Eternal life is the greatest of all the gifts of God

Elder Bruce R. McConkie (1915–1985) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained what eternal life is and why it is considered to be the greatest gift we can receive from God:

“Eternal life is the name of the kind of life which God lives and is therefore ‘the greatest of all the gifts of God’ (D&C 14:7); and because those who gain it become like God, they are one with him.

“Exaltation consists of an inheritance in the highest heaven of the celestial world, where alone the family unit continues and where each recipient gains for himself an eternal family unit, patterned after the family of God our Heavenly Father, so that every exalted person lives the kind of life which God lives and is therefore one with him. …

“Thus, to be saved, to gain exaltation, to inherit eternal life, all mean to be one with God, to live as he lives, to think as he thinks, to act as he acts, to possess the same glory, the same power, the same might and dominion that he possesses” (The Promised Messiah: The First Coming of Christ [1978])