The only scriptural explanation given from the Lord for approved plural marriage is found in the Book of Mormon:
"For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things." (Jacob 2:30).
Here, the Lord gives only one reason for plural marriage, "to raise up seed unto me." In the only recorded revelation on plural marriage received by Joseph Smith, the Lord further stated:
"they [the plural wives] are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified." (D&C 132:63)
These scriptural passages suggest to many that plural marriage served at least two reasons: 1) "to raise up seed" or "multiply and replenish the earth," and 2) "that they may bear the souls of men."
Rev. C. P. Lyford, of the Methodist church, a resident of Utah, says: "It took the Methodist church forty years to get a membership of 38,000. Mormonism in forty-four years counted 250,000. It seems incredible, nevertheless it is a fact."
The LDS Church is one of the fastest growing denominations in the world.
See excerpts from "The New Mormon Challenge; for World Missions, Apologetics, and Theology" by Carl Mosser Chapter 9; And The Saints Go Marching On
St. Augustine vindicates the practice of polygamy using Jacob in the Old Testament as an example of how he used the women for the procreation of children:
"Again, Jacob the son of Isaac is charged with having committed a great crime because he had four wives. But here there is no ground for a criminal accusation: for a plurality of wives was no crime when it was the custom; and it is a crime now, because it is no longer the custom. There are sins against nature, and sins against custom, and sins against the laws. In which, then, of these senses did Jacob sin in having a plurality of wives? As regards nature, he used the women not for sensual gratification, but for the procreation of children. For custom, this was the common practice at that time in those countries. And for the laws, no prohibition existed. The only reason of its being a crime now to do this, is because custom and the [secular] laws forbid it." (Augustine, "Reply to Faustus 22:47," in Philip Schaff (editor), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series 1 (Augustine and Chrysostome) (Vol. 1–14) (New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886–1889), 4:288.)Even Augustine, a towering figure in Christian theology, held that polygamy was not something that was a crime before God, but rather a matter that depended more upon cultural biases.
Tertullian's perspective is strikingly similar to Jac. 2:30, in which monogamy is the norm, but God may command exceptions to "raise up seed."
"As I think, moreover, each pronouncement and arrangement is (the act) of one and the same God; who did then indeed, in the beginning, send forth a sowing of the race by an indulgent laxity granted to the reins of connubial alliances, until the world should be replenished, until the material of the new discipline should attain to forwardness: now, however, at the extreme boundaries of the times, has checked (the command) which He had sent out, and recalled the indulgence which He had granted; not without a reasonable ground for the extension (of that indulgence) in the beginning, and the limitation of it in the end." (Tertullian, "Exhortation to Chastity," in 6 Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff (Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886)6:53–54.)
Justin Martyr argued that David's sin was only in the matter of Uriah's wife, and echoed a common early Christian idea that marriage was a "mystery," or sacred rite of the type which Latter-day Saints associate with temple worship:
"And this one fall of David, in the matter of Uriah's wife, proves, sirs," I said, "that the patriarchs had many wives, not to commit fornication, but that a certain dispensation and all mysteries might be accomplished by them; since, if it were allowable to take any wife, or as many wives as one chooses, and how he chooses, which the men of your nation do over all the earth, wherever they sojourn, or wherever they have been sent, taking women under the name of marriage, much more would David have been permitted to do this." (Justin Martyr, "Dialogue With Trypho," in 141 Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff (Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886)1:270)Justin saw the patriarchs' marriages not as corruptions or something which God 'winked at,' but acts with significant ritual and religious power.
