Tom, the quotes (all of them) speak for themselves. Law and justice demand death for sin. Jesus' death satifies the demands of law and justice. It gives God the legal right to pardon repentant sinners.

MM, I see a lot of statements, but not one that says that God needed a legal right to pardon. The whole concept doesn't make sense. How did God lose the legal right He had to pardon?

Let's think this through a bit. God, being God, has, by virtue of being the creator, the legal right to pardon any of His subjects, right? So if you say that God was dependent upon Christ's death in order to obtain the legal right to pardon, this must mean that somehow He lost the legal right He already had. How did He lose this right?



Waggoner explains these things so well. It's no wonder Ellen White recommended him so highly.

As Waggoner points out, God has the right to forgive whom He will. Waggoner's quote also addresses the issue of justice.

Finally, we know that God offered Lucifer pardon, without anyone dying, so He evidently had the legal right to pardon all along.

Your private interpretation of Sister White's comments regarding Lucifer have no weight with me. It doesn't prove a thing. And yet you keep citing it as if it were a foregone conclusion. But it isn't. She says nothing of the sort.

God's rule is not arbitrary. It is based on law and justice. He is just as obligated as the rest of us to act accordingly. He lost the right to continue blessing us with eternal life the moment we sinned. He lost it to law and justice. He earned it back through the life and death of Jesus.

It would be nice if her statement carried weight with you.



Here's what she said:



That's clear enough.



This isn't true. God is not obligated by anything or anyone. The law is a transcript of God's character. It describes what God is like. It is not greater than God, something to which He is demanded to serve.



If God lost a right to something else, than that thing He lost the right to is greater than God.

The quote you posted does not support your conclusion.

And, since God does nothing contrary to His will and way, He owes it to law and justice to pay our sin debt of death. According to His will and way, sinners must be punished and destroyed. That's the law; that's justice; that's the way it is.

The only way around law and justice, that is, the only way God can save sinners from death is through allowing Jesus to suffer and die in their place. Either the sinner or the divine substitute must suffer punishment and death proportionate to sin.

You'd have to specify what you're talking about here, since you didn't quote anything by me. The conclusion I was trying to prove the quote is that God offered Lucifer pardon many times, and Christ had not died. That follows from the quote, doesn't it?



I don't have a problem with God's paying our debt. I wouldn't say that He does to because He owes it to law and justice though. How can God be a debtor?



This is I think where the fundamental different lies between our views. You see that God arbitrarily punishes and destroys sinners, as evidenced by your statement "that's the way it is." There's no reason why God should do so. It's the law; it's justice; but why? There's no reason. Simply "that's the way it is."

OTOH I believe that sin results in death. Sinners die because they sin. As God warned Adam and Eve, if they sinned, they would die. The warning is not "if you sin, I will kill you" or "if you sin, I will punish and destroy you" but "if you sin, you will die."

There's a vast difference in how these two views formulate our mental image of God. Under one view, God is One to be feared. It's God's way or the high way, or, more accurately, God's way or be burned alive for as long as God sees fit, and then killed. Under another view, God is working to rescue us from the death which sin inflicts.



I agree with this statement, although I wouldn't say "the only way around law and justice" but rather "the only way to be just and fulfill what the law requires ...". To say "the only around the law and justice" implies the law and justice are being avoided.



This is true, but not arbitrarily so, but for a specific reason. That is:



MM, you haven't dealt in any of your posts with what I see to be the real difficulties of the position you are taking. I'll list some problems:

a)Your position makes God a debtor. You say things like God owed things to law and justice, and that God had to obtain a legal right. How could God lose any rights? How can God be a debtor?

b)Your position makes God dependent upon violence in order to solve the problem of sin. God has to kill His Son (I think you agree with this idea; if not, please correct me) or, at the very least, God is dependent upon His Son being killed in order for Him to be able to legally pardon.

There's a big philosophical problem here. Jesus Christ revealed a God who is completely non-violent, or, more accurately, anti-violent. Rather than commit violence, Jesus Christ went to the most violent of deaths. When urged to use violence, Jesus Christ responded "you know not of what spirit you are."

Force, of which violence is the most brutal type, is not a principle of God's government. Violence is utterly contrary to God's character. It's a principle of the ways of the enemy. It (actually force, but most commonly in the form of violence) is that last resort of every false religion. How can God be dependent upon a principle which is not to be found in His kingdom in order to establish His kingdom?

c)You cannot produce anything from Jesus' life or teachings which corroborate your ideas, most specifically the idea that God was dependent upon the death of Jesus in order to obtain the legal right to pardon us. Where did Jesus teach this?

d)The theory of the atonement you suggest did not exist until many centuries after the NT was written. Evidence of this the Eastern Orthodox church does not have this view of the atonement. Why not? Because they split from the Roman Catholic church before Anselm came around.

