Day of Grace
“And it came to pass
that my sorrow did return unto me again, and I saw that the day of grace was passed for them, both
temporally and spiritually; for I saw thousands of them hewn down in open
rebellion against their God, and heaped up as dung upon the face of the
land. And thus three hundred and forty
and four years had passed away.” (Mormon
2:15)
Mormon introduces to us a term that is not found anywhere
else in scripture. That is to say, the
term is not used anywhere else in scripture by the same name he gives it, but
the actually meaning of the term is discussed in a lot of detail throughout
many scriptural accounts. Although
Mormon doesn’t appear to expound in detail on the concept, we can learn a great
deal from that which he does tell us.
First, the definition:
The Day of Grace:
The Day of Grace is that period of time given to an individual
to choose between good and evil without receiving the full or immediate
consequences for those choices. During
this time period, the Lord suspends judgment upon the individual allowing them
the freedom to choose.
End of definition.
Mormon observes that for his people, the Day of Grace had
ended both temporally and spiritually.
This tells us something important.
The temporal or physical trial and the spiritual trial do not
necessarily coincide. If the temporal and spiritual trial did coincide, then there
would be no point in designating the two terms individually in this
sentence. If the two terms were
synonymous then why clarify that both had passed away for this particular group
of people.
For example, a person can find their opportunity to receive
redemption coming to a close and lost before this life ends. The people of Moses are an example.
“And the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he
made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until all the generation,
that had done evil in the sight of the Lord, was consumed.” (Numbers 32:13).
Here are a people who had lost the opportunity for
redemption. This generation would not be
redeemed, but the Lord did not end their mortal trials. They continued on in the wilderness until the
last of that generation had died out. In
a condemned condition, this people would live on for forty more years.
On the other hand, a person can find that they have received
redemption before this life ends. The
Brother of Jared is an example.
“And the Lord said unto him, Believest thou the words that I
shall speak? And he answered: Yea Lord, I know that thou art a God of
truth, and canst not lie. And when he
had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him, and said,
Because thou knowest these things ye are
redeemed from the fall; therefore ye are brought back into my presence;
therefore I show myself unto you.” (Ether 3:11-13).
Something also worth considering is that a person’s Day of
Grace may continue beyond this life and does not necessarily end at death. We can observe this in the description of the
Terrestrial Kingdom.
“And again we saw the terrestrial world, and behold and lo,
these are they who are of the terrestrial whose glory differs from that of the
church of the Firstborn who have received the fulness of the Father, even as
that of the moon differs from the sun in the firmament. Behold these are they who died without law; And also they who are
the spirits of men kept in prison, whom the Son visited, and preached the
gospel unto them, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh; Who received not the testimony of Jesus in
the flesh, but afterwards received it. These are they who are honorable men of the
earth, who were blinded by the craftiness of men. These are they who receive of his glory, but
not of his fulness. These are they who
receive of the presence of the Son, but not of the fulness of the Father. Wherefore, they are bodies terrestrial, and
not bodies celestial, and differ in glory as the moon differs from the sun. These are they who are not valiant in the
testimony of Jesus; wherefore, they obtain not the crown over the kingdom of
our God.” (D&C 76: 71-79)
From this description of the Terrestrial Kingdom we find
that the fulness of judgment was not delivered upon the people who would
inherit this kingdom until sometime after death. They are afforded additional
time after this life to repent and receive some measure of glory. They had lost a full opportunity that was
previously available while in the mortal life, but nevertheless there is some
kind of additional trial and testing after this life which does grant them
opportunities that otherwise would not be obtainable if the Day of Grace closed
exactly on the day of death.
The Terrestrial description is a tragedy because of some
lost opportunity. Is it possible to
receive the full opportunity of redemption after this life? We find that it is possible.
“The heavens were opened upon us, and I beheld the celestial
kingdom of God…I saw Father Adam and Abraham; and my father and my mother; my
brother Alvin, that has long since slept; And marveled how it was that he had obtained an inheritance in that
kingdom, seeing that he had departed
this life before the Lord had set his hand to gather Israel the second
time, and had not been baptized for the remission of sins. Thus came the voice of the Lord unto me,
saying: All who have died without a
knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted
to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; Also all that shall die henceforth without a
knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be
heirs of that kingdom; For I the Lord,
will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their
hearts. And I also beheld that all
children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in
the celestial kingdom of heaven.” (D&C 137:1, 5-10)
How could the Lord know their hearts if they did not receive
a full testing of their hearts and desires in this life? They would have had to either receive that
testing before this life; or receive that testing after this life. Again this demonstrates that the Day of Grace
does not exactly coincide with the mortal existence that we are currently
experiencing.
