Lesson #10 - The Meaning of His DEATH

The Memory Text, quoted below, tells us why Christ came to this sinful planet:

"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45, NIV).

Christ came for two reasons:

1 - To serve.
2 - To give His life as a ransom for many.

This week's study will be focusing on the second reason.

Here is the link to the lesson study material:

http://ssnet.org/qrtrly/eng/08b/less10nkjv.html

Some insights from the SOP:



The "whole purpose" of Christ's mission was "the revelation of God." Both serving and dying accomplished this. It would be a mistake to view these as two different reasons, since His giving His life for us was simply a form of service (actually service in its highest sense, for the love of God is manifest in Christ giving His life).

Christ speaks of His mission in John 17, which probably was EGW's inspiration for what she wrote. Continuing a little later from the above quote:



The reason Christ came was to reveal God. Christ's death supremely did this, in addition to every other aspect of Christ's life, character and teachings.

One more DA statement:

I agree that the two I listed go together as one, however, the focus of this week's lesson is on the meaning of His death.

Tom: what about the requirement of sacrifice of the Lamb of God to be the antitypical "shedding of blood for the remission of sin"? You emphasise "service" as the purpose of Christ's death...The accompanying book highlights the 'halftruth' of Abelard's "exemplary" or role model meaning of the atonement, clarifying the substitutionary suffering of God's wrath against sin in dying our death for us as he lived our life, too.

Now, I recall you on a previous occasion disassociating yourself from Abelard. Do you see no penal death for us which Jesus died for us as expressed in Rom 4:25 "He was delivered up for our offenses..."? Is it just that "the wages of sin is death" is not a penalty but a choice in your view?

So, you're aware of the straight line in Adams'lesson text and commentary book about Christ suffering our curse under the law. Just where do you differ with the church and lesson teaching on this topic?

My response to you was considering exactly this (the meaning of this death).

In the SOP, the chapter which most specifically and in detail considers the meaning of the death of Christ is "It Is Finished." The last quote I gave is from that chapter. The whole chapter is great.

Both Abelard and Anselm did not describe their views of the cross until a millenium after Christ's death. The them of Christus Victor was well known, however. Gustaf Aulen brought this to light in his book called "Christ Aulen." There are some good thoughts in Abelard's view, and I suppose something good could be found somewhere in Anselm's too, but they both are missing important features. I believe the Christus Victor idea comes the closest of any of the views which were formed before Ellen White came along.



I think the idea he had that the love of God is revealed by the cross is a wonderful and important idea. However, I think there are some problems I see with his presentation. For example, I'm not sure that the theme of grace comes across clearly in his view.



No. There's nothing penal implied there. Ah, I see how you could see something penal there. I had to look at it a couple of times to see where you are coming from. You see something penal there because of the phrase "for our offenses." This is clearly a reference to Isaiah 53, I think you would agree. Here are a couple of other related texts to Rom. 4:25.





The first passage speaks of how Christ was delivered up as well. It discusses how this was done ("ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.")

The second passage discusses the purpose for this action ("to bring us to God.") The second passage is also a reference to Isa. 53, and I think Peter correctly interprets the meaning of Isa. 53, and of Christ's death here.



Another version, Phillips, puts it this way "Sin pays its wages: death."

I see that there are two roads. One is the road of agape, which existed from eternity. The other is the road that Satan invented, the road of serving self, which leads to death, which is just another way of saying "the wages of sin is death." That is, if you go down the road of serving self, you will die. Not because God will kill you, but because the principle of life is love.

I agree there is a penalty for sin, but I think it is akin to the penalty for alcohol abuse or excessive cigarette smoking. If you drink excessively, God does not smite your liver, nor does He smite your longs with cancer if you smoke cigarettes. Can we say that there is a penalty for smoking cigarettes or excessive drinking? Certainly.



I don't know. I'd have to look. I'm teaching the juniors.

One thing I'll mention, without having looked, is that the themes brought out in the chapter "It Is Finished" (IIF) are often given short shrift. There are at least 7 pages in this chapter, and various themes are covered. The penal idea is barely covered, if at all. I'd be interested to see if these ideas brought out in IIF are covered.

Also something else I commonly see is that the death of Christ is treated as if it were something separable from his life and resurrection. I believe this is because the penal idea emphasizes Christ's death as a payment to God, as a type of transaction which makes us legally right with God. In Scripture you never see Christ's death treated like this. At least, I can think of no case where Christ's death is treated in this way (i.e. separated from his life and/or resurrection, as a payment which solves a penal problem).

For example, in the two passages I quoted above, His death is intimately tied into the resurrection. Under the idea of Christus Victor, this must be the case. You don't have a victorious Christ without the resurrection.

One last thought I'll mention is that I can think of no place in Christ's teaching where He presented the idea that His death was to enable God to be able to legally pardon us. However, I seem the themes I mention being presented often in His teachings.

One last, last thought is that it is common to understand Scripture according to one's own culture. Anselm did this in developing his view, that the death of Christ was necessary to maintain God's honor. Similarly Calvin did this in developing the penal view (I think he was the first one to discuss this). In Paul's time, and before, the ideas which Calvin presented did not exist. The Hebrew concept of justice was restorative, not retributive.

Sunday's study is titled Born to Die.

Was Christ really born to die?

In other words, as asked in Sunday's study, Was it something that had to happen?

No, Christ wasn't born to die. I remember that unfortunate heading from a similar study a few years ago. Jesus was born to "show us what God is really like." (John 1:18). In EGW's words, the "whole purpose" of His mission was "the revelation of God."

Now given the state of humanity, it was inevitable that Christ would be killed, so it was "something that had to happen."



This is a nice passage. Christ was killed by evil men, inspired by evil angels, but the powers of evil could not keep Him in the grave.

"Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." This sums up the means and measures of the salvation of us by God using the blood of unblemished sacrifices: Jesus fufilled the entire sacrificial system, having to sacrifice himself. Dying was required for saving us from the same, death.

Hebrews 2 says we live in fear of death without Christ, whose death dealt with him who has the power of death, which we had otherwise feared. Jesus died for us for the sake of agape, but the value of agape is that God's only begotten Son was willing to die for us while we were yet enemies, that is sinful enough to crucify him himself.

Showing God's love by dying was for the purpose of delivering us from the condemnation to the eternal death we feared all our lives. Jesus expressed self-less love for us to save us from death due us by dying our death...he didn't just die to show us love by dying.

Jesus had to die to save us from death.

I certainly agree that Jesus had to save us from death. What is it that causes death? It's sin. So how does Jesus Christ save us from death? By saving us from sin.

I failed to reiterate first time that, yes, Jesus was born to die. Saving us from sin involves two aspects: producing perfect righteousness for justification of grace for faith, once we are resurrected & reborn after dying to sin by grace and faith in Christ's death.

Baptism expresses this joint salvivic truth: Christ's death and resurrection achieved the salvation of the world, as was required by law and grace.

...A study of biblically legal requirement(s) is needed, eh?

Jesus was not born to die, but to live. Through His life, He revealed God to us. That was His mission. He stated:



Ellen White comments on this as follows:



Jesus Christ was put to death by wicked men, inspired by evil angels.



However, it was not possible for Christ to be overcome by the forces of evil. By way of the resurrection, He overcame.

Let's discuss how it is that Christ saves us from sin. How is it that sin holds its power over us? It's by deception. Christ came to reveal the truth, which sets us free.



This ties into the same theme mentioned earlier, that Jesus Christ came to reveal the Father. Here we see spelled out why. It was to manifest His character in contrast to the character of Satan.



In these passages we see Ellen White echoing the teachings of John and Peter.



Christ died "that he might bring us to God." How did His death do so? "The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love. By beholding His character he might be drawn back to God."

Indeed.

I take it you have Calvin's idea in mind here. I'm aware of no evidence that Calvin's ideas regarding penal substitution existed before Calvin wrote them.

Here's something from an article in Time magazine, April 2004:

For a thousand years the mainline church saw His suffering and death not as salvation’s critical tragedy, but as just one more step in God’s triumphant campaign into the human world and the devil’s domain. The Church Fathers saw Christ’s incarnation and resurrection mainly as a necessary means of overcoming Satan’s hold on and claim to humanity and essential to reconciliation and a new start for humanity. Eastern Orthodox Christians still hold this view. According to writer Fredrica Mathewes-Green, it’s like the firefighter, who comes out of the burning building with the baby in his arms. People tend to ignore his wounds and scars. Christ’s victory was that He snatched everlasting Life out of sin and death.

Other scenarios from the early Church fathers had Christ paying the ransom to the devil for lost humanity. Then, St Augustine likened the devil to a mouse, the cross to a mousetrap, and Christ to the bait. Christ’s mission was to somehow rescue humanity from the legitimate claims of the devil. As others decided to leave the transaction a mystery, they were certain that there was a supernatural battle ongoing in a dimension beyond our direct perception. This conception survives in Martin Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God”.

However, the theory developed by Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1098 came to define Christianities majority understanding of the meaning of Christ’s death. He read in the New Testament that Christ’s death was a ransom, but he could not believe that the devil was owed anything, so he restructured the cosmic debt.

He posed that humanity owed God the Father a ransom of “satisfaction” for the insult of sin. The problem was that this debt was unpayable. We lacked the means, since everything we have already belongs to God, and we lacked the standing, like the lowly serf in his feudal world was helpless to erase an injury to a great lord.

Anselm initiated the concept of substitutionary atonement. Everlasting damnation was unavoidable, except for the miracle of grace. God “recast” Himself somehow into human form (the mystery of the incarnation), Who was both innocent of sin and also God’s social equal. As a human Christ could then suffer Crucifixion’s undeserved agony and dedicate it to the Father on behalf of humanity. Thus Anselm wrote that, “Christ paid for the sinners what He owed not for Himself. Could the Father justly refuse to Man what the Son had willed to give him?” This concept has been restated in many ways since and it has been extended to cover everyone’s transgressions for all of human history.

Later, John Calvin the founder of the Presbyterian Church in the 16th century replaced Anselm’s feudal king with a severe judge furious at a deservedly cursed creation.

This is accurate. We owe our ideas of satisfaction and penal substitution not to Jesus Christ, or His disciples that penned the New Testament, but to Anselm and Calvin.

Jesus came to save man. Could man be saved without Christ's death?

How in your view is Christ's death a ransom which had to be payed?

Matthew 20:28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

1 Timothy 2:6 who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,

This is taken from a wiki article on "Christus Victor".



If one looks at Jesus' quotes, He speaks of us death in terms of having a positive effect. For example:



From His death, many would live. He gave His life for us, and if we would serve Him, we should give our life for others, as He did. In the Matthew quote, dealing with the ransom, He also speaks of service.



Nowhere does Jesus speak of His death as having the purpose of being a legal requirement for His Father to be able to forgive us. The fact that the word "ransom" has been understood in a certain way by those who have accepted Anselm and Calvin's ideas in no way is evidence that Jesus used the word with that idea in mind. Indeed, if we look at what Jesus said, there is no evidence that He had such an idea in mind that His death was necessary in order for God to be able to legally forgive.

It is true that Jesus came to save man, but His mission was not limited to that.



This is a very interesting passage. It speaks of Christ's death as a "victory." It defeated Satan. How so? Because it made clear that Satan was a liar, be revealing Satan's character in contrast to His own.

Therefore, even more than Christ's death being necessary to save man, it was necessary to save the universe.

Limiting the focus to man:



Jesus taught that we should love our enemies, and revealed a God of whose government force is not a principle. Jesus' life, death and resurrection were all necessary for the salvation of man, as in His work today, for He continues to be the revealer of God that man so desperately needs. While Christ revealed God throughout His life, nowhere does God's character of love shine more clearly than at the cross.

Whether you realize it or not, you just gave the reason why Christ was born to die, or why Christ's death was necessary.

Why would I not realize that I was giving an answer to the question , "Why was is necessary for Jesus to die?" when the very purpose for which I was writing was to answer that question?

You've equated why was it necessary for Jesus to die with His having been born to die, which, to my view, are not equivalent. Jesus was not "born to die." He was born to reveal God's character. The "whole purpose" (EGW) of Christ's mission was "the revelation of God." (EGW)

Christ's death revealed God's character, as did everything He did.

The problem with the phrase "born to die" is that it gives the impression that Christ's life wasn't really important. We can just skip that. All that was important was that He die to pay the debt we owed.

The idea of ransom does not involve necessarily a business transaction, but it does involve a price to be paid in order to release.

No, the idea I get with the expression "born to die" is that He was born to accomplish a special mission through His death. This was an aspect of His mission, in the same way that we could speak of Him as "born to live in obedience to God" as another aspect of His mission (which does not include His death). Christ's mission has separate (although interrelated) aspects.

The idea I get from "born to die" is that the purpose of His being born was to die.

I think a better expression would be "born to reveal" or "born to be the Word of God" (which means the same thing) or even "the Word was made flesh" (how do you like that one?).

From EGW, the "whole purpose" of His mission was the revelation of God, so that seems like a good way of grouping the other inter-related things you referred to.

Ah, no, EGW emphasized God's character lived out by Jesus as an aspect of his Gospel less mentioned - in every generation...Getting used to 'agape' is easier now, after much prominence in preaching and literature in Adventism, recently.

The Gospel isn't JUST that Jesus was born to die, to "save his people from their sin": his begotten, divine Sonship, his human birth, life, death, resurrection,...ascension, and high priesthood are each indispensable and integral parts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. "'Born to'- die" is itself always supported by "'born to' live" and "'born to' die and rise again": righteous life for righteous death, obligating resurrection...

The legal condition is the shedding of worthy blood to fulfill the everlasting covenant, a covenant created for effecting our salvation, starting with forgiveness... Jesus' death cannot be but a quirk of human nature reacting to the Son of man's ministry - "just" killed by some influencial, evil men: we are heirs of Christ be prearrangement, and that inheritance is salvivic so there is NO coincidence in Christ's death at the hands of sinful man as merely a dramatic portrayal of self-less agape. Christ's death was planned, prepared for by the Godhead with the "testament" of Hebrews - effective only on death, for Calvary is the only method and avenue for saving the world.

PS: Just seen your last post, Tom. Your point isn't disputed - God's truth must be believed...! You're avoiding any arguments put your way for Jesus to need to die have power to forgive. Just disagreeing is no answer: your position is part of the rest of the Gospel teaching, but EGW also follows the Bible which also has a condition for our forgiveness like eternal life for us has a famous condition. Are you waiting for us to produce the proof? - or don't you think we've produced proof yet? What would you consider proof??

The "Christus Victor" paradigm denies that Christ's death was planned in the sense that God caused it to happen. God knew it would happen, given than man chose to sin, as it is inevitable that sinful man would choose to kill Christ, since man hates God (which is because God is good, and man is evil). The Acts 2 passage I've been quoting lays this out.

Certainly Calvary is the only method and avenue for saving the world, as Jesus Himself pointed out in John 3:16. The question is, of course, what the mechanism is which saves man. It looks like Jesus saw faith as that mechanism.

I see no evidence whatsoever from Jesus Christ that He saw His death in terms of enabling God to be able to legally forgive us. Do you?

As Christ paid the legal requirement of the wages of sin, which is death, God is legally able to forgive us. Correct?

No, Tom, John 3:16 makes no mention of Jesus' death - just his begotten Sonship, and our impending death...: the legal, Biblical basis for Jesus' death is found in this verse only because of other verses, like Jn 3:14, but especially the entire sacrificial system as the graceous way of salvation embodied in Jesus.

But first, the mechanism of salvation is not faith - faith is the thankful response to the actual mechanism and is only the instrument for accessing salvation itself. The mechanism is Jesus, including his death (Rom 4:25) and the means is grace.

Jesus' ransom isn't paid to the Devil but to God, whose law condemns sinfulness - if a payment can be perceived at all. These texts point to legal issues and salvation by Christ's death...
Sacrifices synonymously for sin and salvation from death is central to Bible history and teaching and these sacrifices embodied and point to Jesus' sacrifice of himself.

This is not elementary for you, too? Jesus' death saves because it redeems sinful man from eternal death rather than just being hounded to death by his enemies at a coincidental fate...? The Gospel is saved from death to live reborn the righteous life of Christ: Christ's death is the legal link to the kingdom, but you don't believe that, do you? Rom 7:1-4 ununciates what was understood plainly by Jesus' "ransom for many". Peter had to accept Jesus' body for salvation or have nothing of him, remember.

While we may debate this and differ, the Gospel of salvation through Jesus turns on his righteous death under the curse of the law of God. It may be your position loses the Gospel of salvation for wrongly rejecting its cornestone on a point of law you don't accept.

More study!!

Amen, brother Daryl! Brother Tom hasn't seen it yet...(!) Corret, as per the sanctuary service and its fulfilment in & by Jesus' life, death and resurrection.

We await Tom's next comment.

Well, Ellen White doesn't use the term "legally," but she does say that

"Through Christ Justice is enabled to forgive without sacrificing one jot of its exalted holiness." {GCB, October 1, 1899 par. 21}

"Through him [Christ] mercy was enabled to deal justly in punishing the transgressor of the law, and justice was enabled to forgive without losing its dignity or purity." {ST, June 18, 1896 par. 2}

Which means that, if God forgave without the cross, His justice would lose its dignity and purity.

Please express this same thought without using the word "legal".

Sure it does. The word "gave" has reference to Jesus' death. Here's another example:



That Jesus was referring to His death in vs. 16 is very clear from the context:



An EGW comment:



God gave His only-begotten Son to death. The "gave" references Christ's death, so John 3:16 involves Christ's death. That's the meaning of the verse. We are saved by believing in Christ, who died for our sins.

Another EGW comment:



This is the meaning of John 3:16.

I'm a bit amazed that you would take issue with John 3:16 having to do with Christ's death. I'm a bit confused as to what you would think the verse means. I've always understood it to mean what EGW has explained in DA 175. Christ was lifted up at Calvary. He said "If I be lifted up, I will draw all unto Me." As we respond to the wooing of the Holy Spirit, who speaks to us of Christ lifted up for our sins, we repent and are born again.



This is one of my points. The entire sacrificial system was not set up to communicate truths we understand by means of Western justice. The concepts you are speaking of didn't exist in Paul's time, or before. The people who lived then simply didn't think in these terms.

This is why I've been bringing up Jesus Christ. He spoke often of His death, but He never communicated the idea that He had to die for legal reasons, in order for God to be able to legally forgive. This idea of sacrifice simply didn't exist.

Here's a couple of texts which deal with the meaning of sacrifice:





These are themes which were understood, and with which Jesus dealt.



An EGW comment:



Salvation is "through faith," which is to say, it is the mechanism by which we are saved.

In John 3:16, Jesus says if we believe in Him (which is to say, have faith in Him) we will not perish (which is to say, be saved).



Jesus never taught this.



None of these were Jesus, so my point stands, which is that there is no evidence that Jesus taught that the purpose of His death was to that God could legally pardon us.



Of course. But what is the purpose and meaning of these sacrifices? You are suggesting meanings which were given by Anselm and Calvin, men who lived 1,000 and 1,500 years after the death of Christ, ideas which no contemporaries of Jesus nor of previous generations had.

Where is there any evidence that any church father had the understanding you are suggesting of the death of Christ?



I don't know what point you're making here.



Colin, it seems to me you are simply reading into texts an idea which you already have, rather than considering what the texts would have meant to the people to whom they were written. There is no historical or cultural foundation for either those who spoke or heard or read these words to have understood them along the lines of which you are speaking.



If this were the case, then it would seem that no one before Anselm or Calvin was saved, because there is no evidence that anyone had this idea before Anselm. What do you do with this?

Your assertion here to me seems to be misunderstanding how salvation takes place. We are not saved because we properly understand a theory of atonement. We are saved by having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. God, through Christ, reveals Himself to us, His live, His character, and makes an appeal to us through the Holy Spirit to repent of our sins and give our life to Him. If we respond, we are saved to eternal life, regardless of whether our preferred theory of the atonement is Christus Victor, MIT, penal substitution, or whatever.



Something we can agree on!

Your points...later - some of them invalid: is rebirth of John 3:3 without Jesus' death being salvivic - are we reborn simply by believing God's revelation in Jesus?

I asked about Jesus Christ. I said, "I see no evidence whatsoever from Jesus Christ that He saw His death in terms of enabling God to be able to legally forgive us."

In terms of Ellen White, we know from her account of how God treated Lucifer that Christ's death was not a legal necessity for the offer of pardon. God offered Lucifer pardon "again and again" without Christ's having died. He offered to restore Lucifer to his position, in addition to pardoning him, even after he had been organizing a rebellion, if he would confess his sin.

She writes:



If one looks at the entire chapter "It Is Finished," which is devoted to discussing what Christ's death accomplished, one sees the legal aspect barely mentioned. Something I find interesting is that even if there were some truth to the penal substitution idea, that would have to be a minor point in all that Christ accomplished. Again, in the 7 pages or so where EGW discusses this, it is barely mentioned. What about all the other things Christ's death accomplished? I hardly ever, if ever, see these things mention, except in passing, as a way to dismiss discussing them further.

For example, I don't recall ever seeing the quote from DA 762 I quoted above being discussed in any detail. Yet our beholding the character of God and being drawn mack to Him is the crux of the whole matter. Towering above any particular theories we may have regarding the atonement is to have a true understanding of God's character of love, to be drawn to Him, and having a personal relationship with Him because one loves Him and admires His values and the way He does things.

I think it's unlikely you or Daryl are seeing something I haven't seen. I mean, in terms of this specific question (I'm sure there are things you guys see that I don't). I originally came from a paradigm (before being familiar with the 1888 message) which would be very similar to Darryl's, and then after being acquainted with the 1888 message my paradigm became one like your (Colin). After thinking about things some more, my paradigm has shifted to be like the one Ty Gibson presents. Fifield's paradigm, from the 1890's, was very similar. It appears to me that Waggoner's was as well, although he didn't flesh things out on this question nearly as much as Fifield did.



As you can see, I'm asking for clarification on Daryl's statement to comment further.

Regarding viewing the sanctuary service as proof that there was a legal requirement for Christ to die, this is simply circular reasoning. Of course Christ died as prefigured by the sanctuary service. But what was the purpose for the death that was prefigured? That's the whole question. Not that there was a purpose, but what the purpose was. For example, Peter tells us that Christ died to "bring us to God." Could that be what we see prefigured by the sanctuary service?

So most were valid then. I'll take that!



"Rebirth" means simply "conversion." We are reborn as we see things in a new way. That's what conversion is about; being changed from within, seeing things in a new way, operating from different principles. Of course there is also the reality of being part of a new family, the family of God, having become a child of God.

Here's the best description of this I know:



We are born again (or "saved," to use EGW's word here) as we "look and live."

To "look and live" as sinners under the law involves more than healing a physical ailment as with Moses' bronze serpent...

Since we are sinful, agreeing and believing that God is good, holy, merciful, and died to show us his love - your singular point on this thread (?), doesn't save us, since the devils also believe, and tremble. Wanting Jesus as personal Saviour doesn't save either, because "how does one take him as Saviour and Lord"?

You haven't responded to the point of Rom 7:(1-)4. You appear to have ignored it! - it explains the basis for Lk 9:23 - denying self is only by the Romans text: participating in Christ's death to sin, self, and for us. Unless we can thus deny self by dying to sin in Christ, by grace - for and through faith, we cannot be reborn by 'looking and living'.

Since you insist that Christ's death "doesn't save" by being a salvation element, we couldn't avail ourselves of his self-sacrifice since it wouldn't have been a sacrifice for sin for us (Rom 8:3,4)...I believe, as perhaps you used to (as you yourself said earlier), that Christ died as me & instead of me as himself the sacrifice for sin (Rom 8:3,4), so that he by grace made Rom 7:1-4 true for all of us.

Saving us from sin involved every part of his human experience, including his death: we must die to sin, in and by Christ's death, to be able to deny self!...Or..., do you recognise and allow that we must rely on Christ's death for our death to sin - and our own sinfulness - in order to be born again and know the peace of God and the heart and life of Christ created in us by his Spirit, under Christ's Lordship.

Christ's death doesn't save us from eternal death; it isn't our death to sin and our sinfulness (both matters of law and justice!)? On the contrary, that's salvation by Christ's death!

I'll pause here, for further comment.

James point is that the devils don't actually believe. Their belief is false, which is why they tremble. James was not disputing Paul, that salvation is by faith, but was arguing against presumption, where one claims to have faith, but doesn't really have it. Saving faith saves, and is manifest by works, which is why James challenges the believer to show his faith by his works.

This is exactly in line with your point that "Wanting Jesus as personal Saviour doesn't save either". This is exactly correct. It is not wanting Jesus as a personal Savior that saves, but actually choosing to do so. It is not the desire to have faith, but the actual exercising of faith, which saves.



Well, my point was that I saw no evidence that Jesus Christ taught that He died so that God could legally forgive us. You responded by citing a bunch of texts, none of which were from Jesus. So yes, I did ignore these texts, because they were unresponsive, as it appeared to me.



It will take more time to decipher this than I have right now, so I'll respond later. Thanks for fleshing out your thought, as it makes it easier to respond.



No, I haven't said this anywhere, I'm sure, as this is an essential element of the Christus Victor theme.



I'll have to come back to this as well.



Here's a quick response, which is rather a long one, as I'll be quoting a rather long item from C. S. Lewis.



Does this make any sense to you? I see things rather as C. S. Lewis has expressed things here.

It appears to me that your comments have not been directed at the point I was taking issue with (or have I misunderstood you?) My point has been that Jesus did not teach that His death was for the purpose of giving God the legal right to forgive us. I haven't seen you address this at all. You've been raising, it appears to me, new points which I haven't been discussing. I'm happy to do so, but I'm curious as to your feelings about the points I've been raising. In particular, do you disagree with what I said? (that there is no evidence that Jesus Christ taught that His death was for the purpose of giving God the legal right to forgive us)

If you disagree, do you feel that your responses have been explaining why, because if so, I'm completely missing how.

Thanks Colin.

Happy Sabbath!

Yes, agreed, "gave" in Jn 3:16 is an indirect reference to God sacrificing his only-begotten Son from his throne in glory, forever(!).

Other texts are needed to instruct how to use this glorious promise. The one element of RBF you have left out is that spiritual death to sin precedes repentance and rebirth. Rom 7:4 states Jesus supplies this experience by his death for sin: you agree with this link, for which Jesus' death saves us from the curse of the law, in that the law condemns sinful sinners to the 2nd death?

The texts I quoted from Paul's letters stating Christ's death according to law only prove that Jesus didn't argue the legal issues of his death - goodness sake, his 12 didn't even support his determination to sacrifice himself...he told them he had much more to teach them that they weren't yet ready for: Paul taught the church these truths after meeting Jesus in vision following his own baptism in Damascus. That Paul wrote doesn't mean Jesus didn't know or not mean it when he died! You weren't excluding Paul's "Romans" and other writings for lack of express 'coroborration' by Jesus in the 'gentle' gospels, are you? Paul is as authoritative...

B4 I deal with your misinterpretation of texts re sacrifice, the sacrificial system taught the coming Messiah's substitutionary death for us sinful people. What purpose of substitution? Suffering the wrath of God against sin, and thus God was propitiating for us - a total break with heathen religions' human propitiation! Thus, too, God is both Judge and Advocate - totally unlike western justice, indeed.

As for your Ps 51 and Rom 12 quotes, you're missing the forest for the sap in the wood: a contrite heart is renewed spiritually by sincere sacrifice and confession - NOT without sacrifice...!! David was condemning pompostuous religion, of course. The Apostle Paul was summing up the spiritual walk which is enabled by sacrifice - verily Christ's! - not rendering his sacrifice as vain. Tom, given my texts, you sound almost historically critical here. "Heirs of Christ", the testator's testament of Hebrews, back up Rom 7:1-4 to make Christ's death the death of the everlasting covenant and the centrepeace of the gospel. If you repeat such sentiments again, I shall consider that you're not just having a bad day.

There can be only one true theory of the atonement. Personal relationship with Jesus is the beginning of faith, no doubt, but you think one can be Adventist without finally understanding the truth of the atonement??! If only to arrive @ mature faith, we need to experience full atonement with God. Yes, how God made propitiation with himself for us must be grasped for else there can be no final atonement by Jesus for our lack of understanding sin and righteousness! Unless Jesus was made the curse of the law for us in & by his death, we would still under the curse of the law against our sinful nature and record and there would be no salvation for Christ would have died in vain.

Ezek 19:20 I think it is: "The soul that sins shall die." Since God is the Judge, that is the rule of law - with legal requirements for saving from that law, and Jesus saves us according to this rule of law in Scripture.

