What Will Little Children Be Like When They Are Resurrected?

 

The Salvation of Little Children Who Die: What We Do and Don’t Know

By Mark A. Mathews

Seminaries and Institutes

What Will Little Children Be Like When They Are Resurrected?

President Joseph F. Smith (1838–1918) lost many children to early deaths. He was comforted by the doctrine that little children would be resurrected as little children and raised to maturity by their righteous parents after the Resurrection. President Smith once shared the following: “Joseph Smith taught the doctrine that the infant child that was laid away in death would come up in the resurrection as a child; and, pointing to the mother of a lifeless child, he said to her: ‘You will have the joy, the pleasure, and satisfaction of nurturing this child, after its resurrection, until it reaches the full stature of its spirit.’ There is restitution, there is growth, there is development, after the resurrection from death. I love this truth. It speaks volumes of happiness, of joy and gratitude to my soul. Thank the Lord he has revealed these principles to us.”²

Not only will little children reach full maturity; they will also reach full exaltation. Abinadi taught that “little children also have eternal life” (Mosiah 15:25). The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “you shall have your children; for they shall have eternal life, for their debt is paid.”³

To obtain the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, those who are accountable must enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage (see Doctrine and Covenants 131:1–3). Little children who die will have this opportunity in the future. President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) explained: “The Lord will grant unto these children the privilege of all the sealing blessings which pertain to exaltation. … When they grow, after the resurrection, to the full maturity of the spirit, they will be entitled to all the blessings which they would have been entitled to had they been privileged to tarry here and receive them.”⁴

Body of Deity

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has put it this way: “If having a body is not only not needed but not desirable by Deity, why did the Redeemer of mankind redeem His body, redeeming it from the grasp of death and the grave, guaranteeing it would never again be separated from His spirit in time or eternity? Any who dismiss the concept of an embodied God dismiss both the mortal and the resurrected Christ.”

Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent,” Ensign, Nov. 2007, 42.

How Do We Coupe With Grief?

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin (1917-2008) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles addressed this question in his October 2006 general conference address:

“I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday [when the Savior was crucified] was the darkest.

“But the doom of that day did not endure.

“The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.

“And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filed the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, stood before them as the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence. . . .

“Because of the life and eternal sacrifice of the Savior of the world, we will be reunited with those we have cherished.”

“Sunday Will Come,” Ensign, Nov. 2006, 30.