. . . [W]e are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
Okay, so here's the story of the universe in a nutshell, at least according to Joseph Smith:
Once upon a time, there was God, and there were also countless intelligences—or in other words, floaty thinking essences that were distinct and sentient, but which didn't have much substance, and which had existed for ever and ever. God saw these intelligences and did something mystical with his wife (or wives) whereby billions and billions of them (the intelligences, not the wives) were given greater substance, turning into what we call spirits.
(For you science fiction fans out there, the notion of intelligences is what formed the theological underpinning for the "philotes" of Orson Scott Card's novel Xenocide [Tor Books, 1991]. For what it's worth.)
Joseph Smith, in D&C 93:29-30, expounds: "Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence." All of which is his way of saying that we were all there in Heaven with God, that we always were, and that we could do with ourselves what we liked.
Okay, fine, but what were we like physically? Ghostly masses of energy? Again according to Brother Joseph: "There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; we cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter" (D&C 131:7-8).
So, purer matter—kind of like coherent hydrogen steam, I suppose. At any rate, we were with God in Heaven, and life was good. And apparently it went on for a long, long time. Unimaginably long.
But there was a problem. We had a loving Father who wanted us to be like Him—but we weren't quite like Him yet. According to ol' Joe, "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's" (D&C 130:22). We looked like him, in general size and shape, but it was damned difficult for Him to play hobbyhorse with us when we'd climb up on His Knee and slide right through. After all, we were spirits.
So how to bring about the next stage in the intelligence-spirit-god progression? Nothing so simple as a celestial quickie would work this time. It was more difficult than that. So God rounded us all up one day into the amazingly huge family rec room, and He told us what would have to happen. This was called the Council in Heaven.
To get bodies, He told us, we would have to go to Earth. What's Earth? we asked. Where is it? Well, it wasn't built yet. That's what the meeting was all about.
You see, God told us, if you want to live with Me in Heaven forever, then you have to pass a test—complete your college degree, so to speak. You have to go to Earth, and you have to get a body, and you have to grow up, and you have to keep all the rules (which you will incidentally have to discover along the way), and you have to suffer and be miserable and then die without breaking any of them. Or otherwise you'll have to be tormented in hell for all the ones you didn't keep. Oh, yes, and I'm going to take your memory away before you go. Sounds fun, doesn't it?
Oh, yes, we chorused. Um, but what's this part about torment?
Oh, yes, that, God said. I forgot to tell you how you can get around that. See, one of you can volunteer to get punished for everyone else's mistakes. All you have to do is not make any yourself. Any takers?
We all looked down at our feet.
And that's when Jehovah, who was the oldest one of us spirit children (well, the first one spun into spirit, anyway), raised his hand and said, Sure, I'll do it.
And we all wiped our brows and grinned in relief. Good old Jehovah to the rescue! (Of course, a few of us muttered, "Brownnoser." But they were bad sports.)
Now you understand, God said, that even with this sacrifice Jehovah's going to make, not all of you will be coming back. You still have to keep the rules the best you can, and you have to listen to your brother and do what he says! Otherwise, it's into the toaster for you.
We all became very serious at that point, nodding and saying, Of course we'll be good, oh yes, of course, don't worry about us!
But then someone else spoke up—Lucifer, another one of the older kids. Smart, good-looking, but kind of a rebel. Hold on a minute, said Lucifer. What's all this talk about torment and free will and so forth? Listen, send me instead of the Jee-man over there, and I'll make sure everyone makes it back. Everyone will know the rules from the start, and we won't lose a single one. No one gets toasted, and no one has to hang from a tree. I'll make sure of it. So how about it, Pops?
Some of us started to nod. Yes, that certainly sounded better!
Um, no, I don't think so, God said. I like the original plan. I think everyone should get to choose what they do.
Me, too! said Jehovah. That's what I think!
Well, you can count me out, said Lucifer. No way I'm going to Earth under those conditions.
And some of us started to cluster around Lucifer, even as others were clustering around Jehovah. Names were called, food was thrown, someone caught a punch—and then things got ugly. This is what we call the War in Heaven.
Guess who won? That's right, Jehovah and the gang—and you and I were on the right team. How do we know? Because we're here.
You see, Lucifer and the spirits who sided with him—fully one third of God's spirit children—got kicked out of Heaven as their penalty for starting the fight. And as part of the punishment, they lost their chance ever to get a body and try to become like God. This is what prompted Isaiah to write those immortal words: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?" (Isaiah 14:12).
Abraham wrote his own account of these events—at least, Joseph Smith once translated some scrolls that he said were written by Abraham—and this is how he summarized the story so far:
"Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there 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; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.
