Monday, March 23, 2020

Satan and Demons "Became" Who They Are Through a Process, not a Once-for-All Event in the Premortal Existence



No one chooses a glory on a whim or in a moment. This decision will be made much like our initial choice to follow Christ in the premortal existence. Latter-day Saint scholar Robert J. Matthews taught, “The grand council in heaven was probably a series of meetings that could have lasted thousands of years. The idea that we were spirits roaming around who then held one meeting and had one vote is too simplified. We were taught for centuries. Those who became the devil and his angels did not become that way through a vote, but a life-style. You don’t become ‘perdition’ through one bad vote” (notes from a presentation by Robert J. Matthews in a CES Summer Inservice in Orem, Utah, 10 July 1986 as quoted in Todd Parer, Rel A 121: Notes, Quotes, Handouts, and Study Questions—Book of Mormon 1st ). Half [Provo, UT: Brigham Young University], 142). (Brad Wilcox, Because of the Christ on Calvary [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2020], 47)