Excerpting SOP's "Salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ" you wrote Well, no: By grace are we saved through faith. Justification is experienced through faith, but grace remains the mechanism of salvation: by which it happens;.it is experienced, accessed, through faith. Otherwise grace is not sufficient.

One must reason and not just take statements as apparently, logically accurate....the meaning is easily missed otherwise, eh.

Salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ, correct? Do we agree on this point?



I'm not following you here. What do you mean by saying "not just take statement as apparently, logically accurate?" Do you mean to say that the statement (I assume by this you are referring to the EGW statement) is apparently logically accurate, but in reality isn't? What meaning is easily missed by taking the statement that it can not be repeated often enough that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ alone?

I'm not understanding why you said that John 3:16 makes no mention of Jesus' death when apparently you understand that it does. What was your point?



I think Jesus did a fine job in explaining it.



Here is Waggoner's comment on this:



This seems to me to be saying the same thing I've been saying. Do you see any difference?



So you are agreeing with me that Jesus did not teach this. I accept this. Your idea then is that Paul taught a theology which Christ did not teach. This I disagree with. I believe that Paul was explaining the same concepts, preaching the same Gospel, that Jesus did.



I simply stated there was no evidence that Jesus taught that His death was necessary in order for God to be able to legally forgive us. It seems to me you are completely in agreement with this.



as Jesus is? I disagree. Jesus is "the revelation of God." (EGW). When we see Jesus, we've seen the Father. I can't imagine that Paul, or Ellen White, or any other servant of Jesus Christ would claim to be as authoritative as He was.



What interpretation? Do you mean my quotations of Ps. 51 and Romans 12? That's the only thing I can recall mentioning. How are these texts misinterpretations of the meaning of sacrifice?



The purpose of substitution is stated eloquently by EGW. Christ suffered the death that was ours that we might receive the live that was His.



I agree that Christ suffered the wrath of God against sin. The passage from Acts 2 I've been quoting explains this, as does the end of Romans 4.

Regarding God's "propitiating for us", I agree with this, understanding that "propitiate" means "make peace with" (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). For example:





If by this you have reference to the vain efforts of main to find favor with God by one's own efforts, I agree.



This similarity with what I perceive your view to be and the Western perspective is the emphasis on retribution as opposed to restoration, not that one party plays more than one part.



What does this mean?



David's point was that a contrite heart is what God desires. This is the meaning of sacrifice. Paul makes the same point. When we, with contrite heart, recognize the sacrifice of God in giving us His Son, our reaction will be, assuming we respond to the Holy Spirit, to give ourself to Him. This is the meaning of sacrifice.



My point was that what David and Paul wrote were expressions of what sacrifice meant to the cultures of their time. It was not only the Hebrews who had this idea. Nobody had Anselm's or Calvin's idea. The purpose of sacrifice was to express one's devotion to one's Deity. All cultures shared this concept, and none had Anselm's or Calvin's idea.



We don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water, do we? The methodology of considering what the historical context was is absolutely correct in the understanding of literature, whether inspired or not. If we wish to understand Ellen White, we should understand how she used language and what the language she used was understood by her contemporaries. Similar logic applies to Scripture. When the different authors wrote, they expected that their words would be understood in a specific way, and understanding their culture and how their contemporaries would understand their words is a great help.



What sentiments? That there is no historical or cultural foundation for people understanding things along the lines of Anselm or Calving before these men's times? I assume this is what you are referring to. What evidence is there for this? What Christian between the time the NT was written and a millennium later understood things along the line that Anselm or Calvin laid out?



There are many metaphors used to explain the atonement. It's a subject that will be studied throughout eternity. It's not something anyone here has exhausted.



Do you mean by this without believing what Anselm or Calvin taught? If so, yes, I believe one can be an Adventist without believing these things. I can't think of anyone who has expressed the concepts of the atonement more clearly than Ty Gibson. He's certainly an Adventist.



Assuming this means "at-one-ment," or reconciliation, I agree.



Are you saying here that one must think like Anselm and Calvin did in regards to propitiation in order for their to be a complete atonement? If so, I disagree. Here's something from Waggoner regarding propitiation:



I agree with Waggoner's comments here. They seem to me to be in harmony with what I've been saying.



I should really write at length regarding this (perhaps I will in the near future), because this is the crux of our disagreement. You see the condemnation that comes from the law as something arbitrary (by which I mean imposed, not a natural consequence) whereas I see condemnation as the direct result of the choices which one makes, and the law as a recognition, not a cause, of this reality. IOW the law is descriptive of reality, as is the text you cited.

It is a fact that the soul that sins will die. Why? Because of some action of the law? No. The law simply recognizes and warns of the reality of the situation. Even if there were nothing written, no law, which said explicitly "if you sin, you will die," it would still be the case that those who sin die.

The verse alludes to Christ's death, which must be interpreted via other "give" texts, etc. This "give" is by God himself, in the incarnation. The Godhead's agape motive is clear, too, but the legal need and sacrificial meaning aren't - needing other texts.



Why don't you, or do you (?), accept Pauline texts on the legal and sacrificial issues?







So you are agreeing with me that Jesus did not teach this. I accept this. Your idea then is that Paul taught a theology which Christ did not teach. This I disagree with. I believe that Paul was explaining the same concepts, preaching the same Gospel, that Jesus did.



I simply stated there was no evidence that Jesus taught that His death was necessary in order for God to be able to legally forgive us. It seems to me you are completely in agreement with this.




Oh dear, you're not siding with the more and less authoritative Bible & SOP writers, are you: THAT isn't Adventist, y'know...




You interpreted statements of two people intimately associated with God's sacrificial system as both saying that that system had nothing to do with our atonement by Christ with God...: Sacrifices actually never required by God for granting forgiveness to man!(?) (Lucifer prior to the war in heaven has nothing to do with our situation!) Neither David nor Paul were inferring that animal sacrifice and Jesus' sacrifice weren't required to obtain forgiveness.

I dealt with substitution in detail due to your ambivalence re Christ saving us by his death - as is much more than just showing love. That clarified, we can focus on the legal meaning of Christ's death.


Propitiate is a sacrifice to make peace, but not like expiate - which from my reading does not involve suffering God's wrath against sin. Adventism recognises God's wrath , as do you, but Waggoner (in your excerpt from him) does not. God's wrath is one of two differences between Christ's propitiation and heathen worship - the other is indeed God's propitiation rather than ours!


God's wrath does not involve retribution for saving us: retribution does feature for the fire of hell, though, as grace, too, has its limit.

Suffering the wrath of God - wrath existing independent of Calvary! - is likely synonymous with being killed by the full burden of human guilt: thus was Christ made sin for us - no taint on his character, but rather divine wrath and our guilt separating him from his Father.


Sap is intimate to the wood - you have to look very closely to see it. Since your argument was the truth of the new heart for the believer, but you were discounting t he sacrificial system to attain pardon and regeneration, I was pointing out the bigger context you had missed - the forest, among which one finds the hidden truths like the new heart showing itself.


Now, now: don't displace the legal giving of life blood by the animal sacrifices and the Lamb of God with the spiritual rebirth experience of justification by faith which is enabled by the shedding of blood.

Your quest for heart appreciation of God's love in Christ is hiding from you the legal problem we have as sinful transgressors of God's law, and Christ's righteous solution in his life, death and resurrection, ultimate replacing sinful flesh with immortal humanity.


Personal and cultural expression can and do never define God's truth by themselves: Bible truth is above culture. Biblical wording like "without shedding of blood...no remission of sin" is as true then as now, and I do not rely on Calvin or any other non-Adventist writers for my understanding - even disagreeing with our own who depart from our true message.


No, Tom: God's truth isn't lost in nor tied to generation's turn of phrase. God's justice is a part of his character you don't deal with but is central to Jesus' Gospel, and subtly different to man's justice and mercy.

God's salvation plan differed from the surrounding nations' religion: don't get lost in non-Biblical religious thought of any period of history.


Atonement based on propitiation is Biblical, not distracted by Augustinian error: sin & guilt means we need a Saviour from our guilt and curse under the law. That's the basic legal matter Jesus dealt with...


God's wrath against sin is a given, so Waggoner missed a point there...

What you have avoided like the plague is Waggoner's point about dying tc self and sin by Christ's death involving the same experience.

The law and its reality are N O T independent of each other!! God's commandments and overall constitution are our sinful reality and dictate of salvation. Like it or not, the law is in us by Jesus or against us without him - protected either way by grace for turning to Christ. Law and reality jointly express our sinfulness and God's holiness AND JUSTICE - which Rosangela highlighted earlier this week...: which you must also acknowledge.

1.If we make the assumption that Jesus Christ intended His words be understood by Nicodemus, then it is not necessary to consider other "give" texts in order to understand His meaning, as Nicodemus would not have had access to those. That Jesus Christ had His death in mind in John 3:16 seems extremely clear to me. Before your comments, I had never seen this questioned before.

2.Regarding the Pauline texts, let's first see if we can come to some conclusions regarding Jesus Christ, since my points were based on His teaching. It appears that you agree with me that there is no evidence that Jesus Christ taught that His death was for the purpose of allowing God to legally pardon us. Is this correct?

3.Regarding your statement that neither David nor Paul were inferring (do you mean "implying"?) that forgiveness was not necessary in order for man to obtain forgiveness, this is not addressing what I actually said. I did not say that sacrifice was not necessary for man to be forgiven, but for God to be able to legally pardon us.

4.You wrote, "Adventism recognises God's wrath , as do you, but Waggoner (in your excerpt from him) does not." I don't understand your point here. First of all, Waggoner was an Adventist, and his teachings on righteousness by faith were given to us from God, according to Ellen White, an Adventist prophetess. So I'm not understanding how Waggoner's comments would be different than "Adventism's".

Secondly what you write implies that I am differing with Waggoner on this point, since you state that I recognize God's wrath, but Waggoner does not, but my point in citing Waggoner was to affirm what I've been saying, not counter it. In other words, I agree with what Waggoner wrote.

Thirdly, I also quoted the following from the SOP:



I understand this to be presenting precisely the same sentiment as that expressed in the Waggoner quote.

5.You wrote the suffering the wrath of God is likely synonymous with being killed by the full burden of human guilt. I mostly agree with this. The only reason I say "mostly" is that I would say it's not limited to this, so it is not quite synonymous, but, in principle, I agree with what you're saying.

6.Regarding the sacrificial system pointing to pardon and regeneration, I have no idea whatsoever why you would say I was denying this. I never said anything remotely like this. I've been making the point that the sacrificial system was not understood as teaching that Christ's death was necessary in order for Him to legally pardon us, that's all.

7.You claim that you are not relying on Calvin or Anselm for your understanding of Scripture, but how can you be sure? If one hears a certain thing repeated over and over again, one tends to accept it as truth, without questioning the foundation. I've been asking for evidence that some Christian before Anselm or Calvin understood the atonement along the lines that you are claiming. You say that Scripture teaches this, but if this is so, why did it take a millennium for anyone to see this? And doesn't it seem rather odd that this "truth" would be uncovered at precisely the time when spiritual darkness most pronounced?

8.Regarding God's justice, my point is that justice in Scripture is presenting as being restorative, not retributive. Justice was seen as the way of restoring the community to shalom. So we see an emphasis on clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, taking care of the widow and orphan and so forth, as these were acts of restoration.

Here are a couple of texts which bring out the thought:



Justice is manifest by mercy and compassion.



Because God is a God of justice, He longs to be gracious to us.

Jesus Christ's death manifest God's justice, in accordance with the law. I agree with this completely. However, the justice of God is that of the Bible, which is restorative in nature.

9.Regarding your claim that I've "missed" Waggoner's point about our dying to self and Christ's experiencing the same, I agree completely with Waggoner, and this is fully in harmony with the points I've been making. For example, I've quoted the following, which deals with this very theme, many times:



10.Regarding the law and reality jointly expressing our sinfulness and God's holiness and justice, I agree with this. The law describes reality, so the jointness of necessity follows. Our sinfulness involves our choosing self over others, principally God, and the law wonderfully expresses this. God's holiness and justice is also expressed by the law, a transcript of His character, describing what holy and just thoughts, words and deeds consist of.

So, do Adventism say Jesus was a mere man or that everyone who qualifies as a SOP writer is divine?

Thanks for the Q, but it's about the whole Bible, all prophets, teachers and writers - with named books or not, being inspired and authoritative. 2 Tim 3:16. The SOP draws its literary authority from Bible prophecy.

Tom appeared to subvert Paul's teachings with Jesus' teachings, which would have him being less authoritative in the Bible. It may rather be that Tom is basing his atonement theory purely on Jesus' own Gospel words and holding that Paul didn't clarify the legal aspects of the atonement with his Sanhedrin insights. IOW, there are no legal issues, despite "ransom for many" and Paul's wording expanding on that, on top of OT teaching.

There's no confusion on who is (now) human divine and who is just human.:-)

Yes, the inspiration of these authors need be remembered, whatever we mean by inspiration. Much could be said about this..

If I were to decide that I understand Jesus better than Paul did, someone would need to bring me back to earth again. But if the disagreement is regarding what Paul meant by what he wrote, that is different. Even Peter wrote that Paul is difficult to understand.

Also I do wonder, is there anything that has not been said about either of these views? Is there anything that has not been understood regarding either of these views? If Tom has heard and understood the legal atonement view and still choses to reject it, further argumentation ought to fall under advice to avoid pointless argument. And if you Colin and Rosangela have heard and understood the Christus Victor view and still hold on to the legal atonement view, to what use is further argumentation? Let everyone be convinced in their own mind.

Jesus Christ is "the revelation of God" to use EGW's words, or "the Word of God" to use John's. When we've seen Him, we've seen the Father. He is the ultimate revelation of the truth about God. If we wish to know what God is like, He should be our chief study.

According to the SOP, all that we can know about God was revealed by Him. Assuming this is true, I would think that something as important to understand God's character as Christ's death would have been clearly and sufficiently explained by Him, which I believe is the case. I believe Paul echoed Christ's teachings, explaining the same Gospel concepts which Christ taught, but in his own words. I don't believe Paul was teaching a new Gospel which Christ Himself did not teach.



There is no reason to understand "ransom for many" as dealing with a legal issue, except that one already has that way of looking at things. This phrase of Christ's was not understood by anyone as having any penal substitution meaning until many centuries after Christ said it. If somehow by "ransom for man" Jesus Christ meant, "a payment so that My Father can legally forgive," surely someone would have understood this and communicated this, but no one did for many centuries.

A similar comment would apply to Paul's writings. No one understood Paul's writings as teaching that Christ had to die in order for God to be able to legally forgive us until Calvin, I don't think. At least, I'm not aware of anyone who suggested this before Calvin.

1.We know, because Jesus knew and we have the Bible today: the Pharisees didn't know! Nicodemus would have understood "God gave" as we do, had he held to our general knowledge of the promised Messiah...: you're expecting too much of this Pharisee!...

As for legal requirements for forgiveness, I'll deal with that later.

2.Jesus & Paul teaching differing on the atonement? No, and neither omits legal requirements. Jesus spoke of "ransom", while Paul wrote of Jesus being made the curse of the law for us. What do you make of Jesus' "ransom" statement in the light of the rest of the Bible? It is the rest of the Bible which you may not exclude from studying Jesus' teachings. I'll go to the sanctuary service and its requirements set up by Jesus himself to deal with your points (3)&(6), now.

We are under law if it weren't for Jesus' grace and righteousness, which we receive by faith. Both our sinful problem is legal and Jesus' solution is legal: Jesus fulfilled the righteousness (positive) and curse of the law (negative) conditions for being our substitute and sacrifice for sin. This was required for the everlasting covenant, the Son of God's pre-incarnate
promise to Abraham, by the compact God made with his Son to save sinful man as the Lamb of God, "slain from the foundation of the world", which Jesus needed legal approval for after his resurrection: "I have not yet ascended to my Father" (or words to that effect).

Legal conditions for forgiveness are 2 or 3 layers thick! By law and grace we must rely on Jesus who himself must perform the contract with God to save us, and of course the everlasting covenant is inheritance for all men (thru faith!) by Jesus' last will & testament.

Divine wrath against sin is not of an offended deity, but of a holy, just & good deity, as Romans says God's law is. Only false gods would be offended by sinful man!...You denounce the concept of divine wrath and then agree that Jesus suffered God's wrath:compare your (4)&(5). On some points you state mutually exclusive positions, you know.

I'm not concerned with Calvin or Anselm, least of all because Adventism is Calvinistic, but Wesleyan. What did Anselm say, anyway. I've found Adventist literature presents the GC very well.

Since you agree the law and reality are the same, you've still left the legal basis of salvation open - you don't admit the legal reality you allow for.

Justice is restorative??? You confuse justice, mercy and grace, even in your texts - the meaning is not in a plain reading: mercy and compassion require grace because justice is merciless were it not for grace - consider the judgement of hell! Both texts bring God's holy justice home to us: by grace alone can we be merciful and compassionate - but by justice alone we CANNOT. The Isaiah text MEANS that were God NOT graceous his justice would not be balanced with his mercy...!

It's God's grace and mercy which restores us sinful people to his glory. His justice speaks for his holiness, but his salvation is his mercy speaking for his grace, which is the other side of his holiness.

God's justice is the principal part of our jealous God's holiness you seem to make no time to talk of or exalt.

Oh, yes: you insisted you believe we do indeed die to sin and self when our faith experience starts, as taught by Waggoner. This time you provide a DA quote on God working his graceous charm to portray his Gospel character by the Son of God himself to dispel Satan's lies about God - Satan foisting his own evil character onto his holy Creator...

Tom, this DA quote is of God clarifying his character in Jesus: It's NOT about Jesus dying our death to sin, which she writes of, too, but which YOU have not quoted her on when challenged for that. You have never argued or agreed on this forum - to my knowledge, and almost definitely not on this thread, that we die to self and sin by Christ's death to the same. I must reiterate: you do not argue for or support the teaching that we die to sin in Christ as we come to and exercise faith, on learning of God's agape truth from the Gospel. Discovering the truth of agape and accepting it as true is the only Gospel element of what I've just listed that you support: you say anything but that we die to sin when we accept Jesus presentation of God.

Last time you countered that the devils in James' Epistle which believed God is love but tremble is a false belief. No, the devils truly believe but do not submit: your idea of reconciliation isn't submissive either since our agreement that God is agape cannot express love in response unless we first die to sin & self to be reborn of the Spirit. Dying to sin is how we learn to love God!

...Now, you may have mentioned recently "giving one's life to God", but I can't recall where you said it - if you did. If you did, why are you so loath even to utter such a vital seed of faith, when the topic is so pervasive in discussions here?

Better stop here, ever more anxious about your ideas: up side is however well we do or don't explain ourselves, sincere faith does work. Rejecting truth may be fatal as it pertains to "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ".

1.When Jesus said to Nicodemus



what is it you think Jesus expected Nicodemus to think He meant?

2.Let's deal with Jesus for the time being. I've been saying that I don't see any evidence that Jesus Christ taught that His death was necessary in order for God to be able to legally forgive us. You stated the following:



which I took it was agreeing with what I said. But now you seem to be disagreeing with my point, adducing Jesus' use of the word "ransom" as evidence. So which is it please? Are you saying that, indeed, Jesus did not teach that His death was for the purpose of allowing God to be able to forgive us, as your previous statement implies (even given reasons for why this would be so: a)disciples didn't support His determination to sacrifice Himself b)Jesus had much to teach them that they weren't ready for) or are you disagreeing, on the basis of the word "ransom"?

3.I don't denounce the concept of divine wrath. I've never stated that. Just because I don't agree with your interpretation of some point does not mean I am rejecting the concept involved. You may state, "You are rejecting my concept of divine wrath" and I'll agree to that.

4.You wrote:



I take it you meant that Adventism is *not* Calvinistic, but Wesleyan. This is irrelevant to my point, which is before Calvin came up with the idea that Jesus died in order for God to be able to legally forgive us, this idea did not exist. Surely if this idea is indeed Biblical, and this is what Paul taught, someone within the first 1500 years of time from when Paul wrote to Calvin should have understood something as fundamental as the primary reason (as you understand it, it appears to me) for Christ's death. Who understood this?

5.You wrote:



I do admit the legal reality I've allowed for. I just don't think it is arbitrary (i.e. imposed).

6.You write that justice is merciless, but here's a text I quoted:



This is the opposite of merciless. Justice is made manifest in acts of mercy and compassion.

7.Regarding what you are asserting in regards to what I'm saying in regards to our dying to sin, I'm not aware of saying anything different than what EGW says. I'll find a couple of her statements on this at random and quote them.





I couldn't find anything different than these. I agree with the points she makes her in regards to dying to self/sin.

Please present some quote of hers which speaks to the point you are making in regards to dying to sin in Christ.

8.Regarding the devils not believing, it's clear they do not believe because Jesus Christ said whoever believed would not perish, and they will perish. So the "believe" that James is speaking of in not "believe" in the sense Jesus Christ is speaking of, which is my point. If a person believes in the sense of which Christ spoke, his faith will be manifest by works, which is James' point.

9.You wrote:



Colin, you make repeatedly what seem to me to be very strong assertions regarding my points of view, such as here asking why I am so loath even to utter etc. an idea which of course I agree with, that giving our life to God is important. You make these statements without quoting what I've actually said, even though I've asked you repeatedly to do so.

Please, if you're going to make a strong claim like this, present something I've said. From my point of view, this is just coming out of the blue, and is utterly without foundation.

How many times have I quoted DA 175, 176? Isn't the idea of which you speak right there in this quote I've presented so many times?

Jn 3 may have made sense to Nicodemus: hopefully it did! - still maybe only after Jesus was crucified which alerted the disciples, too.::)

How much do we resort to the Gospels to study the meaning of the atonement rather than the writings of a converted Pharisee? The "ransom theory" isn't good theology, since God plays by the rules! Jesus' statements are according to the religious culture of his day: he mainly warned how & by which Jews he would die. He also said about glorifying God,...and he stated his ransom for many. The history of atonement theories is due more to the religious climate and culture than secular culture: understanding what Jesus meant is to study the whole Bible, not just the Gospels - indeed the sanctuary service is Jesus' own teaching, since the Son of God announced "I am" to Moses! The truth of the covenants is also Jesus' teaching - from that time. It's not just his Gospel wording!

The atonement theories mirror better understanding of the Bible over time, since the first few centuries focused on celebrating the Christian faith's birth and the natures of Christ.
The Reformation fine tuned the "satisfaction theory", and today elements of nearly every theory bar the "ransom theory" have truth in them: we entertain a fuller teaching, including the sanctuary teaching and the two covenants, not forgetting the affect of God's revelation in Christ on Jesus' faith relationship with us.

As for your other points, your "arbitrary" objection to our legal reality puzzles me: how do you define arbitrary here?

As for divine justice, our holy God is merciful to sinners due to his grace, not his justice: since our God is a consuming fire, divine grace brings mercy. That Zechariah text specifies two or three activities - justice being separate from the rest. God in Christ brought justice and mercy together, by grace!

Good to see you actually mention belief in dying to self & sin, since such is not necessarily implicit in 'turn and repent'.

I still don't know the answer to the question I've been asking. I've stated there is no evidence that Jesus Christ taught that His death was necessary in order for God to be able to legally forgive us. I've been asking for some time if you agree with this or not. I'd still like to know.

I'll restate my opinion on this, which is that Jesus Christ, the master teacher, did make clear the purpose of His mission, including His death. Paul, and others who wrote after His death, did not teach a new Gospel which Jesus did not teach, but simply presented the same Gospel, brought by Jesus, in their own words, applying it to circumstances they were involved with.



I think the Gospel was best understood near the time of Christ and His disciples/apostles, and became less understood over time, until around the time of Anselm, which was the "noon of the papacy," the "midnight of the world." As the Reformation came, things became to be better understood, in general, but there were still relics of error that needed to be dusted off, including Sunday worship, the immortality of the soul, the human nature of Christ, and the atonement.



The "satisfaction theory" didn't exist until a Millenium after Christ's death. This idea has an idea developed during the noon of the papacy being "fine tuned," and still doesn't explain why nobody had these ideas for many centuries after Christ died. Is it really possible that for a thousand years that nobody understand this concept which you say is so crucial?



I agree that now light has been increasing on these subjects.



I defined it as "imposed."

Here's an example. There's a law against running a stop sign. This law has penalties. One penalty is that if you run a stop sign you may get in an accident. This is a non-arbitrary penalty. Another penalty is that a cop may give you a ticket. This is an arbitrary penalty.



This is the definition I had in mind.



I would say that God is merciful to sinners because God is love. It is God's character to be merciful.



The Zechariah text says:



Justice is not separate from mercy and compassion, but manifest by mercy and compassion. The text says: "Executed true justice." How is true justice executed? By showing mercy and compassion everyone to his brother.



The DA quote I've been presenting over and over again has these elements explicitly stated. I'm not sure why you're bringing this up, however, as I've simply been making the point that Jesus Christ did not teach that His death was necessary in order for God to legally pardon us. Given this is the point I've been making, why would you expect me to mention "belief in dying to self and sin"? How is this germane to my point?

Tom,

Is there a legal aspect to justification or isn't there? If there isn't a legal aspect to justification, imputed righteousness makes no sense.

Great question, Rosangela. There is a legal aspect to justification, as to justify means "to set right," and the law is the standard by which this is judged.

It seems to me that imputed righteousness and a declaration of righteousness is the same thing. So that to say that righteousness have been imputed to someone is the same thing as saying that the person has been declared righteous. Do you agree with this?

Yes, but if there is a legal aspect to justification, this means that there is a legal aspect to pardon. Why then do you take issue with this?

I don't. Any pardon effected would have to be in harmony with God's law.

I take issue with the idea that the death of Christ was necessary in order for God to be able to legally pardon us (i.e., as a constraint against God, rather than something necessary for us)

I don't get your point.
God has a law not for Himself, but for the benefit of His creatures.
When He grants pardon, this pardon has to be in harmony with this law - again, not for Himself, but for the benefit of His creatures.
And this means that when we transgressed He had to be able to find a way to legally pardon us - again, not for Himself, but for the benefit of His creatures.
He could just say, "OK, you have transgressed my law but I forgive you" without any regard for the punishment which was due to us. But then His pardon would be illegal - because His law has a penalty.

"A government, of whatever character, requires a governor. This world has a governor,--the God of the universe. ... In God's moral government, which is a government based upon a distinction between right and wrong, law is essential to secure right action. ... As Creator of all, God is governor over all, and He is bound to enforce His law throughout the universe. To require less from His creatures than obedience to His law would be to abandon them to ruin. To fail to punish transgression of His law would be to place the universe in confusion. The moral law is God's barrier between the human agent and sin. Thus infinite wisdom has placed before men the distinction between right and wrong, between sin and holiness." {ST, June 5, 1901}

The law is simply a transcript of God's character. The law did not impose any constraints upon God. The existence of the law makes it no more difficult for God to forgive than it would have been had God not made known this transcript.

To say that when God pardons, this must be in harmony with His law, means exactly the same thing as saying that when God pardons, He does so in a way which is in harmony with His own character. Again, the law does not change this in any respect.

The issue involved with God's forgiving without regard for conditions has not to do with illegality, but with ineffectiveness. The following expresses the thoughts I'm trying to communicate:

Is it in harmony with God’s character to punish transgression, or isn’t it in harmony with His character to punish transgression?
If it is in harmony with His character to punish transgression, then He couldn’t pardon transgression without this transgression being punished.

Again,
"To fail to punish transgression of His law would be to place the universe in confusion." {ST, June 5, 1901 par. 5}

Does God/his law pardon us without dealing with our sin & guilt to do so? Was "forgive them for they know not what they do" not possible only because of his own self-sacrifice?

As for Fifield: propitiation is by definition "suffering God's wrath" (depending which of that or expiation one views as involving wrath), but neither means a sacrifice "for sin": each is an appeasement sacrifice! - toward God, either with or without wrath involved. I hope Fifield was sincerely mistaken in arguing that Christ died to appease our sin, reconcile our sin with God. Wrath in or out, but, please, no propitiation for sin.

Otherwise, God reconciled us to himself by his Son's death, indeed. The rest of the story is our discussion!...

There is also this bit:The sentence including the bold words doesn't make sense: an arbitrary law annulled for being 'kind' while a law tempting us into sin isn't arbitrary.

This sentence from Fifield has totally confused me.

I believe that it is according to God's character to punish sin in the sense that those who sin should receive the results of the choice they have made, not as something He must do in isolation to the results which the sinner brings upon himself as a result of the choices he has made. For example, in DA 764, EGW points out 5 or 6 times in the space of one paragraph that the destruction of the wicked is not due to an arbitrary action on God's part, but is instead the result of the choice that the unrighteous have made.

