All the Works of His Hands

In his recent address at general conference, Elder Gary E. Stevenson spoke about the Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan which apparently hasn’t lost a single piece of luggage in 30 years. He related, “Tsuyoshi Habuta, the airport chief of baggage operations, believes losing luggage should never happen ‘because luggage is precious to passengers.’ That attitude permeates through his entire staff. The airport’s success, he says, is all part of a commitment to ‘thoroughness and an attention to detail.” Elder Stevenson summarized, “When you hand off your luggage at Kansai Airport, you get a sense that they are saying to you, ‘We have your precious belongings. We are responsible for them now. We will return them to you.’” He then connected this with the care that our Father in Heaven wants for all of His children on the earth. Elder Stevenson continued, “In a reverent way, I wonder what it is like for a loving Heavenly Father to send His most precious belongings, His children, away from their heavenly home, knowing they must pass through the challenges of mortality. I suppose His great comfort is knowing that they do not travel alone. Parents, family, leaders, friends, ministering brothers and sisters, you and I serve as stewards of His most precious possessions. How beloved and precious His children are to Him. And how beloved and blessed are those who care for and nurture others.” He wants all of His children to return to Him and it is our privilege to help care for others on this earth in whatever small way we can.

As I thought about this, I reread these words of the Savior who prayed to His Father, “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:12). I believe this could apply to the twelve specifically (with Judas as the “son of perdition”), but perhaps it also applies to all of God’s children who receive some kingdom of glory in the next life (except the sons of perdition). The Savior also said this: “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day” (John 6:39). In modern revelation the Lord similarly taught: “Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me; And none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost” (Doctrine and Covenants 50:41-42). And in Joseph Smith’s vision of the kingdoms of glory we read perhaps most clearly the universality of the Savior’s salvation: “Who glorifies the Father, and saves all the works of his hands, except those sons of perdition who deny the Son after the Father has revealed him” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:43). President Oaks commented on this verse saying, “God’s love is so great that, except for the few who deliberately become sons of perdition, He has provided a destiny of glory for all of His children.” Like the workers at the Kansai airport, the Savior promised the Father not to lose any of His Father children (besides the very small group of sons of perdition). He saves all the works of His hands because all will receive a resurrected body and a kingdom of glory, whether that is celestial, terrestrial, or telestial.

In the premortal world Satan said this to the Father, “Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor” (Moses 4:1). If the Father’s plan through the Savior was that none should be lost except for the sons of perdition, perhaps the plan of the adversary was not so far-fetched as we might think. The Father’s criticism of Satan’s proposition was this: “Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power” (Moses 4:3). The problem wasn’t that he promised to save everyone—the Savior essentially promised the same thing. Rather, Satan’s issue was that he wanted that salvation to come by destroying their agency, which the Savior was not going to do. And surely Lucifer had no intention of redeeming mankind through his own suffering. Rather, it appears that he wanted to prevent the possibility of choice which would ensure, he perhaps thought, that all mankind would be redeemed by him. But the Savior’s plan was to grant choice and let us choose Him if we wanted, while still providing a minimum level of salvation—the telestial kingdom—for all (except those who would reject Him with perfect certainly of the plan). And so the point is that we should not think, “Maybe Satan’s plan would have been better because all would have been saved.” No, that is the Savior’s plan and He actually delivered on it! We can rejoice in the fact that He promised “to save all the works of his hands.”