The followng isn't a passage to "prove" the IJ but it helps remove people's fear of it.

Basically the the investigative judgement is a logical step when two distinctive beliefs are seen as truth.

The Adventist understanding of the mortality of the soul and our freedom to choose our salvation make a pre-advent investigative judgement a sensible step in the process of salvation. The vast majority of Christianity can?t make sense of a pre-advent investigative judgement as they believe in an immortal soul. Nor does an investigative judgment make sense to the predetermined idea of salvation of a Calvinist who believes that God has already predestines he will save, and who will be ignored

But there is something else that has made the pre-Advent judgment seem wrong to many Christians.

It has often been presented in a purely legalistic manner.

The Christian road of walking the sanctified life with Jesus, has two deadly ditches.
One, we, as Adventists warn against -- that ditch is presumptuous security, thinking we are saved while deliberately living a sinful life. That's one ditch to get us off the road to the kingdom.
The other ditch is equally dangerous -- thinking if we have enough good works stacked up it will erase all our bad works.

When righteousness by faith is an intimate part of the understanding of the pre-Advent judgment, then it becomes an awesome, and very important belief.

Two of the beliefs that I understand to make the Investigative Judgment clearer are the issues of the great controversy and within Adventism there tends to be a split between two different understandings about hell fire. The one view is the traditional Catholic/Baptist view only shorter, but where the lost are roasted and toasted in a literal physical pain that we would get from touching a hot stove or being burned alive etc. The other view is that hell fire is seeing God in person in all his love, beauty and glory. That God treats us all the same at the end, but the lost do not believe his love and forgiveness. they are unforgiving people, and thus unable to comprehend God's forgiveness. They have developed habits of rejecting the Holy Spirit's plead to their hearts, and habits of manipulating people to control them, and when having the choice between true happiness, their tendency has been to choose the inferior pleasure of contempt, things like criticizing, complaining, threatening, punishing, or bribing. They see their sinfulness in contrast to the purity of Jesus. They are overwhelmingly attracted to Jesus. Jesus is their deepest desire, the desire of all nations, the desire of ages, the one beloved/desired of women, the one sweeter than honey and more precious than gold. They so long to run into his arms of forgiveness, but they do not know him and thus they do not trust him. They know what they would do to someone like themselves if they were this pure God, and they expect God to sooner or later get them for their sins. They torture themselves with what they picture of what God should do to them. They want to run into his loving arms, but refuse to yield and they pull away from the only source of life. The horror of hell is not the physical pain of a divine spanking, but the seeing your deepest desire, Jesus in all his love, beauty and glory, but not trusting him and thus refusing to run into his loving arms.

Too many try to fit the new wine of the investigative judgment into the old wine skins of picturing the judgment as standing before the throne of God with their knees shaking and either hearing "You may go into heaven" and they run in before God can change his mind; or else they are told they need to go to hell and are dragged off kicking and screaming pleading for mercy, but too late. This mindset has the investigative judgment be a refreshing of God's memory of things you did that you really need to be punished for.

As to the issues of the great controversy (besides how the study of the great controversy teaching about just how God will kill the lost) is focused on God saving the universe and developing a mature love in all creatures, and a growing love in the creatures who choose to live with this wonderful God forever. .

Too many see salvation as "How do I get God to let me into heaven and not sending me to hell as I deserve?" and all focused on me and my personal salvation. Seeing the angels as having never fallen, thus they don't need the righteousness of Christ and righteousness by faith, that is only for sinners; and often it ends up with seeing heaven as merely a return to where we were before sin.

God is working to bring the entire universe into a mature love for him, a maturing in growth. Except for humans, the rest of the universe closed their probation by the cross. A time is coming where we humans close our probation. But just because we get to the point where we have made an eternal unchanging choice for or against Jesus ruling in our hearts; does not mean that things just level out. We will constantly learn more things about Jesus and fall deeper and deeper in love with him.

