LDS temples are known as “the House of the Lord.” It is the place where God will come if He decides to visit. We also know that no unclean thing can dwell with God.
The endowment ceremony contains a dramatization of the creation of the world, Adam and Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit, and being cast out of the Garden of Eden. Satan tries to fool Adam by creating a counterfeit religion of the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture. True messengers meet Adam, and cast out Satan. Before he leaves, Satan turns to the camera as if he is personally speaking to the audience and declares that if members of the audience do not keep every covenant they make in the temple, they will be under Satan’s power.
Why is Satan making such a bold statement in the house of the Lord, where no unclean thing can enter?
Guy – interesting post…
I had never thought about this before. Got me thinking now!!!!
I always thought that that was the comic relief part of the movie. I can’t help but chuckle over the over dramatics. It’s hard to take that part seriously!!!
I have thought about this many times. What is Satan, or a representation of Satan, doing in the House of The Lord?
Maybe because Satan is still a Child of God even though he, and even us, are not perfect and thus all of us are unclean.
And where do we teach “where no unclean thing can enter?” in the Temple. This line of thinking may be an example of apostasy which starts with misunderstanding and misapplication of doctrine and poor attitude.
We are literally not in the presence of God when we are in the Temple. And what about Moses and Joseph Smith and Paul when they were literally visited by the Lord. How does the doctrine of “where no unclean thing can enter?” apply.
So maybe it is not inappropriate for a representation of Satan to be present in the Temple as it is accomplishing the Lord’s work.
BTW, here is some scripture:
3 Ne 27:19 And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood, …
“kingdom”, not “temple” (see 1 Nephi 15:34 also)
Moses:39 And it came to pass when they heard him, no man laid hands on him; … or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there …
“dwell” should be understood as live forever rather than in the temporary presence. Criminals are brought before the judge but do not dwell there. They are usually cast into jail.
First of all, the temple video and endowment is a reenactment of the fall and the plan of salvation, and so of course Satan has to be there.
The culminating moment of the endowment is that priesthood power is able to drive away Satan by invoking the name of Christ. Priesthood and the savior serve as Satan’s foil and defeat him.
As to Satan’s final line, I think he is lying and the line reveals that he does not understand the power of God or Christ. The atonement means that even when we fall short of our covenants, Satan is powerless over us as long as we repent and strive to live worthy of our covenants.
I always thought it was just more scare tactics.But it’s both true and not true, isn’t it? He does lie in wait, but he cannot ultimately prevail if we call upon Christ and keep our covenants.
I have always taken it as handlewithcare has – just scare tactics, “Be REALLY good or Satan is going to have you in his grasp!”
But I thinking about what Daniel says, that is somewhat of an anti-Christ statement saying we must be perfect or Satan will own us. If that is the case, Satan has us all by definition! Game over!
“He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good. So be good, for goodness sake!”
Oh! That’s someone else, isn’t it?
Satan isn’t “in” the temple. The film representation has him in the telestial world, or the world in which we live. I agree with DO that his final comment is just another one of Satan’s efforts to distort the truth.
As usual, Old Scratch mixes a lie with some truth. If we willfully, flagrantly engage in sin, then we are vulnerable to Satan’s influence (“seized with his strong chains”, “dragged carefully down to hell”, and all the rest). But the implication here is that if we fail to be perfect in keeping our covenants from the time we leave the temple session, then we will be under Satan’s control is an example of how Satan seeks to intimidate and discourage us from progressing “line upon line” to a greater degree of holiness, enabled by the Atonement of Christ. It is when the evil one makes this audacious claim that he is dismissed by the authority of Christ who makes possible forgiveness of sins and strengthening of weaknesses.
Very good article and posts. Actually learned something.
The temple film is a drama. It is an initiatory ritual and like all such initiations, it tells a story to teach concepts. The story is not meant to be taken literally. The Adam and Eve story is figurative, as the temple film suggests. Satan is also not a literal figure.
All these characters – in this particular story anyway – are designed to suggest to your mind the spiritual warfare that goes on within yourself between spiritual man and natural man. This drama plays out in our lives on a daily basis. If you are taking all this literally you are missing the point. This is allegory and metaphor designed to teach you spiritual truths – not history.
Because not all clean things stay clean without effort. So those that are there are clean and able to be there listening do need to be reminded to stay clean after they leave the temple or they’ll somehow be in some dark power.
Also…it is all symbolic. So…ya. It’s symbolic to teach us something.
People have told me they have heard accounts of those that play Satan in the live sessions have expressed what a spiritual experience that is to play that role. Kind of ironic.
I have also believed Satan is the father of lies, so we can’t believe what he says because he is trying to deceive us. So…why tell us truthfully that we must be 100% perfect or we’re in his power…when, likely, we can not live up to everything given us in the temples, but it is OK. We have a savior. Satan would rather have us give up than believe in the Atonement when we are imperfect.
