Apparent Contradiction that I need help with.

October 3, 2012

October 3, 2012

He does all He does in righteousness and all will bow the knee to that in the end, and yes even Satan.

Na 1:2 ¶ God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

Na 1:3 The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

The thing is, who are His adversaries? All those who oppose Him, Satan, his angels and all men who Satan has enlisted to join him.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

October 3, 2012

The subject of the wrath of God/Character of God is one of the hot button subjects that has been seen bringing out pulsating veins in the temple area or peculiar twitches in the corner of the eye. Occasionally we witness spittle flying out of the mouth due to uncontrollable verbal sputtering. I am not joking, unfortunately.

October 3, 2012

Kevin,

You bring out some very interesting points. I'm quite liberal (yet admittedly a recovering legalist); but you take God's patience and mercy beyond even what I believe (not disagreeing with you; my mind is always open). For example, I agree that everything in Revelation up through Chapter 14 is satan's doing; but Rev. 15:7 -16:21 (7 bowls of God's wrath)appear to be God's doing; and it also appears to only happen to the unsaved. It sure looks like God (or His emissaries)is doing the killing here.

Where I am now, I see two standards of judgement going on:

1. Those who have have accepted the grace (unmarited favor)of God by faith in the righteousness and sacrifice of His Son Jesus will be judged according to the righteousness of Jesus. These people have the assurance of salvation; as their good works are the RESULT of their salvation; not the PREREQUISITE for their salvation.

2. Those who feel that they must work (obey) in order to earn their salvation are putting themselves under the law; and are subject to the blessings and curses of the law as described in Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Somehow, they do not find the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus sufficient for salvation.

I am unsure (at this point in time) about those who have never heard of Jesus or have been deceived by a false gospel. Will they be summarily thrown into the lake of fire upon the second coming, or will God give them an opportunity to meet the "real" Jesus; and make an intelligent decision for or against Him prior to judgement?

October 4, 2012

Hi Doug,

Thanks for your response. I will cover several of your points, but separate them into individual responses, so that threads may develop that are focused on particular concerns. Two points will be addressed in this post.

First, I was responding to the emotionalism that is exhibited on this particular subject. It is sort of like discussing politics and religion with your family. People get irrational. My speaking to this point is to start out by having people consider that this is not an easy subject to deal with and to control themselves in their responses.

Second, coming against the standard paradigm, or any paradigm, is not ad hominem. Even looking into the human/evil psychology behind a false paradigm is not ad hominem. It is against the carnal heart of man, not against A man. We would have to disagree on this. Coming against an individual in name calling, character judgment, attribution of motive, and/or denigrating his personal dislike of Corn Flakes as if that were part of the problem with his argument, is ad hominem. For instance, IF I were to assert that you were too lazy to take the time to do proper study and too stupid to discern the truth even if it snuck up and sank its teeth into your gluteus, and besides all that, the fact that you drive a Ford makes your theology unreliable, then I would probably be engaging in ad hominem nonsense, which does nothing to support my position. It brings us back to the realm of spitting and sputtering.

I hope this clarifies for the readers what is and is not ad hominem.

October 4, 2012

Kevin Straub said: The truth is, far too many who claim to be followers of Jesus have the idea that God asks us not to kill our enemies so that He can do it Himself, instead.

Doug Yowell: Seems only natural given:"Vengence is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.""Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you." "...a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries."/X1000.

Straub response: Yes, the Lord metes vengeance, recompense, and retribution. He exercises wrath, anger and fury. His nostrils blow smoke and his mouth fire--the Bible says so in two instances, 2 Samuel 22:9 and Psalm 18:8. However, when we look at it carefully, turning to Job 41, we see that it is not actually God, but Leviathan, the king of pride, that is the fire dragon:

41:1 Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?...

41:15 [His] scales [are his] pride...

41:20 Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as [out] of a seething pot or caldron.

41:21 His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.

41:34 ...he [is] a king over all the children of pride.

So it is that we need to approach this subject by going line upon line, as humble students having much to learn. We cannot just go to the surface verbiage and assign to God that which properly belongs to the devil or to wicked man. The Hebrew parlance is such that God is depicted as doing that which He allows. The hermeneutical principle of "first mention," when looking into what it means when God "hides His face," reveals the true definition of His anger:

Deut. 31:17 Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God [is] not among us?

31:18 And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.

We can't just glibly gloss over passages and say, "See? There it says so: God kills. Period. End of discussion. The Bible says it, I believe it, and that's that" and by this intend to infer that God exercises direct force from His own hand as an executioner of the sentence against transgression. Inspiration expressly declares that this is NOT the case (see The Great Controversy, 1888 ed., p. 36, par. 2 "God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but he leaves the rejecters of his mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown....The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan.") The-Bible-says-it-I-believe-it mindset, which applies carnal understandings and modalities and which applies external definitions to words, gets us into all sorts of trouble. We have to do a serious "rewind" here and have another view to how we are dealing with the Bible language. Working with the KJV unless otherwise stated, the Bible also says that God:

--creates evil and darkness (Isa. 45:7)

--hardens hearts (Ex. 14:7)

--sends evil spirits (Ps. 78:49)

--puts lying spirits in the mouths of prophets (1 Kings 22:23)

--laughs and mocks in derision at calamity (Ps. 2:4; Prov. 1:26)

--sends delusion (Isa. 66:4; 2 Thess. 2:11)

--gives a man's wives to adulterous activity (2 Sam. 12:11, 12)

We could go on and on. The point here is that while we can come up with a good explanation of all of this and say that it is not actually God doing this but God giving over to outside forces, we then shoot ourselves in the foot and group together an entire set of other instances where we do not apply the same principle but say that in these other instances it is actually God doing it. I have still to hear from top theologians, ministers and teachers of this subject who can provide me with a valid hermeneutic that would demonstrate the Biblical keys to discern which one is which. Our position is that all instances of vengeance, wrath, destruction and termination of life are executed by the same principle of God "hiding His face," or withdrawing to varying degrees. Stated another way, the principle is that of His "giving up" or "giving over," or "sparing not" the individual, the nation, the church, or any other group, to/from the results of rejecting God and implementing modes of operation based upon self. This giving over invariably operates in four realms, which may overlap, and these are:

--wicked self

--wicked others (humans)

--wicked others (demons)

--nature gone to chaos

Now, I do understand that we are not here dealing with God's commands to humans in the use of violence. That is another subject and is covered by five chapters in our book, "As He Is: Issues in the 'Character of God' Controversy" by 4th Angel Publications, TEACH Services, Inc. We can come to that discussion in other posts, if we get that far.

The thing I want everyone to understand is that I am not in this to debate with people who don't beleive they have anything to learn on this subject. I have put in the time and prayer regarding all of these issues and have looked at many of the Bible stories and while I don't have all the answers, I am not here to merely suggest another way to look at God, spending hours dancing with the angels on theological pinheads, but to inform others that this IS the way to look at Him, that the light of present truth on these matters is now coming up, as a matter of that which has been God's purpose to reveal in the final generation. None of this is overconfidence or arrogance, it is simple conviction of the truth, knowing that the reformation would continue and more light would come to God's people and that this is it, as revealed in the teachings, life, death and resurrection of Christ, the Word of God, and the inspired writing of Ellen White. The Great Controversy cannot close without the revelation of His character and this specifically has everything to do with how He deals with disloyalty to His government, rebellion, and sin.

Therefore, if anyone wants to engage in trivial debate, cavilling, and shallow rhetoric, they should stay home. If the best that can be done is to quote "God did it" texts without getting into what these things actually mean or to present them as evidence that God kills and destroys proactively, I am not interested. I am well aware of the standard paradigm and how it operates. I want serious interest in advanced thought and if any believe they have a rock-solid hermeneutic to propose, with regard to a dichotomous God, who on the one hand uses the "giving over" principle, yet on the other hand, rolls up His sleeves and does the "awesome God" thing, with thunder in His footsteps and lighting in His fists, I am interested in hearing how it is formulated. Of course, this all must be done by bringing the Word to bear upon the proposition advanced, as we are not going to admit human opinion. Fair enough?

I would suggest that any true students would request of me (straub@direct.ca) a paper that carefully outlines what it is that I am looking for. It is called "Righteous Evil," and has been distributed to many thought leaders but to date not one has troubled themselves to answer it. I believe that this is because it is unanswerable. The best and only answer I have to date is "I haven't got time." I think that some of the scholars who while their hours away here on these discussion boards have the time. But are they scholars? Ahh, that is the million dollar question, isn't it?

October 4, 2012

Kevin Straub said:

"Jesus is clear. When the disciples thought they would be on-track by calling fire down from God to burn up the Samaritans who refused them hospitality, we are told that He was PAINED at their lack of understanding of God. "The fact is," He told them, "you don't get God at all. Satan is the one who would burn up His enemies. I did not come to kill, but to save." We need to step back and give our head a good shake, realizing that this is truth."

