Sauron's Body was destroyed with the sinking of Numenor. What kept him from being defeated was the ring in which a large portion of his essence had been placed into allowing him to become something along the lines of the Nazgul while in possession of it. When the ring was cut from his finger, the direct connection with the ring was lost and he lost form and he fled the battle.

A wise decision, seeing that Sauron was defeated in every single fight he personally participated in, which amount to a grand total of two times: he got whomped by Huan in the First Age, and was defeated by Elendil and Gil-galad in the Second Age, though they both died in the process. It is probably noteworthy that the movie depiction is inaccurate on this: by the time Isildur cut off the Ring (and thereby vanquishing Sauron's spirit), Sauron had already been incapacitated by the two kings, not still going strong but dumb enough to reach for Isildur with his Ring-hand instead of mashing him into a pulp with his big ol' mace.

To be honest, apart from the fact that keeping Sauron in the shadows was a great way to keep suspense up, Sauron (and his big boss Morgoth, for that matter) were never very prolific fighters and were much more inclined to be grey eminences, pulling the strings from behind the curtains.

OT:
There are very strong implications in the narrative that Sauron really did have a pysical form by the time of the WotR, the most compelling being Gollum's description of the four-fingered hand (interpreting this as some kind of vision on Gollum's part seems like too much of a stretch IMO) and what Pippin tells of what he saw in the Palántir, where he sees Sauron 'coming' and 'looking down' on him and 'gloating', all of which require a body Pippin can ascribe these actions to. Additionaly, several main characters are obviously convinced Sauron must have a body, namely Denethor and especially Aragorn at the Black Gate. Contrarily to the movie, Saruman never says that "He cannot yet take physical form." That is purely a PJ invention, probably about to be retconned in the Hobbit 2&3.

Sure, it's all conjectural evidence, but combined with what Tolkien explicitly said in the letter already posted, and the fact that, according to the Tale of Years in the Appendices, Sauron first "begins to take shape" in ca. 1000 TA, it's very likely he managed to turn this into something solid and suitably scary-looking by the time of the events of the LotR, more than 2000 years later - and not just an immobile floating eyeball. ^^

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Heck, in the movies Aragorn rides to the Black Gate and says "May the Lord of the Black Land come forth, may justice be done upon him!" That would require a body to do. Also, Sauron's body wasn't destroyed in Numenor, his fair seeming body was.

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Didn't Sauron also transfer some of his power to the foundations of Barad-dur as well as the ruling ring. This explains why it could be rebuilt as his malevolence and power still existed in the foundations after his defeat and the One Ring survived. This also explains with the final demise of the Ring why the tower collapsed as the power of the One Ring was unmade.

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I always took the fact that Sauron was a Shape changer to mean that he could change his physical form into different people or creatures (not that he had multiple bodies) and that his spirit, bound to the ring, was set lose for him to wander back to Middle Earth and take up the ring. Then with the power of the ring he more quickly gave his spirit substance to interact with the world.

But I have to agree with the point made by those others who posted. That he could have gathered enough power again to reconstitute his body after all that time. After all the Valar and Maiar don't normally have physical form they create that form when they come to Arda or atleast that is how I'm remembering it from when I read the Silmarillion (been about 10 years sense I sat down and read it cover to cover so my memory might by failing me on this regard).

It was mentioned that he couldn't take a fair seeming body after Numenor. Maiar could take different forms, but those forms varied in two ways: in power and in "endurance", for lack of a better word. The reason why the Balrogs were so powerful is that all of their "spiritual power" was put into their physical forms. Once those physical forms were destroyed, they couldn't take form again. Sauron didn't put all his eggs in one backet, but he still put a good amount of power into his fair body, so when it was destroyed, he lost the ability to take that particular body again. The Wizards funtioned in the same manner, since so much of their power was put into their bodies, they couldn't take form again after death, Gandalf being the exception.

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Aye, that's how I always imagined it... I think Sauron probably would have been a physical form rather than a big fiery eye in the sky. From the book I always got the impresion that the flaming eye was more of a feeling or a sense...

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If he could take physical form, than surely he would participate in battles, like the siege of Minas Tirith? Maybe he couldn't without the ring though?

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Not if they can kill him, destroy his physical body.
And why would he participate in battle if he has hordes of orcs to fight and the ringwraiths to command them?

