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The Plan of Salvation
Most Christian churches today teach that there is only a heaven and a hell. If you do not go to one, you will go to the other. Hell is a horrible punishment which lasts eternally for the unrighteous. They say we did not exist before we came to earth, and doing work for the dead is out of the question.
I know we lived before we came to earth. A plan was established in the councils of heaven, and Christ was foreordained to come to earth and die for us. This is something we all chose to follow even before we were given tabernacles of clay. Also, there are three heavens, or degrees of glory. We believe in a God who is perfectly just, and although He cannot look upon sin with any allowance, he will not cause someone to receive more punishment than they deserve. Our God has also established a way for work to be done for the dead, for all those who died without having the chance to hear the gospel. In temples we may be vicariously baptized for those who have passed on, or perform marriage sealings to allow the deceased to continue in marriage after death, should the dead choose to accept. The plan of salvation is proof that God prepares a way for us all to return to Him, and does not leave any of His children in a place where they can never find Him.
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The Pre-Existence of Man
By: Michael Flournoy
Have you ever wondered where or what you were before birth? Before your parent ever dreamt of you, had God? Did that supreme Creator have a blueprint in mind for you, or did you already exist? Questions such as these may be common, but because the answers are hidden these inquiries are dismissed. Perhaps the answers would be a waste of time to find, perhaps they aren’t important. But what if I said the answers have been revealed and they are important?
Latter-day Saints believe that prior to the creation of earth all men and women had already been formed. We had the same identity we now have and lived with our Heavenly Father. This time and place is called the pre-existence. At the time we were spirits with no physical bodies but sat at God’s feet and learned many things. Our Father’s plan involved each of us coming to earth to receive a physical body. We would pass through a veil, thus forgetting the pre-existence, and on earth we would be given agency and tested. We find these truths in the book of Abraham chapter 3, verses 22-25: Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; and God saw these souls that they were good, and stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.
And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; and we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.
This may seem like a work of fiction. However, the Holy Bible itself is packed with examples of some sort of existence predating mortality. Particularly I would point to the first two chapters in Genesis, simply because our pre mortality is revealed more frequently there than anywhere else.
Towards the end of chapter 1 God creates man. Genesis 1:26-31 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. So here God creates humans in His image, after His likeness, and blesses them. Then in chapter 2, after the seventh day (Genesis 2:1-3) He creates Adam.
Genesis 2:5-7 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. So if God created Adam here, and Adam was the first man to exist, who was God speaking to in chapter 1, verses 28-30; on the sixth day when He said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth?”
I believe God had already created the entire human family spiritually and was speaking to us all in Genesis chapter 1. Adam was the first to be created physically, or in other words the first to have his already created spirit placed in a tabernacle of clay. Not only were mankind created spiritually first, but everything was made this way. In the first chapter of Genesis we read that the heavens and the earth were created on the first day, and the herbs of the field were made on the third day. But in chapter 2 we find something shockingly different. Please examine closely Genesis 2:4-5: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
First of all, those verses say distinctly that God had created the plants before they were in the earth, and before they grew. This means before they were even seedlings, they had somehow been created already. Also, we read that in the same day God created the heavens and the earth, he made these plants and herbs, but remember if you will, that in Genesis 1, the plants and herbs were supposed to be done two days later. Clearly the third day in the first chapter of Genesis is referring to the physical creation of plant life, otherwise we must conclude the Bible is contradicting itself. Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 2:5 would also be contradictory if not for this spiritual creation, because in Genesis 1:26 God creates man, but in Genesis 2:5 we read that there was no man to till the ground. Just like the plants, we were made as spirits before being sent to earth.
Moses 3:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth. And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men; and not yet a man to till the ground; for in heaven created I them; and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air.
We truly lived before we came to earth. In the book of Jeremiah the Lord tells his servant, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations (Jeremiah 1:5).” Now usually, when confronted with this scripture, one of an opposing view would reply that God did know Jeremiah before, but through His infinite foreknowledge, rather than a personal relationship. Obviously God does have foreknowledge (The Acts 2:23, 1 Peter 1:2, Deuteronomy 32:8, Isaiah 42:9, Isaiah 48:3, Isaiah 46:9, The Acts 17:26, Romans 8:29). But the scripture does not only say God knew Jeremiah, but that He also sanctified and ordained him. It is my conviction that Jeremiah had to be present to be sanctified and ordained.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 tells us what happens when we die. It reads: Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was (remember that Adam was formed from the dust): and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. How can we return to a God whom we have never lived with?
John 9:1-2 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth, and his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? The apostles seemed to believe that being born blind could be the result of sin. Would our God, who is perfectly just, punish us before we violate his commandments? And if not, when could that sin have taken place other than the pre-existence?
I’d like to note that Jesus doesn’t correct the apostles here, or give us any reason to assume they were wrong in the assumption that a person could be born blind due to transgression. He simply states in the next verse that, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”
Titus 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began. Paul writes that God promised us eternal life before the world began!
Job 38:1-7 states: Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who hath laid the cornerstone thereof; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
We are the children of God, and here in Job we find that not just some of God’s sons rejoiced when the earth was made, but all the sons of God shouted for joy. I know we were there, and our sojourn on earth is a part of our Heavenly Father’s plan, so we may obtain bodies and further learn to obey his commandments. This life is a time for us to grow, to learn the wonder of God’s glory, and to repent of all our wickedness so we can one day return to live with God in his Kingdom on high.
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