Doug Yowell responded:

"Or perhaps actually examine the Biblical evidence. When Elijah called for fire from heaven it DID burn up those 100 men and their leaders. Hailstones from heaven killed many Amalakites during Joshua's battle. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by two of God's angels with the same fire that Jude says will be used to destroy the wicked.The angel of the Lord killed the firstborn in Egypt,Ananias and Sapphira did fall over dead at Peter's word,ect...ect... "

Kevin replies:

I did give the Biblical evidence, from the standpoint of Christ, Who is the most clear revelation of the Character of God both in word and deed. We have to interpret all things in the light of Christ. So, we begin with the principles and interpret the words accordingly. Jesus gave the principle and I shared it with you. To ignore this and go back to the Bible language depictions in refutation without explaining the apparent dichotomy is not helpful, giving us no ground to advance upon in our discussion. I really want to look at how people are interpreting; upon what evidence they are formulating this hermeneutic for a dual principle of operation in God's dealing with sin and sinners.

Yes, there is the story of Elijah and the fire, and all of the other stories. We can look at instance after instance and never get to the end of it, because we would have to go through the whole Bible and all of its instances of God's destructions and whenever we come to one that we can't show another Bible text or texts that explain what really happened, the standard view will seize upon such as evidence that God destroys proactively. But this is what we would call an "argument from silence" and such is not admissible. In such cases it is usually seen that human opinion rushes into the vacuum. So, instead of being filled with opinion all around, we need to be filled with the Word of God, so that when these vacuums are encountered, it will be the principles of God's Word that will rush in to fill the void of understanding.

There is nothing wrong with looking at instances, but we need to stay away from this trap. It is best to take an instance where the Bible evidence is given, revealing the mechanism behind the "God-did-it" language and derive a principle from it, then taking that principle and applying it over in the instance where the curtain is not drawn aside in revelation, showing the actual mechanism by which wrath was executed. So, it would be my suggestion that we approach it this way. Let's take one instance where God is depicted as doing some destructive thing and where the curtain is drawn aside. The death of Saul is a perfect example.

God killed Saul. The language is straightforward:

1 Chron. 10:14 And inquired not of the LORD: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.

God did it. The Bible says so. But how?

1 Sam. 31:3 And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers.

31:4 Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.

31:5 And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.

31:6 So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.

So, we apply the principle of God hiding His face. God gave Him over. He was given up to the results of rejecting God.

1 Sam. 15:23 For rebellion [is as] the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness [is as] iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from [being] king.

15:24 And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.

15:25 Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD.

15:26 And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.

Now, we take the same principle and apply it in an instance where the mechanism is not revealed. It does not matter whether the earth opened up and swallowed the impenitents (a sinkhole--they happen today, too, just google it and see how in modern times people and cars and buildings fall into them) or whether fire came down or floods of water or otherwise. They are ALL the result of God removing sustenance and/or protection, as a direct honor to the free choice of individuals, towns, nations, churches, etc. In another realm, God gives over for the cause of His witness, as in the case of Job which, interestingly, lost his sheep and servants to the "fire of God" (Job 1:16), remembering that God gave these over to the hand of Satan. It is not always that we can point to common chaotic natural occurences to fulfill instances of God's wrath. Sometimes there is more going on than we can easily explain in naturalistic terms--at least that which occurs under well-known natural phenomenon. God's withdrawal at the atomic level enters into some deeper expositional work, such as the rocks of Elijah's altar going to dissolution. There, we must get into an in-depth discussion of the fires and these are not always the same thing as ordinary fire. We have done some extensive work on this, a little of which is also in our book, "As He Is," chapter 39.

Over.

October 4, 2012

De 32:39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand

1Sa 2:6 The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.

Believe it or not!

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world

October 4, 2012

We have a commandment that tells us to not murder, but God did command the forces of Israel to attack the local people in the holy land. How do we explain this?

The explanation has to do largely with the difference between "murder" and the lawful, moral taking of human life. When we understand the difference, we'll see the impossibility of God's murdering anyone.

It also has to do with the fact that God is not a human being, and the laws of God were written and adapted for humans, not for God. God's hands [his activities] are not tied by laws. God is above law. The only law He obeys is the law of His own Being. He cannot go against Himself. He doesn't have to obey a law that's above Him because no such law exists.

Since God knows the heart and mind of everyone, and since He made everyone alive, He has the right to do with His creation as He sees fit. He doesn't owe us anything. He certainly did not owe us salvation from sin and death. Nor does God owe humans an explanation of why He does what He does. If He gives us an explanation, and if God saves us, it's because of God's graciousness, not because God had to do it.

October 4, 2012

I'm no expert; and I haven't studied this as much as Kevin or some of you have. But what Kevin says makes good sense to me. God is the ultimate Creator of all things; and He is "big enough" to take the ultimate responsibility for all things - good or bad (in our minds) - that are the consequence of His creation. To me, He proved that when He sent Jesus to suffer and die on the cross. In doing so, the Father and Son took responsibility for our sins; and paid the penalty. Didn't He imply that He knew evil would require the death of jesus when He called him the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" in Rev. 13:8?

Good and evil do not exist as separate entities any more than dark and light. Evil is the absence of good, just as dark is the absence of light. When God created things "good", He also by default created the possibility for evil.

When God created mankind with a free will, He by default created the possibility for man to do evil. By His great knowledge and mercy, He made provision to cover for that; and took responsibility for it. God did not choose for Adam and Eve to set the ultimate demise of the universe in motion through their disobedience - Adam and Eve did that themselves. But God took the ultimate responsibility for it; and ultimately He will make all things new; and sin and death will be forever destroyed! At that time, we who are saved will literally live happily ever after!

October 5, 2012

Kevin Straub said:

"Jesus' main mission was to reveal the Father. Jesus said that He did nothing of Himself but whatever He sees the Father doing, this is the same thing that He does (John 5:19). Jesus, when reviled, reviled not again. Jesus taught to turn the other cheek. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8)and God is unchanging (Mal. 3:6). Therefore, God does not sacrifice Himself for His enemies one day but on another day burn them up with molten sulphur on their heads, while injecting His life-sustaining force into them to keep them alive while they suffer consciously on for pre-determined periods of time in penalty for their sins."

Doug Yowell responded:

"Why are these two missions contradictory?"

Kevin responds:

Yes, of course they are contradictory. As explained elsewhere, love is not love unless it is free. The object of unconditional love cannot be coerced by fear of punishment. We have made God out to be One who has given an unspeakable gift in the incarnation of Christ, God stepping down into human form for eternity, and in the holding out of that gift to man has wrapped it up with a threat that He will personally consign to hell or kill us if we do not accept it. This is the height of cognitive dissonance. This bankrupt logic has made Christianity a deserving laughing stock of atheism. It should be as self-evident to the Christian world as it is to the atheist and agnostic that a God of love cannot obtain the loyalty of His subjects by love alone if His government is constituted on the principle of proactive destruction of the treasonous and rebellious. We maintain that God's government is constituted on the twin principles of non-coercion and freedom of choice but this rings extremely hollow when He holds out redemption from second death on the one hand but on the other hand declares that He will torture the so-called free moral agent with liquid fire for choosing to reject Him as Lord and King. Just think about it; I'm sure you will find that what I am saying is obvious. It is the elephant in the room called Seventh-day Adventism. Oh, the Babylonians love their eternal hell-fire. It is a great way to get members in the church. Fear-driven evangelism coupled with a formulaic approach to getting saved by mouthing a Bible text is a sure-fire ticket to becoming a successful "soul-winner." But I am talking about a people who are supposedly a "people of the book." Oh, we have so prided ourselves on our hell. Haven't we all heard it? Spoken with a flair akin to throwing down a trump card on the last trick, "Adventists have a hotter hell than all of 'em. God BURNS 'EM UP!" Well, we have done better because we have the truth about the non-immortality of the soul and we have been able to sort out the difficulties in Bible language with regard to the meaning of "forever." But somehow, while we can Bible-key our way to discerning the temporary nature of hades/sheol, we can't seem to let Scripture interpret the wrath of God. This is very strange to me.

Doug says also:

"Why is it necessary for The Father to prove that He is Good by never actively involving Himself in behalf of the faithful or in being an impartial judge of evil?"

Kevin replies:

First, the Father proved His goodness at the cross and it is there that we derive our fundamental key to interpreting His wrath and the final destruction of the wicked. The Father did not kill Jesus. The burden of sin and withdrawal of the Father from Him resulted in the dissolution of His soul. He applied the same principle as we have been talking about, that of "giving over/up," "sparing not," "hiding His face" (withdrawal/abandonment--Godforsakenness) Let Scripture prove it:

Romans 8:32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all...

Ps. 22:1 ...My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? [why art thou so] far from helping me, [and from] the words of my roaring?

22:2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

22:24 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.

But God did hide His face from Christ and the fire that will burn the wicked unto second death--the fire of the burden of sin with no remedy for it, no Saviour--kindled the agony of soul that bore Him to that same end of hopelessness. [see our paper, "The Ending of the Great Controversy: The Fires" straub@direct.ca]

"...all that He endured--the blood drops that flowed from His head, His hands, His feet, the agony that racked His frame, and the unutterable anguish that filled His soul at the hiding of His Father's face--speaks to each child of humanity, declaring, It is for thee that the Son of God consents to bear this burden of guilt...He, the Sin Bearer, endures the wrath of divine justice, and for thy sake becomes sin itself" (DA755.1).

"Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken of God, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup of human woe" (DA 756.3).

There is much that I could share on all of this, but we must move on. I can't write articles and in-depth studies on a discussion board posting. My point regarding the death of Christ is that what is demonstrated there is instructional to us regarding the death of the finally impenitent. God's judgment and wrath were there manifest in full. The darkness impenetrable that engulfed the cross and the soul-cry of God-forsakenness speaks volumes.

Second, Doug, to assert that we are saying that it is "necessary for The Father to prove that He is Good by never actively involving Himself in behalf of the faithful or in being an impartial judge of evil" is to fail to understand our position. You must listen carefully to what is said and what is not said. God does have an active involvement in behalf of His loyal followers and He is also a perfectly impartial judge of evil and of any who cling to it. His love and wisdom and power are so great that He can do these things without resorting to any violence, ever. We never dispute that He does these things. He destroys. The focal point of all of our contention is "How?" My might or by right? Indeed, He has been so proactive for His children that He poured out all of heaven for them. It is not the threat of punishment that draws men to Him, but His mighty act at the cross. As to judging evil, yes, of course! He will give up all of the wicked to that which they have chosen. They "love death," says Proverb 8:36. They have chosen to separate from God and this can only result in death, for only in Him is life. It is so simple that children understand it. Our kids are not fooled by any of the nonsense in church and sabbath school classes. They have the mechanism of God's wrath "down pat" and they stand for and speak the truth when they are told, "God is cruel in a righteous way" such as was taught last Sabbath in church, when it was asserted that God kills sinners. What a travesty! We MUST stop assassinating His character! The commandment to kill does not apply to God? There is a distinction between murder and just killing? He is above His law? Come ON! Bring the Word! We'll talk more about this in another post.

God does not at last put down the rebellion by force, as if the six-thousand year experiment and later, "Great White Throne Judgment" demonstrations of the horror of sin and rebellion now make it safe for Him to stand as the executioner of the sentence against transgression. If the cross vindicated God and unmasked Satan and his ruling principles for what they are, then why did God not destroy sinners then? Has God an arbitrary time-table, as it is said, "God has a day set for judgment and it will happen on His schedule, not a day early nor a day late?" Doesn't this strike you as a shallow view of the matter? Doesn't it make God out to be the one responsible for the delay of His coming, as it was said by the wicked servant, "My Lord delays His return." We have to own this thing. WE are the ones that have caused the delay. Study the 1888 history. 4th angel had begun to sound. The latter rain was beginning to fall but had to go into remission as God's people stumbled, rejected the message and repeated the history of the Jews. Yes, Adventism parallels their experience, except that it is declared we have done worse than they. Remember, to whom much light is given, much is required. We rejected the Holy Spirit. These are not my words. But that is all another subject, we'll leave it there.

October 5, 2012

We have a commandment that tells us to not murder, but God did command the forces of Israel to attack the local people in the holy land. How do we explain this?

God did order people to be killed

1 Samuel 15:3

(3) Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

We should find out what does the Bible terms as murder

October 5, 2012

We have a commandment that tells us to not murder, but God did command the forces of Israel to attack the local people in the holy land. How do we explain this?

Happens every day.

The state (the US Government) has a law stating that you cannot murder - and yet they order that criminals be executed and that wars be fought where people are killed.

nothing new there when it comes to battle.

I still struggle with the civilian issue though. Just as in the case of the flood - some of the victims are small children that could not possibly have participated in the sins of the parents.

While it is true that God is probably taking them to heaven in that case - it still raises questions about the events in this life not always being fair or pleasant.

in Christ,

Bob

October 6, 2012

Alexmasan started this discussion by saying "We have a commandment that tells us to not murder..." and the implication in the word choice, here, is that running in the background we have the often-touted assertion that the commandment refers to "murder," not "justified taking of life," which assumes that God condones war, (but only for the righteous Americans and their allies--all other armies and forces would be comprised of "murderers") capital punishment, self-defense and maybe even euthanasia. Why, it is almost as if it is beyond question; as though it were a self-evident thing that God condones such killing!

Here is a little study that I started a while back and will share with those who care about this, to bring a little bit of actual exegesis to the table instead of all the paper-thin human philosophy that runs rampant.

It is a common argument that the word for “kill” in the commandment means intentional murder in a strictly illegitimate sense but this word is used also in other applications:

The manslayer in Numbers 35:6 (unintentional killer) is the same word ratsach (H7523) It is also “the slayer,” referring to the same guy, Numbers 35:11, etc.

The Hebrew ratsach means “kill” in a generic sense and in special contexts denotes intentional murder with nefarious motive. The folks who say that the commandment refers only to illegitimate killing with the implication that there is a legitimate killing, reverse this and say it means murder in a general sense and in special contexts denotes an unintentional killing or a termination of life with just cause. The latter can only be realized if it is God who somehow legitimizes it.

Capital punishment for murder is said to be a lawful killing but this does not bear investigation, because the same word--as used in the commandment--refers to both the murderer and the application of justice in the execution of the murderer:

Num 35:30 WhosoH3605 killethH5221 any person,H5315 (H853) the murdererH7523 shall be put to deathH7523 by the mouthH6310 of witnesses:H5707 but oneH259 witnessH5707 shall notH3808 testifyH6030 against any personH5315 to cause him to die.H4191

That there are distinctions between “kill” and “murder” in the Hebrew words is not even remotely accurate. There are many words for kill—11 of them—and they also mean “murder” and oftentimes are used in reference to God’s acts, as in Ex. 20:24, harag, H2026:

Exo 22:24 And my wrathH639 shall wax hot,H2734 and I will killH2026 you with the sword;H2719 and your wivesH802 shall beH1961 widows,H490 and your childrenH1121 fatherless.H3490

Again, H2026, harag, is listed not only under “kill” but also under “murder” in a Strong’s search and God does it: Ex. 13:15:

Exo 13:15 And it came to pass,H1961 whenH3588 PharaohH6547 would hardlyH7185 let us go,H7971 that the LORDH3068 slewH2026 allH3605 the firstbornH1060 in the landH776 of Egypt,H4714 both the firstbornH4480 H1060 of man,H120 and the firstbornH1060 of beast:H929 thereforeH5921 H3651 IH589 sacrificeH2076 to the LORDH3068 allH3605 that openethH6363 the matrix,H7358 being males;H2145 but allH3605 the firstbornH1060 of my childrenH1121 I redeem.H6299

There are two other words listed for “murder” in the Hebrew. We discussed "ratsach," as in the commandment, which is most often translated as “slayer.” There is nothing in the word to make one think there is a justified killing and an illegal killing. These arguments are without basis. The other word is used twice and is used to depict the strong vocalization of the slayer in the act of execution:

H7524

רצח

retsach

reh'-tsakh

From H7523; a crushing; specifically a murder cry: - slaughter, sword.

Psa 42:10 As with a swordH7524 in my bones,H6106 mine enemiesH6887 reproachH2778 me; while they sayH559 dailyH3605 H3117 untoH413 me, WhereH346 is thy God?H430

Eze 21:22 At his right handH3225 wasH1961 the divinationH7081 for Jerusalem,H3389 to appointH7760 captains,H3733 to openH6605 the mouthH6310 in the slaughter,H7524 to lift upH7311 the voiceH6963 with shouting,H8643 to appointH7760 battering ramsH3733 againstH5921 the gates,H8179 to castH8210 a mount,H5550 and to buildH1129 a fort.H1785

To say that we can use the Hebrew to build a case for justified killing is nonsense. The reasoning holds no water. At the end of the day the only honest argument they can make is that when God does it or commands it, it is justified and cannot be categorized as “murder;” therefore it is righteous killing. They take this manmade distinction and read it back into the commandment. It is a circular argument, isn't it? This has become part of established theology because it is often repeated by teachers like Doug Batchelor, whom very few would ever think to question. It is not a sin to dust off the concordance or fire up the Bible software and study to show ourselvews approved; to be as good Bereans to see if these things are so. There is an agenda at work. The great controversy is in it and Adventists have been unwitting dupes and have stalled the reformation by succumbing to their own tradition on how God deals with sin and sinners.

So, the Hebrew offers no defense for the position that there is any distinction between "kill" and "murder," therefore we have only the context to determine that there are instances where apparently God kills and so there must be righteous killing. We don't think to question the language or look deeper than the surface. We just glibly quip that annoying little ditty, "God said it, I believe it" without applying any uncommon sense to the matter and asking some legitimate questions. So, if the language is to depict a killing God who does it by His own hand, by proactive exercise of powers or by fiat utterance of His word, why stop with only the sixth commandment? Why not the seventh, too? We can use the Bible language to determine that when God does or commands it, it is legitimate:

2 Sam. 12:11 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give [them] unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.

Or how about the ninth? By the same token, when lying is done with the wrong motive, it is wrong, but when God does it or commands it, it is justified:

1 Kings 22:20 And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner.

22:21 And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him.

22:22 And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade [him], and prevail also: go forth, and do so.

22:23 Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.

