I don't see what there is to disagree with regarding the section I asked you to look at "justice and mercy." Were you disagreeing with this, or something else?



I wasn't defining it. I was just saying this is the dualism I see in regards to God. I don't see the holiness vs. love dualism going on. What I wrote in regards to Hosea makes more sense to me.



I agree with this, and think it is excellent, except for the following unnecessary sentence.



Leave this out, and I think the rest is great.



This is great.



This is good too.



This doesn't make sense to me. Christ was God. He didn't become any less God by becoming man. How close did He come to sin?

The problem is not that God cannot approach sin, but that sinners cannot approach God. The problem is caused by what sin does to our minds. That God can come close to sin and sinners is obvious simply by looking at Christ.



It looks to me like the author is not recognizing the reality that sin results in death. Once we understand this point, there is no need to comment on God's being easygoing. God cannot be easygoing because sin really does cause death. It would be like someone not taking any action to warn a smoker of the consequences of smoking.



I think this is really missing the mark in regards to God. If we want to see God's feelings regarding sin and sinners, all we have to do is look at Christ. Christ was God. How He related to sin and sinners is how God relates to sin and sinners.

As Christ did not need the cross in order to interact with us, neither does God. Christ is as holy as God.

I agree with the part about sin being rebellion as opposed to a lapse. However, it's not necessary to have the ideas the author has regarding God in order to be "serious about sin." Indeed, once we recognize what a lethal thing sin is, that takes care of this issue.

An issue that goes hand in hand with the atonement/cross is the final judgment. If we view the judgment as the outpowering of the wrath or an indignant God, then it makes more sense to view the cross as an appeasement of that righteous indignation. However, if we view the final judgment as God's giving the wicked up to the result of their choice, which is sin, then there is no need to appease God. The need is to save the sinner from sin. The cross accomplishes this purpose by reconciling us to God.



This seems totally contrary to the reality of Christ's life and teaching. When did sin or wrath get in the way of Christ's forgiving anyone?

A big problem I see in this philosophy is that it drives a wedge between Christ and God. Christ freely forgives, without needing payment, and without there being a problem of sin or wrath. But not God. This doesn't make sense. Again, Christ is as holy as God is.



Why? Why would God require satisfaction in order to respect Himself?

Let's say you do something bad to me, like strike me on the face. Assume I am a holy, righteous person, as holy as Christ What should I do? If my being holy means I should demand satisfaction, then I should insist on striking his cheek before I forgive him. Instead, Christ taught us to turn the other cheek.



I haven't met the author personally, but I've "spoken" to him on the internet, and he seems to be very knowledgeable on the subject, and to have researched things out a great deal.

If one is accustomed to thinking of things forensically, it's definitely not easy to think of things non-forensically. I know for myself it was a process of steps which took at least a decade. Reading Jones and Waggoner was helpful to sort of "set the table." George Fifield (a contemporary of Jones and Waggoner) was the best though, for anyone of that time period.

For a modern day explanation, I think Ty Gibson does an excellent job. I would highly recommend his books "See With New Eyes" and "Shades of Grace" (hope I got those titles right; that's at lease close). The "Shades of Grace" book directly discusses the atonement. The other book provides a framework in which the discussions of the atonement make sense.

