REDEMPTION OF THE DEAD.
The living may be baptized for the dead. One who has received the ordinances of the Gospel can stand proxy for departed ancestors, who will receive the benefit of the earthly ordinances on obedience to the Gospel in the spirit. As the Spirit of Christ preached to the spirits in prison while His body was in the sepulchre, so His servants, bearing His authority, preach to "the dead" after finishing their work on earth. Ordinances for and in behalf of the dead are administered in temples built after a pattern revealed from heaven. Thus the living become saviors to the dead under Jesus Christ the Captain of their Salvation.
The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was "the first-fruit of them that slept." All persons who have breathed the breath of life will also be raised from the dead, receiving their bodies again as He did. But everyone in his own order. Those who have put on Christ by obeying His Gospel will be Christ's at His coming, and will be quickened by His glory, the celestial, typified by the sun. After the lapse of a day of the Lord-a thousand of our years-the rest of the dead will come forth, some in the terrestrial glory, typified by the moon, and others in the telestial glory, typified by the stars in their different magnitudes, the rest in a kingdom not of any degree of glory. All will be judged according to their works.
Progress is the eternal order of creation. The condemned will be punished for sin, as Divine justice shall determine both as to the severity and to the duration. The purpose of punishment is the vindication of the law and the reclamation of the transgressor. Eventually all who can be redeemed will be placed in some degree of glory and advancement. Only the sons of perdition who deny the Holy Ghost after having received it, who willfully pervert the power given to them to attain the highest exaltation and who shed innocent blood will be utterly lost.
The glory of those who are in Christ and become joint heirs with Him is to "inherit all things," and follow and participate with the Son and the Eternal Father forever in their glorious works. They will inherit the earth when it is purified and crowned with the glory and presence of God. They will reign as kings and priests and be ministers unto those of a lesser degree of glory in the eternal mansions.
This is the last dispensation. In it Israel will be gathered, Jerusalem be rebuilt, and Palestine be the abode of the sons of Judah. The elect of God will gather from all nations to Zion on the American continent. The earth will be cleansed from corruption. Paradise will bloom again, war will cease, peace will prevail, the enmity will depart from man and brute, the curse will be removed and this globe will be glorified, shining in its own light developed to perfection.