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These ideas have been in the Adventist community for quite some time. There was an Elder Fifefield in the 1800s who was at least close if not here. And he was a good friend of the Whites. During the 1920's Dr. Lynn Harper Wood developed this from his study of the scriptures and Mrs. White and taught it in our schools. Paul Heubech was one of his students and spent his career teaching this. (I can't think of his name right now but the guy who started the "God does not kill" heard this from Paul Heubech but took it to an extreme and has a partial truth). I learned this from the Theology faculty at Atlantic Union College (although I put it in my own words). Lynn Wood came to PUC for a week of prayer when Graham Maxwell and Jack Provonsha were students. They both said that Wood's week of prayer was the most impressive week of prayer that they ever attended. Neither remembers learning anything that week that set their thoughts along this way of thinking, but after PUC they both developed a similar theology. Over in England Jonathan Gallager come to a similar view from his study of Mrs. White, and behind the iron curtain Daniel Dudah was allowed by the communists to get an M. Div from a Lutheran seminary. He brought a large amount of Mrs. White's writings and decided to compare and contrast what he was learning at the Lutheran Seminary with Mrs. White and he also developed from her writings . My professors at AUC developed it independently from each other and was not influenced by any of the others such as Lynn Wood, or the others listed here. So this was formed by different Adventists over our history in different parts of the world independently from each other.

Thanks for that short list Kevin. I used to listen to a lot of Maxwell ("Can God be Trusted?") and Provonsha back in the day. I do believe that natural consequences account for a whopping lot of the destruction and pain suffered by the disobedient in this world. Some happen when we just don't follow instructions. "Brush your teeth comes to mind." Some happen when the LORD withdraws His special protection - leaving us to be attacked by our enemies (Satan included). 1 Corinthians 10:10 Those Israelites who murmured against God in the wilderness were “destroyed by the destroyer.” “The destroyer” is Satan. In every case, the LORD assumes responsibility for what has happened. He always says, "I did it". There are ALSO examples of God's special execution of some seriously rebellious persons. Nadab and Abihu - Korah, Dathan and Abiram and the 250 rebellious princes. "Fire" flashed from the pillar of the cloud/fire. That was the LORD's direct action. I have noticed that the "lake of fire" is NOT CALLED God's "wrath", whereas the 7 last plagues are called the "full" wrath of God unmixed with mercy. Wonder why the "lake of fire" would NOT be called "wrath".

At fulcrum7 they've been in full-blown "Jackson derangement syndrome" mode for years. When I started following their page at least 1-in-3 articles were well written with some biblical grounding or some spiritual content. However over the last year it's all politics and all cultural warrior nonsense all the time. They're interested in little else than following popular cultural trends drawn from contemporary politics and media, all with a veneer of churchianity.

Yes JoeMo, we are sinners because of that tendency, not because we sin.

Call upon Him ?

Yes the Tree of Life! When Adam & Eve sinned, God took the "Tree of Life" away from them and when its restored we will have access to it once again. My thoughts have always been that there was something about eating the fruit from that tree!!

I have mulled they concept of genetics around. When Adam and Ever were created, did they have a gene that predisposed them to do "good"? In the descent of man into rebellion before the flood, could satan or his fallen angels somehow mutated that gene to predispose man to evil rather than good? Could it be that we sin because we are sinners (predisposed to sin) rather than being sinners because we sin? I think it's possible that when we receive our new bodies - become a new creation - God will "un-mutate" that gene to it's original intent - to once again predispose us to good rather than evil.

Most Universalists are blind to the degree to which God holds free will sacred.

5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Ellis Island On November 12, 1954, Ellis Island, the first stop for immigrants coming into the United States, closed after 60 years. Take a look at the following things you probably didn’t know about the point of entry for new immigrants over the course of six decades... New Immigrants Entered the Country First at Manhattan While the Statue of Liberty was an immigrant’s first view of New York and Ellis Island was the point of entry, the water was shallow and large ships couldn’t dock there. Instead, they debarked in Manhattan where first-class and second-class passengers went through a brief inspection and were allowed in the country. Steerage passengers were another story because they were placed on ferries and taken to Ellis Island for a more intensive processing. Ellis Island Used to be Privately Owned A merchant in New York, Samuel John Ellis, owned the island and attempted to sell it but couldn’t. When Ellis died in 1785, there were problems with his will, and the family got into a fight over who had ownership. Beginning shortly before Ellis’ death, he had leased it to the city of New York, and the city ended up purchasing the island in 1808 for the sum of $10,000. An Early Name for it Was Gibbet Island For a while in the early 1800s, this small piece of land was known as Gibbet Island and was used to execute criminals, pirates and sailors who had committed mutiny. Pirates who were executed were left hanging from a noose from the gibbet as a warning to others that they could meet a similar fate. The last pirate was hung there in 1839, after which the tiny island served as a munitions depot for the Navy before it was turned into a station for newly arrived immigrants. Three Unaccompanied Children Were the First to Go Through Ellis Island On New Year’s Day in 1892, the first three immigrants arrived to be processed at Ellis Island, and they happened to be unaccompanied minors from County Cork, Ireland. Disembarking from the steamship Nevada, along with 124 other passengers, teenager Annie Moore, along with her brothers, aged 11 and 7, were the first to use the new services at the island. Arriving to reunite with their family that was already in New York, a Catholic chaplain and official from the Treasury Department met them, and Annie was given a gold piece worth $10 to commemorate the occasion. Ellis Island Is Mostly Man-Made Originally, Ellis Island only covered 3.3 acres, which obviously wasn’t large enough for the task of welcoming the 20 million immigrants who arrived over the years. It was expanded by using ship ballast from boats in the harbor and landfill from the construction of the subway tunnels in New York until the island had grown to more than 27 acres. The immigration station was built on Ellis Island in 1890.

