What difference does it make in your life knowing that the Savior’s work continues on the other side of the veil?
"Our only sure reliance is to trust in the Lord and His love for His children.
My dear brothers and sisters, a letter I received some time ago introduces the subject of my talk. The writer was contemplating a temple marriage to a man whose eternal companion had died. She would be a second wife. She asked this question: would she be able to have her own house in the next life, or would she have to live with her husband and his first wife? I just told her to trust the Lord.
I continue with an experience I heard from a valued associate, which I share with his permission. After the death of his beloved wife and the mother of his children, a father remarried. Some grown children strongly objected to the remarriage and sought the counsel of a close relative who was a respected Church leader. After hearing the reasons for their objections, which focused on conditions and relationships in the spirit world or in the kingdoms of glory that follow the Final Judgment, this leader said: “You are worried about the wrong things. You should be worried about whether you will get to those places. Concentrate on that. If you get there, all of it will be more wonderful than you can imagine.”
What a comforting teaching! Trust in the Lord!
From letters I have received, I know that others are troubled by questions about the spirit world we will inhabit after we die and before we are resurrected. Some assume that the spirit world will continue many of the temporal circumstances and issues we experience in this mortal life. What do we really know about conditions in the spirit world? I believe a BYU religion professor’s article on this subject had it right: “When we ask ourselves what we know about the spirit world from the standard works, the answer is ‘not as much as we often think.’”
Of course, we know from the scriptures that after our bodies die we continue to live as spirits in the spirit world. The scriptures also teach that this spirit world is divided between those who have been “righteous” or “just” during life and those who have been wicked. They also describe how some faithful spirits teach the gospel to those who have been wicked or rebellious (see 1 Peter 3:19; Doctrine and Covenants 138:19–20, 29, 32, 37). Most important, modern revelation reveals that the work of salvation goes forward in the spirit world (see Doctrine and Covenants 138:30–34, 58), and although we are urged not to procrastinate our repentance during mortality (see Alma 13:27), we are taught that some repentance is possible there (see Doctrine and Covenants 138:58).
The work of salvation in the spirit world consists of freeing spirits from what the scriptures frequently describe as “bondage.” All in the spirit world are under some form of bondage. President Joseph F. Smith’s great revelation, canonized in section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants, states that the righteous dead, who were in a state of “peace” (Doctrine and Covenants 138:22) as they anticipated the Resurrection (see Doctrine and Covenants 138:16), “had looked upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a bondage” (Doctrine and Covenants 138:50).
The wicked also suffer an additional bondage. Because of unrepented sins, they are in what the Apostle Peter referred to as spirit “prison” (1 Peter 3:19; see also Doctrine and Covenants 138:42). These spirits are described as “bound” or as “captives” (Doctrine and Covenants 138:31, 42) or as “cast out into outer darkness” with “weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth” as they await resurrection and judgment (Alma 40:13–14).
Resurrection for all in the spirit world is assured by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (see 1 Corinthians 15:22), though it occurs at different times for different groups. Until that appointed time, what the scriptures tell us about activity in the spirit world principally concerns the work of salvation. Little else is revealed. The gospel is preached to the ignorant, the unrepentant, and the rebellious so they can be freed from their bondage and go forward to the blessings a loving Heavenly Father has in store for them.
The spirit-world bondage that applies to righteous converted souls is their need to await—and perhaps even be allowed to prompt—the performance of their proxy ordinances on earth so they can be baptized and enjoy the blessings of the Holy Ghost (see Doctrine and Covenants 138:30–37, 57–58). These mortal proxy ordinances also empower them to go forward under priesthood authority to enlarge the hosts of the righteous who can preach the gospel to the spirits in prison.
Beyond these basics, our canon of scripture contains very little about the spirit world that follows death and precedes the Final Judgment. So what else do we know about the spirit world? Many members of the Church have had visions or other inspirations to inform them about how things operate or are organized in the spirit world, but these personal spiritual experiences are not to be understood or taught as the official doctrine of the Church. And, of course, there is abundant speculation by members and others in published sources like books on near-death experiences.
As to all of these, the wise cautions of Elders D. Todd Christofferson and Neil L. Andersen in earlier general conference messages are important to remember. Elder Christofferson taught: “It should be remembered that not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. It is commonly understood in the Church that a statement made by one leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, not meant to be official or binding for the whole Church.”
