When I was younger, I remember asking my Dad a question.
“If Heavenly Father knows everything that is going to
happen, does he know whether or not I am going to make it to the Celestial
Kingdom?”
“Yes, of course he does.”
“Then, why doesn’t he just send me wherever now, instead of
making me live through it all?”
“Well, because it hasn’t happened yet.” Meaning, of course,
that God wasn’t going to send me to Heaven or “hell” until I proved my
character through my actions.
I guess it took a while for the lesson to sink in, but I
think the sum of it is this: Foreknowledge cannot rob justice. If God were to
assign judgement before the offense, it would be unjust – despite the fact that
he knew what was to come. That is the point of agency. Our choices are just as
much an evidence to ourselves, as well as to God and the world, that whatever result
we attain in the next life, it was dependent on our choices and desires in this
one.
Shortly after his life-changing experience of seeing an
angel and feelings the pains of hell, Alma the younger declared that those who
lived without God in the world, would eventually have to confess “that the
judgement of an everlasting punishment is just upon them.”[1]
Abinadi taught that in the end, all people would “see eye to eye” and “confess
before God that His judgements are just.”[2]
What I now believe that implies is that we are a part of the final judgement in
the sense that we will be forced by our own knowledge and experience to
recognize God’s perfect justice. I don’t think He intends for anyone to get to
that point and think – but surely, I am not guilty of what you say. Because the
Lord, who sees all, and allows for agency, will be able to show from the Book
of Life every act, thought, and desire of the individual and declare a judgement
that will be impossible to dispute.
For those who turn to Christ, the difference will be that
the Savior will act as an intercessor in those moments and declare that the
sinner is to go free. In both cases, the point remains. God’s perfect justice
will not allow condemnation before the act itself. At the last day, we will be
perfectly knowledgeable of our guilt or our righteousness[3],
as the case may be, because we were allowed to act upon our desires prior to condemnation
or justification.
What this means for those in the world or in church leadership
positions or in families who abuse their agency is that there are times when
the Lord does not intervene so that the fullness of his justice will be undisputed,
and the perpetrator “left without excuse[4]”
in the last day. At times, we know the Lord has intervened, perhaps for other
reasons (such as Ammon’s need to fulfill his mission to the Lamanites in Alma 19).
But still, we know mortality will be forever full of those who suffer and die,
often unjustly, at the hands of others. The Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s were an example
of this (Alma 24). Or the families of the believers in the city of Ammonihah (Alma
14), who were thrown in a fire and killed for their faith. Others are simply
victims of the reality of mortal life through disease, accident, and natural
disasters.
But while suffering is an absolute in mortality, it is not
the end or purpose of it. Thus, with every pain – whether through natural
causes or through the offenses of those evil conspirers with Satan – a way was
prepared for the faithful to escape. The Savior’s Atoning sacrifice can heal
all wounds and erase all scars. He who suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane “descended
below”[5]
all things so that He had the perfect capacity to heal and bless and relieve. Ultimately,
he has the power to lift us above all things.
Anyone who is a victim of someone else’s abuse of agency may
be healed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Through that healing, it will
eventually become as if it had never happened. If this seems poor consolation
in the moment, it is perhaps because our eyes have not yet seen or comprehended
the things of eternity – where the innocent before God will progress through the
eternities with joy and exaltation, void of mortal scars. While the wicked will
be damned to a world of misery, sorrow, “weeping, wailing, and gnashing of
teeth.”[6]
In short, for our eternal progression and ability to become
like God, the precious gift of agency had to be preserved. For agency to be
preserved, there had to be a way for choices, justice, healing, salvation, and
mercy to be properly administered without any one principle robbing the others.
The Savior is the key to that balance.
While it is incumbent upon us to learn about the Savior and deal
with compassion and empathy towards all God’s children – to create an openness in
the Church where people may feel safe in the path that leads to healing and
even forgiveness for those who need and seek it – I also believe we have a responsibility
to speak up and oppose those who we know are seeking to conceal their works of wickedness
in the dark, falsely hope for security in their lies and deceptions. But like
all those who sin against God and man, the Lord “must needs destroy the secret
works of darkness[7]” and
“the rebellious shall be pierced with much sorrow; for their iniquities shall
be spoken upon the housetops, and their secret acts shall be revealed.[8]”
And under such condemnation, God will not withhold his judgements. Those who
harm children and do not repent are particularly promised that it would be “better
for them that a millstone had been hanged about their necks, and they drowned
in the depth of the sea,[9]”
for surely a lake of fire and brimstone awaits them.
These types of sins and abuses are not foreign to the world
or to the Church. In the early days of the Nephites, the Prophet Jacob was
sorrowful to bring up a “grosser crime” that had infected some members of the
Church. He too feared to bring up the subject that would potentially “enlarge
the wounds of those who are already wounded,” or “have daggers placed to pierce”
the “delicate minds” of those who were completely unaware of what was happening
and only wanted to hear the “pleasing word of God.”[10] But, he states, “I must do according to the strict commands
of God, and tell you concerning your wickedness.”
I hope we likewise may have
the courage to do the same, as the Spirit would direct, it helping to preach
truth and purity, and root out evil where we know it is among us – through the
necessary channels of authority and as directed by the Lord.
I know that those who are innocent in the eyes of God, being
redeemed by the Savior’s loving grace, will find healing in his wings, and will
“renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles,[11]”
and the Lord “shall wipes away tears from their eyes.[12]”
They will find joy and peace.
It is my opinion that there will always be those in and out
of the Church who are perhaps momentarily permitted to deceive and harm. But
always, the righteous will be healed and redeemed. The wicked will in time undoubtedly
face justice. And they will not have excuse or way to escape. For God will not
be mocked.
[1]
Mosiah 27:31, Book of Mormon
[2] Mosiah
16:1, Book of Mormon
[3] 2
Nephi 9: 14, Book of Mormon
[4]
Doctrine and Covenants 88:82
[5]
Doctrine and Covenants 122:8
[6]
Doctrine and Covenants 19:5
[7] 2
Nephi 10:15, Book of Mormon
[8]
Doctrine and Covenants 1:3
[9]
Doctrine and Covenants 121:22
[10]
Jacob 2: 5-11, 22-35
[11] Isaiah
40:31, King James Version
[12]
Revelation 7: 17, King James Version
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