What are you saying?

Are you saying we won't perfectly reproduce His character?

I believe you agree that sinners will die if God stops providing them life. Sinners do not live on their own. And they will not live eternally on their own. They only live by the grace of God. God, by directly preventing their death, is the only way they are alive today.

It's as if they are speeding towards the cliff of destruction. However, from what you've written, it's as if right before they go over the edge by their own choice, God steps in and sets them on fire.

If someone is on death row and is dying from cancer or other reason, if someone wants to perform heroic efforts to keep them alive solely so they can suffer in the electric chair, wouldn't you say they were bloodthirsty for violence?

Likewise, if God steps in and sets them on fire, the ones who would die anyway, isn't that bloodthirsty for violence? Doing that which would be otherwise unnecessary?

I believe you are one who says "justice" demands it. Maybe what you are really saying, it's only fair that God makes them suffer!

The one experiencing "justice". Is that good for them? Bad for them? Or does it depend?

I presume you used them as synonyms because this reflected your thinking.



Quoting you:



You also used this phrase previously, but I don't have the post# for that. Note that you explained the phrase "bloodthirsty for violence" to mean "jealous for justice." Hence you were using the synonymously, just as I said you were.



I have the same thing to say about this one as about the last one. As I said, if I explain one, fifty more come up in its place. Better to teach one to fish. If we understand the principles involved, we can come up with explanations ourselves, or they don't even matter, because we're convinced as to the character of those involved.

That is, if we are convinced that death/destruction/violence/maiming/etc. are not a part of God's government, and that His character is such that He does not use things things to further His purposes, why would the specific explanation matter? The important thing is to establish what God's character is, and the nature of His government.

How do we do that? This is where we differ. I say it's by studying the life of Jesus Christ, and using that revelation as a baseline for interpreting the violent incidents we see elsewhere. Your approach is to take texts which deal with the violence, and use *that* to determine what God's character is like, and the principles of His government.



This just goes to show that you are convinced that causing death and destruction constitutes, at least in part, God's government, and depicts His character. That is, your perceive God to be one who caused death and destruction, in order to punish.

I don't.

When I look to Jesus Christ's earthly mission, the purpose of which was "the revelation of God," and of which was are told "All that man can know of God was revealed in the life and character of His Son," I don't see anything even remotely resembling this.

Jesus Christ said, "When you've see Me, you've seen the Father." What is it we see when we see Jesus Christ? What do you think Phillip and the others saw? One who caused death and destruction to punish people? No way!



Scripture says that God "gave Him up" for our offenses. This is what I understand God's retribution to be, His wrath, as Romans 1 explains.

Which opinion?

The SOP quote you omitted, what did it say? Did it say Noah had every right to drown sinners because God does? Did it say Lot had every right to burn sinners because God does?

Like you, Lucifer got it in his head that whatever was right for Jesus was right for him. But God, because He is God, exercises rights we have no right to exercise for the simple reason we are not God.

By the way, did you happen to notice what Ellen said about uttering the words of Satan? I cannot help wondering if you are bordering on parroting his sentiments.

Why do you think I believe God will set them on fire just before they go over the "cliff of destruction"? Please quote me.

PS - Please explain your speeding over a cliff metaphor. How do you fit in the fact God prevents sinners from experiencing the "inevitable result of sin" the instant they sin? How do you fit in the fact God resurrects them and tries them in the heavenly court of law? How do you fit in the fact the "light of the glory of God" consumes, destroys them? And, how do you fit in the fact God rains down fire from heaven? How does your metaphor fit in all these facts?

You didn’t answer my question – Where did I use the phrase “God is bloodthirsty for violence”? It appears to me you coined the phrase and then accused me of it.


1. I already know you believe GC 35-37 explains how and why God punishes sinners. You believe God withdraws His protection by commanding holy angels to withdraw their protection and to permit evil angels to cause death and destruction within the limits established and enforced by God. You also seem to believe Jesus demonstrated this attribute of God’s character while He sojourned here in the flesh. But so far you have failed to cite an incident from the earthly life of Jesus to support your claim.

Would you mind doing so?

2. Ellen wrote, God has the "right to inflict punishment". "He can do infinite justice that man has no right to do before his fellow man." He drowned and burned alive thousands of men, women, and children. As you know, she also wrote people who "complain of its strictness and its penalty as severe and unlike God" are "uttering the words Satan utters". You often express disgust at the idea God “uses”, “employs” the forces of nature or “His enemies” to “inflict punishment”, to “execute justice and judgment”, to punish and “destroy sinners.”

How does this differ from uttering the words of Satan?

3. I suppose you believe "the retributive justice of God", this "demonstration of divine judgment", by which the "same angel" that helped Peter and "smote the wicked king", who was "stricken down by the curse of God" and "eaten by worms, and putrefied while yet alive" - in reality was the work of an evil angel.

Is that what you believe?


1. Neither have you cited from the life of Jesus on earth where He withdrew His protection and commanded holy angels to withdraw their protection and to permit evil angels to cause death and destruction within the limits established and enforced by God.

Please post passage from the Gospels which depict Jesus demonstrating this attribute of God’s character. By the way, we both agree driving sinners out of the temple and cursing the fig tree do not reflect this attribute of God’s character.

2. Jesus said, “I am come to send fire on the earth.” “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” He also said, The wicked “shall be cast out into outer darkness . . . into a furnace of fire . . . into hell fire . . . into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels . . . and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” “It rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”

Did Jesus demonstrate this attribute of God’s character while He was here in the flesh? If so, please post the passages from the Gospels.


Did the holy inhabitants of unfallen worlds expect God to exercise His “right to inflict punishment” and “retributive justice and judgment” upon the wicked inhabitants of this world by withdrawing His protection and permitting evil angels to obliterate them? If so, is this what “right to inflict punishment” means? That is, does God exercise His “right to inflict punishment” by withdrawing His protection and permitting evil angels to cause death and destruction within the limits established and enforced by God?

If so, how does this differ from the word picture you painted portraying Jesus and Satan working side-by-side, like tag team wrestlers, to cause death and destruction?

Tom, do you believe God is jealous for justice? If so, do you believe He "executes justice and judgment" and acts of punishment? Ellen wrote:


As you can read, God is jealous for justice. Also, did you happen to notice Ellen said, God "commanded" His chosen people to wage "a war of extermination"? He commanded them to "spare not" and to "utterly destroy" every man, woman, and child. Regarding such commands, Ellen also wrote:


Do you agree that commanding His chosen people to "utterly destroy" everyone, including infants and children, "were in truth the dictates of infinite wisdom and goodness"?


You realize, of course, it was Jesus who answered Elijah's prayer for fire to come down from heaven and burn alive the two bands of fifty. Why do you think Jesus burned them alive? Again, Ellen wrote:


Do you agree that "the wrath of an offended God fell upon them in judgments"? If so, why do you think Jesus burned them alive?

PS - Tom, please address the points raised in 129116. I've bumped this post 3 times now for your convenience. Thank you.

Yes to both questions, according to the principles explained in GC 35-37.





We've discussed this.



I addressed this, several times.



Yes.



No.