Lessons on the Plan of Salvation
Lesson No. Twenty-Seven
Our Body is Perfect Resistance Training for Our Spirit
Repentance in the spirit world – One of the unique and wonderful things about the gospel is that there is repentance in the spirit world: "I beheld that the faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption… in the great world of the spirits of the dead. The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God” (D&C 138:57-59).
This life is the time to repent – It is a great mistake to think we don’t have to repent in this life because we can do it in the spirit world. Repentance is more difficult in the spirit world than it is in this life. For those who should have repented in mortality but did not will find the repentance process much longer and more difficult in the spirit world. Apostle Melvin J. Ballard taught:
“A man may receive the priesthood and all its privileges and blessings, but until he learns to overcome the flesh, his temper, his tongue, his disposition to indulge in the things God has forbidden, he cannot come into the celestial kingdom of God – he must overcome either in this life or in the life to come. But this life is the time in which men are to repent. Do not let any of us imagine that we can go down to the grave not having overcome the corruptions of the flesh and then lose in the grave all our sins and evil tendencies. They will be with us. They will be with the spirit when separated from the body.
“It is my judgment that any man or woman can do more to conform to the laws of God in one year in this life than they could in ten years when they are dead. The spirit only can repent and change, and then the battle has to go forward with the flesh afterwards. It is much easier to overcome and serve the Lord when both flesh and spirit are combined as one. This is the time when men are more pliable and susceptible. We will find when we are dead every desire, every feeling will be greatly intensified. When clay is pliable, it is much easier to change than when it gets hard and sets.
“This life is the time to repent. That is why I presume it will take a thousand years after the first resurrection until the last group will be prepared to come forth. It will take them a thousand years to do what it would have taken but three score years and ten to accomplish in this life….
“The point I have in mind is that we are sentencing ourselves to long periods of bondage, separating our spirits from our bodies, or we are shortening that period, according to the way in which we overcome and master ourselves” (Book of Mormon Student Manual, p. 92).
Spiritual resistance training – In developing strong muscles opposition or resistance is provided by physical work or lifting weights. Likewise, while living in mortality our bodies provide the perfect opposition and resistance and our spirits become stronger much faster.
If we overcome the flesh in this life we will spend our time in the spirit world much more profitably. In the spirit world “the limitations and restrictions of mortality will no longer curtail us, and [our] talents will be multiplied a hundredfold” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Ensign, Dec 71).
Testimony – One of the restrictions of mortality is that our memory of our pre-earth life is veiled. For those who overcome the appetites of the flesh in this life when they continue on in the worlds to come their memories of their pre-earth life will be restored much more quickly and easily than otherwise. This will allow them to do a greater work in the service of the Lord, and to bless their family and many others in a greater way than ever before.