Do you believe Jesus is free to choose between such options as preventing death and destruction or permitting it, that He takes everything and everyone into consideration and then decides whether to prevent or permit death and destruction, that the choice is His, that nothing happens by chance or fate (the “or” denotes a difference)?


If God is not in control of sinners, who, then, is protecting them? Yes, Satan is in control of what God permits, but he is not free to do as he pleases, otherwise, as you say, he would destroy everyone and everything. It’s not a question of whether or not God is innocent; it’s a question of whether or not He is in control. Of course He is innocent. He created free moral agents. They are free to obey and live or disobey and die. If they choose to sin and rebel, they are, ultimately, choosing capital punishment.


It matters if sincere seekers of truth wrongly conclude (from your perspective) Jesus employed fire to burn them alive. In the case of N&A, the fire blazed out from the presence of God in the most holy place. And, in the case of the two bands of fifty, fire rained down from God in heaven. To say Jesus simply withdrew His protection and permitted (you have yet to say who) to cause fire to burn them alive begs the question – Why were His enemies in the most holy places in heaven and earth?


I hope you don’t mind me allowing Ellen to weigh in on the discussion. I trust her insights. Based on what I’ve read in the Bible and the SOP, I am convinced Satan is only as free as Jesus permits. Whatever he does is done by permission. All heaven, however, works to ensure he does not exceed the limitations Jesus imposes on evil men and angels.


Yes, sinning results in unrest and unhappiness. But whether or not it results in death and destruction is entirely up to Jesus. Yes, we manage the choices, but Jesus manages the consequences so far as things like death and destruction is concerned. For example, whether or not jumping off a cliff results in death is not up to gravity; instead, it’s up to Jesus. If He intercedes, death does not occur; otherwise, it does. But this example does not speak to the issues concerning capital punishment. In the cases of N&A and the two bands of fifty, there was no natural cause and effect law at work. Sinning does not result in fire blazing out from the presence of God in holy places and burning sinners alive. Fire is not self-acting. Neither is gravity. The laws of nature act the way they do because Jesus acts the way He does, that is, nature is a weapon in the arsenal of Jesus and does whatever He wields it to do. He employs nature to mete out capital punishment. But not always; sometimes He uses His enemies, evil men and angels, to punish impenitent sinners.


Amen! However, what qualifies as evil or bad? Was it evil or bad when fire blazed out from the presence of God in holy places and burned sinners alive? Is death and destruction always deemed evil or bad? Or, are their times when it counts as divine justice and judgment? For example, when Jesus commanded Moses to stone the Sabbath-breaker and the blasphemer to death, was it evil or bad?


I agree; always have. But the point is – It was Jesus who used evil angels and Roman soldiers as instruments to punish the impenitent Jews. Again, there was no natural cause and effect law at work. It was entirely arbitrary, imposed, meted out. Sinning does not result in soldiers killing sinners, at least not in the same sense cancer results in tissue damage and death. Also, is it a sin, evil, or bad when evil angels and soldiers kill impenitent sinners when God is using them as instruments to punish?


Seems to me the cases of N&A and the two bands of fifty and the death of Jews in 70 AD are similar in the sense Jesus, from your perspective, would have simply withdrew His protection and permitted His enemies to cause the resulting death and destruction. If so, what protection was Jesus providing, until He withdrew it, in the cases of N&A and the two bands of fifty? Does fire lie in wait until Jesus gives it permission to selectively burn sinners alive? If so, doesn’t it imply fire is self-acting? If not, who, then, employed the fire that killed them?

Where do you think I state this? I asked you to provide quotes to support your idea of what I'm saying, but you haven't done so. Please do so.



If man had not sinned, why would he die? If he doesn't die, he continues to live, as long as God gives him life.



Your single quote has no matching single quote. What is it you are trying to paraphrase? Please provide a direct quote.



You made a claim that I had a certain view. I denied your claim. I asked you to provide a quote of what I said to support your claim.

I continue to deny your claim. Please provide direct quotes to support your assertion that as to what I'm claiming.

Please do not claim as my positions positions which I have not asserted.



Left from what? You haven't quoted anything I've said. What are you reasoning from? You're not providing any context here.

Quotes please!



You're saying, then, that God does need the Tree of Life to give us life, that God had no other way of providing us life other than that. How could God, the Creator of the Universe, and the tree, of course, in the first place, be dependent upon it to give life to another creature?



1.God created all things.
2.God is life, and gives life, to who He wants in whatever manner He chooses.
3.God created the tree of life.

Given these facts, it is obvious to me that God doesn't need the Tree of Life to give us life.

This isn't obvious to you? If not, please explain why not.



This point is moot if you don't understand why it's obvious that God is not dependent upon a tree to give us life.



No, this isn't circular reasoning. It's reasoning from premise to conclusion. You don't agree with the premise, but that doesn't make the argument circular.

What you should have asserted instead is that the argument is not true, because the premise if false.



