What is salvation?
Salvation refers to deliverance from death and hell. Death is the cessation of life, which can refer to mortal life or eternal life. Through being born, we inherit physical death. Through choosing to sin, we each suffer spiritual death, which is separation from the presence of God.1 We are delivered from physical death through resurrection,2 where our bodies and spirits will reunite in immortality. We are delivered from spiritual death through aligning ourselves with God to the extent that we understand him to be,3 which reopens the living connection through which we receive eternal life. Hell is a condition of torment caused by exposure to ideas and circumstances that overwhelm one’s ability and willingness to live joyfully aligned with God as far as you understand him to be in spite of opposition. You are saved from hell by learning and living the principles required to overcome what would otherwise overcome you while recognizing and using the protection God offers from situations beyond your capacity.4
Most people who are saved from physical death will still suffer spiritual death, as resurrection does not free you from the penalty of the sins that you have not forsaken.5 The one and only way to be saved from spiritual death is by reconciling to your understanding of how God is and faithfully following his example until you die.90
Resurrection does not provide you with any extra capacity in death to overcome what overcame you in life. What causes you sorrow, grief, pain, and suffering here will cause you the same there,91 if not more, because you will not be able to lie to yourself or distract yourself there as you can here.92 Meanwhile, the conditions necessary to encounter the tools needed to conquer or qualify for shelter from what overcomes you here are not possible in the afterlife. The one and only way to be saved from hell is by seeking for, perceiving, believing, and living the principles needed to overcome what overcomes you. The Lord Jesus created the world to provide us with the opportunity to obtain and live these principles, having possessed them before the foundation of the world, and coming here to live in order to demonstrate them to us.93
Footnotes
- 1. Therefore, as the soul could never die, and the fall had brought upon all mankind a spiritual death as well as a temporal, that is, they were cut off from the presence of the Lord, it was expedient that mankind should be reclaimed from this spiritual death. (Alma 42:9) ↩
- 2. Yea, behold, [the death of Christ] bringeth to pass the resurrection, and redeemeth all mankind from the first death—that spiritual death; for all mankind, by the fall of Adam being cut off from the presence of the Lord, are considered as dead, both as to things temporal and to things spiritual. (Helaman 14:16) ↩
- 3. Yea, and it bringeth to pass the condition of repentance, that whosoever repenteth the same is not hewn down and cast into the fire; but whosoever repenteth not is hewn down and cast into the fire; and there cometh upon them again a spiritual death, yea, a second death, for they are cut off again as to things pertaining to righteousness. Therefore repent ye, repent ye, lest by knowing these things and not doing them ye shall suffer yourselves to come under condemnation, and ye are brought down unto this second death. (Helaman 14:18-19) ↩
- 4. “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13) These protections include commandments, warnings, and miraculous power from God or through his servants. For example, see the Lord's protective role over the apostles while he was with them, and what they were subjected to thereafter. “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) ↩
- 5. And, in fine, wo unto all those who die in their sins; for they shall return to God, and behold his face, and remain in their sins. (2 Nephi 9:38) Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. (John 8:21) ↩