After posting on topics such as the Plan of Salvation or the Temple, I began to receive comments and emails that kept asking me questions using the term “salvation.’ Questions such as “Can I be saved if I don’t believe in the LDS Church?” I found myself attempting to answer completely different questions using very similar explanations, until I realized that a more practical solution would be to define the terms damnation, salvation, and exaltation in the LDS context.

This post is so huge, I know! But I really think that it will help you understand future posts much better. I’ve tried to bold the most important statements (actually I thinkit’s all pretty important, but I’m trying to help) so that if you feel like skimming, you can do so.

Before I get into these terms, I wanted to remind you of the difference between the LDS views of heaven and hell. In the LDS faith, there is no hell. There is a place called Outer Darkness where Satan will live for eternity with his followers after the final Judgement, but it’s very hard to get there. Actually, only people who are baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ and then turn away from the faith (not just people who go inactive, but people who deny God after having a sure witness), are sent there. . Heaven is divided up into three glories, Telestial, Terrestial, and Celestial. For a more in-depth explanation of the three glories and outer darkness, please visit my post on the subject here.

It was really hard for me to decide which of these terms to cover first, and how to approach them, since they all seem to build upon each other. I think it’s best to start with salvation.

Salvation

As used in Romans 10:9–10, the words “saved” and “salvation” signify a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ. Through this covenant relationship, followers of Christ are assured salvation from the eternal consequences of sin if they are obedient. That’s what other Christian faiths believe as well. The difference, is who we believe is saved, and how.

Salvation from Physical Death. All people eventually die. But through the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, all people will be resurrected—saved from physical death. Paul testified, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). In this sense, everyone is saved, regardless of choices made during this life. This is a free gift from the Savior to all human beings. Did you catch that? (I put it in bold so you would make sure to take note) All people are saved, no matter their skin color, age, race, how good or evil they are, their belief system, or period they lived on the earth. The Buddhists, the Jews, the Christians, the Taoists, the Hindus, and every other person who has ever lived on this earth. No one has to go to hell because they never heard of Jesus Christ! Babies don’t have to burn in hell because they weren’t baptized!

Here’s an excerpt from a talk given by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorom of the Twelve Apostles

“We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel” (A of F 1:3).

Many Bible verses declare that Jesus came to take away the sins of the world (e.g., John 1:29; Matt. 26:28). The New Testament frequently refers to the grace of God and to salvation by grace (e.g., John 1:17; Acts 15:11; Eph. 2:8). But it also has many specific commandments on personal behavior, and many references to the importance of works (e.g., Matt. 5:16; Eph. 2:10; James 2:14–17). In addition, the Savior taught that we must endure to the end in order to be saved (see Matt. 10:22; Mark 13:13).

Relying upon the totality of Bible teachings and upon clarifications received through modern revelation, we testify that being cleansed from sin through Christ’s Atonement is conditioned upon the individual sinner’s faith, which must be manifested by obedience to the Lord’s command to repent, be baptized, and receive the Holy Ghost (see Acts 2:37–38). “Verily, verily, I say unto thee,” Jesus taught, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5; see also Mark 16:16; Acts 2:37–38). Believers who have had this required rebirth at the hands of those having authority have already been saved from sin conditionally, but they will not be saved finally until they have completed their mortal probation with the required continuing repentance, faithfulness, service, and enduring to the end.

Some Christians accuse Latter-day Saints who give this answer of denying the grace of God through claiming they can earn their own salvation. We answer this accusation with the words of two Book of Mormon prophets. Nephi taught, “For we labor diligently … to persuade our children … to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Ne. 25:23). And what is “all we can do”? It surely includes repentance (see Alma 24:11) and baptism, keeping the commandments, and enduring to the end. Moroni pleaded, “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ” (Moro. 10:32).

This is one of my favorite principles of the gospel. We aren’t punished for our ignorance, Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for each and every one of us. Many people live in a state of darkness, not knowing the light of the restored gospel. They are “only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it” (D&C 123:12). God is so incredibly just.

