Effect of Word on the Soul

Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."¹ Jesus did not say that the words bring life. He said they are life. He also said they are spirit. That which is spirit is light and truth. "For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ."² When we seek, obtain, and absorb the light and truth that is the word of God, our being undergoes a change. It is infused with light and truth. It is infused with the spirit of Christ. It becomes the oracle of God in us. It allows us to become part of God and God part of us.

Our spirit is an access point for supernatural influence, whether good or evil. God's influence comes through the Holy Ghost. Satan's comes through the flesh. The access point for both is our spirit. When we hearken to the word of God, our spirits become Holy, and this can sanctify the flesh. When we hearken to the devil, our spirits become sullied and are overcome by our flesh. Hence Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."³

Quickening is the effect of God's spirit through our spirit on our flesh. The purpose of this life is for us to subdue our bodies to the influence of God's word through our spirit.

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)

The spirit can exalt the body if the body is subdued to the spirit by bringing the flesh to the level of glory enjoyed by the spirit prior to this life. The spirit, beginning life as more refined matter, can serve as an injection point for the word of God into the flesh, which is made of fallen material and is of a lower glory than the spirit. Death is the effect of the devil's influence through our bodies on our spirits. When we succumb to the devil's temptations to our flesh, we bring down our spirits to the fallen degree of our bodies. This process is illustrated in those disembodied spirits who, during life, embraced their carnal addictions and thus find themselves, in spirit, suffering from the carnal desires that plagued them in the flesh. There are only two types of beings: the quick and the dead.⁴ The quick are those who are actuated by God's word. The dead are those who are not. Thus, "to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."⁵ Spirits good and bad infuse their qualities upon us when we embrace them. Evil spirits act upon our flesh to imprint their devilish desires upon our spirits, which exercise control upon our bodies. The medium of this effect is the word of the evil one or his imps. The spirit of God acts upon our spirits to imprint the mind and will of God upon us, empowering us to use our spirits to do the same to our bodies. The medium for this effect is the word of God. The word of God sanctifies us as we infuse it into our soul. These two warring influences provide us opposition in all things. To win the war, we must hearken to God's word.

And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction. (1 Nephi 15:24)

Jesus asked the Father to "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."⁶ He also declared the apostles "clean through the word which I have spoken unto you."⁷ Jesus described how his word purifies us as we have faith in it.⁸

Quickening and sanctification, two synonyms for the same process, is gradual. Two analogies used in scripture to describe this process are leavening and grafting. God's word is like leaven in dough. The bacteria infused in leavened dough multiply and take over the whole lump of dough. Despite the initial paucity of leaven, if the process is continued under the right conditions, it will eventually take over the entire lump. Grafting occurs when God imbues in us a portion of his word. The hope is that the graft will change the entire tree to produce the same type of fruit as the graft produces. The graft changes the tree into itself. Christ is the true vine, and in order to be saved we must be grafted into him. No one can be saved until and unless they become like Christ. They must be able to say, as Christ did, I am in the Father and the Father is in me. When we are grafted into him, his word flows through us and is found in us. We bear fruit. The juice of grapes is the color of blood. We drink the blood of Christ symbolically in the sacrament. Blood flows through the umbilical cord to a baby. As the word flows through us and is found in us, we are sanctified by the blood of Jesus. While justification is the forgiveness of our sins, sanctification is the process of becoming like God in heart, mind, and strength.

That by reason of transgression cometh the fall, which fall bringeth death, and inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten; that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory; (Moses 6:59)

The way we allow the leaven to spread throughout us, or the graft to change the kind of fruit we produce, is to seek and hearked to the word of God. The process progresses to the degree that we seek and accept his word. The more we accept and do, the more we get:

And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full. (Alma 12:10)

This process occurs as individuals seek and declare the word of God: "And Alma went forth, and also Amulek, among the people, to declare the words of God unto them; and they were filled with the Holy Ghost."⁹ The Lord himself followed this process during his mortal ministry. Being born as devoid of God's word as any man,¹⁰ he followed the word he received line upon line and precept upon precept until it could be said of him: "For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him."¹¹ Those who faithfully seek, obtain, and heed God's word will be visited by the Father and the Son:

Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)

Though this scripture indicates a physical visit from these two beings, it also conveys the sanctification process that occurs as the mind and will of God, which is a fullness of his word, become infused in his spirit. This enables him to say, as did Jesus, that he is in the Father, and the Father in him.¹²

In order to achieve Zion, the word must be found in us. We have to have become like God. Thus, "when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."¹³ The lack of seeking, heeding, and living God's word is cited by God as the reason that Zion has not yet come again.

..._when men should keep all my commandments_, Zion should again come on the earth, the city of Enoch which I have caught up unto myself. And this is mine everlasting covenant, that when thy posterity shall embrace the truth, and look upward, then shall Zion look downward, and all the heavens shall shake with gladness, and the earth shall tremble with joy; And the general assembly of the church of the firstborn shall come down out of heaven, and possess the earth, and shall have place until the end come. And this is mine everlasting covenant, which I made with thy father Enoch. (JST Gen 9:21-23)

Rejecting God's word, which includes not seeking it in the first place, brings penalties. The most harmful of these is that, while embracing God's word makes our spirits (and by association, our flesh) holy, rejecting it "quenches" that connection with God, severing us from his sanctifying process.

Behold, will ye reject these words? Will ye reject the words of the prophets; and will ye reject all the words which have been spoken concerning Christ, after so many have spoken concerning him; and deny the good word of Christ, and the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and quench the Holy Spirit, and make a mock of the great plan of redemption, which hath been laid for you? (Jacob 6:8)

Those who reject God's word lose the light and truth that they previously acquired, until the spirit of God is not found at all within them.¹⁴ We see that those who are in this state of spiritual atrophy are capable of the grossest sin. King Noah, for example, not only rejected a true messenger of God, but murdered him by fire.¹⁵ Jesus said that the reason that some sought to kill him was that his word was not found in them. "I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you."¹⁶ Thus Alma tells us that

if our hearts have been hardened, yea, if we have hardened our hearts against the word, insomuch that it has not been found in us, then will our state be awful, for then we shall be condemned. (Alma 12:13)

The sheep hear the voice of the true shepard. However, if the word does not abide in us:

• We will not recognize true messengers: "And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not."¹⁷

• We will not understand the scriptures: "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word."¹⁸
• We will not hear the voice of the Spirit to us: "He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God."¹⁹
• We will not heed the word of God: "Now Satan had gotten great hold upon the hearts of the people of the city of Ammonihah; therefore they would not hearken unto the words of Alma."²⁰

The word may not abide in us because we do not seek it. Perhaps it does not abide in us because we have replaced his word with the words of men, or some other idol. Maybe it has fled from us because we have refused to heed it. Sometimes, we avoid God's word because we know we are acting contrary to the light and truth we have received, and we do not trust that he knows better than us what will bring us happiness:

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. (John 3:19-21)

When we do seek and heed the word of God, we can count on several things:

• We will see God's hand in their life: "And thus the work of the Lord did commence among the Lamanites; thus the Lord did begin to pour out his Spirit upon them; and we see that his arm is extended to all people who will repent and believe on his name."²¹
• We will be asked to do hard things.²²

• We will work miracles in God's name: "And there were great and marvelous works wrought by the disciples of Jesus, insomuch that they did heal the sick, and raise the dead, and cause the lame to walk, and the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear; and all manner of miracles did they work among the children of men; and in nothing did they work miracles save it were in the name of Jesus."²³
• We will have power in their preaching: "And as Enoch spake forth the words of God, the people trembled, and could not stand in his presence."²⁴
• We will be hated by the world: "I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."²⁵

We need to let God's word "sink down into [our] ears."²⁶ We need to obey God's command to cleave to his word: "And I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good, that ye shall live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God."²⁷ When we do so, we will find the words of eternal life in ourselves.