When we look at 1844, a couple of things that happened (and yes, we can add a lot more to this) but in the 1820s the Rosetta Stone was deciphered. In the 1830s Edward Robinson had his first trip to the holy land, and in the early 1840s he had published his trip and it was starting to be read. These two events ended up leading to archaeology, especially Biblical Archaeology. The Rosetta stone opened up ancient languages, and through archaeology we rediscovered the ancient world. The mid 1840s started the rediscovery of the ancient world. We can start to investigate the pages of scripture like never before. It was the opening of the age of exegesis. Then the telegraph started to spread ideas and news faster than ever before.

The ancient world saw things in heaven and earth as reflecting each other. On earth, we are living in the age of exegesis, where we get to investigate the pages of scripture as never before. And in heaven, the unfallen look at those who claimed to have accepted God into their lives. The first question is whether or not we have accepted Jesus, and if we have, then did Jesus really make a difference in our life? As they see what Jesus did for you and me, they come to a better understanding of their own salvation and what Jesus had done for them. Just because I can learn more about Abraham's life than I could have before the investigative judgment does not mean that we will find out something that will cause Abraham to be lost. Same with us, as those in heaven review my lives, they will not find out something where God will say "Oops, I forgot all about this, I need to send them to hell." I see what Jesus did for people in the Bible and I love him greater. Gabriel can see what Jesus did for me, and it deepens his love for Jesus.

The focus of hell is who Jesus is, and the focus on the investigative judgment is "More about Jesus I would know..."

The only thing I would disagree with, and it may only be nitpicking, is the belief that seeing God's glory is the second death. That just cannot be true according to Ellen White.

The wicked receive their recompense in the earth. Proverbs 11:31. They ?shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts.? Malachi 4:1. Some are destroyed as in a moment, while others suffer many days. All are punished ?according to their deeds.? The sins of the righteous having been transferred to Satan, he is made to suffer not only for his own rebellion, but for all the sins which he has caused God's people to commit. His punishment is to be far greater than that of those whom he has deceived. After all have perished who fell by his deceptions, he is still to live and suffer on. In the cleansing flames the wicked are at last destroyed, root and branch?Satan the root, his followers the branches. Our Father Cares page 375

Kevin, While I agree it is hard to fathom why people would reject the One Who is love, mercy, and Salvation, choosing to cling to sin, refusing to part from it, I do have some huge questions on somethings written by you.

Adventists don't believe in hell fire. Something has certainly changed if Adventists believe in either of the two versions you suggest.

Adventists certainly do NOT believe in the Catholic doctrine of hell fire, which believes in the immortality of soul and that judgment occurs at the death of the body when the soul goes either into eternal torment in hell, or purgatory, or if lucky goes to heaven.

Nor do we believe that God judges all people the same in the end. The Adventist teaching as I've always understood it, is that some are vindicated by the blood of Christ and declared righteous in the pre-Advent judgment, while others cling to their sins, not wanting to give them up, and thus die in the cleansing fire when sin is wiped out of existence.
It's not shown in inspired writings that everyone greatly desires to be with Christ in the end, yes those inside the city are praising Christ, but those outside aren't lost because they see Christ and want desperately to be with Him, but think forgiveness is impossible and run the other way. They are on the outside because they do not love the righteousness Christ stands for, they do not have any love for His character.

Both of those views you presented seem to make the investigative judgment meaningless, would they not?

Now I agree the lost at the second resurrection will experience a terrible sense of their loss, but it won't be motivated by a great longing to live with Christ. They would tear Jesus from His throne if they could and take over the city for their own pleasure. They do NOT love righteousness. Though they will declare Christ's judgment just, they don't want to live in a kingdom of righteousness, that's why they are lost.

The investigative judgment happens before the second coming and determines who will be resurrected in the first resurrection and ascend with Jesus to heaven when He comes. It determines who is in a sincere relationship with Christ, and who is not in that relationship and has chosen to live in sin.

Those raised in the second resurrection of damnation (see John 5:29) rejected the Holy Spirits pleading and followed their carnal instincts, choosing sin, and scoffing at righteousness in this present life.

