"All died" is in the past. It can't be dependent upon something which hadn't happened yet, if you have in mind something which Christ did. What Christ did, he did for everyone, not just for some who would accept it. So "all died" would be "all," not some. The "all died" is saying, "if one died for all, then all died" meaning that Christ died as the representative of all. It's like saying the president of Brazil speaks for all Brazil.

Regarding Romans 5:18, here's a comment by Waggoner:



I think the idea here is that which EGW expressed, "To the death of Christ we owe even this earthly life." We owe everything to the death of Christ (since without our earthly life, what would we have?). Even the ability to reject the gift of eternal life is of itself a gift of infinite value purchased for us by the blood of Christ.



Only if salvation has to do with death penalties. If salvation has to do with being reconciled to God, then clearly that's not something Christ could accomplish Himself alone by paying a price.

Regarding Lucifer and Adam, Lucifer did the following things before his final decision not to repent:
a.Allowed his heart to be filled with envy and hatred of Christ.
b.Indulged in a spirit of discontent.
c.Sought to exalt himself above God.
d.Presented false claims, under the guise of reverence, with the intent of deceiving others, in order to exalt himself.

Adam, otoh, resolved not to leave Eve to die alone.

Which of these is worse? I think one has to look at things in a very odd way to conclude that what Adam did was worse than what Lucifer did.





Yes:



Adam was willing to sacrifice his life so he could die alongside Eve.



This is true also.



This was the real problem. He believed Satan's lies regarding God.



Of course's it's hypothetical. You're considering what would have happened had Lucifer hypothetically done something different. That's what "hypothetical" means.

Since Lucifer knew what he was doing, and knew God, His love, and His character, had Lucifer repented, that would have solved everything. He would have been restored to harmony with God, and that would have been that.

However, Adam was deceived. He didn't know God's love or character fully, so it was possible to move man to return to God. So God, in love, acted in such a way that man could have an opportunity to learn the truth about God and His love, and return to Him.

The negative effects which Adam and his offspring experience are the result of Satan's efforts. Had Lucifer repented, he would have not had Satan to do the awful things which he did and does to man. That man suffered more than Lucifer would have is due to Satan's activity, not to some unfair action on God's part.



The investigative judgment is an examination of the evidence; it's investigative, meaning it investigates. The evidence reflects the reality of the character of the people being considered. The sin is blotted out from people's character, and that fact is reflected in the books of heaven. Blotting out the record of sins in the books of heaven, of itself, without a corresponding reality in the lives of those being investigated, would be without value.



(More later)

Fifield says that Christ's death was the price God paid to bring us to a repentant attitude. This seems to me to be the same point C. S. Lewis is making; he talks about how we are unable to repent apart from what Christ did. It seems like the same concept to me.



Why would you think an accusation against God couldn't be based on a true premise?

Here are a couple of examples. A person loses a loved one. Satan argues: "If God were a just and loving God, He wouldn't have let your loved one die." He makes this argument all the time. The premise is true: God is a just and loving God.

Here's another example of this principle:



Satan is in the one who causes the destruction, and then he presents what he has done as a decree of God. The premise is that destruction has occurred because of some sin (in this case, the Jews and their rejection of Christ). The conclusion is that God was responsible, another example of a false accusation against God based on a true premise.





Clearly this is dealing with the acts that were being performed against Christ, not our sins.



Who hasn't rejected Christ? That's why His prayer embraces the whole world. Any one of us, but for the grace of God, would have done what those who had the actual opportunity to crucify Christ did. You say that the act of those who reject Christ (which includes all of us) are "repeated." If they are "repeated," "in a greater degree," then surely they would have been committed by those who repeated them had they had opportunity.

The acts performed against Christ were simply the acts of humanity. Any unregenerated human would act in a similar manner to how the Jews acted. Their actions are our actions because they are the actions of humanity. Their actions demonstrate the heart of humanity; human being hate God! We can learn much by seeing what they did.

Not only do we learn by what they did, but in the reaction of Christ, we see His reaction to our evil deeds. As His prayer was, "Father, forgive them ...." to those who treated Him so spitefully then, so is His prayer "Father, forgive them" for us, when we so spitefully treat Him today.

