Why Do We Need a Body?

I was asked to give a talk (sermon) at church last Sunday on Things as They Really Are by Elder Bednar an apostle of Jesus Christ given back in May. Here is the beginning of my talk:

In “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles declare that as spirit sons and daughters of God we “accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize [our] divine destiny as heirs of eternal life” (“The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Ensign, Nov. 1995, 102; or Liahona, Oct. 2004, 49).

My mind has often wondered in recent years - What can we do now that we could not do then? - specifically: What can we do with our physical bodies that we could not do as spirits? Why is it so beneficial for us to have a physical body in our progression?

This leads to the question: What could we do then that we cannot do now? We know the answer to this one - almost nothing. We are still the spirit that we once were. We can do about everything now that we could do before we had a body. So what could we do then?

President Boyd K. Packer has taught, “Our spirit and our body are combined in such a way that our body becomes an instrument of our mind and the foundation of our character.”

Before we had a body we could think, we could learn, this is not new. God knew that we could not progress by just thinking, so He clothed us with a body. And, as we are His children He clothed us with a body much like His.

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

God has a pattern for our progression that we are shown by Nephi: "the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

1) We are enabled by the grace of God,
2) Then we are commanded to use that grace.

Our body is symbolic of Christ and His Atonement. They both enable us to do what we could not do before. Both our body and the atonement of Christ are the grace of God.

Then comes the commandment:

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

This commandment stands for us today. Nothing in this commandment could we do before we had a body.

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught with clarity the importance of our physical bodies: “We came to this earth that we might have a body and present it pure before God in the celestial kingdom. The great principle of happiness consists in having a body. The devil has no body, and herein is his punishment. He is pleased when he can obtain the tabernacle of man, and when cast out by the Savior he asked to go into the herd of swine, showing that he would prefer a swine’s body to having none. All beings who have bodies have power over those who have not. The devil has no power over us only as we permit him; the moment we revolt at anything which comes from God, the devil takes power.”

I will continue my talk in a future post or posts.