I'd be very interested in seeing you deal with these points.

Pardon for willful sin was not available to Lucifer. The moment he became guilty of willfully sinning he was beyond hope. God offered to pardon and reinstate Lucifer before he was guilty of sinning. Such pardon did not infer sinning.

Punishing and destroying sinners is not a form of violence. It is law and justice. The Flood was not violence. The fires of Sodom was not violence. When Jesus gives Satan permission to detroy sinners it is not violence.

God owes it to law and justice to pay our sin debt of death. He cannot simply pardon and save sinners. He is indebted to law and justice to punish and destroy sinners. It is His character. It is how He established things. If death were the natural consequences of sinning there would be no need of a second resurrection or a lake of fire.

Jesus established the principles of atonement. He did not change it while He was here in the flesh. Yes, His death on the cross impresses us with His love, it motivates us to serve Him without sinning. However, there is more to it. Law and justice requires that sinners be not merely pardoned. Death must come in consequence of man's sin.

Evidently, until Lucifer made his final decision not to repent, pardon *was* available to Lucifer, since God offered him pardon "again and again."



This makes no sense. One only needs pardon for sin. Your idea would have God offering to pardon Lucifer as long as he didn't need it, but as soon as he did, He doesn't offer it. That wouldn't be very nice, would it?



You mean "imply" sinning. Of course it does. Lucifer was offered pardon on the condition of repentance and submission. Why would he need to repent if he had done nothing wrong?

Besides, in addition to offering Lucifer pardon, we have the record of what Lucifer did, which included "aspiring to be equal with God" (breaking the first commandment) and seeking to misrepresent God by "lying representations" (breaking the ninth), to name just two things. Also, EGW describes Lucifer's actions as "transgression" "evil" "iniquity" and "sin," and I'm speaking specifically of the time before Lucifer made his final decision not to repent.



Regarding what violence is, it is defined as



This is from Webster's, from which I chose the most general definition. Clearly the acts you are attributing to God were violent acts.

Was the cross violent?



This is exactly my point. No contemporary offerer of sacrifice had in mind the principles you are espousing. Christ would have had to have changed them in order for what you are asserting to be true.



Death did come as a consequence of man's sin. Jesus died by way of man's sin. That did happen. However, this death conferred to God no new rights. Where did Jesus suggest such a thing? (Or anyone else?)

God did not offer to pardon Lucifer whle he was guilty of willfully sinning. Nothing you can quote will support your assumption.

Justice is not violence. The Flood, Sodom, etc, were justice, not violence. The way God treated Jesus on the cross was not violence. It was justice.

"Death did come as a consequence of man's sin. Jesus died by way of man's sin. That did happen." Why? You seem to believe it was necessary only to impress us with His love, to motivate us to obey Him. Whereas, I believe it also was required by law and justice to satisfy the death penalty established by God.

Only, as far as I can tell, because you refuse to believe this, regardless of what is quoted. I mean, if you just look at the following:



It's beyond me how anyone could read this and not see that Lucifer was willfully sinning here. Let's just consider the underlined parts. First of all we see that Lucifer was hiding his true purpose. Why? Because he didn't want his would be followers to know what he was really up to. Look at the last underlined part. He claimed he was not aiming at self-exaltation, but he was.

Here we see Lucifer was aiming to exalt himself, devised a plan to accomplish this, carried out the plan, and lied about what he was doing! I feel confident you could show this paragraph to any non-SDA Christian (or any SDA who didn't have an ax to grind) and they would see that Lucifer is willfully sinning here. Really, it makes me wonder what EGW could have described Lucifer as doing that you would perceive to be willfully sinning.

It doesn't appear to me that the record of Lucifer's behavior is what has you convinced that he wasn't willfully sinning, but your own preconceived idea. One should be careful to allow the evidence to shape one's opinion, rather than forcing the evidence to face one's opinion.



That's true!



I agree with these statements, because God did nothing violent. That is, God did none of the violent things you think He did. Everything He did was as non-violent as the things Jesus did in the flesh.

I'm particularly curious as to what you had in mind by "the way that God treated Christ". How do you perceive that God treated Christ? I perceive that God permitted certain things to happen to His Son. Do you see God as actively doing something that would ordinarily be classified as "violent" (if it weren't God doing it) towards His Son?



According to Acts 2:23 (other places as well) it happened because wicked men crucified Him.



The particular issue I've been discussing is that you think it was necessary in order for God to obtain the legal right to pardon. Where is this asserted in inspiration? In particular, where did Jesus teach an idea like this?

Your first sentence is not at all what I believe, by the way. There are many things which Jesus' death accomplished, one of which was the revelation of God's love and character. I'm not asserting this is the only thing that happened, but that what you are asserting, that it was necessary in order for God to obtain the legal right to pardon, was not a reason Christ's death was necessary.