35 And there is a place prepared, yea, even that awful hell of which I have spoken, and the devil is the preparator of it; wherefore the final state of the souls of men is to dwell in the kingdom of God, or to be cast out because of that justice of which I have spoken.
After telling his brothers that there needs to be a place prepared for commandment breakers, Nephi follows up with the next logical statement, that there is a place prepared; a filthy place where filthy people would be more at home.
Nephi calls this place “hell.” Modern revelation tells us that there are actually two uses for that term. One is a kind of holding place for spirits, a spirit prison, where those who are filthy wait for the last resurrection. I’m sure this is where the unrepentant go to pay for their sins by themselves, without claiming the mercy extended to them through the atonement. But this is not the final state of those souls. In the end, they will inherit a kingdom of glory, such as the Telestial Kingdom.
The second use of the word “hell” is much more final. It is a place reserved for Satan and his followers. Another term for this place is “outer darkness.” Once you end up there you can’t come back. There is no glory attached to this place, just eternal damnation. There can be no progress. There is misery, and it is awful.
This seems to be what Nephi is referring to here. He calls it the “final state.” This is actually a good scripture showing that we do believe man will go to either heaven or hell after this life. In its simplest explanation, that is what happens. So in a sense, the rest of the Christian world has it right, they just don’t have all the details that we have through modern revelation. They over-simplify it because they don’t know any better.
No comments:
Post a Comment