I will try to make this short and sweet. In D&C 19:15-20, we read:
therefore | i command you to repent |
repent | lest i smite you by the rod of my mouth | and by my wrath | and by my anger | and your sufferings be sore |
how sore you know not |
how exquisite you know not |
yea | how hard to bear you know not |
for behold | i | god | have suffered these things for all | that they might not suffer | if they would repent | but if they would not repent | they must suffer | even as i | which suffering caused myself | even god | the greatest of all | to tremble because of pain | and to bleed at every pore | and to suffer | both body and spirit | and would | that i might not drink the bitter cup | and shrink | nevertheless | glory be to the father | and i partook | and finished my preparations unto the children of men | wherefore | i command you again |
to repent | lest i humble you with my almighty power |
and that you confess your sins | lest you suffer these punishments | of which i have spoken | of which in the smallest | yea | even in the least degree you have tasted | at the time i withdrew my spirit |
When I was a young man, reading this scripture, I had always thought that this spoke of the punishment of the devil and his angels and the sons of perdition, being cast out into outer darkness at the last and great day of judgment.
Today, however, as I was teaching one of my children about the afterlife (for there was a recent death in our extended family), I taught that this scripture also had application to all those souls who entered hell, that every soul who was bound down there would suffer in spirit even as Jesus suffered in spirit.
A description of the suffering of the Lord
The suffering of the Lord is described by the angel in this way: “he shall suffer temptations, and pains of body, hunger, thirst and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death” (Mosiah 3:7.) The Spirit told Alma that the Son of God “shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind” and that “he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people” (Alma 7:11.) The Spirit also said that “he will take upon him their infirmities” (Alma 7:12.)
Christ’s physical body could sustain levels of suffering beyond our comprehension, without dying, allowing the pain to be piled on everlastingly. No mortal human, therefore, could experience what Jesus experienced, while in the physical, mortal body. But once dead, man’s immortal spirit is up to the task of infinite suffering.
Thus, all those who descend into hell will come to know how sore, how exquisite and how difficult to bear were the sufferings of Christ, for they will go through the same pain and anguish.
Now, there was much more that I taught my child, but I thought that this topic might make for some interesting discussion on this blog.
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I think we will experience pain and suffering in this life too if we don’t repent. leviticus 26
This part:
reminded me of my thoughts written in the Unity of God post:
After of few zillion years, it won’t be so bad.
I initially brought this subject up (to my child) because of a statement by someone that our recently departed relative was now in a better, happier place, being reunited with loved ones, in a celebration. This was understandably stated to comfort those who loved the deceased. My family consists of LDS and non-LDS, so there are diverse beliefs about all things, nevertheless, there seems to be consensus among everyone that when people die, they go to a better place, unless they are really, really wicked. This particular comment seemed to indicate a belief that there were three locations in the afterlife, corresponding to the three degrees of glory. One was paradise, where the celestial people go, one was spirit prison, where terrestrial people go, and one was hell, where telestial people go; hell being where people suffer and spirit prison being where people simply wait, without suffering, for the missionaries to arrive and teach them the gospel. In other words, the Catholic concept of limbo, seemed to have been adopted by the LDS family members.
Now, I don’t know if this is peculiar to my family, because of Catholic influence, or if this has come from Mormon traditions, as well. I haven’t really talked much to LDS about the afterlife and who goes where. But, in the course of explaining about my departed relative, having lived, as far as we know, a terrestrial life, I felt it necessary to explain that terrestrial souls do not simply enter a third place called “spirit prison,” which is separate from hell, and just wait around, sitting, standing, walking, but essentially doing nothing, without anything to torment them except the boredom of the place and the memories of their lives.
My understanding of the afterlife is fundamentally different from this idea, and to illustrate my point I pulled this scripture out (section 19) and applied it to the space between death and resurrection, to both terrestrial and telestial lives. I attempted to explain, to the LDS relative who originally made the statement, that terrestrial souls are not sinless. The difference between the two souls, terrestrial and telestial, is that telestial souls sin inwardly (hard hearts and blind minds) and outwardly (doing harm to others), while terrestrial souls repent of outward sins, but still remain in their inward sins (hard hearts and blind minds.) Thus, they still remain sinners, even hypocrites, for they appear to be good on the outside to others.
And this is the point of section 19, that if a person doesn’t repent of their sins (inward or outward, it doesn’t matter), they must suffer in this manner, meaning after the manner of the suffering of the Lord. Also, that their suffering comes through the agency of Satan, the resident sadist in hell. Satan, hating all these people who are found within his realm, people who opposed him in their pre-mortal existence, this is his opportunity to “get back” at them for not having chosen him, as the one-third did.
