THE THREE PILLARS OF ETERNITY

This is the story of the creation and the history of the earth told from the revelations of the prophet Joseph Smith. Due to the creation we have need for a fall and an atonement and all three rely upon each other, which are the three pillars of eternity. The account of earth’s history can be broken down into eight different chapters. Time is irrelevant in the creating periods and we do not know the length of each event.

Chapter 1 – The elements are eternal. We do not believe that God created everything out of nothing. God gave order to existing elements which we learn in Doctrine and Covenants 93:29, 33; 131:7-8 and in Abraham 3:24. In Hebrew the word create means to organize. With the knowledge of the elements being eternal, how can someone try to date the earth or its elements?

Chapter 2 – All living things were first created as spirits. Moses 3:5 teaches that all life on this earth is transplanted life and will continue to exist after this life including mother earth.

Chapter 3 – The Gods sat in council together to devise the creation of the earth. We learn of the council system taught in Abraham 3:24; 4:1 and we also read that the blue print of the creation was created in this council. We also are taught in Abraham that we were a part of this council and that we were all gods there. We come from God’s family just like we all come from our earthly father’s family and have his name. It could be possible that there are different meanings of the word god or that there are different levels like there are different levels of presidents.

Chapter 4 – The spiritual and physical creation of the earth. The creation of the earth followed the blueprint designed in the grand council of the Gods. We learn in Alma 11:45 when a body and a spirit is resurrected the body is then spiritual. It’s not spirit but it is spiritual. The body can no more seek corruption. In Doctrine and Covenants 88:25-28 we learn more about spiritual bodies. All that will have a celestial body will be a spiritual body. The term spiritual when referring to creation means they are not subject to death. In 2 Nephi 2:22 it says that when the earth was created and all things on it everything was created spiritually. Everything was incorruptible, meaning it could not die. Before the fall there was no death, nothing could change and there was no birth.

Chapter 5 – Fallen, temporal and telestial earth. Adam introduced death which introduced this fallen state and Eve fell to give birth. There was now corruption, decay, and death which allow us all to come to the earth. Doctrine and Covenants 77:6,12 tells us that the earth and its elements will be in this telestial state for a temporary period of time. The word temporal is defined as temporary. We have 7,000 years of temporal history of the earth.

Chapter 6 – The millennial era. Article of Faith number ten teaches our belief in this doctrine. The earth will be returned to its edenic state prior to the fall. Doctrine and Covenants 101:24-29 says that anything corruptible will not survive the change and transition to the new terrestrial state.

Chapter 7 – The earth shall die. Doctrine and Covenants 88:26 teaches that the earth will die and be quickened again.

Chapter 8 – The celestial earth. Doctrine and Covenants 88; 130:9; 77:1 tells us that the earth will be resurrected and will obtain celestial glory due to it being true and faithful to the Lord.
A part of earth’s history is two of eternity’s pillars, the fall and the atonement. The creation dictates the fall and the fall dictates the atonement. We can see that a fall had to occur due to the earth and everything on it being created in a spiritual state and because of the fall of man an atonement by our Savior was necessary so that we can make it back to the presence of our Father.

Did God give Adam and Eve conflicting commandments? Of course he did. The Adam and Eve story of conflicting commandments from God is what life is all about. There will always be a greater and lesser commandment to follow. God wants to know if we have enough sense and the ability to make the right decisions. We have to know how to make all the principles of the gospel get along because if we won’t they won’t get along. If the mercy of God can take care of everything than our character is destroyed and we never develop the capacity to act for ourselves. All gospel principles come in conflict with one another and we can’t inflate one and make it the gospel because it is easy for us to live and understand it. We must balance all the principles.

When it comes to the atonement we need to follow the same principle. We need to be careful that we are not living and preaching myths of the atonement. For example, we should not be so anxious to personalize the atonement. It is incorrect to say that Christ dropped a certain amount of blood for me and a certain amount for you. They were all dropped for all of us. When Christ suffered he went through what was sufficient but not everything. He did not experience all the pains that we might experience. He did not experience a pregnancy or a menstrual cycle. His teeth did not fall out and he did not lose a limb. Infinite means that it doesn’t take longer to suffer for one million than it does for one thousand. There is an amount of suffering that needs to be experienced and that is all. It is not infinite plus one. We do not add to or take from the atonement, it is an infinite atonement. Our sins were not preordained. What we do does not add to His suffering. The law of mercy will take care of everything from the fall that we cannot correct on our own and all that we do have power to correct is up to us. The law of justice assures that no unclean thing will enter the presence of God. This means that nobody gets away with anything and there are no unearned blessings. If there is no law in heaven then heaven would seize to be heaven because it is a kingdom and a kingdom, especially God’s, has laws. There is no sin worth committing.

We do not believe all mankind may be saved by all the ordinances of the gospel. We believe that because of the atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to all the laws and ordinances of the gospel. The atonement did not occur to only take away our sins. The atonement isn’t just for sinners, it is for just men. The more righteous you are the more the atonement means to you. The atonement brings forth all that is good and positive. Christ atoned to preserve the truth and His gospel.

It is not good to say if we do our best then Christ will make up the rest. We don’t even know what our best is! 2 Nephi 31 teaches us the gate and path to the kingdom. We have to go the entire distance on our own and no one is excused not to. There are no short cuts for those who are tired or who believe they have done their best. Doing your best helps you be more prepared for tomorrow and so on. Death doesn’t shorten the path. You keep going in the spirit world. Because there was a Jesus there is a path. He will not pay for or do part of the path for us. All you can do is more than you think you can do. The atonement allows us to enter the gate. Doctrine and Covenants 93 teaches us that grace allows this to happen. We go by grace to grace until we make it to the end. It is grace that allows you to keep going when you are weak and tired. The Lord didn’t ask us to try, he asked us to do.