The Innumerable Hosts of Heaven

The Savior taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “Enter ye in at the strait gate….  Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 7:13-14).  If there are relatively few who find the way, does that mean that most of God’s children will not be saved?  It seems unlikely to me that God would have created a plan where only a few of His children would be saved. 

But the essence of this scripture is repeated numerous places.  The Savior told the same thing to the Nephites when He gave them most of the Sermon on the Mount.  He also reiterated it to the 12 disciples that He chose: “Enter ye in at the strait gate; for strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it” (3 Nephi 27:33).  In our dispensation the Lord revealed these words to the Prophet Joseph, “For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world neither do ye know me” (D&C 132:22).  Perhaps what is meant here in these verses is that relatively few will find the path during their mortal life.  But we know that in the plan of salvation all of God’s children will have the opportunity to be redeemed and sanctified through Jesus Christ, and the scriptures abound in references to the fact that heaven will not be a place of only a small group of God’s children:

·         Lehi saw “God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels” (1 Nephi 1:8)

·         Alma saw the same thing, testifying that God was “surrounded with numberless concourses of angels” (Alma 36:22)

·         In speaking of Zion and the “heavenly Jerusalem,” Paul mentioned “an innumerable company of angels” (Hebrews 12:22)

·         Joseph used similar language when he spoke of the celestial kingdom with “an innumerable company of angels” (D&C 76:67)

·         When Joseph F. Smith had his vision of the dead, he spoke of how he saw “gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just, who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus” (D&C 138:12)

·         John “heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” That means 100,000,000 people that John saw in heaven saying, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Revelation 5:11-12).  Daniel appears to have seen something similar (Daniel 7:10). 

These scriptures all suggest to me that heaven will be crowded and Satan will not come off victorious.  Obviously if we count all three kingdoms of glory that we know of—celestial, terrestrial, and telestial—it will only be the sons of perdition who will not be in a place of glory greater than this earth.  But I think that even if we are strictly speaking of those who receive a celestial glory, and innumerable amount of God’s children will be those.  In this life it can feel that the number of true followers of Christ is “small, because of the wickedness” on the earth, but through the great plan of redemption the Lord will save as many of His children as possible (1 Nephi 14:12).