Has anyone seen a verse which describes a resurrection from "the lake of fire"? I don't know of one. If one is DEAD, then in order to LIVE again, one must be resurrected. I've been dialoging with a Universalist. She is adamant that the "lake of fire" is only cleansing fire. It burns out the sin, without actually killing the person (or angel). I asked her, why then, is it called "the second death"? If it is death - then there must be resurrection if one is to go on living. She said it is only a spiritual death - such as we die in Christ. I pointed out that we are also "raised with Christ, to walk in newness of life". I pointed out the sin against the Holy Spirit, which is not forgiven - either in this age, or in the age to come (Matt 12:32). She says the "lake of fire" is to burn out un-forgiven sin. If sin is not forgiven, then it must be burned out. Forgiven sin is cleansed by blood. Un-forgiven is cleansed by fire. I can agree that God's creation will be cleansed by fire. But those who refuse the cleansing by blood will be burned up - along with this first creation. She then points to some who will be refined "in fire" and come through the fire. I point out those verses are speaking of those who hold on to faith despite persecution and pain. Things of no value in their lives are left behind. I've never seen anything like her distortions and misuse of verses. It's exhausting.

I am sure. I am beginning to think very seriously about how I, how we as Jesus followers, look at addicts. Freeing the captives is more than taking the drugs away. The bondage is much deeper. The drugs are secondary and the addiction a symptom.

