Jesus and Satan as Spirit Brothers

[_Sethbag]

Jesus referred to God as his Father in the New Testament. Believing humans also refer to God as their Father. That makes humans and Jesus siblings, at least spiritually, by the very definition of the terms (ie: common father = siblings, or at least half siblings). If Satan was likewise created by God, then God is Satan's father too. Given the same father, Satan too is, by definition, our sibling.

I think I understand what café Crema was saying though, which is that according to the trinitarian view, God and Jesus are really the same person, so God isn't Jesus father, therefor trinitarians are upset because Jesus and Satan are really father and son, not brothers?

Somehow I don't think it's that. Their complaint isn't a pedantic nitpick, it's genuine offense-taking at the notion that Satan shares a familial link with Jesus (and by extension, the rest of us too).

It reminds of the same kind of offense-taking that motivates people to say "I ain't related to no monkeys!".

[_MCB]

Logically speaking, analogy does not make identity. However, I can see how that belief was derived. Thank you.

[_MCB]

The doctrine of the pre-existence is also found in a wide variety of Christian apocryphal literature.
For instance in the Gospel of Thomas, which many believe to contain sayings of Jesus which are closer
to His original statements than those found in the Gospels, Jesus said, “Blessed are the solitary and
elect, for you shall find the Kingdom; because you come from it, (and) you shall go there
again.”254 And the Christian Sibyllines state that “The world is my origin, but soul have I drawn from
the stars.”255
Various of these texts also anticipate the Latter-day Saint doctrine that Jesus, the Holy Ghost, and
Satan were members of the pre-existent family of God. Hennecke and Schneemelcher report that the
writer of The Questions of Bartholomew, as well as a gnostic group called the Bogomils, taught that
“Christus is the elder son of God, Satan . . . is the younger.”256 And in the GnosticPistis Sophia, Mary
tells Jesus that the Holy Spirit appeared to her and said, “Where is Jesus, my brother, that I may meet
him?”257Indeed, even the undeniably orthodox Lactantius implied that Jesus and Satan were
brothers.258

About 31% of the way through http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Ancient ... ent+Church
I don't have the page number.

He says that the "Apostasy" was when the Catholic church rejected Gnosticism, while I say that Mormonism is a Gnostic religion.

[_huckelberry]

Anyhow, for all the evangelicals who take exception to the Mormon belief that Jesus and Satan are brothers, how is that much different from the non-Mormon belief that Jesus and Satan were both created by the same being? As brothers, they would share a parent (or parents). As fellow creations they were both constructed by the same creator. There is a clear analog between the two which belies, IMHO, the offense taken by those incensed by the Mormon blasphemy.

Sethbag, I am probably not going to be able to twist your arm into believing that a creator could be more intimate,connected and compassionate than a physical father. I think you make a good point that the existence of evil presents logical problems for both LDS and more traditional lines of Christian thought. People can come off sounding pretty smug ans shallow laughing about the Mormon formulation.

I do remember the important LDS concept of a transformation from our present fallible and unstable condition. There are LDS views referencing an eternal glory or order which would be the foundation of that transformation. That eternal glory sounds a lot like the eternal infinite god of traditional Christianity. From what I have read on message boards there are a good number of Mormons who believe things closer to the traditional view than to Brigham Young's unapologetic presentation of the same species theory. Those who do as Mormons all picture that eternal infinite God as having taken on a body. I can imagine that as reassuring even though for myself i have crossed some boundary where picturing God as infinite and unbounded is more reassuring to me.

(for any reader concerned that reassuring is not evidence of existence, that thought has crossed my mind. However as a theological consideration God should be at least as stable an existence as the natural world, preferrably more stable.)

[_huckelberry]

Somehow I don't think it's that. Their complaint isn't a pedantic nitpick, it's genuine offense-taking at the notion that Satan shares a familial link with Jesus (and by extension, the rest of us too).

It reminds of the same kind of offense-taking that motivates people to say "I ain't related to no monkeys!".

I have been trying to propose that the offense comes from the sense that instability in the very fundamental nature of God is suggested by saying Jesus and Satan are brothers. I think that is the reason for emotional response. However you may be correct about some other aspects of the emotion. People generally do not enjoy considering being linked to Satan. Perhaps the least likable version of that came from Jesus when in argument he made the observation that some were not following Gods will but instead following the will of their father the devil. I suspect Jesus often thought in terms of spiritual parentage instead of physical parentage.

We may be spiritually born of God in this life.

[_cafe crema]

Jesus referred to God as his Father in the New Testament. Believing humans also refer to God as their Father. That makes humans and Jesus siblings, at least spiritually, by the very definition of the terms (ie: common father = siblings, or at least half siblings). If Satan was likewise created by God, then God is Satan's father too. Given the same father, Satan too is, by definition, our sibling.

I think I understand what café Crema was saying though, which is that according to the trinitarian view, God and Jesus are really the same person, so God isn't Jesus father, therefor trinitarians are upset because Jesus and Satan are really father and son, not brothers?

