Teachings of the Presidents of the Church – Joseph Fielding Smith
“Our Father in heaven established a plan of salvation for his spirit children…to enable them to advance and progress until they obtain eternal life.”
While finishing a full-time mission in England, Joseph Fielding Smith learned that his 18 year old sister, Alice, had passed away after an extended illness. He knew that she had been sick, but he did not realize the seriousness of her illness, and expected that she would recover. He recorded in his journal that the news was a “dreadful blow to us all,” but “the will of God be done. It is at such times that the hopes which the gospel present[s] to us are most welcome. We shall meet again on the other side to enjoy the pleasures and blessings of each other’s presence, where family ties will no more be broken, but where we shall all live to receive the blessings, and realize the tender mercies of our Father in heaven….”
Later, President Smith said, “We have the plan of salvation; we administer the gospel; and the gospel is the sole hope of the world, the one way that will bring peace on earth and right the wrongs that exist in all nations.”
Question to ponder: Has there been a time in your life when you found comfort in your testimony of the Plan of Salvation?
We know of the Plan of Salvation from modern day revelation. Concerning this, President Smith said, “We learn from the Pearl of Great Price, that there was a council held in heaven, when the Lord called before him the spirits of his children and presented them a plan by which they should come down on this earth, partake of mortal life and physical bodies, pass through a probation of mortality and then go on to a higher exaltation through the resurrection which should be brought about through the atonement of his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ [see Moses 4:1-2; Abraham 3:22-28]….The experience and knowledge obtained in this mortal life, they could not get in any other way, and the receiving of a physical body was essential to their exaltation.”
Question to ponder: What blessings do we have because of the Fall? Some answers include: earthly life; parenthood; contrast of good and bad; we are able to work; accomplishments.
President Smith said: “The Fall was an essential part of man’s mortal 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.”
He further said, “Adam’s transgression brought these two deaths, spiritual and temporal – man being banished from the presence of God, and becoming mortal and subject to all the ills of the flesh. In order that he should be brought back again, there had to be a reparation of the broken law. Justice demanded it.”
We know the “reparation of the broken law” was performed by the Savior.
President Smith said, “It therefore became necessary for the Father to send his Only Begotten Son, who was free from sin, to atone for our sins as well as for Adam’s transgression, which justice demanded should be done. He accordingly offered himself a sacrifice for sins, and through his death upon the cross took upon himself both Adam’s transgression and our individual sins, thereby redeeming us from the fall, and from our sins, on condition of repentance….No man could do what he did for us. He did not have to die, he could have refused. He did it voluntarily. He did it because it was a commandment from this Father. He knew what the suffering was going to be; and yet, because of his love for us, he was willing to do it….”
Point to ponder: Think of a time when you went through a trial – whether by choice or by circumstance, and try to recall the suffering involved. Multiply that suffering by every person who has ever lived during the course of their lives. Consider the magnitude of that suffering and remember that the Savior endured that on our behalf to pay the price of our transgressions.
Building on the foundation of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we work out our salvation during mortality. The plan of salvation consists of the following things: first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, we must repent of our sins; third, we must be baptized in water, by those who are in authority to do so; fourth, we must receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; and fifth, we must endure to the end and keep the commandments.
All people will receive the blessing of resurrection through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. President Smith said, “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.”
We know through the Plan of Salvation, our bodies and our spirits will be reunited. President Smith said, “Spirits cannot be made perfect without the body of flesh and bones. This body and its spirit are brought to immortality and blessings of salvation through the resurrection. After the resurrection there can be no separation again, body and spirit become inseparably connected that man may receive a fullness of joy. In no other way, other than birth into this life and the resurrection, can spirits become like our eternal Father.”
Additional points to ponder:
“We are taught in the gospel of Jesus Christ that the family organization will be, so far as celestial exaltation is concerned, 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.”
“When we have come out of the world and have received the gospel in its fullness, we are candidates for celestial glory; nay, we are more than candidates, if we are faithful, for the Lord has given unto us the assurance that through our faithfulness, we shall enter into the celestial kingdom….”
In Matthew 25:34, we read: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” President Smith declared: “And I pray that this may be the happy lot of all of us, in our own due time.”
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