If accepting Jesus is necessary...

[Jackson]

First, Christianity has been taught since it was revealed to Adam in the first dispensation and rerevealed in multiple dispensations since then.


second, there is a reason Christ preached to the dead. And a reason vicarious work is done for the dead. We have 1000 years of work to do for them.

Would you explain this more? And why did you change your ID?

 

[Avatar4321]

I could if I was at a computer instead of my phone. Hard to quote things on the phone.

I don't know what you mean about the changed id

 

[the_human_being]

If accepting Jesus as our Lord and saviour is necessary to be saved, what happened to the billions of poeple who lived and died prior to the invention of Christianity?

It will be up to the Christ when they appear before the Great White Throne judgment.

The Bible states plainly that sin is the transgression of the law.
It also states plainly that where there is no law, sin is not imputed.

That said, what are they guilty of? The law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai and was not given to the Gentiles until Paul came on the scent. Even then, the people in China, in South America, the American Indians, etc., did not receive it until recently.

Christ said that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Tyre than for those cities in which he went and preached when they came before the judgment.

In my own personal view, I believe those who never were exposed to the Law, the Prophets, Christ, God, or the Gospel will be called forth from their graves in the resurrection and be allowed a certain amount of time living among and being tutored by the risen saints so that they will have the same playing field in which we have had.

 

[September]

​

 

[PostmodernProph]

1 Peter 3:19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

 

[jon_berzerk]

If accepting Jesus as our Lord and saviour is necessary to be saved, what happened to the billions of poeple who lived and died prior to the invention of Christianity?

to sheol

 

[Avatar4321]

First, Christianity has been taught since it was revealed to Adam in the first dispensation and rerevealed in multiple dispensations since then.


second, there is a reason Christ preached to the dead. And a reason vicarious work is done for the dead. We have 1000 years of work to do for them.

Would you explain this more? And why did you change your ID?

I said I would explain a little more when i had a computer so I could properly cite and link.

The bible doesn't tell us much about Christ's ministry to the dead. We know He went to paradise, the place where the righteous dead dwelt, because He told the thief on the cross He would meet him there that day. Some wrongly think Christ was telling the thief that He was going to meet him in heaven. But we know that after the resurrection Christ still had not ascended into heaven. So paradise is someplace different. The righteous dead dwell here until they are resurrected.

The most the Bible really mentions about Christ's ministry to the dead is in 1 Peter:

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. (1 Peter 3:18-20)
​

So we know Christ went to the spirits in prison and preached to those who were disobedient prior to the flood. There they awaited the time of the Messiah's advent to declare liberty to those in prison.

Peter follows up in chapter 4

For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. (1 Peter 4:6)
​

The only other reference to the work of salvation for the dead in the New Testament that is clear is an argument made in passing by the Apostle Paul. He was arguing to the Corinthians about the reality of the resurrection and used baptism by proxy on behalf of the dead as evidence for it:

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? (1 Cor 15:29)​

Thus we see an understanding in the Church at the meridian of time that salvation can come to the dead who can receive Christ even as they did. And they participated in that salvation by performing vicarious ordinances on the behalf of their kindred dead. So that their fathers too might receive the blessings of the Atonement even though they perished prior to the Gospel being preached by the Apostles in the meridian of time.

This is why Malachi prophesied the return of Elijah

¶Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. (Malachi 4:5-6)​

And Elijah did return during Passover in 1836:

After this vision had closed, another great and glorious vision burst upon us; for Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood before us, and said:

Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come—

To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse—

Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors. (D&C 110 13-16)
​

So yes, I do find it interesting that Elijah is mentioned in a thread a topic that has to do with his mission. He had the keys to bind and lose in heaven. It was his mission to restore those sealing keys. Because without them the work for the dead cannot go forth and the work for the living is limited. It is with those keys that proxy baptisms can be done in Temples for our kindred. It's by those keys that a man can be sealed to his wife and a woman to her husband. It's by those keys that children can be sealed to their fathers.

There is, of course, much more information on the redemption of the dead in modern revelation. I haven't touched much on it at all. if you want some more information on it I'd refer you to the following links:

Appearance of Elijah - Restoration of keys
Epistle 1 - Salvation for the dead
Epistle 2 - Salvation for the dead
Christ's work among the dead - Vision of the Redemption of the Dead
Paradise & Prison - Where the dead await their resurrection

As for part one of what i said:

Adam & Eve - the Gospel is preached from the beginning