26. Doubtless He knows of some spirits that they await only the opportunity of choice between good and evil to choose the latter and to accomplish their own destruction; these are they as spoken of by Jude, "who were before of old ordained to this condemnation."[591] To avert the fate of such, their free agency would have to be taken away; they can be saved by force alone; and compulsion is forbidden by the laws of heaven, for salvation and for condemnation alike. There are others whose integrity and faithfulness have been demonstrated in their pristine state; the Father knows how unreservedly they may be trusted, and many of them are called even in their mortal youth to special and exalted labors as chosen servants of the Most High.
27. Pre-existence of Spirits.—The facts already presented concerning fore-ordination furnish proof that the spirits of mankind passed through a stage of existence prior to the earthly probation. This antemortal period is oft-times spoken of as the stage of "primeval childhood" or "first estate." That these spirits existed as organized intelligences, and exercised their free agency during that primeval stage, is clear from the declaration of the Lord to Abraham:—"And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon, and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads forever and ever."[592]
28. No Christian doubts the pre-existence of the Savior, or questions His position as one of the Godhead before He came to earth as Mary's Son. The common interpretation given to the opening words of John's Gospel sustains the view of Christ's primeval God-ship:—"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." We read further, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."[593] The sayings of the Redeemer Himself support this truth. When His disciples dissented concerning His doctrine of Himself, He said, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?"[594] On another occasion He spoke in this wise:—"I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world and go to the Father."[595] And His disciples, pleased with this plain declaration confirming the belief which, perchance, they already entertained at heart, rejoined, "Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb ... by this we believe that thou camest forth from God."[596] To the wicked Jews who boasted of their descent from Abraham, and sought to hide their sins under the protecting mantle of the great patriarch's name, the Savior declared:—"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am."[597] In a solemn prayer to His Father, the Son implored, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."[598] Yet Christ was born a child among mortals; and it is fair to infer, that if His earthly birth was the union of a pre-existent or antemortal spirit with a mortal body, such also is the birth of every member of the human family.
29. But we are not left to mere inference on a basis of analogy only; the scriptures plainly teach that the spirits of mankind are known and numbered unto God before their earthly advent. In his farewell administration to Israel Moses sang, "Remember the days of old.... When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel."[599] From this we learn that the earth was allotted to the nations, according to the number of the children of Israel; it is evident therefore that the number was known prior to the existence of the Israelitish nation in the flesh; this is most easily explained on the assumption of a previous existence in which the spirits of the future nation were known.
30. No chance is possible therefore in the number or extent of the temporal creations of God.[600] The population of the earth is fixed according to the number of spirits appointed to take tabernacles of flesh upon this sphere; when these have all come forth in the order and time decreed of God, then, and not till then, shall the end come.
NOTES.
1. Spiritual Creations.—The pre-existent condition is not characteristic of human souls alone; all things of earth have a spiritual being, of which the temporal structure forms but the counterpart. We read of the creation of "every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew" (Gen. ii, 5). This is set forth with greater fulness in another revelation to Moses:—"These are the generations of the heaven and the earth when they were created, in the day that I, the Lord God, made the heaven and the earth, and every plant of the earth before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. For I, the Lord God, created all things of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth.... And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men, and not yet a man to till the ground; for in heaven created I them; and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air: but I, the Lord God, spake, and there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also; nevertheless, all things were before created, but spiritually were they created and made according to my word."—(Pearl of Great Price: Moses iii, 4-7.)
2. Authority Given of God.—"The most comprehensive evidence that Joseph Smith received the authority and power of the Holy Priesthood, is that the works of John the Baptist, of Jesus and His apostles, are being again done on the earth by his administration. To receive the powers of this Priesthood, it is necessary that men should obey the laws and ordinances of the Gospel. The Lord has personally appeared to some men, and covenanted with them as He did with Abraham (see Gen. xii, 1-3; xiii, 14-17). The Lord also personally called and authorized His twelve Jewish apostles. So fully were they authorized to labor for Him, and act in His name, that He said to them: 'He that receiveth you receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me' (Matt. x, 40). More generally, it is from the prophets and apostles of Christ that men receive the Priesthood. Many received it under the hands of the apostles of the first Gospel dispensation. Those who have received it in this latter-day dispensation, have received it from Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery; and, in doing so, have received it through a legitimate channel from God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Those who have received this Priesthood have covenanted with God the Father, and He with them. This is evidently the view taken of the subject in the above passage quoted from Matthew. The doctrine is more fully illustrated in Doc. and Cov.: 'All they who receive this Priesthood receiveth me, saith the Lord; for he that receiveth my servants receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth my Father; and he that receiveth my Father, receiveth my Father's kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him, and this is according to the oath and covenant which belongeth to the Priesthood' (Doc. and Cov. lxxxiv, 35-39)."—Compendium, F. D. Richards and J. A. Little, p. 67.
3. Fore-ordination.—"'Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world' (Acts xv, 18). The knowledge that we have of the beginning of the world is principally derived from the history of its creation in the Bible Genesis, and in the writings of Moses and of Abraham, as given in the Pearl of Great Price.... These writings make it plain that man existed in a spiritual condition prior to coming here, and also quite as evident that in that pre-existence he exercised his free agency.... God may have called and chosen men in their first estate, or spiritual existence, but whether they will accept that call and fill it, by repentance and good works in this life, is a matter in which it is their privilege to exercise their free agency.... Men exercised their free agency in the first or spiritual estate, as well as in this. That the character of their works in that estate shaped their destiny in this is evident."—Compendium, F. D. Richards and J. A. Little, pp. 138-140.
See also: Acts ii, 23; Romans viii, 29-30; xi, 2, 28; Isaiah xlviii, 12; I Chron. xxix, 1; Book of Mormon: Alma xiii, 3-7; Doc. and Cov. lxxxiv, 34, 99.