Of course, these afflictions he brings upon these people actually work into the purposes of the Lord, for through their sufferings they are finally brought to repentance and faith, after the missionaries arrive with the light of Christ to free them from their shackles.
So, the idea of telestial and terrestrial people being reunited with their telestial and terrestrial family and friends, is, in a sense, sound, since they all go to the same place, but I cannot see happy celebrations taking place.
Growing up, I remember seeing a church film, Man’s Search for Happiness, I think it was called, in which the pre-mortal existence and afterlife was depicted, I think, and it just showed people milling around, doing nothing. That image stuck with me and tainted my understanding of what happens after we die. I wouldn’t doubt that many LDS think that people aren’t really tortured, at all, by anyone, that they are merely tortured by their own minds. In a sense, that is true, since the tares are connected to their minds, but the suffering has a source external to them, which is the devil. Also, that “spirit prison” is jurisdiction of the Lord, thus is a place of justice, meaning those who are more wicked, suffer more than those who were less wicked. All such concepts are contrary to how I read and understand the scriptures.
I attempted to explain that such statements actually lull people into a false sense of security, taking away any urgency to warn our neighbors, after we ourselves have been warned by the gospel. For, if boredom is the only lot of those who do not go to paradise, then there is no reason to go about preaching the gospel to every soul on this side of the veil. We can let the missionaries on the other side of the veil preach the gospel, for all things are done in fairness, and people deserve whatever they will get.
In other words, the sense of fairness that God has given mankind takes away any urgency to warn our neighbors to immediately repent of their sins, if it is applied to the afterlife, for just about everyone is okay with people reaping what they sow, both here and there. But, when you realize that sin in mortality creates a situation in which you receive the maximum penalty (the suffering of the Lord) on the other side of the veil, which is totally unfair, it creates a sense of urgency to turn people from their sins, for who desires that a man who dies in his sins should receive greater punishment than what his sins really merit? There is no sense of fairness in that, and that is the point. This is why these warnings go forth, that we might understand that hell (or spirit prison) is not a place of justice and those people do not deserve the punishments that will be inflicted on them by the devil.
The devil does not punish these people for the sins that they did in mortality, no, his motive is revenge upon them for not choosing him. Therefore, the devil has no justification, whatsoever, in his devilish work. And so on and so forth.
As LDS, my wife and I had always understood something similar to the the “three degrees” you described above. My wife grew-up LDS — so I think the idea of “spirit prison” as a “neutral” place for “good” people to go and wait until the resurrection is common.
I found Man’s Search For Happiness on YouTube.
Watching it again, I see that the video is almost entirely correct, except for this part of the narration:
The first part in bold is simply not true, according to my understanding, for the knowledge of our pre-mortal life only returns when we are resurrected. The second part is partially true, or is true for those who will enter paradise, but is not true for those who enter hell. As all go to paradise, initially, I suppose we could say that all souls will find loved ones waiting for them, in the sense that those residing in paradise love the sinners as much as the saints, and they will be waiting for them, but they will only welcome those who are to enter into paradise. All the others will be dragged down to hell, into the regions of darkness.
The picture painted by this film, then, as far as the afterlife is concerned, is the same one portrayed by my LDS relative who attempted to console the other non-LDS relatives. So, I guess this misunderstanding doesn’t come from Catholicism, after all. It’s a 100% Mormon-made perversion, recorded into celluloid under authority of the First Presidency and Twelve Apostles and sent far and wide to the ends of the earth. Btw, according to the YouTube comments, the narrator of this film was Richard L. Evans, who, I believe, was an apostle.
Reminds me of what my grandmother told me. She said my Grandfather visits her sometimes in her dreams (actually she says her dreams seem pretty real).
There were some times were my Grandfather comes to her room and is very tired, and she asks him what he’s doing and he replies: “i’m working for the Lord. There is a lot of work to do.”. Once she said he came with very dirty clothes and looked like he lost weight and he told her he only came quick to asure her that everything is fine, that she had to stay strong and that he must go back now but will visit her soon.
It’s been over a year, i wonder if he did visit her again. It really doesn’t seem like the souls are on vacation in the spirit world.
