Does Satan Have Priesthood?

Q.

In the endowment it talks about Satan having power and priesthoods. Can I find this anywhere in the Scriptures. I know there are a couple that talk about Satan sealing us into damnation, but I was questioning the doctrine behind that?

A.

Firstly we would have to look at what priesthood actually is. Priesthood is a method of showing that a person has authority for them to do something on someone else's behalf. Concerning priesthood D&C 121:37 states,

"...Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man."

So priesthood is authority.

Concerning such authority even Jesus Christ himself didn't automatically assume rights to act in the name of God.

"No one takes this honor upon himself, he must be called by God, as was Aaron also. Thus also Christ didn't glorify himself by making himself a high priest, but [it was done by] the one who said to him, 'You are my son, today I have begotten you."

So Christ received his authority from the Father.

For us to know that the ordinances we do are correctly done there must be this line of authority. It must be accompanied by the "keys" of the priesthood. This means the automatic right to revelation from God in conducting the duties of the office in the priesthood. Thus the purpose of priesthood is organizational. It is used to run the true church or the extension of that through the father into the home.

When we talk of power IN the priesthood we are speaking as when we talk of power in a power cord. The power cord doesn't really have any power itself. When we plug it in to a socket we then get power in the power cord. If we live correctly we will have power in the priesthood through our faith and love.

So when Satan talks of having some priesthood he isn't talking about having some real power. He is talking of a false priesthood. It is just an illusionary copy of what God is doing. Satan has no power as he has no love. He can only wait for our fear of him etc and try to use that against us.