I am sometimes asked the questions "Since you believe everyone, eventually, will be saved and glorified in the loving arms of Christ, what do you believe about the Three Degrees of Glory?"
     Good question! I certainly do believe in the three great kingdoms of God. However, to assume that the 76th Section contains the complete information about them would be presumptive. Since God is infinite, I do not believe He has ever given a revelation about anything that was totally complete. That would certainly include a revelation on the glory of the resurrection.
     As for the 76th Section, I discussed that revelation on pages 141-143 in Book II, Finding the Mark. I compared a vision like the 76th Section in which "the mysteries of His kingdom which He showed unto us, which surpass all understanding in glory, and in might, and in dominion" to the transformational experience of another type of vision, which is described as "gazing into heaven for five minutes."
     In both cases, one would enjoy the "privilege of seeing and knowing for themselves." But, from my understanding, the two types of experiences are very different. The former type of vision greatly expands one's knowledge of the glory and majesty of God's kingdoms. But the latter, evidently, would reveal to you much more, even the experience of finding out just WHO YOU ARE. It is described as comprehending ALL THINGS.
     As Christ said, He was the vine, we are the branches. If a branch were to view what the life of the vine is, it would discover that its life, too, is the life of the vine. As the prophet Joseph said, that transformational experience of gazing into heaven would enable one to learn more, even in five minutes, than one would learn by reading and comprehending ALL the books that have ever been written on who we are and our relationship with God. "All the books"would include all Scriptures, as well. I call that experience "cosmic," which means universal. The gift of such a "cosmic conscious" experience of truly gazing into one's own infinite and eternal reality is what I believe receiving the gift of the pure love of Christ is all about, called coming under the power of the atonement (at-one-ment).

     In writing about the Three Degrees in Book II, Finding the Mark, I proposed the possibility that Joseph and Sidney were given this incredible vision for the Church to enhance our preparatory gospel so that we would strive even harder to qualify for the top kingdom in the Celestial Glory. If so, it has worked beautifully in doing just that! But zeal and being meek and lowly do not necessarily go together. Just a few months after they received the vision, the Church, including ALL its members, was put under condemnation for VANITY AND UNBELIEF, which condemnation remains to this day.
     So was it a special trap for modern Israel or was it eternal truth? I think it was both. It not only dangled a magnificent carrot out to the Saints, but it also explained how every member of God's family do not end up in the same level of glory, as many had supposed. In other words, not only are we all different, God needs us to be different. To explain, we might remember what Paul said about the diverse members of the body of Christ. Although it is a lengthy quotation, please read it carefully.

     Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administration, but the same Lord...
     But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, SO ALSO IS CHRIST...
     If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
     If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling. But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath PLEASED HIM.      And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you...
     And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor... That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care [love] one for another...
     And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? (I Corinthians 12:4-30)

     Paul is describing the diverse members of the Church, but what about Christ's infinite body which includes all creation. In the 88th Section of the D & C, we are informed that Christ, himself, by being totally one with His infinite Spirit which fills the immensity of space, is personally in the universe, for HE is in the stars, sun, earth and those living upon it. (D&C 88:6-13) And HE is "in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by Him, and of Him, even God, forever and ever." (D&C 88:41) The 93rd Section reveals that "the elements are the tabernacle of God; yea, man is the tabernacle of God." (D&C 93:35)

We all have to face the fact that, even though we can choose to accept such a reality, it is still beyond our comprehension, just as is the endless space of our physical universe. As we are assured, finite man can be given a comprehension of infinite and eternal God only through a special revelation, a divine awakening. "And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light... and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things!" (D&C 88:67)
Yet, as Elder Neal Maxwell says, if we will accept the concept of an infinite God who lives outside of time, in which all things, past, present and future, are happening simulta-neously, even though we certainly may not understand how, the omniscience of God "may be seen somewhat more clearly." (Ensign, February 1979, as quoted in Book II, Looking Beyond the Mark, pp. 172-173)

     So what is Infinite God doing creating such a vast universe, made of trillions upon trillions of spirit entities and beings, at all levels of existence? Since He is functioning outside of time, all things being before Him, simultaneously, He would be creating everything in TOTAL completion and perfection, from beginning to end, the past, present and future being in the infinite NOW.

