Only Two Choices

In Nephi’s description of the last days, he declared, “Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth” (1 Nephi 14:10).  Statements that contain this kind of binary choice as it pertains to our salvation—either the church of the Lamb or the church of the devil—are common throughout the Book of Mormon.  For example, Lehi taught that we “are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil” (2 Nephi 2:27).  We either choose eternal life through Christ or captivity through the devil; there is no other choice.  Jacob similarly taught his people, “Remember that ye are free to act for yourselves—to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life” (2 Nephi 10:23).  Our most important choice is ultimately between two things: eternal life or everlasting death. 

               Many other scriptures in the Book of Mormon similarly describe this dichotomy between good and evil, salvation and damnation, life and death.  Alma declared that we will receive one or the other according to our desires: “He that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience” (Alma 29:5).  He also taught his son Corianton that we can be “raised to endless happiness to inherit the kingdom of God, or to endless misery to inherit the kingdom of the devil, the one on one hand, the other on the other” (Alma 41:4).  Samuel the Lamanite similarly taught the Nephites, “He hath given unto you that ye might know good from evil, and he hath given unto you that ye might choose life or death; and ye can do good and be restored unto that which is good, or have that which is good restored unto you; or ye can do evil, and have that which is evil restored unto you” (Helaman 14:31).  Mormon described a similar binary type of state after the judgment: “All nations and tongues shall stand before God, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil—If they be good, to the resurrection of everlasting life; and if they be evil, to the resurrection of damnation” (3 Nephi 26:4-5).  He also described the two opposing sources of this everlasting life or death: “Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil” (Moroni 7:12).  All these scriptures suggest that we have but two choices only—we can choose to follow God or we can choose to follow the devil. 

            Of course, in life it usually doesn’t appear that simple.  There are all kinds of people in the world that, if we knew them all perfectly, we would place at various points across an enormous spectrum of good and evil, with most of us falling somewhere in the middle.  We sometimes choose good and we sometimes choose evil.  I think the vision of the tree of life helps us perhaps to understand this.  In Lehi’s vision there were two polar opposite places, the tree and the great and spacious building, and there really were no other destinations.  But there were paths that led to both—the rod of iron leading to the tree of life and the “forbidden paths” that led to the great and spacious building.  The people were, it seems, either making there way towards one or the other, but not all were at one of the opposing sides.  Similarly, in this life we are either making our way towards everlasting life or towards eternal damnation by the choices we make, but we may make choices sometimes which pull us towards one and sometimes towards the other.  Ultimately we will either be saved in the presence of God or we won’t—that is a binary outcome.  But in this life we will make choices that take us in both directions.  Eventually, though, we will find that we either have stayed close enough to the iron rod to follow it all the way to the tree, or we have eventually let go and gone off into the broad forbidden paths that lead away from God.