Smith later
elaborated on the topic in his King Follett sermon, April 7, 1844: “The contention
in heaven was—Jesus said there would be certain souls that would not be saved;
and the Devil said he could save them all, and laid his plans before the grand
council, who gave their vote in favor of Jesus Christ. So the Devil rose up in
rebellion against God, and was cast down, with all who put up their heads [sic]
for him” (History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 5:327-37).
The account of the speech recorded in the History of the Church was an
amalgamation of four accounts by Willard Richards, Wilford Woodruff, Thomas
Bullock, and William Clayton. However, a retrospective summary of the sermon
recorded by George Laub makes it clear that Smith’s discourse, like Doctrine
and Covenants 76, placed the war in heaven in the context of the unpardonable
sin. In Laub’s account, Jesus proposed that “he could save all those who did
not sin against the Holy Ghost & they would obey the laws that was given,”
while Satan countered that he “can save all Even those who Sinned against the
Holy Ghost.” Laub’s version adds that Satan “accused his brethren and was
h[u]rled from the council for striving to break the law emediately and there
was a warfare with Satan” (Eugene England, ed., “George Laub’s Nauvoo Journal,”
BYU Studies 18, 2 [Winter 1978]:22-23).
Despite Smith’s intriguing
hint linking the war in heaven and the sons of perdition in Doctrine and
Covenants 76 and the King Follett sermon, the nature of the premortal conflict
has primarily been seen in LDS theology as an ongoing battle between good and
evil. (Boyd Petersen, “’To Destroy the Agency of Man’ The War in Heaven in LDS
Thought,” in Bryan Buchanan, ed., Continuing Revelation: Essays on Doctrine [Salt
Lake City: Signature Books, 2021], 85-125, here, pp. 93-94)
