The more I study the Plan of Salvation, the
more amazed I am at what a system of precision and intricate planning it took
for us to evolve into a peopled planet with a view of eternal destination, the
success of which we very much owe to two people.
There were two things in the Garden of Eden
that hung in balance and could have arrested the Plan of Salvation and they
were in the form of two trees.
Not partaking of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil would have been devastating to the Plan as Adam and Eve could not have
had children and thus could not bring about the human family. Partaking of that
fruit planted seeds of mortality within them and thus it brought about The
Fall. That was the right choice we all expected but partaking the fruit of the
second tree, the tree of life, would have been such a dangerous act that God
the Father positioned a cherubim with a flaming sword to prevent that from
happening (Moses 4:28-31).
Had Adam and Eve partaken of the fruit of the
second tree, they would have been doomed forever by becoming immortal prematurely.
Had this happened this too would have annihilated the whole Plan of Salvation.
Had it happened there would have been no repentance, no redemption, no
advancement, no probation, no children, no exaltation. They would have become
immortal in their fallen state and been forever miserable (Alma 12:26)
And one other very important thing – no death.
And this is why death is important. Death
purifies the physical body, which is a temporal mass of atoms, in preparation
for the resurrection (President Joseph Fielding Smith, “Answers to Gospel
Questions”, 5 vols [1957-66], 4:185). The
spirit, however, is an eternal matter made of light that goes through
refinement, improvement and progress which adds to its glory (B. Grant Bishop,
M.D., “The LDS Gospel of Light”, p 106). The spirit is the pilot, the body is
the vehicle .
“When the spirit leaves the body and passes
into the spirit world, it is entering a kingdom specifically organized to
prepare each spirit for the resurrection. Alma had a revelation concerning it
and said: “now there must needs be a space betwixt the time of death and the
time of resurrection” (Alma 40:6).
“This space of time is used for the cleansing,
redemption and education of the spirit. The spirit is prepared for as high a
degree of glory as it is capable of receiving. How the individual conducted
himself during mortality determines, to a very large extent, what that degree
of glory shall be.” (Clean Skousen, “The First Two Thousand Years” p 70).
Without death there is no resurrection and
without resurrection there is no immortality and eternal life. And this is
resurrection: “They who are of a celestial SPIRIT shall receive the same body
which was a natural body….and YOUR glory (the glory of one’s spirit) shall be
the GLORY by which your bodies are quickened.” (D&C 88:28)
A personal view. The most enlightened prayers I
have had in my life have been the ones where I had asked for the Holy Ghost to
give me the words of my prayer. Some years ago I was given to say that I will
“rise to be the glorious being I was before the earth began”. Never before then
have I ever entertained the idea that my spirit possessed any glory in any
degree. If we could all see ourselves without this body of clay, we would see
ourselves in a very different light indeed.
In the end, the real success of our story
belongs to only one person, The Saviour Jesus Christ….the Creation, the
Redemption, the Resurrection, the Exaltation……all glory be to His holy name!!!
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Soul's Surrender by Greg Collins)
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