In the following conference, Elder Andersen taught this principle: “The doctrine is taught by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. It is not hidden in an obscure paragraph of one talk.” The family proclamation, signed by all 15 prophets, seers, and revelators, is a wonderful illustration of that principle.
Beyond something as formal as the family proclamation, the prophetic teachings of the Presidents of the Church, affirmed by other prophets and apostles, are also an example of this. As to circumstances in the spirit world, the Prophet Joseph Smith gave two teachings near the close of his ministry that have been frequently taught by his successors. One of these is his teaching in the King Follett sermon that family members who were righteous will be together in the world of spirits. Another is this statement at a funeral in the last year of his life: “The spirits of the just are exalted to a greater and more glorious work … [in] the world of spirits. … They are not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings, and motions, and are often pained therewith.”
So, what about a question like I mentioned earlier about where spirits live? If that question seems strange or trivial to you, consider many of your own questions, or even those you have been tempted to answer on the basis of something you heard from another person sometime in the past. For all questions about the spirit world, I suggest two answers. First, remember that God loves His children and will surely do what is best for each of us. Second, remember this familiar Bible teaching, which has been most helpful to me on a multitude of unanswered questions:
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).
Similarly, Nephi concluded his great psalm with these words: “O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh” (2 Nephi 4:34).
We can all wonder privately about circumstances in the spirit world or even discuss these or other unanswered questions in family or other intimate settings. But let us not teach or use as official doctrine what does not meet the standards of official doctrine. To do so does not further the work of the Lord and may even discourage individuals from seeking their own comfort or edification through the personal revelation the Lord’s plan provides for each of us. Excessive reliance on personal teachings or speculations may even draw us aside from concentrating on learning and efforts that will further our understanding and help us go forward on the covenant path.
Trust in the Lord is a familiar and true teaching in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That was Joseph Smith’s teaching when the early Saints experienced severe persecutions and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. That is still the best principle we can use when our efforts to learn or our attempts to find comfort encounter obstacles in matters not yet revealed or not adopted as the official doctrine of the Church.
That same principle applies to unanswered questions about sealings in the next life or desired readjustments because of events or transgressions in mortality. There is so much we do not know that our only sure reliance is to trust in the Lord and His love for His children.
In conclusion, what we do know about the spirit world is that the Father’s and the Son’s work of salvation continues there. Our Savior initiated the work of declaring liberty to the captives (see 1 Peter 3:18–19; 4:6; Doctrine and Covenants 138:6–11, 18–21, 28–37), and that work continues as worthy and qualified messengers continue to preach the gospel, including repentance, to those who still need its cleansing effect (see Doctrine and Covenants 138:57). The object of all of that is described in the official doctrine of the Church, given in modern revelation.
“The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God,
“And after they have paid the penalty of their transgressions, and are washed clean, shall receive a reward according to their works, for they are heirs of salvation” (Doctrine and Covenants 138:58–59).
The duty of each of us is to teach the doctrine of the restored gospel, keep the commandments, love and help one another, and do the work of salvation in the holy temples.
I testify of the truth of what I have said here and of the truths taught and to be taught in this conference. This is all made possible because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. As we know from modern revelation, He “glorifies the Father, and saves all the works of his hands” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:43; emphasis added). In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." (Trust in the Lord By President Dallin H. Oaks First Counselor in the First Presidency)
"On the evening of Friday, November 5, 1918, Susa Young Gates and her husband, Jacob, stopped by the home of some close friends to pick up a box of apples. That home was the Beehive House, on the corner of State Street and South Temple in Salt Lake City, and those friends were Joseph F. Smith, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his wife Julina Smith. Susa and Joseph had known each other since Susa’s childhood, in the 1860s, when he was a frequent visitor in the home of her father, Brigham Young. The Gateses and the Smiths had served together as missionaries in Hawaii in the 1880s and had remained close friends ever since. Susa and Joseph forged a particularly close friendship. She called him “My Beloved and Honored Friend and Brother”; he called her his “beloved Sister” and expressed “the truest brotherly love” for her. What happened during her visit that evening would become a crowning expression of that friendship and a deeply personal affirmation of Susa’s tireless efforts in what she called the “work of redeeming the dead.”
“A Greater Work”
Susa Young Gates was one of the most prominent Latter-day Saint women of her time. A woman of indomitable energy and determination, she had worked for decades as a writer, editor, educator, and leader in the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association (YLMIA), the Relief Society, and various national women’s organizations. But in 1918 her driving interest was genealogy and temple work, an area in which she had been a leading Latter-day Saint advocate for over a decade.
