"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5). This sweeping declaration was
made by Jesus Christ to Nicodemus, when that prominent Israelite
visited the Savior at night. The Apostle Peter said concerning Jesus
Christ: "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none
other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved"
(Acts 4:12). The words of Peter were spoken when he was "filled with
the Holy Ghost." The words of Jesus came from him as the Son of God.
They vitally affect the whole human family. They being true, not a
soul can enter into the kingdom of God unless he or she is a true
believer in Jesus Christ, and has been born of the water and of the
Spirit. Even Christ himself had to comply with this law in order to
"fulfill all righteousness." He was born of the water in his burial
by baptism in Jordan, and his coming forth from the womb of waters;
he was then born of the Spirit by the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
Here is the example for all mankind, who are required to "follow in
his steps." This is the "straight and narrow way."
The question which naturally arises in the thoughtful mind on
hearing these declarations is, "How could people believe in Jesus
Christ when his name was not preached to them?" And coupled with
that comes the query: "What has become of the many millions of
earth's inhabitants who died without the opportunity of being born
of water and of the Spirit?" The heathen nations, worshipping false
gods, knew nothing of Jesus as the Savior of mankind. Even the
chosen people, Israel, who were under the Mosaic law, did not walk
in that way of salvation. Since the days when the apostles and other
authorized servants of Christ administered the ordinances of the
gospel, and during the times when "darkness covered the earth and
gross darkness the people," down to the present age when it is
claimed by the Latter-day Saints that the Church of Christ, the holy
apostleship, and the fulness of the gospel have been restored,
myriads of good people have passed away without receiving that new
birth in the manner that Christ declared to be essential. Have they
all perished? Is it possible that they are doomed to destruction?
Will the eternal Father reject all these his children because they
did not obey a law which was not made known to them?
Justice, mercy, reason, and common sense revolt at such an idea. As
Paul has it. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not
believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not
heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall
they preach, except they be sent?" (Romans 10:14). Yet the word of
God must stand. It endureth forever, and he is no respecter of
persons. And he is to "judge the secrets of all men by Jesus Christ
according to my gospel." It is for that reason that the gospel was
to be preached to "every creature." According to the notion
prevalent in modern Christendom, there will be many millions of
people shut out of the kingdom of heaven, because they did not
believe in a Savior about whom they knew nothing. And it is taught
that there is no possible chance of salvation for those who died
without faith in Christ. Sectarians sing, "There's no repentance in
the grave, nor pardon offered to the dead." The preachers of the
sects limit the mercy of God to this probation. They teach that at
death the soul goes either to heaven or to hell, and its state and
condition is fixed forever. If this awful doctrine were true, Satan
would gain the victory over Christ, claiming as his a vast and
overwhelming proportion of the human family, leaving to our great
Redeemer but a small and trifling troop out of the immense and
countless hosts of the armies of humanity.
The solution of this, to many, puzzling problem is simple in the
light of the true gospel of Christ restored in the latter days. "The
mercy of God endureth forever." It is not confined to the narrow
boundaries of this little earth, nor tied up within the limits of
time. The spirits of men and women are his sons and daughters,
whether in the body or out of the body. "His tender mercies are over
ALL HIS WORKS." No one can be justly or mercifully judged by the
gospel without hearing that gospel, and having the opportunity to
receive or reject it. Why, then, should not the gospel of Jesus
Christ be made known to those who never heard it in the flesh, after
they have left the body and dwell in another sphere? Do not all the
sects of Christendom, almost without exception, believe that the
spirit of man is immortal, and is therefore living and sentient when
the body is dead? And if that is true, are not the spirits of men
and women able to receive instruction and information when out of
the body? Is it not the spirit of man that receives and stores up
intelligence conveyed through the bodily senses? Why should the
change called death, which is the separation of the body and the
spirit, cut off all means of divine communication to the living,
immortal, intelligent being that has simply "shuffled off this
mortal coil?" There is no good reason why the spirit thus advanced
one stage in its experience should not be capable of still further
progress and of receiving light, knowledge, wisdom and religious
teaching, especially if information essential to its eternal welfare
was withheld while it dwelt in the body. Revelation as well as
reason bears testimony that the word of God can be preached to the
departed as well in the sphere to which they have gone as on any
part of this earthly globe.
