No one chooses a
glory on a whim or in a moment. This decision will be made much like our
initial choice to follow Christ in the premortal existence. Latter-day Saint
scholar Robert J. Matthews taught, “The grand council in heaven was probably a
series of meetings that could have lasted thousands of years. The idea that we
were spirits roaming around who then held one meeting and had one vote is too simplified.
We were taught for centuries. Those who became the devil and his angels did not
become that way through a vote, but a life-style. You don’t become ‘perdition’
through one bad vote” (notes from a presentation by Robert J. Matthews in a CES
Summer Inservice in Orem, Utah, 10 July 1986 as quoted in Todd Parer, Rel A 121: Notes, Quotes, Handouts, and
Study Questions—Book of Mormon 1st ). Half
[Provo, UT: Brigham Young University], 142). (Brad Wilcox, Because of the Christ on Calvary [Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book, 2020], 47)