Some of the sources that has helped me in developing my understanding of hell, and helped me to notice this in the Bible and Mrs. White, are of course the religion classes at Atlantic Union College and also applying the writings of the poet - philosopher Eli Siegel to the situation. The most important thing about hell fire is the beauty of Jesus. Our deepest desire is to be like and with him. To love the world as he has loved it. Yes, at the fall we got the sinful nature, or a disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world, to esteem ourselves more highly than others, to serve self, to seek the highest place. But unlike what Calvinism teaches, that is not all there is to us. Yes the other part was given to us from God in Genesis 3:15; God put something in us that finds evil not only attractive, but also ugly, there is also enmity between us and the serpent. A longing to be with the one who will crush the serpent's head. Jesus is the fairest of 10,000, the Lilly of the valley, the one more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey. He's the desire of all nations, the desire of ages, the one beloved by women. When Jesus was born the angels did not say that it was great joy for only the honest at heart, it was not great joy for the seekers, but great joy for ALL people. Each and everyone. Even Herod who tried to kill him, was still trying to use all of his evil to try to do what he thought he needed to do to find the world likeable. The traditional understanding of the Judgement: We stand before God with our knees knocking. Our record is reviewed and God either tells us that we are allowed into heaven where we run with joy and relief wiping the sweat off our brow and hoping to get into heaven before God changes his mind. Otherwise we are judged and God says we have to go to hell were we are dragged off screaming and begging for mercy and suffer the physical pain of the fire forever. Now we (and Mrs. White has helped us to see this) that hell fire is the glory and beauty and love of God. Moses was unable to see God's face because it would have consumed him. He was able to only see the back of God. And from just seeing the back of God he shone so bright that he had to wear a veil. When Jesus cleaned out the temple we find that his divinity flashed through humanity and people ran in 2 directions. The money changers were running away from it, and children and the poor were running TO it. How often to you see children running with joy to an angry man with a whip? Yet there was something about Jesus' anger that made the little children and the poor want to run and be with him. That flash of divinity that made the money changers run away and children and poor and ill run towars him was a peek at hell fire. Mrs. White pictures that when Jesus comes and we see him in all his glory It will be so awesome that we all ask "Who shall be able to stand?" There is a moment of awful silence, the angels stop their singing. Then Jesus says [sings?[ "My grace is sufficient for you" Notice Jesus does not say "My grace is sufficient for some of you" He does not say "My grace is sufficient for you and you but not you over there, and it's sufficient for you, no not you I'm talking to the person standing behind you, sorry for the confusion and false hope you held until you realized that I was talking to the person behind you" Jesus tells all of us that his grace is sufficient for me! However Mrs. White points out that despite what Jesus just told me, that the people who hear him give 2 responses. The one group says "Of course his grace is sufficient for me! This is my God and he will save us!" But other people who just heard Jesus tell them that his grace is sufficient for them feel that he's lying, and with the influence of existentialism on our culture they have become slaves to their feelings. They feel that his grace is not sufficient for them and as they see their lives in contrast to his purity they believe that God is going to get them for their sins, they run in terror to the hills and caves and say "Fall on us and hide us from the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb." "Wrath of the lamb" Can you picture yourselves hearing a news bulletin "Lamb escapes from the children’s zoo lock your doors and stay inside? The lost have no more need to be afraid of Jesus than they are of a little lamb. However they are terrified like never before and the brightness of his coming consumes them. We have the truth here at the second coming, but then we fall apart and into tradition and superstition at the third coming instead of carrying out what we saw a taste of at the second coming to be in it's full force at the third coming. So at the end of time. Isaiah 33 asks who can live in the eternal fire. The answer is that the righteous live forever in that fire. When prophets first saw God in vision they felt like they were being burned alive. But learned that they could not only survive in that fire but thrive in that fire and hated not to be burning in that fire. Deuteronomy 4:24 reads For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. We, all of us have 2 attitudes fighting with in us. One is our sinful nature or a disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world. To esteem ourselves more highly than others, to serve self, to seek the highest place and often this results in evil surmisings and bitterness of spirit. Fighting disposition this is a gift that God gave us in Genesis 3:15 which is not only a promise of the messiah, but that there is something in us attracted to God and beauty and repulsed by the ugliness of sin. That our deepest desire is to love the world as Jesus has loved it. Then for us his mission is accomplished. We are fitted for heaven for we have heaven in our hearts. Everything we do builds on one of these two attitudes and weakens the other. Yet even at our worst we are trying to manipulate the world into what we think we need to be able to like it better. And even at our best there is a taint of selfishness and thus truly our best is like filthy rags. Thus everything we do has both elements of respect and contempt in it. At the end of time we do what Moses was not at that time ready to do, see God's front (granted there will still be the unapproachable light and deep darkness reminding us that there is more to God then what we are seeing so that we don't commit the sin of idolatry and think we are seeing God in total). But we will see him in love and glory. Jesus is our deepest desire. The one altogether lovely, the one sweeter than honey and more desirable than gold. The one beloved of women (a forgotten Biblical name of Jesus). We are all overwhelmed by his beauty and glory. The righteous find it heaven to be in this situation and we respond to the overwhelming aspect of seeing our filthy rags in contrast to Jesus' holiness by casting our crowns at his feet singing "Holy, Holy Holy, worthy if the lamb!" and at the second coming our sinful nature, or the disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world will been burned out of us. To the lost they are in a dilemma. Jesus is their deepest desire. They are overwhelmingly attracted to his beauty. They long to run into his loving arms and give themselves fully over to him. They are welcomed by Jesus who tells them that his grace is sufficient for them. But as they contrast their selfishness to his righteousness they do not sing the song of the redeemed. They are unforgiving people and thus they cannot comprehend forgiveness. They think that sooner or later God is going to get them for their sins. Jesus in John 3:18-21 said that there is only ONE reason why people are lost. And that it because they won't come to the light for fear their deeds will be exposed. For fear that God is going to get them for their sins. (while those who do come to the light find not a condemning God but a welcoming God who changes them). The lost see loved ones around the throne who they long to be reunited with. But they also remember how they would use things like criticizing, complaining, blaming, nagging, threatening, punishing and rewarding to control to make these people do what they wanted them to do. They see how horrible and selfish their interactions with even their loved ones has been. And they see others who they did not love and who they wanted to hurt. And they are horrified especially as they contrast their behavior with the purity and beauty and self-sacrificing love of Jesus. And they know that the one who sits on the throne knows the deepest recesses of their mind and heart and they want to pull away from the source of life. Hitler does not see the final solution from the results of thousands of years of sin and excuses, but sees how these acts were seen through the pure eyes of God. So everyone will see themselves. The redeemed cast their crowns and sing out of gratitude, while the lost want to pull back and hide from the only source of life. Yet Jesus is still their deepest desire. They are in a dilemma. They want to run to Jesus and accept his grace, but they refuse to yield to this desire. It's God's nature to love and forgive and to draw all unto him, but God's love is a power that brings out the best in us. For those who do not want the best in them to be brought out, who are horrified at the ugliness of their sin and don't trust in God's grace but are slaves to their feeling where they feel that God is going to get them so also want to pull back from the one they so long to run to. It is a very uncomfortable position. It is even worst than the traditional Catholic/Baptist hell. Heaven and hell are not two different places. God does not say to some of us we can go into heaven and send the rest to hell. We are wrong when we say that the fire burning forever does not mean forever. "The Glory of him that is love will consume the wicked" When does the glory and beauty and love of God burn out? Never. It's just that some of us will find it to be heaven to burn forever in the fire of God's love and beauty and glory, while others will find it to be hell and consuming and death. God treats each and every one of us the exact same way. Lucifer is treated the same way as Gabriel. Judah is treated the same as Abraham. The only difference between heaven and hell is that one is embracing all of reality with joy and enjoying reality and enjoying their friends and loved ones and have allowed the selfishness to have been burned out of them and to cast our crowns at Jesus feet and sing "Worthy is the lamb" and others are following a sick figment of their imagination that God's grace is not sufficient for them, are slaves to their feelings that God is going to get them for their sins. They become prisoners of their minds where they have created their own morbid heaven of complaining and whining about how unfair everything is only to see that God is indeed fair, and to come up with excuses but see that they have no excuse yet they refuse to leave this state of mind. Hell is locked not with a pad lock but a sliding lock and it's locked from the inside. As they see all their excuses melt but refuse to yield to their desire to run to him they make a compromise. They go on their knees and admit that God is indeed right, but they refuse to go further. This dilemma between wanting to run into his loving arms and have him wipe their tears from their eyes and wanting to be with him like nothing else they have ever been attracted to ever before, yet their refusing to yield to this desire and instead stay in their fear of what God would do to them and their morbid heaven of complaining and whining becomes so intense that it quite literally rips them apart and disintegrates them. God is the great purifier, he does not need some other flame for a clean up job. He is the great consuming and cleansing fire. On the one hand God is completely active in the destruction of the wicked. He is not passively twiddling his thumbs. The event that is so horrible for the lost is seeing God in full beauty and love and glory. If he did not show them this they would not have to suffer hell. On the other hand the lost are completely active in their own destruction since they make a different choice in how to respond than the saved.

