A Son of the Morning - Abraham 3:21-28; Moses 4:1-4

This is one of those times when I wish I had organized the material a little better because I didn’t want to have to circle back around already, but in order to move forward with the fall, some background information must be discussed. Before we can address Satan’s role in the garden, we have to know who he is and how he got there. From Abraham we learn that we all began as “intelligences” who were visited by God and “organized before the world was.” This is a really interesting concept because it helps explain a lot of how we became to be as individuals. All the intelligences were different, at various stages of spiritual progression, “and among these were many of the noble and great ones. And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers.” Abraham was one of these noble and great ones, “chosen before thou wast born.” The IM talks extensively about pre-mortal calling for this life noting that all church leadership was called pre-mortally. Interestingly too, there are several quotes from church leaders saying that the more righteous we were in pre-earth life, the more responsibility and suffering we can expect here. From this perspective, maybe we could look at those who have suffered greatly in this life and see their spiritual greatness. This is one of the thoughts that I had when the whole concept of “blacks couldn’t hold the priesthood before 1978 because they were less valiant in pre-mortality.” I’ve always thought, “if that’s true, why are they given such a difficult path here on earth? God wouldn’t punish a people for non-commitment to the cause by giving them more problems here on earth. I think it would be the exact opposite and these quotes demonstrate just that principle, so maybe instead of trying to “explain” someone’s disadvantage in this life by speculating on their pre-mortal state, we should look at our own privileges and wonder if we in fact earned them. Among Abraham and the great and noble spirits “stood one among them that was like unto God.” This great spirit instructs the other nobles ones to “go down” into a space to “take these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell.” This spirit that was “like unto God” is Jesus Christ, His spirit was “more intelligent than they all.” My question is how did his intelligence become so much more than ours? I’ve speculated about this with my brother, was Jesus just a brighter intelligence from the beginning? As the first born in the spirit, did he spend a significantly longer amount of time with Heavenly Father and Mother to be taught and grown that way? And if that’s the case, could that have happened to anyone else? Maybe it’s a combination of both, maybe his intelligence was vastly superior to ours AND he got to spend more time being trained and taught than the rest of us, that would make sense.” The IM quotes Neal A. Maxwell as teaching, “that the Lord knows is, fortunately, vastly more- not just barely more- than the combination of what all mortals know.” When discussing the creation and the fall, there is a phrase that keeps coming up but isn’t really addressed, and the phrase is “like we counseled in the beginning.” This statement implies that there was some sort of meeting or discussion at the very start of this adventure to discuss and explain the details of the plan. Abraham tells us that during that meeting, “the Lord said: Whom shall I send?” It’s not explicitly stated “whom shall I send to atone for the sins of mankind.” But now that I think about it, I don’t necessarily know if it was a call for an atoner, but just a leader or something similar. There are two reasons why this thought came up, first, when Lucifer volunteers, he doesn’t say “I will atone for their sins,” he offers a second plan. The second reason this thought came up is because the word “send” is cross referenced with Moses 7:39 which says, “And that which I have chosen hath pled before my face. Wherefore, he suffereth for their sins; inasmuch as they will repent in the day that my Chosen shall return unto me, and until that day they shall be in torment.” This makes it sound like Jesus was the one who perhaps came up with the idea of the atonement, or at least advocated for it, which would have happened only after he had been chosen. I can see how this would play out, Jesus is chosen to be the leader for, then while discussing details, Jesus recognizes the problem of people making mistakes and not having a way to be reconciled to God. He thinks about it and comes up with the idea for the atonement, where one person can suffer for everyone’s sins in their place. This is the type of idea that would have to be executed by the person who comes up with it because it’s too brutal to ask anyone else to do it. Plus it would set Jesus’ mind to be absolutely committed to its completion. Not that he wouldn’t be committed if Heavenly Father had come to him with the idea and asked him to do it and he agreed, but the psychology is there for the person who actually does the hard thing is the same one who recognized the problem and came up with the solution, even if it was horrible. The IM quotes Neal A. Maxwell as explaining the nature of the meeting, “it is extremely important to get straight what happened in that premortal council. It was not an unstructured meeting, now was it a discussion between plans, nor an idea-producing session, as to how to formulate the plan of salvation and carry it out. Our Father’s plan was known, and the actual