So, "John317," you have advanced your opinion which is rooted in the standard and errant paradigm that there is a "...difference between 'murder' and the lawful, moral taking of human life" and that "when we understand the difference, we'll see the impossibility of God's murdering anyone." This has been answered. But you go on to say something outrageous, that most folks in the standard paradigm would not go so far to say, which is that "God is above law," is a law unto Himself in that "the only law He obeys is the law of His own Being." Do we really need to go into this? God is not above His law! Where would you ever get such a notion. Bring the Word! Rather, the law is a transcript of His character.

"Christ came to our world to represent the character of God as it is represented in His holy law, for His law is a transcript of His character. Christ was both the law and the gospel..."(CTr 339.2).

God and His law are both eternal and the law has eternally governed the kingdom. Therefore, there has never been a time when there was no law or when God acted above His law.

"They will have the effectual protection of His ever-loving care as long as they take their position on the side of God and His law, which ever has governed, and ever will govern, His kingdom.—Manuscript 42, 1900" (CTr 56.7).

To say that God can act above His law is entirely invalid, because sin is defined as the transgression of the law. God does not sin. For instance, the Scripture says that God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19). Remember that Christ came to show perfect law-keeping. Did He ever act "above the law?" Is He our example? Is He writing the law in our hearts by the regenerating power of His Spirit? Does this not lead to the re-creation of us in the image of God? Would we also, therefore, be "above law?" There are so many ways to come against your statements with the Word of God. It was Satan who said that God made up a law to keep us down so that we wouldn't rise up to challenge His position, that He was holding out on us. It was advanced by that deceiver that there is innate righteousness in the heart and that following our own way would be a more exalted state. He invited us to be a law unto ourselves, where the only law we need to obey is the "law of our own Being," as in the New Age philosophy that we are all God. Do you see some of the insidious deception that lies in your theology? I hope so. I invite you to pray and study and come back and tell us something better.

I am sorry, John317, I don't know anything about you but it is not necessary that I do, for I am dealing purely with words posted on an internet discussion board. I don't really care who you are. We are in the realm of ideology/theology. So please don't take anything to be a personal swipe.

One more point and I'm done with this post.

Another of your fundamentally flawed assertions is that God does not "owe humans an explanation of why He does what He does." That is not what God says. First, God sent Jesus to give us the full picture of Who He Is. That is why Jesus said that He and the Father are One and that whatever the Father does is what He does. He is the express image of the Father's character. I shouldn't have to pull in a string of texts and quotes for this as any Adventist should know it well. Further, God says that He wants us to reason together. He also says that before He does something, He lets us know, and that He reveals His secrets to His servants the prophets.

People who post in a forum that purposes to be a theological discussion should do better than this. Yes, this is a mild chastising. Bring the Word.

October 6, 2012

Hi Doug,

First, I was responding to the emotionalism that is exhibited on this particular subject. It is sort of like discussing politics and religion with your family. People get irrational. My speaking to this point is to start out by having people consider that this is not an easy subject to deal with and to control themselves in their responses.

October 6, 2012

To say that we can use the Hebrew to build a case for justified killing is nonsense. The reasoning holds no water. At the end of the day the only honest argument they can make is that when God does it or commands it, it is justified and cannot be categorized as murder; therefore it is righteous killing. They take this manmade distinction and read it back into the commandment. It is a circular argument, isn't it?

October 6, 2012

I can build my case based upon the evidence and have my observations all at the same time. I have seen it many times. The carnal heart is displayed in a desire for revenge--sinful revenge, not the vengeance with which God repays. The carnal modality operates transparently; it is displayed in emotional reaction during discussions and it is right there in the theology as we can read it in various publications. This is why I brought in the evidences which you claimed was information already well known. You may know these things, but it is likely that many others are not as aware.

I would like to get away from opining on how it is we are talking, whether it is ad hominem or not. I do not believe I have employed the mechanism, you do. Fair enough. We are free to have our opinions. So, we leave it there. Let's go on to discussing what the Word actually says on all these things.

Coming back to God's vengeance and His claim that He will repay, we must be careful not to confuse our carnal desire for revenge with God's vengeance. The two have nothing to do with each other.

"For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (James 1:20).

"For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8,9).

Defenders of the traditional view seem to enjoy quoting Romans 12:19:

"Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."

They would have us buy into the concept that we are to refrain from roasting our enemies because He is going to do it. But we only need to read the very next two verses, which say it ALL:

"Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (vv. 20-21).

Remember, when the disciples wanted to roast their enemies, Jesus told them this was not the right spirit. Therefore it was not His Spirit. Whose, then?

"But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save [them]" (Luke 9:55, 56).

"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have [it] more abundantly" (John 10:10).

Jesus taught that we are to treat our enemies as He does.

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust....

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Ma. 5:43-45, 48).

We are not instructed by Christ to exercise love for our enemies to a point, and then roast them. Neither does God do such a thing and our characters are to be perfected after the Divine Pattern. Therefore, we are to forbear unto "Seventy times Seven." What Jesus was alluding to when He said this to Peter, was the 490 years out of Daniel's 2300 day prophecy, which would end with His atoning sacrifice on the cross, where He prayed, "Father, forgive them." Peter didn't get it for some time. In Gethsemane, he hacked off the enemy's ear with his sword. Jesus told him to put the sword away, because it is the way of death for everyone involved.

Someone will say, at this point, that Christ the Lamb comes as the Lion, "in flaming fire taking vengeance" upon His enemies, punishing them "with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power," and that it is "a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you" (2 Thess. 1:6-9).

It is true that does all these things. The one who is called called Faithful and True" comes on the white horse to "judge and make war." But He does it only in righteousness. (Rev. 19:11). The blood of the wicked is not on His hands, it is on the beast power and the principles by which it functions.

"And IN HER was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of ALL that were slain upon the earth" (Rev. 18:24, emphasis supplied).

I cannot go any further in unpacking this, here, but it becomes rather obvious that when Christ comes, the wicked are not destroyed by proactive measure or purpose of God to kill them. They run from His presence and call for the rocks to fall on them. The meaning of the words, "they are destroyed by the brightness of His coming" has not to do with a radioactive blast or any such thing, but with their rejection of the Source of Life and finding themselves honored in their choice and cut off from the Source.

"But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death" (Prov. 8:36).

October 7, 2012

Coming back to God's vengeance and His claim that He will repay, we must be careful not to confuse our carnal desire for revenge with God's vengeance. The two have nothing to do with each other.

October 10, 2012

Kevin Straub said:

"Coming back to God's vengeance and His claim that He will repay, we must be careful not to confuse our carnal desire for revenge with God's vengeance. The two have nothing to do with each other."

Doug Yowell responds:

"On this we agree but it is you that keeps intertwining the action(the hands on execution of the death penalty) with the sinful desire to unrighteously do it that springs from man's sinful nature."

Kevin replies:

Yes, I do. Or, more accurately, "hands-on execution" of a death penalty is in itself a function of unrighteous governance. I don't see any other conclusion than this. James 1:20 says the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. (I do understand the need for civil laws which are arbitrary codes that allow freedom on condition of obedience and that punish lawbreakers. All of man's legal systems and laws to govern conduct are "ordained of God" only through paradigm of "permissive will," because man has rejected God as his head, therefore he now needs something in place, self-governance at a societal and institutional level, in order to prevent an extremely fast-forward to extinction. This is not a discussion of the death penalty, per se, but of God being the executioner of the "death penalty." This penalty exists, but it is not something God made up. It is natural law. When you break an electric circuit, work cannot be done. When we remove God entirely, we cannot live, it is as simple as that. God didn't sit down and write up a really good law one day and then decide that it needed punishment built in for non-compliance! In other words, He didn't plant a garden, put a "do not trespass" sign on it, and then lace it with landmines to keep the neighborhood boys from raiding it at night.) The ways of God are not the ways of men. The wrath of man is nothing at all like the wrath of God. God's wrath is well defined in Scripture as the hiding of His face, according to law of first mention:

"Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God [is] not among us?

And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods" (Deut. 31:17, 18).

Jesus clearly laid down the principle of how God deals with His enemies and that is to turn the other cheek. Love works no ill towards neighbors and is the fulfilling of the law (Rom. 13:10). Jesus defined who the neighbor is in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29, etc.). Our neighbor is our enemy. There is nothing in the parable about smiting the enemy. God smites, yes, the Bible states it as such, but this is not done the way man does it. This is Biblical language and to read it wrongly is to justify every atheist out there who points out the horror of the God of the Bible, as one who does all of this cruel stuff and will in the end burn up His enemies and yet commands men everywhere to repent and love Him out of a pure heart free from fear of punishment, with a response of the love of God indwelling in the heart by the Spirit. As someone recently wrote, "Spare me a God like that." It just doesn't add up, Doug, no matter how hard you try and build the case. At the end of the day, it makes sheer nonsense out of the Bible to present a God who creates darkness (Isa. 45:7) and in whom there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). The agnostics and skeptics have a heydey with all of this stuff and their products make the Bible look like utter nonsense and foolishness. They are simply quoting it, back and forth. In fact, I have created a lecture in two one-hour parts, that give an introduction to the extreme duality (read "contradiction") that is apparently presented as the character of the God of the Bible. That is, unless we take a third set of Bible references to give us the keys to interpret and harmonize the apparent dichotomy. In the end, we find that there is a "language of wrath," in that God exerts judgment, recompense and punishment by the mechanism of giving over to errant choice within a government constituted upon free will. It isn't difficult to read the Bible once we understand all of this and then we truly have a God that "changes not." In other words, He doesn't exert proactive violence to execute righteous judgment in one instance, and "give over" to the cause and effect results of sin, in another. All of God's judgments are righteousness, and mercy, and love, in the context of liberty and freedom of choice.

