Soul: Spirit and Body

At the heart of Easter is the doctrine of resurrection. Here are a few core truths that shape our understanding of this doctrine:

1. We are embodied spirits. We existed as spirits before birth, and our spirits will live on as sentient beings after death. “That same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world” (Alma 34:34).
2. We need a body to be truly happy. “Man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy; and when separated, man cannot receive a fulness of joy” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:33-34).
3. Physical death is the separation of our spirit from our body. “The spirits of all men [and women], as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, … are taken home to that God who gave them life” (Alma 40:11).
4. Jesus Christ was resurrected. His spirit and His body were permanently reunited after death. “Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world” (3 Nephi 11:14).
5. Because of Him, we will all be resurrected. “The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame, … and even there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost” (Alma 11:43-44; see also Alma 40:23).

Of course, we don’t remember what it feels like to be unembodied spirits. But I believe the revelations which teach that we are happier with a body than without one. “The spirit and the body are the soul of man. And the resurrection from the dead is the redemption of the soul.” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:15-16).

Consider these two quotations, which underscore the significance of the body:

We do not have to be a herd of demonically possessed swine charging down the Gadarene slopes toward the sea to understand that a body is the great prize of mortal life, and that even a pig’s will do for those frenzied spirits that rebelled, and to this day remain dispossessed, in their first, unembodied estate.

Jeffrey R. Holland, “Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments,” Brigham Young University Devotional Address, 12 January 1988; see also Matthew 8:28-32

It is peculiar to the theology of the Latter-day Saints that we regard the body as an essential part of the soul. Read your dictionaries, the lexicons, and encyclopedias, and you will find that nowhere, outside of the Church of Jesus Christ, is the solemn and eternal truth taught that the soul of man is the body and the spirit combined. It is quite the rule to regard the soul as that incorporeal part of men, that immortal part which existed before the body was framed and which shall continue to exist after that body has gone to decay; nevertheless, that is not the soul; that is only a part of the soul; that is the spirit-man, the form in which every individual of us, and every individual human being, existed before called to take tabernacle in the flesh. It has been declared in the solemn word of revelation, that the spirit and the body constitute the soul of man; and, therefore, we should look upon this body as something that shall endure in the resurrected state, beyond the grave, something to be kept pure and holy.

James E. Talmage, Conference Report, October 1913, 117

Today, I will remember and appreciate the supernal gift of resurrection. I will be grateful to know that my spirit will one day be united with a perfect body and that everyone I have known and loved will be a recipient of the same gift.