Question
Dear Gramps,
At the time of the war in heaven, Christ was chosen as the Savior of our Father’s children who would be born on any of his worlds without end. Thru free agency we chose to follow His path. What of Father’s children who were born subsequent to that time and were not there to vote? Do they also fall under Christ’s atonement?
Judy
Answer
Dear Judy,
Just a couple of concepts with regard to your question. Christ was not chosen as the Savior by a majority vote of the population. He was chosen and appointed by the Father to that sacred position because of who he was. After that selection was made by the Father, the pretender, Lucifer, the light bearer, a son of the morning, who had arrogated that position for himself, rebelled against the Father. His philosophy was to save every soul regardless of their righteousness or wickedness, and to do so by force, thus abrogating the agency of man, and by so doing denying to man the very potential of his eternal development.
There were a third part of the hosts of heaven who would follow Satan’s plan, attempting to achieve a station of bliss and continued progress through eternity while yet retaining their wicked characters. These chose to follow Satan in an attempt to impose their impish plan by force. Because of their rebellious nature and actions they were expelled from the society of the rest of God’s spirit children and were forever denied the possibility of further progress along the path of eternal growth and development, the next major step of which would be the acquisition of a physical body by birth to mortal parents.
Apparently the wicked did not leave peacefully and were somehow forced into their banishment. That expulsion from the society of those who would follow the Father’s plan has been called the war in heaven.
The second concept in your question that merits consideration relates to those spirits who were born of their Heavenly Parents following that great dividing event where the wicked were separated from the righteous. Each spirit is free to choose the path that he/she would take. That freedom of choice remains with us today. We may yet choose to follow the Lord’s plan of obedience to the Father by living in accordance with the laws and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ, or we may choose to follow the plan of the adversary.
The Spirit of Christ is given to every soul born into mortality such that every person knows and understands the difference between right and wrong. Thus none who follow Satan’s plan do so innocently in ignorance. Further, the Holy Spirit reveals eternal truths and testifies to the efficacy of the mission of the Savior. To those who yield obedience to those promptings of the Spirit and follow the path of righteousness by repenting of all their sins and witnessing to the Father of their intention to follow the Savior and His plan by being baptized by immersion by one of God’s servants empowered with the authority to perform that sacred ordinance is given the gift of the Holy Ghost as a constant guiding influence in the person’s life, so long as he does not stray from the truth.
Satan and his followers have never ceased from trying to influence the children of the Father from rebelling against God and the saving principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That active opposition by the evil host will continue with increasing fury until the Savior comes in the clouds of heaven in power and great glory to initiate his great Millennial reign. Then all those who have chosen to follow Satan’s ways will be swept from the earth and remanded to the custody of Satan according to their own desires for a thousand years, or until the end of the Millennium, when they will be rescued from that terrible evil influence and will be resurrected. They will thus be saved and will inhabit from henceforth a telestial kingdom the glory of [which] surpasses all understanding (Doctrine and Covenants 76:89).
Gramps
