Christ's Work Continued After His Death--The Perfect Science of
Human Redemption--What was Lost in the Fall--What is to be Regained
in the Restoration--Justice Tempered with Mercy--Loss Sustained
by the Disobedient--Doom of the Sons of Perdition--The Celestial,
Terrestrial and Telestial Glories--Redemption and Glorification
of the Earth--Salvation of the Whole Race--The Finished Work of
Christ--Universal Dominion of the Father.
The mission of Christ was to save that which was lost. It was not
completed when He hung upon the cross. His dying exclamation, "It
is finished!" referred to His sufferings for sin, the ordeals of
mortality, His labors in the flesh. As we have seen, He continued His
work of salvation when out of the body, by preaching to the dead. After
His resurrection He met, on several occasions, with His disciples,
and instructed them in the plan of redemption and sent them to all
nations, that the work He had commenced on earth might be continued.
He ministered to other nations, uttered His voice to other sheep which
were not of the fold in Palestine, that the lost tribes of Israel and
all who could not be reached by His Jewish Apostles might hear the glad
tidings of salvation. This, however, not fully revealed in the Bible,
is made clear in the Book of Mormon. After His ascension, to fulfill
His own promise, He went to prepare a place for His faithful disciples,
that when they left the earth they might be able to abide with Him.
But all this was only a small part of the perfect scheme of redemption.
That which was lost in Adam is to be regained in Christ. Through the
commission of crime, death came into the world. Satan gained dominion.
The earth trembled under the curse. Eden bloomed no more upon its face.
The tree of life was removed. Thorns and briers and noxious weeds came
up in the place of the flowers and fruits of paradise. Deity was hidden
from the sight of man. Sorrow and pain and toil and travail became the
heritage of mortals. Enmity arose between man and beast. Venom entered
the serpent's fangs, and rage the hearts of brute and fowl and aqueous
creature. Strife dwelt in the very elements and death brooded over the
face of the smitten globe.
What, then, was lost? The immortality of man; the blessed tree of
life; communion with Jehovah; the companionship of angels; the purity
of paradise; man's dominion over inferior creatures; freedom from
satanic influence; exemption from toil and pain; earth's affinity with
perfected realms on high.
Until all this has been restored, Christ's work must continue. The
earth must be cleansed from its corruptions. The elements must melt
with fervent heat, and be purified from evil. Satan and his hosts
must be banished and bound. Eden must blossom again as at first. The
lion and the lamb must lie down together. The fig tree and the myrtle
must flourish where the rank weeds grow. The whole race of Adam must
be raised from the dead. The vail between earth and heaven must be
removed. The knowledge and glory of God must cover the earth as the
waters cover the deep, and the spirit of life and peace and light
and joy must be poured out upon all flesh, until the whole creation
vibrates with pleasure and responds with praise.
The ushering in of the great millennial day, a glimpse of which
has been seen by all the holy prophets since the world began, with
the sweet rest of earth and its inhabitants, is not, however, the
completion of Christ's glorious work. His kingdom must not only be
established from pole to pole and from shore to shore, but His saving
power must penetrate to every lost soul of our race in, the regions of
the damned.
A just judgment will be meted out to all. They who reject the gospel
must suffer the penalty. Those who are found worthy of many stripes
must receive their portion. The wicked will be turned into hell, with
all the nations that forget God. Each condemned person will pay the
uttermost farthing for his sins. Justice, tempered, not warped or
thwarted, by mercy, will mete out to all their right deserts, "every
man according to His works." The punishment is always existent,
therefore it is eternal punishment. But each one who suffers,
receives only his just portion thereof. Shall the murderer and the
Sabbath-breaker, the adulterer and the thief, the drunkard and the
profane, all merit the same doom? Would human courts proclaim such
judgment? Shall man have more equity than God? When stern justice has
claimed its own and filled its purpose, shall there be no place for
sweet mercy?
While there is one soul of this race, willing and able to accept and
obey the laws of redemption, no matter where or in what condition it
may be found, Christ's work will be incomplete until that being is
brought up from death and hell, and placed in a position of progress,
upward and onward, in such glory as is possible for its enjoyment and
the service of the great God.
The punishment inflicted will be adequate to the wrongs performed. In
one sense the sinner will always suffer its effects. When the debt is
paid and justice is satisfied; when obedience is learned through the
lessons of sad experience; when the grateful and subdued soul comes
forth from the everlasting punishment, thoroughly willing to comply
with the laws once rejected; there will be an abiding sense of loss.
The fullness of celestial glory in the presence and society of God and
the Lamb are beyond the reach of that saved but not perfected soul,
forever. The power of increase, wherein is dominion and exaltation, and
crowns of immeasurable glory, is not for the class of beings who have
been thrust down to hell and endured the wrath of God for the period
allotted by eternal judgment.