Actually the Investigative Judgment is a requisite for this view of hell fire. Back with the Desmond Ford crisis, those who held this view of hell were not bothered and had no problem continuing to believe in the investigative judgment.

The fire is the fire of God's love, power, beauty and glory. God says "I am a consuming fire" It is the fire that Nebuchadnezzar's flames had to submit to, the fire of the presence of the son of God.

Genesis 3:15 says that God will put enmity between you and the woman, between thy seed and her seed... Here God has given us a special emphases in what he created us with in the first place, that our deepest desire is to be like and with Jesus. Jesus is the fairest of ten thousand, the one more desirable than gold, sweeter than honey. The one beloved of women. The angels in Luke 2 did not say that they had great tidings for the pure in heart, the righteous few, but oops, did the angel make a mistake when saying "for 'ALL' people"?

We, all of us, have two attitudes fighting inside of us. One is our sinful nature, contempt, a disposition to esteem ourselves more highly than our breathern, to serve self to seek the highest place and often this results in evil surmisings and bitterness of spirit. A disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world. This is what makes us sinners. The other is the enmity we have towards evil, our deepest desire, to love the world as Jesus has loved it, to want to be like and with Jesus. Even our best is tainted with selfishness and even at our worst, we are trying to force the world to be more likable, a reaching out for something more, which is the God shaped hole in each of us. If we did not have this deepest desire, we would not be horrified by disaster, whether natural or mass shootings etc. We would not like flowers, or beautiful music or any type of beauty.

Now, just because something is more powerful than another, does not mean that the most powerful one is in control. We make choices between these two attitudes. We make a habit of allowing the one or the other to ultimately control us. Yes, as our sinful nature ends up completely controlling us, there is a hatred that is felt towards the beauty. Something in them that would indeed kill Jesus. Now, just because the sinful nature ends up being the controlling power ruling our heart, does not make Jesus any less beautiful. This is what makes hell so horrible; that they are split between letting contempt and hatred control them, yet the longing to run into the loving arms of the one that they have chosen to despise and distrust. They have convinced themselves that God will get them for their sins, and this just adds to their hatred since they have convinced themselves that God's forgiveness and grace is a lie, and that Jesus is thus a lier when he says that he loves and forgives them. There is happiness which comes from our relationships, especially our relationship with Jesus, then there are short term actions which still brings about a pleasure, but that it is not true happiness, they often can be done alone, or even if they need another, the other is being used for selfish pleasure instead of really building a relationship. There is a pleasure we feel in our whining, complaining, or wanting to threaten. Yes these bring pain, but also a sick pleasure. I heard a joke of a little child who was naughty and thus punished by her mother. After the punishment the child went out and sat on the stoop and just sulked. While sulking a bird flew over and had a dropping that landed on the child's lower lip. The child just began saying "Well, it's just going to sit there until daddy comes home."

Both views of hell claim that Mrs. White believed and taught it, so I'm not going to say that she believed and taught this view, but as I've come to understand this view, I've been seeing more and more evidence for it in her writings and in the Bible. However, she did have friends who we know held this view, such as one of her friends, and Elder Fifefield. In the 1920s Lynn Harper Wood came to this understanding from his study of the Bible and Mrs. White. Living behind the iron curtain, Daniel Dudah studied the Bible and Mrs. White and came to this view and thought that all Adventists believed this and as the iron curtain came down and he and his family were reunited with the world church, he was surprised that it was not universally held. Some older pastors I had conversations with when I was younger and learning this said that this is what they believed, but did not really know how to present it, and that the view that they gave in Bible studies and evangelistic meetings were a way to reach out to people who were not ready to give up a hell fire of a different nature than the traditional burning.