It is the nature of sin that it is bad and results in bad things. So God, as a loving Father, warns us of the bad things which sin does. Sin in not bad in its results because God punishes it, but sin is bad because it leads to bad results. This is because the principle upon which it is based, selfishness, can only lead to misery, pain, suffering and death. All of these things are inherent in sin. Satan is the author of sin and all its results.

There are two roads for us to choose from. One is the road of self-sacrificing love, the "law of life for the universe." The principle of this road is to receive from God and give to others (the others including God and our fellows). Satan invented another road, the road of self. Satan has claimed his road is a better road. Now if God arbitrarily does bad things to those who go down Satan's road, this would hardly prove that Satan's road is bad. It would only prove that God does something to those who go down this road. Satan could argue that the road would be fine, if only God would stay out of the way.

The only way to resolve the controversy was to all the results of both roads to be made clear. Jesus Christ did so. He made clear the results of going down both roads.

The "whole purpose" of His mission was "the revelation of God" in order to set men right with Him. As Peter puts it, Christ died to "bring us to God."



Returning to a couple of points I've been making.

1)There is no evidence that Christ taught that He had to die in order for God to be able to legally pardon us.
2)There is no evidence that anyone had this idea until Calvin.

Regarding 1), the only suggestion I've seen put forth that I can think of is that Christ spoke of His life being given as a "ransom for many." To extrapolate from this phrase that He was teaching that He had to die in order for God to be able to legally pardon us is far-fetched, to put it mildly. Many understand this phrase to mean something different from this, and until Calvin, I don't believe anyone understood it this way. Can you cite someone who did?

Tom,

Considering your defence of the Christus Victor view and also considerinig that you have used the eastern orthodox holding to this view as an argument of historical context, my question is. How important is this piece of theology for you in the overall scheme of things? Would you for instance consider joining an eastern orthodox fellowship because of it? Or will you prioritise the doctrines of sabbath and the great controversy theme higher and thus stay an adventist? How far are you willing to go to live up to this commitment for the Christus Victor view of salvation history?

No. The way He deals with our sin & guilt is by healing us of our guilt and saving us from our sin.



I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. Christ asked His Father to forgive those who were persecuting Him. Christ's self-sacrifice was not necessary for God to be able to hear Christ's prayer. It was similar to Stephen's prayer as he was dying. He was simply reflecting the spirit of Christ, the character of God, in so doing.



Fifield didn't write anything like that Christ died to reconcile our sin to God. Where do you get such an idea? I hope you were sincerely mistaken in arguing that Fifield died to reconcile our sin to God.



This is 1 John 4:10, Christ is "the propitiation for our sins."

Fifield: He did not have any grudge against them. He would like to forgive everybody. But why could he not do it? - It would annul his law, if it was an arbitrary law; but if it were not, it would lead men to go into sin, and sin and death would result.

Colin:The sentence including the bold words doesn't make sense: an arbitrary law annulled for being 'kind' while a law tempting us into sin isn't arbitrary.

This sentence from Fifield has totally confused me.

Me:What Fifield is saying is that if the law were something arbitrary, meaning that it prescribed an imposed or artificial penalty, as opposed to describing the actual results of what happens when one acts contrary to the principles of God's love, then God by arbitrarily forgiving would annul such a law. But since the law is not arbitrary, but instead describes a real problem, which is that those who act contrary to the principles which God espouses will experience misery, pain and death, God had to take action which would solve these real problems.

I view SDAism as a continuation of the Reformation. I think there was great light at the time just after Christ, the time of Paul, John and so forth, and that this light started diminishing until the Middle Ages when, with the Reformation the light started to be rediscovered. So things like the Sabbath, the immortality of the soul, and so forth were lost sight of.

I see the concept of the "Great Controversy" as a great feature of SDAism, to which a great deal of credit should go to Ellen White. She did not originate the concept, but she developed it to a far greater degree than had existed. I think this concept is a tremendous mechanism by which one can view truth, including the question of why Christ had to die. I think it's superior to Christus Victor, as we have light through the Spirit of Prophecy that those before her did not have. I think Christus Victor is the best of the available views before the Great Controversy idea came about.

My point in mentioning the Eastern Orthodox view is to make clear that the idea of penal substitution did not exist for over a thousand years. Every other thing that we believe existed earlier than that. The Sabbath existed, the idea that the soul is not eternal existed, all sorts of ideas in relation to Christ's divinity/humanity existed, but the penal substitution idea did not exist. If it were really the case that Paul, John, and Jesus had this idea in mind when discussing the death of Christ, wouldn't someone, somewhere before Calvin have got it? That's the question I've been asking.

There are many SDA's who have, and have had, the ideas I've been expressing. For example, it seems to me that E. J. Waggoner had the ideas I've been sharing, or, at a minimum, something very close. George Fifield, a contemporary of Waggoner, had the views I've been sharing, and, indeed, I've been quoting from him extensively. Among modern SDA's, Ty Gibson is a well known author who shares the view I've been presenting.

I believe that God chose the SDA church as a vehicle by which a message should be preached to prepare the world for the coming of Christ. I believe some day the SDA church will preach this message. So I am an SDA.

No one had systematized the doctrine of righteousness by faith until Luther, and no one had the idea of an investigative judgment until the SDA pioneers. So?

It seems to me you are saying that God’s forgiveness has nothing to do with Christ’s sacrifice, but has to do only with man’s attitude of repentance in face of Christ’s sacrifice.

This, to me, is in total disagreement with the doctrine of righteousness by faith as exposed by the Bible and by Ellen White.

“Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:24-26).

“Justice demanded not merely that sin be pardoned; the death penalty must be met. The Saviour has met this demand. His broken body, his gushing blood, satisfied the claims of the law. Thus he bridged the gulf made by sin between earth and heaven. He suffered in the flesh, that with his robe of righteousness he might cover the defenseless sinner.” {YI, April 16, 1903 par. 6}

She says clearly that the death penalty must be met to satisfy the claims of the law. It’s not that God must kill those who transgress His law – it’s that sin must be judged, and this produces in the transgressor a weight of guilt which inevitably leads to death. This is the penalty of the law, the legal requirement which Christ met. Our sin was judged in Him, so that we don’t have to face its judgment and bear the weight of its guilt. To be in harmony with His own character, God couldn’t abstain from judging sin, God couldn’t pardon without judging sin, so He judged it in Christ. God Himself provided the means through which we could be pardoned and, at the same time, sin could be judged and condemned as it should be.

Your response is rather indirect. I'll try to interpret it, and you can tell me if my interpretation is correct.

You seem to be implicitly agreeing the points that I made, but don't think these points are important, for reasons exemplified by that fact that no one had systematized the doctrine of rbf until Luther, nor had the idea of an investigative judgment been taught until SDA pioneers did so. Is this correct?



I agree with this somewhat, but I see it differently. What I see is that God reveals sin to an individual, and that revelation produces in such a one a weight of guilt which leads to death. This doesn't happen arbitrarily, but happens simply because of the reality of sin and God's character. The principle is explained here:



The righteous are willing to be purged from sin, and thus are able to abide God's presence after the resurrection. The wicked are unwilling to do so, and cannot. Just a little earlier we read:



Also



So we see that the revelation of God's character has an opposite effect upon the righteous and the wicked. To the righteous, it is life. To the wicked, it is death. It is the revelation of God's character which judges and condemns sin. Not by an arbitrary action on His part, but as something which flows forth spontaneously by virtue of who He is, just as in the case of only the pure in heart being able to abide in Christ's presence.

So the whole problem is sin. Not an arbitrary act on God's part to judge or condemn sin, but sin itself. If man could be purged from sin, then he could abide in God's presence, and all would be fine.

It is not God's judgment of or condemnation of sin, as a separate action undertaken by Him or something other than God simply reveling His love (e.g. "the glory of He who is love will destroy them") that causes the wicked to die, but sin itself, by virtue of what it does to their character, in unfitting them to abide in God's presence.



Here's something from GC 543:



Isn't this judging sin?



Nothing arbitrary needs to be done to judge or condemn sin. Say you have a loved one who takes drugs. You've seen the effect that drugs does to this person. You judge and condemn drugs. Why? Because they cause misery, suffering and death to your loved one. There's no need to affect some other person with drugs and have that person die in order for some requirement you have that drugs be judged and condemned by you.

Now if somehow the death of another would prevent your loved from suffering the effects of drugs, then such a sacrifice would make sense. I see the impact of Christ's sacrifice brought out here:



By Christ's sacrifice, we are drawn back to God. This is just what we need.

I wanted to make another point in reference to what's being said here, as this gets to the crux of the matter of our difference. What I perceive you to be saying is that God acts differently to the wicked than how He acts towards the righteous. He does one thing to one group, and another thing to the other group. To the wicked, He does something, He judges sin and condemns it, which causes their death. To the other group, because they complied with conditions which were set forth, God doesn't do this same thing. So the wicked die, and the righteous live, because God treats them differently, depending upon whether or not they complied with the conditions He set forth.

I see God treating both groups the same, and that one group dies and the other group lives because of what they have done to themselves, in the former case, and because of what they have allowed God to do in the latter.

The light of the glory of God, which gives life to the righteous, will slay the wicked. The light of the glory of God is the same, but the result of this light is different, depending on one's character. The same sun bakes the clay but melts the ice.

I notice, Tom, you clearly avoided commenting on Rosangela's SOP quotes, contrasting with her comments instead. That's not fair: you must deal with EGW quotes which add to the quotes presenting your, limited argument. Come on (to use Delia Smith's famous rallying cry to "her", own - personally owned - football club, Norwich City, in Norfolk, England): Let's be having you!

As for different treatment by God between the saved and the lost, you suggest Rosangela is writing about, I'm sure Rosangela was not omitting (in argument or thinking) from her Rom 3 quote the 3 verses immediately before her quote...where differences are cancelled by God himself in dealing with fallen man: "...for there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [all (in the Greek)] being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus".

Let's try to reduce silly suggestions, hey?;-)

I agree that one group dies because of what they have done to themselves and the other group lives because of what they have allowed God to do. But I see this as just part of the truth. I see Christ’s death as substitutive and meritorious and, as such, as making a fundamental difference in relation to the judgment. On the Day of Judgment, God will manifest His abhorrence for every sin that was ever committed – except the sins for which He has already manifested His abhorrence on the cross and which have already been forgiven. That’s why I agree with Luther’s words: “Mine is Christ's living and dying as if I had lived his life and died his death.”

That's because I've commented on them many times already. Regarding Rom. 3:23ff, I agree with Waggoner's take, which I've already quoted on this thread.

Regarding YI, April 16, 1903 par. 6 I've commented on this quite a few times (at least the thought) on this thread.

There's no need to just keep repeating things I've already said, is there? I'm trying to move the conversation forward.



I've dealt with the quote. For example, I mentioned that God offered to pardon Lucifer many, many times, according to EGW. If EGW held the view that the death of Christ was necessary in order to pardon, how could God have done so in Lucifer's case? Does "the wages of sin is death" apply to men but not to angels?

Speaking of things which are not fair :), I've been trying to quite a long time now to get an answer regarding my question as to whether you agree with my assertion that there is no evidence that Jesus Christ taught that His death was necessary in order for God to legally forgive us. You have implied this, and I supplied your quote which did so, but then you wrote some things which caused me to doubt if you really meant to imply what your quote implied, so I asked for clarification. You have not clearly stated whether you agree or disagree with my assertion. This is one of two questions I've been trying to get an answer to. I'll leave the second one for now, pending an answer to this one.



In the judgment, according to her way of looking at things (it appears to me) the reason the wicked die and the righteous don't is because God judges and condemns sin in the case of the wicked (which results in a burden of guilt being brought upon them, which they cannot handle) whereas He forgoes doing this in the case of the righteous, because the righteous have met a condition. I'm not understanding your comment regarding Rom. 3 in this context.

Btw, Colin, do you recognize the Rosangela's view is very different from your own?

I didn't see your previous comment, you see,...which is why I personally try to repeat myself again and again, for anyone who's new to my p.o.v. or possibly forgotten it.

You slipped in a comment regarding EGW's statement in your post to me, thanks: the only plan of redemption revealed in Scripture, revealed for sinful man, requires the shedding of the blood of the Lamb of God for taking way sin and guilt by suffering our death penalty - which is being our propitiation by faith in his blood (Rom 3:25?). Is the redemption option for Lucifer before he declared war relevant to us? He sinned in God's face: there was no redemption offer made to him; an invitation isn't the same thing, as any lawyer or law graduate could tell you. And that invitation was before he declared war. That isn't our concern, nor would it feel comparable!

Also, the fire of hell was originally reserved only for fallen angels: any wicked humans who land there do indeed do so of their own accord, unnecessarily, due to Calvary!

My exclamation re Calvary is, in line with Rosangela's comments 'earlier' today, that, in light of Rom 3:22b-24 God condemned the sin of every man (Heb 2:9) in the body of his Son, the Saviour of the world, who died the second death to free us of that eternal condemnation rooted in our nature, he also having our burden of guilt ladled onto him in its fulness, which did kill him as well as separate him from his Father. If any reject that death as his own, since it is legally every man's under the everlasting covenant, he is without excuse.

The cause of death was directly our guilt; the availability of that death to us for salvation is based on God's covenant law by which we inherit Christ's merits, mind and character, by grace via our death in Christ and rebirth by his Spirit.

God doesn't treat the "sheep and the goats" differently in the judgement: then as today, the question isn't what sins have you committed, but what have you done with Jesus' life, death and resurrection for you, as you? Jn 3 says that that is the basis of condemnation - unbelief in the Son of God.

You say Rosangela and I have "very different" views: you aren't trying to divide and conquer are you? - I know she and I differ on Christology, but not in this regard!

You're welcome.



If the law requires the death of Christ in order for God to pardon, this requirement would be just as germane to Lucifer as to us. Why wouldn't it be?



Angels do so just as unnecessarily as humans. Both do so because that's what they choose, completely unnecessarily.



I'm happy to discuss Paul with you later, but I've been repeatedly saying that I would like to do so after reaching some sort of understanding regarding Christ. I have asserted that there is no evidence that Jesus Christ taught that His death was necessary in order for God to legally forgive us. You at first wrote something which implied that you agreed with this, but then you wrote something things which made me unsure. Do you agree with my assertion?



The question has to do with whether or not we would be happy in God's presence or not. In the GC 543 passage I've quoted, it brings out that the wicked do not like heaven. They do not want to be there. They want to flee. The righteous, OTOH, love God and want to spend eternity with Him.

You say God does not treat them differently, but your statement implies you believe He does. He treats them differently according to what they've done to Jesus' life, death and resurrection. My point is that the problem that comes up for the wicked is not due to God's treating them differently, because of what they did with Jesus' life, death and resurrection, but how they have dealt with Jesus' life, death and resurrection *changes them.* God treats both groups the same, revealing His love and goodness to all, but for one group this revelation is life while for the other it is death.



To believe in Christ is to be born again. This is simply restating what He said earlier to Nicodemus that "you must be born again." An person who is not born again does not love God or the principles by which He does things. Such a person would be unhappy in God's presence, even for a moment, let alone for all eternity.



You do differ, and substantially so. It's interesting that you are not aware of this.

I would say that the fact, per se, that an idea was not presented in detail, or systematized, before a certain time doesn’t mean the idea is incorrect.

The fact, however, is that this idea was presented before Calvin. (I consider Calvin’s Penal Substitution theory as just a variation of Anselm’s Satisfaction theory. In the first case man owes something to God, while in the latter case man owes something to the law. But they have in common that there is a debt to be paid.)

I did a quick search on this subject today and verified that, while some of the church fathers saw this debt as paid to the devil, others saw it as paid to God.

Benjamin Joett says:


Quotes from Athanasius:


Other examples from the patristic literature:


So I verified that this idea, contrarily to what is generally affirmed, was not inexistent among the church fathers. I certainly don’t agree with everything they say, but all the theories have elements of truth in them. It’s interesting that Ellen White takes elements from all the theories of the atonement to explain her view (including the ransom to Satan).

Ah yes...: I hold Jesus' "ransom for many" to be a legal requirement for salvation. Had meant to mention that last time as a post script...:-)

As for the Devil's redemption method, he was privileged with God's presence until he formally broke with God and his Son: that meant that the Godhead in Christ revealing God's glory on earth - and dying to self and for sin, weren't suited for or applicable to him in heaven or on earth! He was confused between his identity and that of God's Son, and the two Beings of the Godhead counselled with Lucifer till the 'end' of his self-deception, when he declared war on the Godhead, but until that end he didn't actually break with God. This relational situation suggests that during this counselling he was just confused about himself and God's Son and the Godhead's fairness, but hadn't sinned as such since he was in communion with God, and clarity of his situation could be mutually agreed resulting in no sin/iniquity. Once he declared himself adversary against God, he sinned and war broke out.

Notice, once war broke out there was no possibility of pardon, etc...Lucifer committed iniquity in God's very presence, and that is unforgiveable isn't it? Just so with the fallen third of the heavenly host: sinning in God's presence bars from any salvation plan, even requiring the Son of God to suffer human transgressors' penalty under the law: it was never for fallen angels.

Of course sheep and goats are different! Since God treats them equally by judging their sin & sinfulness in Christ's sacrifice for sin, both their eternal redemption and their eternal fate according to choice (EGW's emphasis in the quote you alluded to) are determined by the law of God against sin. Where their choice lands them is according to God's law, just as much as salvation is recognised by the law as graceous justice.

How could Christ's death for sin and for us - to indeed save us from our own death penalty - be described as arbitrary (you say "imposed") and contrary to the law of God, which you aver is not arbitrary? Yes, how would a legal requirement for Christ's death be an "imposed" requirement?

Christ tasted death for every man, and believers are legally heirs of Christ under the covenant of grace: do you agree with this as Gospel truth of legal procedure for salvation?

Colin:



Lucifer sinned, and was given an opportunity to confess that sin. Either this is before or after he "declared war," to use your expression. If it was after, this is in direct contradiction to your assertion that after said declaration there was no possibility of redemption. If it was after, this is in direct contradiction to your assertion that before he had done so he had not sinned.

Regarding God's treating the sheep and goats different, the DA 108 quote says that the light of the righteousness of God, which gives life to the righteous, slays the wicked. Therefore the demise of the wicked is not due to their being treated differently by God, but due to the damage they have done to themselves.

Regarding your question to me in regards to "legal procedure," I don't see legal procedure as being the issue. According to DA 108, it is not legal procedure which is the problem, but the fact that the revelation of God results in death for the wicked.

We have been damaged by sin, so much so that we can not abide in God's presence. We need to be healed. It is the love of God revealed at the cross which heals us, and enables us to abide in God's presence. This is all in harmony with God's law.



The crux of our difference, as I see it, is that I believe that the wicked die because of sin's effect upon them, not because God treats them differently because of something they have or have not done. I see God as warning us of the effects of sin, and providing for us a way of escape, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Rosangela, thank you for the quotes. I'll take a look at them in more detail.

The chief idea that I've been arguing against is that God could not legally forgive us without the death of Christ. I haven't spoken of debts. The idea of debt is another matter.

Would you agree that before Calvin, no one spoke specifically of the idea of the death of Christ being necessary in order for God to legally pardon us? This is the point I've been making, and if you are aware of anyone who said this before Calvin, I'd certainly be interested in knowing this.



I don't know what you have in mind in regards to the quotes you cited being against what is generally affirmed. What is it you think it generally affirmed?

Upon further review, I see you asked me a couple of questions I didn't address, so I'll do so here. Well, the first question doesn't make sense, because it has the phrase "contrary to the law," and I've been affirming that the Plan of Salvation is in accordance to the law. So perhaps you could rephrase it.

Regarding the second question, I gave an analogy, which I'll repeat here. There is a law against running a stop sign. If you run it, there are two types of penalties, one arbitrary (or imposed), the other not. The arbitrary penalty is a cop writing you ticket, and you're being forced to pay a fine. The non-arbitrary penalty is your imprudent behavior resulting in an accident.

I see the problem of sin being of the latter type. It results in pain, misery and death. Not because God does something arbitrarily to those who practice such things, but for the same reason that running a stop sign is reckless.

Satan had presented an argument that he had a better way, which can be represented as the road of self. God says this road will lead to pain, misery and death. Satan says no. If God inflicts those who embark upon Satan's road with pain, misery and death, He had not disproved Satan's claim. The road would only be seen as inferior because God arbitrarily made it so. Christ showed the road for what it was. He laid open for all to see the principles of Satan and his road. He unmasked the devil, and is so doing the devil was cast down (Rev. 12:10 I think).

Christ simultaneously revealed the truth about both roads, the road of agape and the road of love.



If Christ's death was necessary in order for the truth to be seen, for men, angels, and fallen worlds, then it may not have been due to an arbitrary requirement of the law. One problem with asserting that Christ's death was necessary due to an arbitrary requirement of the law is that the law is simply a transcript of God's character. This would mean that Christ's death was due to an arbitrary requirement of God. But Christ taught that God freely forgives us. For example, in the parable of the 10,000 talents, God (the king) forgives the debtor the 10,000 talents freely, without a payment being required. Christ taught freely have you received, freely give. Christ taught if we are owed a debt that we should forgive it. In so doing, we are like are heavenly Father. This does not jibe with the idea that God only is willing to forgive us if someone pays a debt that He is owed.

God "bound Himself" by His word to execute the penalty of the law on all transgressors.

“By His word God has bound Himself to execute the penalty of the law on all transgressors.” (6BC 1095)

Law and justice require death for sin.

“In the plan of redemption there must be the shedding of blood, for death must come in consequence of man’s sin.” (CON 22)

“Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed. God, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, met both these requirements. By dying in man’s stead, Christ exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon.” (1SM 340)

The death of Jesus made it possible for God to offer pardon and salvation to penitent sinners.

"Adam listened to the words of the tempter, and yielding to his insinuations, fell into sin. Why was not the death penalty at once enforced in his case?--Because a ransom was found. God's only begotten Son volunteered to take the sin of man upon Himself, and to make an atonement for the fallen race. There could have been no pardon for sin had this atonement not been made. Had God pardoned Adam's sin without an atonement, sin would have been immortalized, and would have been perpetuated with a boldness that would have been without restraint (RH April 23, 1901). {1BC 1082.6}

"All who will may come under the covenant promise. Precious is the price paid for our redemption--the blood of the only begotten Son of God. Christ was tried by the sharp proving of affliction. His human nature was tried to the uttermost. He bore the death penalty of man's transgression. He became the sinner's substitute and surety. He is able to show the fruit of His sufferings and death, in His resurrection from the dead. From the rent sepulcher of Joseph rings forth the proclamation, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, and do the works of righteousness that I do, are justified, sanctified, made white and tried. They have obtained godliness and eternal life."--Letter 144, July 12, 1903, to Edson White. {TDG 202.4}

But the exponents of the Christus Victor view classify the word “debt” as a legal term characteristic of the satisfaction doctrine:

“Satisfaction-Doctrine focuses on legal terms like God's law, punishment, justice, payment,and debt.”
http://www.sharktacos.com/God/cross1.html


Well, Athanasius says that ever since man sinned death “gained ... a legal hold over us,” and that Christ had “to pay our debt of death.” It seems to me that, if you consider that the punishment is a legal one, so must be the pardon which remits it.


It’s generally (or, at least, often) affirmed that the satisfaction theory began with Anselm and was absent from the patristic literature. Garry J. Williams, for instance, speaking about Chalke, says:

“Moving on to his actual criticisms of penal substitution, we come first to the claim that it 'isn't as old as many people assume' (RTC, p. 2). Chalke gives us a brief genealogy: the doctrine 'first emerged' in 'draft' in the work of Anselm in the eleventh century (RTCS, p. 2), though he did not teach it explicitly (RTC, p. 2). It was then 'substantially formed' by John Calvin in the sixteenth, before being settled by Charles Hodge in the nineteenth (RTC, p. 2).”

This same article also mentions some other examples of the idea of penal substitution in the patristic literature.
http://www.beginningwithmoses.org/bigger/punishedinourplace.htm

Thanks, Rosangela, for the answers and references. I'll look into this as I have time.

I'll split my response into several posts, to keep the length down.

Regarding "debt," here is something from C. S. Lewis:

Here are a couple of points made by Kim Fabricus, a minister at Bethel United Reformed Church in Swansea, Wales:





These bring out a couple of points which came to mind. The first is this (from the first paragraph):



The second is this:



So (assuming the correctness of the points made) there are problems with asserting that Calvin's ideas are merely a reformation of Anselm's (I agree with the point being made here, they are not), and also with the idea that patristic literature had in mind the same concepts as Calvin.

Some thoughts regarding "ransom" and "debt". As I was thinking about Jesus' comments, I thought about what His statement that He came not to be served but to serve, and give His life a ransom for man, would have been understood by His hearers. There is a 0% chance that they would have understood along the lines that Calvin laid out, that Christ's life was necessary in order for God to be able to legally pardon man. This line of thought would have been totally foreign to a 1st century Jew. So how would it have been understood?

The most natural understanding, it seems to me, is that it would have been understood in terms of releasing captives from bondage.

This is from a random sermon online:



Interestingly, the preacher ascribes to the penal substitution view, but I agree with the main observation made in this paragraph, that Christ is paying what the slaves cannot be in order that they may go free.

This begs a few questions:
a)What is it that holds the captives in bondage?
b)How does the giving of Christ's life free the captives?

It seems clear to me from Christ's teachings that what holds captives in bondage is sin. So Christ gave His life to free us from sin. This seems to me to be Christ's clear teaching.

To extrapolate from Christ's statement that He came not to serve but to be served and give His life as a ransom for many that He meant to communicate that His death was necessary in order for God to be able to legally forgive sin seems to be a gross form of eisegesis. No 1st century Jew would have understood Jesus' words in this way. Calvin's view seems to have been first formulated by Calvin himself.

I disagree with both points. Many times what happens is a gradual process, in which an idea is presented, another person builds upon it and modifies it, and thus successively, until a view is systematized. So yes, I believe there are elements of the penal substitution theory in the patristic literature, which are further developed in Anselm, and that Calvin built upon these previous ideas.

I missed (oversight on my part) responding to this earlier.



This just looks like you are agreeing with what I stated is the crux of our difference. I see the fate of the wicked as being determined by their own choice, which ruins their character, resulting in their death, not because of any special or different treatment which they receive from God. You are reiterating the point of view I said you have, which is that the wicked die because of God's treating them differently. To the wicked, He will manifest His abhorrence for their sins, which results in their death. To the righteous, who satisfied a specified condition, He won't do this.

His treatment of the two groups is what determines their fate. He treats the two groups differently because one group met with the condition specified, and the other didn't. I'm not understanding how what you wrote here is different from what I stated in regards to the difference of our views.




I agree with this too.

The key element is the price paid to free the slave. If someone had been sold as a slave because of a debt, the amount paid to free him had to be exactly equivalent to that debt.

Maybe it isn't. My point was that God will manifest His abhorrence of sin. However, if sin is no longer within you, if it was forgiven and no longer exists, this won't affect you.


Do you consider Christ's death as substitutive and meritorious?

God is obligated to Himself, to His law, and to His justice to enforce the execution of the death penalty upon sinners. This is one of the many reasons why Jesus died. Because Jesus paid our sin debt of death on the cross God can justify forgiving and saving penitent sinners (instead of having to execute them). It is a legal matter by virtue of the fact it involves the law.

“By His word God has bound Himself to execute the penalty of the law on all transgressors.” (6BC 1095)

“In the plan of redemption there must be the shedding of blood, for death must come in consequence of man’s sin.” (CON 22)

“Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed. God, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, met both these requirements. By dying in man’s stead, Christ exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon.” (1SM 340)

God is obligated to Himself, to His law, and to His justice to enforce the execution of the death penalty upon sinners. This is one of the many reasons why Jesus died. Because Jesus paid our sin debt of death on the cross God can justify forgiving and saving penitent sinners (instead of having to execute them). It is a legal matter by virtue of the fact it involves the law.

“By His word God has bound Himself to execute the penalty of the law on all transgressors.” (6BC 1095)

“In the plan of redemption there must be the shedding of blood, for death must come in consequence of man’s sin.” (CON 22)

“Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed. God, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, met both these requirements. By dying in man’s stead, Christ exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon.” (1SM 340)

Those who lived centuries before Calvin did not have his world view. They weren't lawyers. They didn't understand the system of justice under which Calvin operated. The would not have, and could not have, thought in the terms Calvin was thinking in.

Anselm's views was steeped in medieval feudalism.

