The statement was made on another thread that sin is destroyed by destroying sinners. This shows a misunderstanding of the fundamental issues, which is what this new topic will discuss.

Sin originated in heaven in a sinless being. This shows that it is possible for sin to arise where there are no sinners. Hence removing sinners is not guaranteed to remove sin. In fact, inspiration tells us that taking this approach would have made the problem worse:

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By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them. At the beginning of the great controversy, the angels did not understand this. Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished; but it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin. A doubt of God's goodness would have remained in their minds as evil seed, to produce its deadly fruit of sin and woe. (DA 764)

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Sin could only be eliminated by demonstrating its true character. If God had acted prematurely to allow the full result of sin to be reaped, it would not have been understood that it was sin that was causing destruction. God would have been suspected as the cause, which would have led to God being “served” out of fear rather than love. “Served” is in quotes because it is impossible to serve God out of fear.

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The man who attempts to keep the commandments of God from a sense of obligation merely – because he is required to do so – will never enter into the joy of obedience. He does not obey.(COL 97)

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A sullen submission to the will of the Father will develop the character of a rebel. (ST 7/22/97)

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This principle was shown in the Pharisees, who served God out of a sense of legal obligation. Their character was shown in they way they treated Christ.

More recently this attitude has been shown in our own church at the 1888 General Conference session. The Spirit of Prophesy tells us that had Christ been present physically those who rejected the message brought by Jones and Waggoner (which was just about everybody) would have treated Him in a similar manner as the Jews did. That is, they would have mocked, scourged, and crucified Him had they had had the opportunity.

When the true character of God is misunderstood, the one deceived develops the character of a rebel. When God sends light, that light is confused with darkness, because of false conceptions of God’s character.

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From the beginning it has been Satan's studied plan to cause men to forget God, that he might secure them to himself. Hence he has sought to misrepresent the character of God, to lead men to cherish a false conception of Him. The Creator has been presented to their minds as clothed with the attributes of the prince of evil himself,--as arbitrary, severe, and unforgiving,--that He might be feared, shunned, and even hated by men. Satan hoped to so confuse the minds of those whom he had deceived that they would put God out of their knowledge. Then he would obliterate the divine image in man and impress his own likeness upon the soul; he would imbue men with his own spirit and make them captives according to his will.” (5T 738)

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If Satan can confuse men to view God in a false light, the result is the character of a rebel will be formed in those who believe his lies. Hence God can not eliminate God by eliminating sinners, because those left behind will have a false view of God’s character, and sin will remain ready to spring into action.

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It was God's purpose to place things on an eternal basis of security, and in the councils of heaven it was decided that time must be given for Satan to develop the principles which were the foundation of his system of government. He had claimed that these were superior to God's principles. Time was given for the working of Satan's principles, that they might be seen by the heavenly universe. (DA 759)

But not so when the great controversy shall be ended. Then, the plan of redemption having been completed, the character of God is revealed to all created intelligences. The precepts of His law are seen to be perfect and immutable. Then sin has made manifest its nature, Satan his character. Then the extermination of sin will vindicate God's love and establish His honor before a universe of beings who delight to do His will, and in whose heart is His law. (DA 764)

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Notice it’s the extermination of sin that brings things to an end.

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In all who submit to His power the Spirit of God will consume sin. But if men cling to sin, they become identified with it. Then the glory of God, which destroys sin, must destroy them. (DA 107)

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It is not that God destroys sin by destroying sinners, but sinners are destroyed when God destroys sin. This distinction must be understood, otherwise one is liable to view God as the author of sin, suffering and death, rather than Satan, and the “evil seed” of doubt will remain.

Sin originated in heaven in a sinless being. This shows that it is possible for sin to arise where there are no sinners. Hence removing sinners is not guaranteed to remove sin. In fact, inspiration tells us that taking this approach would have made the problem worse:

Sinners would be removed when God thinks the time is okay, where no living beings could judge him as a cruel and savage God that ruled with iron hands. And when this happened “the character of God is revealed to all created intelligences. The precepts of His law are seen to be perfect and immutable. Then sin has made manifest its nature, Satan his character. Then the extermination of sin will vindicate God's love and establish His honor before a universe of beings who delight to do His will, and in whose heart is His law.”

Now, there is a guarantee that sin would no more arise because every one now knew what sin is and what the consequences are.

You have seen it from a different angle.

