LDS Quotes on The Plan of Salvation
“Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God.”
“A problem related to perceptions of Mormonism’s monopoly on truth is the impression that Mormons claim a monopoly on salvation. It grows increasingly difficult to imagine that a body of a few million, in a world of seven billion, can really be God’s only chosen people and heirs of salvation. That is because they aren’t. One of the most unfortunate misperceptions about Mormonism is in this tragic irony: Joseph Smith’s view is one of the most generous, liberal and universalist conceptions of salvation in all Christendom.”
I will take the liberty of saying to every man and woman who wishes to obtain salvation through him (the Savior) that looking to him, only, is not enough: they must have faith in his name, character and atonement; and they must have faith in his father and in the plan of salvation devised and wrought out by the Father and the Son. What will this faith lead to? It will lead to obedience to the requirements of the Gospel; and the few words that I may deliver to my brethren and sisters and friends this afternoon will be with the direct view of leading them to God.
| Journal of Discourses, Vol.13, p. 56, from talk given July 18, 1869
“We, the Latter-day Saints, take the liberty of believing more than our Christian brethren: we not only believe . . . the Bible, but . . . the whole of the plan of salvation that Jesus has given to us. Do we differ from others who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? No, only in believing more.”
| Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 13:56;
“If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way.”
| Missionary Work and the Atonement
As we consider our mortal existence on this earth and the purpose of life expressed by Alma that ”this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God” (Alma 34:32), what is the Lord’s way to help us achieve this very purpose? It is simply, by using this metaphor, to help us build a bridge of faith in our life for crossing and overcoming the walls of unbelief, indifference, fear, or sin. Our mortal life is the time for men to meet God by building a bridge of faith, opening the door into immortality and eternal life.
| Ensign, November 2001
“Some members of the Church believe that wayward children unconditionally receive the blessings of salvation because of and through the faithfulness of parents. However, ‘The tentacles of Divine Providence’ described by Elder Orson F. Whitney may be considered a type of spiritual power, a heavenly pull or tug that entices a wandering child to return to the fold eventually. Such an influence cannot override the moral agency of a child but nonetheless can invite and beckon. Ultimately, a child must exercise his or her moral agency and respond in faith, report with full purpose of heart, and act in accordance with the teachings of Christ.’ A pull, a tug, an enticement, invite, beckon. In there words, we hear an echo of the original promise, ‘I will draw all men unto me.'”
Although we do not fully understand the sacred mechanics by which the Savior’s atoning sacrifice heals and restores, we do know, that to ensure a righteous judgment, the Savior will clear away the underbrush of ignorance and the painful thorns of hurt caused by others. By this He assures that all God’s children will be given the opportunity, with unobscured vision, to choose to follow Him and accept the great plan of happiness.
| Ensuring a Righteous Judgment - General Conference 2020
“Suppose there was a woman named Oohku who lived from 370–320 B.C. in the interior of Borneo. Obviously, she never heard of Jesus Christ or the Judeo-Christian God: she was never baptized, nor did she ever make any institutional or psychological commitment to Christ or the Christian church. She couldn’t have done these things; she was simply born in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Is it right for God to condemn this woman to eternal hell just because she was never able to come to God through Christ? Of course not . . . God is just and loving.”
| “Universalism, Hell, and the Fate of the Ignorant,” Modern Theology 6, no. 2 (January 1990): 176.
“To those who know and understand the plan of salvation, defiling the body is an act of rebellion [see Mosiah 2:36–37] and a denial of our true identity as sons and daughters of God.”
| “We Believe in Being Chaste,” Ensign, May 2013, 43.