"the devil...rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power"
Did you ever have a teacher, a coach, a parent, or some other kind of leader that you admired? What made them admirable? Did they impress you with some act of wisdom or example or self-sacrifice? Their sphere of influence seemed to work well, despite challenges and differences, didn't it? What was it that made their class so inspiring, their team so effective and cohesive, their family so loving, their influence so beneficial? I'm sure some of their own individual traits were contagious and some of their ways of influencing were memorable. I'm sure they set high expectations, and their wards achieved great things because they rose to the standard.
But I would submit that some of the honor you hold for them is reciprocal. They trusted you to do the right thing, and supported you as you reached for it. In other words, your efforts--likely combined with the efforts of others--in a good, maybe even unified direction produced the good outcome that is then imputed to the leader. Good teachers hold students accountable for their own learning. Good coaches organize drives for personal achievement, which helps the team. Good parents produce loving and well-adjusted children who become responsible adults because they model love, responsibility, and self-sacrifice, and they find joy in the journey of it all. Good leaders enable productivity, peace, stability, and prosperity in others. It's because you honored their leadership that you and others grew and it redounded to the honor of all.
The famous Robin Williams movie, Dead Poet's Society, demonstrates how students who are previously kept in line by fear and by excessive use of authority learn to love a subject they previously hated, learn to love the teacher who opened their eyes to freedom of expression, and then who could never further be repressed. Don't get me wrong, there are examples of misuse of freedom and loss of freedom in that movie's plot, but the relationship of love for an honored teacher brings students to take a courageous stand in the face of fearful authority, and to demonstrate the power of a true teacher. "O captain, my captain!" the intrepid students exclaimed as they stood on their desks in protest of the unjust firing of their beloved pedagogue.
Now extend this principle to a Being of utter perfection, limitless intelligence, and absolute purity of both love and justice. Can you begin to imagine, now, how the principle of honor becomes a principle of power? Can you begin to imagine how whatever sphere of intelligence prevails must bend and acquiesce when the will of He whose love and justice is absolute expresses it? How His Word, which is the power of His Spirit, is obeyed without compulsion because of the respect Creation owes to its perfect Creator? Because of how all that can act knows that He who acts absolutely deserves alignment to Him? Can you see how working with His Spirit brings power to both Him and you, when you partner with Him for the blessing of others? How honor is connected to true, cooperative power?
And can you also see the crime of Lucifer: pridefully commanding God to bestow unearned honor upon him; seeking his Father's power; seeking to use it to compel obedience? Satan was cast out--this was a literal death sentence, when you understand how removal from the Spirit (read: honor, power, love) is defined as spiritual death from the surrounding verses in this Section. But it should be more meaningful now why that needed to be the punishment: Lucifer's "plan" makes no sense, doesn't work because it can't, and distorts everything about mercy, love, justice, and eternal progression. It's impossible to steal honor (read: power, Spirit, Word), to try is to betray the very principle of it.
Because Christ atoned for our sins, He became the Word He always was--the One worthy of honor, power, and glory; the embodiment of love who can cover our sins and justify the guilty, even exalt the worthy. His is the only name given under heaven whereby we can be saved. Not even Elohim can. Because to excuse us without repentance and covenantal oneness with the Son would shake all creation, betraying His own honor, and He would cease to be God. Christ, our only Advocate with the Father, completed that infinite atonement that allows Him to declare that justice has been fully paid, glory be to the Father, and yet mercy claims those on His right hand.
My pondering on this topic began in my youth with a famous talk by the late, great BYU religion professor Cleon Skousen. His talk, then on tape, is not official church doctrine, but provides a compelling testimony-boosting narrative that helped me put scriptural pieces together along these lines in ways that have sustained my faith throughout challenges and even my periods of separation from God. I encourage all to spend the hour and 20 minutes with him--it's well worth the time.
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