Revelation 12:10: And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation....

When the war in heaven ended,¹ John heard a loud voice ... in heaven.² The voice expressed a joyful song³ or doxology,⁴ saying: Now is come salvation.⁵ The voice was loud because many premortal spirits rejoiced⁶ in the day of their salvation⁷ from the spiritual bondage that existed on Kolob during the war in heaven.⁸

Salvation has several meanings depending on the context.⁹ In Revelation 12:10, salvation means that the premortal spirits who kept their first estate¹⁰ on Kolob¹¹ were delivered from the power of Lucifer.¹² This form of salvation is typically called general salvation, which applies to every spirit child of God that kept his or her first estate.¹³ General salvation applies to those premortal spirits (1) that were saved from the captivity and damnation imposed on Lucifer and his angels that kept not their first estate,¹⁴ (2) that were privileged to be added upon with a physical body¹⁵ through the process of mortal birth,¹⁶ (3) that automatically qualify for immortality after their physical death through the resurrection,¹⁷ and (4) that can also progress and achieve¹⁸ full salvation (exaltation)¹⁹ with glory added upon their heads forever and ever²⁰ if they keep their second estate.²¹

Some people say that immortality is a free gift,²² and they call it unconditional salvation.²³ However, immortality or general salvation was and is conditioned on the premortal faith and obedience of those that kept their first estate.²⁴ Through their premortal faithfulness, God's spirit children are guaranteed resurrection and immortality, but nothing more.²⁵ Exaltation, by contrast, requires full obedience to gospel law after entering mortality,²⁶ including receipt of, and adherence to, the exalting ordinances of the temple.²⁷

The scene and sign of salvation in Revelation 12:10 has at least four earthly likenesses and patterns,²⁸ as follows: First, salvation came to Kolob because Lucifer lost his power in that sphere of existence when the war in heaven ended.²⁹ Salvation will similarly come on earth when Satan loses his earthly power at Christ's Second Coming³⁰ at the end of Armageddon.³¹

Second, Lucifer lost his power on Kolob completely when he and his fallen angels were cast down to earth,³² just as Satan will lose his power on earth completely when he and his fallen angels are cast down and bound in the bottomless pit³³ throughout the millennium.³⁴

Third, Kolob was cleansed of wickedness and evil when the war in heaven ended, just as this earth will be cleansed of wickedness and evil when the battle of Armageddon ends at the Second Coming.³⁵ The renewal and regeneration³⁶ of this telestial earth to a terrestrial paradise at the Second Coming³⁷ is also typical of Kolob's redemption and regeneration after the war in heaven.³⁸ Kolob went from a fallen and war-torn spirit world to a purified world³⁹ where God and his Christ could again be present with and among God's faithful spirit children who kept their first estate were saved.⁴⁰

Fourth and finally, the earth's future millennial conditions are the antitype for the millennial-like conditions that existed on Kolob after Lucifer was cast out.⁴¹

The foregoing foreshadows and likenesses suggest that the crescendo of wickedness and evil on earth just before the Second Coming⁴² mirrors a final crescendo of wickedness and evil that must have existed on Kolob just before the war in heaven ended.⁴³

When Lucifer and his fallen angels were cast down to this earth at the end of the war in heaven,⁴⁴ the premortal spirits that remained on Kolob⁴⁵ rejoiced, saying: Now is come salvation. These joyful words must have been repeated many times as God's spirit children were appointed to live on countless other habitable earths created by Christ before this earth.⁴⁶ Each time Jehovah organized a new celestial earth for human habitation,⁴⁷ God must have appointed a large number of his spirit children to leave the ongoing war in heaven on Kolob to inhabit the many other physical earths organized before this earth.⁴⁸ Since the plan of salvation is universally the same on all such earths,⁴⁹ the spirits appointed to these prior earths must have been of two classes:

First, a chosen number of spirits were appointed to inhabit other earths after they kept their first estate on Kolob.⁵⁰ Each time Jehovah organized a habitable physical earth during the ongoing war in heaven,⁵¹ a fixed number of righteous spirits left Kolob to complete their premortal experience on the spirit world that also became the spirit world for their appointed earth.⁵² They must have rejoiced at the time of their appointment, saying, now is come salvation, because they were in a saved and innocent condition when they left Kolob to await their mortal birth on their appointed world.⁵³

Furthermore, their appointed spirit worlds‒clothed in their physical element‒were also saved by and through the future atonement of Jesus Christ on this earth.⁵⁴ The purified conditions on all such worlds allowed righteous spirits of those worlds to dwell again in the presence of God and Jehovah.⁵⁵ They lived in a state of peace and rest⁵⁶ until their mortal birth on their appointed earth.⁵⁷ They were also born with physical bodies on their earth in complete innocence, just as spirits appointed to this earth are similarly born in complete innocence.⁵⁸

Second, a proportional number of wicked spirits that did not keep their first estate on Kolob were also appointed to these other celestial earths.⁵⁹ These wicked spirits were cast down on their appointed physical earths without physical bodies, just as Lucifer and his remaining followers were cast down on this earth without physical bodies.⁶⁰ On all habitable earths, spirits were always appointed in a fixed ratio of two good spirits that kept their first estate to every one evil spirit that did not.⁶¹

After good and evil spirits were appointed to countless other earths in their appointed ratio of 2:1, they never returned to be part of Kolob or this earth.⁶² They were permanent fixtures on their appointed worlds that passed away⁶³ before Jehovah created this earth as the last habitable earth in this generation.⁶⁴ Therefore, by the time the war in heaven ended on Kolob, the only spirits left there were the spirits appointed to this last earth.⁶⁵ The war in heaven was truly a war of attrition where the best of the best spirits and the worst of the worst spirits are paired together on this earth.

Lucifer himself and the worst of his unembodied sons of perdition⁶⁶ were cast down to this physical earth at the time of its creation because this earth was the last and only habitable earth that remained of this generation.⁶⁷ On the other hand, two thirds of the best spirits that kept their first estate on Kolob‒among others‒were also appointed for mortal life on Kolob⁶⁸ because Kolob is the great governing world of this universe.⁶⁹ Kolob remained their appointed premortal spirit world,⁷⁰ where they lived with God and Christ until the time of their mortal birth on this earth.⁷¹

Kolob, which is the spirit world within this earth, has different dimensions separated by a veil so that comingling does not occur between and among the spirits in different stages of their existence. Thus, righteous premortal spirits awaiting their physical birth on this earth do not comingle with Lucifer's unembodied spirit sons of perdition that were cast down on this earth at the time of its physical creation.⁷² Similarly, disembodied spirits of the dead from this earth who exist in the postmortal spirit world on this earth do not comingle with premortal spirits still waiting to be born.⁷³