As pointed out:



also



Regarding http://www.beginningwithmoses.org/bigger/punishedinourplace.htm, (Garry Williams article), an important point was not addressed. The Eastern Orthodox church does not accept Anslem's idea of satisfaction. Why not? Because they split off from the Catholic church before Anselm penned it. Their principle reason for rejecting the view is precisely because it doesn't appear in either the Scriptures or the writings of the fathers.

E.g.

The point is simply that Christ did what was necessary, which was to give His life, in order that we who were slaves to sin might be set free. Again, there would have been no concept in the mind of 1st century Jews that Christ was paying a price in order to provide a legal mechanism for God by which we could be pardoned.



Ok, you're last sentence agrees with my point of view. The problem in this case is simply to remove sin from us. How does this happen? We must be born again. How are we born again?



Here we see the role of the cross in our being saved from sin.



If a person is not clinging to sin, He will survive the judgment. A person needs to be freed from sin. As you correctly point out, if the sin is no longer within, then being in God's presence won't be a problem.

Justice and penal system have always existed. And, as I said, new elements are added as one builds upon the ideas of a predecessor.

As Garry Williams says, “Justin [Martyr]'s answer to Trypho is an unequivocal affirmation of penal substitution. He asks why, if Christ bore not his own but our curse, Trypho resists: 'If, then, the Father of all wished his Christ for the whole human family to take upon him the curses of all, knowing that, after he had been crucified and was dead, he would raise him up, why do you argue about him, who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father's will, as if he were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves?'”

This, to me, clearly expresses the idea of “transfer of penalty.”


No, they failed to see this idea, or to emphasize this idea, perhaps exactly to maintain their distinction from the West. But this doesn’t mean the idea doesn’t exist either in the Bible or in the patristic literature.

I provided previously an Orthodox link, http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/st-gregory-the-theologian-on-our-ransom-by-god/
where Father Stephen posts a passage of Gregory of Nazianzus, where the latter tries to refute the idea of a ransom, either to Satan or to God. Then someone asks,

To which Father Stephen replies:


So the truth is not that the idea was not present in the patristic literature, but that it was not raised to the level of a dogma in the Eastern Church as it was in the West.

I would like to re-emphasize that I do not agree with everything the church fathers, or Anselm, or Calvin say, but there are elements of truth in this theory.

I disagree. A close relative could pay the price in order to provide a legal mechanism by which he who had sold himself as a slave could have his debt cancelled and his property restored to him. This was in the laws given to Israel.


No, it’s also to remove your sins from the book of remembrance of God. So both imputed and imparted justice are involved here, and imputed justice has a legal element.

Of course. My point wasn't in regards to a relative's paying the debt for a slave. Of course 1st century Jews had this concept. They didn't have the concept I mentioned, which is that it would be necessary for a price to be paid in order for God to legally forgive one's sins. Actually not only Jews, but no culture had this idea. However, the concept would later spring from a Hellenized concept of justice. So no 1st Century Jew would have had this concept because, in the first place, it's not Jewish, and, in the second, even if Hellenized culture, it hadn't yet been formulated.



The books of heaven simply reflect reality. There is no way to have the sins removed from the book of remembrance of God without their being removed from the sinner. In addition, if the sin is removed from the sinner, the books of heaven will reflect that fact.



The sin is removed from the sinner, and, because of this, also from the book of God's remembrance.



The legal element is one of recognition. The law recognizes the righteousness of the one pardoned because the sin really has been removed from the sinner.

Let's go back a moment to the question of why the wicked did in the end. It the sin is removed, then they will be OK because, to use my phrasing, the revelation of God's character will cause them no harm, since they are not clinging to sin (to use your phrasing, God's abhorrence of sin will cause them no harm). So the problem is simply one of their not clinging to sin. If a person does not cling to sin, that person will be fine.

Not in terms of theology. If they did, then the Eastern Orthodox church would have these concepts. (I added the word "retributive," since, of course, justice always existed.)



I don't understand this point at all. Is this talking about Gen. 3:13? Where's the idea expressed that Christ was accursed so that God could legally forgive us?

Regarding the rest, I've been specific in regards to the point I've been speaking to, which is not about debt. It's about God's not being able to legally pardon sin without Christ's death. I have been asserting that this idea was not expressed before Calvin. The quotes I've seen you provide have to do with debt. I am aware that the concept of debt existed in patristic literature.

The fact God revealed to Sister White that He is obligated to Himself, to His law, and to His justice to enforce the execution of the death penalty upon sinners speaks volumes in favor of it. It shouldn't matter, then, what others may have or may not have written about it in the past. The Dark Ages prevailed more or less until God raised up the Remnant Church after the Great Disappointment.

“By His word God has bound Himself to execute the penalty of the law on all transgressors.” (6BC 1095)

“In the plan of redemption there must be the shedding of blood, for death must come in consequence of man’s sin.” (CON 22)

“Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed. God, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, met both these requirements. By dying in man’s stead, Christ exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon.” (1SM 340)

Tom, the details are unimportant. The concept is important. The amount equivalent to the debt of the slave had to paid – there was a transference of debt. Thus, the slave’s debt could be legally cancelled.


Not in terms of theology? What is your basis for saying that? I’ve commented about the Orthodox Church in the last part of my previous post and of this post.


I think you mean Gal. 3:13.
You keep speaking repeatedly of “legally forgive” as if this was the only element of the penal substitution theory. I was trying to address the quote you posted which said:





You had said:

“The Eastern Orthodox church does not accept Anslem's idea of satisfaction. Why not? Because they split off from the Catholic church before Anselm penned it. Their principle reason for rejecting the view is precisely because it doesn't appear in either the Scriptures or the writings of the fathers.”

You don’t seem to be understanding that the idea of satisfaction and the idea of a debt owed to God that had to be paid are one and the same thing.

I’m trying to address your points, but it's becoming a difficult task!

My point was regarding the concept. A 1st century Jew would not have had the concept in mind that Christ's death was necessary for God to be able to legally pardon sin. I believe Christ's comments would have been understood as I suggested. Christ said He came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. The price paid was His life, and the purpose for giving it was to free us from sin. I think this is the point Jesus was wishing to communicate, and that His words could easily have been understood this way. I think it is an absolute impossibility that His words could have been understood by anyone who heard Him as meaning that Christ's death was necessary in order for God to have the legal right to pardon sin.



Penal system and justice have always existed in terms of people being incarcerated for things they did. However, the penal substitution idea and justice as Calvin formulated it have only existed for a few hundred years. That's what I meant.



Yes, Gal. 3:13.



Ok.



This isn't true. I previously quoted from C. S. Lewis who agrees with the idea of a debt being paid, but not with the idea of satisfaction, which should be sufficient to establish this point.



Sorry! I've appreciated your input. One of the difficulties I believe is that there is a real paradigm shift which takes place. It's difficult to think of things differently than one is accustomed to doing. You're input has caused me to study things in more detail, which I'm appreciative of.

Here are some questions from an essay I was reading I found interesting (by Brad Jersak "Stricken by God?"):


What if the Fall of Genesis is not about the violation of a law, necessitating punishment. Perhaps it is about the venom of deception concerning God’s character and this led (and leads) humankind to partake of the poison fruit (anything from hedonism to moralism), requiring healing?

What if, rather than separating us from the love of God, the Fall triggered God’s great quest to descend into the chasm to seek and find the lost where they had stumbled? What if where sin abounds, grace abounds much more?

What if forgiveness is not something that is earned through sacrifices or punishment but is freely offered as antivenin to all who will look to the Crucified One after the pattern of the bronze serpent?

What if God was not punishing Jesus on the Cross, but rather, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself?

Tom, you do err by missing the facts for the logic which you cite in the letter of the texts of Christian literature. Equally, you do not recognise the opposite explanation when stated in excerpts quoted for you: that Justin Martyr dialogue a case in point.

Historical literature has value for showing development and aberration, but you fail to grapple with the totality of up-to-date literature of the published SOP view points on the atonement. MM and Rosangela have provided the evidence, but you hold to logic so tenuously you fail to understand the facts around you on this thread or in your library at home. You aren't ignoring these facts as non-existent are you?

A debt is a penalty owed - that is linguistics and common sense. Death for sin is both natural and defined beforehand by the law!! Animal sacrifices REPLACED this death due us sinners, starting with Adam, premised on the promise of the Saviour: the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ was seen by faith by every believer since Adam - though Cain learned this lesson the hard way...! HAVING offered another life instead of his own, the sinner was personally "freely" pardoned, since the debt of giving a life - the penalty for every sinning yet "living soul"!! - bought pardon for mortal life to continue, and immortal life to follow.

This supported by Bible and SOP: it's not systematic theology - as someone might think themes congregate, it's "Biblical theology" as the spirit of the text expands the context from beginning to end and from any text to and from any text. I learned this from those I consider the best Bible teachers of our church, past and present.

You don't like violence, do you? God CAN'T be VIOLENT?!! - can he? Nevermind the plagues of Egypt and the time of trouble to come; let alone the licence the Devil gets to wreak havoc and destruction, and misery: That WAS WAR in heaven, and the Son of God himself "repented" of making man, in holy indignation: God personally unleashed the forces of nature against man and beast. It wasn't God 'Letting go control' of nature, or even just withdrawing his protection, for that doesn't fit God's methods or ends of judging, as that constitutes the 'luck of anarchy', and God is not anarchic! Judgement is deliberate, lawful and the death penalty for sin IS destructive...! Saving the world from judgement of guilt for sin requires a legally recognised Saviour from guilt, sin and death.

Death is needed to take away sin, not so, but being pardoned the paying of a penalty/debt for sin and guilt without the substitute payment - that is arbitrary, for having no basis in God's law or his justice, and fails to save from the judgement of death against sin.

Jesus saves us from sin AND death...!!

If you do not understand our (joint) explanation of salvation on this thread - also saved from guilt (which is what is pardoned, y'know!...:-)) - by Jesus' death (his life and resurrection, too...), then you need specialist help with your logical fallacies, since you remain with a flawed theology of an incomplete Gospel, which is a grave issue.:-)

I have just returned after not having internet access for a while, and found this thread. Pardon me, but I am not understanding Tom how you can miss penal substitution in the scriptures, since this theme is presented all through scripture.

In Genesis 3 God promises Eve that the saviour will come and defeat Sin, and institutes the sacrifice of a lamb as a sacrifice for sin (in a shadow of the Lamb of God), the OT Penal substitute.

In Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy you have you have the institution of the Sacrificial system, now In that system the Day of atonement (let alone the passover, and daily sacrifices), had two lambs. Both had the sins of the people placed upon their heads, the one was led out into the wilderness to wander and die, the second, was placed on the alter FOR THE WHOLE NATION and was killed, it's blood drained, and consumed in the fire from the alter. The Ceremony was not comeplete here though, since the blood HAD to be taken by the high priest and sprinkled on the mercy seat. Had any part of this ceremony not taken place then the nation of Israel was not counted guiltless for the next year., and if any individual did not take part then they were cut off from the whole nation - an outcast.

In Isaiah 53 we see the suffering servant who's stripes were to heal us.

Paul said 'Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.'

Tom, you asked for Jesus statements and teachings. Jesus said 'Before Abraham was I AM' He is the I AM of the Burning bush. It was Jesus who met with Moses and gave the ceremonial Law as a foreshadowing of His life and death. Therefore to ask just for Jesus teachings when He was on earth is cutting off your nose to spite your face so to speak.

We need to read not just what the words are saying, but also there context (the surrounding verses and extending to the whole scriptures). The scriptures that God and His Son have given us are whole we cannot extract one part from another.

As for what the early Fathers taught and believed I am not versed in that so I cannot say, but are we not verging dangerously close to Catholicism when we insist on hearing what the early fathers have written? Our Foundation is the word of God, and only His Word. As Jesus said 'man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY word that proceeds from the mouth of God'

The difference is in the nature of the debt.

In the early patristic literature, the idea of a debt to Satan is more prevalent, and this idea definitely has nothing to do with satisfaction and penal substitution.

Satisfaction is the payment of a debt to God – there is no other definition for it.

In Anselm, the debt and satisfaction is to God’s honor. There is no idea of Christ taking upon Himself our punishment. This is different from Calvin – Christ must take upon Himself our punishment because we had a debt to God’s justice.

Lewis sees our debt to God as a debt of repentance and surrendering of the will. This is different from the debt to God which is found in the church fathers. For instance, I quoted from St. Ephrem the Syrian:

“Thou hast taken upon Thyself the common debt of all in order to pay it back to Thy Father - pay back also, O guiltless Lord, those sins with which our freedom has indebted us. Thou hast redeemed us from the curse of the law by Thy precious blood. Deliver also those redeemed by Thy blood from harsh justice!”

Even more than to the debt of honor proposed by Anselm, the debt spoken of here seems to be related to penal substitution – a debt to justice.

This was an Eastern church father, and the person admits similar thoughts can be found in the early Western fathers. (And this indeed is true, for they speak of Christ taking upon Himself the curse of the law which was ours.) In response, the Orthodox priest says that the Eastern Orthodox church didn’t adopt this view as a dogma, but that the idea is indeed present in the early fathers.

So, the conclusion is that elements of the idea of penal substitution can be found in the patristic literature, and that the absence of that idea is not the reason why the Orthodox church didn't adopt it as its standard position.

Tom, as you can see, not everyone is in agreement with your views regarding the sin debt of death Jesus paid for us on the cross. You have ignored my posts on this thread for the last couple of days. I'm not sure why. The quotes I've been posting clearly reveal what God shared with Sister White about it. They represent God's thoughts on the matter.

God has "bound" Himself by His word, by His law, and by His justice to enforce the execution of the death penalty upon sinners. Whether or not this or that father of past generations understood it in the same light is immaterial. They were either in the throes of the Dark Ages or still coming out of it. God raised up the Remnant Church after the Great Disappointment and revealed His thoughts on the matter through a modern day messenger. Here is what He said:

“By His word God has bound Himself to execute the penalty of the law on all transgressors.” (6BC 1095)

“In the plan of redemption there must be the shedding of blood, for death must come in consequence of man’s sin.” (CON 22)

“Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed. God, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, met both these requirements. By dying in man’s stead, Christ exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon.” (1SM 340)

I think the legal aspect is important for two reasons.

1) For God to act in harmony with His own character.

God will soon vindicate His justice before the universe. His justice requires that sin shall be punished; His mercy grants that sin shall be pardoned through repentance and confession. Pardon can come only through His only begotten Son; Christ alone can expiate sin--and then only when sin is repented of and forsaken. Man has severed his connection with God, and his soul has become palsied and strengthless by the deadly poison of sin. But there was a time when the proclamation sounded through the heavenly courts, I have found a ransom! A divine life is given as man's ransom; One equal with the Father has become man's substitute. {UL 49.5}

2) Because all Satan’s charges were based on the law. Therefore, God had to find a way to legally pardon man, otherwise Satan would accuse Him of injustice.

“In the opening of the great controversy, Satan had declared that the law of God could not be obeyed, that justice was inconsistent with mercy, and that, should the law be broken, it would be impossible for the sinner to be pardoned. Every sin must meet its punishment, urged Satan; and if God should remit the punishment of sin, He would not be a God of truth and justice. When men broke the law of God, and defied His will, Satan exulted. It was proved, he declared, that the law could not be obeyed; man could not be forgiven. Because he, after his rebellion, had been banished from heaven, Satan claimed that the human race must be forever shut out from God's favor. God could not be just, he urged, and yet show mercy to the sinner.” {DA 761.4}

“By dying in our behalf, he gave an equivalent for our debt. Thus he removed from God all charge of lessening the guilt of sin. By virtue of my oneness with the Father, he says, my suffering and death enable me to pay the penalty of sin. By my death a restraint is removed from his love. His grace can act with unbounded efficiency.” {YI, December 16, 1897 par. 7}

"By my death a restraint is removed from his love." I wonder what kind of restraint she is talking about? Do you know?

Here are other places where she speaks of God loving us if we ...

Provision has been made whereby God can love us as He loves His Son, and it is through our oneness with Christ and with each other. {TMK 172.3}

Christ has shown us how much God can love and our Redeemer suffer in order to secure our complete restoration. {UL 191.2}

We are to be one with Christ as He is one with the Father, and the Father will love us as He loves His Son. {AG 259.5}

If we love Jesus we shall become heirs of God, and the Father will love us as He loves His Son Jesus Christ. {HP 254.5}

The Lord then can love fallen man as He does His own Son; and He declares that He will be satisfied with nothing less than this in our behalf. {1MCP 245.4}

This will raise fallen man; for the Lord has promised that if we preserve this unity, God will love us as He loved His Son; the sinner will be saved, and God eternally glorified. {SD 295.4}

Debbie, when one is accustomed to seeing something in a certain way, it's difficult to see things in a different way. For example, the Jews were accustomed to seeing Jesus as a conquering Messiah, and indeed, there are many, many texts which present this idea. So because they were accustomed to looking at things in a certain way, they missed some things.

Here are some "what if" questions I quoted a couple of posts previously:

What if the Fall of Genesis is not about the violation of a law, necessitating punishment. Perhaps it is about the venom of deception concerning God’s character and this led (and leads) humankind to partake of the poison fruit (anything from hedonism to moralism), requiring healing?

What if, rather than separating us from the love of God, the Fall triggered God’s great quest to descend into the chasm to seek and find the lost where they had stumbled? What if where sin abounds, grace abounds much more?

What if forgiveness is not something that is earned through sacrifices or punishment but is freely offered as antivenin to all who will look to the Crucified One after the pattern of the bronze serpent?

What if God was not punishing Jesus on the Cross, but rather, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself?

I'd be interested in your thoughts regarding these questions.

Regarding Jesus' teaching, the particular point I have been taking issue with is that Jesus' death is necessary in order for God to be able to legally pardon us. Jesus did not teach this. His teachings represent God as freely forgiving us, not because a price was paid. For example, in the parable of the prodigal son, the wayward son couldn't even get out his rehearsed speech, the father was so happy to see him. Another example is in the parable of the 10,000 talents, the king (representing God) freely forgave the debt. In Jesus' own life, we see Him freely forgiving, which represents God's freely forgiving, since when we see Jesus, we see the Father.

Regarding the question regarding the fathers, my point is a bit indirect. I'm asking if the penal substitution theory is indeed Biblical, why did no one express it before Calvin? We (as SDA's) have doctrines which are unusual considering mainstream Protestantism, such as the Sabbath, the state of the dead, not eating unclean meat to name a couple, but these ideas can all be found in the writings of Christians shortly after Christ.

Something as fundamental as the meaning of Christ's death (assuming penal substitution is it) is something one would have expected to have been explained by Jesus Christ Himself, and written about sometime before 16 centuries after His death.

One further comment, you wrote:



This is exactly what I believe. We are healed by Christ's death. Healing is exactly what we need. Not penal substitution, but healing.

You wrote that I don't seem to be understanding that the idea of satisfaction and the idea of a debt owed to God that has to be paid are one and the same thing. They aren't one and the same thing. Satisfaction is of necessity a debt owed to God, but a debt owed to God is not of necessity satisfaction. Therefore they are not one and the same thing.

I appreciate the comments regarding patristic literature. I'll comment later.

Regarding something we were discussing earlier, I'm a bit unclear regarding whether you view God to be treating the wicked and the righteous differently. I wrote:



Rosangela, I didn't see your post #100022, which may be addressing this last point.

Tom, ignoring Colin's and my comments is not going to make them go away. Eventually you'll have to address them.

Are you talking about this?





What are you referring to here?



What are you referring to here?



No, this isn’t correct. A great majority of debts have nothing to do with penalty. A debt is simply something owed.



If Jesus had not died, we would have died. God gave us Christ so that we need not die. Christ’s death substitutes for us because without it we would have suffered His death. I believe one can rightly infer this from the sacrificial system. So I basically agree with this paragraph, although I see the penalty as not an arbitrary or imposed one, but simply as the result of sin (that is, the law pronounces death as the result of sin because those who sin die; even if the law did not pronounce this, it would still be true).




You do?



It seems clear to me that Jesus was non-violent, and demonstrated that God is non-violent, as the whole purpose of Jesus’ mission was the revelation of God. He told us, “When you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.“ His teachings on the Sermon on the Mount I think are particularly clear regarding Jesus’ ideas in regards to violence.

Regarding the war in heaven, from the SOP we know:

a.Force is not a principle of God’s government.
b.Compelling force is not to be found in God’s government, only in Satan’s.
c.Force is the last resort of every false religion.

From “The Desire of Ages“


Satan was vanquished not by force, but by revelation. He was “cast down” by way of Jesus Christ’s revealing Satan’s true character. The Great Controversy is not a war of force or violence, but of ideas.



I have no idea what you’re trying to say here.


Agreed!! Saving us from sin is *how* He saves us from death.


You know, I can hardly think of 3 people who have more *different* views of salvation than you, MM and Rosangela. I find it odd indeed you’re wanting to joint your theology with theirs. To illustrate the point, it would be really interesting to have you, MM and Rosangela write out what you understand Romans 5:12-18, and Romans 7:13-Romans 8:4 means. I trust you would agree that these passages are vital insofar as one's understanding of salvation is concerned, yet if you were to do as I suggested, you would see that your viewpoints vary greatly. You would also find that my point of view is closest to your own.

It also strikes me as odd that someone who holds such a non-mainline view in regards to the Godhead that you hold who take the overall stance that you take. Regarding your statement that guilt is what is pardoned, I am reminded of the following by E. J. Waggoner:



Do you agree with Waggoner's points here?

Is this the basis of your definition of arbitrary punishment?

How is Christ's substitution for our death not according to law, fixed by law?

What do you say to Rosangela & MM's SOP and classic quotes on justice and death penalty??

God judges with violence, including retribution for rejection of grace: that's clear from Biblical theology - drawing on all instances, like Jericho and Saul saving that king from his nation's massacre. That is true alongside "Gospel peace".

MM, Rosangela and I differ on the fine points of principles like Christ's substitution and Christ's humanity, but we agree on principles! What do you say to the proofs of the principle? Without these principles there is in fact no Gospel, since revelation of love is part of the whole but never saves by itself: implied principles are necessary.

I'll respond to just this for now, and the rest as I get opportunity. Neither MM nor Rosangela have the concept of solidarity in regards to their concept of salvation that you have (at least, that I think you have). For example, they would both (I think) interpret Romans 5:18 completely differently than you would. Do you not see Romans 5:18 as important in regards to a correct understanding of the Gospel?

I am by no means alone in my understanding of the atonement among 1888 fans (by fans, I mean 1888 MSC, which I assume you have some sort of ties with; by ties, I mean, you've read their literature and by and large agreed with it; please correct me if I'm wrong about this). Also my view of the judgment is similar to many of theirs (although, to be fair, many disagree as well).

It seems to me that you may be throwing out the bath with the bath water. But I may be way off base here, so let me ask a clarifying question. Are you basically in agreement with the message that Wieland presents? (excepting questions relating to the Godhead)

God has "bound" Himself by His word, by His law, and by His justice to enforce the execution of the death penalty upon sinners. Whether or not this or that father of past generations understood it in the same light is immaterial. They were either in the throes of the Dark Ages or still coming out of it. God raised up the Remnant Church after the Great Disappointment and revealed His thoughts on the matter through a modern day messenger - Ellen White.

Tom, what do you think she meant by each of the following insights? Do they support your idea that Jesus died to influence us to respond to God's love and choose salvation, that He didn't also have to die to satisfy a legal requirement?

“By His word God has bound Himself to execute the penalty of the law on all transgressors.” (6BC 1095)

“In the plan of redemption there must be the shedding of blood, for death must come in consequence of man’s sin.” (CON 22)

“Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed. God, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, met both these requirements. By dying in man’s stead, Christ exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon.” (1SM 340)

TE: You know, I can hardly think of 3 people who have more *different* views of salvation than you, MM and Rosangela. I find it odd indeed you’re wanting to joint your theology with theirs. To illustrate the point, it would be really interesting to have you, MM and Rosangela write out what you understand Romans 5:12-18, and Romans 7:13-Romans 8:4 means. I trust you would agree that these passages are vital insofar as one's understanding of salvation is concerned, yet if you were to do as I suggested, you would see that your viewpoints vary greatly. You would also find that my point of view is closest to your own.

MM: Tom, did you address Colin's concerns and questions? It looks as if you are dodging them. I would be interested in reading your response to his posts.

PS - For the record, I believe Romans 5:12-18 is saying because of Adam we sin and are condemned to die, but because of Jesus we may be forgiven and inherit eternal life. And Romans 7:13 thru 8:4 is saying we are born again dead to sin, nevertheless our fallen flesh continues tempting us from within to be unlike Jesus, but like Jesus we may resist and reject our internal foes by abiding in Him, by partaking of the divine nature.

In the case of God's law, God Himself established the law, so the law is as much a matter of individual discretion and any other decision of His would. So in this particular case it would be better to think of arbitrary as involving individual discretion as opposed to not. Iow, if the punishment for sin is something which happens because God causes those who have sinned to die because He judges them worthy of death, this is arbitrary. Otoh, if the wicked die because of something sin does to them, that isn't.

Here's an example. Say smoking is against the law, and the penalty is death. This would be an arbitrary punishment. Otoh, if a person smokes, and because of that gets a disease and dies, that's not.

Note that "arbitrary" as being used in the sense of having to do with individual discretion, and not as being whimsical or capricious. For example, a judge, using individual discretion, could make a very good decision, using his wisdom and experience to guide him. Arbitrary is not necessarily bad. We tend to think of it as bad because it's often used in a pejorative sense, as in "capricious," but it not need have that implication. For example, if you look at DA 764, it's used in the sense I'm talking about.

I'm used "imposed" as a synonym to make clear I'm not using it in the sense of capricious.



Since God established the law, of course this isn't the issue. The issue is whether Christ's substitution for our death is something which works because God decided that's the way things had to be (individual discretion), or whether it's this way because this is the only way that could work. This is what I think (it's the only way it could work). That is, the only way we could be saved was by Jesus' death, not because God decreed that this should be so, but because "by His stripes we are healed." We could only be healed from the disease of sin by means of what Christ did for us.



I've written lots and lots and lots about this. Since I'm pressed for time, here's a short answer:



I see the issue in the same way Fifield did. Because sin leads to death, any pardon which did not deal with the pardon of sin (in the sense of healing the sinner from sin) would be unjust. When we are brought into harmony with God, the justice of the law is satisfied because we are brought into harmony with it, since it is a transcript of God's character.

Regarding the idea that EGW was teaching that Christ had to die in order for God to legally forgive us, I would again point out that she states that God offered Lucifer pardon time and time again, and offered him the opportunity to confess his sin before being banished from heaven. If there were an arbitrary requirement that Christ's death was necessary in order for one to be pardoned, that would have been the case for Lucifer as well. His sin was certainly far more egregious than Adam or Eve's.



I don't believe violence is a part of God's kingdom nor His character. Jesus said, "When you've seen Me, you've seen the Father." Jesus in His life and teachings was completely against violence. He was non-violent to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Force is not a principle of God's government. The rebellion was not to be overcome by force. Force is the last resort of every false religion. I don't see how these principles could be upheld if God used violence to obtain His desires, since violence is an application of force.



This is a definition for violence (using the google "define" tag). I believe Jesus Christ demonstrated conclusively that God does not act aggressively against persons with the intent of causing them injury since Christ never did so. Given that Jesus Christ fully revealed God's character, if God were violent, one would have expected that Jesus would have been violent as well.

Don't distract from the point, Tom: you're a good debater, perhaps, but even the MSC agrees that Christ's death was necessary to give God a legal basis to forgive and justify us. It's called the legal justification of mankind "in Christ" - a position for which they're loved and loathed. On other points they are not actually in agreement, but they're not a group on other points.

I forgot last time: a debt and a penalty are generally legally synonymous, but you must consider the balance of Bible and SOP statements, as MM has just repeated for the fourth time in as many days. While you don't respond, there's an end to this discussion, since your argument has been countered but not responded to by you.

Bump for Tom.


She also wrote:

3SM 154
Mere forgiveness of sin is not the sole result of the death of Jesus. He made the infinite sacrifice not only that sin might be removed, but that human nature might be restored, rebeautified, reconstructed from its ruins, and made fit for the presence of God. {3SM 154.1}

I wasn't distracting from the point, I was making the point. You are the one who is saying that I am different. I've never brought this up. I've never called you to task for being different in regards to your ideas regarding Christ's pre-existence or the Holy Spirit not being an individual. I'm pointing out that it seems odd that you would do so. I have no idea either why you would think this is worth mentioning, nor why one who has such different ideas as you have would think this is worth mentioning.



As I pointed out, many on the MSC see things the same way I do regarding this point, and also on regarding the final judgment of the wicked.



They're not in agreement on this point. Many see things eye to eye with me on this.



