God is Governed by Eternal Laws

An important distinction among Latter-day Saints when speaking about God’s power is that while we believe He can do anything He wants, we believe God wants —and therefore only does— that which is righteous. We believe righteousness is explained most simply as living in accordance to God’s will. While many others Christians would agree with that in word, let me share some examples of how this is applied:

1. God cannot sin. He will not because frankly, He does not want to. This is an important distinction between God and us. We are mortal and have mortal, carnal desires we must learn to overcome. However, while we are yet mortal, we will always be subject in some part to this mortal body. Only Christ had power over his own life. We are subject to death and mortality. God is not. Not being subject to it, God is above sin and acts according to His perfect, righteous desires:
   

   God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? —Numbers 23:19

2. As the above verse suggests, God’s word is just as good as something already done. For God to declare something to come is just as powerful as history to state a fact; it will happen because all God’s word must be fulfilled. Using both scripture and speculation, we can discuss in a future post how God might accomplish this foresight, but for the time being, suffice it to say that if He declares it, it must be so. This is not an imperative but rather a fact by announcement will come to pass.
   

   I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise. —D&C 82:10

3. God, therefore, has limits He himself has revealed over and over again. He cannot lie. He cannot look on sin with the least degree of allowance. He cannot allow mercy to rob justice. I can go on, but suffice it to say that for God to be all-powerful, He must be righteous. We will explore this concept in a future post as well.

Righteousness is Happiness

Before I begin this section, I do want to share one important bit of information about ‘moral relativism’. While we do not believe that morality is relative to the individual and that God can reveal to us eternal truths define morality, we do allow mankind the right to their opinion and allow them to live their lives in peace, whether we agree with them or not. Please feel free to see this post I wrote a few years ago about my stance on gay marriage if you want further insight on the topic of sin and individual morality.

That said, we do believe God’s perfect knowledge of eternity is what defines morality, not us, not even our church’s leaders and policies. Mortality is not relative or dependent on your personal philosophy. It is not something that you pick like your favorite flavor of ice cream or favorite color. Morality is not random. Morality is absolute; our current understanding of it may not be, but knowing there is a single morality to understand makes the pursuit of it possible.

We believe the absolutes of morality do and must come from God, our Heavenly Father. Like any father, He wants what’s best for us. Parents who witness their children about to experience their same mistakes understand how critical it is for their children to know what will and will not bring lasting happiness. Our Heavenly Father is no different.

Unlike us, He is the perfect parent. He does not “make up” rules just for his own enjoyment or to watch us struggle and writhe. He loves us. His plan for us goes by many names in the scriptures, but this is my favorite:

Now, repentance could not come unto men except there were a punishment, which also was eternal as the life of the soul should be, affixed opposite to the plan of happiness, which was as eternal also as the life of the soul. —Alma 42:16

The “Plan of Happiness” is just that, the plan God has laid out for us to reach the pinnacle of joy, the culmination of evolution and the fulfillment and mastery over all knowledge. This will take time but as we learn the laws of God, keep in mind:

1. The laws of God are there to ultimately bring us happiness and lasting joy; everything else is temporary
2. The laws of God are eternal and he is bound by them just as we are, only He understands them perfectly and is currently helping us to do the same

Just as I mentioned in my last post, it is unnecessary for us to question God’s motives when he has a divine love for us to succeed. We need only question how we can do it and how a particular law relates to a greater, eternal principle of happiness.

God Needs Jesus Christ

As I said in my previous post, what sometimes looks to us as miracles are simply God’s application of His perfect knowledge of the laws of existence to bring about his eternal promises. It wasn’t until reading in the Book of Mormon this week about the Atonement of Jesus Christ that I started to appreciate just how central —and how critical— Jesus Christ is to our Heavenly Father’s plan for us.

In the first chapter in the Book of Moses, found in the LDS book of scripture The Pearl of Great Price, God reveals to Moses the reason for God’s existence:

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. —Moses 1:39

There are a lot of implications from this simple scripture. Let’s break them down:

• God has a defined purpose. This is good news for us as our nature is to ask what our purpose is. To know that God has a purpose is to know that God has a purpose for us as well.
• God’s purpose is to save and exalt mankind. We are His children and His focus. We are not secondary to anything He does. Our happiness, our faith, our sorrows, our progression, our triumphs, disappointments and concerns are His concerns.
• The fulfillment of God’s purpose is what brings God his glory. As we fulfill our purpose and become like our Heavenly Father, we are giving glory to God. This empowers our Heavenly Father. In other words, the righteous literally empower our Heavenly Father.
• God is here to serve us and we Him. It is a beautiful and eternal principle of love: two parties have to be devoted to and serve each other for the love to be expressed in its fullness.

For God to fulfill His divine purpose must be primarily concerned with our immortality and eternal life. Defining immortality is simple; it is not dying or some way of preserving our mortal body forever, so there is no longer decay, disease or corruption.

