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By Lloyd Albritton

Columnist

Television comedian Flip Wilson coined that funny phrase in the 1960s. For many people, however, it is not just a throwaway comedy line, but a reality. Call me crazy, but I, for one, believe in the Devil; not just the concept of evil, or an imaginary little dragon-like man with horns and a pitchfork and a long tail with red, scaly skin, but the real dude, an ordinary fellow who may even look a lot like you or me. I don’t believe the devil can make us do evil things that we don’t want to do, but I do believe he is very persuasive, a “silver-tongued devil,” one might say.
Oddly enough, this mean old man known in theology as the Devil, the Dragon, Satan, Lucifer and varied other familiar monikers, is interminably connected with God Himself. Let me tell you the story of how the devil got his start.
You see, long, long ago in a faraway place called Heaven a great council was convened in which God proposed a plan whereby His many children might advance their individual life journeys toward the perfection necessary to become like their Father. To accomplish this it was necessary to prepare a place where all God’s spirit children could acquire a body of flesh and bones through a mortal biological process called birth, a place where they could learn to live a perfect life by choosing to follow God’s commandments, or not, then to experience another qualifying refinement process called death, whereby the spirit separates from the depleted mortal body, but is later reunited, body and spirit, to a condition of immortal flesh and bones, and hopefully, eventually, a return to live in our original heavenly home, a condition referred to in the scriptures as eternal life.
God knew when He proposed this plan that His children were likely to make some bad choices throughout the course of said mortal probation, for which eternal justice would require that they pay the price, i.e., suffer the consequences.
There was one who attended that great council, however, who was perfect and was capable of coming to earth and living a perfect life, even as a mortal man. This perfect person was none other than the Firstborn of all God’s spirit children, Jesus Christ, known in that place and time as “The Great Jehovah.” Jesus/Jehovah loved all his spirit siblings and naturally desired to spare them from the suffering that they would otherwise have to experience on their own. Consequently, He (the primordial, unembodied Jesus) volunteered to come to earth and enter mortal life through birth, like everyone else, except that His Father in Heaven would also become his earthly Father, making Him literally the Only Begotten in the flesh, being conceived by God Himself with the Virgin Mary. This Perfect One would voluntarily accept the responsibility and punishment for the transgressions of all his beloved brothers and sisters, a miraculous, vicarious process which occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane on the very eve of his crucifixion, a process of suffering so great and exquisite that He is reported to have bled from every pore (Luke 22:41-44). Having taken upon Himself all the sins of the world, he would then voluntarily lay down his life as a perfect and complete sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, thereby satisfying the demands of eternal justice.
To qualify for this great free gift of atonement all God’s other children had to do was to acknowledge the gift and accept it. That was it! Those who would not acknowledge and accept Jesus’ atoning sacrifice would not be entitled to lay claim on the Savior’s atonement for their sins. Those recalcitrant souls would have to suffer the consequences of their own sins in a disembodied spirit prison often referred to in the scriptures as “hell” (1 Peter 3:18-20, Psalm 16:10). In the end, every living soul passing through mortality (with some exceptions) would eventually be delivered from death and hell and brought home to live in a state of heavenly glory consistent with their resurrected fitness, for according to the perfect law of justice no soul can abide a degree of glory beyond that for which he or she is prepared; therefore, it was necessary for God to prepare “many mansions” for his many resurrected children to live comfortably throughout the eternities (John 14:2, 1 Corinthians 15:40-42). There would, of course, be exceptions who would not inherit any degree of glory in God’s kingdom but who would be cast into a hell of outer darkness with the Devil and his angels. These would be those who, having received the true light of certain knowledge from the Holy Ghost, would turn against it and fight against God. This is referred to in the scriptures as the “Sin Against the Holy Ghost.” Cain and Judas Iscariot are generally considered by most bible scholars as two possible candidates for this category.
The apparatus which brings about the perfection that Jesus required of us in Matthew 5:48 is the following of God’s laws, the keeping of His commandments. “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” (John 14:15) Jesus said to his disciples. Those who do not keep all of God’s commandments, but choose to obey only the ones they like, will come forth to a glorious resurrection they have prepared themselves for. The eternal Laws of Justice demand nothing less. This was The Plan that God presented in that great primordial council. We all liked The Plan and heartily agreed to it. It was fair, balancing justice and mercy. In fact, God told Job that we all “sang together and…shouted for joy” (Job 38:4-7) in that great day when the foundations of the earth were formed.
There was one son of God, however, who did not like his Father’s Plan. This one was of very high standing among God’s children. His name was Lucifer. Lucifer argued that he had a better plan whereby he would be the one to save mankind from their sins. He would do this by not giving us a choice between good and evil, thereby constraining us to do things his way. Lucifer boasted that his plan would negate the need for a perfect human sacrifice altogether and would guarantee that not a soul would be lost. All mankind would be returned to the Father’s presence without a scratch. For this proposed brilliant accomplishment Lucifer demanded that all the glory should be his own and that he should be elevated to preside over heaven and earth. His proposal was nothing short of a coup, an attempt to overthrow God Himself. God saw through Lucifer’s evil scheme, however, and Lucifer’s proposal was rejected straightaway, for God knew that free agency was a critical component of divine justice and no plan of salvation would work without it.
Lucifer angrily persuaded a full third of the entire host of heaven to follow him and they rebelled against God. There was a great war in heaven resulting in Lucifer and his followers being cast out of heaven into the earth as unembodied spirits to be ever more denied the opportunity to obtain bodies of flesh and bones and to obtain the glory of eternal life with Father in Heaven (Revelations 12:7-9). The very fact that you and I are here now is clear evidence that we were among those who accepted God’s Plan and fought against Lucifer and his angels in that great war.
Lucifer and his unembodied angels have occupied the earth since that time even as we mortals have. They exercise every option at their disposal to foil God’s Plan and destroy our free agency and happiness, but the Devil and his angels are not empowered to make us to do anything. We are free to choose good or evil in all things. Even from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were free to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, or not. God warned, however, that “in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die (Genesis 2:17).
It seems obvious that Adam and Eve’s complete innocence prior to partaking of the forbidden fruit would have compromised their ability to comply with another critical commandment necessary for them to complete their mission on earth, for God had earlier commanded them to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28). This commandment could not have been effected in their premortal condition. That is why it was necessary for Adam and Eve to partake of the fruit, for they were beforehand “naked and not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25), as innocent as little children, completely incapable of procreation. Afterward, writes Moses in Genesis 3:7, “the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” The fall of man had to be, but it had to be by brought about by free choice.
The Devil is free to persuade us, to introduce us to all his friends and ideas, but he cannot make us choose evil over good. We have to do that on our own.