I apologize that this series of posts were out of order, (“The Wrong side III has already been published, link below.) The publishing process can be confusing to this ol’ guy at times. Thanks for your patience!
From a previous post, teachings of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:
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. 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. May I offer three reasons why this is an issue of such magnitude and consequence in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
First it is the revealed, restored doctrine of the human soul. One of the “plain and precious truths” restored in this dispensation is that the “spirit and the body are the soul of man”5 and that when the spirit and the body are separated, men and women “cannot receive a fullness of joy.”6 That is the reason why obtaining a body is so fundamentally important in the first place, why sin of any kind is such a serious matter (namely because it is sin that ultimately brings both physical and spiritual death), and why the resurrection is so central to the great triumph of Christ’s Atonement.
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. ~ Jeffrey R. Holland, To My Friends (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2014) 124-127 Dwarsligger edition) continued with The Wrong Side III.