Love, in order to be love, must be free. Don't ever forget this. May it ring in your ears every time you preach a proactively-destroying God. What this means is that it is true, just as we all preach, that God's government is constitued in non-coercion and freedom of choice. However, many of us are finding that this is irreconcilable with the notion that the very one who grants such freedoms will be the same one who kills those who reject His government and that He will do so in a most miserable fashion, with burning liquid sulfur and lava, while keeping nerves alive and consciousness functioning. For many days the physical suffering is maintained, in the case of some, we are told. But when we understand what the fires are, that the suffering that is sustained is the rigors of the "coming to terms" in the last part of the sequence of the Great White Throne judgment, we will understand that it does not come from God but from the reality of reckoning the final accounts of the truth about God, where and in whom only life is found. It will be fully realized that life is not found outside of Him and the time has come to settle those accounts. God's strange act is not His pouring out torture that ends in death, but in the giving over to the final choice and withdrawing His life force from them. This is not God killing them; it is Him letting them go after full and final demonstration of seared conscience and desire to have their death. They have chosen death in their earthly lives. Now is the time when they themselves execute their own sentence. They will declare the righteousness of God, not in that He will kill them, but rather in giving them up to their choice.

"Say unto them, [As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Eze. 33:11).

The will to die is on the part of the wicked. This will be made utterly manifest in the closing scenes at the GWT judgment. It is suicide, there is no doubt about it. They unplug from God by choice and their light goes out. (This is demonstrated by the living wicked at the second coming, who call for the rocks to fall on them to hide them from the face of Christ. Is He killing them?) But coming to that moment is hell. I have produced a major paper on all of this, entitled "The Ending of the Great Controversy: The Fires," which can be sent by request, straub@direct.ca and which will be incorporated into an upcoming book, "God's Stand toward the Sinner."

God's "strange act" is the giving over, not Him taking up weapons of mass destruction! Study will bear this out and we can look at it if you like.

Love cannot be rendered in an environment such as I have described above, wherein the One who proposes an eternal bond of love, as symbolized by the marriage union, will be the One who annihilates the intended bride by personal execution if she does not respond positively to the overtures of her suitor. This is what the standard paradigm is asking us to believe and I cannot accept it by any stretch of the imagination. I will, by God's grace, strive to take down this view of God so long as I have breath in my mouth.

At the end of the experiment in rebellion, it will be necessary that all minds have been satisfied that God does not rule by arbitrary force. If onlooking minds, at the end of the GWT showdown, were to witness God burning up His enemies at, last, they would not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Satan's claims didn't have some truth to them and the seeds for another rebellion would remain. It would not be so sure, even in the minds of angels, whether the newcomers--the redeemed--would be safe to have around, that there wasn't some element of fear that played into their choice to be on the "good side" of God. Look carefully at 1 John 4:18:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment ["has to do with punishment" NIV]. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."

It is very clear that when there is any fear of punishment remaining in the picture, in the relationship to God, the same cannot produce a union of love. The removal of this "fear of punishment" is part of the sealing work of God through Christ and by the Holy Spirit.

Sin destroys, not God! If we have a God that must at last put down the rebellion by His own hand, i.e., by the exercise of arbitrary force (meaning that He chooses the time and means of destruction, rather than handing over to natural cause and effect) then we have a situation where the nature of sin remains nebulous, as if it were not really to result in death except that God made sure of it. It is to validate Satan's claim that we can be our own gods. "Follow your heart," "Do as thou wilt, this is the whole of the law," "Thou shalt not surely die." In all of this Satan teaches that we can have sin and live in it. How has Satan solved the obvious problem that we actually do die? Well, by teaching that we actually don't die! He says we go on as disembodied spirits.

"The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23a).

God does not pay those wages except in one sense: He took the penalty, the wages, upon Himself, in order that we might have

"the gift of God [which is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:23b).

Perhaps this all took too many words to unravel, but I have to make it clear that there is no way that God can be the executioner of the sentence against transgression. Such methods are those of the world and its kingdoms, which are predicated upon the hope of rewards and the fear of punishments. There are no carnal weapons in God' government:

"Earthly kingdoms are established and upheld by physical force, but this was not to be the foundation of the Messiah's kingdom. In the establishment of his government no carnal weapons were to be used, no coercion practised; no attempt would be made to force the consciences of men. These are the principles used by the prince of darkness for the government of his kingdom" (Review and Herald, August 18, 1896 par. 2)

"Rebellion was not to be overcome by force. Compelling power is found only under Satan's government. The Lord's principles are not of this order. His authority rests upon goodness, mercy, and love; and the presentation of these principles is the means to be used. God's government is moral, and truth and love are to be the prevailing power" (Desire of Ages, p. 759, par.1).

"Prevailing," in the sense that love is the power that wins, NOT in the sense that it is one way God that God contends for His kingdom in contrast to compelling power as another! Raining down fire from His own hand is compelling power! Therefore, it has to be that even in the destruction of the wicked it is "truth and love" that prevails, not compelling power. Even here, it cannot be that God cuts anyone short, but the ultimate realization of truth is manifest and this, in itself, brings the wicked to their end. When we study this thing out, we find that the burning is all about the realization of the truth of sin and bearing its full burden upon the soul, the psyche. We can show some of this, if you like.

So, to bring it around, any execution of the transgressor by the lawmaker taking proactive measure is in accordance with the carnal heart, the ways and methods of men's kingdoms and laws. LOVE is the prevailing power, NOT compulsion. A system of governance that has built into it a death penalty for treason or non-compliance, which is to be executed by that government, is a rule of compulsion. It is tyranny, even if it is entirely benevolent to its willing subjects (but how willing were they?) Therefore, to attribute such a government to God is to anthropomorphize God in the arena of judgment, wrath, and punishment. But Jesus said that His kingdom was not of this world, else His servants would fight (John 18:36).

Before I close this response, I want to bring in some verbiage from the SdA lesson quarterly, Sep. 12, 2012:

"Many people are uncomfortable with the language of these verses. [in 2 Thes. 1] They feel that “pay back” (NIV), vengeance, punishment, and the infliction of suffering are unworthy of a God of love, grace, and mercy. But just punishment and retribution is a frequent theme of

Paul’s (Rom. 2:5, 12:19). Paul is unequivocal: God’s justice will one day be powerfully made manifest.

And why not? Any good government in today’s world must at

some point exercise force in order to restrain evil. Though force is not always violent (as when you are stopped for a traffic violation or audited for your taxes), in some cases, especially when the criminals are using violence themselves, they must be answered with violence. Good governments provide a necessary restraint so that we can all live together in peace. Many times outright evil will not give way voluntarily. And the greater the power and brutality of evil, the greater the force often needed to undo that evil.

The images in this passage are not pretty, but they assure us that God will do whatever it takes to end violence and oppression" (p. 129).

All of the above flies directly in the face of what the Scriptures teach. Doing "whatever it takes" even if it means breaking the law to uphold the law, is pure pragmatism and God is not an "end-justifies-the-means" type of God. When God says that His ways are not our ways and that the wrath of man is not the way God's wrath works, we have to accept that and come into the Scriptures with a new view. We have to apply the witness of Jesus to give us the right picture of God and we must appeal to the code that is given in the Scriptures to interpret wrath, which is the hiding of His face, and even that is not arbitrary. God does not just decide He's had enough and will now withdraw. His strange act of withdrawal occurs when He is pushed away. As in the case of the antediluvian world:

"Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?

Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood:

Which said unto God, DEPART FROM US: and what can the Almighty do for them?" (Job 22:15-17).

"For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.

In a little wrath I HID MY FACE FROM THEE for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.

For THIS [iS AS] THE WATERS OF NOAH unto me: for [as] I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee" (Isa. 54:7-9).

Doug, there was a time when we were ignorant of these things, but we are now called to accountability. He calls us to repentance. We cannot any longer present God as one who kills His enemies. We must tell the truth about God.

"...thou thoughtest that I was altogether [such an one] as thyself: [but] I will reprove thee, and set [them] in order before thine eyes" (Ps. 50:21).

October 11, 2012

Kevin Straub said:

"Defenders of the traditional view seem to enjoy quoting Romans 12:19:

"Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."

They would have us buy into the concept that we are to refrain from roasting our enemies because He is going to do it. But we only need to read the very next two verses, which say it ALL:

"Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (vv. 20-21)."

Doug Yowell responded:

"Actually, those two verses don't say it all, they say what needs to be said for the current situation.Perhaps this is the basis of your misapplication of the whole of the Bible. If they were to be applied literally forever: 1)sin would never cease to exist (which could not be said about righteousness) for God would be forever obligated to treat it with the kindness and forever allow it to mistreat the righteous. 2)Sin would eventually be eliminated by God's goodness and all evil would be forever be converted to righteousness."

