Salvation for All

This is one of my favorite doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For some reason as a member of the LDS church (or if you are a member of any church), it is easy to sometimes feel that we are the "special ones," that we are the ones who are going to be saved. I will admit though, that my notion was false. God loves His children. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die for all men, not just some men. Now before I go on any further, I do want to say that I know that all men must be baptized by priesthood authority, and receive the ordinances of the temple in order to be saved. Fortunately, God has all of those things worked out for everyone to eventually receive all the necessary ordinances, and it is up to us to accept them.
When Brother Topp came into our class, he explained how the Lord views those who have not received the gospel. He talked about how many of Latter-day Saints have not received the gospel either for any number of reasons, not just “non-members” have not received the gospel. What this says to me is that we are not to judge based on what we can see. In fact, some of the people we would least expect to accept the gospel have done so. For example, Saul of Tarsus accepted it in this life after doing horrible things to the followers of Christ. It reminds of Gilead, who was not a perfect man, and who was not really one that appeared to be chosen of the Lord. If you recall the battle of Gilead, the soldiers were to break their lanterns and shout what the Lord had commanded them. The light was not visible to others until the outer layer was broken. Perhaps Gilead and any other person may appear to be rough around the edges, but once you can get through that, you can see that there is light inside of them.
This truth became clearest to me from Lehi’s dream in the Book of Mormon. He talks of a lot of people in the great and spacious building, people getting lost in strange paths, and people losing hold of the iron rod. Then he talk about other multitudes who press forward to the tree of life. I feel that many of God’s children will be saved.
One last story comes to mind that reflects what I’ve learned. Quentin L. Cook shared of his grandfather: “This was an issue with my great-great-grandfather Phineas Wolcott Cook. He was born in 1820 in Connecticut. In his diary he notes that he had made a covenant with the Lord to serve Him if he could find the right way. He attended many churches and at one was asked to “testify [and] join the church [and] be a Christian.” His response was he “could not tell which one to join, there were so many.” He continued to investigate several churches. One doctrine was of particular significance to him. He explained: “Sometimes they found fault with me because I wanted a more liberal salvation for the family of man. I could not believe the Lord had made a part to be saved and a great part to be damned to all eternity.”13 Because of this doctrine, he allowed his name to be taken off the records of one Protestant religion. When the LDS missionaries taught him the true doctrine of the plan of salvation in 1844, he was baptized.
“Phineas’s faith in the loving mercy of the Lord and His plan of happiness has been shared by many honorable men and women, even when the teachings of their own churches were very bleak.”