34 Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal; neither any man, nor the children of men; neither Adam, your father, whom I created.35 Behold, I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself; and I gave unto him commandment, but no temporal commandment gave I unto him, for my commandments are spiritual; they are not natural nor temporal, neither carnal nor sensual. (D&C 29)
Ahh, Section 29! (sigh) I love it!
However, I can remember being pretty confused about these two scriptures while I was growing up. I can recall thinking, “Wait! No temporal commandments? That’s crazy! There are temporal commandments all over the place—tithing, modesty, word of wisdom, food storage, etc. Aren’t those all temporal commandments?”
Nope.
I’ve come to know why they aren’t, and there are probably others who are light-years ahead of me who have, too, but I hope that this post and others that I intend to make find their way to those who might have likewise misunderstood this scripture. Coming to correctly understand this scripture has been very empowering—life-changing, even. And that’s probably one of the biggest understatements I have ever made. :)
Because we live in a temporal world, it’s in our nature to think in terms of what is temporal. Many of the commandments that God gives us have temporal outcomes, but in order to understand this scripture properly, you have to stop thinking in terms of outcomes and start thinking in terms of input—of where we receive and process the information that determines those outcomes—and that is always spiritual, 100% of the time.
We rarely, if ever, pay any attention to what is going on “in the spirit.” Do we even know what that means? What is your spirit? Where is it? What does it do? What is it intended to do? How do your body and your spirit interact with each other? Do you pay attention to that? Are they interacting with each other in the way God intended? If not, what needs to happen in order to change that?
God’s commandments are always spiritual—not because they never have a temporal outcome, but because they are always received, analyzed, and committed to (or not) in our conscious mind. And while there may or may not be a temporal result of obedience or disobedience to his commandments (meaning there may or may not be any physical action commanded or forbidden), there is always a spiritual result because the idea to either obey or disobey will always pass through your spirit first and because the conscious decision to either obey or disobey will always have the relative positive or negative effect on your spirit.