Joseph Fielding Smith Lesson 3: The Plan of Salvation

The Plan of Salvation

“…there was a council held in heaven, when the Lord called before him the spirits…and presented to them a plan…”

QUESTION:

What is “the plan”?

ANSWER:

“This plan is to enable the children of God to become like him and have the power and wisdom and knowledge which he possesses.”

“The thought of passing through mortality and partaking of all the vicissitudes of earth life in which they would gain experiences through suffering, pain, sorrow, temptation and affliction, as well as the pleasures of life…filled them with the spirit of rejoicing and they shouted for joy.”

QUESTION:

Why were we so excited to come to Earth?

ANSWER:

“The experience and knowledge obtained in this mortal life, they could not get any other way, and the receiving of a physical body was essential to their exaltation.”

The Fall

The Fall refers to Adam and Eve when they partook of the forbidden fruit and were cast out of the Garden of Eden and from God’s presence.

“The Fall was an essential part of man’s probation…Had Adam and Eve not partaken, the great gift of mortality would not have come to them. Moreover, they would have had no posterity, and the great commandment given to them by the Lord would not have been fulfilled.”

QUESTION: Why didn’t the Lord simply give Adam and Eve mortality in the beginning? Why was it necessary for them to make the transgression and be cast out?

The Atonement

“When Adam was the transgressor of the law, justice demanded that he, and none else, should answer for the sin and pay the penalty with his life. But Adam, in breaking the law, himself became subject to the curse, and being under the curse could not atone, or undo what he had done. Neither could his children, for they also were under the curse, and it required one who was not subject to the curse to atone for the original sin.”

In other words:

A man is walking on a trail, but decides to step off of the path into the dark woods. He falls into a pit so deep and dark that he cannot climb to the surface. He has no way of getting out of the pit himself. Others saw him walk off the path and follow and they too fall into the pit. They call for help and after a while, someone who knows about the hole comes with a ladder and provide the means for everyone to climb safely out of the pit.

The pit is banishment from the presence of the Lord and temporal death. And all beings subject to death, none could provide the means of escape. Then the Savior comes, not subject to the pit, and lowers a ladder. He comes down into the pit and makes it possible for us to use the ladder to escape.

QUESTION:

What did Christ do in order to allow us to rise from the pit?

ANSWER:

He sacrificed himself

PERSONAL STORIES

Christ voluntarily died for us. He suffered immensely.

“The driving of the nails into his hands and into the Savior’s feet was the least part of his suffering.”

We believe that those were the moments of the greatest suffering. But historically, many were executed that way. The manner of his death was not unusual for that time period.

QUESTION: What then, was his great suffering?

ANSWER: Garden of Gethsemane

“I wish we could impress this fact upon the minds of every member of this church: His great suffering occurred before he ever went to the cross. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane…that blood oozed from every pore of his body; and in the extreme agony of his soul, he cried to his Father. It was not the nails driven into his hands and feet. He took upon him our transgressions, and paid the price, a price of torment.”

“THE GRATITUDE OF OUR HEARTS SHOULD BE FILLED TO OVERFLOWING IN LOVE AND OBEDIENCE FOR THE SAVIOR’S GREAT AND TENDER MERCY. FOR WHAT HE HAS DOEN WE SHOULD NEVER FAIL HIM.”

Repentance and Obedience

One of the important principles of the gospel, which sets us apart from most other Christian religions, is our view of repentance and obedience.  They are both absolutely necessary in order to take advantage of the Atonement. We've been accused of not believing in grace because we adhere to this eternal truth.  The Christian world defines grace in a way which makes attaining salvation nearly effortless. 

We do believe in grace, as in we know we could not be saved without it or Christ's gift of grace to us - but we also know we have to do our part:

(see Matthew, Chapter 7)

QUESTION:

Why are obedience and repentance necessary if Christ already paid the price for our sins?

ANSWER:

Part of our purpose here on Earth is to learn, grow, and develop. Running a marathon is difficult and exhausting. You get blisters on your feet and you can barely walk by the end of it. But when you finally cross the finish line, you feel awesome and proud of yourself. Our time on Earth is like a marathon. It’s difficult and strenuous, but all the effort makes getting to the Celestial Kingdom that much sweeter.

Death

"We came into this world to die. That was understood before we came here. It is part of the plan, all discussed and arranged long before men were placed upon the earth. … We were ready and willing to make that journey from the presence of God in the spirit world to the mortal world, here to suffer all that pertains to this life, its pleasures and its sorrows, and to die; and death is just as essential as birth."

The beauty of death is that that person can finally make the transition from the mortal world to the eternal. He or she is leaving behind a world of chaos to enter a greater and happier existence on the other side of the veil.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

I love this story told by Dr. Peter Marshall in 1941:

"In a home of which I know, a little boy—the only son—was ill with an incurable disease. Month after month the mother had tenderly nursed him, read to him, and played with him, hoping to keep him from realizing the dreadful finality of the doctor’s diagnosis. But as the weeks went on and he grew no better, the little fellow gradually began to understand that he would never be like the other boys he saw playing outside his window and, small as he was, he began to understand the meaning of the term death, and he, too, knew that he was to die."

"One day his mother had been reading to him the stirring tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table: of Lancelot and Guinevere and Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, and of that last glorious battle in which so many fair knights met their death."

"As she closed the book, the boy sat silent for an instant as though deeply stirred with the trumpet call of the old English tale, and then asked the question that had been weighing on his childish heart: “Mother, what is it like to die? Mother, does it hurt?” Quick tears sprang to her eyes and she fled to the kitchen supposedly to tend to something on the stove. She knew it was a question with deep significance. She knew it must be answered satisfactorily. So she leaned for an instant against the kitchen cabinet, her knuckles pressed white against the smooth surface, and breathed a hurried prayer that the Lord would keep her from breaking down before the boy and would tell her how to answer him."

"And the Lord did tell her. Immediately she knew how to explain it to him."

“Kenneth,” she said as she returned to the next room, “you remember when you were a tiny boy how you used to play so hard all day that when night came you would be too tired even to undress, and you would tumble into mother’s bed and fall asleep? That was not your bed…it was not where you belonged. And you stayed there only a little while. In the morning, much to your surprise, you would wake up and find yourself in your own bed in your own room. You were there because someone had loved you and taken care of you. Your father had come—with big strong arms—and carried you away. Kenneth, death is just like that. We just wake up some morning to find ourselves in the other room—our own room where we belong—because the Lord Jesus loved us.”

Eternal Life

All people will receive the blessing of resurrection through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

“Every fundamental part of every body will be restored to its proper place again in the resurrection, no matter what may become of the body in death. If it be burned by fire, eaten by sharks, no matter what” pg 67

God’s Plan is family centered

“We are taught in the gospel of Jesus Christ that the family organization will be…one that is complete, an organization linked from father and mother and children of one generation to the father and mother and children of the next generation, and thus expanding and spreading out down to the end of time” pg 68

Personal Experience:

One thing that used to bother me before I got married was the fact that I wasn’t sealed to anyone. I felt like I was floating in space and that without that sealing tether I would simply drift away. Getting sealed to my husband brought a great sense of peace and joy. I knew that I was forever tethered to him, and when we had our daughter it was amazing knowing that she was forever sealed to us. No more floating in space for me.

In order to receive the fullness of all of God’s blessings, we must be willing to give up everything, even our lives. We must live with faith, serving others and following the commandments.

“It is necessary for us, in our humility, and in the spirit of repentance, to press on and on; keeping the commandments unto the end, for our hope and our goal is eternal life, and that is life in the presence of the Father and the Son.”