Editorial – A Moral Fitness for Heaven

“All who are accounted worthy of everlasting life must obtain a moral fitness for the same.” Testimonies, vol. 1, 705. Just as you cannot obtain a commercial driving license or an airplane pilot’s license without showing that you are “fit” for the same, you cannot be taken to heaven unless you are fit to go there. What does this moral fitness involve?

Pride, self-love, selfishness, avarice, covetousness, love of the world, hatred, suspicion, jealousy, evil surmisings, must all be subdued and sacrificed forever. When Christ shall appear, it will not be to correct these evils and then give a moral fitness for His coming. This preparation must all be made before He comes. What shall we do to be saved should be a subject of thought, study and earnest inquiry.

“When tempted to murmur, censure, and indulge in fretfulness, wounding those around you, and in so doing wounding your own soul, oh! let the deep, earnest, anxious inquiry come from your soul, Shall I stand without fault before the throne of God? Only the faultless will be there. None will be translated to heaven while their hearts are filled with the rubbish of earth. Every defect in the moral character must first be remedied, every stain removed by the cleansing blood of Christ, and all the unlovely, unlovable traits of character overcome.” Ibid.

“You think it beneath your dignity, Brother C, to manifest love, to speak kindly and affectionately. All these tender words, you think, savor of softness and weakness, and are unnecessary. But in their place come fretful words, words of discord, strife, and censure. Do you account these as manly and noble? as an exhibition of the sterner virtues of your sex? However you may consider them, God looks upon them with displeasure and marks them in His book. Angels flee from the dwelling where words of discord are exchanged, where gratitude is almost a stranger to the heart, and censure leaps like black balls to the lips, spotting the garments, defiling the Christian character.” Ibid., 695, 696.

Our work in this world is to develop this heavenly character first ourselves and if we are parents we are to help our children to develop this character. “ ‘The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.’ In rightly training and molding the minds of her children, mothers are entrusted with the greatest mission ever given to mortals. … Mothers need to study the Scriptures more and the fashion plates less; for we are on this earth to form characters for eternal life. …

“Our characters are photographed on the books of heaven, and from these books we are to be judged.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 3, 115, 116.