"The investigative judgment is an examination of the evidence; it's investigative, meaning it investigates. The evidence reflects the reality of the character of the people being considered. The sin is blotted out from people's character, and that fact is reflected in the books of heaven. Blotting out the record of sins in the books of heaven, of itself, without a corresponding reality in the lives of those being investigated, would be without value."

I like this comment alot. This would be like going to the doctor because you had cancer and he looked at your records and then ripped it up and said "okay all fixed" I would rather have a doctor that looks at me and then fixes me and adjusts the record to reflect that.

What is being investigated though? Is God investigating us and our lives to see if any sin is found in us? Or is it Gods character that is being investigated by us, the angels and other worlds? I was taught that God was the Judge and Jesus is our lawyer. Jesus is up there pleading with God not to kill us. Pleading with His blood to spare us.

Aaron

Jesus is the lawyer; that works OK. Satan is the accuser. God is the judge; that works too. He agrees with Jesus, who explains why Satan's accusations are bogus.

Regarding who's being investigated, I suggest: both! Principally, though, it has to be God. The whole GC is about God.

Yes, I believe that what Christ did, He did for everyone. He made salvation available to everyone, forgiveness available to everyone, justification available to everyone, eternal life available to everyone, but these things only become effective for those who accept them.
What I haven’t yet understood is how you view the expression “all died.” When Christ died, in which sense have all died? Does this refer to temporal death? To eternal death? To what?


???
In which way is “being reconciled” different from exercising faith in God?

Regarding Lucifer and Adam, both sinned presumptuously in the sins which led to their respective falls. Both refused to obey the law of God and both were fully aware of the consequences which would follow their decision. The same can’t be said about Lucifer’s sin before his fall. So, Lucifer’s pre-fall sin cannot be compared to Adam’s sin.


A hypothesis would be a tentative supposition about what would have happened. In this case we know for sure what would have happened, so this is not hypothetical.


So God created a universe where graver faults are positively rewarded, and lesser faults are severely punished. And you still call this love and justice? I think one has to look at things in a very odd way to conclude that what Lucifer did before his fall was worse than what Adam did.


So he was willing to sacrifice his life for his wife, but wasn’t willing to sacrifice the privilege of having a wife for his Creator? And you call this self-sacrifice? It’s nothing but sheer selfishness. Since when does true self-sacrifice lead to sin?


Sin is removed from the life first, and its blotting out in the registries of heaven occurs at a later occasion – at the investigative judgment. Sorry, but instead of quoting Waggoner, I will quote Ellen White:

“When sin has been repented of, confessed, and forsaken, then pardon is written against the sinner's name; but his sins are not blotted out until after the investigative judgment.” {ST, May 16, 1895 par. 3}

And the reason for this is very simple. If the person in the future abandons Christ, he/she is without a Saviour, and his/her sins, which had been forgiven, are upon him/her again.


To you, what is the debt?


In the first example, the argument is

A just and loving God wouldn’t let people die.
God let your loved one die.
Therefore, He isn’t a just and loving God.

In the second example, the argument is

The Jews sinned.
God decreed their destruction as a punishment for their sin.
Therefore, because of their sin they were destroyed by God .

In both cases one of the premises is false, therefore the conclusion is false.

Let's review the discussion. You had said that if an accusation is based on a false premise, all that needs to be shown is that the premise is false. To which I replied that if that was the case, God didn’t need to refute any of Satan’s accusations, because all of them are based on false premises. To which you replied that not all of them are based on false premises. In fact, it didn’t matter if the premises were true or false, because the inhabitants of the universe didn’t have enough elements to decide if the premises were true or false. And that’s why I said that, in the great controversy, God has to do everything in such a way as to demonstrate that none of Satan’s accusations are true. Satan had said that, since he himself hadn’t been pardoned after defying God’s will, if God pardoned Adam and Eve, He would demonstrate that 1) He had double standards, and 2) the violation of His law was not so grave a thing as it had been made to appear at the beginning. That’s why Ellen White says that, by dying in the sinner’s place, Christ removed from God all charge of lessening the guilt of sin.


