Summary: In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, we define the priesthood as the authority of God delegated to man for the salvation of his children. If men and women are equal in the sight of God, then why do only men hold the priesthood? This article takes an in-depth look at this puzzling question in an effort to bring clarity and understanding to what can be a contentious subject.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, we define the priesthood as the authority of God delegated to man for the salvation of his children. The Lord has further revealed that this priesthood “is without beginning of days or end of years” (D&C 84:17). In other words, the priesthood is eternal, and it is what gives someone the authority to rule in the heavens. To be a ruler means to have authority to issue commands and have it obeyed.
For example, if I have authority over someone and I tell them to do something, they are required to do what I say. It is because God, our Father in heaven, has the priesthood that gives him that kind of authority.

As God’s children, we don’t have that authority. However, God has promised that if we are true and faithful to the end in keeping his commandments, the day will come when we will be chosen and called up to reign as kings and queens, sitting on thrones, having the same dominion, power and authority that God has. But until then, God delegates, or allows us to exercise a portion of his authority under his direction. With this understanding, we tend to think of the priesthood as if it were a tangible item we possess. In fact, this is why we often speak of men as priesthood holders or holders of the priesthood.

One of the many things the critics of Christ’s restored church accuse us of is that we only allow men to hold the priesthood. In our modern era of women’s rights, it is felt that women should have the same rights as men. For example, if men are allowed to vote, then so should women. If men are allowed to own property, then so should women. If men can become the president of a large corporation, then women should be able to do the same. Therefore, if men can hold the priesthood and serve in high leadership positions in the church, then women should have that same right.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is taught that women do have equal rights with men, both in the church and in the home. President Dallin H. Oaks has taught, “We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be? When a woman—young or old—is set apart to preach the gospel as a full-time missionary, she is given priesthood authority to perform a priesthood function.

“The same is true when a woman is set apart to function as an officer or teacher in a Church organization under the direction of one who holds the keys of the priesthood. Whoever functions in an office or calling received from one who holds priesthood keys exercises priesthood authority in performing her or his assigned duties.” (2014 April GC)

As stated earlier, the priesthood is defined as the authority of God, delegated to man for the salvation of his children, and the church is designed to provide an organized system to help God accomplish his purpose for man. Therefore, whenever anyone serves in any capacity in the church, they are assisting the Lord in his efforts to save God’s children, and it is the priesthood that gives someone the authority to act for God.

Therefore, when anyone – male or female – serves in an official capacity in the church they are serving with priesthood authority. Thus, women in the church have the same priesthood authority when serving in any church calling, just as all males do. In this regard, there is no difference in priesthood authority between men and women.

But if that is true, then why are women not ordained to the priesthood? The answer is found in the word “priesthood.” That word is a combination of two words – priest and hood. The word “hood” is usually associated with a covering of the head, but it can also mean “individuals sharing a common bond.”

For example, the word “brotherhood” refers to a group of men who share a common bond with each other. The same is true of the word “sisterhood,” but it refers only to women who share a common bond. However, when a group of people made up of both men and women share a common bond, they are not called a brotherhood or a sisterhood but instead, are referred to as a society.

A “priest” is a male who acts as a representative of God. A “priestess” is a female who acts as a representative of God. Thus, the “priesthood” is not just something tangible we possess but is also a group of men whose common bond with each other is that they are all male representatives of God. Thus, the very name “priesthood” denotes a relationship among males. If this same bond were to exist among women, then it would be called the priestesshood.

Another way to describe the word “hood” is an order, such as in the Fraternal Order of Police. In this sense, an “order” is an association of people based on something they have in common.

The word “fraternal” comes from the Latin word meaning “brother.” In colleges, there are fraternal organizations that only men can belong to. However, there is a similar organization that only women belong to which is called a sorority. Because of their very name, men cannot belong to a sorority, and neither can women belong to a fraternity because men are not sisters and women are not brothers.

In Christ’s restored church, not everyone is a male and not everyone is a female. Yet despite this difference, both males and females are equal in the sight of God. If this is true, then being “equal” doesn’t mean there are no differences between people. Or stated in reverse, just because someone is different from someone else doesn’t mean they’re not equal.

For example, a wrench and a hammer are two different tools that are used for two different purposes, yet to a handyman, they are both equally important. In the same way, men and women are different from one another and God created them to serve different purposes, yet they are both equal in his sight.

The apostle Paul illustrated this principle when he likened the church to the body that has many parts. He said, “For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him” (1 Corinthians 12:14-18).

Paul’s point is that Christ’s church is one body, yet it is made up of many different people performing many different functions, and we see this in Christ’s restored church today, everyone is given a calling or what could be referred to as an assignment, to fulfill. However, some callings are easy to perform while others require much effort. For example, the calling of a bishop requires much more effort than that of the ward librarian or a nursery teacher. Yet, each of these callings are equally necessary and important to the overall functioning of a ward.

In the same way, in Christ’s restored church there are men’s organizations where men associate with men, and there are women’s organizations, where women associate with women, and there are other organizations where both men and women associate with each other. Each of these different organizations serves different purposes but they are all necessary and important to the proper functioning of the church. Therefore, just because men and women fulfill different roles in the church doesn’t make one any better or more important than the others. All are equally important to God.

But why do only men “hold” the priesthood if women have the same authority to act in the name of God as men do and are “equal” in the sight of God?

The order of the church is that women can only preside over women while men can preside over both men and women. For example, the calling of a Sunday School president and his counselor is only held by men since both men and women can serve as Sunday school teachers. On the other hand, only a woman can serve as the president or counselors in the Young Woman’s organization, although they are overseen by the bishop, who is always a male.