Joseph Smith stated this emphatically -- "The great Jehovah contemplated the whole of the events connected with the earth, pertaining to the plan of salvation, before it rolled into existence... The past, the present, and the future, were and are with Him, one eternal "NOW." [Quotation marks in the original]... He ordered all things according to the council of His own will." Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 220)

     So to summarize, the entire universe is a living body of God's Infinite and Eternal Spirit. So could we apply Paul's description of the diversity of the members in the body of Christ to the diversity in the universe? That is a little beyond us, so let's start with our own universe of cells which make up our individual bodies.

     We tend to take our own bodies for granted, of course, but the more science discovers, the more marvelous, even incomprehensible, our bodies begin to be. In my book, The Hidden Key to Inner Peace, I include some of the amazing information given by Dr. Paul Brand in his two volume study of the body, titled "Fearfully & Wonderfully Made" and "In His Image." Our bodies are made up of 50 to 100 trillion cells, each cell being as marvelous and complex as a city like Salt Lake. In turn, each cell is made up of an infinitely marvelous network of atoms. So how large is your body to an atom? Science says that your body is as incomprehensively large to an atom as our Milky Way Galaxy is to us. Just think of your body as being the size of our galaxy, in which light traveling at 186,000 miles in a mere second, takes 100,000 years to go from one side to the other. In other words, we are half way in between the size of the galaxy and the size of an atom. The fractions are identical! So God is as much at home with His universal body as He is with His finite, resurrected body and as we are with our finite, mortal bodies.

     Now, if you are wondering when we would get around to the Three Degrees of Glory, we are now ready to show some interesting parallels. In your mother's womb, your body started out as a single fertilized cell. After a lot of dividing into perfect duplicates of the original cell, everything suddenly changed into three very different type of cells.
1. Ectoderm Cells-One third of your cells, those on the outside, suddenly began to reproduce themselves as ectoderm cells, which eventually mutate into our nerve cells, making up the brain and sense organs, such as the eyes, ears, tongue and skin.
2. Mesoderm Cells-Those cells in the in-between level of your growing body become mesoderm cells. These evolve into connective tissues like the muscles, bones, circulatory system, including the heart.
3. Endoderm Cells-The cells in the very middle become endoderm type of cells, which become the digestive tract, liver and other internal organs.
Eventually, these three types of cells continued to mutate into about a thousand differ-ent types of cells, each perfectly designed to function in its given complex task of making our gigantic body work as a single cell. When we think of ourselves being the size of a galaxy, made up of so many intricately coordinating bodies, like giant universes, we might be able to understand something about Infinite and Eternal God.

     We are told that "all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual... all things bear record of me."(Moses 6:63) So we might reasonably ask, is our body in the likeness of the infinite, universal body that the Infinite Spirit is creating by and of itself? If so, is God needing to create everyone into identical God-Beings? I don't think so. Simply speaking, there needs to be at least as complete a division of labor in the universal body of God as there is in our bodies. God could have created of Himself one billion Jesus Christs, but what would be the purpose? One thing for sure, God does like variety, for that is what we find everywhere we look.