We simply disagree here. The Jews crucified Christ because they rejected the light. It is those who reject the light that are crucifying Christ again. Both the Bible and Ellen White say this clearly.

Christ's death did more than just make things available to human beings. "To the death of Christ we owe even this earthly life." (DA 660). This didn't make our earthly lives "available," but we actually have life because Christ died for us. Christ's death is not merely potential in its effects. It actually did something! We have life (physical life) because of it.

Since without physical life we couldn't do anything at all, we owe all that we have to the death of Christ.



Both. Had Christ not died, we would be dead physically, since "to the death of Christ, we owe even our earthly life." Without physical life, we wouldn't have the opportunity to have eternal life.

I think this is Paul's meaning because of what he writes in the next verse, that we who live should live for Him who died for us.

Now if one wished to consider the idea corporately, that's also a possibility. In this case the idea would be that when Christ "all died," which would have to include every human being -- the entire human race. Since this is something which happened in the past, no human being would be excluded. In this case, the death would be speaking of the second death.



The issue is not making Christ's death effective, because Christ's death is effective. We have life because of it. The issue is being reconciled to God.



Christ's death makes our reconciliation with God possible. If that's what you mean by saying "makes His death effective," then perhaps we are saying the same thing in different words.

I would put it this way:

1.Christ's death is effective, regardless of whether we believe or not, to the extent that it gives us life.
2.If we believe, then Christ's death can bring us eternal salvation as well.



The hypothetical scenario we were considering was regarding Lucifer's accepting God's offer to pardon him. This didn't happen. Because it didn't happen, it's hypothetical.

It's hypothetical because it's based on an hypothesis. The hypothesis is that Lucifer accepted God's offer of pardon. Knowing exactly what would have happened does not make something hypothetical to be not hypothetical.

Here's an example. Say you make a wager on a whether a coin will come up heads or tails, you betting it will come up heads. You wager X. It comes up heads. You win X. After the fact, one could ask, "What would have happened had the coin come up tails?" Now you know exactly what would have happened: you would lost X. But this is still a hypothetical situation, because *it didn't happen.* The fact that it didn't happen, and you are considering what would have happened had it happened, is what makes it hypothetical, *not* whether or not you know for sure what the result would be if the hypothetical thing happened.

This has a false premise, that "graver faults" are "positively rewarded." The fault was not "rewarded," nor would it have been had Lucifer repented.



Well, let's look at what Lucifer did, and compare it to what Adam did. We'll also look at their motivation.

Lucifer:
a.Filled his heart with envy and hatred against Christ.
b.Sought to exalt himself.
c.In order to do so, he resorted to deception.
d.He indulged a spirit of discontent.

e.His motivation was self-exaltation.

Adam:
a.He ate a forbidden fruit.

b.His motivation was he didn't want to lose Eve; if Eve was going to die, he resolved to die with her.

Now how can one look at the first list, compare it to the second, and conclude that the second is worse than the first? I think if you asked 100 people this question (who didn't have some vested interested in the argument) that you'd be hard pressed to find even 1 who would say list b was worse.

The only reason I can think of that one would conclude that the second list is worse than the first is to maintain a theological stance.



Here is the definition of self-sacrifice:



Adam chose to give up his life rather than have Eve die alone. He chose to die with her. Again, this is not to argue that what Adam did was right, as his actions showed a lack of faith in God. He should have taken his problem to God, and let Him resolve it. But the point is that Adam's motivation had an element of something positive about it: he was willing to die rather than have Eve die alone. Lucifer, on the other hand, was motivated by self-exaltation.

You appear to have the idea that because Lucifer was not 100% convinced that what he was doing was wrong, having his heart filled with hatred and envy, seeking to exalt himself, deceiving others to win them from God, and so forth, were not sins that needed to be forgiven by means of having someone die? Is that correct? That is, they could have been forgiven without Christ's having died, since Lucifer was not 100% convinced he was doing wrong. This is what you are saying?



Our sin.

From Lewis:



This last part is what happened with Satan when he wanted back in heaven. He asked to go back without repenting; he was asking to go back without going back. As Lewis points out, this cannot happen.

