Foreordination: Doctrine of Election
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The Doctrine of Election (2)
Joseph Smith
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Mosiah Lyman Hancock
Hancock, Mosiah Lyman
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May I say that there is no chance in the call of these brethren to direct the Lord’s work on earth. His hand is in it. He knows the end from the beginning. He ordained and established the plan of salvation and decreed that his everlasting gospel should be revealed to man in a series of dispensations commencing with Adam and continuing to Joseph Smith. And he—the Almighty—chooses the prophets and apostles who minister in his name and present his message to the world in every age and dispensation. He selects and foreordains his ministers; he sends them to earth at the times before appointed; he guides and directs their continuing mortal preparations; and he then calls them to those positions they were foreordained to receive from before the foundations of the earth. May I take President Spencer W. Kimball as an illustration and pattern of one who was prepared, foreordained, and called to leadership among the Lord’s people. He was, it is true, born in the household of faith. Like Jacob, who inherited spiritual talents from Isaac and Abraham, so is he endowed by natural inheritance with those talents and abilities that prepare him for his present position of apostolic presidency. But more than mortal birth, more than mortal preparation are involved. He was born in the household of faith for a reason, and it was not this life alone that prepared him to stand as a minister of light and truth and salvation to his fellow mortals. The fact is, he is a spirit son of God who was called and chosen and foreordained before the foundations of the earth were laid, and he is now fulfilling the destiny designed for him from the preexistence, and promised him, in our presence, as we sat with him in the grand council when God himself was there. Joseph Smith said, “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.” Then the Prophet said of himself, “I suppose that I was ordained to this very office in that grand council.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 365.) President Kimball now wears the mantle of Joseph Smith and was a participant in the operation of the same law of foreordination. Abraham, our father, who also was present in this council, was privileged to see in vision the hosts of preexistent spirits. “Among all these,” he said, “… were many of the noble and great ones,” whom he described as being “good.” Abraham saw that God the Eternal Father “stood in the midst” of those mighty ones and said, “These I will make my rulers; … and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.” And as with Abraham, so with all the prophets, and for that matter so, to one degree or another, with the whole house of Israel and with all the members of the Lord’s earthly church—all are participants in the blessings of foreordination. To Jeremiah the Lord said: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” All those who receive the Melchizedek Priesthood in this life were, as Alma teaches, “called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God,” because they were among the noble and great in that premortal sphere. And Paul says that through this law of foreordination, which he calls the doctrine of election, there came to the whole house of Israel “the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises.” He says that the faithful members of the Church, those “that love God” and “are called according to his purpose,” are foreordained “to be conformed to the image of his Son,” to be “joint-heirs with Christ,” and to have eternal life in our Father’s kingdom. He says also of members of the Church that God “hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love,” and that we were foreordained to become the children of Jesus Christ by adoption, thus gaining a “forgiveness of sins” in this life and an inheritance of eternal glory in the life to come. Our revelations, ancient and modern, abound in pronouncements relative to the law of foreordination, both as it applies to specific individuals called according to the foreknowledge of God to special labors in mortality and as it applies to the blessings promised that host of valiant souls who are born in the lineage of Israel and who hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and come into his sheepfold on earth. Christ himself is the great prototype of all foreordained prophets. He was chosen in the councils of eternity to be the Savior and Redeemer. Of him Peter said he was “a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world” as the one who should come in the meridian of time to work out the infinite and eternal atonement. For 4,000 years all the prophets testified of his coming and proclaimed his goodness and grace. Mary, the mother of our Lord “after the manner of the flesh” Moses, the greatest prophet ever to minister in Israel; John the Revelator, whose mission it was to see the visions of the end of the world; and Joseph Smith, the prophet and seer of the restoration, were all designated by name hundreds or thousands of years before their mortal ministries, because their foreordained work was known and envisioned in advance. The work to be done by John the Baptist, by the ancient Twelve, by Columbus, by the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and by the framers of the Constitution of the United States was all known and arranged for in advance. And all these are but illustrations and patterns, for all of the Lord’s work is planned and prepared in advance, and those who are called and chosen to do the work receive their commission and ordination from him, first in the preexistence and then, if they remain true and faithful, again here in mortality. What then of our President, the man whom the Lord has chosen to represent him and preside in his kingdom for the time and season ahead? Truly he is more than the offspring of faithful fathers. He is in fact a son of God, a spirit offspring of the Almighty. He dwelt with the Eternal Father, saw his face, heard his voice, and what is more important than all else, he believed his word and kept his law. By obedience, by conformity, by personal righteousness, because he elected to follow in the path of the Chosen and Beloved Son, Spencer W. Kimball was noble and great in the preexistence. Above all his other talents, he developed the talent for spirituality—the talent to believe and accept the truth, the talent to desire righteousness. He knew and worshiped the Lord Jehovah, who was “like unto God.” He was a friend of Adam and Enoch. He took counsel from Noah and Abraham. He sat in meetings with Isaiah and Nephi. He served in the heavenly kingdom with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Preexistence is not some remote and mysterious place. All of us are but a few years removed from the Eternal Presence, from him whose children we are and in whose house we dwelt. All of us are separated by a thin veil only from the friends and fellow laborers with whom we served on the Lord’s errand before our eternal spirits took up their abodes in tabernacles of clay. True, a curtain has been drawn so we do not recall our associations there. But we do know that our Eternal Father has all power, all might, all dominion, and all truth and that he lives in the family unit. We do know that we are his children, created in his image, endowed with power and ability to become like him. We know he gave us our agency and ordained the laws by obedience to which we can obtain eternal life. We know we had friends and associates there. We know we were schooled and trained and taught in the most perfect educational system ever devised, and that by obedience to his eternal laws we developed infinite varieties and degrees of talents. And hence comes the doctrine of foreordination. When we come into mortality, we bring the talents, capacities, and abilities acquired by obedience to law in our prior existence. Mozart composed and published sonatas when but eight years of age because he was born with musical talent. Melchizedek came into this world with such faith and spiritual capacity that “when a child he feared God, and stopped the mouths of lions, and quenched the violence of fire.” Cain, on the other hand, like Lucifer, was a liar from the beginning and was told in this life: “… thou shalt be called Perdition; for thou wast also before the world.” Now this is the doctrine of foreordination; this is the doctrine of election. This is the reason why the Lord has a chosen and favored and peculiar people on earth; and this is the reason he said: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: “And I give unto them eternal life. …” John 10:27–28 A knowledge of these wondrous truths places upon us a greater burden than rests upon any other people to follow Christ—to take his yoke upon us, to keep his commandments, to do ever those things that please him. And if we love and serve him, we will give heed to the words of the apostles and prophets whom he sends to reveal and teach his word among us.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie
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I have seen him changing in the last ten months. It is as though he's been unleashed. He's free to finally do what he came to earth to do, is my big thing. And also, he's free to follow through with things he's been concerned about, but could never do. Now that he's president, he can do those things. I've seen him be able to now do those things that have been in his heart. I've seen him as I've said, be clearer about doctrine, I've seen him become younger, I've seen him become happier, because he's doing what he came to earth to do, so why wouldn't he be happy? He was foreordained to be the prophet of God on the earth today and when you're finally doing what you said you would do, of course you're going to be happy.
Sister Wendy Nelson
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You were called of God by revelation to your missionary service
President Henry B. Eyring
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