Look at the clock on the wall. What do you see? A finite shape with finite numbers. Unchanging and therefore predictable. We live by the clock, don’t we? The alarm goes off, we rush out of the house, to school, to work, lessons, seminary. We wear
time on our arms, cell phones and computers always post it. When our watch battery runs out we hurry to get it replaced. The hum of time measures out our mortal lives. We are trained to think in segments of past and present, hours, days, months, years. It is a surety, a constant in our lives that we don’t question, deny or live without. Even without watches and clocks we are as ritualistic as the sun and moon that keeps time for us. Little mystery in that. But what about our postmortal lives? Life without timeclocks, without a constant monitoring of our moments. We need to see all of life from an eternal perspective.
Time is a necessary gift to humanity but when it comes to the timelessness of eternity, aren’t we at a loss to understand? The everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ is full of mystery. The romance of movement between the world of men and the world of spirits is a profound journey into the very stuff of life. Those who labor in our temples work with the potential of a soul, though they have no physical evidence. To a large extent our faith in Christ and his atonement must help us to accept that the mysteries of existence are of God and are for our eternal exaltation. I’ve found that many Latter-day Saints and those of other faiths do not have an understanding of the gift of eternal life, so my talk today will hopefully add some clarity to that subject.
Now let’s forget about clocks and think in larger terms. We humans are capable of many adaptations. We have been given bodies that are eternal, able to live in different dimensions of time. I think of the hours we spend in dreams, living surrogate lives of action in our sleep. Many claim visits from and to their deceased relatives. Books have been written about temple manifestations where those whose ordinances were being performed were suddenly present in the body. Our prophets and apostles are seers into the future of mankind. But we really don’t know what its like to be alive while we are dead.
The Prophet Joseph Smith wrote: All men know that they must die. And it is important that we should understand the reasons and causes of our exposure to the vicissitudes of life and of death, and the designs and purposes of God in our coming into the world, our sufferings here, and our departure hence. What is the object of our coming into existence, then dying and falling away, to be here no more? It is but reasonable to suppose that God would reveal something in reference to the matter, and it is a subject we ought to study more than any other. .. If we have any claim on our Heavenly Father for anything, it is for knowledge on this important subject” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 6:50).
The objective is life. There are four manifestations of life. All living things experience them. As Latter-day Saints we learn that we have always lived, that before we were born human we lived as spirits in the kingdom of our Heavenly Father. The life of the body is in the soul, meaning primarily in the spirit, which is each personality. This conscious, knowing intelligent part of the human personality resides in an eternal animate essence that has no beginning or end. Each spirit is like unto a child of God. In Abraham 3:22 it says intelligences were organized before this world was and many were noble and great. In that chapter the Plan of Salvation is unveiled. In Moses 3:5 we learn that God created all things spiritually in the beginning before they were naturally upon the earth. So the spirit within each of us is eternal, created by our Maker and His only Begotten Son who is co-creator with the Father.
We are precious to God, we are individually wrought as offspring from Deity Himself, no longer only intelligences, but placed within a body and given an earthly abode for a time. What does that tell us? That Heavenly Father is a personal Being in whose image mankind is created. We learn also that matter is self-existent and eternal in nature. But to understand our lives after physical death, we must first consider our mortal life.
We are earthlings. We operate to a point on our own time frequencies, but we are here of our own choosing. We chose to come here and we accepted before our mortality that we would live on the Lord’s time, to serve his purposes as well as our own. What is mortality? A temporary union of body and spirit. Our body’s lifetime lasts only a moment when we contemplate that most of our existence is spent bodiless, our spirit wrapped in a covering of light. We’ve been active but in another realm. That memory of our spirit genealogy awaits us in after mortal death when all will be restored. Here we must live by faith and by the words and principles of God, for He is our Master and our perfect hope.
So why are we here? Mortality is a probationary time. Alma 34:32 tells us this life is a time to prepare to meet God, a time for men to perform their labors. We are here to be tested and tried, to exercise our spirit to its fullest. The Fall of Adam brought death onto this earth. But, If he and Eve had not transgressed they would have remained in a state of perfection forever, never knowing joy or misery, never knowing good for they could not sin, never having children. We inherited this world and the opportunities to know what this world holds, to make our choices in righteousness or in error. We are free according to the flesh.
The life of the flesh is in the blood, meaning that when the blood is spent, death occurs and the spirit, the animating force, leaves its body. Why is this necessary? Because what is acquired here will be restored when we are again in the world of non-physical spirits. In the Judgement of the world that will follow the Resurrection of our souls the work we do here and now will determine the degree of glory we will inherit, so our time here will be a prime measurement of our worthiness when we stand before our Maker and are called to account for our use of this time. How great it is to know that there is no death, that in other realms we continue to live, grow, learn, work and prosper toward our spirit’s perfection. Because there is no death, there is no need to fear.
