126. In the spirit world, after death, there is a separation of spirits that lasts until the resurrection and final judgment; the wicked go into a state of outer darkness, and the righteous go into a state of happiness.
The spirits of all men, as soon as they depart from this mortal body, whether they are good or evil, we are told in the Book of Mormon, are taken home to that God who gave them life, where there is a separation, a partial judgment, and the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they expand in wisdom, where they have respite from all their troubles, and where care and sorrow do not annoy. The wicked, on the contrary, have no part or portion in the Spirit of the Lord, and they are cast into outer darkness, being led captive, because of their own iniquity, by the evil one. And in this space between death and the resurrection of the body, the two classes of souls remain, in happiness or in misery, until the time which is appointed of God that the dead shall come forth and be reunited both spirit and body, and be brought to stand before God, and be judged according to their works. (Gospel Doctrine, p. 448) DGSM:84; TLDP:637-38
quoted by Mormon
And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow. . . .
14. Now this is the state of the souls of the wicked, yea, in darkness, and a state of awful, fearful looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God upon them; thus they remain in this state, as well as the righteous in paradise, until the time of their resurrection. (Alma speaks to his son Corianton, concerning the resurrection of the dead, about 73 B.C.) Alma 40:12,14
also quoting Alma, the younger
Paradise . . . is not Heaven, if by the latter term we understand the abode of the Eternal Father and His celestialized children. Paradise is a place where dwell righteous and repentant spirits between bodily death and resurrection. Another division of the spirit world is reserved for those disembodied beings who have lived lives of wickedness and who remain impenitent even after death. Alma, a Nephite prophet, thus spake of the conditions prevailing among the departed:
"Now concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection. Behold, it has been made known unto me, by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body; yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life. And then shall it come to pass that the spirits of those who are righteous, are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise; a state of rest; a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow, &c. And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of the wicked, yea, who are evil . . . these shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth; and this because of their own iniquity; being led captive by the will of the devil. Now this is the state of the souls of the wicked: yea, in darkness, and a state of awful, fearful, looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God upon them; thus they remain in this state, as well as the righteous in paradise, until the time of their resurrection." [Alma 40:11-14JTC:671-72
And there were gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just, who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived in mortality; . . . 18. While this vast multitude waited and conversed, rejoicing in the hour of their deliverance from the chains of death, the Son of God appeared, declaring liberty to the captives who had been faithful;
19. And there he preached to them the everlasting gospel, the doctrine of the resurrection and the redemption of mankind from the fall, and from individual sins on conditions of repentance.
20. But unto the wicked he did not go, and among the ungodly and the unrepentant who had defiled themselves while in the flesh, his voice was not raised;
21. Neither did the rebellious who rejected the testimonies and the warnings of the ancient prophets behold his presence, nor look upon his face.
22. Where these were, darkness reigned, but among the righteous there was peace; . . . (Vision regarding the Savior's visit to the spirits of the dead, Oct. 3, 1918) D&C 138:12,18-22
While as a practice it would be critically unfair to deduce doctrinal principles from parabolic incidents [See Lazarus and the Rich man in Luke 16:19-31.], we cannot admit that Christ would teach falsely even in parable; and therefore we accept as true the portrayal of conditions in the world of the disembodied. That righteous and unrighteous dwell apart during the interval between death and resurrection is clear. Paradise, or as the Jews like to designate that blessed abode, "Abraham's bosom," is not the place of final glory, any more than the hell to which the rich man's spirit was consigned is the final habitation of the condemned. To that preliminary or intermediate state, however, men's works do follow them; and the dead shall surely find that their abode is that for which they have qualified themselves while in the flesh. JTC:468
Like other Christians, we believe in a heaven or paradise and a hell following mortal life, but to us that two-part division of the righteous and the wicked is merely temporary, while the spirits of the dead await their resurrections and final judgments. The destinations that follow the final judgments are much more diverse. Our restored knowledge of the separateness of the three members of the Godhead provides a key to help us understand the diversities of resurrected glory. (CR 1995Apr; Apostasy and Restoration, Ensign, May 1995, p.84)
Related Witnesses:
I have thought sometimes that some of our people are inclined to think there is no hell and that nobody is going to hell. I tell you there will be a large number of people go to hell; they will suffer torment and will go where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; they will be in outer darkness and suffer far beyond anything we can conceive of. Latter-day Saints especially who commit sin, if they die in their sin, will go to hell, and they will suffer torment there until the day of redemption. But think of the length of time during which they will be in this torment (Gospel Truth, 1:85) TLDP:639
Hades, the Greek, or Shaole, the Hebrew: these two significations mean a world of spirits. Hades, Shaole, paradise, spirits in prison, are all one: it is a world of spirits.
The righteous and the wicked all go to the same world of spirits until the resurrection. . . .
