Summary: According to the Bible, there was a war in heaven, however it gives us just a very brief sketch of what that war was like and is lacking many details. This has led to such questions as: Why did God create the devil, what made Lucifer want to rise above the throne of God, why did God permit there to be a war in heaven, and why did God banish Satan to earth? However, the Lord has revealed more details about this event to the prophet Joseph Smith. This article provides answers to these and other questions about the war in heaven.

The Bible tells us there was a war in heaven (Revelation 12:6). It also tells us that Lucifer was the “son of the morning,” whose name in Hebrew means light bearer. Apparently, he was a glorious being who was close to the throne of God, but he said in his heart, “I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God” (Isaiah 14:12,13).

We’re told that Lucifer drew one-third of the hosts of heaven to his side (Revelation 12:4) and that Michael, the archangel, fought against him and prevailed. When that happened, Lucifer’s name was changed to Satan, which means adversary, and he was cast out of heaven and cast down to earth (Revelation 12:7,8).

This is all we know from what’s recorded in the Bible, but it’s just a very brief sketch of what happened and is lacking in a lot of details. This has led to there being many unanswered questions that Protestants have had to guess about. One such question is: “Since God created everything from nothing, and he knows everything, then why did he create the devil, especially since he knew he would rebel against him?”

Another question is: “If Lucifer was such a gloriously righteous angel to begin with, why did he turn bad? In other words, if everything God creates is good, where did the evil desire in Lucifer come from to rise above God and take his throne? What made him want to do that?”

Yet another question people have asked is, “Why did God permit the war to take place in the first place? If God can create an entire universe simply by speaking the word, then why did he even permit there to be a war in the first place? Why didn’t he banish Lucifer before he rebelled?”

But there is a more perplexing question. In several places in the New Testament, we’re told that Jesus was foreordained to be the Savior of the world before the foundation of the earth was ever laid. That means, God knew that man was going to sin before he ever made him and had already prepared a way to save him from his sinful nature.

If that is true, then where was Jesus during the war in heaven? The Bible tells us that an archangel named Michael led the fight against Lucifer, but why him? If Jesus was already chosen to save us from our sins, shouldn’t he have been the one who was at the head of God’s army in this fight?

As stated earlier, what few pieces of information the Bible gives us about this war tells us very little and leaves out a lot of details. As such, Protestants are forced to make a lot of assumptions and educated guesses about what this war was about, but how accurate are those assumptions?

Fortunately for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Lord has revealed more details that give us a better understanding of what happened.

We now know that before God even thought of creating our earth, he presented a plan that would allow us to become just like him, and we shouted for joy at that announcement. One of the things that would make us more like God is to know the difference between good and evil. In fact, when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the Bible tells us, “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (Genesis 3:22).

The best way to learn anything is through personal experience, but in this case, if we gave into evil just once, we would be tainted with sin and since no unclean thing can dwell in heaven, we could not return to live with God.

But God had a solution to this problem. He would prepare someone to pay the penalty for our sin. In this way, we could learn from painful experience to choose good over evil and still have our sins forgiven, thereby allowing us to enter heaven as sinless beings.

This sounded like a wonderful idea, but we know from other revelations that there would still be consequences. Not everyone would return back to the heaven we came from. In fact, a great majority would end up going to one of two inferior kingdoms, known as the terrestrial and telestial. That’s not what we wanted, but that was the reality of what would happen under God’s plan.

Although Jesus was the person God had chosen to be our Savior, Lucifer didn’t like that plan because too many of his brothers and sisters wouldn’t make it back to the celestial kingdom. His plan was to allow us to observe evil from a distance without actually having to experience it. That way we would gain an intellectual knowledge of evil, which he felt was just as good as being tempted by its power. But to do that would require Lucifer to override our agency to choose for ourselves.

But there was another part of God’s plan that we have to consider. In order for the Savior’s suffering to take away our sins, we would have to believe in him and keep his commandments. Under Lucifer’s plan, we would have to believe in him and keep his commandments as well, but since we wouldn’t be allowed to sin, then there would be no need for him to suffer. Thus, his plan allowed him to rule over us without him having to endure any hardships himself. Under his plan, he would be a monarch, sitting on his throne, giving orders for everyone else to follow with no one telling him what he should do.

This understanding gives us a little more information concerning what the war in heaven was about, but it still lacks a lot of details, therefore we too have to make some assumptions and educated guesses ourselves to flesh out the story.

What we see so far is that there was a contest of ideas, and both had their good points and bad points. God knew that Lucifer’s plan was unworkable for a variety of reasons, and he could have just said “No,” to it from the start and be done with it. However, God doesn’t force us to accept his word, therefore he allowed us to debate the issue and choose for ourselves. It seems that two-thirds of his children agreed with God’s plan while one-third didn’t.