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Notice it’s the extermination of sin that brings things to an end.
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In all who submit to His power the Spirit of God will consume sin. But if men cling to sin, they become identified with it. Then the glory of God, which destroys sin, must destroy them. (DA 107)

It is not that God destroys sin by destroying sinners, but sinners are destroyed when God destroys sin. This distinction must be understood, otherwise one is liable to view God as the author of sin, suffering and death, rather than Satan, and the “evil seed” of doubt will remain.

Unquote.

I understand this phrase as:

By eliminating sin, sinners are eliminated, destroyed, die the 2nd death.

I have said that God must kill sinners in order to eliminate sin forever from his universe.

Is dying the 2nd death a natural result of sinning? No, it is the wage of sin; it is an act of God to eliminate sin. Dying the 1st death is a natural result on account of Adam’s transgression, but dying the 2nd death is not a natural result of sinning, it is an act of God to eliminate sin.

Therefore, I rather accept the view that by killing sinners in the lake of fire, sin is eliminated, rather than by eliminating sin, sinners are eliminated.

Does this view give a wrong picture of God as Satan’s intention? I think no, because before this God had shown his love by sending Jesus Christ to die on earth in order we might live and through his Spirit we might be changed back in the image ad likeness of God, be freed from the power and dominion of sin.

Those who would not accept Christ and walk after the Spirit would remain in a life in sin, where the wage is the 2nd death, an act of God that destroys sinners in the lake of fire.

In His love

James S.

This might be a good place to start at the very beginning. The great controversy theme is some of the oldest writings we have. From cities destroyed around the time of Abraham we find a well-developed ancient tradition, and if I recall correctly, we find aspects of it in the earliest writings about 3,000 BC.

The earliest is the story of how all the stars were gods, and one star, the brightest, wanted to over throw El as the most high god, and set him self in the northernness part of the sky and be on the very dome of heaven, but fell down to the horizon. The words of this story was copied and can be found in Isaiah 14: 12-15.

We also have the Canaanite Baal myth, in which Baal was the Son of El, who fought against the 7-headed dragon, a sea monster, who was the chief god of the sea, chaos, and evil. The serpent garbed Baal in the heal, killing him, Anat, Baal's sister and wife, went to El and asked to rise Baal from the dead, and after Baal was dead for 3 days, Anat put together his remains, and said "Baal, son of El, come forth, your father calls you" and Baal rose from the dead, gave the sea monster a deadly would to the head, and good won over evil.

But the gods who surround El's thrown did not know about Baal's raising, and they were still crying, with their heads hanging down in sorrow. As Baal ascended from earth to heaven, upon approaching heaven the words came out: Lift up your heads all ye gods, and be lifted up ye everlasting ones and the king of glory shall come in." The gods thinking Baa is still dead ask in wonder "Who is this king of glory?" to which the answer comes back "Baal strong and mighty, Baal mighty in battle...Baal of hosts, he is the King of Glory"

Before this time people would worship El in a tent, but now that Baal got the victory over evil, the tent was changed for a temple to worship Baal.

By the time writing started in about 3,000 BC the El worship was ancient, and the Baal worship had already become an established and mature religion and ancient religion.

The Bible made many references to these myths, but cleaned up details, such as El, (God) not being the sum total of the forces of nature, but in the Bible El is outside of nature, eternal, and the creator of everything. The sea monster was not a god, but merely a creation of El, and in it's own way a servant of El to fulfill God's purposes. And it was not Baal who was the victor over evil, but the God of Israel. And unlike Baal, Yahweh gains the victory not by killing Leviathan by force, but by merely having a pressence that scares Leviathan to death when Leviathan sees him. (This view of the distruction of the wicked is repeatedly presented in the Psalms)

This thought was such a part of the ancient world, that Bible writers took it for granted that we would know these things. So now we know that there are so many Bible passages referring to this that we had no idea about prior to the archaeological discoveries this past century.

As we look at this from the perspective Mrs. White and Adventism, we find Mrs. White pointing us to these very issues and this philosophy becomes the crowning of Mrs. White's work:

She starts out with a God of love, being completely infinite, outside of time and space, and the creator of time and space and everything.

Now finite minds cannot comprehend this infinite God, so for Mrs. White, God is not only outside of time and space, but also inside of time and space.

This personal finite aspect of God, even before she used more Trinitarian terms, still had 3 simultaneous manifestations. First as the almighty ruler and creator of the universe, second as a personal friend, one of us, to the angels was an angel, to people was a person, (and we can assume from this that to the beings on the other planets, he was one of them) until he one day took on the last form that he will keep through out the rest of eternity, that of the human, Jesus. Both of these manifestations objective, and finally as the personality that guides our subjective thoughts and mind, and experience. All three were needed to help us to understand and have a relationship with this infinite God.

