Lessons on the Plan of Salvation
Lesson No. Four

The Plan of Salvation Applies Only to Children of God

We are begotten sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents – In the creation of the earth and all things on it the Father delegated his creative powers to others. (See Abraham 3:22-24)  “But there are two creative events that are his and his alone.  First, he is the Father of all spirits, Christ’s included; none were fathered or created by anyone else.  Second, he is the Creator of the physical body of man” (Bruce R. McConkie, New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 103).  

“For every seed bringeth forth unto its own likeness” (Alma 32:31) – The universal law of nature is that when the offspring of any living thing matures and develops properly it becomes like the parent.  This simple fact is the doctrinal basis and purpose of the plan of salvation.   

When we mature and develop as we should we will become like our Father.  This separates Adam and his posterity from all other creations including “cave men”.  None of these can ever become like him.  We are different in very important ways from God’s other creations: 

  • Only God’s children have a conscience - We are all “endowed with a heavenly gift called the light of Christ.  This divine endowment manifests to us the difference between good and evil…it is a divine inheritance from a Divine Parent” (Ibid, p. 79; see also Moroni 7:16, D&C 93:2).  No other creation has a conscience or is guided by the light of Christ.
  • Only God’s children have agency and choose to worship God – The atonement makes men “free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon…to choose eternal life according to the will of his Holy Spirit; And not choose eternal death…” (2 Nephi 2:28).  No creation, other than man, has ever recognized or worshiped a higher power.
  • Only God’s children can reason and conclude that there is a God and a purpose in life - The more we learn about ourselves and all other forms of life; about the earth, the oceans, and the universe; the more we know about all things the clearer it becomes there is a God and our lives have a purpose.  “All things denote there is a God, yea, even the earth and all things that are on the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness there is a Supreme Creator” (Alma 30:44). 
  • Only God’s children can repent and change – We can repent and put “off the natural man and become a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord” (Mosiah 3:19).
  • Only God’s children can receive revelation and come to know the Lord – “Behold, great and marvelous are the works of the Lord.  How unsearchable are the depths of the mysteries of him; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways save it be revealed unto him; wherefore, brethren, despise not the revelations of God” (Jacob 4:8).
  • Only God’s children, a man and a woman together, can create a physical body to bless another spirit child of God – It must be remembered “that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife” (The Family – A Proclamation to the World).

Testimony – The plan of salvation applies only to the children of God – The crowning way that we are different from all other creations is that as His children we can follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ and grow from grace to grace and receive grace for grace until we “come unto the Father in [the name of Christ], and in due time receive of his fulness” (D&C 93:11-20), and become like our Father.