LDS Quotes on The Plan of Salvation
“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
“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.'”
“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.
“Those who ‘live without God in the world’ anxiously glean their few and fleeting satisfactions, but they are unable to find real happiness….”Ignorant of the plan of salvation, many simply do not know what the journey of life is all about. Therefore, modern selfishness and skepticism brush aside the significance of the Savior…”
| Ensign, March 1998
“Those who “live without God in the world” anxiously glean their few and fleeting satisfactions, but they are unable to find real happiness. . . . Ignorant of the plan of salvation, many simply do not know what the journey of life is all about. Therefore, modern selfishness and skepticism brush aside the significance of the Savior. . . .”
| Ensign, March 1998, p. 9
“From these verses it is clear that our Heavenly Father did not ask for volunteers to invent and present different and competing plans of salvation, as some have assumed. Rather, it was our Heavenly Father’s plan, and He presented it to His spirit children who were gathered in the Grand Council in Heaven. Jesus Christ, who was “chosen from the beginning” to be the Savior in that plan, humbly proposed that Heavenly Father’s plan be sustained, saying, “Father, thy will [i.e., plan] be done.” It was in this setting that Satan made an unwelcome and arrogant proposal to change Heavenly Father’s plan so that it provided universal salvation for everyone (see Moses 4:1). Before we discuss how he claimed to accomplish this, it is important to note that Satan is referred to in these verses as “the father of all lies” (Moses 4:4). On another occasion he is called “a liar from the beginning” (D&C 93:25). We would be absurdly naïve to assume that Satan was telling the truth when he made this exaggerated claim of universal salvation.
“If we understand Satan’s character and history, it would be more appropriate to view him as the first con man trying to sell us a product that he knew he could never provide. He alleged that he could give us all salvation if we would follow him rather than the plan our Heavenly Father had created for our salvation and which was upheld by our Savior Jesus Christ.
“What Satan proposed was a lie. It would not have worked. It was not a viable alternative to Heavenly Father’s already perfect plan, but rather it was a trap set to ensnare and deceive people into following Satan. It was, in the end, a plan of damnation, not a plan of salvation.”
| “Satan’s Rebellion”
“At the first organization in heaven we were all present and saw the Savior chosen and appointed, and the plan of salvation made and we sanctioned it.”
| The Words of Joseph Smith
“God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, . . . saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself.”
| Teachings, 354.
“The head of the Gods called council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted a plan to create the world and people it.”
| Joseph Smith, Teachings, 349
