A 12 July 1843 revelation stated that “all contracts that are not made unto this end [eternal marriage], have an end when men are dead.” (Revelation, 12 July 1843 [D&C 132:7].)

To support the argument that husbands and wives need to enter into an eternal covenant of marriage in this life if they desire the union to continue hereafter, JS referred to Jesus’s teaching in the Gospel of Luke regarding the widow who married her deceased husband’s six brothers in succession. An interlocutor asked Jesus to whom she would be married in the resurrection; he responded that in “the resurrection from the dead,” individuals “neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” (Luke 20:27–38.)

See Hebrews 1:14; and Vision, 16 Feb. 1832 [D&C 76:88].

See John 1:12. A 12 July 1843 revelation explained the state of those who were not sealed in an eternal marriage: “When they are out of the world, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering Servents to minister for those, who are worthy of a far more and an exceding and an eternal weight of Glory, for these angels did not abide my law, therefore they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and Singly without exaltation in their Saved Condition to all eternity and from henceforth are not Gods, but are angels of God for ever and ever.” (Revelation, 12 July 1843 [D&C 132:16–17].)

See John 3:6; and Instruction, 2 Apr. 1843 [D&C 130]. After inscribing his account of the discourse, Franklin D. Richards reflected, “I deduce that we may ma[ke] an eternal covenant with our wives and in the resurrection claim that which is our own and enjoy blessing & glories peculiar to those in that condition even the multiplication of spirits in the eternal world.” (Richards, “Scriptural Items,” [22].)

Richards, Franklin D. Scriptural Items, ca. 1841–1844. CHL. MS 4409.