Susa felt a sacred sense of personal mission in this work. In 1902, returning from a meeting of the International Council of Women in Europe, Susa had become seriously ill. In London she sought a priesthood blessing from Elder Francis M. Lyman, then serving as president of the European Mission, and in that blessing he told her, “You shall live to perform temple work, and you shall do a greater work than you have ever done before.” This commission became a driving force in her life. “I had been interested in Temple work before,” she said, “but now I felt that I must do something more, something to help all the members of the Church.”
Susa could hardly have done any more than she went on to do for the cause of family history and temple work. She wrote countless newspaper and magazine articles, taught class after class, and took the message on the road to many stakes and wards. She visited genealogical libraries in the eastern United States and England and corresponded with genealogists from many other countries, seeking greater knowledge and expertise. She served on the general board of the Relief Society, where she succeeded in having lessons on genealogy (most of which she also wrote) incorporated into the curriculum. She published a 600-page reference book on surnames and contributed frequently to a new magazine devoted to genealogical research. With all this effort, she also found time to serve for decades as a temple ordinance worker. Susa’s work was integral to the establishment of family history as a focus for Latter-day Saints.
In these efforts she worked closely with Elder Joseph Fielding Smith—assistant Church historian, son of the Church President, and, after 1910, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Elder Smith also served as secretary of the Utah Genealogical Society, the Church’s official genealogical organization. Susa referred to Elder Smith as “the Apostle to the spirits in prison” and as “the eloquent spokesman” of genealogy and temple work. Susa and Elder Smith spoke together at genealogical meetings—she provided practical instruction in methodology, and he laid out the theological foundations of the work. Thanks to their efforts and those of several like-minded associates, thousands of Latter-day Saints received training and encouragement in performing family history and temple work.
Despite these accomplishments, Susa often felt that she was waging an uphill battle. She believed that too many Latter-day Saints exhibited “a very general indifference” toward genealogy and temple work. “Not even an angel from heaven could induce some of these club women and these successful business men to set aside a portion of their time for temple work,” Susa wrote to a friend.
When she visited President Smith that night in November 1918, Susa had recently been reminded of the widespread lack of enthusiasm for family history work. Members of the Relief Society general board had nearly voted to discontinue genealogy lessons. “I have had to take the part of the genealogical work against all others,” she wrote in one letter. She had barely succeeded in preserving it as part of the curriculum. At the October 1918 Relief Society conference, stake leaders reported that the genealogy lessons were too difficult. They suggested that the lessons be “simplified” and “emphasis placed on the spiritual rather than on the educational side of this study.” Susa assured them that the recently published Surname Book and Racial History would help make the lessons more accessible. But she had long insisted that the spiritual and the practical dimensions of genealogy were complementary. “All the desired inspiration in the world will not save our dead,” she declared. “We must also have information in order to consummate that noble work.” She labored on, making every effort to provide both information and inspiration to her fellow Saints.
“The Hosts of the Dead”
In November 1918 President Smith was ill—elderly, frail, and declining rapidly. He had spent much of the year at home, unable to maintain the demanding pace that characterized most of his life. His age-related ailments were compounded by heavy grief. In January his beloved eldest son, Elder Hyrum M. Smith, had died suddenly of a ruptured appendix. “My soul is rent, my heart is broken! O God, help me!” President Smith exclaimed at the time. But the blows kept coming. In February a young son-in-law died after an accidental fall. And in September, Hyrum’s wife, Ida, died just a few days after giving birth, leaving five orphaned children. Meanwhile, the Great War (World War I) was dragging to a close, leaving unimaginable carnage and devastation in its wake, and a worldwide influenza pandemic was claiming millions of victims. For President Smith, it was a time of deeply personal pain amid much global suffering.
These catastrophes formed a visible backdrop at the October general conference. Attendance was noticeably diminished, “owing to so many of the Priesthood being absent in the war.” The growing flu epidemic likely kept people home as well. Mustering his failing strength, President Smith made a surprise appearance and presided at four sessions of the conference. “I have been undergoing a siege of very serious illness for the last five months,” he said in his opening remarks. “Although somewhat weakened in body,” he affirmed, “my mind is clear with reference to my duty.” Then President Smith hinted at a message he was still struggling to find words to express. “I will not, I dare not, attempt to enter upon many things that are resting upon my mind this morning,” he said, “and I shall postpone until some future time, the Lord being willing, my attempt to tell you some of the things that are in my mind, and that dwell in my heart.” He continued: “I have not lived alone these five months. I have dwelt in the spirit of prayer, of supplication, of faith and of determination; and I have had my communication with the Spirit of the Lord continuously.”