One of the biggest problems is that Sauron was never one to really lead from the front and fight in the battles. He was the manipulator and corrupter. While dealing with Eregion he befriended them as Annatar and learned what he could then when they began to doubt him (something that Gil-galad and Elrond had already been doing for a while as they forbid him to enter Lindon) he fell on them with a large army and caught them off guard while the Dwarfs of Khazad-Dum where locked away in their mountain under pressure of their own. Then when the Numenorians marched on him and his armies where overthrown by their might, he allowed them to take him prisoner and corrupted them, he may have lost his body in the process but one of his greatest enemies was defeated and he returned to Barad-Dur.

He knew at the Seige of Barad-Dur that he had no escape and took to the field after seven years of his Stonghold being under siege as he was most likely desperate knowing that they would not accept his surrender this time. We don't really know if it was desperation or confidence that had him fighting as Tolkien never wrote anything from Sauron's perspective and the forces of the Last Alliance had taken great losses from the defenses of Barad-Dur.

Edit: Corrected some spelling errors and noticed grammar.

It would have to be a combination of the two, he was obviously desperate to end the war and claim Middle-Earth, but he wouldn't have left his impregnable tower if he wasn't confindent he could turn the tides. Considering he slew both the leaders of the opposing armies, he nearly succeeded. He was probably on his way back into the tower when he noticed Isildur and reached out to kill him. This of course led to the Ring being cut off.

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I was of the belief that he couldn't take the form of Annatar again because the elves could now see through the disguise, making it useless to do, not that he wasn't able to.

I remember seeing a picture of him as a bat, may have been in the encyclopedia, and my assumption was that he changed to this form to escape, not that he drowned then his spirit flew back to ME. Even if he didn't use this form, i think the wording is that he "escaped" the downfall of Numenor meaning he got out just in time through use of a different form, whereas being destroyed then his spirit coming back to ME would not suggest escape but survival, I could be wrong of course.

As for Elendil/ Isildur, the movie makes it a little less clear but I understood that he wanted to destroy them in the same manner as Gil Galad (hence the reaching out) and having shattered the sword (power) of Elendil, he got cocky and thought nothing could bring him down which makes it more remarkable that the shards were able to hurt him. I don't remember reading/hearing that he was bested in combat or anything else.

I think it was his destruction at the hands of Isildur which led him to actually fear the sword and Isildur's heirs as he knew they would be able to do it again. Hence, why he tried to have Aragorn's line destroyed and nearly succeeded and also why he emptied Minas Morgul in an attempt to crush the power of Gondor before the heir arose again and had sufficient power to challenge him again. This is why aragorn's challenge at the black gate succeeded in keeping his gaze on him not Frodo as he feared them marching through the gates again to destroy him so he emptied the land to try and stop them (making it easier for Frodo).

So i think that when Aragorn says "may the lord of the black land come forth", he means it in a way which is reminiscent of the last alliance or before, not that he specifies he has a physical form. I am under the assumption that he doesn't have a physical form like before but a form more like the wraiths if any. I would assume he had the same form as the Necromancer also - but if anyone could prove the necromancer was a person like being, not just a wraith like being, then I would imagine that he did indeed have a regular physical form.

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He used the bat form after his defeat by Huan in the First Age, so it's plausible he used it again to escape the abyss at the Downfall, though we're never explicitely told how or in what condition he did make it back.



"Sauron himself came forth; and he wrestled with Gil-galad and Elendil. and they both were slain, and the sword of Elendil broke under him as he fell. But Sauron also was thrown down, and with the hilt-shard of Narsil Isildur cut the Ruling Ring from the hand of Sauron and took it for his own." - FotR, The Council of Elrond (emphasis by me)

From the boldened part, one can see that Sauron "also was thrown down" in the fight with Gil-galad and Elendil, so while he killed them, they still brought him down, enabling Isildur to cut off the ring and vanquishing his spirit. It was obviously a team effort, with the two kings sacrificing themselves so that Isildur could use the opening they created to deal the 'killing blow'. They did not die uselessly like in the movie.



Certainly, Sauron was utterly scared of Narsil, but the main reason for him to fear Aragorn and concentrate on him wasn't the sword but the fact that he thought Aragorn had the Ring!



As has been stated somewhere above, Tolkien himself described Sauron during the War of the Ring in a letter:

"Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic."

It's an open and shut case, really.

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There is a deleted scene where the black gate opens and Aragon and co are blinded by a light. In the normal version it's the glare from the eye of sauron, in the deleted scene it's a bright light that turns into sauron in his elvish form. He then takes on physical form just the same as in fotr and goes head to head with Aragon. In the original cut he is replaced by a troll chieftain. So movie wise it explains why Aragon demands he comes forward but Tolkien wise I don't think it fits, just PJ getting away with himself.
Personally I thought sauron couldn't regain physical form until he had the ring back but that's just mo.

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