As a pre-mission teenager studying at Brigham Young University, I took a number of religion classes. It has been satisfying to look over some of the papers I wrote for those classes and to see how my understanding and writing style have progressed. While this text certainly doesn’t represent my best work, I thought I’d include it here just for fun.
The Book of Mormon writers describe Satan, “the author of all sin” (Hel. 6:30), in such a way that their readers can draw a direct contrast between the father of lies and Jesus the Christ. Satan is thus presented as a foil for the Savior. This essay will first explore the methods and results of Satan’s tenacious efforts to destroy the Lehite civilization, as presented in the Book of Mormon text, and will then show how the authors later introduced Jesus Christ as possessing attributes exactly opposite of Lucifer for purposes of contrast.
Satan employed essentially three mechanisms in his persistent attempt to undermine the Lehites’ happiness: deceit, destructive human organizations, and disunity. Through these methods, the fallen one tried to undermine the Gospel as preached by Jesus Christ on the American continent some years later.
Dishonesty, one of the devil’s hallmarks, was perhaps the most solid wedge he drove into the trunk of Lehite civilization, hoping desperately to split the mighty people until they remained only fragments of their former selves.
“He did go about spreading rumors and contentions upon all the face of the land,” the account reports, “that he might harden the hearts of the people against that which was good and against that which should come [referring, presumably, to the Savior of the World]” (Hel. 16:22).
The result of Satan’s efforts is significant, and illustrates well the principle that, no matter what physical sign is given, doubt can always disrupt faith unless true conversion — through a spiritual manifestation — is secured
“Notwithstanding the signs and the wonders . . . Satan did get great hold upon the hearts of the people . . .” (Hel. 16:23) until he “did blind their eyes and lead them away to believe that the doctrine of Christ was a foolish and a vain thing” (3 Nephi 2:2).
Imagine the sign! A new star appeared in heaven, just as Samuel had prophesied, and yet still the people allowed themselves to be subject to him who, before the world was, sought with avarice to be their despotic king; even with the sign, they still bowed to him who devilishly sought to control them.
How did Satan influence the Lehites so profoundly only a few short years after God gave the sign? He placed false ideas of doubt — “rumors and contentions” — into the minds of God’s children, so that they would forget that their elder brother had just entered the world and would soon visit them in His resurrected glory.
“Fear or doubt,” the Prophet Joseph Smith stated, “existing in the mind, precludes the possibility of the exercise of faith in Him for life and salvation.”1
And yet, even with his lies, he could not gain complete control over all the people; he needed human agents, mortal devils, who would do his bidding. Such were the Gadianton robbers, those diabolical secretists who ultimately destroyed the premessianical Lehite civilization.
“Satan,” the account reports, “did stir up the hearts of the more part of the Nephites, insomuch that they did unite with those bands of robbers” (Hel. 6:21) until “they did obtain the sole management of the government, insomuch that they did trample under their feet . . . the humble followers of God” (Hel 6:39).
The Gadiantons delivered a doctrine of destruction, a marked contrast to the emancipating message of the Savior. They taught murder (Hel 2:3), thievery and lust for power (Hel. 2:8), secrecy (Hel 6:22), and disobedience to laws (Hel. 6:24), and also caused the parents of those who joined their band great sorrow (3 Nephi 1:28-29). How interesting that Satan was unable to control the people through his own power! How intriguing that he needed human agents to do his bidding! So it is even today, for God’s children often mistakenly identify the voice of the adversary as only the voice of their fellow men, through which the devil secretly speaks.
Ultimately, the efforts of the archdemon seemed successful, for the government collapsed and the people “became tribes and leaders of tribes” (3 Nephi 7:3) “because they did yield themselves unto the power of Satan” (3 Nephi 7:5). Through his persistent efforts, Lucifer destroyed a mighty civilization and converted a people who only a few years earlier had been so unified that even the Lamanites and the Nephites had “free intercourse one with another, to buy and to sell, and to get gain, according to their desire” (Hel. 6:8) into a people who were separated and isolated from each other. By breaking God’s children up, Satan encouraged “a great contention in the land, insomuch that . . . there were but few righteous men among them” (3 Nephi 7:7) because, without unity, they could not rely on each other for support when temptation threatened.
The creed of Christ is exactly opposite to the doctrines of the devil. Where Satan preached deceit, Christ offered the greatest truth; where the devil proclaimed destruction, Jesus announced the peace that comes only from His precepts; where the deceiver proposed disunity, the Savior appealed for solidarity.
Satan lied to the Lehites in an attempt to dissuade them from the true doctrine. By spreading rumors and contentions, he hoped to place doubt and fear into their hearts, thus leading them to believe that the signs had rational explanations. The Savior, however, persuaded the people through truth rather than falsity; indeed, through the greatest truth. Rather then distracting the Lehites with lies about worldly contentions, the Savior offered them a celestial perspective. He taught that, if they were righteous, they could “be called the children of God” (3 Nephi 12:9) and might “inherit the kingdom of God” (3 Nephi 11:38). How would the world differ from its present state if its inhabitants would recognize that truth instead of the so-called truth that Satan offers? What would become of war and contention, the motivations for which always have the devil’s lies at their roots, if men would recognize that they are all God’s children, brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ?
The Savior also taught against the doctrines of Gadianton, authored by Satan’s own hand. Lucifer encouraged murder, but Christ taught that “whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment of God” (3 Nephi 12:21). The devil taught thievery, but Christ taught that men ought to do good, that their “light[s] [might] so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (3 Nephi 12:16). The deceiver preached a lust for power, but Jesus taught that “the meek . . . shall inherit the earth” (3 Nephi 12:5). Obedience (3 Nephi 12:20), not defiance; frankness (3 Nephi 12:37), not secrecy; love (3 Nephi 11:29), not cruelty — one by one, the Savior of the world refuted each of Satan’s precepts.
Jesus Christ likewise corrected the disunity Satan had spawned. For two hundred years after His visit to the New World, the Lehites enjoyed peace and oneness, free from the Gadianton robbers and from class distinctions. What a contrast to the society the deceiver created, where the people lived in tribal fragments! The words spoken to Joseph Smith some eighteen centuries later ring true in this context as well.
“If ye are not one,” the Lord counseled, “ye are not mine” (D&C 38:27).
The community of saints that Christ would establish, if His followers would let Him, is a self-sustaining entity. When one saint falters in his conviction, his brothers can comfort him and bring him back into the fold, thus preventing his loss and maintaining the unity of the group. Thus the pledge made among the early saints of this dispensation on the January 1, 1836 in Kirtland.
“We covenanted with each other,” the account reads, “in the sight of God, and the holy angels, and the brethren, to strive thenceforward to build each other up.”2
Satan hopes to disrupt that harmony by breaking the people into fragments so that they cannot support one another. He would encourage disunity, but Christ engenders oneness.
Just under 50 percent of the occurrences of the word “Satan” in the Book of Mormon appear in the book of 3 Nephi or the book of Helaman. Why the unusual concentration in this section of the text, surrounding the tale of the Savior’s glorious visit to the Lehites? The answer seems obvious: the authors hoped their readers would recognize the contrast between He who has risen above all and he who has fallen just as profoundly. They hoped that the readers of the Book of Mormon would recognize that to follow Satan’s doctrines is to invite destruction and disunity. We must follow their exact antithesis: the constructive and unifying force embodied in the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Smith, Joseph Jr. Lectures on Faith. Compiled by Nels B. Lundwall. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, n.d. Pg. 43
2. Smith, Joseph Jr. History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Edited by B. H. Roberts. 2d ed., rev. 7 vols. Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, 1932 51. 2:353