Why wouldn't He? (resurrect Moses, etc.) If Christ had failed, it wouldn't have made any difference, would it? Moses would have been in trouble (as well as the rest of humanity, and the rest of the universe) whether he was resurrected or not.

To say that God "feared" I don't think would be correct. I'm not aware of any statement that says that. DA 49 says that God took "a more fearful risk." Had you said that, that would be accurate.

The suggestion of risk is obvious. A little further in the passage we read:



The question is, why did Jesus have to persuade God to allow Him to come. Does God the Father love us any less than Christ? The whole incident doesn't make any sense, until we recognize that there was risk involved. Then it fits together. Of course it would be a struggle, given that God "sent His Son at the risk of failure and eternal loss."

Another point, which takes a bit more thought to get, is that the idea that the future is like a T.V. rerun would make the whole scene where Christ went into the Father three times a sham. If God knew from all eternity with certainty that man would fall at that precise moment, there wouldn't have been a need for Christ to have conferenced with the Father at all, let alone the play-acting of going in three times. There certainly couldn't have been any "struggle."

If you ponder this a bit, you should be able to see that the scene as Ellen White described it is not consistent with the preconceived notions of the future we hold. However, it is consistent with the things she wrote in other places, such as that Christ could fail, and that God sent Him at the risk of failure and eternal loss.

I see nothing of risk in the EGW quote you provided.

I do, however, see the Father's concern and struggling over the mental and physical suffering of His dearly beloved Son to the point of dying for guilty humanity. What loving father wouldn't? That's what the above quote is telling me.

Why are you grasping and reading "risk" into EGW quotes that aren't even based on a concern of risk, but are rather based on anguish and suffering?

According to the view of the future you are suggesting, the whole scene doesn't make sense, as I pointed out. Why would Jesus go into the Father three times to convince Him of something both of them knew from eternity He was going to do anyway? What is the point of this sham?

The account depicts that there was doubt as to what the outcome of the decision would be. This simply doesn't fit with a future = T.V. rerun idea.

Regarding the risk idea, sure Christ was going to suffer mental anguish, but it was a *struggle* to God as to whether or not Jesus Christ should come. Do you really think this would have been a difficult decision for God, if all that was at stake was a few hours of mental anguish? This does not seem to me to be portraying God in at all a positive way. It seems, according to this way of thinking, that God does not love us very much. Why would a few hours of My son struggling vs. saving billions of human beings be a difficult decision under your scenario?

Now if God was sending His Son at the risk of failure and eternal lost, *then* the whole thing makes sense.

Again, making a decision and implementing it are two different things.

Hadn't Christ already decided to die for man? Why then the struggle in Gethsemane?

About the "few hours of mental anguish", I would say that the great question involved was the separation between the members of the Godhead, which occurred for the first and only time in all eternity.

When God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, even though Abraham believed in God's promise that out of Issac's seed would come a nation, how easy was it for Abraham to do it?

The anguish Abraham suffered is our human example of the anguish the Father also suffered in the giving of His only begotten Son.

It's the anguish and suffering that speaks to me of the love of God for the world as it so clearly states in John 3:16.

I'm not following how, from the perspective you are suggesting, there is such a time impact. That is, if time is as you are suggesting, and Christ is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, then wouldn't the Godhead be experiencing this separation throughout eternity?

The struggle depicted does not involve simply doing something difficult, but a struggle as to whether or not the given thing will be done. This latter struggle doesn't make sense, if God and Christ always knew exactly what they were going to do at the precise moments of the conference/struggle. They would have, of necessity, seen that they were going to meet three times, with God the Father finally agreeing. Since they would have already known of this, there would be no purpose for the meeting. One could envision such a meeting between God and a finite being, as the finite being could benefit from such a meeting, but a meeting of this sort between two infinite beings, where One is "convincing" the other to do something just doesn't make sense, unless the meeting was just for show.

When God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, even though Abraham believed in God's promise that out of Issac's seed would come a nation, how easy was it for Abraham to do it?

The issue was not whether the decision was easy or not, but if there was doubt involved as to what the outcome of the decision would be. When the angel said it was a struggle for God as to whether or not to allow Christ to come, the meaning is not simply that God suffered in making the decision, but *that the decision was in doubt.* That is, even though they were prepared for the possibility of the fall, it still was not a sure thing that they were going to go ahead with the plan that had been discussed.

In the view of the future you are suggesting, the meeting where Christ went to the Father three times to convince Him to allow Him to come, doesn't make any sense.

In the meeting, Christ is described as anxious. When the Father agrees to allow Him to come, He is relieved. Now if Christ knew exactly what was going to happen, He wouldn't have been anxious, right? That doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't have been relieved after God was convinced to allow Him to come either, because there wouldn't have been anything to be relieved about, since He would have known from eternity exactly what was going to happen.

The anguish Abraham suffered is our human example of the anguish the Father also suffered in the giving of His only begotten Son.

I agree with this, but no one is suggesting that Abraham knew from all eternity that he was going to sacrifice his son. Abraham really experienced anguish. I agree that God did as well, and for the same reason, because the future of his/His son was in doubt.

It's the anguish and suffering that speaks to me of the love of God for the world as it so clearly states in John 3:16.

Isaac was NEVER Abraham's [bonly[/b] son. That would be Ishmael.

Am I understanding correctly that you are saying, that Ishmael was Abraham's "only" son? If so then, what in your opinion was Isaac?