President Smith’s remarks undoubtedly referred in part to the events of the previous day, October 3, 1918, when he had experienced a remarkable vision of the Savior’s visit to the spirit world (now recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 138). In this vision, President Smith saw “the hosts of the dead” awaiting the Savior’s arrival. Wondering how Christ could have accomplished His ministry among the dead in “the brief time intervening between the crucifixion and his resurrection,” President Smith saw that He “organized his forces and appointed messengers” from among the righteous spirits and “spent his time during his sojourn in the world of spirits, instructing and preparing the faithful spirits of the prophets who had testified of him in the flesh” to carry the message of redemption to the spirits of those who had not heard or had not received the gospel in their mortal lives.
President Smith’s desire to speak of these things to the Saints in person was not fulfilled. Ten days after general conference, he dictated the vision to his son Joseph Fielding Smith. Two weeks later, on October 31, Joseph Fielding Smith read the text to the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at their regular council meeting in the temple. It was “fully endorsed by all the brethren,” he recorded, and they made plans to publish it in the December issue of the Improvement Era. A week after that notable meeting, Susa and Jacob Gates made their visit to the Smith home.
“An Exquisite Joy and Comfort”
As the Gateses visited with members of the Smith family, President Smith summoned Susa to come into his room. “I comforted him all I could in his severe illness,” Susa wrote. He told her, “You are doing a great work, greater than you know anything about.” After a few minutes President Smith and Susa were joined by Jacob and Julina and others (presumably Smith family members), and President Smith gave Susa a paper to read. It was a transcript of the account of his vision. “How blest, O how blest I am to have the priviledge!” Susa wrote in her journal that night. “To be permitted to read a revelation before it was made public, to know the heavens are still opened.”
Susa’s description of the vision highlighted the aspects she found most compelling: “In it he tells of his view of Eternity; the Savior when He visited the spirits in prison—how His servants minister to them; he saw the Prophet and all his associate Brethren laboring in the Prison Houses; Mother Eve & her noble daughters engaged in the same holy cause!” Long an advocate for women’s causes, Susa rejoiced at the specific mention of women in the revelation, grateful “to have Eve and her daughters remembered.” And she rejoiced in the revelation’s affirmation of the work on behalf of the dead. “Above all,” she wrote, “to have this given at a time when our Temple work and workers & our genealogy need such encouragement. No words of mine can express my joy and gratitude.” “Think of the impetus this revelation will give to temple work throughout the Church!” she later wrote to a friend.
Two weeks later, on November 19, 1918, President Joseph F. Smith died. The announcement and publication of his vision appeared alongside the many tributes published at the time of his passing. In the Relief Society Magazine, editor Susa Young Gates published a lengthy tribute to President Smith and his wives, along with eulogies from various leading women in the Church. She then included the full text of the “Vision of the Redemption of the Dead,” as it was called, but without disclosing her personal experience with it. Here she expanded on her private comments about the reference to Eve and her daughters in the text: “This is unusual—the mention of women’s labors on the Other Side.” Susa felt that “the direct view of [women] associated with the ancient and modern prophets and elders confirms the noble standard of equality between the sexes which has always been a feature of this Church.”
She continued: “The Vision’s principal message to this people is a clarion call for them to awake to the immediate necessity of looking after their dead.” In spite of the setbacks and challenges in this effort, President Smith’s vision was “an exquisite joy and comfort” to her. Seven decades earlier, Joseph Smith had written to the Saints on the same subject, “Shall we not go on in so great a cause?” Now Susa Young Gates, with renewed vision and commitment, continued the call: “May the people, and especially our sisters, rise to the measure of fulness in response to this heavenly manifestation!”" (Susa Young Gates and the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead D&C 138 Lisa Olsen Tait)
And here's the end part of the commentary entitled: "The Savior’s work continues on the other side of the veil." :
"If you’d like to learn more about the spirit world, you could study President Dallin H. Oaks’s message “Trust in the Lord” (Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2019, 26–29).
See also “Susa Young Gates and the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead,” in Revelations in Context, 315–22; “A Visit from Father” (video), Gospel Library."
Knowing that the Savior's work continues on the other side of the veil makes me feel God's unconditional love for me, for my family members, and the rest of God's children. Everyone is being given the opportunity to choose eternal life, both the living and the dead!
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