God's Plan of Salvation is God's Gift of Love

The Plan of Salvation is called the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Plan of Salvation provides a way for us to live with God again.

Just as earthly parents love their children, just as earthly parents want to see that their children learn, grow, reach their highest potential and experience happiness, and just as earthly parents want their children to dwell near them, so God, our Heavenly Father, desires these things. Therefore, because of his love, God created this earth—a special school—where we could come to gain a physical body of flesh and bone, like God’s, and receive soul-stretching experience and crucial knowledge that could launch us into eternal life. God called his plan the Plan of Salvation; God is the sole author of the Plan of Salvation.

The Plan of Salvation is God’s work and glory

The scriptures describe God’s work as it relates to the Plan of Salvation. In a revelation to Moses, God said: “This is my work and my glory: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” 1

• Immortalitymeans we will be resurrected—our bodies and spirits will be reunited forever.



• Eternal life means to live the life that God lives: to live where he lives and to live how he lives. 2

The Plan of Salvation is about choices

Clearly, the Plan of Salvation provides for the greatest of God’s blessings, but obtaining these blessings is conditional. The Plan of Salvation calls for us to make choices and gives us the power to do so. Every time we face an obstacle, including our weaknesses or challenges of every kind, we must make choices. Our choices lead to good and bad consequences, all of which have temporary and eternal implications. When God created the Plan of Salvation he knew that sometimes we would choose badly and suffer the consequences; God knew that we could grow in no other way. But God also knew that because the lessons of life are often harsh and overcoming obstacles or even facing death would be beyond our ability if not impossible, we would need help.

We would need a Savior.

Therefore, because God is a God of love he sent us his son, Jesus Christ, to help us through life, rescue us from the eternal consequences of our bad choices, and provide us the resurrection whereby even death is conquered. By volunteering to become our Savior, Jesus Christ became the central figure in God’s Plan of Salvation, and thereafter the plan took on the name: the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Plan of Salvation--the greatest manifestation of God’s love was sending Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ’s coming to earth and making his voluntary sacrifice to save us is the greatest expression of God’s love for us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” 3

Jesus Christ put into motion all the conditions of God’s Plan of Salvation, and in so doing he offered himself as a sacrifice to meet all those conditions. We simply could not face and overcome the tests of life, be rescued and washed clean from the effects of our sins, be reconciled to God, or receive a glorified resurrected body without the grace and charity of Jesus Christ.

The Plan of Salvation’s qualifications for and identity of the Savior

• Jesus Christ is the god of this earth under God, his Father’s direction.



• Jesus Christ is our judge and advocate with the Father. 4



• Jesus Christ is the firstborn son of God’s numberless children. 5



• Jesus Christ, in the pre-earth life or preexistence and in Old Testament times, was known as Jehovah, 6 and by that name he was known to all the prophets-Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, etc.



• Jesus Christ is the literal Son of God. His miracle birth-an actual virginal conception and birth 7-was unbelievable to most and clearly one of a kind. His mortal mother was Mary. 8 From her, Jesus inherited the ability to feel the full human experience including death; His eternal father was God, our Heavenly Father. From God, Jesus inherited the power to live an immortal, sinless life, perform extraordinary miracles, overcome every sin, sickness and adversity, and by choice-for no one could take his life from him-lay down his body (die) and take it up again (resurrect), thus gaining the power to resurrect all the sons and daughters of God and all the creations made by the hand of God.



• Jesus Christ is our Savior, the one and only Redeemer of mankind. 9



• Jesus Christ is a separate being from God, our Heavenly Father. Both Jesus and God have glorified and perfected bodies of flesh and bone. 10



• Jesus Christ’s appearance and attributes of character are identical to those of God, our Heavenly Father. 11



• Jesus Christ came to earth to reveal God the Father to us. Thus, by coming to know Jesus we come to know the Father.



• Jesus Christ and God the Father are completely united in their purpose to save us. Thus we say they are one. “Like God the Father, Jesus has all truth, all power, all knowledge; he comprehends all things, is infinite and all his attributes and powers; and he has given a law unto all things.” 12

The Plan of Salvation is perfect because God, its author, is perfect. The central figure in the Plan of Salvation is Jesus Christ, the Savior of all the children of God. There is no risk in trusting Jesus Christ. He is both willing and capable of helping us through any difficulty. If we obey Jesus Christ, he will re-introduce us to God, our Heavenly Father, and return us safely to his presence. That is the purpose of the Plan of Salvation and God’s reason—God's love—for creating it.

Questions about 'The Plan of Salvation is God’s Gift of Love'

• What is another name for the Plan of Salvation?



• What is the primary work and glory of God?



• For what reasons did God create this earth and send us here?



• Why does God's Plan of Salvation call for a Savior?



• Who was Jesus Christ before he lived on the Earth?



• How did Jesus Christ qualify to become our Savior?



• What did Jesus Christ do to put into motion all the conditions of God's Plan of Salvation?

References for 'The Plan of Salvation is God’s Gift of Love'

1. Moses 1:39
2. John 17:3 – And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
3. John 3:16
4. D&C 29:5 – Lift up your hearts and be glad, for I am in your midst, and am your advocate with the Father; and it is his good will to give you the kingdom.
5. D&C 93:20-22 – For if you keep my commandments you shall receive of his fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father; therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace. And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn; And all those who are begotten through me are partakers of the glory of the same, and are the church of the Firstborn.
6. D&C 110:1-4 – THE veil was taken from our minds, and the eyes of our understanding were opened. We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us; and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber. His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah, saying: I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father.
7. Isaiah 7:14 – Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
8. Mosiah 3:8 – And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary.
9. D&C 43:34 – Hearken ye to these words. Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Treasure these things up in your hearts, and let the solemnities of eternity rest upon your minds.
10. D&C 130:22 – The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.
11. John 14:7,9 – If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
12. Mormon Doctrine, p. 129