The endowment of the temple

Endowment, or Investiture is a word that comes from the Latin investire, which means conferring a position or dignity to a person. The prefix in, suggests dressing that person with clothes, when occupying that important position. It can be a cloak, a band, a ring, sword, crown or scepter. But it is usually accompanied by external signs.

–This article was originally written in Spanish. Therefore, the example used corresponds to the Spanish constitution. Your correspondence with other nations is fully compatible–

Value of an investiture

In Spain we have as an example of investiture the president of the government or the investiture of an honorary doctor.
The value of an investiture is in who recognizes it as such, granting it the power that accompanies it, if the proposed candidate meets the requirements. Let’s analyze the one closest to us, like the president of the government.
To better understand the endowment of the priesthood, I propose to understand another by way of example.

The powers of the state are basically three. Executive, legislative and judicial. Being the president of the government the highest magistracy in the state, is the one that directs the executive. In charge of carrying out the government action.

The legislative is its ownership in the congress of the deputies . Being this one the one that is in charge to approve or to reject the proposals of laws. The president and his parliamentary group is also part of this body.
The judiciary is carried out by the justice and all the people attached to it, judges and magistrates.

Investiture process

The investiture process begins once the elections are held. Before the results and respecting the will expressed in the ballot boxes, the head of the state (in Spain the king) proposes to the parliament a candidate to be invested. Declared his intention to form a government, in his inaugural speech, the candidate must receive the favorable vote of the parliament at least by simple majority.

Once invested in the congress, the candidate has to swear or promise his position before the head of state and his consort. This is the inauguration of your investiture received in the congress. Before the major notary of the kingdom and with a hand on a copy of the constitution , the formula of the oath:

«I swear [or promise] by my conscience and honor to faithfully fulfill the obligations of the office of President of the Government with loyalty to the King, to keep and enforce the Constitution as the fundamental norm of the State, as well as to keep the secrecy of the deliberations of the Council of Ministers «

Once finished sworn in , the candidate is for all intents president and due obedience that by law you owe all the resources of the state at your disposal. In a way, it’s not the same person as before. Because now he is invested with a power superior to that of a common citizen. Certainly with parliamentary controls and certainly under the law. However, there is a clear change in the power of his previous will, as a private citizen. Now his influence extends to an entire nation.

The power behind it

Why do I extend myself in this? because certainly the word endowment used in the scriptures is of the same nature as that used in this introduction.
The crux of the matter is in knowing what power that investiture recognizes. What power supports it.

Imagine a group of people, who perform this same procedure. Recreating every detail An exact representation of it. The characters act with exquisite care and develop the entire process to the end. Let’s ask ourselves: What power does this pseudo-cover endorse? and answer with logic. Any.

The power is in the constitution of a state and its laws. In the sovereignty of a people embodied in them and manifested in parliament. In the head of a head of state, symbol of the permanence of the state and its unity. All this is prior to those actors who intervene.
That impostor of which we have spoken before, may go out and decree and request the powers of the state to pay attention to his will. But nothing will happen. It would be like the buzzing of a bee on an immense plain.

The investiture of the temple

Under this perspective. Let’s now read the word investiture in the scriptures.
 «Yea, verily I say unto you, I gave unto you a commandment that you should build a house, in the which house;» D & C 95: 8 .

The taking of the investiture requires a special place . It does not serve another, because it is an ordinance that belongs to your house. Not to another house, but to yours. If someone built a temple, exactly like theirs, of the same architectural nature, perform the same ceremony of dedication, and had similar ceremonies … would not have the legal requirements to be the scene of his investiture. It would be an impersonation, a fraud before his eyes. What was done in that place would not have legal validity «on top».

We often tend to think that we can substitute our legality for our simple will. Or as much for our feelings. Imagine the previous example of our pseudo-president illegally invested.

In this dispensation the Lord declares, «For behold, I have prepared a great endowment and blessing to be poured out upon them, inasmuch as they are faithful and continue in humility before me» D & C 105: 12 .

The solemnity of the words used are supported by the one who utters them. I will not go into details about your ceremony. But those who have received the endowment of the temple, can observe that there are common elements. As oaths, writings (in the first case the constitution) presence of witnesses and all a formality and legal procedure regulated by the ordinance itself, received by revelation. Accompanied, all this, by an instruction about the divine origin of man and the development of God’s plan in history.

Like the president of the government, this investiture of the temple binds us to promises and agreements that we have to attend to. And the validity of the promises received will be related to our honesty in carrying them out.

Putting, for example my nation, Spain , we can understand the following writing in a special way. Let’s read in D & C 88:40 «For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things«

We see this reading many things, but one of them is that, if a group of just men constitute a government based on fair laws, attending to the greatest light and truth to which they can access, the result will be an approach to the one that «governs and execute all things «

The investiture and its recognition

That executive may be imperfect, but the nation he leads may trust that he is presided over by the best government and regulated by the best possible laws, within the imperfect nature of man. Therefore we can think with foundation, that in the organization of that «power from on high» there are more actors that support and grant legitimacy to the investiture of the temple.

Now, I ask myself, before what powers and before which congress does the endowment of the temple have endorsement? Perhaps the reader thinks that I overdo the use of the previous example. Nothing is further from my intention than to skirt the excess. The taking of possession of someone invested in the temple, is done in exaltation. Speaking of Abraham in section 132: 29 we read «Abraham received all things, whatsoever he received, by revelation and commandment, by my word, saith the Lord, and hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne.»  Now let’s see a flash of the investiture procedure there in the heavens, where the promises of that investiture … » will be in full force when we are no longer [in the world];»  

The assembly of the heavens

What assembly or congress will recognize the power of the high handed over to those candidates? Let us continue reading «and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.» D & C 132: 19.

A recognized investiture and a constituent power that grants legitimacy to those who were proposed and elected before the one who holds all the power.

In the same way, that candidate who thinks that this kingdom on high can be accessed by means alien to their laws, that this investiture can be supplanted by any staging, that by a simple desire can take possession of something regulated from the beginning of the time … » then it is not valid neither of force when they are out of the world, because they are not joined by me, saith the Lord, neither by my word; when they are out of the world it cannot be received there, because the angels and the gods are appointed there, by whom they cannot pass; they cannot, therefore, inherit my glory; for my house is a house of order, saith the Lord God » D & C 132: 18

Those who are appointed to administer that power will not allow it. Because that realm behind the hidden pavilion is a realm of order.
Ours are pale reflections, but still they are reflections.