God rules the universe through the law of Self Sacrificing love. This is God's law, no more, no less.

But we can ask, "What does self sacrificing love mean" so it is divided into 2 great principles, to love God supremely, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Well, how do we do this? This gets broken down into 10 commandments. In the most popular version in Exodus 20 we find the first third telling us how to love God supremely (the work of God the Father), the last third telling us how to love our neighbor as our self (The work of the Holy Spirit) and the middle third tying the two ideas together through resting in a relationship and friendship with God (The ministry of Jesus).

Then there are everyday applications to life, and while the law of God is absolute, these applications are not absolute.

God is the only source of life, and if we choose to be separate from this being, we cannot exist. Life is borrowed and and comes only from maintaining a righteousness by faith relationship with God through his law of self sacrificing love. If we do not choose to accept this we cannot exist.

God, being a God of love could not force us to love. We have to be free to love, and if we are free to love, we are also free not to love. Of all the beings that God created the odds of one choosing not to love were great indeed. It turned out to be Lucifer, but if not Lucifer, it probably would have been another.

For who knows how long, probably billions of years the universe was being created, and the beings had a wonderful life. But as Lucifer was up front in worship services and saw people bowing to the thrown, he began asking some questions, and these were excellent questions, questions that needed to be answered. He wondered why God was worshiped, but not him.

But sadly Lucifer did not look for answers. God even sat down and explained it to him. Had Lucifer looked for the answers, he would have come to an understanding of the horror of sin, and that would have deepened his love for God, and he could have become professor of evil at New Jerusalem Union college, helping others see the answer to these questions. But sadly he refused to listen, and instead began to spread 3 lies about God.

The first lie was that God really was not God, but a cruel unjust, unfair, arbitrary tyrant with a natural start, just like the rest of us. God was not the source of life and therefore God has no right to place a law over us.

This lie implied that life had a natural start and one being worked his way to perfection, then the second worked his way to perfection, and when the third reached perfection, they got together and claimed to be the creator God and the source of life, and to keep us from reaching perfection they imposed the law of self sacrificing love and righteousness by faith, where we are too busy trusting God and loving each other, that we do not have time to work our way to perfection, thus God stays God. This first lie is against the being on the thrown, God the Father, in modern Christian terms.

As Lucifer began spreading this lie, the angels and beings on the other planets wanted to find answers to their questions. So Lucifer accused their questioning of God to be a sin, and that God was going to get them for their sin. This second lie says that if the first lie was false, and that God is God, that God still has a problem. God claims to be both just and merciful, and that it is impossible for God to be both, he has to choose one or another, and since he is a tyrant, he will choose justice. Thus if anyone sins they have to die, God cannot forgive them, and in fact God has to kill them by imposing a death sentence upon them. Unless you can afflict your body, or straighten out your own life or some other way of appeasing him to change his mind. This lie attacks God as our personal friend, God the Son.

The third lie is that if God does forgive us, that he is being unjust because he cannot heal us from sin, thus mercy destroys justice, so everyone will be saved, or at least those who say the magic words. The death of Jesus is merely a balancing of the books; God can do no more for us. This attacks God as leading our lives, the Holy Spirit.

As Lucifer was questioning God, God tried to work with him. As Lucifer crossed the line of sin, had he faced the natural consequences, it would have looked like God was a tyrant who did not allow questioning, and was going to kill you if you did not toe the line. Beings would shape up, but out of fear, and fear is not love, thus they would die too, and the universe would have been destroyed. Thus God kept Lucifer and the 1/3 of the angels that joined him, artificially alive to show the development of evil, in contrast to his love.

We see this in the book of Job. We understand what is going on in the book because of the begining and looking at the Satan. But to the ancient world, they understood the consept of the Devil by the Leviathan. In the last few chapters of Job The Lord comes and shows that he has all power, and after making it clear that he has all power, he turns his attention to the Leviathan and points out that you can not use mere force and power in fighting the devil, that you need a different method and that is what God is using, and Job realized that what he was going through was part of the method God was using to defeat sin. The book of Job is the story of St. Jesus and the Dragon.

At first God was still working to try to win back Lucifer. God created a special world to show Lucifer that he was truly the creator, and not just knowledgeable as to when nature would create a new planet, and merely to pretend to create.

