Salvation and Exaltation.—The Gospel of Christ is termed by St. Paul "the power of God unto salvation."[[18]] Paul might have gone further, had he been so inclined, or had it been timely. He could have shown that the Gospel is also the power of God unto exaltation, a plan devised by omnipotent wisdom whereby the sons and daughters of Deity may advance from stage to stage of soul development, until they become like their heavenly parents, the Eternal Father and Mother, inheriting endless thrones and dominions and receiving "a fulness of joy."[[19]]
This is exaltation. It is more than salvation, being an extension of that idea or condition—salvation "added upon;" just as salvation is an extension of, or an addition to, the idea or condition of redemption. A soul may be redeemed—that is, raised from the dead—and yet be condemned at the Final Judgment for evil deeds done in the body. Likewise may a soul be saved, and yet come short of the glory that constitutes exaltation. To redeem, save and glorify, is the threefold mission of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Footnotes
[1]. Rev. 14:6.
[2]. Mal. 3:1.
[3]. Mosiah 15:1, 2; 3:5. The joyful intelligence of the advent of the World's Redeemer, proclaimed by angels to the shepherds on the Judean hills (Luke 2:10), furnishes another name for the Gospel—"good tidings," or, as otherwise rendered, "glad tidings of great joy."
[4]. Col. 2:9. Compare Ether 3:14, and Alma 11:38, 39.
[5]. All fulness is relative, as pertaining to the revealed word of God. There can be no absolute fulness with man until everything is made known to him. The fulness of the Gospel, as delivered to the Nephites and other ancient peoples, was not so complete as is the fulness enjoyed by the Latter-day Saints. Truth is always the same, but more of its principles have been revealed in modern times than at any previous period. And the end is not yet; for, as our Prophet declares: "Those things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto babes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times." (D. and C. 128:18.) Such an outpouring of truth and light can come only to a people prepared for it. "When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away" (I Cor. 13:10). Until then a comparative fulness, or all that the finite mind can contain of infinite wisdom, must suffice human aspiration and continue to be the lot even of the most enlightened.
[6]. D. and C. 110:1-4.
[7]. The book of Isaiah is sometimes called "the fifth gospel," it having so much to say about the coming Redeemer; and just as fittingly might the third book of Nephi be termed a "gospel," narrating as it does the risen Christ's personal ministrations to the descendants of Lehi.