I've responded to 100% of the points you've made. Every point. You have responded to maybe a quarter or a half of the points I've made. So this is an odd statement for you to make as well.

Just go back over the thread, and see how many questions I've asked you, how many points I've made, which you haven't in any way acknowledged. Then see if you can find any at all that you have made that I haven't responded to.

One of the points I made, which I don't recall your responding to, is that one of the problems I see in many of those who take the perspective you are suggesting is that this one frame of reference is so emphasized that nothing else is talked about. And indeed, this is the case. Here we have a thread discussing the meaning of Christ's death, and no one (other than me, at least that I can recall) is discussing anything other than Christ died to meet a legal obligation.

Yet if you look at the chapter "It Is Finished," which has 7 pages devoted to this topic, you will find at best a fleeting reference to this topic, and 7 pages discussing other things.

If you look at Christ's teachings, you won't find anything at all, unless you make the stretch that the word "ransom" has this connotation, in which case you would have one reference amongst scores of His teachings which teach other meanings to His death.

You're raising all manner of periferal points of other differences rather than address evidence that EGW spoke of both sides of our discussion. You've been informed that both sides count, but you just dodge the point, relying on your "revelation of God's glory" sufficing.

We consider that no gospel at all...The doctrine of the Godhead is linked to the Gospel's efficacy, but whether & how Christ's cross did enough to achieve salvation is the definition of the Gospel, so very pertinent. I had to, MM and Rosangela had to, say something.

As Rom 5:12-18, yes, Tom, MM and I do differ: MM, I add to your comment that Adam sinned as mankind (representing us all), bringing condemnation to human nature (but no personal guilt!); equally, Christ lived righteously as mankind (the second representative), bringing righteousness and justification to our human nature in his own, assumed sinful humanity. Else we do more for bad or good than can be attributable to us, Biblically, even from this text. Adam & Christ each were the source and personification of sinfulness and righteousness of mankind, naturally and graceously.

Tom, the MSC is unanimous on Christ's legal accomplishment, but may differ on how the hell fires happen...

It seems to me you've been raising peripheral issues. I've just been responding to the points you've been bringing up.

For example, you accuse me of dodging issues, when I've addressed 100% of the points you've made, but you've skipped between 2/3 or 3/4 of the points I've made. This may be one of the peripheral issues you're talking about, but it's an issue you brought up!



I don't know what the "both sides" are you're talking about. I also don't know what quote "the revelation of God's glory" is referring to.

In regards to Ellen White, my chief argument has been in relation to God's pardoning Lucifer. If Christ's death were necessary in order for God to be able to legally pardon sin, then it should have been necessary for God to legally pardon Lucifer's sin. But it wasn't.

Why should we have required Christ's death, but not Lucifer? The distinguishing point has to be something other than a legal requirement insofar as God's being able to legally pardon is concerned, since this would attach to both Lucifer and man equally.



The Gospel is primarily the good news about God. It's not that God has met some legal requirement so that we can go to heaven.

Whether a legal requirement was involved or not, it would still be the case that:

a.God paid an awful price in giving us His Son.
b.Christ Himself paid an awful price in being obedient to death, even the death of the cross.
c.Through faith in Christ, by virtue of His death, we can be set free from sin, and thus saved from death.
d.Satan's warfare against God was given a death knell by Christ's death.

Just to mention a few things. There's plenty of Gospel here without the necessity of a legal requirement.

Again, in the chapter "It Is Finished" EGW speaks of the meaning of Christ's death, and a legal requirement is given at best a passing reference.



So how does it achieve salvation? My very short answer is by saving us from sin. I hope to write a post shortly that goes into detail regarding how the death of Christ can be understood by understanding the judgment, which will deal with the question of how we are saved by Christ's death.

There's certainly nothing wrong in saying something, as this is a topic that will be studied throughout eternity. There will be plenty of people on both sides of the legal/non-legal question there, so we might as well start the conversation now!



No, Colin, it's not unanimous. As I've stated several times, there are many who agree with my point of view on this (I can think of 5 right off the top of my head).

That's because we are discussing the fact that there is also a legal aspect. In case you just emphasized the legal aspect we would be emphasizing the relational aspect. The cross was the means God found to be able to forgive us, considering both the relational aspect and the legal aspect. Why do you think that the first is true but the latter is not?


No, in Lucifer's case Christ's death wouldn't have been necessary, either for the relational aspect or for the legal aspect, but in man's case it's necessary for both. Lucifer's charges against God were of a legal nature, therefore their refutation must have a legal aspect.

They're aren't just two aspects to discuss. Christ's death accomplished a whole host of things. Only one is being discussed.



I don't disagree with this. What I disagree with is the idea that Christ's death was necessary in order for God to be able to legally pardon us. Not that there isn't a legal aspect to the death of Christ.

To elaborate on this point a bit, I believe that the salvation accomplished by Christ and experienced by us through faith in Him is entirely legal.



I agree. Which proves that Christ's death was not necessary for God to be able to legally pardon Christ. The legal aspect is to be found elsewhere.

What I've been saying is that Christ's death was not necessarily in order for God to be able to legally forgive. If it were, then it would have been necessary in Lucifer's case. But as you correctly point out, it wasn't necessary, either for the legal or the relational aspect.



I agree, although I'll clarify my agreement. *Some* of Lucifer's charges against God were of a legal nature. The refutation of these must have a legal aspect.

However, even the legal charges were a smokescreen. His real purpose was to misrepresent God's character in order to deceive angels first, then man.

God purchasing the right to pardon us is the central theme of this lesson study, so your commentary, Tom, is periferal, but not excluded...

Legal issues undergird experience and relationships, so revealing God is the last part of the Gospel, not the first. Before we discuss the two death penalties we are naturally under but saved from by grace, we still await and will await your response to MM's posted quotes from Sister White.

The title of the topic is "The Meaning of His Death."



I strongly disagree with this. I'll come back to why.



I've responded. I've done so in two ways. The first is I explained what I believed it means to say that justice requires that Christ die. The second way is I explained why it cannot be the case that EGW taught that Christ's death was necessary in order for God to be able to legally pardon.

I can't think of any quote that these two points wouldn't adequately answer.

Back to your statement that the revelation of God is the last part of the Gospel. I'll discuss this in a separate post.

The fact that Christ's death wasn't necessary in order for God to pardon Lucifer - either relationally or legally - doesn't mean that there was no need for Lucifer's pardon to be also legal.

"Both he and his followers wept, and implored to be taken back into the favor of God. But their sin--their hatred, their envy and jealousy--had been so great that God could not blot it out. It must remain to receive its final punishment." {EW 146.1}

Lucifer's sin was (legally) registered and it had to be (legally) blotted out - or else receive its final punishment. This is legal language, not relational language. So Lucifer's pardon also had a legal aspect.

I disagree with this, as I believe it depicts a misunderstanding of what our problem really is, and the real issues of the Great Controversy.



1.He sought to gain control of heavenly beings, to draw them away from their Creator, and to win their homage to himself.
2.Therefore he misrepresented God, attributing to Him the desire for self-exaltation.
3.With his own evil characteristics he sought to invest the loving Creator.
4.Thus he deceived angels and men.
5.That the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken.
6.This could not be done by force.
7.The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government.
8.Only by love is love awakened.
9.To know God is to love Him.
10.His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan.

This to me outlines the Gospel beautifully. The last point is the key, and the previous points explain why.



This points out that "the whole purpose of his own mission on earth" was "to set men right through the revelation of God." "Whole purpose" is rather inclusive. It means that this is the sum and substance of what Christ was about. This corresponds to point 10 above: His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan.

Thus the idea that revealing God is the last part of the Gospel cannot be correct. That God is like Jesus Christ is the heart and soul of the Gospel. The revelation of God was not the "last part" of Christ's mission, but the "whole purpose" of Christ's mission. What was this to accomplish? To "set men right with God."

Whatever legal aspects we wish to consider must be understood in the context of what was happening in the Great Controversy. Satan was seeking to win homage to himself by misrepresenting God's character as being like his own. This is how he wins converts, even today. How God counters this is by manifesting His true character through Jesus Christ.

I don't know why you're making this point. My point was that God offered Lucifer pardon, which surely would have been a legal pardon, without Christ's dying. If Christ's death were necessary in order for God to legally pardon, then Christ would have had to have died in order for God to legally pardon Lucifer. But Christ didn't die, while God offered Lucifer a legal pardon. Therefore it's not necessary for Christ to die in order for God to offer legal pardons.

I never said that the pardon offered by God to Lucifer was not legal.



The legal aspect is simply recognizing the reality of the situation. If it were possible for Lucifer and his followers to repent, then God would have forgiven them. Of course! How could He not? This is His nature. He would have loved to have had Lucifer back, and his followers. He loved them as dear children.

But this wasn't possible. Not because of a legality, but because of their heart. God knew that they were not repentant, which was born out by their actions. Just after what you quoted, we read:



Satan hated God. If his issue were a legal one, it could be easily solved by way of pardon. But his issue was one of heart and mind. Satan had gone past the point of no return. He could not be healed. And so God could not blot out his sin.

The blotting out of sin is simply a recognition of the reality of a lack of sin in one's character. Sin can only be blotted out in heaven if it's been blotted out in the heart. Conversely, if sin is blotted out in the heart, it is blotted out in heaven.

There was no penalty of death before a willfull transgression had been committed. When Lucifer and his followers transgressed the law willfully, "their hatred, their envy and jealousy--[became] so great that God could not blot it out."

To sin willfully is to reject the law.

"Every willful transgression is an act of rebellion against its Author. Every one who assumes this attitude, is by his practice saying to the people, 'The requirements of God are exacting and severe, a yoke of bondage. Let us break this yoke from off our necks, and be at liberty.'" {ST, January 19, 1882 par. 13}

"After all this, if man refuses to respond to the great sacrifice which has been made to ennoble and to save him, if he obstinately chooses the path of sin, will the great Judge of all the earth excuse the willful transgression of his holy law?" {ST, January 6, 1881 par. 16}

"The least deviation from that law, by neglect, or willful transgression, is sin, and every sin exposes the sinner to the wrath of God." {ST, March 3, 1881 par. 9}

Tom, you've answered our points by repeating your own points, which hasn't dealt with our points at all - for you have avoided our points. Since you won't acccept the rest of the gospel teaching which we have presented to you, as is in the lesson Quarterly for this topic, I have nothing more to say that I can think of. Except,...

God's justice is rooted in his most essential characteristic: his holiness, which abhors and condemns sin, and whose law requires and recognises his Son's substitution of our death for us to be pardoned of that death sentence. We are pardoned because Christ legally suffered the death due us, without whose death we COULD NOT be pardoned. God's holiness both demands and supplies our death, by his Son, and only thereby can we be freed from our natures' enmity to God, so that we might then learn to love him as he first loved us. Christ's death allowed God to pardon us. It's implied by God's holiness and his law. Without it there can be no rebirth, either...

Incidentally: Lucifer sinned in God's presence and that is unpardonable, as a matter of principle, not just a corrupt attitude on Satan's part.

I fear for you, brother.

If instead of thinking of things in terms of a penalty but in terms of results of certain actions, it would be easier to understand things. The problem is that sin leads to death. Not because God decided that sin should have a penalty, but because it does.

For example, if you smoke, you may get cancer. Not because God has decreed that smokers should get cancer as a penalty, but because smoking causes damage to your body.

Similarly sin spiritually damages us. It causes us to be out of harmony with God. It doesn't change God in any way, but it changes us. This change is clearly seen in Adam and Eve.

After Adam and Eve sinned, they ran from God. Why? Because they felt ashamed and afraid. Sin had changed the way they viewed God, profoundly so.

Regarding Satan, there were a number of steps in his fall, each more serious than the previous one, finally getting to the point to where he could no longer be healed. Satan reached the point to where he lost any desire or ability to be restored to harmony with God. His hatred of God became final and lethal.

At first Satan felt slighted because God invited Christ in close counsel and he was not invited. It is likely he honestly did not understand that Christ was by nature superior to himself, but this was explained to him. Yet, even after this, he continued obstinately, for a long time.

He decided to win converts to his side. He developed a plan to do so. His plan was to misrepresent God's character in order to win converts to his side.

He followed a downward slide which included resentment, resitence, rejection, and as a final step rebellion. In no way was he innocent of willfully sinning until the final step of rebellion.



God offered over and over again to pardon Lucifer of his sin. He gave him the chance to confess his sin before being banished from heaven.



If we replace sin with "willfully rejected the law" we get "Before he was sentenced to banishment from Heaven, ..., he was granted an opportunity to confess his willfully rejection of the law." Had he done so, he would have been forgiven and restored to his position. Before reaching this point, God had long been working with Satan, and had offered him pardon "again and again."

All of this is without Christ having died. Thus it is very clear that God is able to offer legal pardons without Christ's having to die.



In order to be saved from sin, we must be healed of our rebellious spirit. This could only be done by Christ's revelation of God. The whole purpose of Christ's mission was "the revelation of God" in order to heal us of things like rebellion.



If a person insists upon retaining a rebellious spirit, how could God forgive him? Even if He did, what good would it do? Without repentance and submission, the rebel would simply continue in rebellion, endangering all in his path, including himself.



The wrath of God is giving a person over to the result of their choice. For example, in Romans 1 we read:



Here we see the wrath of God revealed. God "gave them over" to their desires.

"Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone:" (Hosea 4:17)

This is the wrath of God. Yes, sin exposes us to this, because the more we resist the goodness of God which leads us to repentance, the more we harden our hearts, the closer we come to reaching the point that Satan reached, the point of no return, to where we can no longer be healed, and God has no choice but to "give us up."

If we have a loved one who engages in drugs, it is not surprising that we might hate drugs. Why? Because we know of the damage it can cause our loved ones. Similarly, God abhors and condemns sin, not for reasons based on self, but because of the harm it does to His loved ones. God is love, and wants only the best for His children. He has a righteous indignation, such as Christ displayed, against those who would harm them.

The requirements of His law are not arbitrary, but are simply a recognition of reality. The law is a transcript of God's character, which was fully and beautifully revealed by Christ. God is no more holy than Christ was, and His justice no more severe than Christ's. If we wish to see what the law demands in order for God to be able to forgive, we have merely to see how Christ forgave. What did Christ require in order to forgive the paralytic?



Where did Christ teach this?



The law is simply a transcript of God's character. What in God's holiness implies He can't forgive without violence? Where in Christ's character do we see such an idea?



It was unpardonable in the sense that God was unable to heal him from what he had done, but out of spite on God's part. God would have been willing to pardon him, and, indeed, offered to pardon him "again and again." God gave Satan the opportunity to confess his sin before being banished from heaven, so how can you say it was unpardonable? Everything that God did demonstrates clearly that God was willing to pardon Satan. The only reason Satan was not pardoned is that he didn't want to be.

Gospel teaching only from Jesus' utterances? That's wrong: the whole Bible teaches the Gospel, and the whole Bible teaches this, from Moses to Paul to Jesus himself, as well as the SOP. We have presented it to you, but you insist that doesn't fit: that's your problem, not ours, since we include your p.o.v. on the gospel, but you don't allow ours - which is as and more important, leaving you tenuously close to the fringe of faith.

"Ransom" is your problem, not mine, not for the rest of us, as it is presented in this Sabbath School lesson. You hold to logic more than reality, losing sight of the law in the process. We are under the curse of the law by nature and choice, and saved by grace with Christ's legally secured pardon from that curse: consider MM new, private forum thread on this issue,"What does this mean?" Sort it, for we can't do it for you.

We try to pray for each other.

Above all, one would think that Jesus would explain the meaning of His death. You have stated the following:



I've repeatedly asked for proof that Jesus Christ taught this, and all you've mentioned is this:



There's nothing in this verse that mentions anything at all about being pardoned because Christ legally suffered the death due to us. Nothing. Surely you should be able to see this. It simply says Christ gave His life as a ransom. Now what does this mean?

There are a couple of ways one could go about this. One would be to consider what it would have meant to those who heard Jesus speak. If one researches this, one will find that there is no chance that anyone hearing Christ's words would have understood it as meaning what you are claiming.

Another way would be to consider the other teachings of Jesus Christ. An established principle is that controverted statements should be interpreted in the light of ones which aren't. What did Jesus teach elsewhere? Did He teach anything anywhere about needing to die in order to obtain a legal pardon? If so, where?

Another way one could go about things is to consider the problem that had to be solved, and how the death of Christ did this. For example:

1.He sought to gain control of heavenly beings, to draw them away from their Creator, and to win their homage to himself.
2.Therefore he misrepresented God, attributing to Him the desire for self-exaltation.
3.With his own evil characteristics he sought to invest the loving Creator.
4.Thus he deceived angels and men.
5.That the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken.
6.This could not be done by force.
7.The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government.
8.Only by love is love awakened.
9.To know God is to love Him.
10.His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan.

Taking a look at this we see what the problem was, what needed to be done, and how Christ's death fits into this.

If we see Christ's death as necessary to enable God to pardon us, one wonders why. To say that it is because God's holiness demands is simply to repeat the question. Why? What bad thing would happen if God forgave sin without a death taking place? In the case of Lucifer, we see that God was willing to do exactly that. If Lucifer had accepted God's offer, would something bad have resulted, even though Christ had not died?

Another way of going about things would be to consider what are the ramifications of the theory we are espousing. Objections which have raised against this theory is that it doesn't have God and Christ working in concert. For example:



We see both God and Christ working together to do that which was necessary to save man from sin, regardless of the cost.

I disagree. God created the laws of cause and effect and, thus, established a penalty for every transgression of His laws – whether physical or moral.

“Because you do not relish a plain, simple diet, ... you are continually transgressing the laws which God has established in your system. While you do this you must suffer the penalty, for to every transgression is affixed a penalty.” {2T 66.2}

The affixed penalty for the transgression of His moral law is the judgment of sin, which is God’s manifestation of His wrath against sin, which, in turn, causes unbearable agony in the sinner. Satan spoke to God many times after his sin, but he didn’t die. Why not? Because on those occasions God did not explicitly manifest His displeasure for sin. God is restraining His indignation.



Willful sin happens when you understand that the law is just, but you refuse allegiance to it. This was the final step which brought Lucifer into rebellion.

“Lucifer was convinced that he was in the wrong. He saw that the divine statutes are just, and that he ought to acknowledge them as such before all heaven. Had he done this, he might have saved himself and many angels.” {PP 39}

“Evil originated with the rebellion of Lucifer. It was brought into heaven when he refused allegiance to God's law. Satan was the first lawbreaker.” {RH, June 4, 1901 par. 3}


First, before willfully rejecting the law your sin is, to a greater or lesser degree, a sin of ignorance.

Second, God can offer pardon without the sinner being exposed to the death penalty only if the sin wasn’t willful.

“God declared that the rebellious should remain in Heaven no longer. Their high and happy state had been held upon condition of obedience to the law which God had given to govern the high order of intelligences. But no provision had been made to save those who should venture to transgress his law. {1SP 22.3}


I will never be able to agree with this definition you insist in giving. Obviously the wrath of God is His indignation against sin. It’s directed towards sin, not towards people. When the limit of God’s forbearance is reached, He may give individuals over to the results of their choice, but this is not at all the definition of God’s wrath.

“In surrendering his spotless soul a living sacrifice, Jesus was bearing the sin of the world; he was enduring the curse of the law; he was vindicating the justice of God. Separation from his Father, the punishment for transgression, was to fall upon him, in order to magnify God's law and testify to its immutability. ... The Son of God endured the wrath of God against sin.” {ST, December 9, 1897 par. 6}

“As One who had taken upon himself the nature of man, he [Christ] must suffer the consequences of man's sin; he must endure the wrath of God against transgression.” {RH, July 7, 1910 par. 7}

With what? When you start out a response with "I disagree," it's really hard to know what you're talking about. I would have to assume, by guessing, that you disagree with the last thing I said, which is that if you smoke you get cancer, not as a penalty, but because smoking causes damage to your body. It's hard for me to see how anyone could disagree with this though.



Did God do something to make lying have a penalty? Is there any conceivable universe that God could have created in which lying would have been a good thing? Or stealing? Or having any gods before Him?

I don't see why God would have to life a finger to establish any penalty against any of these things, any more than He would have to lift a finger to establish a penalty for smoking cigarettes or running red lights or jumping off of cliffs. These are all things which are bad for you.

Things that are harmful are such because of their nature. Anything that is done for self is harmful. These things go against the "law of life for the universe."

DA chapter 1 describes this law. It is a law based on receiving from God, and giving back, either to Him or to one's neighbor. This law of life is reflected in the 10 commandments, which are a transcript of God's character.

This law was broken in heaven, by a creature who invented a new law, the law of self-love. This new law breaks the law of God, and results in death. Not because God arbitrarily established a penalty for it, but because it is not the law of life for the universe. There's simply no way that living for self could ever be a good thing, nor anything that flows from this principle. Such could only ever lead to death. Not because of any action of God, but because that's the way things are.

The very nature of living for self is that it leads to death. The very nature of living for God is that it leads to life (John 17:3).



Isn't it obvious that this penalty is not an arbitrary one? This quote is saying the same thing I've been saying. If you live unhealthfully, you will suffer the consequences. Not because God has affixed a penalty for acting in such a way, but because this is the natural consequence of such an action. Similarly with self-sacrificing love, to live by this principle is life, just as living for self is death.



If God did nothing to punish those who break the law of God, what do you think would happen? Do you think that living by the principles of Satan could result in anything other than misery, suffering and death?

Is the reason people who serve God experience joy because God arbitrary gives them joy if they serve Him? Or is there something good about serving God, which in its very nature results in joy?



I would agree that God is doing something which artificially keeps Satan alive. For example, in DA 764 it says that if God were to have allowed Satan to reap the full results of his sin (from memory; right thought if not exact words) he and his followers would have perished. So God is doing something to keep Satan alive even though, by all rights, as one who lives by the principles of death, he should be dead. However, I would say that it is not God's indignation of sin which causes death, but rather that sin itself results in death. The sting of death is sin, not God's indignation. God is indignant against sin precisely because is causes death.

Sin is not innocuous.



Willful sin happens when you do something you know is wrong. One need not know anything about the law to know one has done something wrong.



You wrote (in post #100111):



God gave Lucifer the opportunity to confess his sin, which is, to use your words, his willful rejection of the law. This is without Christ's having died.

Above you wrote:



Is this really what you meant to say? This doesn't seem to make sense. Why would God's offering pardon result in the sinner being exposed to the death penalty?



I wouldn't expect so, because it is not consistent with the idea you have of imposed penalties. However, if we look at how the wrath of God occurs in Scripture, one can see over and over again that this is what it means. In the Romans passage I cited, it said that God gave them over at least 3 times. Here are some more Scriptures which bring out the same principle:



God's wrath is manifest by the following:
a."I will leave him."
b."I will hide my face."
c.He will be devoured
d.It will be said, "Have not all these evils come upon me because God is not with me?"

I looked at several versions, but like the Portuguese the best. Here's another version for the benefit of non-Portuguese speakers.



Here's another text which illustrates this principle:



Here's another one:



I could cite many more. Over and over we see that God's wrath is manifest by His "delivering them to trouble," "hiding My face," and so forth. In the Jeremiah passage, it says that God will slay in His anger and wrath. How did He do so? By delivering up Israel to the Babylonians.

In the Great Controversy, a whole chapter is devoted to the destruction of Jerusalem, and we see this principle explained in great detail. I'll quote a minimal portion:



This explains the principles very clearly.



God is indignant against sin because of its hideousness. When the limit of God's forbearance is reached (which simply means that people have so hardened their hearts that they no longer respond to His Spirit, as explained in the GC passage cited above; God doesn't lose His patience) God's wrath is manifest by His giving up, or delivering, the object of His wrath to the result of their choice.

Jesus said that if one wishes to know the truth, He will know it. So much is working against our having a right view of God. This has been Satan's primary tactic. From the very beginning, the way he attracted converts was by misrepresenting God's character as being like his own. This is still his chief method.

Regarding the meaning of sacrifice, the primary purpose is set forth here:



The word "reasonable" has to do with "reason." That is, it doesn't mean "reasonable" in the sense that a reasonable person would act this way, but that if we reason things out, we will see that this is what we should do.

Anyway, the thought here is simple. We should give our all to God. The giving of the sacrifice represented that one was giving oneself to one's deity. It was an act of dedication. All religions understood this.

The unique thing about Judaism/Christianity (in the true sense) is that our sacrifice is but a faint echo of His sacrifice. The wonderful truth we learn through the sacrifices is that God gave His all for us. The gift of the sacrifice was a recognition that God, in giving us His Son, was giving us His all, and an act of dedication to return the favor.

This thought is also presented by Paul in 2 Cor.



Another meaning inherent in the sacrifice is that sin kills. One question that needs to be carefully considered is whether or not sin is lethal. Would sin be OK if only God were not against it? Is it only because God doesn't like it that sin is a problem? Or is sin, of itself, deadly, and *that's* the reason God is against it?

If the engine of your car was built to take gasoline, and you use, instead, alcohol as its fuel, you will ruin it. But you can make an engine that works with both gasoline and alcohol, like we have here in Brazil, and the engine will suffer no damage with either of these fuels. I don’t think evil would ever be a good thing, but it would be entirely possible for God to have created things in a such a way that a creature could cause a lot of harm to others and never be bothered by his/her conscience, never feel guilty, never suffer emotionally, never be hated but, instead, admired by others – in other words, our minds and feelings could work differently than they do now.


Can’t you see that God made the law of cause and effects? Our bodies could simply have been created in a different way. Eating carrion does no harm to black vultures, but what would it do to you? Radiation does no harm to a cockroach, but what will it do to you?
It’s obvious that God affixed a penalty for acting in certain ways.


Christian joy is a fruit of the Spirit. Most people in this world find no joy in serving God.


If sin in itself caused death, Satan would have died long ago.


No. Willful sin happens when you do something defiantly, knowing it’s sin. You understand the reason for God's requirements, admit their justice, but refuse to submit to them.


Your premise is wrong, so your conclusion is wrong. Pay attention to what I wrote (1) and what you are saying I wrote (2):
(1) To sin willfully is to reject the law.
(2) To sin is to willfully reject the law.

Not every sin is willful.


What I meant was that Satan wasn’t yet exposed to the death penalty when God offered him pardon, because he hadn’t yet willfuly rejected the law.


The fact is that God is indignant against sin, and when He manifests this indignation, this causes unbearable agony in the sinner. This was what Jesus felt, and it was because of this that He died.

Two things I'd like to note:

1.I'm using the word "arbitrary" and "arbitrarily" everywhere that follows here in the sense of "by individual discretion" as opposed to "capriciously."

2.I'll treat Satan's situation separately (next post).



This wouldn't be possible if you took into account God's character, would it? That is, such a creature you are describing would be Satanic, and God couldn't create a Satanic creature, could He? So He could no more create the creature you've described than He could lie, for example. The Scripture tells us that "God cannot lie." So we could conclude, similarly, that God could not create a creature unlike Himself in the manner you described.

So if we consider creatures that can love and be loved, created in His image, we would necessarily conclude that such creatures could have been created no differently than God created them, with consciences and free will. Thus the penalty associated with breaking the law is not an arbitrary or imposed one, but simply the only way that things can be. Just as God cannot lie, so no creature that He created could lie without suffering consequences, not because God imposed an artificial penalty, but because lying is intrinsically bad, and no creature created in God's image, with free will and conscience, could lie without adverse consequences.



It's obvious He didn't. It's obvious that these consequences are not arbitrarily affixed but are natural consequences, the only way things could be. It's obvious that opining "it's obvious" doesn't add any strength to one's argument.

Even if our bodies could be created in a different way, that would have no impact on the point of our conversation. I suppose radiation has no effect on angels, yet they can no more lie than we can without adverse consequences. This isn't because God has arbitrarily affixed a penalty, but because when one lies, bad things happen.

Lies lead to a lack of trust when the truth is discovered. This isn't because God made lies in such a way that they destroy confidence. Lies are intrinsically bad and have negative consequences. They are contrary to the "law of life for the universe."

Let's consider this law a bit. The law of life for the universe is to receive from God and give to others, either God or one's neighbor. Why is this the law of life? Is it because God has arbitrarily affixed a reward for so doing? Or is it because love promotes life by its very nature? I believe it's the latter.

We have two different principles we are dealing with. One is love, such love as God has, disinterested, self-sacrificing love. This principle is life-giving. Another principle is that of living for self. This principle is life-destroying. Not because God made things this way, because to assert this is to assert there is some other way God could have made things. But there isn't. Not and be true to His character.