His mercy endureth ? ?

...and perhaps if people do want to debate the church's attitude to sexuality and the problems with 'gay conversion' therapies (which have a vastly greater record of suicides than real 'successes') it would make sense to start a new thread outside this history forum?

Ah, thanks for the clarification, both of you. I've been very busy preparing the new papers and publishing them (we now have them scheduled and set up for the next several weeks, one per week) that I have read only some of the previously published papers. With the heads-up from you I did go back and read the paper on Colin Cook. It's a tragic story, and I do see him as the victim-become-abuser. If his faith had been compatible with his sexuality he could have been in an open, loving, consensual relationship and been a great service to people. The (in my view unnecessary) conflict led him into all manner of abuse of others. It's possible to condemn that abuse and the choices that led to it while still understanding and having compassion for the man.

Gates is not considered to represent Adventism, as generally understood. This section, of this forum has been established where HCH, and others, can present their views that are not considered to be within main-line Adventism. It is pushing the boundaries of this section to begin to advocate the views of another as this forum does not exist to promote other forums and views. Rather it is a place to engage in a civil discussion of one's own views. I acknowledge that it is allowed to cite another forum as a point of reference. I do that along with many others. This will continue to be allowed.

From Mike Tucker of Faith for Today: The following is an enhancement of the statement I posted earlier about the passing of Jeff Wood. Jeff Wood, the producer, and co-creator of Lifestyle Magazine, The Evidence, and Mad About Marriage has passed away. Some of you will recognize Jeff as the person who wrote the iconic Adventist song, "Side by Side" which has been sung for Vespers and after-glow settings at academies and colleges for decades. Jeff also produced the video series on "The Sabbath," with Hal Holbrook, and "Hell and Mr. Fudge." Jeff has made a significant impact on Adventism, especially Adventist Media. However, many don't know of Jeff since he much preferred to work behind the scenes. Faith for Today & all the shows we produce has benefitted mightily from Jeff's talents. His contributions will be greatly missed. If I know anything about television and production, it is because of Jeff Wood and Stew Harty, and Stew will tell you that he learned a lot of what he knows from Jeff. But more than that, Jeff was my friend. I truly loved this kind and gentle man. I miss my friend.

The home and property of one of my academy friends has been completely destroyed at Malibu in the Woolsey Wildfire. They lost everything.

The actual damage from the Paradise fires to the homes of SDA members and to denominational property in unknown. The Northern California dos not have accurate information on this, at this time. Therefore, the statement that I make below is tentative and subject to revision as more information comes in: It is believed that six (6) homes of Adventist clergy, may have been destroyed in the Paradise fire, and it could be more. No creditable estimate of the homes of SDA members who may have been destroyed is available. Some denominational property is known to have been destroyed. But, no creditable estimate is available at this time.