Again, the horror of hell is not that God needs to give some kind of divine spanking, by treating his children like Nebuchadnezzar and the furnace or like parents who put their children's feet into scalding water. The horror of hell is being overwhelmingly attracted to Jesus, but having formed a character that had chosen to refuse to yield to this desire. That they torture themselves with pictures of what they think God should do to someone like themselves, and that instead of the true happiness of heaven, they have allowed the cheep pleasures that heaven does not have room for, things such as complaining, criticizing, blaming, nagging, threatening, whining to become a morbid heaven for them at the cost of the true heaven with their deepest desire and other loved ones. They want to come to him, but refuse. This wanting to run into his loving arms, being overwhelmingly attracted to him, but that they developed a character that simply will not yield to their deepest desire is even worst than if it was simply God giving a divine spanking and g etting it all over and done with. They want to come but the closest that would get to yielding is by kneeling and confessing that God was right and that Jesus is Lord.

And yes, this causes variation in length of punishment, as some end up quickly realizing their condition and bend the knee, others will take longer as they keep coming up with one excuse after another and sulk and hate until they finally bend their knee.

The intensity of their sinful nature controlling them, and their overwhelming attraction to Jesus quite literally rips them apart and destroys them.

I disagree with what you said in your second paragraph. I do it because both scripture and Ellen White disagree with it.

I beg to differ, the investigative judgment has nothing to do with either of your two views.
UNLESS --
and I don't know if you meant this or not, but it's the only way I can think of it having any bearing on the lake of fire at the end of the 1000 years.

Are you saying in this paragraph that they have another chance?

Are you saying that they have another chance to enter the kingdom if they give in to their "great desire to be with Jesus" and bend the knee quickly?

Actually, I don't believe any outside God's city will have a "great desire to be with Jesus" . That already dismisses the purpose of the Investigative Judgment, because that judgment is all about investigating the heart of the individual as to who has their heart.
Those who miss the first resurrection have had the judgment already determine their hearts were NOT with Christ. That "God hole" in their hearts was filled with counterfeit gods.

But I could see those who felt the "investigative judgment robbed them of the assurance of salvation, would want to get rid of it and leave the door of probation open for another chance to bow the knee and accept Christ at the third coming.

But the choice is made in THIS LIFE. The investigative judgment mainly determines who comes up in the first resurrection, and why they are worthy to be part of the first resurrection, and will travel to heaven with Jesus for 1000 years.

Those coming up in the second resurrection will face the second death (no matter how you interpret that second death being administered, if you still believe they are destroyed by the second death)

That turmoil you describe of being drawn to Christ, and resisting(or responding) to that drawing power, happens in THIS LIFE.
It's very real IN THIS LIFE. For yes, God put it into our hearts to desire Him. It's in this life that we are pulled back and forth, and make the decision to one way or the other.






The final cleansing fire that burns up all traces of sin, is view that I have always held as have most of the church members in the churches I've attended.
It's not a "divine spanking" nor is it a "Catholic hell" of eternal torment.
It is quick and effective in the work it is given to do.

It is a very literal cleansing, burning up, and utter eradication of all sin, on the earth as well as in the atmosphere and heavens (space) surrounding the earth. It is a fire that burns up all sin and traces of sin so God can create a new earth and heaven. That includes all the ruins of buildings, structures, pollutions, dead stuff, produced by this sinful world, including the devil and his angels and all who threw in their lot with the devil -- all will be burned up, and the earth will be clean.


The flood is an example:
2 Peter 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men...in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Malachi 4:1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. ...they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do [this], saith the LORD of hosts.

As far as God is concerned, there are always other choices. The problem is that the sinner has closed and locked the door upon themselves and that there is nothing else that God can do to change them and to keep them from choosing eternal death. They would rather not exist than to live in a universe that has the law of self sacrificing love. They have prevented themselves from any second chance. They have destroyed their ability to choose. God can't do anything else for them unless he takes away their freedom and forces salvation upon them, but they would find it torture to live in a universe based on self sacrificing love, and living in constant fear of what God should and thus think "sooner or later" do to them.

Now, are you saying that God's love, beauty, power and glory is too weak to cleanse the earth and that God needs something else that is strong enough to do it?

When the prophets saw God they felt like they were being burned alive, but found that they could not only survive the fire but thrived in it and hated to leave it. The lost refuses to have the life giving relationship with God that would lead to surviving and thriving in this fire. They pull back from the only source of life and thus are killed by the glory of God.