So our mortal lives prepare us for the postmortal life. We will never again have bodies of flesh, blood and bone. The lesson for us here is to understand that life in the flesh is not nearly as important as the spiritual realities. The Gospel is a marvelous work and wonder. In D&C 101 we learn that in our spirit consciousness all things will be revealed to us. What about the life of spirits? After death our bodies enter another dimension as our consciousness frees itself from its environment of carnality and returns to that God who gave it life. We cannot see holy things in a mortal body. That spirit arrives with the same appetites, thoughts and attitudes it kept in mortality. If it was in a body addicted to any substance or habits, good or evil, those rise with the ascending spirit . All spirits are vital forces that live as adults in heavenly realms. If we die as children, our personality continues its growth in adult form. If we die with illnesses, baldness, lost limbs, all will be restored to perfection in the postmortal life and we will have animate bodies that resemble our physical bodies, but they will be bloodless, and of a finer, purer fabric and give off a glow of pure whiteness that is filled with the energy of our faith. We won’t need sleep or food as we now know it, or any of the current necessities of mortal life. But our home is the earth, so the spirit world and our departed are here also, around us, above us, near us.
The Prophet Joseph Smith wrote that through the business of this world we can never know what is expected of us. That knowledge has to come from learning and obeying the ordinances of the Gospel. He taught that the priesthood of God rules all things in all worlds and all universes. All spirits are subject at all times to the workings of the holy priesthood, which operates on the other side of the veil just as it operates here, and mankind is subject to it in every case, whether aware of it or not. Joseph wrote: Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than by reading all that was ever written on the subject.
So when we have died on earth because our mortal body is spent or perhaps has met its death in undesirable ways, our freed spirit keeps its consciousness. We are taken to a place of happiness and rest, or to Spirit Prison, a place of darkness where we will remain for a season. Joseph Smith wrote that there is a separation, a partial judgment, and the spirits of those who are righteous are received into paradise, where they expand in wisdom, where they have respite from all their troubles, and where care and sorrow do not annoy. The righteous are reunited with family to celebrate joyously with them. Many families will suffer deficiencies because some have not honored their callings on earth and cannot be present.
The wicked, on the contrary, have no part nor portion in the Spirit of the Lord, and they are cast into outer darkness, being led captive by the evil one, because of their own iniquity. In this space between death and the resurrection of the body, the two classes of souls remain, in happiness or in misery, until the time which is appointed of God that the dead shall come forth and be reunited both in spirit and in body, and be brought to stand before God, to be judged according to their works.
All returning spirits are taught by messengers clothed with power and authority. These angels carry the message of redemption to those in darkness, even to all the spirits of men, proclaiming liberty to the captives who are bound. In the marvelous section of the Doctrine and covenants 138:33 we read of the great vision that President Joseph F. Smith had in 1918 when he saw the righteous dead assembled in Paradise and Christ’s ministry among them, teaching faith in Christ, proclaiming that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ. They will be taught all they need to know to qualify to be judged according the men in the flesh but live according the God in the spirit. Because the gift of agency is given us throughout eternity, all spirits have the opportunity to accept the Gospel and the ordinances, and advance to Paradise.
The Prophet Joseph said: “Paradise is where the saints continue to prepare for a celestial heaven; a way station along the course leading to eternal life, a place where the final preparation is made for that fulness of joy which comes only when body and spirit are inseparably connected in immortal glory!” The faithful continue that work in preaching the Gospel.
Those who reject the Gospel in Spirit Prison are sent to Hell where they are damned, prevented from progressing. “That part of the spirit world inhabited by wicked spirits who are awaiting the eventual day of their resurrection is called hell. Between their death and resurrection, these souls of the wicked are cast out into outer darkness, into the gloomy depression of Sheol, into the Hades of waiting wicked spirits, into hell. There they suffer the torments of the damned; there they welter in the vengeance of eternal fire; there is found weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; there the fiery indignation of the wrath of God is poured out upon the wicked. But, because of our merciful God, even these souls will eventually be allowed to inherit the telestial kingdom. By the end of the Millenium they will be resurrected with the rest of mankind but can never progress further.” (Joseph F. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine)
It is for these reasons we have temples and do proxy work to offer our deceased in the flesh the merciful and holy opportunities of the Gospel and its sacred ordinances. I can give you my testimony that many of these spirits are present during these times and they are joyous at the veil. The Prophet Joseph wrote:
“In the justice of the Father, he is going to give to every man the privilege of hearing the gospel. Not one soul shall be overlooked or forgotten. This being true, what about the countless thousands who have died and never heard of Christ, never had an opportunity of repentance and remission of their sins, never met an elder of the Church holding the authority? Some of our good Christian neighbors will tell you these are lost forever, that they cannot believe in the grave, for there is no hope beyond.
