Come Follow Me Personal Thoughts: Doctrine & Covenants Lesson # 19 “The Plan of Salvation”

Doctrine & Covenants Lesson # 19

“The Plan of Salvation”

Introduction

I like doing jigsaw puzzles and one of the analogies to introduce this week’s lesson is to liken the breadth and depth of Heavenly Father’s plan to a jigsaw puzzle. I always start with the edge pieces so I can get a starting point and an idea of the scope of the puzzle. Then as you start to fill in different areas, a picture gradually appears. One of the additional materials for this lesson talks about Section 76, then called “The Vision,” and how some members and investigators were confused by it because it was more meat than milk. There is wisdom in learning line upon line as we have been taught, and we know that as we prayerfully study and strive to understand what we have been given, then more will be added to that knowledge. I’m running a scripture chain here without references, but there is danger in looking beyond the mark, as these early Saints found out.[1] One of the links is to the King Follett Discourse. Some wonderful teachings are found in this report of Joseph’s sermon on the death of King Follett—teachings that give us hope and help us understand the magnitude of the effect of Heavenly Father’s Plan and Jesus Christ’s role in that plan.

1. The plan of salvation is “one of heaven’s best gifts to mankind.”

I was working in the temple the other day and someone needed ASL—it seems like a simple thing to bring someone who can speak whatever language you are fluent in, but I was reminded that when we provide that service for someone else, what we usually do is interpret—because you cannot necessarily prepare when you don’t know what the other person is going to say. Ordinances have to be exact, so in this case, the person needing help was able to read the exact words of the ordinance—having an interpreter would not have guaranteed that he or she would have received the ordinance as it was meant to be given. This came to mind as I pondered the many ways we refer to Heavenly Father’s plan—sometimes the language of the Spirit needs to be interpreted into words we can understand. Here are some of the names given to this plan, courtesy of the lesson manual.

Salvation (Alma 24:14; 42:5; Moses 6:62)
Happiness (Alma 42:8, 16)
Redemption (Jacob 6:8; Alma 12:25–33)
Restoration (Alma 41:2)
Mercy (Alma 42:15, 31)

In the same way as we are now striving to make the Sabbath Day a delight, can we regard Heavenly Father’s plan as one bringing us all these things? Elder Weatherford Clayton told us in the April 2017 General Conference:

In a grand premortal council, our Father told us about His plan. When we understood it, we were so happy that we shouted for joy, and “the morning stars sang together” (Job 38:4–7) . . .
There in the Garden of Gethsemane, [Christ] began to pay the price for our sins and our sicknesses, our pains and our infirmities. Because He did, we will never be alone in those infirmities if we choose to walk with Him. “He was arrested and condemned on spurious charges, convicted to satisfy a mob, and sentenced to die on Calvary’s cross.” On the cross “He gave [up] His life to atone for the sins of all mankind [in] a great vicarious gift in behalf of all who would ever live upon the earth.”[2]

The heading of this section comes from Joseph Smith:

The great plan of salvation is a theme which ought to occupy our strict attention, and be regarded as one of heaven’s best gifts to mankind. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 68).

How do we feel about that? Looking at the other adjectives, I am humbled by everything it encompasses: mercy, restoration, redemption, salvation. I have a hard time thinking about where I would be without the Gospel—if I had to live with a perfect remembrance of all the mistakes I had made which could have stopped my progression, had I not been able to learn about and apply the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ which is the crux of Heavenly Father’s plan, I cannot think that I would ever have been truly happy.

2. Premortal life

Continuing my introspection, before I joined the Church I had no knowledge, or maybe I should say remembrance of knowledge about a premortal life. And quite honestly, it now seems to me totally illogical that I should have considered my life to have started only when I was born, after all I believed in God and I believed that Jesus is His son and came to the earth as a baby born to Mary and Joseph. Did I really think that God was up there all by Himself, that He just was? Thanks to modern revelation, we know some of what went on in our premortal life at least up until the Council when we all voted to accept Heavenly Father’s plan. But if I really start to contemplate eternity before and after my mortal existence, my head starts hurting, and I have to eat chocolate to calm me down.

To my shame, when I first went to the investigator’s class as it then was—second time I had ever been to an LDS Church, having moved to Germany from England—one of the questions had to do with the Adversary, and I believe I said I didn’t believe in him. If you don’t know about Heavenly Father’s plan, then it is a lot easier to put your head in the sand and not accept the existence of opposition. Here is a question from the lesson manual which I needed to learn:

Lucifer rebelled against the plan of salvation, seeking to destroy our agency and gain Heavenly Father’s power (Moses 4:1, 3; D&C 29:36). He became Satan, and he and his followers were cast out of the Father’s presence and denied mortality (D&C 29:36–38; 76:25–27; Moses 4:4; Abraham 3:26). Why is it important for us to know about the existence of Satan and his followers?

