From her book ‘Spiritual Lightening’. . . How the power of the Gospel can enlighten minds and lighten burdens, M. Catherine Thomas shares from several sources:
Satan . . . wanted to deprive man of his agency, for if man had his agency, it would seem that necessarily the Lord would be subject to him [man]; as is stated, “For it behooveth the Great Creator that He suffereth himself to become subject unto man in the flesh, and die for all men, that all men might become subject unto him” [2 Nephi 9:5-7].
The Lord being thus subjected to man, He would be placed in the lowest position to which it was possible for Himself to descend; because of the weakness, the corruption and the fallibility of human nature. But if man had his agency, this necessarily would be the result, and hence, as it is said, Jesus descended below all things that he might be raised above all things; and hence also, while Satan’s calculation was to deprive man of his agency and to prevent himself or the Only Begotten from being subject this humiliation and infamy, the Lord’s plan was to give man his agency, provide a redeemer, and suffer that redeemer to endure all the results incidental to such a position, and thus, by offering himself as a substitute and conquering death, hell, and the grave, he would ultimately subjugate all things unto himself, and at the same time make it possible for man to obtain an exaltation that he never could have had without his agency. (The Mediation and Atonement [Salt Lake City: Deseret News Co., 1882], p. 142.)
Whatever the issues, a terrible war ensued. President Brigham Young taught with respect to that war that “the Lord Almighty suffered this schism in heaven to see what his subjects would do preparatory to their coming to this earth (JD 14:93). It seems the Lord allowed the conflict as a sifting of and a preparation for the spirit children. We gained experience in that conflict that would work to our advantage in our mortal probation.
Out of the two-thirds of the spirit children who supported the Lord Jesus Christ’s messiahship, it seems likely that a smaller group distinguished themselves by their valiance in the War in Heaven over issues concerning the plan of salvation (see Alma 13:3) and by their exceeding faith in the premortal promises of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that this valiant group became the covenant people, or premortal Israel. Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained: “Israel is an eternal people. She came into being as a chosen and separate congregation before the foundations of the earth were laid; she was a distinct and a peculiar people in preexistence, even as she is in this sphere. Her numbers were known before their mortal birth, and the very land surface of the earth was ‘divided to the nations [for] their inheritance’ (Deuteronomy 32:8.” (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, [Salt Lake City: 1985], pp. 510-11.)