We find some key places where Lucifer had some key moments of decisions which could have lead to repentance or an even more hardening of his heart. In one Mrs. White pictures Lucifer as coming back saying that he was wrong, and wanted to come back, but God said that it was too late and cried with him, and Lucifer left threatening to destroy the earth.... Now getting beyond a superficial reading, let's think some here. We find sometimes God did say something to see what the person would do... He would tell Moses that he would make a greater nation out of the Moshites, he told the Canaanites woman that the children's food should not be cast to the dogs. These statements were to bring about an action from the person to respond to God's mercy, and to show that they depended on his mercy.

Getting back to this story in Mrs. White's writings, we basically see God agreeing with Satan, that justice had destroyed mercy, and that Satan cannot come back. Satan should have said "No Lord, that is not true, you know that is only the lie that I was spreading and I was wrong about that, and I know that you can redeem me" in which case God would have thrown his arms around Satan and reinstated him as Lucifer. But Satan refused to say that he was wrong. In stead he basically got up saying "I knew I was right all along" and gave himself more fully to the rebellion.

Another key moment is, when Satan was experimenting with Sin, God could let Satan play some with it, and hurt himself and want to leave it alone. But when he deceived Adam and Eve, he was involving innocent children, and this act would make Satan a hardened criminal.

As for humans, in the Garden of Eden, Eve fell to Satan's first lie, where Satan was saying that if she ate the fruit that she too could be God, and Adam fell to the second lie. Adam forgot that God loved Eve even more than he did, and that Jesus would have come and die just for her. That God was working out the issues of the Satan's lies for the universe to understand, and that in that working out, Eve would have been included.

Ellen White pictures the Bible and history being how God deals with these 3 lies. Old Testament focusing on the first two, which were fully answered by the death of Christ. And while Christ's death also answered the 3rd lie too, Satan twisted the third lie to make Christ's death look like it supported the third lie. This the issues continue for humans, but the other angels and unfallen worlds at the death of Jesus clearly understand it, and fully sided with God, Christ's death saved them too.

Some critics of Mrs. White point to a story where she says that she saw Jesus going to God 3 times asking to die for us before God gave the OK. Well, again let's go for more than a superficial reading. First of all, the Bible has much of the ancient poetry of parallel events, and the poetic structure we now know would expect the 3 times that Jesus asked for the cup to pass from him, to be the parallel to 3 askings to drink it, yet it is a missing line. But let's forget this, and say that this parallel line is not need. Jesus being the personal aspect of God would be the spokesperson for all three members of the trinity, and would speak once for each of them to show that the entire trinity wanted the plan of salvation. Second it would have to be asked 3 times as it is asking to save us from each of Satan's 3 lies individually.

Many of the 3's in the Bible deal with the issues of the 3 aspects of God: Creator who we awe, Friend who we feel comfortable with, Guide who impresses our minds, and Satan's 3 lies about them. The 3 temptations of Christ are here, the 3 beasts of Revelation, and the 3 angel's messages, and as mentioned earlier, the 3 parts of the 10 commandments as presented in Exodus 20.

We find in Revelation 12 - 13, the dragon from the sea, spiritualism, which Mrs. White sees as the idea of "There is no right or wrong except for what we thing is right or wrong," " live as you please, for heaven is your home" "Do your own thing" Freedom at the expense of order. We are the gods of our own life. But we end up following our feelings, and our will power is destroyed.

The beast is any organized group in place of God, the opposite extreme of the dragon, it is law by force. Don't think, just obey. (that is why it can be applied to the Papacy of the dark ages) Again the will is destroyed by letting others think for us.

The third beast is we as individuals surrendering up will power to one of the other two options that Satan gives us (Thus it can be applied to a nation that encourages the individual, or a religious movement that starts out encouraging the individual to follow the dictates of conscious and to follow the Bible to the best of there understanding, but who ends up supporting the other 2 beasts)

The investigative atonement is just letting the universe see if Christ's death is able to change our lives, and with the explosion of Bible knowledge, and the Bible becoming alive, does it change us? Yes, there is a "Last Generation" but a false tradition had developed in Adventism that has been unjustly been pushed on Mrs. White. That the last generation perfection she predicted is qualitatively different from before. No, it is not qualitatively, but quantitatively. In history you find a couple of people, such as John Wesley, who gave their whole lives to Christ. Maybe people know more about the following suggestions than I do: Mother Teresa is a possibility, as well as Anwar Saddat, People whose lives wanted to learn about and share the Love of God to the world no matter what they faced for their faith. Mrs. White's perfection is that one day in the future, there will be more Enochs, Pauls and John Wesley's than ever before in history. People who want to stand for the right because it is right.