Satan wants us to live in fear. God wants us to live in love. Ironically, I dismiss his bold warning. I would take it more serious if God turned to the camera and gave us that warning. Isn’t that what we are supposed to learn? Let’s put our trust in what God tells us and do as Moses did and tell Satan to get behind us.
What Daniel and teelea said. 100% of temple attendees will break a temple covenant at some point in their lives. Satan claims to be the god of this world and then asserts his dominion over covenant breakers. The great day of his power comes after Adam and Eve leave Eden and are vulnerable to the consequences of bad choices.
What he doesn’t or won’t say is that the true God provided a savior to redeem the sinful. Satan would rather see us turn from God after a mistake and never come back. God wants us to grow and, as we admit that we must approach Him in humility to understand our most important covenants, return to His presence.
It’s a metaphor (as Broadway would teach us).
The temple is also about TRUTH, and there is truth, hard as it is to face, about Satan (the Adversary). It should be kept in mind that he was once Lucifer, by legend second only to Jehovah (Jesus Christ), and how our Father in Heaven must still weep at the loss of His *son*, as He does about any of *us* that is lost. Portraying Satan in the temple ceremony does not in any way defile or profane the temple, truth by definition cannot do that.
I find it interesting that *he* is portrayed as hip, cool, sauve, etc…not the *other* guy in the red suit that in the Bugs Bunny version of a Christmas Carol that Bugs (masquerading as a Christmas ghost) threatens to take Yosemite Sam (Ebenezer Scrooge) to see.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugs_Bunny%27s_Christmas_Carol
It is well stated that life brings us the same problem over and over until we solve it. The temple provides an enhanced version of this system. i.e. If we mess up in our covenants, we get an additional “messenger” to deal with, to kind of corner us into repentance. Joseph Smith alluded to this – see D&C 82:21. Some were even turned over to the “buffetings” of Satan as a “scourge” to get them to straighten up. We don’t do this any more as we really don’t read, nor follow the scriptures or Joseph Smith very well. Enjoy your buffets.
Why is Satan making such a bold statement in the house of the Lord, where no unclean thing can enter?
If you were Satan, you would have done it too. If you were Satan, you would want to do anything that God wanted you not to do. But there is more to it than that.
In the book of Job it tells us this:
6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?(Job 38:6-7)
My interpretation of this was that Job was there and saw that creation and so were the rest of us. Some saw the giving of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil to Adam and Eve. This made Lucifer think that he had the right to do it also. He might have seen that happen many times. We also might have seen such things many previous times, but in our case, with our Adam and Eve, it was much different. In other worlds the fruit not given by a devil. It’s very possible their weren’t any devils. And the Father would never have chosen a devil to give the fruit when He had already chosen Himself to give it. Satan had no authority whatsoever to do what he did.
What did this cause? The earth got telestialized and most of us will have to go through that kind of earthly probation instead of a total terrestrial probation like it could have been and will be for those in the Millenium. Weeds came, and a deadly birth for women. Both will exist for the entire telestial condition of the earth. The serpent was given a very terrible curse which was not just to that particular animal but to all it’s descendants for, at least, the entire telestial earth, if anyone should care about that.
And what has happened because of that? The members of the Lord’s Church
have made up totally idiotic interpretations to help poor Heavenly Father clean up His mess. Non-members have done much better by saying bad Adam and Eve in which they were right. After all, even though Adam and Eve didn’t understand anything, they did understand one thing. They understood, very clearly, the commandment given to them by the Father.
As for the Mormons, I think they should just have stayed out of it.
As for the devil, neither he nor his angels are allowed in the temples and so the steeling that takes place inside the temples are done by the evil spirits that were presented to the bodies at the conception of the bodies which were given them.
So Satan gets in there anyway through his mortal servants. My temple in St.Paul, Minnesota was cleaned last week. It was a surprise to me that the crystals of the chandeliers are taken off, one by one, soaked in soap water, rinsed, and dried. More work than I can imagine. At the end of the cleaning, it was noticed later that two of the crystals were missing.
The angels of Satan are not just spirits. They’re mortal Mormons with temple recommends.
I think you need to pay attention to the temple endowment as a whole, not just take one line out of context and make assumptions about it. This part of the endowment used to freak me out and it DID feel like a scare tactic . . . Until I payed close attention to what happened directly following Satan speaking those lines. We know Satan is a liar and the temple endowment teaches us that the power that comes to us from God is greater than any threatened power that Satan says he has. No where in the gospel will you find the teaching that you have to “live up to every covenant”. Our weaknesses, sins and shortcomings (i.e. our inability to live the gospel perfectly) is the whole basis of why we need a Savior. Our power and protection comes from living our lives focused on him and relying on his mercy and grace.