Natural man cycle

Natural Man Cycle


1)     Preexistence.

a)            Spirit birth.

b)            War in Heaven.

c)            Valiance in preexistence.

2)      Birth/childhood.

a)            Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

b)            Duty of parents D&C 68: 25: “And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.”

c)            Individuals can avoid or minimize the “natural man” stage by receiving parental training and making correct individual choices (agency).

3)      Natural man stage: age of accountability (8 years), through adult life.

a)            Making poor choices, the child becomes a natural man/woman.

i)             Moses 6:55: “And the Lord spake unto Adam … thy children … when they begin to grow up, sin conceiveth in their hearts, and they taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good.”

ii)            D&C 67:12: “Neither can any natural man abide the presence of God, neither after the carnal mind.”

b)            Need to put off the natural man. Mosiah 3:19: “19 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.”

c)            Mosiah 3: 21 “And behold, when that time cometh, none shall be found blameless before God, except it be little children, only through repentance and faith on the name of the Lord God Omnipotent.

d)            1 Cor 14: 20 “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.” 

4)      Endure to the end; death.”

a)            3 Ne 15: 9: “Behold, I [Christ] am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life.”

b)            No unclean thing can enter into the Kingdom of God (1 Ne 10:21).

c)            Stay on the covenant path; become “perfect in Christ” (Moroni 10:33-34).

d)            By God’s grace we are saved - 2 Ne 10: 24: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.”

e)            Receive the ordinances and covenants of the Gospel, including the Temple.

f)            We can be perfect in our repentance and, thereby, become clean and pure like a little child.

i)             D&C 58:42: “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.”

5)      Hereafter.

a)            1 Cor 15: 55: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

b)            Paradise/spirit prison (Alma 40).

c)            Repented sins are forgiven and forgotten through Christ’s atonement; unrepented sins are punished.

i)             D&C 19:16: “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; 17 But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; … “

d)            Gospel preached to those who did not have opportunity in mortality. D&C 138.

e)            Continued progression to perfection.

f)            Vicarious ordinances. 1 Cor 15: 29: “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?”

g)            Judgment. D&C 76:111: “For they shall be judged according to their works, and every man shall receive according to his own works, his own dominion, in the mansions which are prepared;”

h)            Three degrees of glory. 1 Cor 15 (JST): “40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial, and bodies telestial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another; and the telestial another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. 42 So also is the resurrection of the dead...”

i)             D&C 76.