"'And shall come forth; they who have done good, in the resurrection of the just; and they who have done evil, in the resurrection of the unjust.' Now this caused us to marvel, for it was given unto us of the Spirit. And while we meditated upon these things, the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about. And we beheld the glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of his fulness;"
John's record of Christ's teachings during His mortal ministry included explanations and prophecies jarring to some prevailing notions of the day, particularly held by influential Sadducees, about the nature of the afterlife, which was not monolithic among observant Jews at that time. As often as Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven and His goal to align earth with it to the extent possible, it's not actually very strongly spelled out in the Bible what that unearthly target actually looks like, or what the criteria are for a felicitous judgment. We are largely left to our imaginations to apprehend what seems beyond our imagining, and while we can trust in the reason and justice of our omnipotent and omniscient Lord who is full of truth and mercy, and while we have all we need if we know that accepting His grace is the key to salvation, the basis on which He makes His decisions is left in scant binary terms in the Bible. There is an arbitrary division between just and unjust, between righteous and unrighteous, or, as the King James Version puts it, between "life" and "damnation". And while that's sufficient and clear to produce in every human spirit the motivation to do good, and to accept the Lord's grace, He leaves us with so much reason and light on so many other principles of how He wishes us to behave, why not this one?
There are a few common principles all of Christendom agrees on: 1. some kind of life after death, 2. some kind of judgment and assignment to an eternal fate, 3. the existence of opposed states of eternal dwelling--a heaven of blessedness, and a hell of punishment. But there are chasms of disagreement over what the Bible teaches in the details of each of the three.
Is there a literal resurrection of spirit to body? The Sadducees and some current Christians believe no, despite John's testimony (see 5:29, specifically), preferring to believe in a spiritual existence free from the physicality of our banal bodies, rendering the concept of "resurrection" metaphorical.
For those who believe in a literal resurrection, does the "life" of the spirit after death consist of active existence prior to resurrection as Calvin and the Catholics insist on, or, as Luther and the anabaptists believed, a kind of "soul sleep" where passive inactivity allows spirits to reunite with bodies on resurrection day with no perception of time lost?
Is there an immediacy of final judgment at death's instant or do spirits await in a state of some kind of prejudgment? Catholics have elaborated, at least since the 13th century, a doctrine of purgatory in which some whose deeds weren't sufficient to merit an instant felicity can continue to act in hope toward an eventual salvation while "purging" their debt of sin by suffering its punishments temporarily. Most Protestant denominations, however, find the concept extrabiblical, and prefer a clearer cut single judgment with only binary outcomes available.
Those with a testimony of the Restored Gospel, thankfully, have two additional sources from which to resolve some of these questions through scriptural means.
The first is the Book of Mormon, in which there are several sermons, father's blessings, and excerpts of paternal counsel touching on the idea that spirits after death move to a waiting space and retain memory of earthly actions, and are therefore conscious of an impending final judgment they can no longer fully affect while away from their physical means to carry out acts of repentance and covenant-making. We now refer to a "spirit world" divided between a heaven-like "paradise" and a hell-like "spirit prison", and we take proxy action in this life on behalf of those who have minds that can change and become converted, but who cannot carry out rituals like baptism while out of the body--all out of earnest belief that the Savior is the Redeemer of both living and dead, and that accepting His atonement is still possible in spirit prison. While the clarity on this concept is plain from Book of Mormon scripture, it's important to note that the concept itself is entirely Biblical. Three days after Jesus promised the repentant thief that he would be with Him that same day "in paradise", that same Christ returned glorified and resurrected, admonishing Mary Magdalene not to touch Him because He had not yet ascended to His Father. By these Biblical facts alone, we can deduce that the common use of "heaven" and "paradise" as completely interchangeable terms is erroneous, and that the Father does not Himself dwell in "paradise", but in another more celestial domain.
The second source for details on the afterlife to which Christians may turn, is to the prophets, seers, and revelators to whom visions of the details have been entrusted for publication. The above passage refers to a rendering of John 5:29 which speaks in very binary terms of the single main distinction between types of resurrected humans, and then to the beginning of a series of visions that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon experienced, in the presence of others who heard evidence of a shared spiritual experience between the two that they did not themselves see, which detailed several other major post-judgment categorial distinctions.
1. There is an Outer Darkness prepared for a relative few Sons of Perdition who chose, in full light of knowledge, to reject all good, and seek entirely after evil. A place with no glory, and only punishment. A lifeless "life" that the Book of Mormon calls the "second death", a "spiritual death" which is a removal from the source of all righteousness that is permanent (or at least eternal in quality if not quantity). This is a place whose glory is metaphorically compared to no light at all.
