Tuesday, September 26, 2023

2 Nephi 9:12-15 -- On Perfect Knowledge

"And this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel.
O how great the plan of our God! For on the other hand, the paradise of God must deliver up the spirits of the righteous, and the grave deliver up the body of the righteous; and the spirit and the body is restored to itself again, and all men become incorruptible, and immortal, and they are living souls, having a perfect knowledge like unto us in the flesh, save it be that our knowledge shall be perfect.
Wherefore, we shall have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our uncleanness, and our nakedness; and the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment, and their righteousness, being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness.
And it shall come to pass that when all men shall have passed from this first death unto life, insomuch as they have become immortal, they must appear before the judgment-seat of the Holy One of Israel; and then cometh the judgment, and then must they be judged according to the holy judgment of God."
2 Nephi 9:12-15


The resurrection happens to everyone born on the earth... a blessing granted to us from the atonement. It is interesting though that the "perfect knowledge" that it grants seems to be a boon for some people (the repentant/righteous), and not for others... which means I think that our bad memories in this life are often actually a blessing, since we aren't beating ourselves up every day for the bad things we've done, although I think that God helps us to remember at certain opportune times in order to prompt us to repent.

It seems like we'll already know everything that God could bring up to us, so to me the whole appearing before God won't be about accusations, but more about mercy. We'll stand there knowing every bad thing that we ever did, and whether we repented and changed into a better person or not... and God will be as kind as possible about it. He already knows, but he'll help us know where we go from there, to live with other people similar to ourselves, which will be a curse for some, and a high honor and blessing for others.

Today, let's take a moment to consider whether we want to spend eternity with other people like ourselves, or if we've been getting along so well with others because they are much better than we are. If the latter, perhaps we should think about upping our game a little, so we don't get stuck with the other rude snarkmasters, or whatever it is that illustrates our own sinful streaks. ... And if we do want to go to a better place than we are already headed, the way is always Christ. Let's pray and ask him to help us improve and find a way to be better than we are, and he will gladly work with us and show us the way.

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