As soon as spirits go into the presence of God, or, as Brigham Young puts it, as soon as they lay down their bodies and emerge into the spirit world, which is the presence of God, they are consigned to one place or another. This consignment may be called, to a certain degree, a partial judgment, for they receive the merits of their labors.
And so, it became necessary for us to have a natural body, a body of element; it was absolutely essential in order to that we could be added upon. Now, the second grand purpose of mortal life is that we be proven in our new condition of physical being and circumstances of walking by faith alone and not by sight. For, as we were to emerge into a mortal sphere and element, which would by its very nature sever us from the presence of God, we realized fully that we must walk by faith and not by sight. And in this new condition we could and would be proven according to the Lord’s word.