But Jesus, the anointed, with His army of saviors bearing the
Priesthood after the order of Melchisedec, will seek and save that
which is lost until everything salvable is redeemed. Only those beings
who have learned the law, received of the light of truth, tasted the
sweets of the divine spirit, basked in the sunbeams of the heavenly
glory, made covenant to serve the King of kings and received power
to advance to the pinnacle, of exaltation, and then have turned away
from the right, chosen evil rather than good, driven away the power
and promptings of the Spirit of light and truth, sought to become a
law unto themselves, imbrued their hands in the blood of innocence
or, drinking in of the influence of that evil one, consented to and
endorsed the slaying of the world's Redeemer, thus sinning against
the Holy Ghost and becoming servants of Satan and sons of perdition,
will be in their nature and status unredeemable, and therefore will
remain "filthy still" and thus be unfit for a kingdom of any degree of
glory. Those will go away with the devil and his angels into the outer
darkness, beyond the spheres where flows the river of salvation and
where blooms the tree of life. For them alone of Adam's race there is
no repentance, for them alone is the second death, for them alone is
the blackness of darkness forever.
When the work of Christ and His associate kings and priests unto God
is finished, the saints of all the ages will be crowned with glory and
receive their reward. They will be made rulers over many things. In the
order of eternity, they will stand in the heavenly family organization,
and all things will be theirs. Of their increase there will be no end.
They will hold the key to all heights and depths. They will have power
over all the elements, spiritual and corporeal. The incorruptible and
fadeless riches will be theirs. They will mingle with the highest. They
will gaze upon the face of the Eternal God and dwell in the presence of
the sinless Son. Pain and sorrow, and trial and death will henceforth
be only known in memory, to form the contrast needful to make their joy
complete. Eternity with its boundless opportunities and unutterable
bliss and intelligence and majesty will be before them without a
barrier in the way, secure for them as to the Almighty Father himself.
This is the celestial glory.
Those who were not numbered with the Saints of God in the flesh, but
who received the gospel in the spirit; the good and honorable who were
led astray by the designing; the class not fitted for the crowning
glory of the celestial world nor worthy of the doom of the wicked,
will also receive their portion. They will not attain to the gifts of
increase and dominion and the fullness of the highest, but will enter
into their rest, which shall be glorious. And though they reach not
to the Father's fullness, they will receive the visits of the Son and
of His associates in the celestial world, and enjoy rich blessings
unspeakable in their greatness and perpetuity. They inherit the
terrestrial glory.
Those who were cast down to the depths for their sins, who rejected the
gospel of Jesus, who persecuted the saints, who reveled in iniquity,
who committed all manner of transgressions except the unpardonable
crime, will also come forth in the Lord's time, through the blood of
the Lamb and the ministry of His disciples and their own repentance and
willing acceptance of divine law, and enter into the various degrees of
glory and power and progress and light, according to their different
capacities and adaptabilities. They cannot go up into the society
of the Father nor receive of the presence of the Son, but will have
ministrations of messengers from the terrestrial world, and have joy
beyond all expectation and the conception of uninspired mortal minds.
They will all bow the knee to Christ and serve God the Father, and have
an eternity of usefulness and happiness in harmony with the higher
powers. They receive the telestial glory.
Thus the inhabitants of earth, with the few exceptions that are beyond
the power of redemption, will eventually be saved. And the globe
on which they passed their probation, having kept the law of its
being, will come into remembrance before its Maker. It will die like
its products. But it will be quickened again and resurrected in the
celestial glory. It has been born of the water, it will also be born of
the Spirit. Purified by fire from all the corruptions that once defiled
it, developed into its perfections as one of the family of worlds
fitted for the Creator's presence, all its latent light awakened into
scintillating action, it will move up into its place among the orbs
governed by celestial time, and shining "like a sea of glass mingled
with fire," every tint and color of the heavenly bow radiating from
its surface, the ransomed of the Lord will dwell upon it; the highest
beings of the ancient orbs will visit it; the garden of God will again
adorn it; the heavenly government will prevail in every part; Jesus
will reign as its King; the river of life will flow out from the regal
throne; the tree of life, whose leaves were for the healing of the
nations, will flourish upon the banks of the heavenly stream, and its
golden fruit will be free for the white-robed throng, that they may eat
and live forever. This perfected earth and its saved inhabitants will
then be presented to the Eternal Father as the finished work of Christ,
and all things will be subject unto the Great Patriarch, Architect,
Creator, Ruler, the Almighty, to whom be obedience and reverence
and praise in all the countless worlds that shine as jewels in His
universal crown!