To me the theology of the LDS Church is the most important body of knowledge in the world. If I were a musician, I would write music about it and perform that music. If I were a painter, I would paint it. I’m neither of those, I’m a philosopher so I have to talk about it. Talking about it is a special privilege. This is not supposed to be anything new. It’s like hearing Beethoven’s Fifth over again or something. But hopefully through sharing ideas we can accomplish something good. Now I’m going to talk for approximately fifty minutes, then there will be a few minutes for questions.
The subject for today is first of all the creation, then the gospel. One further word of introduction: What I’m thinking is my personal picture. My hope and intent is, that it is not incorrect. But necessarily it will reflect my personality, my understanding, my knowledge. If it doesn’t square exactly with yours, I hope you will forgive me. The process we’re all engaged in is that we will all come to a unity of faith. I’m over here, you’re over there. But if we will all move toward the center we will meet some day and see eye to eye on all these matters. And it is such an occasion as this that might perhaps help us come a little closer together. So, let’s begin.
The universe is made of intelligences. I understand that intelligences are material and all matter is intelligences. Some material and intelligences are finer, some courser. Creation was the process of organization, or, in other words, reorganization of these intelligences. Apparently the word create does not mean to make out of nothing. It means to change the form of, to organize. Some intelligences are organized to act, others are organized to be acted upon. The fundamental choice for action is whether to act righteously or selfishly. Righteousness is to so act that one promotes as much as possible the happiness of all beings one affects by ones actions. Now let’s try that again because that’s fundamental. Righteousness, as I understand it, is to act in such a way that you benefit everybody you effect as much as possible by what ever you do. Now that’s a tall order to do that.
Righteousness it seems to me, is the alternative to selfishness. Selfishness is to choose to act to promote our own personal welfare without regard to the concerns of others. In righteousness each intelligence seeks the interest of his neighbor. And this is the only possible basis for living together in harmony eternally. My guess is that righteousness is a principle that’s built into the very structure of existence. It is not something that’s arbitrary at all. It’s the way things have to be to be harmonious when you deal with people who are your equals and you live with them eternally. It seems to me the only basis that will make eternal harmony and happiness possible is this principle of each person having his neighbor’s interest instead of his own. Righteousness I take is the pivotal concept of all correct theology. It is the independent variable of the whole system, in a way. Everything depends on and relates to this concept of righteousness. God is a god of righteousness, that’s why he is God. Righteousness does not come from him, he is God because he himself yields to and obeys the necessities of righteousness. So the fullness and perfection of righteousness is God. And that fullness and perfection is found only in God.
As is there but one righteousness so there is but one God. That one God (capital G) is made up of many intelligences who have obtained pure righteousness. They too are gods (small g.) So there’s no contradiction as far as I can see in saying that we have three gods in our Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And they are one God. They are one in the sense that they are absolutely united. They are united in the priesthood structure that so unites them that they act as if they were a single entity. They act perfectly, unerringly for the welfare and happiness of all individuals, that is to say they act in righteousness. My understanding is that righteousness is the source of God’s power because God is a God of righteousness. Most of the intelligences are delighted to associate with God and to serve him, to obey him, and to keep his commandments. That’s not true of everything however. So, the universe consists then of three things as I understand it: The universe consists of God, the kingdoms of God (which are many. We know of a Celestial Kingdom, and a Terrestrial Kingdom, and a Telestial Kingdom, and a kingdom without glory or any light.) And then there are those who resist God. Those three things, as I understand it exhaust the universe. “There are Gods many and Lords many,” as Paul said. But to us there are three that are especially important; our Heavenly Father, his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. These three are one God, infinite and eternal. They are perfectly righteous, that is to say they never act selfishly. Because they are omniscient they know how to be righteous. Because they are omnipotent and have all power to do all things that can be done they can act righteously. So our God is sufficient to righteousness. Righteousness, I take it, is the most difficult thing to achieve in the universe. It is the supreme achievement. It is the order of the universe that makes dwelling in the universe a happy thing to do. We should be very grateful for the goodness of our God for his perfection and for the power, knowledge, and righteousness of our God.
