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“22 But there is a law given, and a punishment affixed, and a repentance granted; which repentance, mercy claimeth; otherwise, justice claimeth the creature and executeth the law, and the law inflicteth the punishment; if not so, the works of justice would be destroyed, and God would cease to be God.“ Alma 42:22
God is omnipotent, all knowing, all powerful and all loving. That doesn’t mean that he can do anything. There are certain conditions which God can’t simply ignore and overrule. In the book of Alma, chapter 42 we read about justice and mercy:
“ 24 For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved.
25 What, do ye suppose that mercy can rob justice? I say unto you, Nay; not one whit. If so, God would cease to be God.”
There are laws which are “above” God. Or more appropriately, God is God because of these laws: justice, mercy and free agency.
Justice
God has to be just. He is the ultimate judge. He has to decide who is guilty and who is innocent. He has to bring justice to cases, which require correct outcome - those who have been afflicted to receive resolution and those who have failed to obey the law receive punishment (or more like don’t receive a reward).
Even Satan obeys that law. He knows that if people obey that they will receive a reward and if they don’t obey that they will not receive anything. That’s why Lucifer’s idea was that all people will obey and will be saved - receive the reward. This who don’t - will die and that’s it.
Mercy
God has to be merciful. His son, Jesus Christ, died for us, for our sins. He was the ultimate sacrifice and God cannot ignore that, cannot say that this is not enough to forgive us. God obeys this act of selfless offering of payment for our debt. The payment is enough and satisfies the justice. We have done many sins and because God is just, he should not give us any reward (we don’t deserve it). However, God is merciful, it was part of the plan that we try things, sin, try again and succeed... and sin again. Therefore, God prepared a Saviour, from the beginning, who will be the perfect, infinite payment for our debt of sins, so we can come before God and say that we accepted Christ as our payer, then God, obeying the law of mercy, have to accept this payment and let us receive the eternal reward.
Free Agency
The most important difference between the two plans was that - the free choice. In fact, before the plan to be implemented, God gave us freedom to decide for ourselves, which plan we want to do. He obeyed this law and continues to obey it now (otherwise he will cease to be God and we will not have free choice). Lucifer did want to give free agency - he didn’t obey this law. In fact, on the contrary, his main goal and plan is to take away our free agency and make us captive to him.