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What is the "book of life" — and what does FamilySearch have to do with it? In this episode, host Tia Smith takes a deep, scripture-rich look at the book of life (also called the book of remembrance and the book of the generations), and how the temple and family history work we do today helps write it.
Tia begins with Granite Mountain — the Church's famously secure vault carved 700 feet into solid rock, built to withstand even a nuclear blast — and asks: why would a people spend so much to guard, above all else, family history records? Because, she teaches, those records are of eternal importance. Drawing on Revelation 20, Moses 6, Abraham, Malachi 3, and Doctrine and Covenants 128 and 85, she traces the book of remembrance from Adam — who was commanded to keep a record of revelation, genealogy, priesthood line of authority, and ordinances — down to our own day, where all the dispensations are being "welded together" before the Second Coming.
She shares an insight from a listener: that the FamilySearch tree is, in effect, all those records gathered into one great book. As we find our ancestors and complete their ordinances, we add their names — worthily recorded — to the book from which all will be judged. And because "whatsoever you record on earth shall be recorded in heaven" (D&C 128), those who do the work become witnesses — "saviors on Mount Zion" and judges in Israel — who can testify that an ancestor's ordinances were truly done. Tia also shares the sober warning of the scriptures: that names not found in the book find no inheritance, so this work protects the living as much as it redeems the dead.
Q: What is the book of life?
A: Scripturally, it's both the record of a person's thoughts and works, and a heavenly record of the faithful — also called the book of remembrance and the book of the generations. It includes genealogy, priesthood line of authority, and (as scholars note) likely the record of ordinances, kept from Adam's day to ours.
Q: How is FamilySearch connected to the book of life?
A: As Tia and a listener discuss, the FamilySearch family tree gathers the records of the dead — names and completed temple ordinances — into one repository. Adding worthily-recorded ancestors to it is, in a real sense, contributing to the book from which all will be judged.
Q: What does "whatsoever you record on earth shall be recorded in heaven" mean?
A: From Doctrine and Covenants 128, it teaches that ordinances properly performed and recorded on earth are bound and recorded in heaven — which is why accurate temple recording matters, and why those who do the work can stand as witnesses that it was done.
Q: Why does it matter whether our names are in the book?
A: The scriptures warn that those not found written in the book of remembrance find no inheritance in that day. Staying engaged in temple and family history work keeps us in the pages of that book — protecting the living, not only redeeming the dead.
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CITATIONS:
REVELATION 20:12
Allan F. Packer “The Book” October 2014
Guide to the Scriptures: Book of Life, Book of Remembrance
James E. Faust, “Instruments in the Hands of God, Oct. 2005
Moses 6:8, Abraham 1:31
Moses 6:5-8, D&C 128:18
Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, "Moses 6: Enoch," in The Book of Moses: from the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 255‒84.
Malachi 3, JSH 1, 3 Nephi 24, Doctrine & Covenants 128:24
Obadiah 1:21
D&C 128:3, 5-8
Doctrine & Covenants 85: 7,9,11
Theodore M. Burton, “Prove Thy Lineage”, Oct. 1968
Revelation 3:5, Malachi 3:16-18
Bruce R. McConkie, “Our Gospel Came not Unto You in Word Only,” Oct. 1968
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