I was refering to the entire page, and have since read some of the following pages aswell. This author is not as thorrough as one would wish since he is writing a book on the subject. God is refered to by different bible authors in the terms mentioned here. The preceding paragraphs which lays out what the quoted paragraph summarises is supported by two dozen biblepassages. Ironically enough, I think in this case Stott is viewing sin in relational terms while you are viewing it more in a disease terms. When you view sin as a breach of relationship between God and man, God could choose to be easygoing towards it. But if sin is viewed as a terminal disease, there is no room for such considerations. So, if knowledge of the glory of God is unessential, why does God make so much effort making sure we are aware of it?The concept of the judgment day as a day of reconing before God, is this another idea that several of the authors of the bible simply missunderstood and got wrong? God is in the buisness of saving sinners, as much is quite clear from the bible. But God is also at the same time in a war against sin. Notice the difference, the enemy is not the sinner but the sin. Why didnt Jesus simply forgive everyone before the cross and take the less painfull road from getsemane? Why didn't God simply forgive everyone without even having to meet the pains of living a human life? What and why made the difference that we can be told in revelation that out of all beings in the entire universe, only Jesus, the lamb that was slain is worthy to open the scroll of history?As Christ is God, I dont see how there could be a wedge. God saw it necessary to give Himself up for the sin problem to be solved. God needed to make it chrystal clear to everyone what sin leads to, the death of God if sin would have its way. God also make it equally clear that He would let nothing stand between Himself and a humanity redemed from sin. So God took the path of incarnation and death, laid down His life for all to see before taking it again and returning to plan for the final stages of the rescue mission. There can be no wedges within God. What is sin? What is holiness? Why is sin incompatibe with holiness? Indeed, is sin incompatible with holiness or is this some kind of party line we have been feed?
What I meant by strawman is that what he argues against is not the same thing that I would argue for. Nor do I think it is what Stott argues for in the book quoted above. It propably is part of the reason I thought him less than knowledgeable that he adresses a position I do not know anyone trying to defend.

I do think that I have some understanding of the Christus Victor view of the cross, and I think it has some merits. Where I differ from you it would seem is that I also recognise some merits to at least some brands of the forensic thought aswell. Both are describeing the same event and both start out of different starting points. What I do doubt is that either of them in any way is exhaustive in its presentation of the cross.

Tom, is it wise or right to assume everything God says He did literally means He either allowed sin or nature or Satan to do it? Even if it were true, how does that make God less culpable? Calling it "violence", whether God did it or allow it, is akin to calling good evil, isn't it?

Isaiah
5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
5:25 Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases [were] torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still.

Tom, if what you're saying is true, that God gives Satan permission to destroy sinners according to His will, aren't you in essence saying Satan does the very thing that is calculated to motivate people to love and obey God? Why would he do such a thing? “And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.”

Also, if what you're saying is true, it implies that the destruction Satan causes are “evidences of God’s power”, that they are the “special marks of God's power”. Is that true? Is the destruction Satan causes a demonstration of God’s power? How can that be?

EGW: God controls all these elements; they are his instruments to do his will; he calls them into action to serve his purpose. These fiery issues have been, and will be his agents to blot out from the earth very wicked cities. Like Korah, Dathan and Abiram they go down alive into the pit. These are evidences of God's power.

EGW: These judgments are sent that those who lightly regard God's law and trample upon His authority may be led to tremble before His power and to confess His just sovereignty.

EGW: These manifestations bear the special marks of God's power, and are designed to cause the people of the earth to tremble before him, and to silence those, who like Pharaoh would proudly say, "Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?"

He's writing a book on the subject? How do you know that? Did he mention that somewhere on the site?

This is the most thorough treatment of the subject I'm aware of on the internet. I'd certainly be interested in knowing about some more thorough site if there is one.



But this is easily seen to be false by the fact that Christ is God, and this didn't happen to Christ.



One could be easygoing about it if it didn't destroy the relationship and the relationship were not necessary to sustain life. But sin does destroy our relationship with God (because of what it does to us) and we do need a relationship with God in order to live. In fact, eternal life is exactly this.



What?! Where is there any connection between what I wrote and your question? I'm very confused here.

Of course we need a knowledge of the glory of God. The glory of God is His character, and knowing God is life eternal. (John 17:3) God makes to much effort to make sure we are aware of this because He doesn't want us to perish, but to live eternally.



We are the ones who get things wrong. Here's what I wrote, to which you responded:



There is absolutely nothing here about there not being a day of judgment or reckoning.



This is correct. And the way that God wars against sin is by making known the truth, which is revealed by Jesus Christ.



These are good questions, and get at the heart of the very issue.



Without the death of Christ, the truth could not be seen. Even holy angels, who have no need to be redeemed, did not realize the truth until beholding Christ's death!



If holy angels and unfallen worlds did not see the truth apart from Christ's death, what hope would we have of seeing it?



