TEMPTATIONS
OF SATAN AND
THE NATURAL MAN
SELECTED TEACHINGS
President Brigham Young
“Many think that the Devil has rule and power over
both body and spirit. Now, I want to tell you that
he does not hold any power over man, only so far
as the body overcomes the spirit that is in a man,
through yielding to the spirit of evil. The spirit that
the Lord puts into a tabernacle of flesh, is under the
dictation of the Lord Almighty; but the spirit and
body are united in order that the spirit may have a
tabernacle, and be exalted; and the spirit is influenced
by the body, and the body by the spirit.
“In the first place the spirit is pure, and under the
special control and influence of the Lord, but the
body is of the earth, and is subject to the power of
the Devil, and is under the mighty influence of that
fallen nature that is of the earth. If the spirit yields
to the body, the Devil then has power to overcome
the body and spirit of that man, and he loses both”
(in Discourses of Brigham Young,69–70).
“We are the natural sons and daughters of our
natural parents, and spiritually we are the natural
children of the Father of light and natural heirs to
his kingdom; and when we do an evil, we do it in
opposition to the promptings of the Spirit of Truth
that is within us. Man, the noblest work of God,
was in his creation designed for an endless duration,
for which the love of all good was incorporated in his
nature. It was never designed that he should naturally
do and love evil” (in Journal of Discourses,9:305).
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
“Satan is very much a personal, individual spirit
being, but without a mortal body. His desires to seal
each of us his are no less ardent in wickedness than
our Father’s are in righteousness to attract us to his
own eternal kingdom” (Miracle of Forgiveness,21).Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
“Many things happened in the process of the Fall,
including changes that came to the physical bodies
of Adam and Eve. For one thing, they fell into
‘nature.’...
“Part of the natural world Adam and Eve entered
included the addition to their bodies of blood—a
corruptible ingredient—in what had been to that
point an uncorrupted body of bloodless flesh and
bone. But even more important than such physical
changes were the temptations of and threats to the
spirit. Spiritual as well as physical separation from
God came with the Fall. Humankind was cut off
from the immediate personal companionship with
God that Adam and Eve had enjoyed in the garden
of Eden. As a result, they were distanced from the
Holy Spirit and became less responsive to many of
the things of righteousness....
“Because this doctrine [of the natural man] is so
basic to the plan of salvation and also because it is
so susceptible to misunderstanding, we must note
that these references to ‘natural’ evil emphatically
do notmean that men and women are ‘inherently’
evil. There is a crucial difference. As spiritual sons
and daughters of God, all mortal men and women
are divine in origin and divine in their potential
destiny. As Doctrine and Covenants 93:38–39 teaches,
the spirit of every man, woman, and child ‘was
innocent in the beginning.’ But it is also true that
as a result of the Fall they are now in a ‘natural’
(fallen) world where the devil ‘taketh away light’
and where some elements of nature—including
temporal human nature—need discipline, restraint,
and refinement. It is as if men and women are
given, as part of their next step in development
along the path to godhood, raw physical and
spiritual ingredients—‘natural’ resources, if you will.
Those resources are not to run rampant but are to
be harnessed and focused so that their power and
potential (as is sometimes done with a ‘natural’
river or a ‘natural’ waterfall) can be channeled and
thereby made even more productive and beneficial.We cannot “come off conqueror,”
except we first “put off” the
selfish, natural man!
—Elder Neal A. Maxwell330