Therefore God's purpose is to warn us of the effects of choosing the wrong principle to govern one's life by. Not because God has arbitrarily affixed penalties that He must enforce because of His character, but because these principles are life-destroying. The enemy, the problem, is sin. Not God's indignation against sin, nor the penalties God enacts against sin, but sin itself.



My point had nothing to do with this. My point was that the joy one feels in serving God (assuming one feels joy in so doing) is not something God artificially gives to certain ones as a reward, but the natural consequence of so doing. For example, Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." This isn't because God does something artificial to make this so, but because it really is more blessed to give than to receive; this is following the "law of life for the universe."



Satan should have died long ago, but God has taken action to prevent this from happening:



The very reason God did not allow Satan to reap the full result of his sin is precisely because had He done so, Satan would have died, but it would not have been apparent that this was "the inevitable result of sin." This is exactly what I've been saying, that death is the inevitable result of sin.



It is enough to do something you know is wrong. Romans 1 and 2 deal with this. For example:






I see two problems with framing things in this way. The first problem is that is obscures the real issue, which is that sin inevitably results in death. The second problem is the focus on God's indignation against sin as opposed to simply focusing on God's character of love. An important principle is that the same thing that gives life to the righteous slays the wicked. The following brings out this principle:



Note that the same thing that is life to one group is death to the other. I've been highlighting this principle in pointing out that the death of the wicked is not due to God's arbitrarily treating them differently because the agreed to follow some rule. Rather God reveals His character of love to both the righteous and the wicked. The difference is with themselves. For one group, this revelation is life, while for the other it is death.

The same principle is brought out here:



The glory of God is His character. The wicked place themselves so out of harmony with God that His mere presence is unpleasant to them, to put it lightly. We see the same principle in the DA 108 quote above. Only the pure in heart could abide in Jesus' presence. Remember the cleansing of the temple? That was the same principle.

In summary, where I see the crux of our difference is that I see the following taking place:

a.God created beings to love and to be loved.
b.Doing so necessitated creating creatures with conscience and free will.
c.Acting in accordance with the principles of God's government, which is to say in harmony with His character, is the way to life, peace and happiness.
d.This is a consequence of so doing, not an arbitrary reward given by God.
e.Similarly choosing to act out of harmony with the principles of God's government, contrary to the principles of the law, which is a transcript of His character, is the way to suffering, misery and death.
f.This is a consequence of so doing, not an arbitrary penalty given by God.

Otoh, you appear to see both these things as happening by virtue of arbitrary applied rewards and penalties.

Regarding whether or not Lucifer willfully sinned, it's enough to simply consider his actions:

Leaving his place in the immediate presence of the Father, Lucifer went forth to diffuse the spirit of discontent among the angels. He worked with mysterious secrecy, and for a time concealed his real purpose under an appearance of reverence for God. He began to insinuate doubts concerning the laws that governed heavenly beings, intimating that though laws might be necessary for the inhabitants of the worlds, angels, being more exalted, needed no such restraint, for their own wisdom was a sufficient guide. They were not beings that could bring dishonor to God; all their thoughts were holy; it was no more possible for them than for God Himself to err. The exaltation of the Son of God as equal with the Father was represented as an injustice to Lucifer, who, it was claimed, was also entitled to reverence and honor. If this prince of angels could but attain to his true, exalted position, great good would accrue to the entire host of heaven; for it was his object to secure freedom for all. But now even the liberty which they had hitherto enjoyed was at an end; for an absolute Ruler had been appointed them, and to His authority all must pay homage. Such were the subtle deceptions that through the wiles of Lucifer were fast obtaining in the heavenly courts.

There had been no change in the position or authority of Christ. Lucifer's envy and misrepresentation and his claims to equality with Christ had made necessary a statement of the true position of the Son of God; but this had been the same from the beginning. Many of the angels were, however, blinded by Lucifer's deceptions.

Taking advantage of the loving, loyal trust reposed in him by the holy beings under his command, he had so artfully instilled into their minds his own distrust and discontent that his agency was not discerned. Lucifer had presented the purposes of God in a false light--misconstruing and distorting them to excite dissent and dissatisfaction. He cunningly drew his hearers on to give utterance to their feelings; then these expressions were repeated by him when it would serve his purpose, as evidence that the angels were not fully in harmony with the government of God. While claiming for himself perfect loyalty to God, he urged that changes in the order and laws of heaven were necessary for the stability of the divine government. Thus while working to excite opposition to the law of God and to instill his own discontent into the minds of the angels under him, he was ostensibly seeking to remove dissatisfaction and to reconcile disaffected angels to the order of heaven. While secretly fomenting discord and rebellion, he with consummate craft caused it to appear as his sole purpose to promote loyalty and to preserve harmony and peace.

The spirit of dissatisfaction thus kindled was doing its baleful work. While there was no open outbreak, division of feeling imperceptibly grew up among the angels. There were some who looked with favor upon Lucifer's insinuations against the government of God. Although they had heretofore been in perfect harmony with the order which God had established, they were now discontented and unhappy because they could not penetrate His unsearchable counsels; they were dissatisfied with His purpose in exalting Christ. These stood ready to second Lucifer's demand for equal authority with the Son of God.

I honestly don't know how anyone could read this and not comprehend that Lucifer was willfully sinning here. I think you could give this passage to anybody to read with no dog in the hunt, so to speak, say any non-SDA, and ask the question, "Was Lucifer willfully sinning?" and 100 out of 100 people would answer, "yes."

That's the point. God used His individual discretion in making creatures who would experience joy, peace, and love in following His ways, and who would experience the opposite emotions by following selfish ways. He made our minds to function in this way. Therefore, He affixed rewards for good and penalties for evil. The same is true about the laws that govern our bodies.
You seem to think it is a bad thing to use individual discretion. What is bad is to act capriciously, and it is this that Ellen White says that God doesn’t do. She uses the word “arbitrary” in this sense.


I say the same thing to you.


Of course it has an impact, for we are discussing both physical and moral laws.


Bad things may happen to others, but who said bad things always happen to the person who lies? What were the bad things that happened to Satan because he lied to our first parents? He only will face bad consequences because he will have to face judgment.


No. Romans 1 and 2 are not speaking about willful sin. Heb. 10:26, 27 is:

“For if we sin willfully after having received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.”

A willful sin is a sin of presumption. This passage explains better what a willful sin is:

“Soon after the return into the wilderness, an instance of Sabbath violation occurred, under circumstances that rendered it a case of peculiar guilt. The Lord's announcement that He would disinherit Israel had roused a spirit of rebellion. One of the people, angry at being excluded from Canaan, and determined to show his defiance of God's law, ventured upon the open transgression of the fourth commandment by going out to gather sticks upon the Sabbath. ... The act of this man was a willful and deliberate violation of the fourth commandment--a sin, not of thoughtlessness or ignorance, but of presumption. ... The sins of blasphemy and willful Sabbathbreaking received the same punishment, being equally an expression of contempt for the authority of God. {PP 408, 409}


But God’s indignation against sin is part of God’s character of love. God is both just and merciful, and these are not mutually exclusive, that is, God has to be both just and merciful simultaneously. Therefore, He must at the same time punish sin and pardon the penitent. So He punished sin in Himself in order to be able to pardon the penitent.

“God will soon vindicate His justice before the universe. His justice requires that sin shall be punished; His mercy grants that sin shall be pardoned through repentance and confession.” {UL 49.5}


First, I'm not sure the whole quote refers to the period before Lucifer's rebellion, for Ellen White goes back and forth in her descriptions of Lucifer's sin.
Second, before his fall Lucifer was undoubtedly sinning, but, as I said previously, a sin becomes willful after a sinner has received a knowledge of the truth. So, when Satan understood the reason for God's requirements, admitted their justice, but refused to submit to them, he sinned willfully. Before understanding the subject completely, his sin was, partially at least, a sin of ignorance.

“But such efforts as infinite love and wisdom only could devise, were made to convince him of his error. His disaffection was proved to be without cause, and he was made to see what would be the result of persisting in revolt. Lucifer was convinced that he was in the wrong. He saw that the divine statutes are just, and that he ought to acknowledge them as such before all heaven. Had he done this, he might have saved himself and many angels.” {PP 39}

Let's look at DA 764:



Let's consider her point here. She says:

1.This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God. (this could be capricious, or individual discretion so far. Let's look at the following points.)

2.The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown.

3.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.

4."All they that hate Me love death." ("love" means "choose" in the orig. language).

5.They receive the results of their own choice.

These points bring out repeatedly that the wicked suffer because of something they themselves have done. This is in contrast to their suffering because of something God does to them. She continues to make this point in the following paragraph:



6.Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished.

7.It would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin.

The point is that the wicked receive the result of their choice, as opposed to its being something God does to them. In fact, the point is made that God could not all this to happen too soon, at the beginning, because it would have been misunderstood as something God was doing to them as opposed to the inevitable result of sin.

If her point were that God was not being capricious, she would have said things like God only did this to them after careful deliberation, etc. She wouldn't be arguing that God wasn't doing it to them but rather their destruction was due to their own actions.

I don't think there's anything wrong with using individual discretion in general. Clearly God used individual discretion in creation. To be true to His character, He had to create beings with free will and conscience, but how many of these beings and what they would look like and all the other characteristics they have were matters of individual discretion.

However, if we misunderstand something to be due to individual discretion given as a penalty or reward when it's simply a consequence of a given action, that can be very problematic. It can lead us to think that we need to behave in a certain way in order to avoid being judged negatively by God, as opposed to behaving in a certain way because it is the right way to behave. It can lead us to believe that our problem is with God's indignation of sin as opposed to sin. It can lead us to be afraid of what God will do to us as opposed to being afraid of what sin will do to us.

God warns us of the dangers of sin because He loves us. His indignation of sin is because of the harm it does to us, which is because He loves us.



Liars are among the people who do not inherit eternal life. Scripture tells us bad things happen to liars.



Sin is not innocuous. It has a negative impact upon the sinner always. The impact may not be clear immediately, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

The argument of the enemy is that sin is basically not a bad thing. It's just that God has a thing against it. If it weren't for God, Satan and those who follow him would be just fine. But this is a lie. Sin is always bad, and always has negative results against both those who practice it and those who are sinned against. Because of the grace of God, these results are not necessarily immediately recognized. But, again, that doesn't mean the results are not there.



Paul's point is that all are guilty before God. Only willful sin incurs guilt. Romans 1 says that God's wrath is manifest against those Paul is talking about. You have repeatedly pointed out that God's wrath is only manifest against those who willfully sin. Therefore if you are correct in so affirming, those whom Paul is addressing are willfully sinning.



Certainly. God loves His creatures, so whatever harms them causes Him indignation. We may have this same righteousness indignation against sin as well. For example, we may hate drugs because what they do to a loved one.



Not only are they not mutually exclusive, they are not even contradictory. They work in harmony. For example:



True justice is manifest in what? In mercy and compassion. God is merciful because He is just. Justice demands mercy and compassion, as indicated by the fact that this is how it is administered.



Sin is not a thing which can be punished. Sin can no more be punished than a car or a rock or a twig can be punished. Only sentient beings can be punished.

Justice is not administered by punishment, but by mercy. This is seen, for example, in Christ's treatment of the woman caught in adultery. It is also seen in the parable of the prodigal soon. It is also seen in the story about the publican and the pharisee.

I can think of no story Christ taught where punishment had to occur in order for mercy and compassion to be given. Can you?



Since sentient beings can be punished, this must be seen as a metaphor. Who is punished, and what is the punishment? The wicked are punished, and their punishment is death. Why must they die? Because that is what they have chosen (see DA 764). Why does God's justice demand that they be punished? Because this is what they have chosen. Death is their just dessert. It would be unjust of God to give to the wicked something they have not chosen. That would not be respecting their free will.



According to the Spirit of Prophecy, God does not remove every possibility of doubt from us. He gives us evidence upon which to base our decisions. For example:



It has never been the case that a sin is only a willful sin if there is not the least shred of a possibility of doubt that one is doing wrong, which seems to be what you are suggesting. Virtually nothing would be a willful sin under the doctrine that it's only willful if there is no possibility of ignorance involved. Just look at Eve's sin, for example. It would certainly be difficult to argue that her actions had no degree of ignorance attached to them. It would also be hard to argue that Eve had a better idea of what she was doing that Lucifer did in the passage I cited.

Considering Lucifer's experience, as soon as he became upset with God because he was not included in the counsel that Christ was, it was explained to him why he was not included. Yet envy and hatred remained in his heart. He continued to feel resentment against Christ. This was willful sin! This is way before even the things I quoted, which are also before his rebellion.

You have asserted that EGW goes back in forth in her description of what happened with Lucifer. What's your basis for this? It seems to me the natural reading of the description in PP is chronological. Why should it be read in some other way?

The passage itself indicates that Satan's actions were willful, and not done in ignorance. This is very easy to see, hence my assertion that 100 out of 100 non-SDA's would see in the description given that Lucifer was willfully sinning. Here's an example:



Here the words "instill," "ostensibly" and "consummate craft" indicate both willfulness and a lack of ignorance on Lucifer's part.

Lucifer's fall was a protracted one. It began with resentment, and continued to resistance, rejection and rebellion. All along the way, God was concerned for Lucifer. He counseled with him and warned him of the results of what he was doing. He offered him pardon again and again. Even after the description I cited God offered to pardon him yet again, as he had not yet been banished from heaven.

Lucifer was lost not because he committed one willful sin, but because he committed so many willful sins repeatedly (for example, every time God offered Lucifer pardon and Lucifer refused it, that in itself was a willful sin, as God would not have offered Lucifer pardon for something Lucifer was not aware was wrong) that he eventually hardened his heart to the point to where he could not be healed. He lost both the desire and the capability to respond to truth.

She’s using the word “arbitrary” not exactly in relation to God, but to His power. We can speak of a capricious power (a Google search yielded 4820 entrances), but hardly would we speak of a power which uses individual discretion. Besides, the connotation is clearly negative, and using individual discretion doesn’t have a negative connotation per se – the opposite is true.


God must use His individual discretion in order to give them the result of their choice, as opposed to let them continue living in sin for ever.


That’s the point. It has a negative impact because God created us in such a way that evil would have a negative impact on us. It’s not just a “natural result.” I happened to read a passage this morning which speaks exactly about this.

“That which we do to others, whether it be good or evil, will surely react upon ourselves, in blessing or in cursing. Whatever we give, we shall receive again. The earthly blessings which we impart to others may be, and often are, repaid in kind. What we give does, in time of need, often come back to us in fourfold measure in the coin of the realm. But, besides this, all gifts are repaid, even in this life, in the fuller inflowing of His love, which is the sum of all heaven's glory and its treasure. And evil imparted also returns again. Everyone who has been free to condemn or discourage, will in his own experience be brought over the ground where he has caused others to pass; he will feel what they have suffered because of his want of sympathy and tenderness. It is the love of God toward us that has decreed this. He would lead us to abhor our own hardness of heart and to open our hearts to let Jesus abide in them. And thus, out of evil, good is brought, and what appeared a curse becomes a blessing.” {MB 136}


OK, Romans 1 and 2 don’t use specifically the term “willful sin,” but you are right that these chapters are also speaking about willful sin. You will observe that the truth stands that a willful sin is a sin involving rejection of light. Just read Romans 1:18-22.


If the truth is clearly understood and then rejected or set aside, this is a willful sin. It’s very simple. No need to complicate it.

“For if we sin willfully after having received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.”

“We shall not be held accountable for the light that has not reached our perception, but for that which we have resisted and refused. A man could not apprehend the truth which had never been presented to him, and therefore could not be condemned for light he had never had.”--5BC 1145 (1893). {LDE 218.2}

“The degree of light given is the measure of responsibility. The path to heaven will be made plain to all who are faithful in the use of the knowledge they may obtain in regard to the future life. . . . Look at the first act of transgression in the Garden of Eden. To Adam and Eve were plainly stated the laws of Paradise, with the penalty for willful disobedience. They disobeyed, and disobedience brought its sure result. Death entered the world. ... Justice requires that men shall have light, and it also requires that he who refuses to walk in the Heaven-given light, the giving of which cost the death of the Son of God, must receive punishment. {HP 153.2, 3}

You must not only receive light but understand it.

About Lucifer. For a long time he was deluded, thinking that he was right and God was wrong. It was when he was convinced that it was he who was in the wrong and that God was, after all, right, and then refused to submit to God’s authority, that he sinned willfully.

“But such efforts as infinite love and wisdom only could devise, were made to convince him of his error. His disaffection was proved to be without cause, and he was made to see what would be the result of persisting in revolt. Lucifer was convinced that he was in the wrong. He saw that the divine statutes are just, and that he ought to acknowledge them as such before all heaven. Had he done this, he might have saved himself and many angels.” {PP 39}


Yes, the story of His crucifixion! Christ could show compassion to people and forgive their sins exactly because He was going to suffer, in their stead, the punishment for those sins.

Now, Tom, under your view, if there is repentance on the sinner’s part and God is willing to forgive (and He is), what is the need for Christ’s intercession?

“Jesus is the only hope of the soul. ... The moment the sinner lays hold of Christ by faith, his sins are no longer upon him. Christ stands in the sinner's place, and declares, ‘I have borne his guilt, I have been punished for his transgressions, I have taken his sins, and put My righteousness upon him.’” {PrT, January 30, 1890 par. 6}

What does the bolded part mean to you?

(You don't need to answer this post point by point, for we have already discussed most of what is being discussed here, but I would like to discuss this last point.)

???

"Power" is simply force; it's something this a sentient being exercises. Being arbitrary is not a property of power, but of people. You have to have a mind to be arbitrary. Power has no mind. This applies whether "arbitrary" has the meaning of either "individual discretion" or "capricious."

The phrase "capricious power" is referring to the entity exercising the power, not the power itself. It is because this is easily understood that it is not necessary to explain one's usage of the phrase. For example, if I said, "this is an egregious example of capricious power" it is hardly necessary for me to clarify "I'm talking about the person exercising capricious power, not the power itself being capricious."



Why do you read it as clearly negative? I don't see anything suggesting that anywhere in the passage. She simply explaining what happens when the wicked are destroyed. They are destroyed because of their own choice, not as a result of something God does to them. She makes this point over and over again in these 2 paragraphs. It seems clear to me that she is explaining *why* this is so, and why it is that God acted the way He did (e.g., why didn't He allow Satan to die right away?)



It looks like you're argument here is based upon there being a negative connotation in the passage. Unless you are not basing your conclusion that the connotation here is negative entirely on the use of the word "arbitrary," you're using a circular argument.

If one simply looks at the context, as I laid it out, it's clear to see her argument:

1.This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God. (this could be capricious, or individual discretion so far. Let's look at the following points.)

2.The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown.

3.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.

4."All they that hate Me love death." ("love" means "choose" in the orig. language).

5.They receive the results of their own choice.

6.Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished.

7.It would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin.

Isn't it clear she is making the point that the wicked's destruction is due to their own choice? This is the whole context of the passage. The passage is not dealing with God's being capricious, but with the destruction of the wicked being due to the result of the wicked's own choice, as opposed to something God is doing to them.



The inevitable result of sin is death. God has to do something to prevent this from happening. Thus we read:



When God does leave Satan and his host to reap the full result of their sin, then they perish. As long as He doesn't leave them to reap this result, they don't. So God does something to keep them from perishing, but does nothing to cause them to perish, other than to leave them to suffer the consequences of their sin, which is death, because "the inevitable result of sin is death."

A key point to not here is that God *leaves* them to reap the full result of their sin. To leave is a passive action, not an active one.

More later (to cover the rest of your post).

It's not possible for God to create a being with free will such that evil would not have have an impact on said being.



That evil does bad things to people with free will is not because God did anything special to make this happen, but because evil is, well, evil. Evil is contrary to God's character.

It's simply not possible for a being to act contrary to how God acts without bad things resulting. God is love. To act contrary to God's character is to act contrary to love. If one acts contrary to love, then how can something good result?

When you say that God created us such that evil has a bad effect upon us implies God could have created in some other way, so that evil would not have had a bad effect. How could God have done this?

From your quote:



This agrees with what I've been saying. This is the cause and effect.



This is not speaking to the fact that bad results come of evil, or that good results come from doing good, but that God causes us to abhor our own hardness of heart. What does God do this? Precisely because death is the inevitable result of sin. God has to rescue us from sin, or it will destroy us, so all His efforts our in this direction.



After Lucifer's resentment against God and Christ, God counseled with Lucifer and explained to him the truth regarding His Son. The Lucifer had received the knowledge of the truth. So "there remained no more sacrifice for sins." And yet, after this, God offered Lucifer pardon "again and again." Interesting, isn't it?



Again, all that's necessary is to look at the written record.



This is a description of willful sin.



Lucifer knew this wasn't true. The truth had already been explained to him. He willfully lied. That's a sin, a willful sin.



This quote is from earlier. Lucifer was given a warning. How did he respond to the warning? With a spirit of resistance. This is sin! He "allowed his jealousy of Christ to prevail." This is sin. If we allow our jealousy to prevail against us, this is sin.



Please tell me where Jesus said this. Where did Jesus say, "I can be compassionate to people, and forgive your sins, only because I will suffer the punishment for them." Where?

What I read is that when the woman caught in adultery was cast before Christ He said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.... Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." I have never read Him saying, "Because I will suffer the punishment for your sins I do not condemn you. God and sin no more."

When He forgave the paralytic, He said the same thing. "I forgive you. Don't sin, lest a worse thing come upon you." That was it. Nothing like "I forgive you because I am going to suffer the punishment for your sins."

Christ told many parables, healed many people, forgave people of their sin, but never, ever suggested that He was only able to do so because He would suffer the punishment of their sins, right?

If you disagree, please cite for me some example where Christ in any way qualified His forgiveness upon something He would yet do.



Jesus said:

Of course I know that, Tom. But what I’m saying is that no one would use the expression “arbitrary power” referring to individual discretion. “Arbitrary power” and “capricious power” are synonyms, but “arbitrary power” and “individual discretion” aren’t. If Ellen White wished to refer to individual discretion, she would have said, “This is not an act of individual discretion on the part of God,” and not “This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God.”


The whole context of the passage is very clear, and it’s evident that God’s love decreed that bad results come from doing evil and good results come from doing good. The idea you are proposing makes no sense at all to me, so we'll have to disagree.


Tom, as I said, a willful sin happens when you understand the light and reject it. So, when Lucifer was finally convinced that he was in the wrong and that the divines statutes were just, and he even so refused to submit to God’s authority, this was a willful sin.
I’ve provided passages both from the Bible and from Ellen White to back up my position, and I think there’s little else I could say about this.


Well, I think we would return to Matt. 20:28, which we have been discussing from the beginning of this thread. It was only the price paid by the redeemer which allowed the debt of the slave to be canceled.

“A full, complete ransom has been paid by Jesus, by virtue of which the sinner is pardoned, and the justice of the law is maintained.” {AG 177.2}

“We were all debtors to divine justice, but we had nothing with which to pay the debt. Then the Son of God, who pitied us, paid the price of our redemption.” {CC 267.5}

“There was no power in the law to pardon its transgressor. Jesus alone could pay the sinner's debt.” {1SM 229.2}

“He paid the debt of man's transgression upon the cross of Calvary with his own precious blood.” {ST, January 20, 1890 par. 7}

"Justice demanded not merely that sin be pardoned; the death penalty must be met. The Saviour has met this demand. His broken body, his gushing blood, satisfied the claims of the law." {YI, April 16, 1903 par. 6}

Tom, I asked you to reply to just one point, which was exactly the one you didn’t reply to. John 16:25-27 only says that God is willing to forgive, which I had already pointed out. For your convenience, I’ll post again the points I want you to address:

"Arbitrary power" and "discretionary power" can be synonymous, just as "arbitrary power" and "capricious power" can be. The context determines the meaning.



I can say just as validly, "If Ellen White had wished to say 'capricious power,' she would have said, "This is not an act of capricious power," and not "This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God."

The context makes clear her meaning. If she were using "arbitrary" in the sense of "capricious," the context would bear that out. She would make arguments like "God will not undertake this action without due consideration. He will weigh all the appropriate factors" etc. But that's not the point she's making here. She's making the point that the destruction of the wicked is due to the actions the wicked have taken, as opposed to actions that God is undertaking. I don't see how this point can be missed. She repeated this thought in every sentence she wrote in these two paragraphs.



Here's what she wrote:



I'm not seeing your thought here. Also, I don't see the sense in your thought. First of all, love doesn't decree anything, so this is obviously a metaphor. She's saying that God took certain actions out of love. What actions does God take? "Everyone who has been free to condemn or discourage, will in his own experience be brought over the ground where he has caused others to pass; he will feel what they have suffered because of his want of sympathy and tenderness." He does this.

It makes no sense to say that God has decreed that bad results come from doing evil. That's like saying God has decreed that 2+2 shall equal 4, or that circles shall be round.

Bad results come from doing evil because of the nature of evil, just as 2 + 2 = 4 because of the nature of integers (or sets, if you prefer), or circles are round because of their nature. You can't have evil without bad results. Why? Because evil is based on selfishness, which is contrary to love. God is, by His nature, love. It is from love that all good things come. To choose instead the principle of self as opposed to the principle of love is to choose pain, misery and death.

There is no more need for God to decree this to be the case than for Him to decree that 2 + 2 = 4. God is *telling* us this is the case, not making it be the case. God has given us free will, and warns us of the consequences of using it contrary to the principles of love.



The passages are dealing with Lucifer's rebellion. But that is not, by a long shot, the only willful sin that Lucifer committed. The process downward was a long one, with many willful sins along the way, including envy, hatred, resentment, subterfuge, desire for power, lying, all sorts of things. I've provided the passages which spell these things out, so clearly that, as I've been asserting, you could give these passages to any non SDA and ask them if Lucifer was being described as willfully sinning, and the answer would be "yes."

Just the fact that EGW wrote the following should be enough to infer Lucifer had been willfully sinning:



This is long past the envy, hatred, and resentment which prompted Lucifer to start down this path. God offered Lucifer pardon again and again. For what? For willful sin, of course. What else could it have been for?

Let's consider one specific item. Lucifer was resentful because Christ was included with a meeting with God, and he wasn't. So it was explained to Lucifer why this happened, that Christ was His creator, the Son of God, not just another angel, like he was. This should have ended things right there, *long* before the passage I quoted above.

Now Lucifer understood what was being said. He understood the truth, that Christ was the Son of God, and His creator, and that he had no right to feel resentment. But he didn't let go of his resentment. Why not? Because he "allowed envy and hatred to prevail."

This is willful sin. This is just one example of one willful sin. There were many others, all down the path, and God offered, again and again, to pardon Lucifer.

Just because there was some thing which Lucifer was not convinced he was in error regarding does not mean that there were no willful sins he had committed that he was unaware of. Nothing EGW writes suggests this. Indeed, she flat out says that Lucifer was offered pardon again and again, which indicates that Lucifer had willfully sinned. God was willing to forgive him, if he would accept the conditions of repentance and submission.

In order for repentance to be possible, two things are necessary. One is a conviction that one has done wrong, and the other a willingness to accept and acknowledge that. God could not have offered Lucifer pardon for sins that it was not possible for Lucifer to repent of, which means that the sins for which God was offering him pardon had to be things Lucifer knew he had done that were wrong.



I asked where Jesus said "I can be compassionate to people, and forgive your sins, only because I will suffer the punishment for them." Let's look at what He actually said:



Jesus is saying here that if one wishes to be great, one should minister to others. He gives Himself as an example of being a servant in giving His life. He's not saying anything whatsoever about not being able to forgive or be compassionate unless He was punished first. Look at the preceding verses to get the context.



I didn't see the question about the bold part; not responding to this was an oversight. I was responding to the question regarding Jesus' intercession.

I don't understand how you understand John 16:25-27 as only saying that God is willing to forgive. Jesus said, "I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you." How do you get from this that Jesus meant "The Father is willing to forgive you"?

I understand the bold part in the quote you provided to mean the same as this:



I don't know if this answers your question or not, as you might ask what I think this means, but you might see it as an adequate answer, so I'll await your response. If you'd like me to elaborate me, I'd be happy to.

Tom, like Colin, I am no longer able to continue this dialog with you. I have clearly presented my case. You have clearly presented your case. Here's how we stand:

MM: By His word God has bound Himself to execute the penalty of the law on all transgressors. Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed. God, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, met both these requirements. By dying in man's stead, Christ exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon.

TE: Jesus did not have to die in order for God to have the legal right to pardon and save us. He possesses that right by virtue of the fact He is God. By His life and death Jesus revealed the self-sacrificing love of God. This revelation serves to save us from sin and sinning. If we do not frustrate the grace of God He will save us.

Maybe you can dialog with Scott. Hopefully he'll be joining the thread shortly.