Kevin Straub replies:

What is the situation but that of a rebellious race? The context must ever be kept in "big picture" mode and that is the theme of the great controversy. As we back up and take this view, we see a God who has repaid our evil--every one of us--with His goodness and this applies not only to the "current situation" in the context of Romans 12, but to every situation, in every time and every place under this experiment in rebellion. If it does not apply also in other times and situations, then we do not have a God that is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We do not then have a God that "changes not." To claim that God acts and therefore teaches by His actions in one place to turn the other cheek and return good for evil but in another time and place would kill one's enemies, is to have a changeable God that acts according to situation and not according to unchanging principle. We are talking of the principle of love, which does not return evil for evil. Jesus taught it over and again. Love blesses the hater.

In the case of the book of Romans, Paul opens up his discourse in chapter one with the assertion that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes (v. 16). God's power is exerted for the purpose of salvation, not destruction. This is affirmed in Christ, who said He came to save, not to destroy. These are simple lessons of truth from the Scriptures if we will only open our eyes to see them. We have to stop going, "Yes, but, yes but...it says that God will destroy, it says that God will punish, etc." Yes it says these things, but it is the HOW that we are dealing with. God does not do these things according to man's methods and modes of punishing and destroying!

Back to Romans 1, we see there also that God defines His wrath, AGAIN, as giving over to the results of free choice. We see it in vv. 24, 26, and 28. "For the wrath of God is revealed..." (v. 18)

v. 24: Wherefore God also gave them up...

v. 26: For this cause God gave them up...

v. 28: God gave them over...

Hosea 11:8 says: "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? [how] shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? [how] shall I set thee as Zeboim?" God gave up those cities of the plains to that which was poised for destruction. Traditional thought has it that God manufactured arbitrary fire from His hand and rained upon them, but it is time to abandon this caricature. It is gross darkness, a misapprehension of God. Those cities were sitting on a huge geological time-bomb, as evident today in the great asphalt deposits in the local underground, and God could no longer keep His protective hand on them and had to withdraw because of their great rejection of Him. He knew that He could not in righteousness force His presence through the restraining angels and that when they were called away, all of that built up geological pressure would release.

That Lot's wife was was turned to a pillar of salt is not an arbitrary action of God as Divine Alchemist, converting the materials of her body from one set of compounds to another. (Please! This is fairy tale stuff, like the White Witch of Narnia turning her enemies to stone.) Remember how the angels had to hasten the Lot family out of the city. They delayed far too long. It is likely that by their lingering and then her own, as she cast all those backward glances, pining for all that she was leaving behind, that she remained inside the zone of fallout and got buried by a big blob of hot mineral material. There have been similar occurences of hot eruptions that incinerate entire areas. You can read about one of these in our book, "As He Is."

Okay, so Paul in Romans speaks of God's wrath as "giving up" or "giving over." We see also the term "sparing not." This applies to the death of Christ on the cross, also. God "gave Him up" for us all. God "spared not" His son. His wrath, His sword, was executed upon the Son. God did not kill Jesus. Sin did.

Moving on...

Doug, you maintain that if the principle of loving ones enemies, of overcoming evil with good, were not "to be applied literally forever" then "sin would never cease to exist (which could not be said about righteousness) for God would be forever obligated to treat it with the kindness and forever allow it to mistreat the righteous."

This is an astonishing statement that you make but it is good that you showcase where the standard paradigm of God's character leads. You are clearly saying that the principles as taught by Jesus in the Matthew 5 discourse cannot be universal and eternal but apply only in a certain set of circumstances. The implication should not be lost on the reader: IF GOD DID NOT RISE UP TO FINALLY KILL THE REBELS HIMSELF, SIN WOULD PERPETUATE FOREVER. Do we really want to say this? That is the logical conclusion of the view of God's Character as such a one as must proactively destroy His enemies. It makes Satan's assertions valid, in that we can live our own way, apart from God. We don't need His laws, goes the Luciferian philosophy, we have an inner sense of guidance that will lead us aright. However, if that is true, the next logical step is that if we do cease to exist, it is because God will wipe us out. "God is jealous for His authority," says the archdeceiver, "He knows that in the day that you realize who you are, you will be like Him. He can't have that. He is keeping you down. You can do your own thing. You won't die."

So, in staking the claim that overcoming evil with good is not enough, not "to be applied literally forever," that it "would never cease to exist," then you are saying that sin, in fact, is NOT the power of death by its inherent nature and therefore in direct contradiction to the testimony of Scripture:

"The sting of death [is] sin; and the strength of sin [is] the law" (1 Cor. 15:56).

"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil... "(Heb. 2:14).

"He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8).

We can go forward into some deep discussion at this point regarding how sin is destroyed by God. God and His Christ do not destroy the devil or his works by the compelling power of force of arms of any kind. It is all done by the prevailing power of love and truth (Desire of Ages, p. 759, par. 1). Remember that "death and hell" are cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14) and this is the second death. This is all about ideologies and the pitting of Satan's lies against the truth of God. It all has to do with God's character, government, and law and the principles of agape love over and against that of self-governance, separate from God. The latter is a chimera--it doesn't exist in reality, because in God alone do we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). All of this is realized in Christ, of course, but it plays out in the final drama of the last generation (especially seen at the drying up of the Euphrates) and by all humanity, including those who died earlier and did not see the battle of Armageddon, at the Great White Throne judgment at the end of the millenium.

Sin only exists during this time of probation because of the grace of God and the hold that He has put upon the winds of destruction, in order that the principles of the two governments might play out to the full. This is the truth about "legal justification," or "forensic justification" which the evangelical liberals and historic conservatives continually debate. Yes, salvation was obtained for every man, even though not every man is undergoing the cleansing from sin through entering into the experience of the abiding Christ. How these can still live and not flash out of existence is what we are viewing, here. Christ died for us "while we were yet sinners." This is to say that under ordinary circumstances, we would instantly "vaporize." The reason we do not is because Christ stands in the gap. E. J. Waggoner says:

"This probationary life is given us for the purpose of giving us a chance to acknowledge Him as Father and to become sons indeed. But, unless we come back to Him, we shall die as slaves of sin."

This is an extrememly important clarification that must always accompany our preaching of universal justification. But I am not bringing this in to go into a discussion of righteousness by faith and its counterfeit. What I am trying to state is that sin is not viable. It cannot go on but has in itself the seeds of destruction. God is going to let it go in the end, to its natural conclusion. He does not have to step in and cut it short by the use of weapons of mass destruction. God is only and ever a Creator and Lifegiver. Satan alone is the destroyer and it is by the principles of His kingdom that death will come, because those principles cease from God and only in God is there life.

"Satan is the destroyer; the Lord is the Restorer" (Christ Triumphant, p. 239, par. 2).

This is the theme of the great controversy and this sentiment is repeated 22 times in the books and articles of Ellen White.

In God's universe, there is no place for sin. It cannot exist in the presence of righteousness, which will be everywhere and in every heart, because there will no longer be a single mind that will give heed to any suggestion that runs contrary to God's ways. As the last wicked person and wicked angel gives way to the bankruptcy of the ways of sins, it will be found that there will be "no place found" for Satan and his philosophies. Satan himself will be the last one standing and will look around him and see himself alone. At that point, he gives up and God gives him up. God will then be all in all. Sin cannot exist in this universal righteousness, any more than darkness can exist when a light is on. Simple truths, but so hard for our darkened minds to grasp. It is so hard for us to escape the literal human understanding of the Bible language. In fact, Satan counts on it. He hides behind it, himself. Look at this:

"The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;” “for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.” [Hosea 13:9; 14:1.] Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work. By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them, and Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will. The horrible cruelties enacted in the destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of Satan's vindictive power over those who yield to his control" (The Great Controversy, p.36, par.1).

Notice that the Jews' "sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God." This refers not only to representations by various philosophers and theologians throughout time but to the very representations in the language of the Scriptures themselves, for it is in both realms "that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work."

Not until all the evidence is presented will God let everything go to the final dissolution which is called "the fire of fervent heat," "the lake of fire," "the fire from the midst." This is the last of the fires (there are three) which is a total matter-to-energy conversion of all that has been marred by sin. All living beings that consume into this smoke-the smoke of their torment which rises "forever and ever" have undergone already the fire unquenchable and have perished by it. This last fire is a grand withdrawal of God's presence from the material itself and it is gone. The new creation will be as the first, "ex nihilo." As God was not dependent on any pre-existing material the first time, neither will He require a starting lump of clay to re-fashion the world, much less a lump that is recycled from sin. As His Word brought all things into existence, the cessation of His Word takes it out. The Word will again go forth, "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5).

This fish has run out a lot of line here, but to reel it back in I will remind you that we are talking about the nature of sin having in it the inherent seed of death and it does not require the Creator's hand wielding a weapon of destruction to end it. Sin has a terminator gene. It is entropic, de-evolutionary. Even without God laying a finger on anyone, this world is doomed to destruction all on its own. Look around you and do you see anything getting better? Are new species coming back into existence again? Is the water getting purer? The air? Are there less storms and earthquakes every year? Are we eradicating diseases? Are we learning to share and cooperate and stop warring with each other? You get the point. This is a dying planet. Left to its own, there would be no life left on the earth except that of Satan and his demons. I don't know if they would go on, either, except that the Lord sustain them. It is His life that keeps them operating, you know. They are not gods.