Now the key to theology, according to Parley P. Pratt, and I think this is profound insight, is that men are the children of the Gods. Literally, of the race, of the seed, physically begotten of the Gods. Literally the same flesh and bone. And thus are heirs to Godliness. The heirs of Godliness, of course means, heirs to righteousness. Each human being is invited by the gospel of Jesus Christ to become a god, with a small g. To become part of God, with a capital G. To join in the eternal work of God, eternally. The Savior prayed his disciples might become one with him, even as he was one with the Father. That also meant all that they would bring would become one with them. This is the grand design. The design is that every soul born on this earth should have the invitation to claim their rightful heritage. Which is, to grow up in righteousness unto the fullness of it. But since righteousness is a thing that is done by will power. That is to say, cannot be done by any creature which apparently is acted upon. Righteousness is a thing which can be achieved only by intelligences which are organized to act. Therefore man had to be set free. Otherwise he could not have obtained righteousness.
This earth was recently created. That is to say, reorganized to be the habitation of Adam and Eve. The creation was personally supervised by the Father. Our Savior was and is the executor of this creation. The creation, as I understand it, is still going on actually and will continue into the future. The spiritual creation was finished before the physical creation began. But the physical creation has gone on since that time. Apparently the spiritual creation may have started as recently as fifteen thousand years ago, was completed in seven days, and the physical creation has been going on. We don’t know exactly how long. But we know there have been about six thousand years of the earth’s continuation or existence since the fall. The gap in our knowledge is how long before the beginning of creation, of the creation of the earth for Adam’s habitation and the time of the fall. It could have been a long long time, but we don’t know what the time period is, at least I don’t have the answer to what that might be.
The important thing about the creation of this earth (there are two things that are important.) First, that all things physical have there counterpart to that which is spiritual. Spiritual was created first then the physical follows along and is done in the same form and image as the spiritual. That is important because it is the spiritual that controls and governs the physical. The thing that I think is avoided in this whole process of understanding creation is the superstition that the world has fallen into to suppose that this creation was natural. That is to say, that somehow it proceeded by itself, by chance. We are told the creation story over and over again. And I think the purpose of that is that it will finally sink into us that this was not a natural process. This was a process that was carefully directed by the Father, executed by the Son in very great detail and I suppose in full detail. They looked at it and saw that it was good. They created it just the way they want to to fulfill the work of righteousness. Being perfect creatures then, their creation was perfectly suited for its task.
The fall of Adam marks the creation of the world. The creation of the earth and the creation of the world are two different things. The earth is the physical globe on which we live. A world is an extensive place of existence and action. This world is the place for the creation of righteousness. It had to be set up so that it would be maximumly designed to allow the sons and daughter of God to become righteous, or in other words, to become Gods. To become one with the Father to become one with God. So the fall of Adam was the process by which the world was created. This world was also created by the Son under the direction of the Father.
Satan and one third of the hosts of heavenly intelligences chose selfishness over righteousness in the pre-mortal war in heaven. Because of that they were damned at that point, that is to say their growth in righteousness and in light. Light being wisdom and truth being knowledge was stopped at that time. And though they had considerable light and truth and some knowledge of righteousness their growth ceased and they were cast down to this earth. So when the world was created they were here ready to do their part. The factors necessary for the creation of the world were:
one, there needed to be Gods present to create and to control and to teach of righteousness.
Two, there needed to be Satan to provide an intense opposition to God and to righteousness.
Three, there needed to be an earth suitable for the habitation of man.
Four, the children of God needed to be here, innocent and ignorant ready to be proved. So, Adam and Eve the children of the God’s were placed on earth in the garden of Eden. Innocent; that is to say, having no sin to their charge and ignorant; having forgotten everything they knew and not knowing good and evil.
