There are two possibilities to consider:

1) Angelic salvation is effected in a different way than human salvation.
2) Jesus planned to die to offer Lucifer pardon.


Maxwell says He could have.


Did Jesus experience this death? If He did, how did He manage to do that, since He did not sin?

Regarding 1), we're told what the conditions were for Lucifer's being pardoned, which were repentance and submission. Had he complied, he not only would have been forgiven, but restored to his original position, such is the graciousness of God.

Regarding 2), there's no hint of this.



I'm aware of a statement where he talks about God's setting up prisons where the wicked could spend eternity, but I understand him to be giving this not as an argument that God could have established things in a way where sin would not result in death, but as to why God was not willing to prolong death for all eternity. I'm not aware of any statement of Maxwell's where he says God could have established things so that sin would not result in death.

Sin would cause death immediately, if not for God's intervention. FW 21 speaks to this. Also DA 764.



Yes, He experienced it(or "tasted" it, as per Heb. 2:9). As to how He could experience death without having sinned, Isa. 53, 2 Cor. 5:21, John 1:29, Gal. 4:4,5 speak to this, to name just a few.

Is this any different than what is required of man? If repentance and submission are good enough for Satan, wouldn't it have been good enough for Adam?


An argument from ignorance is always weak. Just because we don't know it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. God doesn't have to tell us all there is to know, since we have a hard enough time with the basics.


The missing piece is God's willingness, not His ability. That means God could.


If God's intervention keeps sin from immediately killing us, it can be said that the lack of God's intervention is what kills sinners eventually.


I don't see how these verses explain that Jesus died as a result of the what He Himself has chosen to do. Since He didn't "do" sin, something else must have killed Him.

I don't think so. Do you agree?



I believe so.



Ignorance? I take it you mean from silence? Well, given in what detail Ellen White went to in describing the fall of Lucifer, the onus would certainly be on one wishing to add to what she wrote.[/quote]



The point isn't that God isn't able to prolong death as long as He wishes. The principle that death is the inevitable result of sin would still be true in this case.



That would be a rather contorted way of looking at it.



You don't see Isa. 53 as explaining that Jesus died as a result of what He Himself chose to do?



Certainly Christ did not die because He "did" sin. But neither Isa. 53, nor the other verses cited suggest this

Exactly my point. Death - the death that sin causes - can be caused by other things.

It seems to me that sin caused the death of Christ, but it wasn't His sin. When you say that the death which sin causes can be caused by other things, what do you have in mind?

My understanding is that sin and death are inextricably linked together; you don't get one without the other. For example, "the sting of death is sin," "sin, when it is finished, brings for death," "the inevitable result of sin is death," to name a few.

A thought from Waggoner:

The way I see it usually happens, death is simply a lack of life. That's why sin, which separates us from the Source of life, causes death. And that separation happens because sin so damages our character, not just our thoughts and actions, that we are unable to live with God. So far so good, I trust.

If this is the ONLY way that death happens, how can Jesus go through this, since His character was ever holy? How did He manage to get separated from God? Moreover, how can MY sin or YOUR sin or any other third party's sin cause Jesus to suffer "the result of the what the sinner himself has chosen to do"?

Those fallacies are often used interchangeably, but I prefer "ignorance" since it is difficult to know for certain if someone has been completely silent on a particular topic, especially one as prolific as EGW. (See http://www.logicalfallacies.info/argumentfromignorance.html)

In any case, it is poor logic to make any conclusion based on what one does not know. This reminds me of another discussion where people where saying that black holes are not what physicists think they are, even though they don't know what physicists think they are, because that's not how God works.

As for the detail EGW went into in describing Satan's fall, that still does not give us license to conclude anything about what she did not describe. God went into great detail in His instructions regarding the sanctuary in Exodus, but there was no mention there of the timing of Christ's crucifixion.

Well, we do know what the conditions for pardon were: repentance and submission. We also know that Christ did not have to die in order for God to offer Lucifer pardon. This is what I've been asserting, and there's no necessity of depending on an argument from silence, since these these things are known. If you wish to assert that Christ would have died, had Lucifer accepted the pardon, then *that* would be an argument from silence.

How do you know that? Do you have a quote that positively makes this assertion? I'd like to see it, because that would settle this point, among others.


I do not wish to make that assertion at this time. But if I ever do, you can be sure its foundation will be more substantial than prefacing it with, "We all know...." because we don't all know.