Do Mormons Teach that Jesus and Satan Were Spirit Brothers?

Among the many objections that some have made to the LDS faith is the idea that Mormons somehow teach that “Jesus is the spirit brother of Satan.” The implication seems to be that Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are either equal or even in alliance; certainly this would be consistent with the notion, found among some anti-Mormons, that the Latter-day Saints worship the devil. Nothing could be farther from the truth. However, as with most anti-LDS claims, this one takes a truth and twists it in a false direction.

Latter-day Saints believe that we are all the spirit children of God the Father, and that we all lived with Him in heaven before the creation of the world, in what Mormons call the pre-mortal existence. That means everyone: you, me, Pocahontas, George Washington, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, the ancient emperors of Africa and China, and all the hunters, farmers, artisans and merchants, “all the mommies and daddies and their children” (as my kids said it when they were small) through all of human history—and Jesus and Lucifer, and many billions more besides.

So, for Mormons, the relationship between Jesus and Lucifer is just an implication of the idea that all of us are alike the spiritual children of our Father in Heaven. Mormons give no special weight to the idea that Jesus and Lucifer are “spiritual brothers”; far more important to the Saints is the concept that we ourselves are spirit children of the Father, and that Jesus is what Mormons call our “elder Brother,” who suffered and died for us and loves us still. What is crucial to the Saints is that Jesus is the Only Begotten of the Father, the anointed Messiah and divine Savior of the human race.

The following three links are to sources of authoritative LDS teaching on this topic:

            Online essay, "We Lived With God."

            Online essay, "Jesus Christ is the Way."

            Gospel Principles manual, Chapter 2, “Our Heavenly Family.”

Here as elsewhere, some evangelical authors contrast the Mormon position with what the evangelicals describe as mainstream or historical Christian beliefs. As one author put it, instead of believing that humans are literally the spirit children of God, historical Christianity teaches that “we become a child of God at conversion” (R.P. Roberts); instead of believing that the spirits of humanity existed before the creation of the world, historical Christianity supposedly holds that “one’s spirit is formed on earth as they [sic] begin life within the womb” (R. Abanes), which does seem to be the consensus among contemporary Roman Catholic theologians as well.

            However, careful investigation into history and scripture shows that the Mormon positions on these issues are indeed plausible as Christian belief. In the Bible, one can find evidence, not only for the idea of the premortal existence of human spirits, but for the notion of a Council in Heaven.

            Concerning the idea of God as the Father of our spirits, it would be hard to find a clearer statement on this issue than that given by the author of the biblical Epistle to the Hebrews, when he wrote the following about the need to endure the chastening, rebukes, and trials sent by God:

… we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? (New Testament, Hebrews 12:9)

            There are those who would interpret the idea of God as “the Father of spirits” as mere metaphor, a strategy that effectively ends all discussion. However, the real point of dispute between evangelical and Mormon Christians involves the notion of the premortal existence of spirits; this is an issue that admits of no such hand-waving and explaining away, and it is to this that I turn my attention.

            In the Jewish Bible, we read a section called the Song of Moses very close to the end of the Torah:

            Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

            When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. (Bible, Deuteronomy 32:7-8)

            This is a decent rendition of the accepted (or Masoretic) Hebrew text. However, some scholars think that the Hebrew of this passage was altered at some time in the past, that it originally read differently. This idea is supported by the reading given in the Septuagint, the 3^rd century bc Greek translation of the Jewish Bible that was used by Greek-speaking Jews in the time of Jesus and earlier. In the Septuagint, the end of this passage reads: “… according to the number of the angels of God,” which seems to have been the original reading of this passage in the Hebrew Bible.

            Why would God use a census of the angels to apportion land to an earthly people? This would make sense if the “angels” mentioned here were actually the premortal spirits of the people of the various nations of the earth, including Israel. This was certainly the opinion expressed by Origen (185 ad-254 ad), an important early Christian teacher during the period between the death of the original apostles and the controversial Council of Nicaea, as published in one of his major works, De Principiis: “Other nations … are called a part of the angels; since ‘when the Most High divided the nations, and dispersed the sons of Adam, He fixed the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.’”

            Of course, with the passing of the apostles and the ultimate adoption of a version of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire, much changed in the early Christian Church. It is significant that, as of the turn of the fifth century ad, such a monumental figure as Augustine of Hippo could not decide among four theories for the origin of the soul, two of which involved a premortal origin (see his On Free Choice of the Will, III.21). Certainly, if the idea of the premortal existence of the soul was up in the air for such a figure as Augustine, the Mormon version of this idea is at least plausible as being a Christian notion.

Resource:

·         Book: Terryl L. Givens. (2010). When souls had wings: Premortal existence in Western thought. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

[Note: Some of this post comes from the manuscript of my forthcoming book, Mormons: Who They Are, How They Think, What They Believe, and Why They Succeed.]

[The opening image is a photo of a mosaic of Christ’s temptation. (See the New Testament, Matthew 4:1-11.) The mosaic is to be found in Monreale Cathedral in Palermo, Italy. The photo was taken by Sibeaster, who placed it in the public domain. I found the photo on Wikipedia.]

Copyright 2012 Mark Koltko-Rivera.