"And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; and we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; and they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.
"And the Lord said: 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.
"And the second was angry, and kept not his first estate; and, at that day, many followed after him" (Abraham 3:22-28).
(First estate meaning, of course, Heaven, and second estate meaning Earth.)
Anyway, Jehovah and his best buddy Michael, once they had taken out the trash, got the job of actually building the Earth. With God's blueprints in hand, they organized it out of the celestial soup and made seas and rivers and mountains and plants and animals. When everything else was done, they made a man, and Jehovah put the spirit Michael inside it. And when he woke up, Michael discovered that he was a man named Adam, and that he couldn't remember anything else.
You probably know the story from there.
Anyway, skipping four thousand years or so, Jehovah eventually got a body also, after God had sex with a daughter of His named Mary. He was named Jesus, and he never did anything wrong, and then he voluntarily suffered for an infinitude of sins in the Garden of Gethsemane, and then he got nailed to a cross and he hung there until he died. And that was the Great Sacrifice for which Mormons (and all Christians) worldwide worship and revere Jesus.
Only . . .
Only Jesus got to take his body back three days after his "sacrifice," and he got to fly back to heaven and sit down on the right hand of God, and he assured of perfect eternal life and Godhood for ever and ever.
So how much of a sacrifice was it, really?
Well, it was infinite, right? The Book of Mormon says: "Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption" (2 Nephi 9:7). That's pretty heavy, isn't it?
Well, sure that's a lot of suffering, and a lot of atonement. But when the reward is so great, so much more infinite than the suffering (after all, the "infinite" atonement ended when Jesus died), then how much of a sacrifice was it, really?
So when is a sacrifice not a sacrifice? When you benefit from it personally.
No, if this Mormon myth is really true, then you and I are treading toward heaven on the back of someone who is paying an even greater price than Jesus—who chose to pay an even greater price. Someone who will be tormented forever with no hope of deliverance. And Mormon theology demands that there be such a miserable, wretched fall guy: "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad" (2 Nephi 2:11).
In other words, there had to be a Lucifer. There had to be a chump who took the real fall while the nominal Savior suffered for a day and then waltzed back home to Heaven. God's plan for us wouldn't have worked any other way. For a God who claims to be just and fair, isn't that just a little bit underhanded? Isn't that pretty dirty pool?
But Lucifer chose to rebel, you say. He deserves his punishment. Sure, okay, he chose it. But someone had to. The theology demands it. If it hadn't been Lucifer, then it would have had to have been someone else. And if no one else had taken the job of the opposition—well, what would have happened? Would someone have been coerced into the role? Might it have been you? Or me? How much do you like the idea of necessary opposition now?
If you're not convinced, then consider a parallel situation—the part Judas Iscariot played in Jesus's death. In Raphael Carter's excellent novel The Fortunate Fall (Tor Books, 1996), a character named Pavel Voskresenye offers the following explication of Judas's betrayal:
"Don't people still know that story even now? Judas betrays Christ, his friend and Lord, and we are supposed to believe it is all for a few silver coins, which, as it happens, he covets so much as to immediately throw them away. Now . . . is that a plausible motivation? If a man like Judas said to you, 'I did it for the money,' would you believe him?"
"I suppose—"
"No! Of course you wouldn't. There is only one reason why Judas committed his crime. He did it because it fulfilled the prophecy. It made Christ a martyr. He did it because if he had not, Jesus of Nazareth would have wound up as a starving beggar in the streets of Rome, leprous and louse-ridden, making himself portwine out of the ditch-water. He violated the shining law that Jesus had set forth, because only in that way could he make sure that law was not forgotten. . . .
"There is only one way to contain an evil you have once begun, and that is to provide a scapegoat. You may find someone else to fill the role—the coward's way. But the wise man, when forced into evil, makes a scapegoat of himself. That is what Judas does. He knows what must be done; he does it; and then he makes sure that the people he has benefited will revile him, because only that can prevent his crime from being repeated. He takes the damnation that he has deserved, even though he has done more for the faith than Christ himself. He does not just accept damnation, he rushes to it; the touch of the rope is a lover's embrace" (The Fortunate Fall, pp. 245-246, 249).
Is it possible that Lucifer actually knew what he was getting into? That he opposed God's plan specifically in order to help complete it?
Who can say? It's only a myth, after all. Because if it were real, then the Mormons would owe thanks to Lucifer as much as, if not more so than, to Jesus Christ.
And we couldn't have Americans giving thanks to the devil, right?
No, of course not.