The diversity of the readership guarantees that some won't get it.  Some who choose not to believe, and take as their personal mission the destruction of all faith, might mock and belittle these words rather than taste the sweet medicine therein. 

Others who think they get it, may be mistaken.  They might believe similarly to what I here put forth, and think theirs is the privilege of seeing me disagree with and attempt to correct a doctrine of my church. 

Nothing could be further from the truth.  These things are plainly taught in the scriptures, and nowhere so plainly as in scriptures pertaining to the Restoration.  To the extent they are not well-known in some LDS circles, 'tis a sad indictment of the lack of gospel scholarship among those members who never "search, ponder, and pray" beyond the Primary understanding.  However, if this be the case, I believe that it is slowly changing as Elder Packer's apostolic prophecy is in process of fulfillment.

Or perhaps it is understood more generally than we let on, but not publicized because it could so easily be taken the wrong way.  Tell people they're going back no matter what and they might take that as license to do whatever they like and become spiritually lazy, rather than as motivation to prepare for the inevitable reunion.  

We don't want to echo the Nehorian doctrine of universal salvation regardless of iniquity (Alma 1:4).  We don't want to fall into the nihilistic "eat, drink, and be merry" mentality, nor its quasi-religious bet-hedging alter ego, that Nephi warns against (2 Ne. 28:7-8).   

Secondarily, but more importantly, it's hard to improve on the way prophetic authors of scripture have put it; yet long and extensive quotations do not play well in this format.  How does one put into one's own words ideas that are so much better expressed in the words of others?

I shall try.

There are two species of death mentioned in scripture.  Physical death is the sundering of the animating spirit from inert flesh, the cessation of life as we currently know it.  Bodies become cold and stiff and eventually begin to stink as entropy claims its latest victim.  

Spiritual death is the separation of a being from the Source of life and light, even God.  Hearts become cold and stiff and eventually begin to reek of sin as the father of lies claims his latest victim.

Both are legacies of the Fall of Adam.  Mortality was introduced by partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; because the deed was done in trangression of a commandment and at the invitation of the evil one, the man and his wife were no longer entitled to the Father's immediate presence.

Considered together, these deaths constitute the "first judgment" to come upon man.  Death and hell—the death of the body and the death of the spirit—are an awful monster to which all are subject (2 Ne. 9:10).  If this state were to continue unabated, our spirits, no matter how good we tried to be, would inexorably all become dead devils, angels to the devil, in an interminable misery to match his own, to rise no more (2 Ne. 9:7-9).

But there is hope.  There is the real message of the Babe in the manger, the promise of the empty tomb.  There is the infinite Atonement.  He who suffered both deaths without cause, being the sinless seed of an immortal Sire, so stung death and so humiliated hell that they cannot justifiably deny Him anything He wants. 

And what He wants is us, alive and well.  He wants our spirits back in our bodies, and altogether back in His and His Father's glory.  He won the mother of all wrongful-death suits, as it were, and has taken this two-headed monster, this first death, to the cleaners.  Death must surrender its captive bodies, and both hell and paradise release its captive spirits, to be reunited with each other and brought back to the presence of the Lord (2 Ne. 9:11-15). 

Here I turn to Samuel the Lamanite.  Samuel offers one of the best, clearest, most succinct descriptions of the Plan of Salvation in the whole of holy writ, and what the Atonement is all about. 

Samuel gets right what a multitude of our well-meaning teachers consistently get—I won't say "wrong" per se, but incomplete. 

Paul and Peter and Nephi and Jacob and Alma and Mormon and others get it right, too, and the Author of our Salvation himself, of course, but Samuel's exposition is the clearest, in my opinion.  Said the prophet from his precarious perch on Zarahemla’s wall:

For behold, he [Jesus Christ] surely must die that salvation may come; yea, it behooveth him and becometh expedient that he dieth, to bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, that thereby men may be brought into the presence of the Lord.

Yea, behold, this death bringeth to pass the resurrection, and redeemeth all mankind from the first death—that spiritual death; for all mankind, by the fall of Adam being cut off from the presence of the Lord, are considered as dead both as to things temporal and to things spiritual.

But behold, the resurrection of Christ redeemeth mankind, yea, even all mankind, and bringeth them back into the presence of the Lord.