     So in our body, we still have three major types of cells.
1. Nerve Cells-We have the nerve cells which came from the ectoderm. These not only make up the brain, eyes, ears, etc., but they penetrate throughout the body. Some individual nerve cells are as long as the body. These are the communicators, the organizers, the directors.
2. Muscle Cells-We have the muscle cells from the mesoderm. These are the movers and shakers, necessary for performance, like talking, running, moving, etc. In addition to the major muscles that move the arms, legs and neck, there are muscle organs like the heart, which include the circulatory system, along with the lymphatic system. They con-tract and release in order to pump, squeeze, push, shove and squirt to perform all of our outer and inner functions of motion.
3. Tissue Cells-We have the tissue cells out of the endoderm. These are the quiet workers, like the intestines, liver, pancreas, continually performing their miracles of exotic chemistry. So are the three major divisions of cells in the human body indicative of the three major divisions in God's infinite body? Very possibly. When the great Jehovah was contemplating all things, it seems that He would realize that He did not need all of any one thing, but myriads of perfectly designed individualities to perform, in perfect joy, peace and happiness, their many functions making up the infinite kingdom of God. Each would be scheduled to be prepared in a perfect way to produce, ultimately, a joyful function in its created capacity to which it was designed.

1. Celestial-We can see those on the Celestial level would be administrators, directors and organizers, functioning like nerve cells. This is the special role of Elohim to administer the governing function in the creation drama. Those in the Celestial Kingdom would function in specific and glorious presence of Elohim, Himself.
2. Terrestrial-We can see those on the Terrestrial level would be the action function, to carry out the direction from the administrative, like the muscle cells responds to instructions from the brain. This is the specific role of Jehovah in the creation, to carry out the directions of Elohim. Therefore, those in the Terrestrial Kingdom would enjoy the specific presence of Jehovah-Christ and follow His lead.
3. Telestial-Those on the Telestial level, which need to be the vast majority, get to have the joy of doing the work, itself, like the tissues that make up the organs in our body, like the lungs and pancreas. This is the specific role of Michael, who represented all of us in the creation drama, following instructions with Jehovah from Elohim. It is also the specific role of the Holy Spirit which those in the Telestial Kingdom would consciously enjoy and follow. If that would seem like a put-down, let's remember that each member of the Godhead is the fullness of God, even being the one God, infinite and eternal.
     When one begins to look at the three great divisions of heaven, where all are in the conscious presence of the Spirit of God, the purpose of having Three Degrees of Glory are seen in a new and wonderful light. Just as a liver cell never aspires to become a brain cell, neither would a Telestial being want to get tangled up in the work of Celestial beings.

     So what does this view of the Three Degrees of Glory do for me? First of all, I stop comparing myself to anyone else. I stop asking God why He did not make me different than I am, why He made me with my particular set of weaknesses. Like Paul declared, "O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?" (Romans 9:20-21)

     Isaiah was given the same sentiments by the Lord. "Woe unto him that striveth with His Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?" (Isaiah 45:9)
     All of this helps me to follow the advice of the Psalmist who said, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before His presence with singing. KNOW THOU THAT THE LORD IS GOD, IT IS HE THAT HATH MADE US, AND NOT WE OURSELVES." (Psalm 100:1-3)
     When one gets to have the "five minutes gazing into heaven" experience and discovers that he or she is heaven, like the branch discovering that it is the vine, an entirely new view of existence comes into being. One sees more and more completely that everything is in perfect order, right on schedule, just the way it is and the way it is not. This knowing is called "entering into the rest" from that very moment, for all fear is cast out. One recognizes that it is all about oneness, called the pure and perfect love of Christ.
     So even though one has no idea of where in the infinite body of God one will eventually find his or her ultimate function, it will be an existence of eternal love, joy and peace. To be placed a little higher in function would be a burden and a little lower in function would be deprivation. So when I surrender to the loving care of the infinite Self we all are, the "I Am that I am," I don't really care where it is going to be, for wherever it is, it will be a fullness of love, joy and peace for which I was created, designed, processed and perfected. So, now, with these thoughts in mind, you might go back and reread the 76th Section and see what a different meaning it may have for you. At any rate, I realize that this is pretty deep stuff for those who understand only the preparatory gospel. The good thing about all of this is that you really don't have to believe it nor even understand it. After all, understanding is the booby-prize. Experiencing it so that one can comprehend prize of far greater value, and that is not in our hands. Only God can give us that.