Throne

The significance and status of the Lord’s throne in the temple setting cannot be overstated. In the tabernacle, the throne was located in the Holy of Holies, called the mercy seat, or “the throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16). This throne was a focal point of the Atonement. On either side of the mercy seat was a cherub; thus Isaiah wrote, “O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest [or, sits] between the cherubims” (Isa. 37:16; see also 2 Sam. 6:2).

God’s throne is also located in the temple of heaven. God possesses and sits upon the throne, which is at the center of activity in the temple in heaven (see Rev. 3:21; 4:2–3, 9–10; 5:7, 13; 6:16; 7:10; 12:5; 19:4; 22:1, 3). The throne is the source of lightnings, thunderings, and voices (see Rev. 4:5).309 Isaiah’s vision of “the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple” (Isa. 6:1) was a vision of the temple in heaven. Similarly, Joseph Smith wrote of God’s “blazing throne” in the celestial kingdom, “whereon was seated the Father and the Son” (D&C 137:1, 3).

Exalted Saints are granted the privilege of sitting with Jesus Christ on His throne: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Rev. 3:21). Compare what Enoch said to God: “Thou hast made me, and given unto me a right to thy throne, and not of myself, but through thine own grace” (Moses 7:59). Joseph Smith referred to “the throne of eternal power” when he wrote that the righteous are “to inherit the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of a God, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who have gone before.”310