Somehow I don't think it's that. Their complaint isn't a pedantic nitpick, it's genuine offense-taking at the notion that Satan shares a familial link with Jesus (and by extension, the rest of us too).

It reminds of the same kind of offense-taking that motivates people to say "I ain't related to no monkeys!".

No I didn't explain it well. We are creations not literal offspring, we are invited as adopted children to call God Father. Satan is also a creation of God. And no God and Jesus are not the same person, God, and The Son, (Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages...begotten, not made) and the Holy Spirit are the same being but different persons.

[_consiglieri]

So that belief appeared first in the JoD? If so, can't it be tossed just as easily as other speculations found there? Although seeds for it can be found in the Book of Abraham.

A few years back, a paper appeared in BYU-Studies detailing the historical development of this doctrine in Mormon theology.

https://ojs.lib.BYU.edu/spc/index.php/B ... /7131/6780

Essentially, the author points out that the concept of Jesus as elder spirit brother is found nowhere in the standard works or in any contemporaneously recorded statements by Joseph Smith.

The article also suggests at least one interesting possibility of how the scriptures used to come to this conclusion might be interpreted differently.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_MCB]

Thanks, Consig. I will check that out. A careful reading of Bickmore is no walk in the park, that is for sure.

[_Nightlion]

KevinSim,

I really don't see how you are agreeing with Nightlion or myself at all.

We are NOT Jesus nor can we BE Jesus (or the Father). We will never suffer for the sins of the world like Christ did. We will never live perfect lives or be the perfect example. We will never be the one to be slain and take up our bodies again and become the first resurrection that all others follow afterwards. You simply don't understand the phrase "the only begotten" at all OR who and what Jesus really was. We are not each and every one of us "begotten" of the Father as you seem to think. That is patently absurd when you consider the phrase in the first place. It literally means Jesus is the ONLY begotten of the Father. We are NOT begotten of the Father. We are NOT literally spirit sons and daughters of God at all. We are spirit sons and daughters of Celestial Beings, as we also hope to be one day. And Satan shares that origin with us. We are very unlike God in those ways and when Jesus hopes we will become one with God. It does not mean that we will in turn become God - it MEANS we will share our purpose and intent with God - NOT BE GOD (which we can never be or attain for the obvious reasons I've already pointed out to you).

Although I agree with you completely there are a couple of finer points I would put on this.

Satan was ONLY another called out of the light of truth organized intelligence given the knowledge of an independent sphere of existence by OUR Very Eternal Father. In only that respect are we akin to Satan. He was never born a spirit child of any celestial parents who continue the seeds both in the world and out of the world and......yes.....sex is involved in the continuation of the seeds OUT OF THE WORLD just as it is in the world.

There is a mystery of The Only Begotten of the Father. Since all intelligence obeys the commandments of God to come out of the light of truth there is no distinction in any of it. SO......Jesus was Chosen from the beginning when the Father put his name upon him.....like at his baptism when the Father said."This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." or as the Psalm says:


Psalm 2: 7
7 I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.

We must all become begotten of Christ him having put his name upon us. ONLY Christ is begotten of the Father him having put his name and honor upon the Son.

But the mystery deepens because in order for Christ to be the Chosen and Only Begotten from the beginning and the event at his baptism had not yet happened then it must be counted from the previous generation or two before when the Father had once before glorified his name in Christ as he was about to go once again.


John 12: 28
28 Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

Just as the exalted parents continue on their course both in the world and out of the world so too shall the Son come into the world and overcome the world and gather unto himself all whom the Father has put in his power. Both continue on an eternal round of a course. Hence are they both 'called' gods but there is only one Eternal God.

Any hemlock knots need corndogering? Anyone flying to pieces like glass? Have I succeeded in opening up your minds that you might see?

[_Nightlion]

I always wondered how it was that "an unclean thought" could enter where no "unclean thought" could enter?

Where did the concept of rebellion (and pride) enter into the consciousness of spirits that were in the eternal presence of perfection?

Calling us into independent existence from out of the light of truth is a beginning. Intelligence is only beginning to attempt independent thought. There is no sanctification in being appointed an independent sphere of existence by obeying the commanding word of God's power. Neither is there any gospel ordinance attending the event. It is an event of origination. The first time a plan is put up and the purposes of God are declared man is counted the enemy of God from the beginning in that the nature of man is self interest rather than being one with God and his saints.

There does not seem to be any state of grace or innocence attached to being appointed to independent existence. There is no gestation or childhood about it. I dare say that garbage in garbage out is the reality.

All those who partake of the second death are forced to return to the nothingness of losing all the gifts of God and that includes independent existence. They return from where they were taken. If that intelligence was fully evil going BACK into its native element to serve for a time as a particle in the medium of God's power in all things and through all things it will come out again into another independence slightly adjusted but by and large the same as it went in. Hence a devil in would usually equal a devil out. I expect that God sifts this lode bearing ore body of intelligence in the light of truth eternally seeking to refine it over and over again to make up his jewels.