Let’s take a moment to talk about really evil people. Like Hitler, or Saddam, or Stalin. They too, are provided salvation from death. This can be a difficult concept to swallow, because we don’t want to hear such positive outcomes (for salvation is a wonderful thing) applied to such awful men. Remember this post about the pre-existence? We all lived together with God before we were born, every single soul who has come, and will ever come to the earth. At one point, we all were good enough to make the choice to come to earth and be tested (instead of following Satan). But, when we came to the earth, we forgot who we were before we were born, and we began to fall victim to the temptations of Satan. The above mentioned dictators fell victim to Satan in the worst way possible, killing millions of God’s children in the process.

Don’t stop reading, because without this second principle, salvation sounds like a free pass! If you were just worried about being saved from physical death, you might thing you have your cake and eat it too. Not so my friend, because even though you gained immortality, you still have to suffer the consequences of the actions you do not repent for.

Salvation from Sin. To be cleansed from sin through the Savior’s Atonement, an individual must exercise faith in Jesus Christ, repent, be baptized, and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (see Acts 2:37–38). Our Church believes that baptism must be done with the proper authority, found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Those who have been baptized and have received the Holy Ghost through the proper priesthood authority have been conditionally saved from sin. In this sense, salvation is conditional, depending on an individual’s continuing in faithfulness, or enduring to the end in keeping the commandments of God (see 2 Peter 2:20–22).

One very large difference between the LDS faith and other denominations is that we do not believe that salvation comes by grace alone. “Faith without works is dead,” is a phrase my parents taught me growing up. Through the process of modern revelation we have learned the importance of works. Individuals cannot be saved in their sins; they cannot receive unconditional salvation simply by declaring a belief in Christ with the understanding that they will inevitably commit sins throughout the rest of their lives (see Alma 11:36–37). However, through the grace of God, all can be saved from their sins (see 2 Nephi 25:23; Helaman 5:10–11) as they repent and follow Jesus Christ.

Which means deathbead repentance is out for me.

Exaltation

It was only very recently that I realized that we might be the only religion in the world that believe in exaltation. (Please correct me if I am wrong!)

Exaltation is the promise of eternal life. And I’m not just talking the kind of eternal life where you sit around in a stadium shaped like a rose and sing praises to God for the rest of eternity (I love the Divina Commedia!). Eternal life is the phrase used in scripture to define the quality of life that our Eternal Father lives. The Lord declared, “This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39) Eternal life, or exaltation, is to live in God’s presence and to continue as families (see D&C 131:1–4). Like salvation, this gift is made possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Nephi emphasized that after we have entered this “strait and narrow path,” we must endure to the end in faith:

“After ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.

“Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:19–20).

After we are baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, much of our progress toward eternal life depends on our receiving other ordinances of salvation: for men, ordination to the Melchizedek Priesthood; for men and women, the temple endowment and marriage sealing. When we receive these ordinances and keep the covenants that accompany them, we prepare ourselves to inherit eternal life.

I don’t like ending on such a sour note, but it only made sense for me to end with damnation!

Damnation

So mormons don’t believe in “hell”, in the sense that people who go to good things go to a place called heaven and become angels, and people who do bad things to go hell and swim around in a lake of fire with devils holding pitchforks over their heads. But then what does all this talk of damnation mean?

The Bible alludes to the idea that hell is only a temporary place of suffering (it’s a part of the Spirit World). David is promised that his soul would not remain in hell (see Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:27, 31), and it was promised that others as well would be delivered from spirit prison (see Isa. 49:8–9; John 5:25). This, in fact, happened when Christ opened the doors of hell to missionary work among the dead. (See 1 Pet. 3:18–19; 1 Pet. 4:6; D&C 138:6–37.)

Exltation, or eternal life, mean eternal progression. Damnation means just the opposite, being eternally stopped. So if you don’t repent of your sins, you are eternally stuck in the same state. If you repent of your sins, you are not damned, but granted eternal life. That Husband and I are shooting for that eternal life thing if you were wondering.

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Did you make it through all of that? I’m not going to be surprised if those who did have several observations, questions, and objections. Bring them on friends, I’m feeling nice and refreshed after last weeks break! (Plus, you shouldn’t have anything rude to say, since I basically just told you that I believe you are all going to heaven. Yay!)

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