I like to quote St. Alphonsus of his “equally” impressive understanding of the passion and the atonement, touching on the post above :
Behold, our most loving Saviour, having come to the
Garden of Gethsemani, did of his own accord make a
beginning of his bitter Passion by giving full liberty to
the passions of fear, of weariness, and of sorrow to come
and afflict him with all their torments : He began to fear;
a?id to be heavy? to grow sorrowful, and to be sad. 1
He began, then, first to feel a great fear of death, and
of the sufferings he would have soon to endure. He
began to fear ; 3 but how? Was it not he himself that
had offered himself spontaneously to endure all these
torments ? He was offered because He willed it.” Was it
1 “Coepit pavere et taedere.” — Mark, xiv. 33.
8 ” Contristari et moestus esse.” — Matt. xxvi. 37.
8 ” Coepit pavere.”
4 ” Oblatus est, quia ipse voluit.” — Isa. liii. 7.
not he who had so much desired this hour of his Pas-
sion, and who had said shortly before, With desire have 1
desired to eat this Pasch with you ? l And yet how is it
that he was seized with such a fear of death, that he
even prayed his Father to deliver him from it ? …
…
….And there appeared to Him an angel, . . . strengthening
Him. Strength came, but, says the Venerable Bede,
this rather increased than lightened his sufferings :
“Strength did not diminish, but increased his sorrow.” 2
Yes, for the angel strengthened him, that he might suffer
still more for the love of men and the glory of his
Father.
…
…: Ami His sweat became as
drops of blood trickling down upon the ground. .’ So that, ac-
cording to the Evangelist, this bloody sweat was so
copious that it first bathed all the vestments of our
Blessed Redeemer, and then came forth in quantity and
bathed the ground.
Ah, my loving Jesus, I do not behold in this garden
either scourges or thorns or nails that pierce Thee; how,
then, is it that I see Thee all bathed in blood from Thy
head to Thy feet ? …
THE ASCETICAL WORKS.
Volume V.
The
Passion and the Death
of Jesus Christ.
by St. ALPHONSUS de LIGUORI
http://archive.org/stream/passiondeathofje00ligu/passiondeathofje00ligu_djvu.txt
I really dig this part:
oh! if you can post any additional insight you can have and I’m happy to read from them, LDS A, thanks for your feedback in the quote…
LDSA, thanks for directing me to this post. It (and the comments) moved me to a prayer of gratitude. I wept a little as I realized how much love both the Father and the Son have for me so that both of them are willing to die and suffer enormous suffering just to save me, their creation. What a powerful thought that was.
(I realize that the Father did not suffer like the Son did, but Jesus revealed to us the Father’s character and so even the Father was willing to suffer if He had to)
And so my mind turned to the verses below.
I was wondering if there is more meaning to all those “according to”s than meets the eye?
I dont understand the phrase “His bowels may be filled with mercy according to the flesh”.
Can this be paraphrased “His bowels may be filled with mercy while He was in the flesh (while He was living on the Earth)”? Would this mean that He was filled with mercy while going through the agony?
Basically all 5 instances of “according to”s are a puzzling to me as they can be interpreted in many ways, so Im kindly asking you to provide your exposition.
Oh, and the original BoM edition has the phrase “how to suffer the people” instead of “how to succor the people”. I dont know if it is a legitimate typo or the true meaning.
jackdale76,
Here you go:
Now, the part about taking upon Him death, in order to loose the bands of death, is also, in part, a fleshy atonement, because God has power to snap His fingers and say, “Y’all resurrected!” But instead He sends His son to die, and then commands Him to come back alive in three days, and to break the band of death, by His almighty power (faith). So, the resurrection is a manifestation of the power of God, yet it is initiated by a fleshy death. All this shows that God can do anything, even if you tell Him, “Yeah, but can you do it without using your power?!” Yep, He can, and did.
A couple of more things
First,
“according to the power of his deliverance” qualifies Him blotting out their transgressions. In other words, Christ isn’t going to blot out everyone’s transgressions. This isn’t the doctrine of Nehor. There are conditions that must be fulfilled first, namely, faith in Him and the repentance of all our sins. When we comply with those conditions, then He has power to deliver us.
