Joseph all found themselves in. We are brought into the Divine Council, are witness to the planning of the Creation and the promises of salvation and redemption and get to take part in all the works there. Indeed, one could interpret the entire group in the Endowment ceremony as members of the Divine Council as well, meaning that the ritually reenacted Divine Council in the Endowment brings both the individual and the members of the congregation together into the ritual to act as the Divine Council itself, watching the Father’s directions to Jehovah and Michael as well as Jehovah and Michael’s report, which is made not only to the Father but to the entire Divine Council, i.e. the worshipers in the Endowment ceremony. In the Endowment you aren’t simply watching the Divine Council unfold, you are a member of the Divine Council to whom the Savior and Michael are reporting.
Like the ancient prophets who are given a mission to do in the world -usually in the form of a symbolic book or scroll- we took are given a mission in the world to make it better. This takes place halfway through the Endowment when we ritually become Adam and Eve. As Adam or Eve we are clothed with the Robes of the Holy Priesthood and are walked through the process of covenant making wherein we are sworn to serve God, serve His kingdom, to serve our fellowman, and to work to consecrate our lives to living the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the building of Zion, a place free from violence, hatred, poverty, nationalism, sexism, racism, and all manner of worldliness. As we make these covenants and literally draw nearer to God we are able to transcend the veil of separation between life and death, Heaven and Earth, and enter back into the Celestial Kingdom (Room) of God and discover eternal Reality.
The Endowment is a ritual enactment of the Divine Council where we are brought into the Council itself, are instructed by angels who give us our mission to transform the world through the building of the Kingdom of God, and finally teaches us how to enter into God’s direct presence in His own House – the temple is literally the “House of the Lord.” The question then is why? And I think the answer is straightforward. I am reminded of Numbers 11, when a group of Israelites on whom the Spirit of God has fallen begin to prophesy in the Lord’s name to the horror of Joshua who cries for Moses to stop the prophesying Israelites. Moses responds to Joshua saying, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” Moses wanted all the people of Israel to be prophets, perhaps because then his burden of leadership and judgment might be lifted. This same idea of universal prophethood can be found in the latter-day scriptures as well. In D&C 1 we are told one of the purposes of the Restoration is so that “that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world,” i.e. that the Lord might put His Spirit upon all men that they might be prophets. The Endowment is designed to accomplish just this purpose, to transform us from “Mormons” to Latter-day Saints, “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,” (1 Peter 2) a church of prophets if we will but live up to the power of the covenants we make and live them out in our lives.
Exaltation
The crowning purpose of the Endowment does not stop with merely our admission into the Divine Council though, or even with our covenant driven transformation into prophets and prophetesses. In The Gate of Heaven: Insights on the Doctrines and Symbols of the Temple, LDS historian Matthew B. Brown draws distinct parallels between the ancient Near Eastern enthronement ceremony of kings, including among the Israelites, and the Endowment ceremony, showing similarities in both ritual and dress between the two ceremonies. He further quotes modern prophets as teaching that the Endowment is meant to prepare us to be crowned and enthroned with Christ. (See pgs. 126-130and 290-291.) In the ancient temple, the high priest’s mitre contained a diadem or crown which had the phrase “Holiness to the Lord” engraved upon it. While this crown doesn’t appear in the modern temple robes, the cap that men wear and the veil that women wear both represent crowns and is similar to both the mitre worn by the ancient temple priests and the ancient headdress of kings during their own enthronement ceremony. The Endowment itself is an elaborate enthronement ceremony where the members are prepared to become not only prophets and priests, prophetesses and priestesses, but Kings and Queens of Heaven – i.e. gods and goddesses. (See pg. 129 of Gate of Heaven.)
Dr. Joseph Fielding McConkie, summarizing the work of Rabbi Dr. Joseph P. Schultz, wrote that eleven specific themes can be found in the scriptural and apocryphal accounts of prophets ascending to Heaven and becoming members of the Divine Council. Dr. McConkie summarized these reoccurring themes as follows:
1. Ascent to heaven
2. Entering the heavenly palace
3. Reception by the high god in his assembly
4. Purification
5. Anointing
6. Robing in royal or heavenly garments
7. Handing over the heavenly book or heavenly tablets to the bearer of revelation
8. Calling with names of honor
9. Initiation into the heavenly secrets
10. Enthronement on the god-father’s throne
11. Sending forth with a commission or message to instruct the generation
To the astute Latter-day Saint it will be obvious how each of these elements appears in the Endowment (including the washings and anointing which are the precursor to the main part of the Endowment ceremony), perhaps only with the exception of number seven. Instead of a heavenly book we are given heavenly covenants that place us under oath before God to carry out the responsibilities each covenant lays upon us, though it might be worth noting that at one point in the Endowment we are presented with the scriptures as containing the covenants we are making and therefore the work we are being given to do. This could qualify as the presentation of the heavenly book that holds our sacred mission within it.
Notice number ten, “Enthronement on the god-father’s throne.” This is the ultimate goal of the Endowment, to prepare us to be worthy of enthronement. Clothed in the Robes of the Holy Priesthood, crowned with a symbolic crown, we are brought into the literal presence of Almighty God, where we are to converse with Him face to face in preparation of our own exaltation, our own ascension to godhood as kings and queens in Heaven, if we live faithfully to our temple covenants. Thus will Christ’s promise that those who overcome the world through Him, “will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” (Revelation 3)
To sit down on Christ’s throne is to sit upon the Father’s throne, and to sit upon the Father’s throne is to be as the Father as the throne is the very symbol of God’s power an authority. Only can gods and goddesses sit upon the Divine Throne as to be worthy of said Throne is to be as worthy and mighty as God. Thus, the ultimate purpose of the Endowment is to bring us into the Divine Council not only to make us prophets and prophetesses, but to prepare us for the ultimate blessings- exaltation, godhood, and eternal life upon the Throne of God. And the way that we get there is by actively, energetically, valiantly living our covenants in the face of all the powers and temptations of all Earth and Hell to convince us otherwise. When we sacrifice our covenants for politics, wealth, nation, sex, pride, power, whatsoever it may be, we are sacrificing Zion for Babylon when it should always be the other way around. As we live our covenants and place the Kingdom first, no matter what mocking, hatred, or persecution which shall come our way for doing so, we will draw nearer to the Lord and realize even more deeply the promises of the Endowment to bring us ritually, spiritually, and literally into the presence of God.