The great misery of departed spirits in the world of spirits, where they go after death, is to know that they come short of the glory that others enjoy and that they might have enjoyed themselves, and they are their own accusers. (At the Stand in Nauvoo, Ill., June 11, 1843) HC5:425
The scriptures prove, that at the time of man's final judgment he will stand before the bar of God, clothed in his resurrected body, and this, irrespective of his condition of purity or guilt. While awaiting the time of their coming forth, disembodied spirits exist in an intermediate state, of happiness and rest or of suffering and suspense, according to their works in mortality. AF:466
As rewards for righteous deeds are proportionate to deserving acts, so the punishment prescribed for sin is made adequate to the offense. But, be it remembered, both rewards and punishments are natural consequences. Punishment is inflicted upon the sinner for disciplinary and reformatory purposes and in accordance with justice. There is nothing of vindictiveness or of desire to cause suffering manifest in the divine nature; on the contrary, our Father is cognizant of every pang, and permits such to afflict for beneficent purposes only. God's mercy is declared in the retributive pains that He allows, as in the blessings of peace that issue from Him. It is scarcely profitable to speculate as to the exact nature of the spiritual suffering imposed as punishment for sin. Comparison with physical pain, such as the tortures of fire in a sulphurous lake, serve to show that the human mind is incapable of comprehending the extent of these penalties. The sufferings entailed by the fate of condemnation are more to be feared than are any possible inflictions of physical torture; the mind, the spirit, the whole soul is doomed to suffer, and the torment is known by none in the flesh. AF:53-54
I beheld that the faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption, through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God, among those who are in darkness and under the bondage of sin in the great world of the spirits of the dead. (Vision to President Joseph F. Smith regarding the Savior's visit to the spirits of the dead, Oct. 3, 1918) D&C 138:57
Author's Note: For the present, we do not know what level of righteousness is required to merit "paradise," a state of happiness, and what level of wickedness consigns a person to state of "outer darkness." Nor are we taught the exact dividing line between the righteous and the wicked in the spirit world. Clearly all righteous people are not equally righteous, and all wicked people are not equally wicked. Perhaps it is enough for us to know that we should be as righteous as we know how.
127. In the postmortal spirit world the spirits of the righteous enter a condition of peace and rest, called paradise, until their resurrection.
quoted by Mormon
And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow. . . .
14. . . . until the time of their resurrection. (Alma speaks to his son Corianton, concerning the resurrection of the dead, about 73 B.C.) Alma 40:12,14
Paradise—the abode of righteous spirits, as they await the day of their resurrection; paradise—a place of peace and rest where the sorrows and trials of [t]his life have been shuffled off, and where the saints continue to prepare for a celestial heaven; paradise—not the Lord's eternal kingdom, but a way station along the course leading to eternal life, a place where the final preparation is made for that fulness of joy which comes only when body and spirit are inseparably connected in immortal glory (The Millennial Messiah, 4:222) DGSM:84
quoted by Nephi
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. (Jacob teaches the doctrine of the Atonement to the people of Nephi, 559-545 B.C.) 2 Nephi 9:13
And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen. (Moroni's final writings, about A.D. 421) Moroni 10:34
The spirits of all men, as soon as they depart from this mortal body, whether they are good or evil, we are told in the Book of Mormon, are taken home to that God who gave them life, where there is a separation, a partial judgment, and the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they expand in wisdom, where they have respite from all their troubles, and where care and sorrow do not annoy. (Gospel Doctrine, p. 448) DGSM:84; TLDP:637-38
We had the opportunity to discuss all three questions. They are clearly answered in the doctrine taught to us by our Savior. We discussed how he had spent his life striving to be faithful, to do what God asked of him, to be honest in his dealings with his fellowmen and all others, to care for and love his family. Isn’t that what is meant by enduring to the end? We talked about what happens immediately after death, about what God has taught us about the world of spirits. It is a place of paradise and happiness for those who have lived righteous lives. It is not something to fear. (CR 1996Oct; The Eternal Family, Ensign, November 1996, p.64)
Some facetiously state that nothing is as permanent as death. Not so! The grip of physical death is temporary. It began with the fall of Adam; it ended with the atonement of Jesus the Christ. The waiting period in paradise is temporary, too. It ends with the resurrection. (CR 1992Apr; Doors of Death, Ensign, May 1992, p.72)
Related Witnesses:
The brightness and glory of the next apartment is inexpressible. It is not encumbered with this clog of dirt we are carrying around here so that when we advance in years we have to be stubbing along and to be careful lest we fall down. . . .
Here, we are continually troubled with ills and ailments of various kinds . . . but in the spirit world we are free from all this and enjoy life, glory, and intelligence . . . and we shall enjoy the society of the just and the pure who are in the spirit world until the resurrection. (At funeral services of Aurelia Spencer, 13th Ward, Sept. 16, 1871, JD14:231) TLDP:638
And it came to pass that the seventy and first year passed away, and also the seventy and second year, yea, and in fine, till the seventy and ninth year had passed away; yea, even an hundred years had passed away, and the disciples of Jesus, whom he had chosen, had all gone to the paradise of God, save it were the three who should tarry; and there were other disciples ordained in their stead; and also many of that generation had passed away. (Mormon abridges the account of Nephi, son of Nephi, one of the disciples of Christ, A.D. 36-60) 4 Nephi 1:14
