Why do Mormons Have Temples?

By President Gordon B. Hinckley

These buildings, different from the thousands of regular Church houses of worship scattered over the earth, are unique in purpose and function from all other religious edifices. It is not the size of these buildings or their architectural beauty that makes them so. It is the work that goes on within their walls.

The designation of certain buildings for special ordinances, as distinguished from regular places of worship, is not new. This was the practice in ancient Israel, where the people worshiped regularly in the synagogues. Their more sacred place was, first, the tabernacle in the wilderness with its Holy of Holies, and then a succession of temples, where special ordinances were performed and where only those who met the required qualifications could participate in these ordinances.

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The Holy Temple

By President Boyd K. Packer

There are many reasons one should want to come to the temple. Even its external appearance seems to hint of its deeply spiritual purposes. This is much more evident within its walls. Over the door to the temple appears the tribute "Holiness to the Lord." When you enter any dedicated temple, you are in the house of the Lord.

In the temples, members of the Church who make themselves eligible can participate in the most exalted of the redeeming ordinances that have been revealed to mankind. There, in a sacred ceremony, an individual may be washed and anointed and instructed and endowed and sealed. And when we have received these blessings for ourselves, we may officiate for those who have died without having had the same opportunity. In the temples sacred ordinances are performed for the living and for the dead alike.

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A History of Temples

By Elder James E. Talmage (1862-1933)

Structures regarded in their entirety as sanctuaries, or enclosing apartments so designated, have been raised in many different ages, both by worshipers of idols and by the followers of the true and living God. Heathen temples of antiquity were regarded as abiding places of the mythical gods and goddesses whose names they bore, and to whose service the structures were dedicated. While the outer courts of such temples were used as places of general assembly and public ceremony, there were always inner precincts, into which only the consecrated priests might enter, and wherein, it was claimed, the presence of the deity was manifest. As evidence of the exclusiveness of ancient temples, even those of heathen origin, we find that the altar of pagan worship stood not within the temple proper, but in front of the entrance. Temples have never been regarded as places of ordinary public assembly, but as sacred enclosures consecrated to the most solemn ceremonials of that particular system of worship, idolatrous or divine, of which the temple stood as a visible symbol and a material type.

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