"In the Lewis and Tolkien stories, the good guys are always humble about the lives they find themselves living. They know that they are part of a larger story, and they seek to carry out that part with faithful hearts. Frodo once expressed his wish that he did not have to undertake such a difficult task as was given to him. “So do I,” Gandalf replied, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” --- Larry Y. Wilson
This is a series discussing themes surrounding the Second Coming of Jesus Christ --- the King of Kings. This first post of the series will once again discuss the overall fundamentals of our Heavenly Father's Plan for all mankind. Because this plan has already been thoroughly discussed in many of my writings (See "The Plan of Salvation and Happiness"), this blog post will contrast the two plans proposed before the world was created: God's Plan and Lucifer's Plan. The difference between the two plans hinged on our ability to choose, an ability we call "Agency". It was essential to the purposes of God that we be free to choose how we conducted ourselves in order to progress and become more as God is. A Savior was prepared to help us know God's plan, to make repentance possible, and to elevate us above our own abilities to do so, blessings made possible through His sacrifice which we call "The Atonement of Jesus Christ".
**NOTE: If you wish to get in contact with missionaries of the Church to learn more, you can do so at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/requests/missionary-visit
Click to Navigate (Table of Contents):
AN INTRODUCTION TO "RETURN OF THE KING"
This is the first of a mini-series that's a bit different than your regularly scheduled "Works and Wonders" blog posts. Our thoughts turn toward the future. I thought I'd talk about a topic that many religions, and even non-religions, have a take on --- the Last Days.
I am a Christian and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, so you'll understand that much of what I have to say will be from that perspective and with respect to the Church's doctrine. But before I embark on this topic, I want to emphasize the hopeful tone of this story, not a fearful one. God is loving and His desire is to help us, not punish us. For all who are willing to be true and faithful to God and His commandments, joyous eternal blessings are in store come the last chapter of the narrative. Take courage and know that God, our Heavenly Father, is in charge of all and has a plan of happiness for all of us and has not and will not abandon us. When our peace and convictions are shaken, remember that all hardships in mortality are but a fleeting chapter in the book of our eternity.
Some of you may not be familiar with the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints so I will try to write in a hopefully easy-to-understand way. While many have their thoughts regarding the "last days", it'll be easier to appreciate it if we first talk about the purposes of God and our relation to Him. The "last days" or as some call it "the end of the world", so to speak, are but one chapter of God's plan of happiness. So, let me start from the beginning and work my way chronologically, referring you to related blog posts and sources as appropriate (Hyperlinks are in blue and pink).
I will let you know that while we share some beliefs with other Christians, a lot of the knowledge we have in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints about Heavenly Father's Plan of Happiness is unique to our faith because it's supplemented by from modern revelation from living prophets of the Church (See "Prophets & Callings") and scripture that complements the Holy Bible such as the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. So you'll understand why some of our beliefs diverge from other Christians. Not all Christian denominations share identical beliefs in all things, otherwise, they'd be the same and single denomination, but that doesn't mean that they're not all Christian just because they understand differently. (See "One Faith, One Lord, One Baptism")
AGENCY & GOD'S PLAN
God is our loving Heavenly Father and everyone on the Earth is one of His children (Acts 17:28-29). In a very real sense, we are all brothers and sisters, members of a single divine family. God is a perfect being who has an immortal tangible body (D&C 130:22). Before birth, every single person on the Earth lived with Heavenly Father but we were spirits with certain limitations to what we could do. This time was what we often call our "Pre-Mortal Life' or "Pre-existence" (Jer. 1:5; Abr. 3:22-24; D&C 138:56). In the "pre-mortal life" we had personalities and emotions and experiences wherein we could learn and experience things to some extent. Because Heavenly Father loves us, as any benevolent father does, He desires to bless us. He proposed a Plan of Happiness that would enable us to become like Him, to obtain a tangible body like His, and to grow in knowledge and have learning experiences that we could only have with a body, to become parents, teachers, and creators ourselves and to know also bitterness whereby we might understand sweetness, so-to-speak. Additionally, we could never fully exercise faith unless we were required to walk by faith outside of the presence of God himself. We could not fulfill our divine potential and become like our Heavenly Father unless we embarked on mortality.