To say that God will and must be the one to end sin and sinners along with it, is to say that a governance under the principles of self-interest and self-exaltation is a valid alternative to existence and that if He did not employ force to end it "sin would never cease to exist." You can enlighten us if that is not what you intended to say and please bring the Word that would show us that should God not interfere with the employment of infernal warfare, sin would go on forever.

Alright, then. The next point of contention you raise is that if the principle of loving ones enemies, of overcoming evil with good, were not "to be applied literally forever" then "Sin would eventually be eliminated by God's goodness and all evil would be forever be converted to righteousness."

I am not sure why you would make this logical leap. It is not found in either the standard paradigm or in the advancing light of reformation, these "new views...of the character and attributes of God" (Fundamentals of Christian Education, p. 444, par. 2). You are alluding to universalism and this is a common charge laid upon the doorstep of the teachers of the Character of God. It is a bit of a nuisance doctrine because there are in fact CoG people that hold it and teach it. This is a false CoG message. Satan has a number of them and they are decoys to bring reproach upon the field of study, so that folks will come to the subject with "a little learning" and throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. But my advice is this:

“A little learning is a dangerous

thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian

spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.”

--Alexander Pope

The reality of the matter is that sin will "eventually be eliminated by God's goodness" but NOT that all evil will "be forever be converted to righteousness." Sin will be eliminated by righteousness filling all the universe and there will be no place found anymore for Satan or any of his followers or any of the philosophies of his operating system. The complete unmasking of the idea that there can be any existence based upon principles of self-centeredness brings an end to the idea and to all who hold it. The wicked will know that their choice to live without God and apart from His law is an impossibility. They will also know that they do not want God and His law. They want life, but they want it on their own terms. They know that they have no repentance, nor do they want repentance. They have to process all of this down to the inevitable. They at last realize there is no way out, that it is all over and they voluntary give over to the consequences of the drinking of the wine of Babylon as God at the same time gives them over to it.

"For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, [so] shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been" (Obadiah 1:16).

October 11, 2012

Kevin Straub said:

"Remember, when the disciples wanted to roast their enemies, Jesus told them this was not the right spirit. Therefore it was not His Spirit. Whose, then?

'But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save [them]' (Luke 9:55, 56).

'The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have [it] more abundantly' (John 10:10)."

Doug Yowell responded:

"Eccl. 3 is a good reminder of how God thinks and acts, a model of wisdom and righteousness for humanity."To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun." Jesus mission was to provide a model of God's intentions and motives.He was to show how much God loves those He wishes to save and how His basic nature springs to action to that end. One of the missions of the HOly Spirit after Jesus return to heaven is to warn mankind of the impending judgment which awaits those who reject His love. This occurs after the second resurrection. Jesus also warned those whom He ministered to about that third part of His earthly mission in Matt.25"

Kevin Straub replies:

Solomon is not the best revelation of how God thinks and acts. Jesus Christ is. Solomon was a polygamist and even an idolater because of taking heathen wives into his bosom. I would not be making any primary appeal to Eccl. 3 to support the idea that God ends the rebellion by proactive application of killing force. Remember, there was a time of ignorance at which God winked, but now commands us to repentance. This has not only to do with polygamy, divorce and slavery, but with also the understanding of His character. We should take some time going over some thoughts from COL 415 and thereabouts. Go read those pages.

Yes, Jesus' mission was to model the intentions and motives of God. Well said. I would add also, that His example also relayed for us the method by which God destroys sinners. We look to the cross, to see it modelled in His own death. It was the burden of sin that killed Him, as it caused Him to die alone and God-forsaken.

"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" THE WRATH OF GOD FELL UPON CHRIST. This was the HIDING OF THE FATHER'S COUNTENANCE. Tho innocent, Christ was treated as a sinner, that through His merits sinners, tho guilty, might be treated as the loyal and obedient children of God. Christ died with the sins of the world imputed to Him, that His righteousness might be imputed to the sinner. WHEN THE SENSE OF THE LOSS OF HIS FATHER'S FAVOR WAS WITHDRAWN, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup of bitterness" (Signs of the Times, April 14, 1898 par. 9, emphasis added).

We also see it modelled in the prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and in the unfolding of that event. Christ said,

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [thou] that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under [her] wings, and ye would not!

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" (Matt. 23:37, 38).

God did not destroy Jerusalem. He gave them over to the Roman army under Titus in A. D. 70. Yet, inspiration declares that "Angels of God were sent to do the work of destruction, so that one stone was not left one upon another that was not thrown down (MS 35, 1906)" (Bible Commentary, Vol. 5, p. 1098, par. 7). The historical account reveals a soldiery in frenzy razed the temple and the city with such a fury that not even Titus himself could mitigate. Jesus Himself said that it would be the work of their enemies, Luke 19:42-44. (I will not here launch into a discourse on how angels of God destroy, as that is yet another study. But we can do that elsewhere, if you like.) The point is that God gave Jerusalem over. They were left without protection from the destroyer. Their fate is a type of the fate of the wicked:

"The Saviour's prophecy concerning the visitation of judgments upon Jerusalem is to have another fulfillment, of which that terrible desolation was but a faint shadow. In the fate of the chosen city we may behold the doom of a world that has rejected God's mercy and trampled upon His law.... a scene yet darker is presented in the revelations of the future.... that day when the restraining Spirit of God shall be wholly withdrawn from the wicked, no longer to hold in check the outburst of human passion and satanic wrath! The world will then behold, as never before, the results of Satan's rule" (The Great Controversy, p. 36, par. 2).

Did you know that the destruction of Jerusalem was by the brightness of His coming? We can talk about that. Yes, there is a chapter in our book, "As He Is"... ;-)

You tell us about one of the roles of the Holy Spirit being that of warning of judgment upon those who reject His love and that that this occurs at the second resurrection. We have no contention with this. We must only understand the nature of that judgment. It is the time when all accounts are settled and the wicked are given over to the results of transgression. They receive the wages of sin which is death. But this does not mean that God kills them. He kills them no more than the desert dweller who leaves the springs of water at the oasis would be followed by the water and killed by it. The water gives life and the desert dweller left it behind. The result is obvious.

There is an aspect to judgment that we must understand better and that is that God is judged. All are given a role in it, including the wicked, thus the declaration of His righteousness at the bending of every knee.

"yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged" (Rom. 3:4).

This is the hour of God's judgment, when all matters pertaining to His Character, law and government are brought under the closest scrutiny. It all culminates at the end of the millenium where it must be played out in full. The very drama of the end of the wicked will reveal the righteousness of God in contrast to the revelation of the full effect or consequence of sin. In fact, the former revelation is what paves the way for release of the second. It will be seen so clearly that there will never again be any question that God is the restorer and Satan is the destroyer. Satan does not eliminate the wicked, rather their demise is seen to be but the fruit of the principles of his kingdom.

Matt. 25 is not a problem for this view of God's character. It thrives throughout. There is no Scripture or teaching of Christ that negates it. You can bring to us whatever portion of Jesus' teaching in that chapter that you might think is incompatible with our view of judgment and the destruction of sinners and will answer with the Word of God and the truth as it is in Jesus. Jesus speaks of outer darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth, of the unprofitable servant being cast out to that place. These are terms pertaining to hell, the death of the wicked, the cup of bitterness, the fire unquenchable. All of them refer to the same experience. Read carefully and understand, all who have eyes to see and ears to hear:

"We read of chains of darkness for the transgressor of God's law. We read of the worm that dieth not, and of THE FIRE THAT IS NOT QUENCHED. Thus is represented the experience of every one who has permitted himself to be grafted into the stock of Satan, who has cherished sinful attributes. When it is too late, HE WILL SEE that sin is the transgression of God's law. HE WILL REALIZE that because of transgression, his soul is cut off from God, and that God's wrath abides on him. THIS is a fire unquenchable, and BY IT every unrepentant sinner will be destroyed. Satan strives constantly to lead men into sin, and he who is willing to be led, who refuses to forsake his sins, and despises forgiveness and grace, will suffer the result of his course (Signs of the Times, April 14, 1898, par. 13, emphasis added).

Note in the above that the fire unquenchable is a realization, an eye-opening and that it is so traumatic that it is what destroys them. The realization is that they are cut off from God. That is His wrath--the hiding of His face in the ultimate and final and complete sense. It means that thier Source of life is cut off. Christ "died of a broken heart" and "his heart was broken by His mental agony." (Signs of the Times, April 14, 1898 par. 10). Continued study in this context and in many other writings reveals that the full exposition of the character and attributes of God in contrast to the nature of rebellion brings the end.

"What a view of the character of God, Christ's sacrifice has opened to the universe! His love for man, far surpassing all human love, has lifted the law of God to its own eternal dignity. The attributes of God have been revealed, and the holy requirements of His law have been vindicated. The effects of the sacrifice on the cross are still felt; but all who would be saved must themselves have an interest in the crucified One" (Signs of the Times, April 14, 1898 par. 11).

