Degrees of Glory: A Brief History of Heaven and Graded Salvation

Abstract: The New Testament reveals a complex concept of the afterlife. The Jewish apocalyptic literature of the late Second Temple period describes a heaven of multiple degrees that is populated with angels and the righteous dead of varying glories. Those glories also tangibly reflect astral qualities of light and glory comparable to the sun, moon, and stars. Within this worldview of Heaven, several of the Apostle Paul’s writings to Corinth can be read with added insight. Paul’s teachings of resurrected bodies assuming astral qualities may reflect the native Corinthians’ metaphysical views of the body and soul, which Paul may have shared himself. While Western Christianity would embrace degrees of glory through the Middle Ages, the Protestant Reformation would affirm a concept of Heaven that supported only a single habitation. It would take a Restoration-era vision to Joseph Smith to restore the doctrine of degrees of glory original to the Jews and early Christians but lost to those of the modern era.