From the beginning, in the pre-mortal life, we had the ability to choose for ourselves, an ability which we call "Agency". Every single one of us had our agency. In order to maintain and exercise our agency, we had to have choices placed before us. You can't choose when a choice isn't given. There had to be opposition (2 Nephi 2:11; D&C 29:39). As much as Heavenly Father wants us to choose to follow Him and be blessed, it still had to be a choice we make for ourselves.
Knowing that we would sin and have trials in life, Heavenly Father proposed a Savior to enable us and teach us how to return to Heavenly Father. Jehovah, whom we know is the premortal Jesus Christ, was chosen to be our Savior (Moses 4:2; Exo. 3:14; John 8:58; D&C 29:1). By offering himself as a perfectly obedient and sinless sacrifice on our behalf, we could be forgiven for our sins and return to God's presence inasmuch as we did our best to obey and repent. A Savior was absolutely essential to fulfill God's plan and purpose for us.
THE WAR IN HEAVEN
There was another plan in opposition to Heavenly Father's Plan of Happiness. Lucifer, another spirit being, sought to destroy our agency saying, "Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it' wherefore give me thine honor" (Moses 4:1,3-4). Lucifer maliciously sought to overthrow and destroy the purposes of God. There was a great war in heaven whereby Lucifer and a third part of the spirits fought against God and the other two-thirds of us who were on the side of faith and agency. The righteous won and God's plan went into motion. The two-thirds of us who sided with God were granted the privilege of mortality. Because he rebelled against God, Lucifer was cast down forever, and "he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto [God's] voice" (vs. 4; D&C 76:25). The third part of "the hosts of heaven" who also rebelled against God were also cast down, never to gain a physical body, never to return to the presence of God again, and to never progress evermore in a state of eternal misery. (D&C 29:36)
The book of Revelations in the New Testament talks about the spiritual war that was in Heaven in the pre-mortal life between the righteous and those who rebelled, particularly chapter 12. How did we defeat the adversary? We "overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of [our] testimony" (Rev. 12:11).
What's my point? I want you to realize that in the pre-mortal life, a long time ago, before the creation of the world even, you chose to follow the Savior and you were valiant and were "called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of [your] exceeding faith and good works" (Alma 13:3). That should give you courage knowing that we all proved ourselves long ago already. This life is a time to once again accomplish what we already did previously. If we did it then, we can surely do it now.
THE FALL'S PLACE IN GOD'S PLAN
Life has a purpose which we've now discussed. God's work is to "Bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39). He organized the world to be a place to experience joy and to "Prove [us] herewith, to see if [we] will do all things whatsoever the Lord [our] God shall command [us]" (Abr. 3:24-25). If we are faithful in keeping the commandments, we shall have eternal life, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God, even all that God has and is. (D&C 14:7; 84:35-39)
And so, God created the world and organized it to be a place to learn and to have joy --- THIS IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER! And as we've already discussed, God knew that mortality would include sin (willful obedience to God's commandments). That is why the plan was preemptively equipped with a Savior, Jehovah of the Old Testament to later be born as Jesus Christ to Mary. If we think of it like this, if Jesus Christ was preemptively at the center of God's plan, then sin was also all part of the plan. If sin was all part of the plan, then the Fall of Adam and Eve is also part of the plan. In fact, the Fall was the very next chapter in the plan following the creation of Adam and Eve.
I don't feel a need to go into much detail regarding the creation of the world. I feel like everyone is familiar with the Biblical account. The world was created in phases which the English version of the scriptures call "days". There was an order --- a sequence --- to the creation in that it did not come about all at once. It was a progressive creation. At the end of the creation period, God rests. But I will add that according to a book of scripture that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has called "The Pearl of Great Price", we are actually told that the premortal Jesus Christ, Jehovah who is the God of the Old Testament, created the earth under the direction of Heavenly Father (Moses 2:1). The crowning jewel of the creation, the very reason why all the rest was done in the first place, was to bring about the human family.