They had Celestial bodies, that is to say, they had spirit matter flowing in there veins. Our Father instructed them to care for the garden but not to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, lest they die. Now that one little bit of commandment was the only real agency they had. They knew they may partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil but they knew they should not and they knew the consequence of disobeying. That was the only particular in which they were really free. Satan convinced Eve that she would be better off knowing good and evil than obeying Father. And Eve convinced Adam also to disobey and as promised, they died spiritually that very day. But they did become as the Gods, knowing good and evil. Speaking of Eve convincing Adam that knowing good and evil rather that obeying father, I ponder about that one because she was right. It’s a good thing she did it but how do we justify that? I guess we can’t. Well, what we know is this, our Father set up this situation so that Adam and Eve would fall. I think he had the thing tilted so much that they couldn’t help themselves, they had to fall. But my understanding is that he wanted them to fall of their own free will. Had he thrust them out of his presence and said to them, “All right now you go away so that you can be out of my sight and be proved.” Then in justice he would of had to have brought them back. So when they of their own free will and choice go out of his sight and create the conditions of the fall then they of their own free will and choice have to fight their way back. Now he provided the door by which they could come back. But had he simply gathered everybody back, it wouldn’t be quit the same thing as I understand it. So, Eve did a wonderful thing, even though she transgressed the commandment of the Father. And Adam was smart enough to go along with her. I’m glad he was that smart. Well, anyway they did die spiritually and that set in motion all the things that were necessary for the creation of the world.
So, to know good and evil is to have the eyes of one’s understanding opened. To see then in every choice a person makes there is the opportunity to pursue righteousness on the one hand by obeying God, or to pursue selfishness on the other hand by doing anything other than the will of God. Now, not everybody’s eyes are opened to the same degree. Some people only see that choice in some things. The more a person’s eyes are opened, that is to say, the more they understand what goes on. They come to see that there is a right and a wrong to every action. And the more they are enlarged to righteousness, through the help of God, eventually they will come to the point where they will be able to discern exactly in every case between righteousness and selfishness and their eyes are fully opened.
Having obeyed Satan rather than God, Adam and Eve became subject to Satan. Satan was given power over their bodies to cause disease and death. But only as the Father allowed such, that is to say, he has to go get permission whenever he wants to take somebody’s life. The story of Job is the pattern for that. Satan was given power to tempt Adam and his children to entice them away from that righteousness which comes only through obedience to God.
Satan’s temptation to us is to self righteousness. To suppose that we of ourselves know better than God. This is a temptation to man because sometimes his own desires and lusts cause him to want to disobey God. So the real question is, will we obey our own lusts or will we obey the Father? We are assured in the scriptures that Satan’s only power over us is to confirm us in our own lusts. That is to say, if we don’t want something evil, there is no way that Satan can tempt us with that. I’m sure we have all had the experience of being in the presence of great evil and not be tempted by it in the least. On the other hand, being in the presence of evil and we’re greatly tempted by it. I’m indebted to Dan Ludlow for one point that I hadn’t picked up on till last year. And that is, that it is not the body that lusts, it’s the spirit. And when we lust after something evil, it’s not because our body wants it, our body does not like to over-eat, for instance. Or to do a number of other things that are wrong. It’s our spirit that wants that. And the cure is not in the body, the cure is in the spirit. The cure is in our hearts which are part of our spirit. Until we get our hearts straightened out we can’t solve this problem we have, say of over-eating or whatever it is.
I think that is a very important insight to realize that by, for instance age or aging will not cure our problems. Cause though the body ages, the spirit doesn’t. And if a young man leads off doing things that are evil when he gets older it’s because he doesn’t want to. That is to say unless his spirit has changed, he may have stopped doing it because he can’t, but he still wants to, is what I’m trying to say. And I think that we need to be so careful that we don’t suppose there’s some natural process that leads through aging or something that doesn’t take any will power on our part that gets rid of this selfishness out of us.
My understanding is, that getting rid of the selfishness is something that you and I have to do by taking ourselves in hand and recreating ourselves. God gives us the power to do it but he cannot do it, he will not do it. He insists that we take full charge. He supervises, he instructs, he guides, he gives the power but we’re the ones that have to do it.
This world is then the place designated by God where he would send his children to see if they would love him and his righteousness more than they would love themselves and their own selfish desires. Each would be given the light of Christ by which to know good and the companionship of evil spirits by which to be enticed to follow selfish desires. Now we would have selfish desires if it were not for Satan. What Satan does, is he loads the situation so that it compress the time necessary to have probation. It probably would take a lot longer if we were just left without Satan to tempt us. We would still want to be selfish. But Satan is here to put pressure on the situation so that we can get it over with. And that’s a blessing. Especially for those who choose evil, they get it over with.