What we know is that God respects our agency, but we also know that he is a wise parent and wise parents only allow their children to exercise their agency when it is beneficial to them. For example, a young child may want to run out into the street to fetch a ball, but a wise parent will override that decision because it would put their child in danger.

Knowing this fact, if two-thirds of God’s children had rejected his plan and sided with Lucifer, God would not have implemented Lucifer’s plan because it would have done us more harm than good. Then what was the point of having us engage in this war of words?

God gave us the choice to either accept or reject his plan, which was always going to be the only plan. If we rejected it, I presume God would have withdrawn the offer and that would have been the end of it. However, this debate was not some intellectual discussion. It was like two people of opposite political views arguing with one another.

This debate was passionate, contentious, bitter, and hostile, with both sides convinced that they were not only right but that the other side was totally and completely wrong! In such a debate, the arguments on both sides were meant to persuade people to change their minds, and every strategy was used to accomplish that goal.

When the time came for the debate to end, God wanted to know what we wanted to do. When two-thirds said they would follow God’s plan, he felt he had their support in implementing it. However, instead of the other one-third licking their wounds and going along with the decision of the majority, or simply not participating in God’s plan, they rebelled against it.

To help understand the implications of this, it was like having a political election and when the person you didn’t vote for wins, you refuse to accept that you lost. Or it’s like the Supreme Court making a decision you disagree with and deciding that you’re not going to follow the new law.

Lucifer and his followers were so convinced that his plan was far superior to God’s that they refused to accept God’s final decision. Instead, they literally and physically fought against God, and for that act of deliberate rebelling, they were cast out of heaven.

But where was Jesus during all this debate? How come he wasn’t at the forefront of defending God’s plan? The reason why is because there was another aspect of the plan that we usually don’t discuss.

There is an eternal law known as the law of restitution that says we get back what we give out. Alma talked about this to his son, Corinanton. If we do evil, then evil must be restored to us, and the same is true if we do good. That also means, the more good we do, the more good must be returned to us. Because of the supreme sacrifice Jesus would make for us, by eternal law he must receive a supreme reward.

The Bible tells us that God put all things under Christ’s feet (1 Corinthians 15:27). He made Jesus the God of this earth that Adam, Noah, Abraham, the Israelites, and all Christians worship, and in the end every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is their Lord (Romans 14:11).

This fact must have been told us when God presented his plan, and this is what Lucifer wanted for himself. He was a glorious, magnificent angel and why shouldn’t he have all things put under his feet? Why shouldn’t every knee bow to him and every tongue honor him as their lord?

When God gave that honor to Jesus, Lucifer – the light bearer, the magnificent one – was jealous. He resented Jesus getting the glory he felt should have been his. After all, wasn’t he just as glorious a being as was Jesus? In his mind, he thought he was. This was another reason why Lucifer didn’t want to accept God’s decision.

But where was Jesus during this hotly contested war of words? Why did Michael take the lead in defending God’s plan? The reason is because Jesus was too humble to do it.

Imagine him going out and saying, “Vote for God’s plan because it will make me your Lord and Master. A vote for God is a vote for me!” Jesus couldn’t say that, yet if he went out and championed God’s plan, that’s how it would have been perceived. And so, it was left to others to defend not only God’s plan, but Jesus as well. On the other hand, Lucifer had no such qualms about promoting himself.

Why is it important to know what the war in heaven was really like? Because when Satan was cast out of heaven, he was allowed to come here to earth where that same war is being waged against the children of men. God is continuing to allow us to choose his plan over Satan’s. But if we have a wrong idea of what that war was like, we can be easily deceived into abandoning God’s plan by thinking that Satan has a better one.

The reason why knowing the truth about the war in heaven is so important is because without that knowledge we can be fooled by clever arguments that sound logical and make sense but are meant to change the way we think about good and evil. As the saying goes, most of the evils in the world began with people who had good intentions.

Satan still wants us to make him our lord and master. He still wants us to be obedient in doing his will. He still wants us to worship him. Therefore, he despises Jesus with an eternal hatred, and because we choose Jesus over him, he despises us just as much. As the apostle Peter put it, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

The war in heaven was a war of words. It was a war of ideas, and it was fought with great passion and energy. Today, Satan seeks to instill that same spirit of contention in people. This is why Jesus said that “he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention.” (3 Nephi 11:29). The apostle Paul said that the works of the flesh are “hatred, variance (discord), emulations (jealousy), wrath, strife, seditions, [and] envyings” (Galatians 5:20). It also engenders intolerance, bigotry, and an attitude of self-righteousness. These are the hallmarks of rebellion, and that was Satan’s great crime.

When we have a better understanding of what the war in heaven was like, then we are better prepared to protect ourselves from the sophisticated and devious philosophies that Satan uses to persuade us to join his cause instead of defending, supporting, and helping to spread the cause of Christ.

 

Related articles can be found at The Nature of Man