The End of Its Creation

The Proclamation on the Family states that “the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”  This truth is highlighted by the very last verses in the Old Testament: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:5-6).  To underscore its importance, these words from Malachi were repeated by the Savior to the Nephites in 3 Nephi 25:5-6 and then again by the prophet Joseph Smith in D&C 128:17.  When the prophet Moroni quoted this to Joseph Smith, he also repeated it but phrased the last part differently: “And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming” (JSH 1:39).  This version of the language was also put in D&C 2.  Cursed and utterly wasted—that is the state of the earth if there is not “a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children” (D&C 128:18). 

                Other scriptures affirm that the whole purpose of creation is centered in the family.  In an 1831 revelation the Lord told Joseph Smith: “Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation.  And that it might be filled with the measure of man, according to his creation before the world was made” (D&C 49:16-17).  The purpose of our creation is based in the joining together of families.  This seems to have also been at least part of the message of Lehi to his son Jacob in 2 Nephi 2.  He taught that “there is an opposition in all things” and if there wasn’t there would be, among other things, no “happiness or misery.”  If Adam and Eve had not partaken of the fruit to allow this opposition to come into the world, “there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation.”  Without their fall, Adam and Eve “would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery” (2 Nephi 2:11-12, 23).  The purpose of creation is thus inextricably linked to having children, and in that is found joy.  Rachel seemed to understand the imperative of bringing God’s children into the world when she exclaimed to Jacob after being unable to have a child: “Give me children, or else I die” (Genesis 30:1). 

                Of course, the purpose of Elijah’s coming to avoid the great cursing and wasting of the earth was about more than even marriages and children.  He came to provide a way to seal families together—husband to wife and parents to children to be sure, but also linking us to our ancestors back countless generations.  The “fathers” and “children” spoken of surely encompass the many generations of families that we seek to “weld” together through the temple ordinances.  As Joseph put it, we are seeking for a “whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories” (D&C 128:18).  That welding together of all of the families among God’s children—so that we can, together, come back into His presence—is the great purpose of the earth.