So, each mortal is given a limited time and space to love and to act to show what he or see really desires. And the situation in which we are placed is where righteousness is only a hope and appealing and selfishness is an ever-present opportunity. Now, it seems that it’s almost loaded against righteousness. Selfishness seems to win most of the time. But my guess is, is that it’s very much like a class. Now when a teacher grades a class, you can skew it to make the examinations very very hard. So that you stretch out the A students and get a variation amongst them. Or you can make the test very easy and all the A students bunch up at the top and you spread out everyone else. Well, my guess is that this earth is designed to make it very very difficult. So that we wouldn’t get that spread at the top. That is to say, so that it would be very clear who qualifies for exaltation.
I think the key to this world is that this world was not created to create Telestial spirits, (although it produces a lot of them) or Terrestrial spirits. It was not created to produce people who just barely make it to the Celestial Kingdom. But it’s set up to be so difficult that you clearly qualify for exaltation (which is the top one third of the Celestial Kingdom) if you make it, now that’s my guess. And I suppose that’s why it’s a great benefit to live on the most evil of all creations that Our Heavenly Father and the Savior have ever created. Because it’s the most evil situation, we have the most opportunity to show our love for righteousness. Because there’s no end to the evil we can turn away from and help to overcome in the world. It’s virtually an unlimited opportunity.
The world ends when God sees the purposes of this mortality are either finished or are being thwarted. As the world ended in the flood, the purposes were being thwarted. This world will end twice again. When the Savior comes again, (the beginning of the millennium) and at the end of the millennium. This world is essentially the kingdom of Satan on earth. The kingdom of Satan on earth was created by Adam’s disobedience. Satan gained power then over man that there might be a world.
The natural man is the fall of man. The ordinary human creature who is without God and Christ in the world. This person is an enemy to God, meaning that he does not love God. He may not love God because he has never had the opportunity. Or he may not do so out of choice. It’s hard for us to judge. We don’t know who really has had the full opportunity or who hasn’t (although we can sometimes tell and the person themselves know.) This natural man is sustained in life and thought and deeds continually by the power of God. And the light of Christ witness to him of good and evil, right and wrong. This natural man sins because he can not help but break the laws of God. He struggles to survive and make his way in the world by intelligence and brute strength. Usually he thinks there is no hope for the world as a whole. So he just tries to get a piece of satisfaction for himself, ere he meets that unwanted fate of death. Death holds variously imagined terrors for him. The righteous do not fear death. The natural man fears death. The natural man is carnal, in that he recognizes only physical evidence as the basis for knowledge. He is sensual, in that he principally seeks for pleasure to bring him satisfaction. He is devilish, in that by either not knowing or by rejecting God he backs himself in the arms and power of Satan. Even though he may not believe in Satan, he nevertheless is captive to Satan and does Satan’s will. And unless he’s is very rich his physical life is likely to be brutish and short. Not a very pleasant situation but nevertheless a good situation.
So, to summarize the conditions of the world:
(1) God is in charge. He controls and governs all things and witnesses of righteousness to all men. Men are sufficiently instructed to know the difference between right and wrong and we will be judged on the basis of that knowledge.
(2) Satan is present with power over man as God gives him permission. He tempts men to do their own thing and to disobey God thereby. Hoping to enlarge his eternal kingdom of followers. He pretends to be the God of this world. He’s not. But he claims that.
(3) Man has become spiritually dead. Telestial, mortal he understands good and evil and is subject now to his own will. He could not be subject to his own will until he clearly understood good and evil. And the more he understands good and evil in more things, the more he is subject to his own will. Then if he uses his will to choose righteousness, he grows and grows in the stature of righteousness, until eventually he can obtain the stature of Christ. If he chooses selfishness he has the privilege of growing in that until he can obtain the stature of Satan. In a sense become more powerful than Satan, having a body.
(4) The earth itself is fallen and telestial. A place of opposition and work, but a place of order and beauty. My conclusion about this whole matter is, that we live in a perfect earth and a perfect world. I say that because it’s has been designed and created by a perfect being. There’s no way to improve it. Now don’t mistake me, it is possible for men to repent and to improve themselves but the situation cannot be improved upon. It would not be good to remove Satan from this situation. It would not be good to remove wars and diseases and terrors and all kinds of things from the earth. Even though you and I are supposed to work against those things. But if somehow we could reach out and remove all sickness and diseases form the earth, would that be a good thing? No, if that were a good thing God would do it. But he doesn’t do it because it’s good for men to have sickness. Why? Because it reminds them of their weakness and mortality and their fallibility. Sickness brings people to their knees many times. And were it not for sickness they would not resolve to compensate. Sickness brings them to reflection, it brings them new understanding, it brings them to repentance. And thus the work of God goes on.
