Sunday, April 20, 2008

Are Jesus and Satan Brothers?

Some LDS talk about Jesus Christ, Lucifer, Michael the Archangel, and the angel gabriel as being spirit brothers. However, this sense of brotherhood is only in the sense that God the Father is the father of all spirits. In that same sense LDS speak of all mandkind as spirit brother and sisters of Our Heavenly Father.

But even relating to Jesus Christ in this way, we do not consider Christ to be on an equal level spiritually as man or Satan. Jesus Christ is a member of the Godhead from the beginning with God the Father and the Holy Ghost. The Bible teaches that Christ stands at the right hand of the Father and revelation teaches that Christ was the first spirit son of God as well as the only begotten Son of God according to the flesh. So, in a spiritual sense, Jesus Christ can honorably be considered our Elder Brother.

The Bible teaches that Satan was known as Lucifer before he fell from heaven. Lucifer (son of the morning) was an archangel but was not at all on the same level as Jesus Christ is power or glory. Lucifer was more on the same spiritual level as Michael and Gabriel. That is why Revelations teaches that Michael was organized to fight against the Dragon. Michael and Lucifer were of the same stature.

The Bible also teaches that Jesus and Lucifer should not be considered to have equal but opposite powers. There is no ying and yang upon which the universe balances. Satan in attempting to thwart the plan of God actually ends up serving his purposes. But, what the LDS believe about the power of Satan in relation to the power of Jesus can be summed up by a scripture in Genesis when the Serpent is being cursed by God for tempting Adam and Eve and the Atonement of the Savior is being foreshadowed: "ye may have power to bruise his heal, but he shall have power to crush thy head"

1 comment:

Tim Malone said...

Hi David,

Good post. I notice a lot of LDS Bloggers have commented about this one over the past few months ever since Mike Hukabee brought it up in the presidential campaign.

Even I decided that it was worth a comment. I don't know why it is so hard to understand for some people. Maybe they just like to say it because it seems so shocking.

Keep up the good work.