2. There is a Telestial Kingdom of glory prepared for those who rejected Christ until compelled to bow the knee at the judgment seat, for those who were punished in spirit prison for their sins, and didn't accept the Redeemer's atonement, for those who chose evil deeds but not in full light of understanding, and therefore not completely out of rebellion. They are those covered by a measure of grace despite not receiving it before it was too late. This is a place whose glory is metaphorically compared to starlight.
3. There is a Terrestrial Kingdom of glory prepared for those whose actions were mostly good, on balance, but which accepted Christ only after death. They were honorable, but so blinded by the craftiness of worldly influences that it took removal from this world for them to realize their sins needed to be overcome by the Lord. It should be noted that acceptance of Christ in the spirit world is characteristic of the inheritors of this kingdom, but that many in the spirit world who had no chance to accept Christ during their mortal period advance to the next kingdom. This is a place whose glory is metaphorically compared to moonlight.
4. Finally, there is a Celestial Kingdom of glory where God the Father dwells, along with all His Heirs. It is reserved for makers and keepers of covenants with His Son for His grace to fully cleanse them of sin because of their acceptance of His Gospel, and their hearts becoming purified through His atonement--it is reserved for His Church. The people are characterized as Zion's inhabitants--one with God and with one another, as well as pure in heart--and as heirs through their Christian faith of all the Father has. This is a place whose glory is metaphorically compared to sunlight.
The framework here resolves the ethical dilemma inherent in limiting God's justice to a binary. It explodes the categories of those "saved" or "glorified" in a way that fits punishments to crimes, and glories to well-doing--by defining degrees. The nonsense of assigning an unbaptized infant to the same hell as a mass murderer is thereby done away, and the Biblical allusion Paul makes in his second letter to the Corinthians (don't be confused, 1 Corinthians was his second letter, the first one was lost) to visions of bodies celestial and terrestrial as they compare to three, not two sources of light fleshes itself out. Paul wasn't merely contrasting heavenly with earthly in that 15th chapter, but was relaying metaphors about the same degrees of post-resurrection glory that Smith was.
But it also inverts another common misconception among Christians--that of a radically different nature of God between the Old and New Testaments, in which a harsh, judgment-focused punisher of evil gives way to a lenient granter of unearned grace to all for mere belief on His name. Instead, this vision of degrees of glory correctly keeps the two logically combined in purpose and character, mercy never robbing justice, and yet grace abounding to those who qualify according to standards. It accomplishes this through insisting that judgment day isn't and never was about the negative punishment of every wrong deed done in mortality, but rather is instead more positively about rewarding every possible good deed, and more abundantly to those who took up their opportunities, in mortality or in the spirit world, to qualify for Christ's conditions of grace: faith in Him, repentance for sin, baptism by His authority, reception of the Holy Ghost (which includes continual striving to maintain worthiness as its vessel), and endurance to the end in permitting Him to change our natures to become like Him in as many ways as possible.
When you think of a God who rewards all the good, rather than punishes all the bad, you still have to repent for the bad, but you can move forward through your own imperfections with confidence in His love, and seeking His help. You can advance in trust that He covers your mistakes, and supplies your power. You aren't afraid to try, and you aren't afraid to fail, because you know He's got the part you can't do for you. You aren't off the hook for your part, but you are on the line to be reeled in by Him as long as you don't utterly rebel. He's got your burdens, all you have to do is keep taking steps. There is no death-bed repentance, and there is no working your way to salvation--just the perfect balance of a just God requiring obedience, but extending grace for inevitable failure. Correctly understood, this conception of God's nature and of the role of the Redeemer motivates rather than disheartens, and insists on exactness in orienting behavior toward His Son's model and character.
This powerful explanation of the categories and criteria of judgment enable faith in Christ, and promote fidelity to covenants with Him. And they significantly expand the Christian view of Heaven's size and scope. We all have to aim for the highest degree of glory and will all suffer for every part of our infinite potential our own choices disqualify us from partnering with the Savior to achieve--all but the highest degree are ultimately, at the lengths of eternity, dams to progression--but Christ's power to grant glory is not limited by our traditional interpretations of scripture. Our vision of heaven needs to be more inclusive for us to see it like He does. He loves us, and His completed work will guarantee us all the glory we can handle--all the glory our characters will have developed the capacity for through our degree of faith in Him. More will be in heaven than we currently imagine, but it is up to each of us individually to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling before the Lord.
Christians rejoice, for His promises of our degree of glory are sure!
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