It is through knowledge of what Lucifer's three questions are and their full understanding and a full answer. Too often we want solutions that still hold open implications to Satan's deceptions, which leaves the door opening for sin to arise again. But all that God does right up to how the sinners are finally distroyed will give clear and full understanding answers to the three deceptions of Satan, the nature of God, the nature of our relationship to God and the purpose and perpetatuity of God's law. Views of the distruction of the wicked that support one or more of Satan's lies, or which simply is a repeat of Baals methods of the distruction of sin (especially since we have the Biblical texts that contrasts Baal's methods to Yahweh's) are unacceptable.

For further study please read Patararchs and Prophets: "The Orgin of Evil"; Great Controversy "Why was Sin Permitted"; Desire of Ages: "It is Finished"; some of the earlier writings that developed into these chapters, and numerous articles that Mrs. White wrote while developing those chapters, and also Sanctuary and the Atonement by the Biblical Research Committee, 1981, the last four chapters (the theological studies section)

Pretty robust stuff, Kevin, thanks.
I concur with alot of it (the third to the last paragraph not included) and I see that you have focused on God's princples of operation quite well, to my eyes.

It disquiets me how so many thinking Adventists could promote the human concept that God uses the fruitless notion that killing stops killers, lying stops liars, or arguing stops arguers,lawsuits stop law-breakers.

It's as though more of the evil methods will cancel out the least powerful or skilled using the same cruel methods.

The cowboy in the white hat is good; the cowboy in the black hat is bad, even though both use the same weapons of force.

It is the theory of the Cross plus the sword of steel.

"Christian nationhood demands force." it is cried, when the Word says that we are not the ambassadors of any earthly nation, therefore our weapons are NOT carnal.

Neither are Jesus' weapons carnal.
It's an old cycle among the churched.
See failed experiments of Puritan New England, the "christianizing" of the Old West, of Asia, of Africa by using the Bible plus western concepts of society.

Kevin, you sure have a vivid imagination. Where did you get that from?
--Ðøug 2004.12.20.20.27.01 PT

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Post was edited back in again. - Daryl

[ February 19, 2005, 10:32 PM: Message edited by: Daryl Fawcett ]

John, sin cannot abide with God. God does not need to do anything to exterminate it. He stops extending the artificial life which He has been extending, and lets sinners reap the results of their sin. Please note:

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To sin, wherever found, 'our God is a consuming fire.' Heb. 12:29. In all who submit to His power the Spirit of God will consume sin. But if men cling to sin, they become identified with it. Then the glory of God, which destroys sin, must destroy them. DA 107

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Do you see what's happening here, John? God is a consuming fire. He consumes sin. Sin is destroyed in His presence. Therefore God must do something to allow sinners to exist. When He quits doing that thing, which is His strange act, they are destroyed. Doesn't that make sense?

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This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God. The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown. God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life. He is "alienated from the life of God." Christ says, "All they that hate Me love death." Eph. 4:18; Prov. 8:36. God gives them existence for a time that they may develop their character and reveal their principles. This accomplished, they receive the results of their own choice. By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them.

At the beginning of the great controversy, the angels did not understand this. Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished; but it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin.

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Note this is saying that if God had allowed Satan and his host to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished. It doesn't make any sense to read this as, "If God had killed Satan, it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin." Of cource it wouldn't have been apparent, because it wouldn't have been true.

The whole reason for the delay is so it can be seen that it is SIN that leads to death and NOT God that is killing them. If Satan is destroyed by God killing Him, there is nothing to misunderstand. There's only room for misunderstanding if the event of Satan's destruction can be taken in two ways.

It's not 6 of one half dozen the other. God is a consuming fire. Wherever sin is found, God consumes it. God artificially gives an existence to sinners that the principles of Satan's government might be seen, so that when He allows sin to suffer it natural result, being destroyed by God's glory, that event will not be seen as God killing the sinner, which would be arbitrary.

God is not arbitrary. Sin really is bad. This truth was seen clearly last century by George. E. Fifield, a contompary Adventist of Ellen G. White. I'll see if I can quote some of his writings tomorrow.

Tom, if the glory of God kills sinners, then God kills sinners. I don't have a problem with God killing sinners. According to your theory, it is the glory of God that kills sinners. There's nothing arbitrary about God killing sinners.