 |
Gramps,
I realize that you would have to speculate on this question, but I value
your opinion. If the Savior died for all the creations of Heavenly Father,
and all the children that have, or ever will be born. After the
resurrection, and each person has received some sort of glory, (or not)
where do the rest of God’s children fit into the plan of salvation? I
have to presume that Heavenly Father continues to have children even after
this world is celestialized. What is their state, are they tested as we
were, are they assigned to a glory (or not), is Christ the Savior of all
of his Father’s children regardless of the time they were born-- even
after the resurrection? Let me say this has absolutely no value at all to
my salvation, or yours for that matter, I just have an inquiring mind.
John, from Ohio |
Dear
John,
There
is the natural tendency to judge the things of eternity by the constraints of
mortality. We are dealing here with the issue of the concept of time. In
mortality we live in a one-dimensional time frame--the past, present and
future. These concepts seems very natural, and indeed, universal, because we
are not conscious of experience where there is not such a concept as time.
Think of a fish. It’s obvious that a fish doesn’t know that it is wet,
because it has never experienced anything else. It has no concept of what
dryness is like. It’s somewhat the same with the concept of time--we have
never experienced anything else. However, the concept of the one-dimensional
time frame is restricted to our mortal experience. We learn in Alma 40:8 that
time is measured only unto men—
Now
whether there is more than one time appointed for men to rise it mattereth
not; for all do not die at once, and this mattereth not; all is as one day
with God, and time only is measured unto men.
Further,
in D&C 88:110 we read,
The
seventh angel shall sound his trump; and he shall stand forth upon the land
and upon the sea, and swear in the name of him who sitteth upon the throne, that
there shall be time no longer.
Attempting
to explain what eternity is like, having no memory or experience in a realm
where time does not exist, is rather like a fish trying to describe what
it’s like being dry. However, with a little more intelligence that a fish,
perhaps we can make an attempt. We learn from D&C 130:7, that the angels
reside
in the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire, where all
things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are
continually before the Lord.
If
all things are continually present before the Lord, He looks across what we
would call time in the same manner that we look across space. Further, we
learn that His course is one eternal round (D&C 35:1).
Gramps