Gospel Doctrine Commentary
Lesson No. Six
Free to Choose Liberty and Eternal Life
2 Nephi 2 overview: President Ezra Taft Benson said that 2 Nephi 2 teaches the doctrine of the fall more completely than any other scripture. This chapter restores much of the plain and precious things that were purposely taken out of the Bible. (See 1 Nephi 13:20-42).
The powerful teaching about the fall as found in this chapter begins and ends by explaining the need for an atonement and for redemption from the fall. (See 2 Nephi 2: 1-10; 26-29) A correct knowledge of the fall is necessary to understand the plan of salvation and especially the need for an atonement and for a Redeemer. (An excellent discussion of the atonement as taught in Vs 1-10 is in Lesson 6 of the Gospel Doctrine Teachers Manual found online in the Gospel Library)
Vs 11: In the pre-existence we had agency and could experience opposition, but only in the flesh (with a body) can we know that everything has its opposite and that there is “opposition in all things”. Our body provides the necessary opposition so our spirit can become strong as it pushes back against the appetites of the flesh.
Lehi explains that “all things must needs be a compound in one.” A compound is two or more things put together. In mortality we are a compound with both a body and a spirit. If it were not so there would be “no (mortal) life neither (mortal) death nor…happiness nor misery”.
Vs 12-14: If there was no mortality the entire plan of salvation would be “a thing of naught…for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon.” But, “there is a God, and he hath created all things…both things to act and things to be acted upon.”
Things that act are called intelligences. Intelligences are “independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself” (D&C 93:30). We were first intelligences that had agency. When these intelligences were clothed in a spirit body, begotten by God, our agency was enhanced.
Things that are acted upon are elements. Our bodies are made from the elements of the earth and are to be acted upon by our spirits. The body has life only if it has a spirit. Only when the body and the spirit are inseparably connected in a celestial resurrection is there a fullness of joy. (See D&C 93: 33) Our agency to act is further enhanced when our spirit is clothed with a body. We can then be enticed or influenced by both the body and the spirit. (See Vs 16)
Vs 21-25: Lehi explains the condition of mankind before and after the fall. He concludes with: “Adam fell that man might be (mortal); and men are (mortal) that they might have joy” (Vs 25).
Vs 26-29: “And the Messiah [came] that he may redeem the children of men from the fall” and because of this our freedom to choose between good and evil is guaranteed. But we cannot choose the consequences of our choices, and we will be accountable for those choices. (Vs 26)
What matters is how we exercise our agency while in mortality. We can choose “liberty and eternal life through the great Mediator of all men” or we can “choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil” (Vs 27).
We choose eternal life by harkening to “the will of his Holy Spirit” or we “choose eternal death according to the will of the flesh…which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell that he may reign over you in his own kingdom” (Vs 28-29).
The enticement to “choose eternal life” comes to us through the whisperings of the Spirit: When our spirit “acts” according to the will of the Holy Spirit, and our flesh is “acted upon” then our body, as the agent of our spirit, becomes a wonderful servant. In this way we can grow and increase and become like our Heavenly Father.
Conversely, the devil rages at us through the appetites and passions of the flesh. If the flesh “acts” and our spirit is “acted upon” then our life is controlled by these appetites and addictions. This gives the devil power over us, and we become miserable as we are dragged down to hell.
The need for repentance: The contest, sometimes it is a battle, between the flesh and the spirit is always with us while we are in mortality. That is why we must endure to the end. By personal experience we can all relate to Nephi who, near the end of his life and after many great spiritual experiences, lamented that the flesh still had power in his life. (See 2 Nephi 4: 17-28).
Nephi’s example teaches that through repentance and by humbling ourselves we can again come into harmony with the Lord. (See 2 Nephi 4:29-35) Like Nephi we learn by experience that the need for repentance continues for as long as we have a mortal body.