Secondly, Jesus basically exercised faith as a principle of action, of inaction and of power, in His atonement. The Father basically said, “Here, Son, drink every drop of this infinitely large cup filled to the brim of the most bitter bitterness.” And His ever obedient Son swallowed every drop. The rest of us would gag and convulse at the first taste, but He gulped it all down. This was Christ exercising faith as a principle of action. Then the Father said, “Now don’t do anything to reduce your suffering, Son, but feel every single bit of it wholeheartedly.” And the ever obedient Son of God just let the feeling have full sway in Him. This was faith as a principle of inaction. Then the Father said, “Now, Son, go die on that cross after they mock you and whip you and spit on you and nail you to it. Oh, and remember, keep feeling the contents of that bitter cup you drank right up to the end of your life, okay.” And the ever obedient Son went and suffered all that humiliation and then died right where He was told to die. This was faith as a principle of action. Finally, the Father said, “Now come back alive and while you at it, break the bands of death forever, so that men may be resurrected just like you.” And the ever obedient Son of God broke the bands of death and came back alive, a miracle no miracle worker had ever done, or would ever do. This was an exercise of faith as a principle of power. So, He did it all in this atonement.
In your opinion the meaning here is
A) His suffering of their infirmities/ilnesses etc is a prerequisite for Him to take upon Him the sins of His people
B) It speaks of a separate installment of suffering, meaning there are 2 sufferings: 1. of their infirmities and 2. to take upon Him the sins.
jackdale76, how perceptive you are! Yes, He took upon Himself their illnesses/infirmities because that was also likely necessary to rid them of their sins. Sin is the cause, then, of all illnesses/infirmities/sickness/death, etc. The effects of sin, then, can alter one’s genetic code, producing physical maladies, not only in us but in our posterity (hereditary diseases.) To work out a perfect atonement, then, Christ had to experience all the effects of sin, that He might extinguish it all. The Three Nephites are illustrative of this. They became sanctified in the flesh, so that nothing could harm them, and all the effects of hereditary maladies were likewise cut off, by the repentance of all their sins, Christ bearing the full weight and effects of their sins.
Having thought about it some more, I’d like to take my words back. The Josephite will be the greatest miracle worker bar none, after all.
LDSA,
I am perplexed at the idea put forth by you that Christ did this or that “so that no one can say” as if there is anyone that must be satisfied other than the Father. Only the Father has to be appeased acc to this verse:
I also remember Cleon Skousen’s talk “The Atonement” where his reasoning is – because the Father is always full of mercy towards us then the following verse must mean that someone else’s bowels must be filled with mercy
But we established a few comments earlier that it is Christ’s bowels according to the flesh that must be filled with mercy, not some other inteligence’s bowels as Scousen postulated.
But then again, I am only surmising, so your thoughts are welcome.
jackdale76,
Here is my understanding of the atonement: The Compassionate Empathy Model of the Atonement
See the follow-up comments, too.
Im wondering what exactly this phrase entails. If He takes upon Him the sins of the people, He now becomes as if He was the sinner. What’s His next step during his Atonement? Does He now have to repent of those sins or does He have to suffer being cast off forever or does He have to simply continue with the realization that He is the sinner while other sins of other people get piled on top of Him?
The other aspect of why Im wondering is that if Christ’s suffering’s purpose was to overpower justice, He might as well have chosen any other thing to suffer for. Wouldn’t it bring about the same effect? The Universe would be moved to compassion regardless of what exactly the Christ suffered for as long as the suffering is so enormous and overwhelming.
jackdale76,
Only as if, not in reality. So, no, God does not have to repent, but He had to suffer the penalty of being cast off forever.
Also, He couldn’t choose anything else to suffer, because all suffering comes from, or originates from, sin. So, what other kind of suffering is there? There is only one penalty for sin: death, or the death penalty. And sin leads to suffering (pain, affliction, poverty, sorrow, sickness, etc.) and ends, ultimately, in death, both of the body and of the spirit, so that was all He had to suffer, because that is the only suffering available to suffer. The righteous, who are perfect in every way, do not suffer the effects of sin, hence the translated Nephites, but they still have the capacity to mourn for others.
LDSA, do you understand how Jesus’s healings in v.16 fulfilled what seems to be the events of the Atonement in v.17 ?
All illnesses and infirmities proceed from sin, according to my understanding, so He’s got power over the spirit body (sin) and the physical body (illness). All of these things go onto Him, so He can take it all away, as He did when He healed those people and cast out devils.
At the Great Judgement the Lord will declare to those who are filthy still:
So, Jesus will say both “I never knew you” and “you never knew Me”.
Those people he addresses are former saints for they prophesied, cast out devils and did many wonderful works.
When he tells them “I never knew you”, I interpreted it “I did not bear your pains,sicknesses,infirmities during the Atonement so that I could know how to succor you”. That makes sense because owing to God’s foreknowledge Christ only suffered for those who repent.