question put was whom the Father should send to carry out the plan.” God poses the question that brought everyone together: “Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first.” I’ve thought a lot about this too, was Jesus arbitrarily chosen to be the Savior of the world? What reason was there to choose Jesus over Lucifer? Is it fair to choose Jesus over Lucifer? Is it fair to choose Jesus over any of the rest of us? The thought that helped settle this for me in my mind is that there might have been many volunteers, but we are only told about the two. If there were many, it wouldn’t be a choice between good and evil, but instead based on Jesus’ merits for obedience, etc. The second person who volunteered “was angry, and kept not his first estate; and, at that day, many followed after him.” The IM says, “The ‘first estate’ refers to the period of time before we were born on this earth, also known as the premortal life. To ‘keep’ this first estate, a spirit child of God in pre-earth life had to use his or her agency to choose to follow the plan of salvation offered by Heavenly Father. A third part of the spirit children of Heavenly Father followed Lucifer (the devil) and rebelled against God and the plan of salvation, thereby failing to keep their first estate. They were therefore cast out of heaven, with no more opportunities to progress.” I have thought a lot about these spirits who were cast out along with Lucifer, and I’ve thought a lot about Lucifer too, who he was, how the whole situation played out. I think the reason the plight of these spirits is on my mind so much is because I can totally see myself in their shoes. I can see myself being too scared about the “what ifs” in the plan of salvation to go through with it. I can see myself being convinced that Jesus couldn’t do it, that life would be too hard, being scared of the pain of this life. I can see myself being kicked out of God’s presence in the pre-mortal realm, and then being stuck here on earth as a spirit under Satan’s control. I can see how much I would regret my choice, and long for another chance. And to be honest, the only fair and just thing to do on God’s part is for those spirits to be given another chance, maybe in another creation after this earth plays out. It’s the only thing that makes sense. In no circumstances does Jesus deny anyone who wants to repent at any point in their journey, why would it be different for those who weren’t ready or were manipulated by Lucifer? Why wouldn’t Lucifer be able to repent as well? It only makes sense that the option is there for him if he ever takes Jesus up on it. There’s a little bit more explanation of how the meeting played out when Heavenly Father asked “Whom shall I send?” Jesus’ offer was “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.” Satan’s counter-offer was, “Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.” There are a lot of problems with Satan’s offer, but the irony here is that he demanded God’s glory in exchange for completing the task, but what he didn’t realize is that the reward for completing the task of salvation already was God’s glory. It’s like working a job that pays $5 and then saying, “ok I’ll do it for $5”, it doesn’t make any sense. Another problem was the idea that you can force anyone to do something. Because the sins for which we need atonement penetrate into the level of our thoughts, that means that in order to fulfill his promise Satan would have to control our thoughts, and that’s impossible. I don’t think even God can control our thoughts if he wanted to. We started out as intelligences, so we have our own free will. We might not always be able to choose what we do physically because of disabilities or bodily weakness or through threats, etc. but we can always choose our thoughts, and no one can force them one way or another. It’s just like Satan can’t access or control our thoughts now, what makes him think he could do it then? Once Jesus was chosen to be the Savior, Lucifer did not get in line with the plan. I don’t think it was wrong to suggest another idea, I can see myself doing it, the rebellion came when he refused to accept God’s decision. I wonder how that went down. I wonder if he actively campaigned for a different plan or if he just complained and trash talked the plan until God had to be like “knock it off” and then he refused to stop and it just escalated from there. Apparently Satan convinced a third of his fellow spirits that the plan wasn’t going to work and God “caused that he should be cast down.” When I was younger, I imagined this exit as a victory parade for those of us who stayed. But as I got older I realized just how awful it would have been to watch billions of scared spirits that we knew and loved, walk out of God’s presence. These would have been our friends, our family, people we had known for eons of time. The phrase “cast down” is cross-referenced with D&C 76:25-27 which details the event and Lucifer in particular, saying “an angel of God who was in authority in the presence of God… was thrust down from the presence of God and the Son, And was called Perdition, for the heavens wept over him- he was Lucifer, a son of the morning.” It would have been probably the worst thing that had ever happened to pretty much everyone. Satan’s fall was so great, he was an angel in the pre-mortal world, and he held positions of authority. I guess it just goes to show how far anyone can fall and that staying strong spiritually is a constant, vigilant endeavor.