The Spiritual Treasure of God’s Divine Love

 Amazon’s algorithms must have recognized my interest in near-death experiences (if not the familiar Spirit I feel as I read about them). When browsing the other day up popped Imagine the God of Heaven: Near Death Experiences, God’s Revelation, and the Love You’ve Always Wanted, which I impulsively purchased. Not too long before this, my wife and I had been fascinated by Angel Studio’s documentary, After Death, which chronicles the evolution of academic research (and researchers) focused on near-death experiences (NDEs). We even rewatched it when it came out on streaming channels. I gather that YouTube’s algorithms must also have recognized my interest due to the number of videos of near-death experiences that “suddenly” appear when we open the app (usually to watch one of our favorite Come Follow Me podcasts). Growing popular interest in and questions about the Spirit World, in and out of the Church, driven, in part no doubt, by the increasing availability of such accounts, may have been one reason President Dallin H. Oaks chose to address this topic in his October 2019 General Conference address, “Trust in the Lord.” 

One of the most important and comforting lessons I have taken away from many of the testimonies these witnesses bear confirms what the scriptures teach us of God's Divine love—“God is love” (1 John 4:8). As Brent L. and Wendy C. Top have described, “‘Love is the supreme element of . . . heaven.’ ‘Those who have had positive near-death experiences invariably testify to the ascendancy of love in the realm of righteous spirits.’ They further noted, ‘In virtually all recorded near-death occurrences, the love transmitted by the light’ that near-death witnesses see and feel as they transition from mortality to life in the spirit world ‘is the most extraordinary and unforgettable aspect of the experience.’” (Stephen L. Fluckiger, Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple, 3, quoting, Glimpses Beyond Death’s Door (2012), 101, 103.) 

Mary’s experience is typical: “[I] was overwhelmed by a radiant white light that seemed to embody all the concepts of love. A love that was unconditional and like a mother for a child. It was definitely a warm joyful presence . . . that radiated all the good and noble emotions known to man.”[1] Dr. Ron Smothermon put it even more forcefully: “God is truly glorious, magnificent, awesome, without equal. His glory is a light but made of infinite love. . . . His light is more than light—it is overwhelming, a literal tsunami of infinite, unconditional love.”[2]

But while interesting, experiences like these are not the best evidence of God’s true nature, our relationship to Him or His hopes and plans for each of us, His children. What is potentially far more life-changing, in terms of our eternal destiny, is the testimony He bears to our souls through the power of the Holy Ghost that He and His Son appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith inaugurating the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times and the fulfillment of all of the prophecies He and His Son have revealed to Their holy prophets about our day from Adam to this day. 

God Himself summarizes the “literal tsunami” (to borrow Dr. Smothermon’s words) of light and knowledge that He has sent to earth again as part of the “restitution of all things, which [He] hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21) in three powerful words—“mine everlasting covenant,” meaning, simply, that He has again restored the “fulness of my gospel” (D&C 66:2). Why are all of the glorious truths God has restored in our day referred to as a covenant? Simply because ALL doctrines, principles, “blessings and laws of the gospel are received by covenant through ordinances.” (Stephen L. Fluckiger, Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple, 27).

Why covenants? President Nelson answers: gospel covenants, including temple covenants, “bind” us to God in a covenantal relationship that gives us access to a “special kind of love and mercy” “called hesed (דֶסֶח)” in the Hebrew language. (“The Everlasting Covenant,” Liahona, October 2022, 4) As so many NDErs have testified, there is no force greater in the universe than God’s love. Moreover, the object and perfect embodiment of that love is Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 ) “As we feel [God's] soul-satisfying love [in the temple], we are reminded of our relationship to our Father in Heaven—a beloved spirit son or daughter, inheritors of His divine nature. We feel His confidence and trust in us and leave energized, ennobled, and uplifted thereby.” We are also reminded that it is only through the enabling power of Christ’s atonement that we can return to our Father and our Savior. 

“Surely this profound renewal of strength is one of the reasons President Nelson has urged us repeatedly ‘to make an appointment regularly with the Lord—to be in His holy house—then keep that appointment with exactness and joy.’” (Drawing, 6, citing Russell M. Nelson, “Becoming Exemplary Latter-day Saints,” Ensign, November 2018, 113)

[1] John Burke, Imagine the God of Heaven (2023), 16, quoting “Mary NDE,” Near-Death Experience Research Foundation.