Today I read a book by David Ridges, Gospel Questions, Gospel Answers (Springville, Utah: Cedar Fort, Inc., 2017). Overall, the book was bad; I mean really bad. Anyone familiar with Ridges’ books, the fact there was little to no exegesis and scholarship will be no surprise. However, the following answer to one question was one of the few decent pieces in the book as it answers a question that is often posed to me, too, and that is “When temple-married parents are divorced, who are the children sealed to?” Answering this question, Ridges writes (pp. 5-7):
Many people fail to put this question in the proper eternal context and thus worry unnecessarily. If you stop and think about it, when we finally enter exaltation, we will all be resurrected adults. This includes the children whose status brought up this question in the first place. We will be married for eternity to our spouses. We will be sealed in our own eternal family unit. Beyond that, we will be sealed in all directions to everyone in the family of Adam and Eve who now dwell in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom (exaltation). The sealings are in the form of a “net” rather than in a straight line. Everyone there is sealed to everyone else, so the problem of which parent the children are sealed to is solved. It no longer exists.
Example 1
Let’s say a couple was married in the temple, had three children, and then divorced. Over time, both parents remarry someone else and do what is necessary to be worthily sealed to their new spouses. All three children grow up and marry in the temple. The Second Coming occurs, the Millennium finishes, and the time for the Final Judgement has arrived. At this point, both parents and their spouses are worthy of exaltation. It’s the same with the three children who married in the temple. All of them are now judged worthy of continuing in their own family units throughout eternity as gods, and they do. Their main involvement is now in their own eternal family unit, having spirit children, creating worlds for them to go to in order to obtain physical bodies, and so forth. They are also sealed to everyone else from this world who attained exaltation, including their parents, grandparents, and on and on (if they proved worthy of exaltation). It is just like in the case of extended pedigree charts. If you go back far enough, in one way or another, everyone eventually ends up related to everyone else.
Example 2
A couple was married in the temple, had three children, and then divorced. Over time, both parents remarry and are sealed to their new spouses in the temple. All three children grow up. Two marry in the temple. One does not. Ultimately, the Second Coming occurs, the Millennium finishes, and the time for the Final Judgement has arrived. At this point both parents and their spouses are worthy of exaltation. The same I true for the two children who married in the temple. All are now judged worthy of continuing in their own family units throughout eternity, and they do. But the child who chose not to become worthy and be sealed in the temple will not be exalted.
In Summary, the sealing blessings apply to all in exaltation and no one there is left out. All there are sealed to everyone there in the family of Adam and Eve. It is like a net of sealings, as in a pedigree chart going in every possible direction—forward, backward, and sideways.
Going back to our original question, if both parents fail to qualify for exaltation but the grandparents or great-grandparents (or other family members back in the genealogical line) do, the sealing of the worthy children will include them. But the child (who is now an adult) who chose not to comply with the law for obtaining exaltation will not be sealed to the family and will remain separate and single throughout eternity (D&C 132:15-17)
