We have to become perfect to be saved in the celestial kingdom. But nobody becomes perfect in this life. Only the Lord Jesus attained that state, and he had an advantage that none of us has. He was the Son of God, and he came into this life with a spiritual capacity and a talent and an inheritance that exceeded beyond all comprehension what any of the rest of us was born with. Our revelations say that he was like unto God in the premortal life and he was, under the Father, the creator of worlds without number. That Holy Being was the Holy One of Israel anciently and he was the Sinless One in mortality. He live a perfect life, and he set an ideal example. This shows that we can strive and go forward toward that goal, but no other mortal — not the greatest prophets nor the mightiest apostles nor any of the righteous saints of any of the ages — has ever been perfect, but we must become perfect to gain a celestial inheritance. As it is with being born again, and as it is with sanctifying our souls, so becoming perfect in Christ is a process.
We begin to keep the commandments today, and we keep more of them tomorrow, and we go from grace to grace, up the steps of the ladder, and we thus improve and perfect our souls. We can become perfect in some minor things. we can be perfect in the payment of tithing. If we pay one-tenth of our interest annually into the tithing funds of the Church, if we do it year in and year out, and desire to do it, and have no intent to withhold, and if we would do it regardless of what arose in our lives, then in that thing we are perfect. And in that thing and to that extent we are living the law as well as Moroni or the angels from heaven could live it. And so degree by degree and step by step we start out on the course to perfection with the objective of becoming perfect as God our Heavenly Father is perfect, in which eventuality we become inheritors of eternal life in his kingdom.
As members of the Church, if we chart a course leading to eternal life; if we begin the processes of spiritual rebirth, and are going in the right direction; if we chart a course of sanctifying our souls, and degree by degree are going in that direction; and if we chart a course of becoming perfect, and, step by step and phase by phase, are perfecting our souls by overcoming the world, then it is absolutely guaranteed — there is no question whatever about it — we shall gain eternal life. Even though we have spiritual rebirth ahead of us, perfection ahead of us, the full degree of sanctification ahead of us, if we chart a course and follow it to the best of our ability in this life, then when we go out of this life we’ll continue in exactly that same course. We’ll no longer be subject to the passions and the appetites of the flesh. We will have passed successfully the tests of this mortal probation and in due course we’ll get the fullness of our Father’s kingdom — and that means eternal life in his everlasting presence.
The Prophet told us that there are many things that people have to do, even after the grave, to work out their salvation. We’re not going to be perfect the minute we die. But if we’ve charted a course, if our desires are right, if our appetites are curtailed and bridled, and if we believe in the Lord and are doing to the very best of our abilities what we out to do, we’ll go on to everlasting salvation, which is the fullness of eternal reward in our Father’s kingdom.
I think we ought to have hope; I think we ought to have rejoicing. We can talk about the principles of salvation and say how many there are and how people have to meet these standards. And it may thereby seem hard and difficult and beyond the capacity of mortals so to obtain. But we need not take that approach. We ought to realize that we have the same appetites and passions that all the saints and righteous people had in the dispensations that have gone before. They were no different than we are. They overcame the flesh.
– Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “Jesus Christ and Him Crucified,” Speeches of the Year, 1976, pp. 399-401
(Also found in the old Institute Student Manual for the Book of Mormon, p 405)
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