This is wrong too. An argument's being valid has to do with the logic of the argument, not whether or not it is true. You could rightly assert the argument is false, because the premise is false, but it would still be valid, because the logic is sound.



To do this you should provide some support from either the Bible or the SOP that God could not have provided us life in any other way than by means of a tree.

(more later)

That’s indeed the difference I Theologically understand between the Spirit of Prophecy that God gives to a human vs. that human’s still fully present own thoughts. It can also be seen, especially by comparative/developmental analysis of repeated passage/statements of EGW if that segment it had been a direct revelation or not. Especially in early works such as e.g, SG, SP she mainly related such direct revelations, with the statement: “I was shown” being copiously stated there, then later she began to insert comments of her Biblical/Theological understandings to pastorally enlarge these works, seeking to have practical applications/understandings to the various circumstances of the readers life.



I have yet to see be the case. I would say that this would be the case if it had been mis-written, however that is really hard to do unless one is being dishonest. The closest thing to this is when EGW describe the Christ she had seen in the vision on the Plan of Salvation as having been ‘troubled’ in 1SG 22.2 (1858), 1SP 45.1 (1870); but later changed that (as far as I know, lone) word in that vision to “doubt” EW 149.2 (1882). (I reconcile the two as ‘a doubt that had caused Christ to become troubled, thus troubling doubt’ and EGW probably wanted to make more clear why Jesus had appeared/been shown as “troubled” to her in that vision.)

I must all emphasize that I strongly believe that any mistake that are found in EGW’s own comments were all honest mistakes derived mostly from limited scholarly understandings. I also do not believe, as commonly assumed that whenever she consulted the works of other people to find material and insights to include in her works, that she was always guided by the Holy Spirit to select only what was accurate. Her quoting verbatim John 20:16 from KJV translators (i.e., the “Touch Me not” phrase) is a perfect example of that. Only much later (ca. DA 1898) did she realize that “Detain Me Not” was a more accurate reading. So she could have restated the inaccurate understandings of other authors. I indeed see that she, when not directly impressed by God, as it probably was the case, selected from those other writings what she understood was in harmony with her main set of what would end up being ca. 2000 revelations over her lifetime (if that figure has been substantively accurately reckoned by the EGW estate).

So in summary, “I was shown” type of statements can be ascertained to indeed be direct revelations and when there is no evidence that they had been mis-recorded/written then it should not be discarded. The Biblical principle is clear: ‘Test all prophesying and hold on to what is good’ (1 Thess 5:19-21).

Not it is not, for substantive, exegetical reasons. You’re defaulty assuming that these scholars have done a proper exegesis of this passage. Perhaps they, like you, are just approaching in it from a philosophical view that ‘(a) this was not an act of judgement, therefore (b) God could not have been forcing Pharaoh to not obey Him.’ However the exegesis of that passage clearly indicates the complete opposite for both of these assumptions.

The difference of verbal tenses used, even with Pharaoh’s own choices were at times he acted naturally and at other times he had to take decided efforts to do so, (and when he didn’t do any of these himself, God stepped in and did it to/for him), it too black-on-white, clear to be exegetically ignore or indifferently dismissed. I have encountered many errors by scholars and don’t take my word for it, but just see how many times scholars correct other “scholars” on even what should have been objective truths. Usually this is because of the erroneous scholars not having delve deep enough in the study/topic/issue.



As I see by seeing other uses of that Hebrew word #2388 - “to strengthen” is indeed the basic meaning, however since the text here shows that Pharaoh could naturally ‘strengthen his heart’ without any intensive action (Qal tense) but in 4 occasions in only the plagues, not only did he no do it as in the other 6, but God did it, and had to use intensive action to “forcefully” make it so (Piel) then that, especially in combination here, unequivocally clear to me of a forceful overturning of Pharaoh heart/will.

Furthermore why would God have to say from the start that He was going to do this? If that then involved solely what EGW had described then why would the text make explicit mentions in the latter half of the Plagues, and when indeed Pharaoh was/felt defeated/helpless. Indeed that all seemed from the start as a heads up to Moses to ‘not be surprised when Pharaoh refuses to obey you because I will, when need be, working to harden his heart.

Present all of this to a (also a non-SDA) scholar and see if they do not agree.

That may have come to be what you later came to understand after reading my answer, however my entire point in all of this was that your initial point said nothing in regards to mental bias. In fact you were apparently speaking against what you manifestly had believed was the use of “physically violent” force. Thus your emphasis that ‘seeking to get the Kingdom of heaven through such force’ was what Jesus was speaking against.

Seems to me that you are simply patting yourself on your back here kland. What precisely do you think is my views? I have debunked all of the false conceptions of my actual view that you keep fancifully conjecturing, (for lack of less descriptive terms for what you are patently, defaulty doing with what I say)!