Elder Oaks tells us:

Satan’s proposal would have ensured perfect equality: it would “redeem all mankind,” that not one soul would be lost. There would be no agency or choice by anyone and, therefore, no need for opposition. There would be no test, no failure, and no success. There would be no growth to attain the purpose the Father desired for His children. The scriptures record that Satan’s opposition resulted in a “war in heaven” (Revelation 12:7), in which two-thirds of the children of God earned the right to experience mortal life by choosing the Father’s plan and rejecting Satan’s rebellion.

Satan’s purpose was to gain for himself the Father’s honor and power (see Isaiah 14:12–15; Moses 4:1, 3). “Wherefore,” the Father said, “because that Satan rebelled against me, … I caused that he should be cast down” (Moses 4:3) with all the spirits who had exercised their agency to follow him (see Jude 1:6; Revelation 12:8–9; D&C 29:36–37). Cast down as unembodied spirits in mortality, Satan and his followers tempt and seek to deceive and captivate the children of God (see Moses 4:4). So it is that the evil one, who opposed and sought to destroy the Father’s plan, actually facilitated it, because it is opposition that enables choice and it is the opportunity of making the right choices that leads to the growth that is the purpose of the Father’s plan.[3]

3. Mortal life

So here we are, as a result of the necessary (Moses 5:11) Fall of Adam and Eve, subject to mortality, facing death, and to a certain extent experiencing spiritual death in that we are removed from the presence of Heavenly Father (D&C 29:41–42; Alma 42:9, 14). I cannot imagine what Adam and Eve went through until an angel came to them “after many days” to give them direction. They remembered Eden. Perhaps it is part of the mercy section of the Plan that we don’t remember what it was like in our premortal existence. I infer that Adam and Eve were the first to exercise agency in mortality, and that is a gift given to us to be exercised— ideally to keep us on the path back to our Heavenly Father.

Elder Scott said:

An axiom we all understand is that you get what you pay for. That is true for spiritual matters as well. You get what you pay for in obedience, in faith in Jesus Christ, in diligent application of the truths that are learned in your own life. What you get is the molding of character, the growth in capacity, the successful completion of your purpose here on earth—to be proven.[4]

And from Elder Clayton again:

God also gave us moral agency—the ability and privilege of choosing and acting for ourselves. To help us choose well, Heavenly Father gave us commandments. Each day, as we keep His commandments, we show God that we love Him, and He blesses our lives.[5]

4. Life after death

The thing is, we know where we want to be headed; we know that we can overcome both physical and spiritual death, and we know how. We aim for and have a right to expect that as long as we adhere to the principles of the Gospel and live as we know we should, we will inherit Celestial glory. Next week’s lesson is on the Three Degrees of Glory, but our sights should always be set on the highest degree of glory in the Celestial Kingdom.

Nathaniel Black quoted Elder Packer in Sacrament meeting last Sunday. Elder Packer had started writing a poem when he was my age, then added to it at subsequent anniversaries. All of us, wherever we are, can look back and see growth and be the agent to make sure that is a continuing process. Here is another quote from Elder Packer

There are three parts to the plan. You are in the second or the middle part, the one in which you will be tested by temptation, by trials, perhaps by tragedy. … Remember this! The line “And they all lived happily ever after” is never written into the second act [of a play]. That line belongs in the third act, when the mysteries are solved and everything is put right. … Until you have a broad perspective of the eternal nature of [the plan], you won’t make much sense out of the inequities in life. Some are born with so little and others with so much. Some are born in poverty, with handicaps, with pain, with suffering. Some experience premature death, even innocent children. There are the brutal, unforgiving forces of nature and the brutality of man to man. We have seen a lot of that recently. Do not suppose that God willfully causes that which, for His own purposes, he permits. When you know the plan and the purpose of it all, even these things will manifest a loving Father in Heaven” (The Play and the Plan [satellite broadcast, 7 May 1995], 1–2).

Additional resources for this lesson

“Man Was Also in the Beginning with God”: This article discusses an early revelation on the premortal existence that is now found in Doctrine and Covenants 93.
“The Vision”: This article gives context for the vision about life after death and the three kingdoms of glory, which is now recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 76.
“Becoming like God”: This Gospel Topics essay gives some historical context for Church teachings on exaltation.
“Accounts of the ‘King Follett Sermon’”: This page from the Joseph Smith Papers website links to accounts of Joseph Smith’s last general conference address, which laid out some of his teachings about our divine nature and potential.