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| Preparing to Create the World |
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19. But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20. Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest n these last times for you, 21. Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. (I Peter 1:19-21). Christ was not the only one, however, to be foreordained to his work on this earth. Paul indicates that all those who accept Christ here on earth were foreordained to do so. 4. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will (Ephesians 1:4-5). As is typical, Paul's writing is dense, and it is often difficult for the modern reader to comprehend it. Paul is clearly speaking of the Pre-Mortal life, for in verse 4 he refers to God having "chosen" us before the foundation of the world. The nature of this selection is indicated in verse 5 in the word translated as predestinated. The basic meaning of the term is "to be determined beforehand" (Liddell and Scott), and before the word "predestined" acquired its controversial theological connotations, it might have been a good translation. It is much better to replace predestined with foreordained, which preserves the correct sense that Paul was trying to convey. Alma indicates that not only were we foreordained to accept Christ, but those who hold the priesthood were also selected for that responsibility. And this is the manner after which [the priests] were ordained - being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works... (Alma 13:3). In Joseph Smith's words, Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was. I suppose I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council (TPJS p. 365). After the Council (in which the decision was made to create an earth to be our second estate), after the war (which cast out Satan and his followers), preparations for the creation and population of the world continued. There remained much spiritual preparation of the spirits who would come to the earth, in addition to the physical organization of the world to which we would come. |
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| by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998 |
Perhaps first among
those steps was the ordination of Christ to his role on this earth. Peter gives us a glimpse of this:|
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