D&C 76

Doctrine & Covenants Section 76 is an amazing revelation.  We had a great class discussion talking about this section as well, and I learned so much!

A little while ago, I was reading this section with my fiancee.  As we were reading, I was really impressed by verses 37-39, which are talking about those who are cast into outer darkness, but I was impressed by the fact that it says: "And the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power; Yea, verily, the only ones who shall not be redeemed in the due time of the Lord, after the sufferings of his wrath. For all the rest shall be brought forth by the resurrection of the dead, through the triumph and the glory of the Lamb, who was slain, who was in the bosom of the Father before the worlds were made."

I was amazed at the fact that all the rest shall be saved.  This is a truly profound doctrine unique to our religion. Most of the rest of Christianity believes that most of God's children will be damned, but according to this revelation, those few who are cast into outer darkness are the only ones who will not be saved, or in other words, will not receive an inheritance in one of the kingdoms of glory.

During our class discussion on this section, we talked about how the Atonement extends to all creation—from the beginning to the end.  Dr. H talked about how God was so confident in the ability of His Only Begotten to succeed with the atonement that He started applying it in days of old, long before Christ was even born!  This, to me, gave new meaning to the phrase "the meridian of time."  Before, this phrase was confusing to me, almost even a bit of a stumbling block.  Why would they say that Christ came in the meridian of time when His birth wasn't actually in the middle of the Earth's creation?  Well, if you count the Millennium as part of that period, then perhaps...  No, the earth was around for four or five thousand years before Christ was born, and it will only be around about 3000 years after, even including the Millennium.  So, yes, that was confusing to me.  It doesn't seem to be in the middle.  But, if you look at it from the view of all creation.  All of creation before this looked forward to the coming of the promised Messiah and the fulfillment of His atonement.  All of creation hereafter will look back to His mortal ministry and his redeeming sacrifice in the flesh.  In this sense, it is truly the meridian of time—the meridian of all time and all creation!  On a smaller scale, we could also apply this interpretation to our own earth...  So the term works either way!

I also found it very interesting to learn from Dr. H about the reception of this section by the early saints.  We think of all of this now as typical Latter-day Saint doctrine.  However, I can now understand why this would be ground-breaking new doctrine to the early saints.  This helps me remember that the important thing is that I have a testimony that the church is true, and if I have any questions along the way I can fall back on that testimony, and wait for my answer—whether it be in this life or the life to come.