But the main reason I quoted this now is because of the point that "it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like."

When you wrong someone, you are in debt to that person. That debt is "paid" by forgiveness, and other acts of restitution. This is not an arbitrary requirement, but a description of what making things right is like.

In order for us to be set right with God, it was necessary for us to be brought to a repentant attitude of mind:



Repentance is the only way things could be made right, but man was unable to repent without the death of Christ.

Here's a thought from an Eastern Orthodox site:



This speaks of the debt we owe to God because of our sins, even though they do not believe in Anselm's ideas of satisfaction.



I'll just consider this one. The argument is:

1.Destruction has occurred because of some sin (in this case, the Jews and their rejection of Christ).
2.The conclusion is that God was responsible.

That God was responsible is not a premise of this argument, but a conclusion. The premise is that the Jews were being punished. The conclusion is that God is the one doing the punishment.

At any rate, I asked you the question why you would think that it's not possible to make an accusation against God by means of an argument with a true premise and faulty reasoning. You say this that the fact that any accusation against God must be based on a false premise is a self-evident truth. It's not even true, let alone self-evident.

Here's another example, which should be easier to see.

A.2+2=4
B.Therefore God is unjust.

Now A is a true premise, and B is an accusation against God, based on faulty reasoning, even though the premise is true.



I don't think this is correct. I believe I only addressed the validity of the argument, and that I didn't consider the truthfulness of the assertions. I wrote:



It was your logic I was addressing. Your argument was not valid.



If the accusation is based on a false premise, then demonstrating that the premise is false refutes the accusation.



Satan wasn't pardoned because he chose not to be pardoned, not because God refused to pardon him, which is what this argument implies.



To the argument of Satan that obedience to the law is not important, indeed the death of Christ refutes that argument. To the argument that if God pardoned man, although He had not pardoned Satan, God would be unjust, it was not necessary for Christ to die in order to demonstrate that God was not being unjust, because the reason God did not pardon Satan had nothing to do with God. The reason Satan was not pardoned was that he refused to repent.



Who has not rejected light? This is why His prayer embraces the whole world. Any one of us, but for the grace of God, would have done what those who had the actual opportunity to crucify Christ did.

You said that the act of those who reject Christ (which includes all of us) are "repeated." If they are "repeated," "in a greater degree," then surely they would have been "repeated" (i.e. committed; they would have crucified Christ) "in a lesser degree" (committed this lesser sin, as you have described it) by those who repeated them in a greater degree, had they had the opportunity to do so.

What is it you are disagreeing with here?

The general point I made involved Peter's comment in Acts 2. Peter said that those he was speaking to had crucified Jesus and slain him. You argued that they didn't slay him (i.e. Peter was wrong) that He was killed by our sins, and that the Jews slaying Jesus had nothing to do with our salvation. I disagreed with this, saying that there was a reason what Peter said was included in Scripture, that Peter's comments were for our benefit as well as for those he was addressing. I pointed out that the Jews (and Romans) were demonstrating the heart of humanity, and that, but for the grace of God, we, in their position, would have done what they did. Do you disagree with this?

I also pointed out that we have much to learn, things which have salvific value, from Christ's response to those who were crucifying Him. Do you disagree with this?

Is it your contention that the only benefit of Christ's death is that He paid the price for our sins? Is this the only thing you see as salvific in Christ's death?

Let me make the question broader. Is this the only thing you see as salvific in the whole of Christ's life?

Here's the quote: "He holds before the Father the censer of His own merits, in which there is no taint of earthly corruption. He gathers into this censer the prayers, the praise, and the confessions of His people, and with these He puts His own spotless righteousness." {1SM 344.3}

To me this quote is saying Jesus mixes His righteousness with the righteousness of saints and offers these in the censer to God as a sweet savor. There is no "earthly corruption" in the censer for the simple reason neither Jesus' righteousness nor the righteousness of saints is tainted with sin. Both are perfectly sinless.

What is the earthly corruption?

She says "there is no taint of earthly corruption" (i.e. sin) in the censer. That's the point. What's in the censer? She says it contains "the prayers, the praise, and the confessions of His people, and . . . [Jesus'] own spotless righteousness."