How Great the Plan of our God

I remember once attending a BYU Education Week class that was titled “What the heck is Hell?” The premise of the class as I remember it was that it can be challenging to understand terms such as hell, fire and brimstone, damnation, and endless torment as they are used in the scriptures. The Guide to the Scriptures suggests that there are at least two senses for hell: “First, it is the temporary abode in the spirit world for those who were disobedient in mortality. In this sense, hell has an end. The spirits there will be taught the gospel, and sometime following their repentance they will be resurrected to a degree of glory of which they are worthy. Those who will not repent, but are nevertheless not sons of perdition, will remain in hell throughout the Millennium. After these thousand years of torment, they will be resurrected to a telestial glory.” The second use of the term “is the permanent location of those who are not redeemed by the Atonement of Jesus Christ. In this sense, hell is permanent. It is for those who are found ‘filthy still’ (D&C 88:35, 102). This is the place where Satan, his angels, and the sons of perdition—those who have denied the Son after the Father has revealed Him—will dwell eternally (D&C 76:43–46).” That understanding comes largely from the Vision recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 76. It describes four groups of people: the sons of perdition and then those who inherit the celestial, terrestrial, and finally telestial glory. The sons of perdition are described this way: “These are they who shall go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels—And the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power; Yea, verily, the only ones who shall not be redeemed in the due time of the Lord, after the sufferings of his wrath” (v36-38). These words of Jacob appear to be describing this hell for the devil, his angels, and the sons of perdition: “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).

For those who inherit a telestial glory, on the other hand, their hell will have an end. Doctrine and Covenants 76 says this about this usage of the term hell: “These are they who received not the gospel of Christ, neither the testimony of Jesus. These are they who deny not the Holy Spirit. These are they who are thrust down to hell. These are they who shall not be redeemed from the devil until the last resurrection, until the Lord, even Christ the Lamb, shall have finished his work” (v82-85). Thus these people, having rejected Christ must suffer for their sins in hell before their resurrection. But this hell will have an end as another revelation declared: “Nevertheless, it is not written that there shall be no end to this torment, but it is written endless torment…. For, behold, I am endless, and the punishment which is given from my hand is endless punishment, for Endless is my name. Wherefore—Eternal punishment is God’s punishment.” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:6, 10-11). Note the use of the capital E to describe Endless punishment after God’s manner and not to imply punishment that has no end. Jacob put it this way, “And this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel” (2 Nephi 9:12). Thus hell, at least for those who inherit the telestial glory, will not last forever. Those who pass through it, suffering for their sins because they rejected the sacrifice of Jesus for their sins, will eventually come out of it. So even if they must endure Eternal punishment—meaning the punishment that is God’s punishment—it will not endure forever.  

            My wife recently posted her thoughts on these ideas in which she highlighted this statement from President Oaks: “Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are frequently asked, how is your church different from other Christian churches? Among the answers we give is the fullness of the doctrine of Jesus Christ. Foremost among that doctrine is the fact that our heavenly father loves all his children so much that he wants all to live in a kingdom of glory forever. The revealed doctrine of the restored church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints teaches that all the children of God, with exceptions too limited to consider here will ultimately inherit one of three kingdoms of glory, even the least of which surpasses all understanding.” Those “exceptions too limited to consider” are the sons of perdition (along with the devil and his angels) who receive not a kingdom of glory. All others, which consist of the vast majority of our Father’s children who have come to earth, will one day—though it might be after they pass through a period of suffering for their sins—inherit a place of glory “which surpasses all understanding” because it is so good. And as she highlighted, there is even some question about those sons of perdition and whether their fate of suffering will indeed be forever based on how Joseph Smith used capital E’s in Doctrine and Covenants 76:44 (which didn’t make it into our printed version). Perhaps their suffering too will be Endless and not endless. Either way, with the understanding of what is really meant by hell and suffering and how God intends to save His children, we can rejoice with Jacob, “O how great the plan of our God!” (2 Nephi 9:13)