User:Cyberherbalist/Sandbox

This is my sandbox.

As understood by most Christians, under the doctrine of salvation a person at death is judged and either goes to hell or to heaven. If the person had accepted Christ then he or she goes to heaven. If not, then he or she goes to hell. Judgement is pretty much instantaneous. On the website Catholicus.eu (https://catholicus.eu/) it explains quite clearly that:

"The Church Fathers, such as St. Augustine and St. John Chrysotom, emphasized that the soul is judged the instant it separates from the body. St. Thomas Aquinas explains in the Summa Theologica (Suppl. Q. 69):

"'At the very moment the soul departs from the body, whether in grace or in mortal sin, it receives its irrevocable sentence.'"

That is the Catholic understanding, but both the Orthodox and the Protestants agree.

There is one problem with this understanding, however, and it relates to the fairness of God's justice. This revolves around the fact that the vast majority of humanity has never had a chance to even hear the name Jesus Christ, let alone had a chance to accept him as Savior. For example, a person born in China in, say, 200 BC, would have lived out his life having never even heard of Jesus Christ, and upon dying would have found himself plopped in front of God's throne, judged to be unsaved, and thrown immediately into the fires of hell. He'd be suffering there for eternity, wondering who the hell Jesus Christ was and why he had never heard of him.

The Latter-day Saints hold a strongly divergent view from the rest of Christianity. And while they don't depend upon the Bible for their understanding, it can nevertheless be found in the New Testament. Presumably the other Christians could also find it there, but for some reason they cannot.

In 1 Peter 3:18-19 it is written:

18 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: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

This theme is continued in the next chapter, in 1 Peter 4:6 where it is written:

6 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.

1 Peter 3:20 refers to the disobedient who perished in The Flood as among those who were preached to, which some might suggest were the only ones subject to that preaching, but why only them?

In 1 Peter 3 the writer refers to the period between Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection on the third day. What happened to the Lord during this period? Where was he? He didn't go back to the Father, for upon his resurrection he asked Mary Magdalene, who encountered him in the Joseph of Arimathea's garden not to touch him because he hadn't yet ascended to his Father. As Peter says, he was preaching to the spirits in prison.

But why? Why preach to them? According to what Jesus said to Nicodemus…

Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3:5)

…one cannot enter the Kingdom of God without being baptized by water and the Spirit. Presumably, spirits can't be baptized, since they no longer have bodies.

And in 1 Peter 3:21 baptism is mentioned in connection with those spirits in prison, as follows:

The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

But how are those spirits in prison who accept Jesus's preaching to be baptized? Well, the Apostle Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 15:29, where it is written

"Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?"

This verse is a complete mystery to the rest of Christendom. They don't know what to make of it. At best, they say that Paul was using this mysterious practice of baptism for the dead that some performed in order to confirm the doctrine of resurrection. Some authorities say that the practice was incorrect, but not incorrect enough for Paul to condemn it. A couple of hundreds of years later, some of the Patristic Fathers were condemning the idea as heretical or superstitious. So why did Paul even mention it to support the important doctrine of resurrection?

But in light of what Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3, baptism for the dead makes perfect sense, and brings the possibility of salvation for those who never had a chance to hear the gospel into focus. Those dead to whom Christ preached to, and presumably had the ability to accept his preaching, could ultimately be baptized and receive salvation! And this sheds light upon an otherwise mysterious passage in the Old Testament Book of Malachi, chapter 4, verses 5 and 6, where it is written:

5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: 6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Why is it so important that the hearts of the fathers must be turned to the children, and vice versa? Why else could it be except to find out their names of those who died without hearing the gospel in life, so that they may receive baptism after hearing it in the spirit prison? If not that, then why will Elijah come back before the day of judgement? Because if the fathers would without preaching and baptism go ultimately to hell, even through no fault of their own, what does this say about the mercy of God? Is He a respecter of persons?

The plain answer to all this is that through revelations received by the Prophet Joseph Smith these ancient doctrines and practices, abandoned by Christendom thousands of years ago, were restored to the earth.

In 1836 Joseph Smith received a revelation in which the Lord revealed to him the following (D&C 137:7-9):

7 Thus came the voice of the Lord unto me, saying: All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; 8 Also all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom; 9 For I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts.

But it wasn't until 1840 that the restored practice of baptism for the dead began to be practiced, and it continues to this day in dedicated temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And thus all humankind who never heard of Jesus Christ, has a chance to be saved in his kingdom.