I've always wondered about what it really means to be a family for eternity. Would you live with your parents? Or does being sealed to your parents just mean that you will recognize them as your parents?
wouldn't you still know who your earthly parents were even if you weren't sealed to them? Its seems that usually when people talk about celestial marriage they only mention that you can be a family forever without much explanation about what that means.
Good question EAG. The first thing I think of is living with my wife and my children but my children will probably have children which will have children, etc. Well, families that are not sealed together will not be families in the hereafter. That implies, to me, that they will all be single, forever.
See I've thought that if the sole purpose is to have an eternal increase and both your parents (I. E. The generation above you) and your children (I. E. The generation below you) are off doing there thing whats the point of being sealed to parents? I guess the real question I'm looking for is what is the function of the sealing between parent and child. Perhaps there's a celestial family reunion every couple millennium (Just kidding). After studying into this a bit it seem from the doctrine and covenants chapter on eternal marriage that if you are found worthy to enter the celestial kingdom and not sealed to your parents you will be "claimed" by someone who is worthy. I'm still not sure what the ramifications of that "claim" are though.
I guess d&c doesn't mention it but I did find this referring to civil marriages
They [a husband and wife] are not bound by any law of the gospel. It has no claim upon them [the family]; when they are dead their contract, and obligations, and bonds come to an end; they have no claim upon each other, and no claim upon their children. Their children are left without parents, only as they themselves through their own faithfulness may be adopted into some other man's family (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 2:61).
As I understand it, the Father's house is a house of order, and instead of either a civil or church type of government to maintain order, the order that prevails in the CK is a family organization. You are sealed to your parents, who are sealed to their parents, who are sealed to their parents, all the way back to Adam, who is sealed to Jesus Christ, who is sealed to His Father, God the Father. Thus, everyone is sealed into a family unit and there is order. Your parents will always preside over you throughout all eternity, and you and your wife will always preside over your children throughout all eternity. That does not necessarily mean that you will be living in the same household, just in the same kingdom. For those who are exalted, distance is not the same as it is here. Distance means nothing there.