Question
Gramps,
When we are resurrected and after the winding down of the judgment will there still be different races and nationalities or will everyone be one race? What is the purpose of different races since we all are the children of Heavenly Father? If we will all be one race how will we recognize each other. Do we look the same as our spiritual bodies did in pre-mortality or did we inherit our physical looks after our earthly parents? Who will our resurrected bodies look like (earthy or heavenly)? I am not sure if there is an answer for this but I have often wondered about these things. I know we will be perfected and will that take away our individuality caused by our imperfections?
Gracalie
Answer
Dear Gracalie,
In the first place, perfection does not imply uniformity. We find no two things in nature exactly alike, Hugh Nibley, quoting Brigham Young, states it as follows:
“These feelings, according to Brigham, can be trusted, and without them we would soon destroy ourselves. “Man’s machinery makes things alike,” he says. “God’s machinery gives to things which appear alike a pleasing difference” (Hugh Nibley, Approaching Zion, 1989, pp.12-13).
“The Gospel will teach us all that variety that we see before us in nature-the greatest variety imaginable. One sister would get up a certain fashioned bonnet [he’s talking about the millennium now-we’ll all be different in the millennium], and another one another fashion; one would trim it in a certain way, and another in another way. When the brethren build their houses, the styles would be different. . . . The same variety would exist in the internal arrangements of the houses. We should see this variety with regard to families-here is one’s taste, and another’s taste, and this constant variety would give beauty to the whole. Thus a variety of talent would be brought forth and exhibited of which nothing would be known, if houses and dresses and other things were all alike. (Hugh Nibley, Brother Brigham Challenges the Saints, edited by Don E. Norton and Shirley S. Ricks 1994,p. 458)
Now with respect to the uniformity of individuals, we read in D&C 77:2,
Q. What are we to understand by the four beasts, spoken of in the same verse?
A. They are figurative expressions, used by the Revelator, John, in describing heaven, the paradise of God, the happiness of man, and of beasts, and of creeping things, and of the fowls of the air; that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal; and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual; the spirit of man in the likeness of his person, as also the spirit of the beast, and every other creature which God has created.
Here we learn that the spirit and the body have similar appearances, so that, I would imagine, if we were to see the spirit of a person who has passed through the veil whom we knew in mortality, we would probably be able to recognize that person from the appearance of his spirit.
To the extent that what we describe as racial differences would be promulgated past the resurrection, I have no idea. I would imagine that skin color differences, at least, would largely disappear because at least some of the skin color differences were introduced by the Lord to differentiate between groups of people, e.g., the descendants of the Lamanites.
We hear of the appearance of celestial beings as being bathed in light. We also learned that the skin of the righteous Nephites when they were visited by the Savior became white like His.
And it came to pass that Jesus blessed them as they did pray unto him; and his countenance did smile upon them, and the light of his countenance did shine upon them, and behold they were as white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus; and behold the whiteness thereof did exceed all the whiteness, yea, even there could be nothing upon earth so white as the whiteness thereof. (3 Nephi 19:25)
Gramps
