Symbolic Placement of Sealing Rooms

Laie Hawaii Temple Sealing Room Located Directly Over the Creation Room

Temples built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints come in various floorplans. Some floor plans are laid out for efficiency. Others are laid out symbolically. I'd like to talk about how locations of sealing rooms can be symbolic.

Sealing rooms are used to perform sealings of husbands and wives in eternal marriage and to seal children to parents.

Many temples have sealing rooms off of the celestial room. In the earliest ones you would actually have to cross through the celestial room to get to the sealing rooms which required the wedding guests to dress in white. This is symbolic of sealing being a higher ordinance than the endowment and of sealing being a requirement to enter the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. For example, the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple has one sealing room attached to the celestial room at the same level as the room. They sometimes let couples wait in this sealing room while waiting for their sealing.

In many temples the sealing rooms off the celestial room are several steps above the celestial room. This occurs in the St George Utah Temple, Salt Lake Temple, Mesa Arizona Temple, etc. In the Salt Lake Temple one of the sealing rooms has a whole staircase up to one of the rooms.

In the Portland Oregon Temple there is a staircase that goes up to a mezzanine level in the celestial room. There is a door in this area that leads to sealing rooms. This is very symbolic of sealings being a requirement for entering the highest degree of the celestial kingdom.

Other temples have different symbolic placement of the sealing rooms. In the Laie Hawaii Temple and Cardston Alberta Temple the endowment uses progressive rooms. You start in the creation room, move to the garden room, then the world room, then the terrestrial room and finally enter the celestial room. The creation, garden, world, and terrestrial rooms are each on a different side of the celestial room with each a little higher. The sealing rooms are then off of the celestial room. Because of the room layout and because the creation room is the lowest endowment room, the sealing rooms fit directly above the creation room which becomes very symbolic of the sealing as the ordinance that creates eternal families and it is also symbolic of the fact that God created man and woman and did not want them to remain alone so he instituted marriage to join men and women. It also symbolizes that marriage is required by God before men and women are authorized to use their biological powers to create children.

The Manti Utah Temple (until it is gutted and murals are removed and rooms rearranged in the upcoming remodel) (Great news, they are no longer gutting the Manti Temple, and Ephraim, Utah also gets a temple!) and the Salt Lake Temple (before the murals were recently removed and rooms rearranged in the current remodel) both had sealing rooms off the celestial room that were actually above the garden rooms. This could be seen as symbolic of the marriage of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and that we like Adam and Eve need to work together as couples in righteousness.

The very high capacity temples such as the Ogden Utah, Provo Utah, and Jordan River Utah Temples usually don't have symbolic placement of sealing rooms. In these temples the sealing rooms are on the floor below the endowment rooms and celestial room. There are some exceptions. In the Washington D.C. Temple the sealing rooms are on a the floor above the endowment rooms and celestial room. The celestial room ceiling extends through the sealing room floor with the celestial room ceiling at the same level as the sealing room sealings. This emphasizes that sealings allow us to enter the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. This is also how the 1980s remodeled Logan Utah Temple, the Oakland California Temple, Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple, and many others have their sealing rooms located.

Even the small temples that President Hinckley had built have symbolic placement of sealing rooms. In these temples the sealing room(s) are generally located next to the celestial room and are the highest rooms. I've noticed that as you walk back to the dressing rooms from the celestial room or sealing rooms the hallway is slightly inclined as a ramp because these rooms are slightly elevated. It is only a step or two higher, but it is meant to convey a higher ordinance.

I feel that great sacred temple architecture uses everything including placement of rooms to reinforce the teachings of the temple and the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am glad sealing rooms have been symbolically placed in many temples to heighten the teachings about eternal marriage and families and our covenants. Please feel free to comment if you have any other insights.