The first of God's spirit children to get a physical body were named Adam and Eve. While many components of the Adam and Eve account are literal, there are also symbolic components to it that go beyond what a word choice on a page sometimes conveys. When we do take a symbolic, even spiritual look at some things, we get a sense that Adam and Eve were not only two individuals but are also representative of all of us. While the first patriarch and matriarch of the human race, their story is our story too. Think about that! Their story is our story too.
Adam was created first but God didn't want him to be alone. The purposes of God to perpetuate the human family could not be accomplished alone. Not by Adam alone. Not by Eve alone. Said he, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him" (Gen. 2:18). And so, he created Eve to be his companion, someone to love and who would love him, someone to help him tend their home in the Garden of Eden but also to have children with. From the get-go, Adam and Eve were equal partners for thus said Adam himself of his loving companion, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" (Gen. 2:23).
God made his purpose to perpetuate the human family was a commandment that was made crystal clear to them. God blessed them, and God said unto them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Gen. 1:28). Without this commandment, without this couple, without family, God's plan could not work. If Adam and Eve had never had children, the plan would have indefinitely halted as soon as it began.
But it was not sufficient for God's spirit children to gain a physical body. Their lives on the earth were meant to be an exercise of faith and learning accompanied by a myriad of experiences, not only good ones but to know bad ones too. In order to have this array of good and bad and choices whereby the human family could use their agency and choose from, opposition had to be thrown into the mix. Therefore, Adam and Eve were presented with an option. This option would bring about both good and bad things and this was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God warned Adam and Eve of the one condition of living in the Garden of Eden, "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:17). The account in the Pearl of Great Price is a little more detailed, "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee; but, remember that I forbid it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Moses 3:17). And thus, with agency preserved, that was the first choice that God gave them with the forewarning of the physical effects it would have if they chose to eat the fruit. While eating the fruit would bring eventual physical death, the fruit would bless them with knowledge of good and evil which was one of the key purposes of mortality. I don't know exactly why it was forbidden if it was so important to get around to, and I have thoughts that I could offer as my own but they wouldn't be doctrine, but what we can be sure of is that God did not compel them to eat, allowing them to choose for themselves.
So recapping, what all the previous paragraphs I just wrote about the purpose and foreknowledge of "The Fall" of Adam and Eve, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints approaches the account with a much more almost celebratory tone than any other religious denomination. Almost all others view the Fall as an accident with grave consequences to the human race. There is a prevailing belief outside of the Church that I belong to that if they hadn't eaten of the fruit, then they would have gotten to stay in the Garden of Eden happily ever after and the world would be a perfect place, end of the story. But again, we know that that is not true. God's purposes necessitated opposition including opportunities to choose right from wrong, opportunities to fall down and get back up, to have hardships as the only way to experience compassion and mercy and reliance upon God. So to those who lament that Adam and Eve ever left Eden, I say this: God's plan was never for Adam and Eve to stay the way they were in Eden indefinitely, His plan was always for them to become more than they were and to know more than they knew.
In fact, according to the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, God's plan could go no further until they had eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What the Book of Mormon reveals that the rest of the world is ignorant of is that Adam and Eve could not have children until the Fall because they were in a state of innocence like little children.
"All things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin." (2 Nephi 2:22-23)
This seems to be a point of doctrine that cannot seemingly be deduced by reason alone. This seems to me to be something that only divine revelation, in this case The Book of Mormon, could reveal or fill in the holes with. There are many things that I do not understand, many of which pertain to Adam and Eve. According to the account of Adam and Eve, they wouldn't have been able to die before "The Fall", and yet many people find that easier to accept rather than the idea that human birth was not feasible before "The Fall". Again, I don't know how it all worked and I don't seek scientific reasoning or explanation, but all I want to say is that I believe the scriptures to be true. Therefore, in order to keep the commandment to multiply and replenish the Earth, it goes to say that eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was an essential task, despite the command to not do so. It was either keep the one commandment or the other. They could not do both.