This is my point. If Christ acts differently than God does, than there is a wedge, which can't be, since Christ is God. Therefore it makes no sense to say that God is so holy that He cannot bear the presence of sin or sinners without death because Christ is just as holy as God is, and He didn't require death in order to be in the presence of sin or sinners.



True.



Also true.



This is all true. There is no need to believe in penal substitution to believe any of these things.



Which is why penal substitution cannot be true.

Perhaps we could discuss some of the issues raised by the web site. I'm not seeing where you're dealing with any of the points that were made there. That might be interesting.

It's a challenge to see things non-forensically when one is used to thinking in forensic terms, so it may take a while to understand what is actually being said.

I inadvertently did not respond to the entire post. Here's the rest:



The phrase "is this some kind of party line we have been fed" is, I think, unhelpful to use in a dialog. It's pejorative.

I'm not understanding how what you wrote relates to what I wrote. That is, I'm not seeing that you understood what I was saying. Perhaps you could summarize my point, and then respond with your point, and I may be able to follow what you're trying to say.



Could you quote specifically what you are referring to?

The basic tenants of penal substitution are well understood. Because of God's holiness and justice, He cannot legally forgive sin without a penalty being paid.



"Forensic" just means "legal," and the atonement was certainly in accordance with law. The particular issue I have been taking issue with is that God needed Christ's death in order to have the legal right to forgive.

From the Spirit of Prophecy, it is easy to see this isn't true. God offered to pardon Satan "again and again," without Christ's death being necessary in order to do so.

From Scripture, we see that Christ freely forgave on numerous occasions, and He didn't require death in order to have the legal right to do so. In the parables that Christ taught, for example, the parable of the prodigal son, we also see the idea of forgiveness freely offered, not a forgiveness dependent upon a penalty being paid. In fact, the parable teaches the exact opposite of this idea.

Where, in all the life of Christ, do we see the idea communicated that God needed Christ's death in order to be able to forgive?



Of course no model of the atonement could be exhaustive, as it's a subject that will be studied throughout eternity. I think the best model is the Great Controversy model, which Ty Gibson does an excellent job of explaining in the books I mentioned. Of the classic models, I believe Christus Victor comes the closest, without the shortcomings that other models have. The only thing that seems lacking to me, off the top of my head, in regards to the Christus Victor model is that the core issues is God's character.

A fundamental issue with the penal substitution model is that it makes God dependent upon violence in order to forgive. It should be clear that there are philosophical and theological problems with this idea.

I don't think you've ever dealt with an issue that I've made a number of times, which is that in Scripture we read that God sent fiery serpents upon the Israelites, and that God would destroy Jerusalem, and kill those who murdered His Son. But that's not what happened.

What principle do you use for interpreting Scripture? Scripture which depicts God as killing should be understood as God's killing, unless Ellen White suggests otherwise?

You haven't addressed this point.

When you say "everything" you obviously don't mean "everything," sin, of course, the nonviolent things which God did are not caused by sin or Satan. So, assuming by "everything" you mean the violent things God is portrayed as doing, I believe it is wise to apply the principle so well laid out by EGW in the first chapter of "The Great Controversy" to these episodes.



Well, let's take a look at the principle:



Here we see the violence which came upon Jerusalem as the Israel destroying itself. How is God culpable for Israel destroying itself?



No, it's akin to calling evil evil. Violence is evil. God permits evil to happen, but He does not perform evil.

This is another FOTAP question. I never said, "God gives Satan permission to destroy sinners according to His will".



I never said He did such a thing.



The destructive powers of nature are demonstrations of God's power because God created these powerful forces.

You can read about his book project here. http://www.sharktacos.com/God/index.shtml
I dont know about other websites concerning this. But before websites, there were books. I should have realised that a partial quote would not do. Here comes the rest:

What is common to the biblical concepts of the holiness and the wrath of God is the truth that they cannot coexist with sin. God's holiness exposes sin; his wrath opposes it. So sin cannoth approach God, and God cannot tolerate sin. Several vivid metaphors are used in Scriputure to illustrate this stubborn fact.