Everything that happens on this earth, my testimony is, that God’s hand is in everything. And he doesn’t let happen a single thing he doesn’t want to happen. He doesn’t cause everything to happen but if he doesn’t want it to happen he prevents it from happening. Now you and I cause much of what happens because our wills are part of this world. We help create the world too. We help it to be worldly when we disobey God. We help push it towards the direction of righteousness when we obey God. So we’re part of this too. But God can eliminate our power to affect the world at any moment simply by taking us or by taking our power away. Giving us a stroke or something so we can’t talk, can’t act. He has very careful control over what you and I do.
So, it’s interesting to contemplate that whenever an evil man acts, he’s acting by the power of God in a sense. God gave Hitler the power to kill all those Jews. He didn’t particularly want Hitler to do it. Hitler had to have the opportunity to do that and a number of other people had to have the opportunity to stand by and watch him so they could prove themselves. Some people fought against him, they proved themselves. Some people suffered and died and they proved themselves. Some people suffered and died and became more righteous in the process and gained a great blessing out of it. Some people suffered and died angrily, they lost in the process. But the whole thing, as I understand it, is calculated to be the perfect situation for the probation for the souls of man.
So, there is a passage of scripture that is marvelous and pertinent to what we have talked about today and I’d like to read a few verse here. II Nephi chapter two. That chapter is so profound. Father Lehi on his death bed after all the things he had said to his children. When he was trying that one last time to say something important to Laman and Lemuel and the sons of Ismael and their wives. He went back to the story we just talked about and tried to emphasis to them the situation. So let’s begin with verse fourteen,
“Now my sons I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; there is a God.”
See they had been maintaining there wasn’t one. How could they do that, when they had seen angels, when they had seen the power of God? Well, they very conveniently dismissed all of those evidences because they didn’t want them. They wanted to think that everything was just natural so they could get everything they wanted by their own strength. So that’s the way they tried to operate.
“He hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon. And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.”
The word existence itself means opposition. Exist means to stand out, to be opposed, to be different from something. It’s difference that makes existence. So there had to be a difference between the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There had to be a difference between God and Satan. There has to be a difference between a good man and a bad man.
“Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.”
Now, the great lesson we learn about this, is that we are free. Even now if we are adult human beings and know the gospel of Jesus Christ, whatever we are is what we want to be. That is to say, we have chosen ourselves into our present state. We can also choose ourselves out of this present state if we wish to repent, by making different choices than we have in the past. As we make choices we change our habits which changes our character which changes us. We have the power to change ourselves. The leopard can change his spots in this case. We are children of God and he has given us this heritage of the power to change ourselves. We are free, we won’t be able to blame a single soul for anything that happened in our lives as to why we became what we became when it’s all.
“And I, Lehi, according to the things which I have read, must needs suppose that an angel of God, according to that which is written, had fallen from heaven; wherefore, he became a devil, having sought that which was evil before God. And because he had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind.”
He wanted them to be damned as he was damned.
“Wherefore, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies, wherefore he said: Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.”
Part truth, part lie. Part truth in the sense that they would know good and evil and they would be as God in one sense. But there are sure a lot of other ways to be as God. That didn’t make them like God. That just gave them one little piece of being like God. After Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit they were driven out of the Garden of Eden to till the earth and they brought forth children, yea, even all the family of the earth. Adam, (the word Adam means man.) I was interested to find that the word Eve in Hebrew is (hava), which means living, which might bring some connections for you. And they brought forth family, yea, even the children of the earth.
“And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of probation, and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men. For he gave commandment that all men must repent; for he showed unto all men that they that they were lost, because of the transgression of their parents.”
Lost? In what sense? They were lost from the presence of God. The fall of Adam caused all of us to be fallen. That is to say, to be spiritually dead, to be out of the presence of the Father, into the world where we would have the opportunity to choose our way back to life.
“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.”
That was an eternal kingdom, a Celestial Kingdom, a perfect kingdom that would have endured forever, but pointlessly.
“And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.”