There must be "an opposition in all things" in order to exercise agency (2 Nephi 2:15-16). The devil came to tempt Adam and Eve both to eat the forbidden fruit, to get them to disobey a commandment that God had given them, thinking that it would ruin God's plan but he "knew not the mind of God" (Gen. 3:1-5; Moses 4:6-11). Eve partook of the fruit first, yes, but so did Adam and both took responsibility for their own action saying "I did eat" (Moses 4:18-19). Had Adam not partaken of the fruit, Eve would have had to leave Eden by herself, leaving both Adam and Eve alone in the world. But God had put Adam and Eve together for a reason. Theirs was the first love story. In addition to the pangs of loneliness, without each other, they could not keep the commandment to multiply and replenish the Earth. And so, Adam ate of the fruit as the Pearl of Great Price account reads, "And the man said [to Jehovah]: The woman thou gavest me, and commandest that she should remain with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and I did eat" (Moses 4:18). And so, they both ate of the fruit willingly, to experience physical changes, yes, to have to leave Eden, yes, but to do so together, even as one flesh, to not only go through sorrow and hardship together but also to have blessings and opportunities opened to them to become the gate openers of the human family. Without that choice, without that commitment to stay together and go through life despite its challenges, we would not be here.
By definition, by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they did indeed obtain the knowledge of good and evil, and "the eyes of them both were opened" (Gen. 3:7; Moses 4:13). And thus, an essential ability to God's Plan was enabled. However, there were also other consequences. This event is called, "The Fall". Because they ate the fruit, they became subject to physical death (Gen. 3:19; Moses 4:25). Additionally, by transgressing a commandment, they were cast out of the Garden of Eden which is also representative of God's presence. Separation from God's physical presence is called "Spiritual Death", sometimes referred to as the second death (Alma 42:9). Even the Earth itself "fell" from its perfect state and was "cursed" and brought forth "thorns and thistles." (Gen 3:17-18)
THE ATONEMENT OF JESUS CHRIST
And so God's Plan of Happiness was set in motion. As we've discussed, Heavenly Father prepared Jesus Christ to be our Savior long ago because He knew the Fall would happen, and had to happen. The Atonement of Jesus Christ, His infinite sacrifice, was to save us from the negative effects of the Fall while keeping all the good that came with it. With Christ's resurrection, "The grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ" (Mos. 16:8). All mankind is redeemed from physical death that resulted from the Fall; we needed a resurrection in order to have our immortal bodies to be like Heavenly Father. And through Jesus Christ, and only through Him, we can be brought back into Heavenly Father's presence.
There is much to say about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The whole Plan of Happiness hinges on it. It is essential and central to everything else. Without the Atonement, "all mankind must have perished" (Mos. 15:19) and we "would have remained lost" (Mos. 16:4). It is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ that brings about:
"The bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance. And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety, while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption." (Alma 34:15-16)
God is a just God and no unclean thing can dwell in His presence (Alma 11:37). But because He loves us, He provided a Savior to be our mediator and to enable repentance to satisfy the demands of justice brought about because of our sins (See "Repentance"):
"There is a law given, and a punishment affixed, and a repentance granted; which repentance, mercy claimeth; otherwise, justice claimeth the creature and executeth the law, and the law inflicteth the punishment; if not so, the works of justice would be destroyed, and God would cease to be God.
But God ceaseth not to be God, and mercy claimeth the penitent, and mercy cometh because of the atonement; and the atonement bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead; and the resurrection of the dead bringeth back men into the presence of God; and thus they are restored into his presence, to be judged according to their works, according to the law and justice.
For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved." (Alma 42:22-24)
FROM CHRIST'S TIME TO OURS
I wanted to write about these topics first because, in order to understand the magnificence of having a Savior, even Jesus Christ, you have to understand why we need a Savior. In order to understand what will happen in the future, you need to understand Heavenly Father has it all planned out. He has revealed many great and marvelous things about what's to come and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
The year 2020 was designated as a bicentennial year commemorating the 200 year anniversary of the First Vision in our days to the prophet Joseph Smith. This event, the opening of heaven, and the continuation of revelation marked the start of what's called "The Restoration". The Restoration of the gospel in the big scheme of God's plan is the chapter in which we are living now, a time we often call "The latter-days" in anticipation of the soon to come Second Coming of Jesus Christ. He will come again. This is the topic I will discuss in my next blog post.
Comments