Eternal life is another concept altogether. Life as we know it is filled with trial, success, learning and purpose. We learn from our parents and become parents ourselves. We teach our children to become parents and are able to witness them train their own children. As we learn from our and others’ experience in this life, we master ourselves and grow in our potential. Eternal life is no more or no less than the ability to continue this progress for forever. It is more than not dying. It is living and living well, for eternity.

We have two roadblocks that stop us from having immortality and eternal life that thereby prevent God from being able to help us. Death is part of our mortal existence and —corruption, hunger, among many other things— is what distinguishes mortality from immortality. Sin is the great spiritual corrupter. Sin, taken to extreme can cause spiritual death (known as ‘Hell’), much in the same way that repeated injury can cause physical death. Beyond the spiritual death analogous to separation from God, this spiritual death can literally kill the spirit bodies we posses. This is what hell is.

God gave us a way to overcome death and hell when He sent His son, Jesus Christ:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. —John 3:16

Jesus Christ, having power over His own mortality—being both of mortal and immortal parentage— was able to not only lay down His life but had the power raise it up again. This power of resurrection was first unlocked by Jesus Christ but was made available to all:

And because of the way of deliverance of our God, the Holy One of Israel, this death, of which I have spoken, which is the temporal, shall deliver up its dead; which death is the grave. —2 Nephi 9:11

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. —2 Corinthians 15:53

This power over death gives us the ability to overcome death. While this is freely given as we are brought before our great and final judge, it is something that has implications after the judgement as to the quality and permanency of this resurrection. It is suspected that most, however, will not experience hell—or death of the spirit— but that they will receive a resurrection of one of a few variations of glory as described by Paul:

All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption… —1 Corinthians 15:39-42 (emphasis added)

It is this judgement that determines how we will overcome hell and to what degree. These three degrees of glory all have part in God’s kingdom and are, in the broad sense of the term, what we term to be heaven. Paul distinguishes the Celestial and Terrestrial areas of God’s kingdom with a stark comparison between the “glory of the sun and another glory of the moon”. It is God’s presence in the Celestial glory of God’s kingdom that we want to aspire. He also mentions “another glory of the stars”, referring to our current (though immortal instead of our current mortal state) in the Telestial glory of which we partake today.

Any of these is preferable to the spiritual death of hell (no glory) that comes from wickedness so terrible that it merits this eternal “lake of fire and brimstone”:

And assuredly, as the Lord liveth, for the Lord God hath spoken it, and it is his eternal word, which cannot pass away, that they who are righteous shall be righteous still, and they who are filthy shall be filthy still; wherefore, they who are filthy are the devil and his angels; and they shall go away into everlasting fire, prepared for them; and their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever and has no end. —2 Nephi 9:16

Jesus Christ and His Atonement empowers our Heavenly Father to be able to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life” of many of his children:

• Celestial (glory of the sun): ETERNAL LIFE, IMMORTALITY. These believers are those “which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:14). These are the sons and daughters of God who will eventually reach their full potential as children of God.
• Terrestrial (glory of the moon): IMMORTALITY. These believers could not abide the full Celestial law of God “must inherit another kingdom, even that of a terrestrial kingdom” (D&C 88:21). They are able to abide however with their Savior who has redeemed them. They will become His angels and worship Him forever.
• Telestial (glory of the stars; varied): IMMORTALITY. These are they who are of the world. Though eventually “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess” that Jesus is the Christ, these lived without Christ and were beguiled by the ways of the world. They will still enjoy a glory, though varied, as we imagine there are many degrees of goodness a person can achieve on their own to be judged against.
• Outer Darkness (no glory): these are the only ones who are completely lost by God to the plan He has for them. They are also called the sons of perdition:

And he who cannot abide the law of a telestial kingdom cannot abide a telestial glory; therefore he is not meet for a kingdom of glory. Therefore he must abide a kingdom which is not a kingdom of glory. —D&C 88:24

And assuredly, as the Lord liveth, for the Lord God hath spoken it, and it is his eternal word, which cannot pass away, that they who are righteous shall be righteous still, and they who are filthy shall be filthy still; wherefore, they who are filthy are the devil and his angels; and they shall go away into everlastingfire, prepared for them; and their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever and has no end. —2 Nephi 9:16

God’s purpose is for us to become like Him and enjoy both immortality (to overcome death) and eternal life (to progress eternally). God needs Christ just as much as we need Christ as Christ is the great Mediator and allows both God’s purpose and our purposes to be fulfilled.

God needs us to give Him glory and He needs Christ to fulfill His divine purpose. We need God for everything we have and are and need Christ to overcome that which prevents us to becoming like God. Christ is the great Mediator not just for us but between us and God and quite literally makes God’s Plan of Happiness even possible.