Dallin H. Oaks | Divine Love in the Father’s Plan | April 2022 General Conference | Faith To Act

Divine Love in the Father’s Plan
By President Dallin H. Oaks

First Counselor in the First Presidency

The purpose of the doctrine and policies of this restored Church is to prepare God’s children for salvation in the celestial kingdom and for exaltation in its highest degree.

The gospel plan shows our Heavenly Father’s love for all His children. To understand this, we must seek to understand His plan and His commandments. He loves His children so much that He gave His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Savior and Redeemer, to suffer and die for us. In the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have a unique understanding of our Heavenly Father’s plan. This gives us a different way of viewing the purpose of mortal life, the divine judgment that follows it, and the ultimate glorious destiny of all of God’s children.

I love you, my brothers and sisters. I love all of God’s children. When Jesus was asked, “Which is the great commandment in the law?” He taught that to love God and to love our neighbors are the first of God’s great commandments.1 Those commands are first because they invite us to grow spiritually by seeking to imitate God’s love for us. I wish we all had a better understanding of the loving doctrine and policies that our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, have established in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What I say here seeks to clarify how God’s love explains that doctrine and the Church’s inspired policies.

I.
A common misunderstanding of the judgment that ultimately follows mortal life is that good people go to a place called heaven and bad people go to an everlasting place called hell. This erroneous assumption of only two ultimate destinations implies that those who cannot keep all the commandments required for heaven will necessarily be forever destined for hell.

A loving Heavenly Father has a better plan for His children. The revealed doctrine of the restored Church of Jesus Christ teaches that all the children of God—with exceptions too limited to consider here—will finally wind up in a kingdom of glory.2 “In my Father’s house are many mansions,”3 Jesus taught. From modern revelation we know that those mansions are in three different kingdoms of glory. In the Final Judgment each of us will be judged according to our deeds and the desires of our hearts.4 Before that, we will need to suffer for our unrepented sins. The scriptures are clear on that.5 Then our righteous Judge will grant us residence in one of those kingdoms of glory. Thus, as we know from modern revelation, all “shall be judged … , and every man shall receive according to his own works, his own dominion, in the mansions which are prepared.”6

The Lord has chosen to reveal comparatively little about two of these kingdoms of glory. In contrast, the Lord has revealed much about the highest kingdom of glory, which the Bible describes as the “glory of the sun.”7

In the “celestial” glory8 there are three degrees, or levels.9 The highest of these is exaltation in the celestial kingdom, wherein we may become like our Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. To help us develop the godly attributes and the change in nature necessary to realize our divine potential, the Lord has revealed doctrine and established commandments based on eternal law. This is what we teach in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because the purpose of the doctrine and policies of this restored Church is to prepare God’s children for salvation in the celestial glory and, more particularly, for exaltation in its highest degree.

The covenants made and the blessings promised to the faithful in the temples of God are the key. This explains our worldwide building of temples, about which the choir has sung so beautifully. Some are puzzled at this emphasis, not understanding that the covenants and ordinances of the temple guide us toward achieving exaltation.

General Conference Sunday Afternoon Session April 2022

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