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JOHN - In the Temple we have signs and tokens. Has anything ever been published as to when ad where these will be required to be used? I know that Pres. Packer indicated that they were not needed to get into the Celestial Kingdom...if not, then where?
JOEL - We are told that the key words, signs, and tokens are used to allow us passage past angelic sentinels on our way back to the Father and to our exaltation.
Brigham Young said:
"Let me give you the definition in brief. Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell." - (Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 2, p.31.)
Not sure where you heard president Packer say they were not needed, because something else he said was:
"We may, if we have been worthy, come forth in the morning of the first resurrection. If we have been true and faithful in all things, we shall approach the veil and there, with signs and tokens given, we will be extended the sublimest of all invitations: "enter into the joy of thy Lord." An exaltation awaits each of us who is worthy to receive it." (Our Father's Plan, Elder Boyd K. Packer)
President Young's and Packer's statements are the only references I have been able to find which suggest that we might literally use the signs and tokens learned in the temple to get us through the veil into the presence of God. I know of no other references addressing this issue. Of course just knowing the signs and tokens alone will not insure us eternal life if we are not otherwise worthy of it.
Something to consider, however, is that we have been told that everything we do in the temple is symbolic of something else.
Elder John A. Widtsoe of the Quorum of the Twelve said:
"We live in a world of symbols. No man or woman can come out of the temple endowed as he should be, unless he has seen, beyond the symbol, the mighty realities for which the symbols stand. (“Temple Worship,” page 62.)
In other words the signs and tokens, like everything else in the endowment ceremony, might only be simply symbols that represent the covenants we make and keep.
Everything we do and learn in the temple; the covenants kept; and who we have become, are all symbols of our worthiness for exaltation and that I believe is what will be the overall determining factor in obtaining the Celestial Kingdom.
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