“O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more. And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself; yea, to that being who beguiled our first parents, who transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light, and stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder and all manner of secret works of darkness.” (LDS 2 Nephi 9:8–9)
As Jacob contemplates the mercy and grace of God being demonstrated by the sacrifice and atonement of Jesus, he puts forward the assertion that, ”if the flesh should rise no more, our spirits must become subject to … the devil .. and our spirits must have become like unto him and we become devils”.
The scenario Jacob sets forth is basically asking, what would be the state of man after death if there was no resurrection? He posits that if the spirit of man is not reunited with the body, then the state of man would then be like the devil. Man would then be angels to a devil.
Is that really the case? If man falls, and experiences death, without the possibility of a resurrection, would the spirit of man then be like the devil? How does Jacob come to this conclusion? Is this merely his own speculation? Is this only a mental exercise in guessing about what might happen in a scenario that would never actually happen? Or could it be that Jacob knows that this is what happens because he has seen something more and this is a small detail of what he has seen? Could Jacob be revealing something about how the devil became the devil and what the fall of that angel entails?
When Adam and Eve are placed in the paradisiacal garden, they are immortal beings. They can live forever. While in the garden they disobeyed God by obeying the devil. The punishment affixed to this law of God is “thou shalt surely die”. The punishment of Adam and Eve includes both a spiritual and a temporal death. They are shut out of the presence of God and they will lose the bodies they have been given.
At that point, with no other statements from God, this punishment would ensure that Adam and Eve would be miserable forever. Is this essentially the state of the devil? Did the devil do something which brought about a punishment like, “thou shalt surely die”? Did he die spiritually? Was he cut off from the presence of God? Was he cut off from having a physical body? Did he die in every sense of the word?
The mercy and grace extended to Adam and Eve, and likewise to their posterity, is that despite being punished with the fulfillment of the words “thou shalt surely die”, they, unlike the devil, are also granted a promise from God for a Savior to be provided for them. This Savior would do the heavy labor of paving a path out of the miserable state which mankind had brought upon themselves by their own disobedience. This Savior would not save them by nullifying the word of God, making their punishment void, but by suffering this same punishment himself, even though he did not disobey God. The reward for suffering this punishment, a punishment he did not deserve, is that Jesus obtained power over death, even the power of the resurrection of the dead.
This power makes it possible for mankind to avoid an otherwise inevitable outcome of following a path of obedience to the devil. A path which leaves mankind disembodied, and forever shut out from the presence of God.
If there is no resurrection, mankind is left in a lost and fallen state, bodiless and godless, like unto the devil. Truly praise and thank God for his generous grace and mercy for planning a way for our escape from this awful monster of death and hell which otherwise leaves us forever miserable.