The Papacy was not anything close to being compose of ‘God-fearing men’. They knew right from the start that they were teaching Biblical error and instituting unbiblical traditions. Their knowing, official changing of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, which occurred long before the ca. 12th century and onwards Inquisitions, completely destroyed any association that God may have continued to have with the mainstream NT Church, So, especially by the 12th century, God was certainly not inspiring any of them to do any of their warring/inquisitive actions. Furthermore all of this was mainly being done to instill false fear upon Church members, and those carry out these Papal orders had no choice but to obey, lest they also be considered as a heretic and suffer that penalty of death.

And the difference I see in what the catholic Church did vs. what God legislated and commanded in the OT and also what Jesus taught in the NT was that God did not command that capital actions be taken against people who did not simply believe like He instructed but who had acted in tangibly variously socially threatening ways in Israel. That certainly was the case for people foreign to Israel who were not forced to join Israel as the Catholic Church was doing, but were to only be kept out unless they freely chose to believe. And the OT’s probationary restrictions for these foreigners was removed in the NT. Also Jesus similarly instructed that those who did not believe be kicked out the main body and not put to death. (E.g., Matt 18:15-18). So the Catholic Church had no Biblical basis for their murderous campaign against mere intellectual heretics. And also their union with the Roman State, which forced millions of intellectual opposers to falsely become part of their ‘ecclesiastical jurisdiction’ was also complete contrary to God’s ways.

So I see that their overall misconception of God the Father and Jesus and the ways that had been stated and clarified in the Bible ended up in this aberration. That’s really what Revelation’s Babylon, vs. God Biblical Israel, can only end up doing.

I am not going to waste my time to respond to these quibbling, vexatious answers of yours because I had made my points contextually and sequiturly clear in that post. You made your spurious objecting answers simply by mindlessly and wrongfully splitting and isolating points and thoughts. So carefully re-read what I had said to get the answers. I suggest this careful reading for any other answers, as well as substantive arguments vs. quibbling, obfuscating, spurious and/or peripheral ones, as you’ll just get the same reply as this one.

----

This is the only segment in your reply that I had found to be substantively valid and not previously answered, thus worth my time:


Statement 1 & 3 are Biblical Facts. Statement #2 is at best a philosophical assumption. The Bible and SOP show that God gives life to Man, indeed all nature by an ingestation of the Tree of Life. The only switch I see is that in Heaven, humans will be ingested the supernatural power in the Tree of Life aromatically. And what we breathe in does tangibly get into our blood and entire body. So the tangible ingestation is the same. So according to Bible and SOP the Tree of Life is squarely still in the Perpetual Life picture. So that is what I am convinced to go by and not your rational about God and/or what God should do.

Perhaps God can implant a perpetual fruit of life gene in us, indeed e.g., replace one of our kidneys with a fruit of life secreting organ. However since what will have to be implanted in that secreting organ will have to perpetually have life in itself and also never be consume/die, then that amounts to man having immortality in themselves. To me that perpetual power in itself is something that man cannot enclose in themselves. So God has to first couch it in something that we can safely ingest, lest He first has to create us with a make up like His to be able to do this, then we too would become gods, and then what???, i.e., if a free moral agent decides to rebel. Angels, with us being a little lower than them, have a bodily constitution greater than our, literally, earthen one, yet they too are not immortal. How God enables them to live perpetually has not been revealed, however it clearly has been for created man. And I only see that we are limited to that provision/method. And Angels may be using actually using the higher method of aromatically breathing in the Fruit of Life, and without it, they can only live ca. 10,000 years vs. (lower) Man’s ca. 1,000 years.

“As soon as the books of record are opened, and the eye of Jesus looks upon the wicked, they are conscious of every sin which they have ever committed.” I suppose we can join you in rejecting the obvious meaning of this passage (and the other passages you omitted which say the same thing), or we can take it at face value and assume she actually said precisely what she meant to say. Otherwise, how could she have stated it more plainly if that’s what she intended to say? I’m surprised you believe Jesus is incapable of causing the wicked to be “conscious of every sin which they have ever committed . . . as soon as the books of record are opened.”

It sounds as though you believe it is God, and not vital force, that acts to enable sinners to sin without immediately experiencing eternal death. I agree.


Yes, absolutely, they will be punished because they refused to embrace Jesus as their Lord and personal Savior. Jesus doesn’t arbitrarily decide to impose the death penalty. He worked very hard to woo and win them. They are deserving of punishment and eternal death. They are reaping what they have sown, namely, capital punishment. They knew the stakes - obey and live, disobey and die. His “very presence is to them a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them.” “Some are destroyed as in a moment, while others suffer many days.” To this end Jesus will resurrect them. He enables them to live long enough to pay for their sins; otherwise, they would die prematurely. Or, do you know of some other source of life that enables them to live past the first few seconds of judgment let alone “many days”?

Is this different than Scripture?

Wouldn't the reception of the vision, as well as its presentation, also involve the human element?



She wrote that nothing she wrote were merely hew own ideas.

Why do you think there should be a difference of weight placed between statements which say "I was shown" and those that don't? She never made this suggestion. She said none of her writings were merely her own ideas.



Is this different than Scripture? Most of the Bible writers weren't scholars any more than she was, were they?