And regarding children we find the following:
“Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and
you God. Behold, I came into the world
not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no
physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin;
wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power
over them; and the law of circumcision is done away in me.” (Moroni 8:8)
“For behold that all little
children are alive in Christ, and also all they that are without the law. For the power
of redemption cometh on all them that have no law; wherefore, he that is
not condemned, or he that is under no condemnation, cannot repent; and unto
such baptism availeth nothing—“(Moroni 8:22)
Again this shows that the child and they who died without
law did not receive a full weight of testing in this mortal life and did not
have to meet the same requirements. Yet
they are alive in Christ and receive redemption. Once again showing that there is more going
on behind the scenes then most of us are made aware of in mortality. Their day of testing having been either
before this mortal experience or after this mortal experience does not really matter
because we know that God, being a God of Justice, would not have granted such
any redemption at all except that they had somewhere and in some way met the
same requirements that are placed upon all others. They met or will meet those conditions, it just
so happens that it isn’t in this mortal sphere.
This leads us to another consideration. There are some souls here upon the Earth that
are not in this Day of Grace at all.
Rather than being tested, these souls are facilitators of the testing
process for others. The following are
two examples which demonstrate this:
“Be not forgetful to
entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
(Hebrews 13:2).
There are souls among us who seem down trodden and
worthless, barely worthy of notice. And
yet we are forewarned that some these souls are more than what they
appear. Occasionally they are angels
sent to test us. And occasionally such a
soul could even be the Savior Himself for it is written that in as much as we
have down it unto the least of these; we have done it unto Him. We have at least one recorded occasion in
which He fulfilled this literally. (Luke
24:13-35). The Lord, working in one
eternal round, probably takes the time to test each of us in this same manner
if we have a heart to understand and eyes to see Him.
The second example is found in Abraham:
“Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences
that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many
of the noble and great ones; And God saw these souls that they were good, and
he stood in the midst of them, and he said:
These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits,
and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.” (Abraham 3:22-23).
There are some who fulfilled the testing even “before thou
wast born”. Their Day of Grace having
been fulfilled successfully somehow and sometime…but before this time we now
know of.
The Day of Grace is that period of time in which the Lord
suspends delivering that which we deserve, whether good or bad, to allow a
period of time for us to repent. It is a
trial period or a Day of Probation (See also 1 Nephi 15:31, 2 Nephi 33:9,
Helaman 13:38).
It is important to understand that this Day of Grace is not
synonymous with the mortal experience. This is important to realize because it
increases our awareness of some critical aspects of mortality, including the
following:
We must overcome the trial of faith while in the Day of
Grace, otherwise we lose the opportunity for Redemption.
It is possible that we could lose this opportunity before
death.
It is possible that we could retain some measure of that
opportunity after death, but not necessarily the full measure of glory that
otherwise could have been received. Therefore, we must answer the following
question: “How does one know for certain that they have fulfilled the
requirements within the Day of Grace”? (More on that later)
There are some who are not in the Day of Grace while in this
mortal life because they have already fulfilled the requirement or may fulfill
it fully in another time and place.
Therefore, we cannot judge another soul because what we see as their
role in mortality may be entirely different than our own.
There are some who may slip into the world of death and then
return (near death experience) but they may still be in the Day of Grace. Thus their stories must be listened to with the
same measure of caution that we would use for anyone making any religious
claim. They may not necessarily have
fulfilled the Day of Grace and thus the stories they bring back with them may
or may not provide a true message from God.
Many come back with a message that is a magnification of their previous
beliefs and do not assist anyone in actually finding redemption. Rather their stories are titillating tales of
a fantastic world as if we sneaked a peak in the back of the math book for
answers to the story problems, and yet the answers they give are filled with
the same error as anyone else in mortality and do not provide any additional real
insight in how to overcome the trials necessary to fulfill the requirements
that are laid before us in our own individual Day of Grace.
And so once again in summary, The Day of Grace is that period
of time given to an individual to choose between good and evil without
receiving the full or immediate consequences for those choices. During this time period, the Lord suspends
judgment upon the individual allowing them the freedom to choose.
No comments:
Post a Comment