"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the
unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the
flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and
preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were
disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days
of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight
souls were saved by water" (I Peter 3:18-20). Here is a declaration
which, like a ray from the sun of righteousness, puts to flight the
fogs and mists of modern eschatology and opens up to view a vast
field of understanding, wherein the justice, wisdom and mercy of God
are displayed in glorious review. The spirits of those rebellious
people who were destroyed by the flood, after suffering about 2,000
years in their prison house, were visited by the Son of God while
his body was lying in the sepulchre. This was in fulfillment of the
prophecies of Isaiah concerning him, for instance: "The Spirit of
the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the
broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound" (Isaiah 61:1). And further:
"To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison,
and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house" (Isaiah 2:7).
And again: "That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth. To them
that are in darkness, Shew yourselves" (Isaiah 59:9).
The common notion is that when Christ on the cross "bowed his head
and gave up the ghost," he went direct to heaven, as it is supposed
all good people do, but on the third day after this, when Christ
appeared to Mary, he said to her: "Touch me not, for I am not yet
ascended to my Father" (John 20: 17). The time spent by the Savior
between his death and his resurrection, instead of being in heaven
was among the "spirits in prison," the "captives" whom he went to
deliver. Thus Jesus could preach without his body, and the spirits
whom he visited could hear also without their bodies. But what was
the nature of his preaching to those who were held in captivity? Let
Peter answer this question. "For, for this cause was the gospel
preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged
according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the
spirit" (I Peter 4:6). Thus it appears that the same gospel which
was preached to men in the body was also preached to men out of the
body, so that all might be judged by the same gospel, which is to be
preached to "every creature." That the message of deliverance to the
captives and the opening of the prison to them that were bound was
successful is evident from the scriptural statement concerning
Christ: "He led captivity captive" (Ephesians 4:8).
Jesus promised his disciples that the works which he did, they
should do also. The mission and priesthood which his Father gave to
him he gave also to them. It is therefore clear that the work of
redemption commenced on earth will be carried on in the sphere
beyond the veil. And that it will be performed in the latter times,
may be learned without doubt from the prophecy of Isaiah concerning
the end of the world, in which he foretells as one of the events of
that period: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord
shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the
kings of the earth upon the earth; and they shall be gathered
together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up
in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited" (Isaiah
24:21-22).
The spirit of man when out of the body, being an intelligent entity,
a thinking, progressive and responsible being, capable of hearing,
and believing or rejecting truth, must be also capable of repenting
of evil and learning to do well. Thus the mercy of God can reach
such a being independent of the mortal structure in which it was
permitted to dwell on earth. The idea that the eternal future of man
is fixed at death comes from a mistaken notion concerning "the
judgment day." Both Christ and his apostles taught that the time of
judgment was set by the Father to take place "when the Son of man
shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him" (Matthew
25:31-46). Paul declared that Christ would come to judge the quick
and the dead "at his appearing and his kingdom" (II Timothy 4:1). It
was at that day that Paul expected to obtain "a crown of
righteousness" (Verse 8). And the time of the judgment is fixed in
the book of Revelation to be after the resurrection from the dead,
when the small and the great shall stand before God, and the books
shall be opened, and the dead shall be judged out of the things
written in the books, according to their works.
The popular notion that final judgment takes place at the death of
each individual, and that he is then and there exalted to heaven or
thrust down to hell, is utterly wrong and unscriptural. Yet it has
prevailed in Christendom for many centuries, and it remained for the
prophet of the 19th century, Joseph Smith, by divine inspiration to
bring forth the glorious light in the midst of dense spiritual
darkness, and show forth them that are dead who could not hear it
while living in the by which every soul of Adam's race, either in
the body or out of the body, may learn the way of the Lord, the
everlasting gospel, the only plan of salvation. It is to be preached
to all them that are dead who could not hear it while living in the
flesh, and they can repent and turn unto God and be taught the
things of his kingdom. The doctrine of purgatory, which is part of
the Roman Catholic creed, is a perversion of this doctrine of
Christ, but the idea of the former came from a misunderstanding of
the latter. There is an intermediate state in which the spirits of
the departed remain between death and the resurrection of the body,
and, as will be pointed out in a succeeding chapter, there are works
which may be performed by the living in behalf of the dead, but only
such as are impossible of performance in the spirit world.
The Apostle Paul declared that Jesus Christ "gave himself a ransom
for ALL, to be testified in due time" (I Timothy 2:6). The time has
now come. The testimony of this great truth is proclaimed by
prophets and apostles raised up in these latter days, and by the
voice of angels from heaven, and by the witness of the Holy Ghost,
which bears record of the Father and the Son. Let all people rejoice
and praise the Lord for this new revelation of his loving kindness
and tender mercies extended over all his works, and let his light
shine to the uttermost parts of the earth and penetrate to the
darkest abode of the regions behind the veil, that truth may triumph
everywhere and God be glorified in the obedience and salvation of
his children.