“Would that be fair? Would it be just? No! The Lord is going to give to every man the opportunity to hear and to receive eternal life, or a place in his kingdom. We are very fortunate because we have had that privilege here and have passed from death into life.
“The Lord has so arranged his plan of redemption that all who have died without this opportunity shall be given it in the spirit world. There the elders of the Church who have died are proclaiming the gospel to the dead. All those who did not have an opportunity here to receive it, who there repent and receive the gospel, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God” .
In a sense, our lives are always lived near the veil that separates existences, between earth time and God’s time. Life in the flesh is tenuous as best – it can end at any moment – our sojourn here is precious – meant for our learning, our research to gain understanding of things we cannot see but know are true – serving others – loving, laughing, togetherness, – these are so important while we are in this mortal coil. We live not by the hour but by faith, not by the hands of minutes and hours ticking off, but extended through eternity by the grace of God and the mercy of Christ. We are immortal. Moses beheld the world upon which he was created…and the ends thereof. The Plan of Salvation gives each of us that opportunity – to live in this world with its limited view while keeping an eternal perspective.
To have immortal life is to live forever in a resurrected state. An immortal soul is one that can never be corrupted. As part of His eternal plan God has provided a resurrection for everyone, the reuniting of a physical body with its spirit so that we can again receive a fullness of joy. Every limb and joint will be restored to their proper and perfect frame. All parts will be made perfect and the living spirits will wait for their deliverance in the Resurrection.
There is perfect order in the Resurrection. Jesus was the first to receive it, thus he prepared the way for mankind. After Jesus was crucified, he went to the Spirit World and taught many souls. Many were resurrected with him. The resurrection of the just will occur next, followed by the resurrection of the unjust. We each will be given the degree of glory consistent with our faithfulness and, happily, the degree of intelligence we gain in this life will rise with us in the Resurrection.
The final Judgement of souls will determine each spirit’s worthiness. Bruce McConkie taught: “In his exalted state Christ has attained all power both in heaven and on earth so that the fulness of the Godhead dwells in him; he has been exalted to the right hand of the Father, from whence, in due course, he shall come to judge all men. . . . Eventually, following the Millenium when the Savior ministers upon the earth, each of us will be judged by him with ourselves present. We will participate in our evaluation. Our thoughts, words, deeds, the desires of our hearts will be scrutinized.
“The Son, not the Father, is the Judge of the whole earth, but his judgment is made in accordance with the will of the Father and therefore is just. . . .
“Because Jesus is the Son of Man of Holiness he has been given the power to execute judgment, to sit in judgment at the great and last day, to call all men forth in immortality to stand before his bar”. It is important to understand that as Heavenly Father accepts our Lord’s petition in our behalf, it is first because of the sacrifice and atonement of Jesus Christ.
Following our judgment we will be assigned our proper place in the kingdoms of glory; telestial, terrestrial and the highest, celestial. These are compared in glory to the sun, moon and stars. God’s eternal plan provides a place in the eternal worlds for each one of His children. Some will become angels, others, gods. The Lord has outlined the conditions and limitations of these kingdoms. The Prophet Joseph Smith learned this truth in the revelations Doctrine and Covenants 76, 88 and 138, primarily . There is not time to speak of them here today but recognize that when we view our lives from an eternal perspective we can recognize ways to use our gifts and talents to fulfill our purpose here.
Those who deny the Holy Ghost after having received it and crucify the Savior unto themselves will have no forgiveness and will be sons of perdition who will suffer the wrath of God and partake of the second death which is a spiritual death. Those who become sons of perdition in mortality will be resurrected but will not be redeemed in a kingdom of glory. Only those who become sons of perdition will be able to comprehend the magnitude of the misery of those who inherit such a state.
The Plan of Salvation is perfect. I am grateful for it. This life is a gift of immeasurable worth, so we must use our time wisely while we are here. Think of time as a series of many dimensions through which we pass back and forth, learning and receiving, working for and enjoying the fruits of mortality now in anticipation of the glories that lie ahead for each of us. We are asked to see ourselves as God sees us, to find and develop our divine potential.