The first is height. Frequently in the Bible the God of creation and covenant is called 'the Most High God', and is presonally addressed in several Psalms as 'Yahweh Most High'. (Gn. 14:18-22; Pss. 7:17; 9:2; 21:7; 46:4; 47:2; 57:2; 83:18; 92:8; 93:4; 113:4; Dn. 3:26; 4:2, 17, 24-25, 32, 34; 5:18-21; 7:18-27;Ho. 7:16; 11:7; Mi. 6:6.) His lofty exaltation expresses both his sovereignty over the nations, the earth and 'all gods', (Pss. 97:9 and 99:2)and also his inaccessibility to sinners. True, his throne is called 'the throne of grace' and is encircled by the rainbow of his covenant promise. Nevertheless, it is 'high and exalted' and he himself is 'the high and lofty One', who does not live in manmade temples, since heaven is his throne and the earth his footstool; so sinners should not presume. (Heb. 4:16; Rev. 4:3; Is. 6:1; 57:15; Acts 7:48-49;) True again, he condescends to the contrite and lowly, who find security in his shadow. But proud sinners he knows only 'from afar', and he cannot stand the high and haughty looks of the arrogant. (Is. 57:15; Pss. 91:1, 9; 138:6; Pr. 21:4; Is. 10:12;)

The 'high' exaltation of God is not literal, of course, and was never meant to be taken literally. The recent hue and cry about abandoning a God 'up there' was largely superfluous. The biblical writers used height as a symbol of transcendence, just as we do. It is more expressive than depth. 'The Ground of Being' may speak of ultimate reality to some people, but 'the hight and lofty One' conveys God's otherness more explicitly. When thinking of the great and living God, it is better to look up than down, and outside than inside ourselves.

The second picture is that of distance. God is not only 'high above' us, but 'far away' from us also. We dare not approach too close. Indeed, many are the biblical injunctions to keep our distance. 'Do not come any closer,' God said to Moses out of the burning bush. So it was that the arrangements for Israel's worship expressed the complementary truths of his nearness to them because of his covenant and his separation from them because of his holiness. Even as he came down to them at Mount Sinai to reveal himself to them, he told Moses to put limits for the people around the base of the mountain and to urge them not to come near. Similarly, when God gave instructions for the building of the Tabernacle (and later the Temple), he both promised to live among his people and yet warned them to erect a curtain before the inner sanctuary as a permanent sign that he was out of reach to sinners. Nobody was permitted to penetrate the veil, on pain of death, except the high priest, and then only once a year on the Day of Atonement, and then only if he took with him the blood of sacrifice. (Ex. 3:5; 19:3-25 (cf. Heb. 12:18-21); 20:24; 25-40, especially 29:45-46; Lv. 16 (cf. Heb. 9:7-8)) And when the Israelites were about to cross the Jordan into the promised land, they were given this precise command: 'Keep a distance of about a thousand yards between you and the ark; do not go near it' (Jos. 3:4). It is against the background of this plain teaching about God's holiness and about the perils of presumption that the story of Uzzah's death must be understood. When the oxen carrying the ark stumbled, he reached out and took hold of it. But 'the LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act', and he died. Commentators tend to protest at this 'primitive' Old Testament understanding of God's wrath as 'fundamentally an irrational and in the last resort inexplicable thing which broke out with enigmatic, mysterious amnd primal force' and which bordered closely on 'caprice'. But no, there is nothing inexplicable about God's wrath: its explanation is always the presence of evil in some form or another. Sinners cannoth approach the all-holy God with impunity. On the last day, those who have not found refuge and cleanisng in Christ will hear those most terrible of all words: 'Deart from me'.(E.g. Mt. 7:23:41.)

The third and fourth pictures of the holy God's unapproachability to sinners are those of light and fire: 'God is light', and 'our God is a consuming fire'. Both discourage, indeed inhibit, too close an approach. Bright light is blinding; our eyes cannot endure its brilliance, and in the heat of the fire everything shrivels up and is destroyed. So God 'lives in unapproachable light'; 'noone has seen or can see' him. And those who deliberately reject the truth have 'only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.... It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.(1 Jn. 1:5; Heb.12:29 (cf.Dt. 4:24); 1 Tim. 6:16; Heb. 10:27, 31.)

