The Natural Man

Professor David Seely recounted this anecdote from his youth in a BYU devotional several years ago: “In the summer of 1968 I was sitting with my Grandmother Payne at the Manti Pageant. I was fourteen, and it was the day that she would ruin my life. We had arrived early, so we had time to visit. Grandma Payne was always interested in our lives, and she asked me, ‘David Rolph, what are you planning to do with your life?’ Being a child of the sixties, I thought long and hard before revealing my well-thought-out plans to a grown-up—a member of the Establishment. But I took the risk, and I carefully began to explain how I planned to leave our warlike and corrupt and materialistic society and retire to the woods to study the outdoors and to learn to play the guitar and to write poetry. I concluded my short sermon, declaring somewhat innocently, ‘I am going to be the natural man.’ She smiled at me, almost incredulously, and said, ‘Boy, are you in trouble! Don’t you know that the Book of Mormon teaches that the natural man is an enemy to God?’” I have thought many times on her statement since first listening to this talk; we must all know deep down that to remain in our sins and natural state is to be kept from God’s presence. Unless we are willing to do something about it, unless we are willing to reject the natural man and selfish impulses and change our natures, we cannot return to Him.   

She was referring of course to the famous statement in King Benjamin’s address that he quoted from the angel found in Mosiah 3:19: “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.” The fact is that we are all in trouble unless we can learn to put off the natural man and become holy through Christ. If we simply go with the world and let life happen without a conscious effort to change our natures through the power of Christ’s atonement, we will stay an enemy to God. I don’t believe here that the word enemy implies that we are fighting against the Lord or vice versa, but rather we are simply unable to be in His presence. So, if we choose to remain in our natural state, we are also choosing to remain outside the kingdom of God. The world more than ever wants us to believe that whatever we want to be, however we feel like acting, whoever we want to identify ourselves as, that is the best thing for us. But this is to choose remain in a natural, prideful, carnal state and will keep us from God’s presence. Nephi bore record that “the great and spacious building was the pride of the world; and it fell, and the fall thereof was exceedingly great” (1 Nephi 11:36). We must reject our own pride and desire to satisfy the carnal desires and instead choose become holy through humility before God, being “submissive, meek, humble” and willing to “submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon us.”

We learn about the “natural man” in two other important passages of scripture. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). To the natural man not willing to yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, the things of God are simply foolishness. So we should not be surprised when what we come to know through the Spirit of the Lord runs contrary to the logical thinking of most of the world around us. In fact, when the world at large finds our witness of the gospel ludicrous—with its declaration of angels and visions and revelations and miracles—then we may be on just the right track. The second verse that mentions that natural man is this one: “Neither can any natural man abide the presence of God, neither after the carnal mind. Ye are not able to abide the presence of God now, neither the ministering of angels; wherefore, continue in patience until ye are perfected” (Doctrine and Covenants 67:12-13). We must work to rid ourselves of the natural man and devote our hearts humbly to the Lord so that He can in time perfect us and prepare us for His presence. We must never forget that indeed the natural man is an enemy to God and as we keep our covenants with the Savior He will help us become like Him.