The question is, why can’t a woman preside over a man? After all, if a woman can be the president of a corporation who presides over everyone who works under her authority, then why can’t women in the church do the same?

To truly understand the answer to that question, we first need to understand whose church it is. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not the church of Joseph Smith or Brigham Young, or any of the presidents who preside at its head. It is the church of Jesus Christ and he and he alone, dictates how it is to be organized and what its doctrines and practices are.

The president of the Church, along with the other apostles and prophets are merely servants of Christ, which means they follow his direction, not theirs or what the world says they should do. For some, especially those outside the church, this is a difficult concept to understand or accept, however, the basic belief of Christ’s restored church is that the doctrine it teaches comes through revelation from God.

It is the teaching of the church that we were born in heaven as spirit children of God, which is why we call him our Father in heaven. If that is true, then it follows that we must also have a mother in heaven, yet we don’t worship her, but why?

The word “patriarch” comes from the Latin word pater, meaning “father.” The Latin word for mother is mater. Thus, a patriarch is a father (not just a husband) who presides or rules over his family. A matriarch is a mother who presides or rules over her family. But there is no such word fort a father and mother both presiding over their family simultaneously. It’s either the father presides, or the mother presides. It’s either one or the other.

All Christians accept God as being a king, and he rules over his kingdom. If God is our pater in heaven and we are required to obey what he says, then it is obvious that he is the patriarch of his family. Even in this life, the wife of a king, known as the queen, sits on a throne and wears a crown. As such, she is treated as royally as her husband.

However, as long as the king is alive, he is the one who rules over his kingdom, not her, and it is his word that everyone must obey. Although a queen has great authority, yet her authority is second to that of the king. It is only when there is no king, that a queen then assumes the total and complete authority to preside and rule over her kingdom.

This is also the order of heaven. God, our pater, is the patriarch of his family. He rules in the heavens above and his authority is supreme and absolute, and his authority comes from the priesthood he holds. In heaven, no one has any authority greater than or even equal to his.

As stated earlier, no other Christian church holds such a belief. Instead, they teach that God created man out of the dust of the earth like a potter makes a vase out of wet clay. Therefore, according to what other Christians believe, we are not really “children of God” in a biological sense, but we are objects that God has created in the same way he created all the other animals, plants, the earth, and the stars. As such, we are not children who came into existence with the need of a mother but are just one of many different physical creations produced by a Master craftsman.

However, what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches is that we left our home in heaven and came to earth for the express purpose of learning how to become like our heavenly Father. As such we look like him in our form. and shape. In other words, God has a human form and because of that, we have the same form he has.

This is why the scriptures tell us that in the beginning “God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:26-27). When God created all the other animals, he commanded them to multiply “after their kind,” and when God created man in his own image, he too was reproducing us after his own kind.

The Lord has revealed, “And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him” (D&C 84:37). If God can beget spirit children, then to receive all that the Father has would include us being able to create spirit children just as he does.

According to LDS theology, for anyone to inherit all that the Father has, both a man or a woman must be eternally sealed to a spouse. What this clearly implies is that, for a man or a woman to become like our Father in heaven they must be eternally sealed to someone as either a male husband or a female wife. If that is absolutely necessary for us to become like God, then it must be equally true that God himself is also sealed to a wife.

Yet, despite this fact, God is the patriarch of his family, which means his wife doesn’t rule over us in the same way that our heavenly Father does. Although she is the queen of heaven and exercises substantial authority of her own, yet she is not the matriarch of the family of God.

There are those who disagree with this order and feel that women should have equal authority with men and therefore think that the order of heaven must surely operate according to the way they think it should. However, in the scriptures God refers to us as his “little children,” and like little children who lack understanding, our idea of what heaven is like is based more on our own fantasies than on reality.

Too often people think of a king, or anyone in a position of authority, as being a dictator who gives orders while doing whatever they want without having to face any consequences, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

While it is true that a king wields great power, yet he also carries the tremendous responsibility for maintaining his kingdom and providing for the needs of everyone in it. It was Jesus himself who explained this principle when, during his last meal in mortality, he washed the feet of his disciple. This was a task reserved for the most lowly of servants, but when he was through, Jesus told his disciples, “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you” (John 13:13-15).

The only one greater in authority than Jesus is God, the Father, and yet Jesus came to earth, not to rule over us but to serve us. In just a few short hours after washing the feet of his disciples, he would perform the greatest act of service the world will ever see when he gave himself as a sacrifice to save us from the woes of sin.

When he left mortality, he was going to entrust his church to twelve men and the message he was trying to teach them by washing their feet was that, even though they would become the ultimate leaders of his church, yet their primary responsibility would be to serve others, and that same responsibility rests upon every king, whether on earth or in heaven.

Our Father in heaven rules over us, and he requires us to be obedient to him, yet at the same time he is responsible for providing everything we need, and he is working hard to help bring to pass our immortality and eternal life. That is not an easy task, especially when he must do so without violating our freedom to choose. To accomplish this work takes great wisdom, skill, dedication and patience. Thus, even though he is God, yet he spends all his time serving us, just like all righteous fathers do for their children. To assist and help him in this most difficult task is the responsibility of his queen.

Unfortunately, there are some in Christ’s restored church who don’t understand this principle and feel they have the right to demand that God change the order of heaven to suit the way they think things should be done. In other words, instead of following God’s ways, they want God to follow their ways.

The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that God is all-wise and all knowing, and if that is so, it would seem wiser for us to learn about and better understand God’s ways.

 

 

Related articles can be found at The Natgure of the Priesthood.