So this fallen world then is better that that paradise was, in fact much better. Because now we’re not innocent but can become again so. We can have joy, we can have children, we can do good.
“…all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.”
Do you know what joy is? My guess is, that it is not happiness.
“And the Messiah cometh in the fullness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.”
Now he comes to the very point.
“Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh;”
In other words, as I read what he is saying, is that we are free from our own flesh, through the gospel, through the Savior. We need not be creatures of our flesh. The gospel gives us the power to start telling our flesh what to do, rather than it telling us what to do. And we can become free of all the physical, social, and environmental pressures that work upon our flesh that try to get us to conform to this world. We can then give our allegence to the Savior and become a new creature.
“… they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself. I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit; And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein…”
So the dividing line between righteousness and selfishness then simply comes down to spirit and flesh. If we become spiritual and yield to the Father and to the spirit, then we go in direction of righteousness. But if we stay carnal and yield to the flesh, then we go in the direction of selfishness. Well we’ve come to that time when we have a moment for questions.
question – (unheard)
“And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein.” Satan’s only access to us is through our flesh. He can not get at our spirit but he can affect our bodies. So the avenue of his temptation is through the flesh. But it isn’t the flesh itself that wants it. Now you and I, if we don’t want that thing, it’s no temptation at all, as I said. It’s the spirit that decides whether it’s a temptation or not. There’s somethings in my life, I hate to mention anything that I’ve stopped being tempt by … but nevertheless I’ve checked on this since then (probably referring to the Dan Ludlow statement). It’s our spirit, if we’re gluttonous, it’s because our spirit craves satisfaction through gluttony. … I thought so too until he said that. And when he said that I was about half asleep, and when he said it, it was like someone had hit me with a sledge hammer. The spirit shook me and said, here’s something we need to learn. And I’ve thought about it for this whole year, year and a half, and I’ve come firmly to the conclusion that that is a correct insight. And that what we have to do, is to see that we have control. We don’t have control over the influences that come to our body but we do have control over our spirit and how it reacts to the body. That’s where our point of control is. And how we’re going to get rid of these temptations is by stealing our spirit.
Now, you’ve all, I’m sure had the experience of being busily engaged in a project that was so intense and so interesting and so much fun or so important that hours go by and you don’t even notice the fact that meals times have gone past and the usual messages that come to the body don’t even get through. Now that I think is one of the clues to the fact, that because the spirit is busily engaged the body doesn’t have that much power over it. And I think the clue to righteousness is to get the body so busily engaged in the work of the Lord, that we tell our body when it’s suppose to rest, and when it’s suppose to eat and drink so that we can do the works of righteousness. And we never assume the subject to it’s whims and desires. I admit, that’s a tuff one. Don’t believe me and don’t believe Dan Ludlow. But I commend to you to work on that. To think about it.
question – (unheard)
Intelligence is us. The spiritual body and the physical body are tabernacles. They’re instruments of the self, the real self is the intelligence, apparently. Now apparently the spirit body has been welded into that intelligence and is part of the self now. In the resurrection, this physical tabernacle will be welded into the spirit body and we will be all one being and that will be our being, never again to be divided. But not so now. We are very loosely attached to our bodies right now. Apparently all you have to do is unzip it and away it goes. And that’s the sensation some people say they have when they die, just like there being unzipped.
question – something about transformation from a Celestial body to a telestial body.
My understanding is that that transformation took place with the ingesting of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It probably wasn’t just that ingesting but that probably was the occasion. It was something that the Father did to them to change them into mortality so that they could die and that they would have this blood in their veins then that would allow their lives to be very temporary. You are aware maybe, that scientists have discovered that there is this clock in living cells. They will divide so many times and then they cease to divide no matter what you do to them. You can freeze them and they will stop dividing, and then you thaw them they go on dividing till they get to that number and stop and die. There is a time appointed for the death of man. Our life is genetically controlled and genes are very important to the body we have. Have you ever stopped to realize, it’s possible that you and I have in our bodies genetic material that once was part of the body of Adam and Eve. Physically we are linked to them by that process. And if that’s true, then we have in our bodies material that physically was in the body of God, because we are the children of Gods. And you see, part of our salvation is to get this flesh transformed and renewed. But that depends on our righteousness. Just as the fall depended upon disobedience and unrighteousness.