Now, my question is, what does He mean by “you never knew Me”?
My understanding is that to know Christ is to be baptized with fire.
So, those former saints did indeed know Christ at some point in their lives. How is it that “they never knew Him”?
Any thoughts?
It’s just a reset:
The sons of perdition commit spiritual suicide, going back instead of forward, returning like the dog to his vomit, so everything gets reset to its former condition. In other words, they didn’t know the Lord, then they knew the Lord, then they committed spiritual suicide and so go back to their former condition of not knowing the Lord. Put another way, the Lord never knew them, then He knew them, then they committed spiritual suicide and so the Lord goes back to the former condition of not knowing them. They had sins, their sins were remitted, then they committed spiritual suicide and so all their former sins return, as if the atonement and redemption never happened. The experience of this reset leaves them completely gutted or empty, so that now the devil has full control over them and they are lost (perdition) forever.
It may be that this is the same reset miracle mentioned in the previous comment. Moses 5:
So, Cain wasn’t called Perdition before the world, and we all knew this, yet once he becomes a son of perdition, miraculously the heavenly record and our memories are changed and he is now found to have been called Perdition before the world. Everyone goes back to check their memories and the records, and lo and behold!, what do you know? He really was called Perdition! And we all remember this to have ocurred.
LDSA, how do you harmonize your understanding that
with what Jesus said about the blind man
jackdale76, Jesus is merely addressing the question concerning the child or his parents being responsible for his condition. Neither one is responsible. It is not the sin they did in mortality that caused the condition, but it is the sinful state of generations which caused the flesh to go from a perfect state of wholeness to the current state of illness. Sin causes all infirmity, but not necessarily the sin that you did or that your parents did. It may have been generations over generations of great-greats (grandparents) of sinful behavior and wrong decisions, that caused genetic malformations to become genetically inherited in your body.
LDSA, another q as touching your assertion that
If one accidentally chops off his finger, do you believe that the reason that the finger didnt immediately grow back into its place is the result of sin only? Whose sin? Adam’s?
Does the devil also play any role in thwarting the growth of the chopped-off finger back into its perfect form?
jackdale76, the pre-Fall state was one in which one couldn’t accidentally chop off one’s finger. The finger was part of a translated body. The Fall brought sin and death into the world, creating a change in all physical structures, making them mortal. Now our fingers can be chopped off. This is because everything is in a corrupted (mortal) state. But, even in this existence it is possible to redeem not only one’s spirit, but also one’s physical body, so that it reverts back to the condition it was always supposed to have: the translated state. Enoch and his city, Melchizedek and his city, Elijah, Moses and probably Aaron, and the Three Nephite disciples of Christ, etc., all rid the effects of sin from both their spirits (something that all saints do) and from their physical bodies (not all saints accomplish that in this life.) These, then, become translated. All of creation must go back into that pre-Fall (translated) condition before Christ gets here. This is why Elijah must come back and give his (translation) keys to the Josephite. Everything that is redeemable has to be redeemed before Jesus gets back, otherwise the Earth and everything on it will be wasted (destroyed) by the brightness of the Lord’s coming. The righteous are promised the redemption of their bodies in the next life, so having sanctified spirits alone here on earth is sufficient for them. But the “evil” that is in their physical bodies, in which the decay and allow fingers to be chopped off comes of the effects of sin upon this world. The Millennium will be deathless and illness-free because of the righteousness of the people, because they all do what Elijah and the other did, namely, rid all the effects of sin from themselves, both spirit and body.
At present, only some individuals have exercised the type of faith required to return their whole form back to pre-Fall conditions, but with the advent of the Josephite, because of his astonishingly strong faith, there will also be a huge faith “upgrade” among the saints, and the redemption of the world (its restoration to pre-Fall conditions) will go forth in earnest, beginning with the Josephite, then with the 144,000, and then with the rest of the population that repents.
This full restoration cannot happen unless their is repentance and exceedingly great faith. So, the devil obviously tries to get us to sin, and once we sin, to keep us in our sins, to stop us from repenting. But if we have repented, then he tries to stop us from exercising such mighty faith that our bodies become “sanctified in the flesh.” But, even though not many as yet have exercised faith to accomplish full restoration, the scriptures do speak of healings by faith, so many saints have been able to have chopped off fingers (or whatever) restored to them, although their bodies still remain mortal.
So, the effects of sin are overcome with repentance plus faith, the degree of faith exercised being the factor that determines the degree of restoration you receive, or how soon you receive it (in this life or the next.)