Page 36 - Berg_Mortuary_Bishops_Guide

36 BISHOP’S GUIDE

nization that we have here, and that, if we are faithful to the principles of [gospel] freedom, we
shall then be prepared to endure eternally (DBY, 372).

After the spirit leaves the body, it remains without a tabernacle in the spirit world until the
Lord, by his law that he has ordained, brings t pass the resurrection of the dead [see D&C
93:33-34]. When the angel who holds the keys of the resurrection shall sound his trumpet,
then the peculiar fundamental particles that organized our bodies here, if we do honor to them,
though they be deposited in the depths of the sea, and though one particle is in the north, an-
other in the south, another in the east, and another in the west, will be brought together again
in the twinkling of an eye, and our spirits will take possession of them. We shall then be pre-
pared to dwell with the Father and the Son, and we never can be prepared to dwell with them
until then. Spirits, when they leave their bodies, do not dwell with the Father and the Son, but

live in the Spirit world, where there are places prepared for them. Those who do honor to their
tabernacles, and love and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, must put off this mortality, or they
cannot put on immortality. This body must be changed, else it cannot be prepared to dwell in
the glory of the Father (DBY, 372).
After the body and spirit are separated by death, what, pertaining to this earth, shall we

receive first? The body; that is the first object of a divine affection beyond the grave. We first
come in possession of the body. The spirit [of a righteous man or woman] has overcome the
body, and the body is made subject in every respect to that divine principle God has planted
in the person. The spirit within is pure and holy, and goes back pure and holy to God, dwells
in the spirit world pure and holy, and, by and by, will have the privilege of coming and taking
the body again.[Jesus Christ,] holding the keys of the resurrection, having previously passed
through that ordeal, will be delegated to resurrect our bodies, and our spirits will be there and
prepared to enter into [our] bodies. Then, when we are prepared to receive our bodies, they are
the first earthly objects that bear divinity personified in the capacity of the man. Only the body
dies; the spirit is looking forth (DBY, 373).

We are here in circumstances to bury our dead according to the order of the priesthood. But
some of our brethren die upon the ocean; they cannot be buried in a burying ground, but they
are sewed up in canvas and cast into the sea, and perhaps in two minutes after they are in the
bowels of the shark, yet those persons will come forth in the resurrection, and receive all the
glory of which they are worthy, and be clothed upon with all the beauty of resurrected Saints,
as much so as if they had been laid away in a gold or silver coffin, and in a place expressly for

burying the dead (DBY, 373-74).
No man can enter the celestial kingdom and be crowned with a celestial glory, until he gets
his resurrected body (DBY, 375).