Elder Holland
By assigning such seriousness to a physical appetite so
universally bestowed, what is God trying to tell us about its place in His plan
for all men and women? I submit to you He is doing precisely that—commenting
about the very plan of life itself. Clearly among His greatest concerns
regarding mortality are how one gets into this world and how one gets out of
it. He has set very strict limits in these matters.
Fortunately, in the case of how life is terminated, most
seem to be quite responsible. But in the significance of giving life, we
sometimes find near-criminal irresponsibility….
The body is an essential part of the soul. This distinctive
and very important Latter-day Saint doctrine underscores why sexual sin is so
serious. We declare that one who uses the God-given body of another without divine
sanction abuses the very soul of that individual, abuses the central purpose
and processes of life, “the very key”7 to life, as President Boyd K. Packer
once called it. In exploiting the body of another—which means exploiting his or
her soul—one desecrates the Atonement of Christ, which saved that soul and
which makes possible the gift of eternal life. And when one mocks the Son of
Righteousness, one steps into a realm of heat hotter and holier than the
noonday sun. You cannot do so and not be burned.
Please, never say: “Who does it hurt? Why not a little
freedom? I can transgress now and repent later.” Please don’t be so foolish and
so cruel. You cannot with impunity “crucify Christ afresh.”8 “Flee
fornication,”9 Paul cries, and flee “anything like unto it,”10 the Doctrine and
Covenants adds. Why? Well, for one reason because of the incalculable suffering
in both body and spirit endured by the Savior of the world so that we could
flee.11 We owe Him something for that. Indeed, we owe Him everything for that.
“Ye are not your own,” Paul says. “Ye [have been] bought with a price:
therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”12 In
sexual transgression the soul is at stake—the body and the spirit. (Personal Purity. Oct General Conference 1998.)