Btw, how did you put together your summary of what I was saying? It's very good.

“Arbitrary power” is a well-known and widely-used term, and it has a negative connotation. Besides, in all the instances where Ellen White uses it (14 x), it has a negative connotation, often in the sense of “despotic power.”


You are not quoting the text in full. The whole passage revolves around the same fact – that what we do to others reacts upon ourselves. Besides, of course the phrase “It is the love of God toward us that has decreed this” can logically refer only to the preceding sentence, not to the succeeding sentence.


We are speaking of evil having bad results for the person who practices it. These bad results are basically a consequence of the way in which God created our minds to function, and of the laws of cause and effect He established.


I used just one passage related to Lucifer’s rebellion. All the other passages, both from the Bible and from the Ellen White, had nothing to do with Lucifer’s rebellion, and were used to define what willful sin is. Willful sin is the rejection of light after light has been received and understood. You seem to be disputing this definition, but provided no evidence to back up your opinion. You didn't quote a single passage using the word “willful.”


Did you really expect me to find a passage in the Bible with your exact words? The key word here is “ransom.” We’ve been discussing its meaning and, again, I provided a number of passages showing, not how I understand the concept, but how Ellen White understands the concept of the “ransom” or “debt” that Jesus paid. However, you did not comment about the passages.


What I want to know is why Jesus pleads His blood for the forgiveness of our sins, and why His blood is meritorious. I don’t see how these concepts can make sense under your view.

I'd love to jump in here, Tom, but I'm a little gun shy to jump into a conversation where Ellen seems to be the final authority and most of the discussion revolves around the exact meaning of her words.

Now if we want to use the bible and the bible only I have a lot to say!

scott

If one just reads the two paragraphs in question, it is very easy to see that her point is that the destruction of the wicked is not due to something God does to them but due to their own choice. She makes this point again and again, 7 times in the space of 2 paragraphs. Even if you skip altogether the sentence in question, it is still clear this is the point she is making, because she keeps repeating it.



This is what I wrote:



What I quoted is precisely the preceding sentence. The phrase "the love of God toward us has decreed this" is simply saying that God, because of His love for us, brings us over the ground mentioned. She is not arguing that God's love has decreed that good things come from good or that bad things come from evil.



Ok, let's try it this way. Imagine you are God. Explain to me how a sentient being can be created who can love and be loved and not experience bad things when he does evil.



I don't understand the point here. I referred to this:



"Determined" is willful. Allowing jealousy (let alone having jealousy in the first place) to prevail is sin. Instead of simply looking for certain specific words, if one considers the meaning of what is being said, it is easy to see that Lucifer was sinning, and using his will to do so.

Here's another example:



I'm just incredulous that one can read these things and not recognize them as describing willful sin. Let's consider a few points:

1.Lucifer was envious and jealous of Jesus Christ.
2.His heart was filled with envy and hatred.
3.He aspired to the height of God Himself.
4.He gloried in his loftiness.
5.Concealing his real purposes, he assembled the angelic host.
6.He introduced his subject, which was himself.

Look at the verbs used "aspired," "gloried," "concealing," "assembled," "introduced." This are all verbs which describe willful purpose. Being envious, hating Christ, wanting to be equal with God, glorying in one's loftiness, etc. are all examples of sin.

Regarding receiving light and understanding it, I carefully chose an example which illustrates this very point. Lucifer was jealous because He was not included with Christ to counsel with God. God explained to Lucifer why this was so, which was because He was not the Son of God, not the creator.

Lucifer understood this, as Lucifer was very intelligent, and there is nothing difficult to understand about this. But rather than let go of his jealousy, which was easily seen to be unfounded, he chose to remain resentful, and allowed hatred and envy to fill his heart. He had received light, but he rejected it. This willfully sinned, using your definition.



Again, the words are not important, but the ideas. Jesus never spoke of the idea that in order to forgive someone He had to be punished. He never spoke of the idea that God, in order to legally pardon, had to punish someone. Forget the words; look for the idea. Where can such an idea be found in Christ's life and teachings? In addition to never teaching these things, He never acted this way, and He was the perfect representation of His Father.



I didn't comment on the passages, because I asked you where Jesus taught the things you are suggesting. If I had asked you where Ellen White taught these things, it would have been appropriate to quote her, and I would have responded. But that's not what I asked.

It's a bit amusing in a way. I asked Colin the same question, and he quoted Paul. I ask you, and you quote Ellen White. But nobody quotes Jesus.

Going on to Jesus and His use of the word "ransom," you just now said that one should not look for certain specific words. I wholeheartedly agree. Let's look for meaning. What did Jesus say? Was He speaking of conditions necessary in order to receive pardon? No. He said, if you wish to be great, you will serve. Why did He say this? Because His disciples were seeing who could be the greatest. So He gave Himself as an example and said, "The Son of Man came not to serve, but to be served, and give His life a ransom for many."

If the disciples had not been striving to be the greatest, Christ would have had no occasion to speak the words He did. You're trying to be a whole theory based on a single word. You're not taking into account the context of the situation in which Jesus is speaking.



Ok, but what you cited was this:



I responded I see this as meaning the same thing as the DA passage I cited. Does that answer the question you asked? (which is what I think the passage you cited means).

It seems to me you are now asking a new question, since the passage you cited does not speak directly to the things you are now asking about.

In regards to what you are now asking, I'm not understanding what it is you think happens. Do you think Jesus literally pleads His blood to God so that God will forgive us? If so, why would this be? It seems to indicate that God needs to be reminded of what Christ did, or that God is unwilling to forgive us, so Christ has to convince Him.

If it is not literal, then what does it mean?

Since you asked me first, I'll give a brief answer, which I can elaborate on. God forgives us not on the basis of our goodness, but on the basis of His grace, which comes to us through Christ.

Scott, please go ahead and speak. The participants have been primarily Colin, myself, MM, Rosangela. Colin is pretty much all Scripture in his participation, so I'm sure he'd especially welcome any Scripturally based presentation. Rosangela has also had protracted conversations just using Scripture on a number of threads.

OK. God, because of His love for us, brings us over the ground mentioned. Which is what?
Also experiencing condemnation and discouragement – IOW, “Whatever we give, we shall receive again. ... And evil imparted also returns again” (her words at the beginning of the quote).


Tom, when God created us, He deliberately put within our soul certain characteristics. For instance, He could have created us with the capacity to love other human beings and be loved by them, but having no need to love Him (a Superior Being) and be loved by Him. But He didn’t do so. He put a need for Him within us.
In the same way, He could have created us in such a way that our feelings would be under the command of our will, so that we could command our hearts to not suffer. But He didn’t do that.
So, God chose the way in which both our bodies and our minds should work.


At this point Lucifer still thought he was right and God was wrong. He hadn’t been convinced he was in error. It’s true he was resisting light, but he hadn’t yet had a full understanding of that light. God is a God of mercy and no one will be held accountable for a light he hasn’t apprehended. He had to make an intelligent decision as to whether he would submit to God or not, and he was still undecided, for “he had not at that time fully cast off his allegiance to God” (PP 39).

When did his sin happen?

“Evil originated with the rebellion of Lucifer. It was brought into heaven when he refused allegiance to God's law. Satan was the first lawbreaker.” {RH, June 4, 1901 par. 3}


As if Paul and Ellen White taught something different from Jesus! It’s this that is amusing. If they taught, then they weren’t inspired by Jesus.


Let’s slightly change what Jesus said. "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and give His life to save the world." Was Jesus speaking about salvation? No. He was speaking about His attitude of service. Does this mean He did not come to save the world, and that if I say that He did I’m disregarding the context? How valid is this argument?

How was He serving? By giving His life as a ransom. What is a ransom? It’s the price paid to cancel the debt of a slave and free him. Why did Jesus use this unusual word? Because He wanted to convey the idea that we had a debt we couldn’t pay and He came here to pay this debt with His own life. The way you understand what this debt was and how He paid it with His life is what we are discussing. In support of my/Colin’s/MM’s interpretation we are quoting the words of Paul and of Ellen White. Who are you quoting in support of yours?


Yes, it does. I asked why Jesus pleads His blood for the forgiveness of sin, and the passage I quoted said,

“Jesus is the only hope of the soul. ... The moment the sinner lays hold of Christ by faith, his sins are no longer upon him. Christ stands in the sinner's place, and declares, ‘I have borne his guilt, I have been punished for his transgressions, I have taken his sins, and put My righteousness upon him.’” {PrT, January 30, 1890 par. 6}

This, to me, is the same thing.


Why does Christ speak to His Father about His death? Did God grant His grace because Christ died? This does not make sense under your view. What then do you mean?

This conversation speaks of “grace” as if it were a noun, but it is an active verb or adjective. Grace is God’s character in action. God doesn’t grant grace, but acts like His graceful self. Grace is a description of God in action. It is His motive for all of His actions. God is gracious and therefore when we see Him move we are awestruck with His grace. Because of His outrageous love, forgiveness, and efforts to save all of His lost children we see Him act and all we can say is, “What Grace!”

Also God doesn’t grant grace to some and withhold it from others. We are all exposed to God’s gracefulness every day.

scott

Scott, where in Scripture does it clearly explain why Jesus had to die, what His death accomplishes?

The reason I said "ground mentioned" was because it was easier than typing "the ground where he has caused others to pass" (but this didn't work, since I had to type it anyway. )



Because of grace, the cause and effect of one's actions may not be apparent. However, this cause and effect must be seen and understood, otherwise one will not understand the results of one's actions. So God works in such a way that we can see these things, so that we can understand the problem of sin, and seek to be delivered from it.

She's not saying God did something arbitrary or artificial or imposed or whatever word one wishes to use so that when we do good, good things result, or when we do evil, bad things result.



I disagree with your assertions here. Specifically, that God could have created us without having a need to love God or be loved by Him. I think this demonstrates a lack of understanding of what eternal life is. According to Jesus, eternal life is knowing God. To know God is to love Him. Therefore we could not have had eternal life without knowing and loving God.

The way we were made, having free will, having a conscience, being able to love God and apprehend His love for us, were not arbitrary decisions. How many arms and legs we have, whether we have the types of bodies at all that we have (as opposed to angels) these sorts of things were arbitrary, but not characteristics like having free will, conscience, capacity to know an love God, etc.



No, He couldn't. God cannot command even Himself not to suffer. He suffers because He loves. The only way to avoid suffering is to not have sin. Suffering is not an arbitrary result that God decided one should feel.



Of course He chose how our bodies and minds should work, but in terms of our discussion, that bad things happen when one does evil, or good things when one does good, this was not something arbitrary which God caused to happen. It is a byproduct of being created as a moral being.

The examples you gave are also non-arbitrary, but the results of being created moral beings with the capacity to love and be loved.

It's an interesting conversation, that's for sure! We seem to be on opposite ends here. I see pretty much nothing as being arbitrary, except things having to do with physical characteristics, whereas you seem to think that there is no cause and effect at all, unless God arbitrarily puts it there. For example, you speak in terms of God creating cause and effect. I don't believe He created this. Cause and effect is itself a non-arbitrary thing.

I guess this is a good bottom line test. If you take the position that cause and effect is arbitrary, then it would follow that everything else is arbitrary too.

Just to be clear, I'm still using "arbitrary" in a non-pejorative way to mean simply that God did something specific to make things one way as opposed to some other way they could have been had He made some other decision. So God (under your view) could have made things such that causes would not have effects had He wanted to. I'm not 100% sure this is what you are wanting to say, but it seems to me you have been saying that God created the laws of cause and effect, which seems to me to be equivalent to saying that God could have created things in some other way, without these laws operating as they do.



Yes, the sin of his fully casting his allegiance to God did not happen until after he made his final decision to rebel, and this did not happen until after he was convinced he was wrong to do so. However, this isn't the only sin Lucifer had been committing. He committed a whole host of sins, which are easy to see in the passages I've been quoting.

To name just one, she said that he allowed envy and hatred to prevail over him and continued to resent God (this is from memory; words not 100% same, but idea is). This is *way* before the passage you are talking about. This is certainly a description of a willful sin.

Again, God offered Lucifer pardon again and again. For what, if not willful sin? These offers of pardon were *before* Lucifer cast off his allegiance to God.

If one simply reads the descriptions of what Lucifer did, it can be readily seen that he was willfully sinning. Just give the passage to someone who is not familiar with what we've been discussing and ask the question, "Is this being willfully sinning?"



"If they taught, then they weren't inspired by Jesus." I didn't understand what this meant until I translated it into Portuguese, and then it made perfect sense.

Let's start with Paul and Jesus first. I believe that Paul learned what he taught through Jesus' teachings. I don't believe that he articulated a new Gospel, one which Jesus did not teach, in particular that he did not articulate meanings for Christ's death which Jesus did not teach. Because I believe this, any teaching of Paul's on this question I can back up with statements of Jesus Christ.

Therefore if one really believes that Jesus and either Paul or EGW are teaching the same thing, you should be able to quote Jesus Christ when so requested, right? It would only be because they do not teach the same thing that you would quote them and not Jesus Christ when asked to provide a quote from Jesus Christ.

The reason you and Colin do not quote Jesus Christ to support your ideas is because you are unable to do so. The reason you are unable to do so is because He did not teach what you are asserting. In particular, He never taught that He had to die in order for God to be able to legally pardon us.



You mean like Calvin taught? There's not a soul on earth that would have understood Jesus' words along the lines of what Calvin taught. Can we agree on this point?



I've been quoting Jesus Christ. He seemed like a good choice.



To me what she wrote is the same thing as what I quoted from DA 25.



What do I mean? I'm asking you whether you understand Christ's pleading His blood for the forgiveness of sin as something literal. In other words, say you sin, and repent, and ask forgiveness. Do you see Christ as literally appearing before the Father, pleading His blood for you, so that God will forgive you?

Regarding your question about grace, I would say that God's grace is manifest in Christ, as opposed to created by Christ's death. From a physical standpoint, His grace is effective for all. From a spiritual standpoint, His grace becomes effective by faith in Christ.

I think Romans 5 tells us very well what Christ's death accomplished. It demonstrated God's love for His enemies thereby causing some of them to love Him and reconcile with Himself.



scott

I disagree. As I see it, God carefully planned every detail about both Adam’s body and mind.



“The will of God establishes the connection between cause and its effects. Fearful consequences are attached to the least violation of God's law. All will seek to avoid the result, but will not labor to avoid the cause which produced the effect. The cause is wrong, the effect right, to restrain the transgressor.” {ApM 26.1}


It's true he sinned, but the truth had to reach his understanding before he could be held accountable for these sins.
Anyway, it’s useless to continue discussing this, for we have done so many times in the past but haven’t been able to reach an agreement.


How should I have said this in English?


He never taught explicitly that there is a sanctuary in heaven and that He is the high priest of that sanctuary. He never taught explicitly that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. He never taught explicitly that He had to die in order for God to be able to pardon us. But He did speak about these things, and what He said is further explained in other parts of the Bible.


First, light is progressive. Second, the fact that there are so many theories on the atonement shows the effort of Christians, to this day, to understand how Christ’s death effected our salvation. After all, this theme will be our study for all eternity. Ellen White throws further light on the subject, using elements from all the theories of the atonement, including the penal-substitution theory.


No. You seem to be trying to avoid what He said. How do you understand His words – that He came to give His life as a ransom?


Yes. I understand that my forgiveness comes only by virtue of the sacrifice He made. My sins are imputed to Him, and His righteousness imputed to me. He took upon Himself the curse of the law due to my transgressions.


“We have a risen Lord, ascended on high, who ever liveth to make intercession for us. ... We know where he is,--in the presence of the Father, pleading his blood for the forgiveness of our sins.” {RH, September 21, 1886 par. 15}

If Christ was speaking to human beings, it would still make sense for Him to speak of His death as the basis for their pardon, but since He is speaking to God, what sense does it make, under your view, to present His death as a basis for the forgiveness of their sins?

Just a note. I'll travel tomorrow morning and will be away until Sunday evening. I hope to be back here by Monday.

This response takes me aback. You can't really believe I don't think God carefully planned every detail about Adam's body and mind, do you? You must have seriously misunderstand what I wrote.

That the number of arms we have, and all the other physical characteristics we have, is arbitrary means that God used His individual discretion in determining these things, which, of course, implies that He carefully planned every detail about Adam's physical characteristics. I've been arguing that the fact that doing evil leads to bad results is not arbitrary, not that God didn't plan every detail about Adam's body and mind. Of course He did. He created Adam. How could God have created Adam without planning every detail?



Well, the will of God establishes everything, right? I don't know what you wish to say by this. I guess you are saying, in an indirect way, that you think the fact that a cause has an effect is arbitrary.



If he couldn't have been held accountable for these sins, he wouldn't have been offered pardon.



That's fine, but when the SOP is used to state that God can only legally pardon because Christ died, I'll bring Lucifer back up, because how God dealt with Lucifer completely disproves this idea. The fact is that God offered Lucifer pardon again and again, without any necessity for Christ's death. This establishes conclusively that God can offer pardon without death.



Here's a bit more of what you said to make this easier to explain:



You could say, "If they taught something different, then ..." or "If they so taught, then ..." "Taught," without a direct object, would refer to the act of teaching per se, not to the teaching of some specific thing.



Ok, here you're giving examples of other things which you don't believe Jesus explicitly taught. This implies you agree with my assertion, which is that Jesus did not explicitly teach that He had to die in order for God to legally pardon us. I agree!



I explained this previously, in quite some detail in fact. So I haven't been avoiding what He said.

I explained that ransom would likely have been understood as having to do with the freeing of slaves. By Christ's death, He freed us from the slavery of sin. How He did so He explained elsewhere in His teachings, for example, with Nicodemus, to whom He explained the principle of "look and live."

He used the word "ransom" because a ransom is a price which is necessary to be paid in order for one to be freed. It was necessary for Christ to die in order for us to be freed from sin.

This interpretation has the advantage of both being in harmony with what Christ often taught elsewhere, and being easily understood by His hearers. The idea that Christ was teaching that He had to die in order for God to legally pardon us has the following shortcomings.

1)It's not in harmony with the context.
2)No follower of His would have understood Him to be teaching Calvin's idea.
3)It doesn't agree with anything He taught elsewhere.



You said "yes," but then offered an explanation which is not literal, but symbolic. If you really believed it was literal, you would believe that Christ actually stands before God pleading His blood in our behalf so that God will forgive us, since that's what "literal" means.



I don't believe He's literally doing this. What would be the purpose? To remind God, because God had forgotten? To convince God to do something He would not otherwise be inclined to do? There's no reason for Christ to literally appear before God pleading His blood, is there?

The reason He is presented as speaking to God is for our benefit, not God's. It's a metaphor, or symbol, to let us know that our forgiveness is possible because of Christ's righteousness, not our own.

“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!” What is the “wrath” of God? Why must justified sinners be “saved” from it? How are they saved from it “through” Jesus?

“For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” How does the death of Jesus “reconcile” sinners to God? How are they saved “through” Jesus’ life?

The following passages speak to what Jesus came to accomplish:

John
3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

1 John
3:5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.
3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

Hi MM,

Since we are quoting from Romans 5 we might well look at the only systematic theology on the wrath of God in the bible. It happens to be in Romans 1 of which chapter 5 is a continuation. Romans 1 makes it clear that the wrath of God is God letting us go to the consequences of our chosen sin. So I would say that Jesus’ death demonstrated God’s love and reconciles the sinner back to God thus saving the sinner through a demonstration of His gracefulness.

What do you think “Saved by Grace” means?




Had Paul said this in English it would look something like this:

7 It is a rare thing for someone to give their life for a righteous man even though they might be willing to die for a good man, 8 but God demonstrated his love for us in that He sent Christ to die for us sinners. And now that we have been set right with God though this demonstration of his love in dying for us just think how much more we will be saved from our sins separating us from God in the end. 10 For if God’s enemies are made his friends through Jesus’ love shown by his death how much more shall His life of righteousness influence our salvation. 11 What a cause for rejoicing! Thank God that we have accepted his act of reconciliation.

scott

The passage doesn't say "God's wrath." It just says "wrath." The wrath Paul could be speaking of is ours. God saves us from our anger against Him by reconciling us to Himself. This fits in perfectly with the context of Romans 5. God wasn't angry at us, but loved us, so much so that He gave us His Son to save us from ourselves.

Very nice paraphrase Scott!

Amen Tom!

I think we give ourselves way too much credit. We don’t change the way God acts. He always acts from the principle of love. In other words He always does the loving thing and the loving thing is the right thing. We might hurt God’s feelings, but we don’t provoke Him to act out of that hurt and do something that He wouldn’t normally do.

It is God’s natural tendency to protect His children just like we do ours. To actually allow them to finally destroy themselves is a strange act for God exactly like it would be for us. We try to protect our children as much as we can while they are little. We shield them from strangers, put them in their car seats, feed them good food, but at some point they become adults and we set them free to choose their own path.

Will they still wear their seat belt? Will they still eat good food? Will they take up drinking or drugs or wild parties or even reject our religion and join the New Age? Maybe! But we don’t build a fence around a free man to protect him from himself. He is free!

I think that probation is really a time God said, “I won’t give you what you want because you don’t understand the consequences!” The end of probation is when we have exhausted God’s love and there is nothing more He can do to change our minds. He finally gives us what we demand and He lets us go to the consequences of our sins.

scott

The version Scott quoted reads thus - "Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!"

Elsewhere Paul wrote:

Romans
1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
2:5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
9:22 [What] if God, willing to show [his] wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

Galatians
5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

Colossians
3:6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:

1 Thessalonians
5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

And John wrote:

Revelation
6:16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
6:17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
11:18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
14:10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
15:1 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.

Hi MM,

I have a question for you.

What could your God possible do that would cause you to doubt Him?

If your answer is "nothing" may I suggest that you are a prime candidate for cult membership!

scott

I meant the passage in the original Greek. Here's how Young's Literal Translation has it:



You can confirm that the original only has the word "wrath," not "God's wrath."

Regarding the other passages, those look to be dealing with God's wrath, except for maybe 1 Thes. 5:9; that might be saying the same thing as Paul says in Romans 5.

Rereading this seemed very harsh. I’m sorry for that. My intent was simply to note that if this earthly experience proves anything it proves that whom we are willing to follow makes us very dangerous people or very safe people. Adam and his wife had ample evidence that God was love, but chose to believe Satan’s version of God as someone they couldn’t trust, who didn’t have their best interest in mind, who was holding back good things from them. None of this was true, but had it been true then Satan would have been correct and righteous to point it out.

What I hear you saying in most of your posts that it doesn’t matter what God does because He is righteous and we need to blindly obey. I don’t find that in the story of creation. God allowed Adam a choice of what to believe and Adam could trust His limited experience with God as a lover and friend or he could believe Satan that God was neither.

How God acts, what He does, the principles that make up His character, His mind of a poet, His expressions of love, His humble nature, His meekness, are what make up His beautiful character. He is forever attractive and it is who He is that draws us to Him.

I see too many people pledging allegiance to God because He is the biggest and strongest and we better obey Him or else. This is sad and those who will stoop to this type of pressure are dangerous Christians. They will do anything their God tells them including breaking any and all of the God’s laws believing that God is above the law rather than the law is an expression of who He is.

God had to remove Israel from their position because they worshiped the wrong God. They worshiped a God of power and crucified the real God when He came to visit. They pointed to their laws that He gave them as evidence that He wasn’t God.

Wow!

I’ve decided that there is a standard I see in Jesus and only a God that perfectly fits into that standard is worthy of my praise. I refuse to give allegiance to a God that would act outside of the principles that Jesus taught. Satan has been cast out of this temple of my mind and there is only a place for Jesus and His Father that He spoke so highly of.

Now if I’m wrong then I’ll burn longing for a God like Jesus. I couldn’t live for eternity with any other God without eternity eventually becoming hell to me.

scott

What is "the wrath"?

Scott, I feel the same way about my God that you do about your God. You and Tom may find it difficult to believe I can love my God since He has punished and destroyed impenitent sinners, and will resurrect them at the end of time to punish and destroy them again. Nevertheless, my God is just and merciful, gracious and loving. The wrath of God is love. If we are tempted to think and feel otherwise it is because the enemy is seeking to deceive and ensnare us. If I showed you a quote that God was responsible for the destruction of sinners which would have been sinful for one us to do - would you agree with it?

Exodus
20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me;
20:6 And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Scott, I'm not sure if you are in agreement with Tom regarding how your God punishes and destroys sinners, so I'll just ask you. Do you believe that all the OT accounts of God punishing and destroying sinners can be explained by saying He withdrew His protection and allowed evil angels to punish and destroy them? (This is not to say Tom believes this way. I'm not exactly sure what he believes. I'm still trying to understand him).

[

I really believe this is exactly what the Great Controversy is all about. Some worship the image of the Beast and others worship God. Satan has used false doctrine and fundamentalist Bible exegesis to give His church a false picture of God. Satan has placed his character in the Christ’s living temple and the people are willing to worship a god that is exacting, demanding, petty, arbitrary, murders at will, and demands the blood of the innocent as appeasement.

Satan uses these men, willing to worship his image as God, to do the very things that they believe God has done in order to further God’s kingdom. By beholding we become changed. A violent God can only produce violent children. Satan well knows this!

If God has the same attributes as Hitler and we are willing to give our allegiance to Him then we are scary indeed! And if you think there are not Adventist willing to worship Satan’s image of God you might want to think again!

scott

I do not believe that God has ever murdered anyone and I don’t believe that He ever wanted any of His children to murder anyone for Him.

I believe that what we see in the Bible is reflective of man’s (even God’s chosen men) thirst for blood and violence. God came down to violent sinners and pitched His tent with us and was willing to risk His reputation to save us. God chose violent slaves to bring His Son to this earth and chose prostitutes, adulterers, and murderers for His family tree. Does this mean He condones their behavior or does it mean that He loves the worst of us and is willing to do what it takes to save us through the revelation of His Father’s gracefulness?

Because God values freedom above all He had to convince men’s minds that violence was the wrong path . . . always . . . and that love is the only way to win the battle between good and evil. Jesus demonstrated God’s love and forgiveness on the cross and that story of God’s love, that we call “the gospel”, is the power of God to salvation.

Make what you want of the OT, but the bottom line is that it is the good news that Jesus taught that is the fullness of truth. There is no other name (character) under heaven whereby we might be saved. Jesus is God and revealed the Father to us and was given all power and authority. Every knee will bow and every man will be made a liar when face to face with Christ’s righteousness.

Blessings in Christ,

scott

That’s the point. What you are saying is that the fact that God carefully planned every detail about how Adam's body should work means He used His individual discretion in determining our physical characteristics, but the fact that He carefully planned how Adam’s mind should work doesn’t mean that He used His individual discretion in determining the characteristics of our mind. Don’t you think this is a contradiction?


Yes. God used His individual discretion to establish a “connection between cause and its effects.” Do you really believe that nobody created the law of cause and effects? Whatever you sow, you will also reap. God created this law; it did not come to existence by itself.


Everyone who admits he is wrong needs pardon. But light must first reach you before you admit you are wrong.


No, it doesn’t, because death is the penalty for willful disobedience.

“Said the angel: ‘If light come, and that light is set aside or rejected, then comes condemnation and the frown of God; but before the light comes, there is no sin, for there is no light for them to reject.’” {1T 116.1}


If He had taught this explicitly, we wouldn’t be discussing it. But obviously the fact that He did not teach this explicitly doesn't mean He didn't teach it implicitly.


Our salvation has a price, which means that our pardon has a price, for no sinner can be saved without being pardoned.


It’s a metaphor, or symbol, to let us know that our forgiveness is possible because of Christ’s death in our place.

“Through him [Christ] mercy was enabled to deal justly in punishing the transgressor of the law, and justice was enabled to forgive without losing its dignity or purity.” {ST, June 18, 1896 par. 2}

I haven't said God didn't use His individual discretion in determining the characteristics of our mind. I haven't said anything like that. Of course He did. He planned every detail of every part of us.

What I've been saying is that the fact that doing something evil results in bad results is not a result of God's making us in some special way. Simply creating a being in His image, with free will and a conscience, necessitates that one cannot act contrary to the principles of life, which are the principles of love, without experience bad results from doing evil. This isn't something that God made happen, as if He could have made something else happen. God could no more create a sentient being that could love and be loved that could experience good results by doing evil than He could create a square circle.

When I presented the challenge of your being God for a day and creating such a being, I actually thought the solution you came up with was a good try. You suggested that God could have created beings that would love one another, but have no knowledge of Him. However, eternal live is knowing God, so I found fault with that try, but I think it was a good effort.

I don't believe that it is possible for God to create sentient beings other than how He did. Although there are millions of worlds, I am sure every sentient being in every world will have the same characteristics of conscience and free will, and that the same effects of experiencing bad results for doing evil would be universal (of course, they never did evil, so that didn't happen).