The fifth metaphor is the most dramatic of all. It indicates that the holy God's rejection of evil is as decisive as the human body's rejection of poison by vomiting. Vomiting is probably the body's most violent of all reactions. The immoral and idolatrous practices of the Canaanites were so disgusting, it is written, that 'the land vomited out its inhabitants', and the Israelites were warned that if they commiteted the same offences, the land would vomit them out as well. Moreover what is said to the the land's repudiation of evil was in reality the Lord's. For in the same contet he is represented as declaring that he 'abhored' the Canaanites because of thier evil doings. The identical Hebrew word is used of him in relation to the stubborn disobedience of Israel in the wilderness: 'For forty years I was angry with (literally 'loathed') that generation.' Here too the verb probably alludes to nauseating food, as it does in the statement, 'we detest this miserable food!' Our delicate upbringing may find this earthy metaphor distinctly embarrassing. Yet it continues in the New Testament. When Jesus threatens to 'spit' the lukewarm Laodicean church people out of his mouth, the Greek verb literally means to 'vomit' (emeo). The picture may be shocking, but its meaning is clear. God cannoth tolerate or 'digest' sin and hypocrisy. They cause him not distaste merely, but disgust. They are so repulsive to him that he must rid himself of them. He must spit or vomit them out. (Lv. 18:25-28; 20:22-23 Ps. 95:10; Nu. 21:5; Rev. 3:16)
end quote;

So, you can disagree with this but not without at the same time disagreeing with the experiences of a whole bunch of people who wrote things that ended up in the bible, some of whom had walked with Jesus as His diciples during His life on earth. The part I quoted said that we need a balanced understanding of both the gravity of sin and the majesty of God. You disagreed with this, claiming that we only need to know about sin. This is the connection and what I responded against.Except the difference in concept were it looks like you view the judgment day as the day when God finaly has to accept His failiure to save everyone while Jesus in His teaching consistently view it as the day when God separates those who are His from those who are not and gives both groups the revards they are due. Yes, and to atempt to turn this into a discussion in positive terms, what are your answers to them?Some might argue that people like Moses and Elija had seen this truth, even though they lived and died hundreds to thousands of years before Jesus came to earth. And yet it would seem that Abraham saw enough of the truth for it to change his life. What more could anyone ask for?But it is God Himself who tells us this. When we know things that even God does not know, we must be knowledgeable indeed.
I also wonder if it would be possible that the holy glory which consumes sin was among those things which Jesus left in heaven. (Phil 2)But neither do they exclude the penal concept. It would also merit a thread of its own.

I wrote as I did because I do not think that me hitting you on your face (or the other way around) is at all comparable with what sin is to God. If you slap me, that would be annoying but it isn't something that you would have to die for doing. But we are told that sin leads to death. Maybe some sort of comparasion could be made if you had instead said that I was pouring gas on your children while playing with matches. Still assuming you were the holy and righteous person, just as holy as Christ was. Would you still sit and watch doing nothing? I may be going on a limb here, but I do not think you would do that. I think you would do anything except sit still turning the other cheek, whatever it took to get your children cleaned up and away from the madman playing with their lives. The specifics would have to go into the thread devoted to the blogg.

In Romans 5, Paul writes that we are justified by Jesus blood.
In Ephesians 1, he writes that we have our redemption through the blood.
And in Hebrews he writes that according to the law, there is no forgiveness without the sheding of blood. But what does Paul know about these things?I dont know about the life of Christ, but as early as in Acts 5, the Peter preached to the Sanhedrin saying: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. 31 Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins."
In Romans 3, Paul suggests that Christ has enabled grace through a purchase. And that God has made Christ a throne of grace through the blood.
And in chapter 5, Paul writes something that looks suspiciously like substitution, that Christ died in our place. In the following chapter he suggests that we recieve the new life through partaking in His death and subsequent resurection.