FULNESS OF JOY

 

When the Saviour was still with His disciples, they asked Him of the signs of His second coming. One might wonder why they would be so anxious to know that, seeing so much time would transpire between the meridian of time and the last days. Herein is the actual answer. They knew it would be a long time and that they would anxiously await the day of Redemption, for one reason: they would look ‘upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies’ as a ‘bondage’ (D&C 45:17).

The evidence of this truth is recorded in Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants which describes the jubilation of the righteous in the spirit world when the Saviour came to them following His death ‘declaring liberty to the captives who had been faithful’ from the chains of death, ‘for the dead had looked upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a ‘bondage’ (v 18).

Years ago I read one General Authority saying that we were so eager to come to earth that we were willing to accept lame, infirm, handicapped and even dysfunctional bodies. It puzzled me terribly because I had never looked upon my body as a great blessing.

At the time I presumed that we understood possessing a body only theoretically but not experientially, that we didn’t really know what it is like to have a body because we had never had one before. It was theory vs reality, like a woman who longed for a child ignorantly, not knowing what giving birth is really like.

So why would we look upon the absence of our bodies as bondage once we have experienced earth life with all its pains and sorrows, most of which are due to having a ‘corruptible’ body subject to illness and discomfort, a body which is ‘subject to the power of the Devil, and is under the mighty influence of that fallen nature that is of the earth’ (David A. Bednar, “Ye Are the Temple of God”, Ensign Sept 2001). This is why:

“When we go out of this life, leave this body, we will desire to do many things we cannot do at all without the body. We will be seriously handicapped and we will long for the body; we will pray for early reunion with our bodies. We will know then what advantage it is to have a body.

“Then every man and woman who is putting off until the next life the task of correcting and overcoming the weakness of the flesh are sentencing themselves to years of bondage, for no man or woman will come forth in the Resurrection until he has completed his work, until he has overcome, until he has done as much as he can do. (Melving J. Ballard, “Crusade for Righteousness, p 213).

A sobering thought, but this is the real reason. We are told that those who awaited the day of Resurrection in the spirit world, awaited it with eagerness ‘that they might receive a fulness of joy’ (D&C 138:17).

Think of all the pain and suffering of this life and contrast that to the perfect happiness we saw our heavenly parents in possession of before we were born. We wanted that……and we wanted this:

“The body that has been given to us was for the purpose of allowing the spirit to exalt itself to a nobler condition.”  (Melvin J. Ballard, “Crusade for Righteousness, p 12)

And so ‘the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy’ when the Saviour of our souls ‘laid the foundations of the earth’ (Job 38:4,7)…..and all glory and honour be to His name!!!  Forever and ever…...

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: World by Greg Olsen)