Yes. I believe it's like circles are round. Cause and effect is not something that had to be created, as if it could not exist.



I disagree. If what you assert were true, then everything there is would be arbitrary, which is to say, they would be a certain way only because that's the way God wanted it. Therefore we should choose to do things the way God wants, because He is #1 in the universe; He outranks everybody. He could have made things some other way, but chose not to. We need to learn how God actually did make things, and conform ourselves to that. The why doesn't matter, only the what; that is, we need not learn to do certain things because of some reason, all we need to know is what God wants.

I don't believe this is what God wants. I believe He made things a certain way because that's the only way they could be. I believe He wants us to learn the truth about the way things are. For example, it's more blessed to give than to receive. This is truth. Not because God made things this way, but because it really is more blessed to give than to receive.

So Jesus Christ did not create truth, but revealed it. The Plan of Salvation is not one possible solution, but the only solution, because only by revealing the truth could wrongs be made right.



Every who does wrong and knows it is wrong needs pardon. Admitting the wrong is irrelevant to the need. That Lucifer had light is self-evident from the fact that God offered him pardon.



Not in an arbitrary sense, but as a consequence. God was trying to save Lucifer from his sin, because He knew it would kill him.



The inevitable result of sin is death, which Satan would have experienced, had God *left* him to reap the full result of his sin.




Right, and the fact that God offered Lucifer pardon showed that Lucifer had light. He wouldn't have needed pardon otherwise, as needing pardon means he was condemned, which means he had light.



People disagree all the time regarding things Christ explicitly taught. At any rate, regarding your assertion that Christ did not explicitly teach that the purpose of His death was so that God could legally pardon us, I agree!



I agree.



I see it the way Fifield explained it.



I agree completely! More than that, I think you put this particularly well.

Scott, how do you explain all the OT stories that attribute to God judgments that resulted in people dying?

Regarding #100439, what is "the wrath"? In English, we would just say "wrath." Paul is saying that Jesus Christ will save us from wrath.

1) Most Jews to this day don’t believe there is a literal devil.
2) They also believe that everything in Nature is controlled by God.
3) They also believe that sickness and disease are directs acts of God punishing either the person or the persons children.
4) They also believe that all evil is sent to mankind and is directed and controlled by God as tests to humankind.

With that cultural paradigm how else could they have interpreted the events they saw?

Remember that the very first act of Jesus, after His baptism, was to be driven into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Jesus’ very first statement was that there really is a devil and he really does tempt us and there really is a battle going on between good and evil. Jesus established most of the principles that we use to explain the Great Controversy.

Jesus is the very first theologian known who said that God is only good. Every other religion taught that God did both good and evil, including the Jewish religion!

scott

And what I have been saying is that the bad results we experience when we do something evil are basically a consequence of the way in which God created our minds to function, of the characteristics He implanted in our minds, and of the laws of cause and effect He established.


Maybe they couldn’t have eternal life, but sure they could have eternal existence.


So you believe God didn’t create one of the main laws of the universe. Then He must have submitted to it, for He certainly could have created trees capable of yielding several kinds of fruits but created, instead, every tree yielding fruit according to its kind.


He indeed didn’t create truth – He is the truth. He defines, in His own person, what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. Things are the way God wants them to be, and His way is the best way – this now is clear to the whole universe.


Everyone who does wrong needs pardon, whether they know it or not.

Now, if you know that what you are doing is wrong, you have already admitted you are wrong. I’m not saying you admit it to others, but that you have already admitted it to yourself. However, this is only possible if you had light showing you that what you are doing is wrong.

There were indeed several occasions on which Lucifer was almost convinced that he was wrong, but there was a moment when he was unequivocally convinced of this and had to make a choice.

“The Lord saw the use Satan was making of his powers, and he set before him truth in contrast with falsehood. Time and time again during the controversy, Satan was ready to be convinced, ready to admit that he was wrong. But those he had deceived were also ready to accuse him of leaving them. What should he do?--submit to God, or continue in a course of deception? He chose to deny truth, to take refuge in misstatements and fraud.” {RH, September 7, 1897 par. 11}

“But such efforts as infinite love and wisdom only could devise, were made to convince him of his error. His disaffection was proved to be without cause, and he was made to see what would be the result of persisting in revolt. Lucifer was convinced that he was in the wrong. He saw that 'the Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works' (Psalm 145:17); that the divine statutes are just, and that he ought to acknowledge them as such before all heaven. Had he done this, he might have saved himself and many angels. He had not at that time fully cast off his allegiance to God.” {PP 39.1}


Perhaps, but the words on which we are apparently in agreement have a different meaning for you and for me.

The point I've been trying to make is that I don't believe that the fact that we experience bad results because we do something evil is because of something God arbitrarily does, but is instead due to the nature of things. By nature of things, I mean, the nature of evil, and the nature of sentient beings. Iow, I don't believe God could create sentient beings capable of giving and experiencing love who could do evil things and not experience bad results.



A cow can have eternal existence. This is getting a bit off point, I think. My point is the same as I made above, that our experiencing bad results from doing evil has to do with the nature of being loving sentient beings, as opposed to something God imposes upon our existence.



??? What does this have to do with anything?

My point is that causes have effects like circles have roundness. Iow, you can't have a cause without an effect. Not because God created a law which said "causes shall have effects" but because that's what causes are. They are things which effect something (not affect, but effect).

Your point about trees lost me.



Right!



Things aren't the way God wants them to be.



Over and over again, God offered Lucifer pardon. Each time was for some sin that Lucifer had done, of which he had light, otherwise there would have been no occasion for pardon to be offered. When God offers pardon, it is because we under condemnation. When does condemnation come? When light has been rejected.

You are right that there came a time when Lucifer had to make a choice. He couldn't keep on sinning forever without there being any consequences to his own soul. At some point continued sinning would cause him to complete case off his allegiance to God. He would so harden his heart that he would lose the capacity and the willingness to respond to the Holy Spirit.

The fact that there was some point on which Lucifer was not convinced, does not mean there was no point on which Lucifer was convinced. Iow, Lucifer could not have been convinced that his course in rebelling against God was totally without merit. However, he could have been convinced that Jesus Christ really was the Son of God, and he was wrong to be envious of Him for that reason. Another example is that EGW writes that Lucifer allowed envy and resentment to prevail over him (I can't remember the exact things involved, "envy" and "resentment," but something like that). The language she used depicts that a struggle took place within Lucifer, which Lucifer was conscious of.

Anyway, we know that God was offering Lucifer pardon again and again, so Lucifer must have been doing things for which it made sense for God to offer him pardon (which would be things he knew were wrong).



That's the whole point of this thread. You believe Christ had to die because of an imposed requirement, a requirement you would say God imposes because of attributes of His character (e.g. His holiness requires that sin be punished, or else He cannot forgive it). I believe He had to die to solve a problem that couldn't be solved in any other way, a problem which had to do with truth being misunderstood.

Isn't that really the reason there are so many denominations? Most of us agree on the words, but the words mean different things to different people.

Praise God Jesus saves us because He is so graceful and not because we've figured out the big puzzle!

scott

Or, it could be specifying a certain source of wrath: ours or God's. I am inclined to believe it refers to God's wrath. The following passages speak of the wrath of God.

John
3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Romans
1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Ephesians
5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

Revelation
14:10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
14:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

I'm still not sure what you believe, Scott. Are you saying the OT authors mistakenly attributed judgments to God because of their theological aberrations? If so, then doesn't this assume the OT is based partly on flawed theology? Did God really sit back and allow such a thing?

2 Peter
1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost.

Maybe you could find me a quote in the Bible where it claims the prophets had all knowledge, perfect understanding, and perfect obedience the minute that God gave them a message to give to Israel.

How could anyone write something and not apply it to their existing paradigm?

Doesn’t the Bible reflect the culture of the day? Isn’t culture always several steps behind God?

The text in 2 Peter would certainly allow for prophets to be human and have misunderstandings. All the text says is that God set aside men to prophecy and that their prophecy is of no private interpretation. This certainly allows the OT to be thought inspired rather that word inspired. And it certainly doesn’t make the OT false or untrustworthy.

I see the OT as a perfect revelation of God’s journey with us. It is God’s perfect thoughts portrayed by the best flawed men God could find! And usually the only qualification was a willingness to go! Let’s not make the same mistake as Israel and worship the prophets. They killed them and 100 years later worshiped their every word to the point where the scribes would throw away the pen, take a bath, wash their clothes, get a new pen and begin writing again each time they wrote God’s name. The Jews to this day believe that the Hebrew language is the one that God speaks.

scott

I know that's your inclination, which is why I pointed out another possibility for you.



There are many passages that speak of the wrath of men. I don't know what your point is.

To know of whom Paul is speaking of, in terms of to whom the wrath applies, one would need to consider the context and the argument. I agree with Scott's explanation, that we are the ones in need of healing, and the cross provided the means to heal us from our anger against God.

God has always been right with us. He so loved the world, that He gave His Son. Nothing needs to be done for Him, but only for us. We are the ones that need to be reconciled to God. He does not need to be reconciled to us.

God established the nature of things.

“The will of God establishes the connection between cause and its effects.”{ApM 26.1}


If God had created everything square, neither roundness nor the concept of roundness would exist. God created the concept of roundness and thus created a circle. God created everything and the laws which govern everything.
He designed that, in the universe, nothing would exist independently. Through this interconnectedness, what happens to one thing must effect another thing. All the other universal laws are based upon this law.
I don’t understand how you can think that there exists a law which wasn’t created by God.


Of course this is not true. Sins of ignorance also need pardon.


No. Everything else hinged on a single point – if God and His laws were just and if He would submit to them.
Nothing would be gained by knowing that Jesus was God if he thought that God could exalt a creature to equality with Himself if He so wished. Of course this was insane, but it was the way he reasoned.


My view includes yours, but yours excludes mine.

This can’t be because Tom doesn’t believe that God built punishment into the equation. God just made things naturally. He created a circle and said, “this is a circle”. Sin twists it and stretches it and then blames God for the circle not being a perfectly round any more.

scott

I don't believe that either, in case you mean that God said, "I'll kill those who disobey My law." But I do believe sin is an evil which affects the whole universe, and as such it cannot just be ignored - it must be judged. However, when it is judged by God, it must obviously be condemned. The problem is that the condemnation of sin causes in the sinner such a weight of guilt that it crushes him. That's why the penalty of the law is death.

So please allow me propose a scenario:

What if God was to withdraw the presence of the Holy Spirit from the earth completely and did nothing to punish men.

How long would it take for men to totally become insane and destroy the earth and themselves along with it?

Or do you think men would get it together and continue to get along enough for some to survive?

scott

Scott, you wrote, "Maybe you could find me a quote in the Bible where it claims the prophets had all knowledge, perfect understanding, and perfect obedience the minute that Maybe you could find me a quote in the Bible where it claims the prophets had all knowledge, perfect understanding, and perfect obedience the minute that God gave them a message to give to Israel.."

MM: Moses comes to mind. He obeyed the commandments God gave to the COI. He understood them. Yes, he sinned in striking the rock, but he understood the commandments God gave him. We're also told he understood the symbols which pointed to the life and death of Jesus, although Moses didn't record it.

Also, in what you wrote above, "... God gave them a message to give to Israel", indicates you believe the messages they gave to COI reflected the mind of God. In other words, they did not get it wrong or misrepresent what God intended to tell the COI. They passed on precisely what God wanted them to know. Is this what you believe, or did I misunderstand you?

So again, Scott, how do you explain the OT passages that attribute to God the judgments that befell people? For example, the Flood, the fiery deaths of the Sodomites, the Egyptian plagues, the fiery deaths of Nadab and Abihu, the chasm that swallowed up Korah, etc? Do you agree with Tom that these kinds of things happened because God ceased preventing them from happening?

And, finally, how does this relate to the death of Jesus on the cross?

Tom, you wrote, “I know that's your inclination, which is why I pointed out another possibility for you.” I cited two possibilities of the origin or source of “the wrath” Paul mentioned in Rom 5:9 – 1) Our wrath, and 2) God’s wrath. You seem to believe it refers to our wrath, which prevents God from benefiting us with the reconciliation and salvation He provided us. Where in the Bible or the SOP is this idea described or explained? That is, where does it talk about man’s wrath being the thing that prevents God from saving us through Jesus? “… we shall be saved through him from the wrath.” Again, where does it describe "the wrath" in these terms?

Here are some other references to “the wrath”. What can we lean about the love of God from them? More specifically, what do they tell us about the meaning of Jesus' death on the cross?

Numbers
11:33 And while the flesh [was] yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.

2 Chronicles
29:8 Wherefore the wrath of the LORD was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes.
36:16 But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till [there was] no remedy.

Psalm
76:10 Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.
78:31 The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen [men] of Israel.
106:40 Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance.

Isaiah
9:19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.
13:13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

Jeremiah
50:13 Because of the wrath of the LORD it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.

Ezekiel
7:19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

John
3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Romans
1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Ephesians
5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

Colossians
3:6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:

James
1:20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Revelation
6:16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
6:17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

Revelation
14:8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

Revelation
14:10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
14:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Revelation
14:19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast [it] into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
15:1 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.
15:7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
16:1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

Scott, do you believe God sometimes intervenes and prevents certain natural cause and effect consequences from happening? Or, does He always allow them to play out naturally? For example, if a criminal shoots at someone, can God step in alter the outcome of natural laws?

If you answer that He can and does intervene to prevent natural law, how does this impact your understanding of causes and consequences? How can you be sure an effect is the natural outcome of the cause and not a result of God's intervention? How can you be sure the cause wasn't also the result of God's involvement?

In the case of Jesus' death on the cross, how can you be sure it was the result of natural law and not God's involvement? Did the cross really kill Jesus? Did He really die of a broken heart? Or, did God intervene and prevent the humanity of Jesus from succumbing to natural law?

What does it mean, "I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father."

Does this hypothetical scenario include access to the tree of life? If so, then here is what Jesus said about it:

Genesis
3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Here's what Jesus inspired Sister White to write about it:

Had man after his fall been allowed free access to the tree of life, he would have lived forever, and thus sin would have been immortalized. But cherubim and a flaming sword kept "the way of the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24), and not one of the family of Adam has been permitted to pass that barrier and partake of the life-giving fruit. Therefore there is not an immortal sinner. {GC 533.3}

In order to possess an endless existence, man must continue to partake of the tree of life. Deprived of this, his vitality would gradually diminish until life should become extinct. It was Satan's plan that Adam and Eve should by disobedience incur God's displeasure; and then, if they failed to obtain forgiveness, he hoped that they would eat of the tree of life, and thus perpetuate an existence of sin and misery. But after man's fall, holy angels were immediately commissioned to guard the tree of life. Around these angels flashed beams of light having the appearance of a glittering sword. None of the family of Adam were permitted to pass the barrier to partake of the life-giving fruit; hence there is not an immortal sinner. {PP 60.3}

I was pointed to Adam and Eve in Eden. They partook of the forbidden tree and were driven from the garden, and then the flaming sword was placed around the tree of life, lest they should partake of its fruit and be immortal sinners. The tree of life was to perpetuate immortality. I heard an angel ask, "Who of the family of Adam have passed the flaming sword and have partaken of the tree of life?" I heard another angel answer, "Not one of Adam's family has passed that flaming sword and partaken of that tree; therefore there is not an immortal sinner. The soul that sinneth it shall die an everlasting death--a death that will last forever, from which there will be no hope of a resurrection; and then the wrath of God will be appeased. {EW 51.2}

This seems like a play on words. The "law" of cause and effect is not an arbitrary law. It's a description of reality. Certainly reality exists because of God. The question is if there could have been a reality wherein causes could not have effects. If the answer is "yes," that establishes your point. If the answer is "no," then my point.

Cause and effect is a necessary attribute of space-time. We cannot exist without space-time, and space-time cannot exist without cause and effect.

Similarly, the fact that evil results in bad things has to do with the nature of reality. There is no reality that could exist wherein living for self would result in good. This isn't something God had to arbitrarily establish.

Similarly, agape, the love of God, results in good things. This isn't arbitrary either. In order for man to have life, peace and happiness, it's necessary that he live according to the principles of life (agape) as opposed to death (self).



"Of course"? Hard to argue with "of course." I guess I should say "of course not!"



Without condemnation, there is no need for pardon. Without light, there is no condemnation. God offered Lucifer pardon "again and again." Why? Because he had knowingly done wrong. This doesn't mean there were some things that Lucifer didn't understand, some things he was doing wrong which he wasn't convinced of. However, it does mean there were things which he *was* aware of.

Let's just think a moment of what creates a need for pardon. Say I do something wrong, which causes a rift in our relationship, something for which I need pardon from you. As long as I'm unaware of doing anything wrong, it would make no sense for you to offer to pardon me. You would offer to pardon me in the event that I was aware of doing something wrong. Continually offering pardon would be telling me that you are not holding this thing against me; as soon as I was willing to acknowledge my error, you are ready for our relationship to be re-established.

Also, it is clear simply by looking at what Lucifer was doing that he was aware of his wrong doing. He acted in secrecy, concealing his true intent. These are the actions of one who is aware of wrong doing.



There are many descriptions like this, of Lucifer acting in ways which indicate willful sin. The word "allowed" depicts a willful choice. That Lucifer had light is also clear; he had meetings with Christ, with other angels. He knew what the right thing to do was; he just didn't want to do it. He allowed his jealousy of Christ to prevail. This is willful sin.



I suppose you mean "he" not "He." That is, is Lucifer would submit.

Certainly the central question had to do with God's character. In the quote I just presented, and the others as well, there doesn't seem to be any question that Lucifer was aware of wrong doing. His actions, and the descriptions of them, make this clear. He acted in secrecy, and concealed his intent. He allowed his jealousy of Christ to prevail.

What happened was not a one-time act which caused him to be lost, but a series of events, where he continually resisted God. Each act of mercy was resisted, each offer of pardon rejected, until Lucifer so hardened his heart that he could no longer be healed.



It seems to me our views are mutually exclusive. You see everything in terms arbitrary actions of God. Sin is a violation of an established law. Pardon for willful sin requires death, something else God established. Sins of ignorance do not require death, another established law. Angels could not be pardoned at all, for willful sin, also due to something God established. Christ's death was necessary in order to pardon man, because God established that this should be the case. If a person accepts Christ, God accepts Christ's righteousness in the place of man, because He established that this would be acceptable. If not, then man will be resurrected, and he will be punished by God's inflicting pain upon him because God established that this would be just. From beginning to end your view of everything is that problems, solutions, and punishments are all simply established by God. There's no underlying reason for things being a certain way, other than this is the way God wanted them to be.

On the other hand, I see all of these things as being non-arbitrary. God created beings to love and be loved, which necessitated their having free will and conscience. If these creatures rebel against God, and choose to live contrary to the principles of love, they need to be healed, because so acting causes damage to the one who acts this way. God is willing to do anything necessary, at any cost to Himself, in order to effect healing. Those who refuse to be healed suffer because of the damage they have done to themselves.

These seem to me to be two mutually exclusive ways of looking at things. I'm not understanding your assertion that your view includes mine.

In Romans 5:9.

Regarding the texts you cited, there are too many discuss all of them, but I'll discuss the first one about the quail.



The "very great plague" with which "the Lord smote the people" was due to the people feasting without restraint. Scripture often presents God as doing that which He permits. This is simply another example of this.

As Scott, I think, pointed out, even to this day most Jews do not believe in a literal devil. Everything that happens is attributed to God. Jesus Christ showed the limitations of this view. He demonstrated that in reality, only good things come from God. All the evil that happens is due to that which God permits; He causes none of it.

The following describes this principle well:



This principle isn't limited to plants. It applies to all the bad things there are in the world.

MM, regarding the tree of life, Revelation tells us:



Therefore eating of the tree of life once is not enough. It is continually eating of it that is necessary. God did not want Adam and Eve's suffering to continue, so He, in mercy, took steps to cut short their suffering, and provided a way that could live forever without sin.

This would still be the first death. The distinctive element in the second death is the agony the sinner experiences, which is the agony Christ experienced on the cross.

Yes. Using the example I gave previously, eating carrion causes no harm to vultures, and God could have created our bodies in such a way that this practice, as well as other practices, would do us no harm. As to the human conscience, it can function in a different way than God designed it to function. Some indians and natives feel guilty if they do not kill twin children. Some religious fanatics think they are doing a service to God if they kill the “infidels,” and consider themselves honored for the opportunity of doing so. So yes, both our bodies and our minds could have been created to function in a different way. That's why I believe God used His individual discretion to create us in the exact way He created us.


Everything that is wrong needs pardon, even if it is a sin of ignorance. When the light comes, the person must repent from his/her previous practice.

Acts 17:30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent

God told Lucifer he was wrong and needed to repent, and at the same time assured him that He would be willing to forgive him upon the condition of repentance and submission. But all this would be possible only after Lucifer saw that he was wrong.

God’s offer and assurance of pardon on condition of repentance often comes while people are still in sin. This is clearly demonstrated in the Bible.

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Isa 1:18 Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

Isa 43:24, 25 But you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities. I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

In all the three instances, had the people already repented when God promised them pardon, or were they still sinning?


I disagree with your characterization of my view, so I will express it myself.
God is not just a Father, but the Sovereign and Ruler of the universe. The universe could not be in confusion, so yes, He established a law, the constitution of the universe. The violation of that law by a single creature affects the whole universe, therefore every violation must be judged, because the whole universe must be in agreement with God that the law is perfect, just and holy, and that any given violation of its precepts is wrong and deserves condemnation. In order to avoid any charge of lessening the guilt of sin, God received in Himself the consequences inherent to the judgment of sin, so that He could at the same time judge sin and prevent the repentant sinner from facing that judgment (that’s what the IJ is all about).
Nobody, not even those who will be lost, will have to face judgment for sins of ignorance.
As to Christ’s righteousness, His death covers, until the judgment, our sins, and His life (His righteous character) covers what still remains imperfect in the good works we produce as a result of His operation in our lives. (That’s what the opportunity of a probationary time is all about.)

I think we have discussed and re-discussed all these points before, so with this I plan to end my comments about them.

Hi Rosangela,
Are you an attorney? You completely avoided my question and changed the subject so smooth I think you must be a professional.

My question was very simple. Do you think that this earth/earthlings would self destruct if God withdrew completely His Holy Spirit? Or would some men survive and learn how to live with each other?

If you don't want to answer that is fine with me!

scott

Hi MM,

Actually I'm not talking about individual men living forever. I'm talking about the human race continuing on with people dying and being born.

No tree of life, just the way it is now. My question is very simple. If God withdraws His presence form the earth completely and takes all those who have chosen to love him off the earth then how long do you suppose earthlings would take to destroy themselves. Or do you think they would continue to have babies and die generation after generation?

This question seems to be very hard to answer! Am I not communicating very well?

scott

Your example of carrion makes no sense to the me. The fact that one creature can eat something with no side effects while another cannot does not prove that causes have effects only because God arbitrarily made this so. Similarly with the other examples. I don't see how any of these examples establishes the point that there could be a reality where causes do not have effects.

Regarding God's using His individual discretion, this seems to me to be a red herring to my point. Of course God used His discretion in creating man, and I've already stated this. My point is not that God did not use individual discretion in creating us, but that the fact that we have free wills and consciences is not due to God's using individual discretion in creating us, but is due to the fact that only beings with these attributes can be sentient beings who can love and be loved. Iow, all loving and loveable sentient beings have the characteristics of having free will and conscience.

Regarding pardon, here's the quote I've been presenting:



This says, "there is no sin." If there is no sin, there is no frown of God, and no need of pardon. Indeed, without sin, there is nothing to pardon.



It's interesting that when people think of God, they think of Him primarily as judge. Jesus referred to God as "Father" something like 177 times. He never referred to God as "judge," or "sovereign and ruler of the universe." This doesn't mean these things aren't true, of course. They just weren't important enough for Jesus to talk about.



Nor was this.



Agreed. Without light, "there is no sin."



This kind of begs the question as to what happens to our sins after the judgment. I suppose you would say they are cast on Satan(?).



I appreciate your summarization in your own words, and will try to present your view in a way that you can agree it when I do so in the future.

It seems to me that our basic difference is that you see that sin has bad results because God does something (e.g. judges sin), whereas I see that sin is of itself bad by its very nature, and for this reason has bad results. I see God as warning us of the impact of sin, as opposed to His warning us of something He will do. I see Jesus Christ as bringing us salvation by saving us from sin, as opposed to saving us from the consequences of something God would have done to us had we not accepted Him.

I see the basic problem of man being a simple one: man has believed a lie in regards to God's character. The solution is equally simple: reveal the truth about God.

Ellen White says that the "whole purpose" of Christ's mission was "the revealtion of God" in order to set man right with God. This makes perfect sense to me. I don't see how this idea would make sense given your perspective.

Scott,

My answer was also very simple, but you don't seem to have understood it. If I said, "This would still be the first death," it's obvious that I believe that "this earth/earthlings would self destruct if God withdrew completely His Holy Spirit." However, what I'm saying is that the wages of sin is the second death, not the first death, and what distinguishes the second death from the first is the agony experienced by the sinner because of the weight of his guilt.

I agree with this. I believe what causes this is the revelation of God's goodness.

The best explanation I've seen of this is by Ty Gibson in his book "See With New Eyes." I won't be able to do the idea justice, but, roughly speaking, as we see God as He is, we see ourselves as we are, which we can't bear, except in small doses. God seeks to reveal Himself to us in this lifetime, while there's still time for us to be healed from the effects of sin, which makes the revelation of Himself difficult for us.

It's not God's judgment of sin which causes this, nor his displeasure of it, but His goodness, His love (which is why DA 764 says "the glory of Him who is love" destroys the sinner). Sin destroys our ability to perceive God's goodness in a way that doesn't hurt us.

In order to be saved, we must be healed from sin, and learn to see God as He really is, so when we actually meet Him, we won't be freaked out ("freaked out" being the technical theological term for this).

Wait a minute. I’m confused. Just because a person has free will and conscience, this does not mean that he/she is a loving and loveable person. Satan has free will and conscience. And what exactly does this have to do with evil bringing bad results?


You are taking an isolated passage and interpreting it apart from what the Bible and Ellen White say in other passages. Why is it that when the error is brought to the attention of the person, the person must repent (Acts 17:30, Lev. 4:27, 28, etc)? Besides, if these errors are not sins, why are they called sins of ignorance?


They are blotted out.


How can you say He didn't talk about this? In His parables, many, many times Jesus portrayed God as a king/master - in fact, much more frequently than as a father. He also mentioned God as a judge.

It's the other way around. Sentient beings which love and can be loved have a free will and a conscience.



The bad results that evil causes to sentient beings that can love and be loved involves the conscience. My point has been that the fact that evil causes bad results is not arbitrary (i.e., not because of something God decreed should be the case) but is a necessary consequence of being created with the ability to love and be loved. To love and be loved, one must have free will and a conscience. Using one's free will to do evil has bad results, in part due to having a conscience.



The passage is dealing precisely with the question at hand. Ellen White, and colleagues of hers, had been, in ignorance, keeping the Sabbath incorrectly (from 6:00 PM to 6:00 PM instead of from sunset to sunset). She was worried about that. The angel explained to her that when light came, then there was the "frown of God," but that where there is no light "there is no sin."



Because once a person knows one has done wrong, the relationship is damaged. As long as one is in ignorance of having done something wrong, one's relationship with God is not damaged, and there is no need for healing.



Perhaps a lack of precision.



Ok, you're talking about the investigative judgment. This is an interesting subject of itself. I would say that to say that sin is blotted out is to say it is removed from our character, and that fact is reflected by the books of heaven. Here's a thought from Waggoner on this:





He never referred to God Himself as a judge. (I don't believe He did; if you know of a reference, please present it). Jesus told many parables based on the mindset of His hearers. These parables should not necessarily be understood as reflecting Jesus' own beliefs. For example, Jesus taught the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man which has immortality of the soul in it because His hearers believed in this erroneous doctrine. Another example is in the parable of the talents that were given to the workers to invest where one of the workers was chastised, being told "you knew your master was severe and harsh, yet you invested foolishly ..." Of course, God is neither severe nor harsh, but that's the way the worker thought of Him, so the parable addressed him in his own terms.

Much of Scripture is like this, by the way. The Spirit of Prophecy too. God makes appeals to us based on our level of understanding. For example, from "The Desire of Ages"



Even though Ellen White wrote this, one can find in her writings appeals based on fear of punishment and hope of reward. Why? Because that's the only motivation some people know, so God makes accommodations to meet them where they are.