Yea, and it bringeth to pass the condition of repentance, that whosoever repenteth the same is not hewn down and cast into the fire; but whosoever repenteth not is hewn down and cast into the fire; and there cometh upon them again a spiritual death, yea, a second death, for they are cut off again as to things pertaining to righteousness.

Therefore repent ye, repent ye, lest by knowing these things and not doing them ye shall suffer yourselves to come under condemnation, and ye are brought down unto this second death.  (Hel. 14:15-19; emphases added.)

How many Sunday school lessons have I heard where physical and spiritual death are treated as completely separate, as to how they are overcome?   We seem so proud to know that Jesus ensures universal resurrection but our redemption is conditioned upon what we do.  It’s a point of contention with our evangelical friends that need not be so exacerbated.

That’s because the common teaching of this doctrine only tells half the story.  Good enough, perhaps, for introducing investigators to the gospel, or in a quick recitation for review.  But it misses something that Samuel and others in the Book of Mormon and the Bible are at pains to expound.

The secret, if you can call it that, although it’s plain as the nose on Nephi’s face, is that the resurrection covers the first death in both its phases, physical and spiritual. 

For all. 

All will be resurrected, and just as surely all mankind will be redeemed, or brought back to God:  “the resurrection of Christ redeemeth mankind, yea, even all mankind, and bringeth them back into the presence of the Lord.”

The first death, as part of our Adamic heritage, is twofold.  And so it should not come as too great a shock that the same mercy which relieves us of the universal physical death should be just as indiscriminate when it comes to the first spiritual death.

The first death is obliterated through no deeds of our own, indeed it is done regardless of our best efforts to avoid or hasten it.

What then of the commandments?  What then of repentance?  All are to be brought back to life and brought back to the presence of the Lord, so what's the point of keeping our nose clean? 

But you see that's exactly why it's imperative that we be good and work on being better.  It’s because of the second spiritual death, of which we must beware and against which we must guard.  We are brought back for a specific purpose, and that is the final judgment of our time on probation (Alma 42:10).  We cannot be restored from evil to good, or from misery to joy (Alma 41:10-15); rather we are explicitly told that "they who are righteous shall be righteous still, and they who are filthy shall be filthy still" (2 Ne. 9:16; see also Morm. 9:14); that "this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God" (Alma 34:32 (32-35)). 

The question is not, and never was, whether we’ll return to God.  The resurrection of Christ guarantees that we will.  The question is whether we will be able to stick around once we get there, or if we find ourselves so uncomfortable in God’s presence that we would rather go down to the lower realms of lesser glory, or the terrestrial and telestial kingdoms (see Morm. 9:3-4).  That’s where the principles and ordinances of the gospel come in. 

Satan may have lost the whole of humanity en masse through the redemption and the resurrection, but still hopes to pick us off one by one, to make us unworthy of our joint-heirship with Christ (Rom. 8:17).  Fortunately, in addition to parlaying His wrongful-death suit into a class-action settlement, Christ covers individual failings as well; His Atonement empowers our repentance, protects us while we conform to His image, and validates the covenants we make through His ordinances. 

Or think of it this way:  what do we have to do to qualify for the redemption and the resurrection?  We have to be born, basically.  We have only to keep the first estate, and the first death, although unavoidable, is rendered no permanent threat. 

The second death, in contrast, is permanent but perfectly avoidable:  to avoid the second death and keep the second estate in order to “have glory added upon [our] heads for ever and ever” (Abr. 3:26), a second birth is required.  Because the second death is only spiritual, only a spiritual birth—through faith and priesthood ordinances—is required.  So no, Nicodemus, one need not crawl back into the womb to be born this second time (see John 3:4 (3-5)). 

It is the resurrection and redemption that puts upon us the obligation to “repent [we], repent [we], lest by knowing these things and not doing them [we] shall suffer [ourselves] to come under condemnation, and [we] are brought down unto this second death” (Hel. 14:19).   

If you believe in the resurrection because you follow the gospel, you have it backwards.

Everybody is going back to the presence of God.  All will return to that God who gave them life, by the grace of Christ.  The question is whether we get to stay there—which will be determined by our faith in and acceptance of and committment to Him on a personal level.

He who lived to teach us, and died to save us, also rose to bring us home.  At the threshold of this new year, let us resolve to repent and receive the second birth; that we may avoid the second death and keep our second estate, and become "partakers of [His] divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4), growing "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13).

Happy New Year.