The wicked would not be saved. They had no "interest in the crucified One," or in the ways of God, of love for ones enemies. They were interested in their rights, in justice by force and punishment, in their own vindication. They were interested in self at the expense of others, not others at the expense of self. In their remorse under the burden of sin, they are filled with despair and hatred. They have no desire nor ability to repent and they know it. They realize their hopeless condition to the full. It is an experience of mental fire.

"But every word they [the wicked] have spoken against the world's Redeemer will be reflected back upon them, and will one day burn into their guilty souls like molten lead. They will be overwhelmed with terror and shame as they behold the exalted One.... The sight of the inexpressible glory of the Son of God will be intensely painful to those whose characters are stained with sin. [HOW?] THE PURE LIGHT AND GLORY EMANATING FROM CHRIST WILL AWAKEN REMORSE, SHAME, AND TERROR. They will send forth wails of anguish to the rocks and mountains, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" (Confrontation, p. 87, par.1).

May God help us all that we may never know these things.

October 11, 2012

Kevin Straub said:

"We are not instructed by Christ to exercise love for our enemies to a point, and then roast them."

Doug Yowell responded:

"Very Maxwellish caricature but inappropriate to what anyone has taught."

This is not a caricature, I have demonstrated it from the Scriptures. Please take exception to the Scriptures and to the witness of Jesus rather than taking pejorative potshots at the ideas presented.

Maxwell did not have the CoG right. He only went a certain distance, as also many modern proponents of the subject, such as Ty Gibson, Brad Cole, Tim Jennings, and others. These all have done good work on the facts of Christ's revelation of God's character with regard to the end of the wicked, but do not portray a consistent picture throughout, claiming that God engaged in proactive destruction in many historical cases. We are purist in our view, that God has not ever killed, nor has he condoned killing. I know that there is needed a fuller discussion on God's permissive will, especially as it pertains to His instructions to Israel in the use of force. This is a big topic.

When you say "inappropriate to what anyone has taught" I would have to disagree. The standard paradigm teaches it. You teach it. Christ instructed us to follow Him. If we teach that He will proactively burn His enemies at the end, then we are to be of that mind, for we are to have the mind of Christ. Therefore, all the teaching that we are to love our enemies would only apply in this temporal time and not a principle of God's character that stands in all times and all places. At the Great White Throne, therefore, we allegedly witness how God, through Christ and by the Holy Spirit, fabricates mass liquid fire to torture the enemies until their sentence is served and they die. In this model, I understand that the righteous are not enjoying the scene, yet they are in fact proclaiming "just and true are thy ways." It is acknowledged that killing by force is right. But I can't go for this. It isn't taught in inspiration nor in the life of Christ. This does damage to the integrity of both and asks us to believe in a duality in God, when we are not given any such notion as we look to Christ. The Bible language can confuse, but not when we look to Christ. This should cause us to dig deeper into the Word and find the hidden gems. They are there and they give us the keys to interpret the language of wrath. We also need to recognize that contexts are important. The historical environment, the Hebrew language and way of thinking--all of these have significant bearing upon the understanding of the Character of God. Truth is progressive and the Lord is calling us to be reformers, to be students of advancing light. Are you willing to admit that there might be many things to learn and "many, many" things to unlearn?

October 12, 2012

Kevin Straub said:

"The blood of the wicked is not on His hands, it is on the beast power and the principles by which it functions."

Doug Yowell responded:

"The blood is indicitive [sic] of responsibility for their deserving the death penalty not who exercises it.If their life comes from God Himself ("in Him we live and move and have our being")then why should He be deemed unrighteous if they should willingly violate the conditions of retaining that life? It's like saying that the parents are evil for carrying out the punishment they promised if their kids didn't straighten up.It's now the parents fault for being mean?"

Kevin Straub replies:

The thing we are trying to nail down here is that there is that which destroys and if God stands as the executioner, then it is still left open to question as to whether sin is the destroyer. That is left in the theoretical realm, because in the end, well, God did it.

The rest of what you say here is something I could say, but we have a different program running in the background. We believe that the wicked do forfeit their life because they reject God, in whom is life. They can't have life on their own terms. It is simply impossible. But, the standard paradigm calls this into question because it maintains that God ends the rebellion by proactive violence. We teach rather that the rebellion ends at the full unmasking of the character of God, His government and the reality of sin as a non-viable mode of existence. The wicked lay down their struggle and unplug from God in acquiesence to the reality of their seared conscience and the inevitability of their doom. This does not come without varying degrees of struggle. This has partly to do with why some "burn" longer than others.

God will by no means clear the guilty. That is to say that He will allow freedom of choice to have its results. We understand punishment differently. In human systems, punishment is to act as a deterrent or it is to be corrective or it is to bring satisfaction to the injured party. This is not the case in the destruction of the wicked. I have written elsewhere about "who benefits" from the notion of God proactively burning the wicked in the modality of punishment as we understand punishment. I look at four different groups: the Godhead, the wicked themselves, the redeemed, and all of the onlooking unfallen universe. I'll leave that for the readers to ponder. In reality, the "punishment" that comes from God is His giving over to the results of sin. It always comes down to this. Sin destroys, not God and sin will destroy without God rolling up His sleeves to get the job done Himself. The wicked will suffer at the end, there is no doubt about it, and it is indeed punishment for their choice to forfeit righteousness and life, but it is all natural effect and not imposed externally.

October 12, 2012

"Satan succeeds in deceiving them, and all immediately begin to prepare themselves for battle. There are many skillful men in that vast army, and they construct all kinds of implements of war. Then with Satan at their head, the multitude move on. Kings and warriors follow close after Satan, and the multitude follow after in companies. Each company has its leader, and order is observed as they march over the broken surface of the earth to the Holy City. Jesus closes the gates of the city, and this vast army surround it, and place themselves in battle array, expecting a fierce conflict. Jesus and all the angelic host and

294

all the saints, with the glittering crowns upon their heads, ascend to the top of the wall of the city. Jesus speaks with majesty, saying, "Behold, ye sinners, the reward of the just! And behold, My redeemed, the reward of the wicked!" The vast multitude behold the glorious company on the walls of the city. And as they witness the splendor of their glittering crowns and see their faces radiant with glory, reflecting the image of Jesus, and then behold the unsurpassed glory and majesty of the King of kings and Lord of lords, their courage fails. A sense of the treasure and glory which they have lost rushes upon them, and they realize that the wages of sin is death. They see the holy, happy company whom they have despised, clothed with glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life, while they are outside the city with every mean and abominable thing. {EW 293.2}

The Second Death

Satan rushes into the midst of his followers and tries to stir up the multitude to action. But fire from God out of heaven is rained upon them, and the great men, and mighty men, the noble, the poor and miserable, are all consumed together. I saw that some were quickly destroyed, while others suffered longer. They were punished according to the deeds done in the body. Some were many days consuming, and just as long as there was a portion of them unconsumed, all the sense of suffering remained. Said the angel, "The worm of life shall not die; their fire shall not be quenched as long as there is the least particle for it to prey upon." {EW 294.1}

Satan and his angels suffered long. Satan bore not only the weight and punishment of his own sins, but

295

also of the sins of the redeemed host, which had been placed upon him; and he must also suffer for the ruin of souls which he had caused. Then I saw that Satan and all the wicked host were consumed, and the justice of God was satisfied; and all the angelic host, and all the redeemed saints, with a loud voice said, "Amen!" {EW 294.2}

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

October 13, 2012

Hi Gibs,

It is alright to quote Early Writings on Satan's last stand and the fire of God out of heaven, but this is a tremendously condensed depiction of what transpires and it is given in the parlance of Biblical language. It isn't helpful to quote it in such barebones fashion. Quote it and expound, please! Bring more to bear on the subject. We have a lot of information to pull together to get a more complete picture. Study like this takes time and effort and to give a few sentences as a definitive, assuming that this is the intent, is not taking us deeper into the subject. Did you know that as Satan rushes in to get them to go to battle, that he finds there is none to follow him? There is a drama that plays out, here. The passage seems to take us from this to an immediate blast of fire from God, but it isn't quite like that. This is highly figurative language in one sense, depicting a mental process that takes place, while not discounting that nature is also in upheaval and the fires pent up in the earth and environs thereof are also released. They came out at the second coming, but inspiration would indicate that they were not entirely spent.

As I have been posting on this topic I have been working mainly with Doug Yowell's comments and in the course of discussion have mentioned a certain paper more than once, entitled "The Ending of the Great Controversy: The Fires."

I just remembered that the paper is posted online, at http://www.truthinjesus.org/mfiles/articlefiles/End_of_the_Great_Controversy.pdf so please take the time to read and understand where I am coming from and the evidences I find for my position. Here is the outline:

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

Do not be surface readers......………………….………………………………………. 4

Truth advances…………………………………………………………………………… 5

The Character of God and the nature of sin………………………………………….. 6

Wrath and punishment………………………………………………………………….. 8

II. EVERLASTING BURNINGS/FIRE UNQUENCHABLE

“Unquenchable fire” is a parabolic term……………………………………………….. 12

God’s weapon…………………………………………………………………………… 13

Grieving, desolation, and fear………………………………………………….............. 16

Living in the fire…………………………………………………………………............. 17

The agony of the cross and the burden of sin………………………………………… 18

Emotional/psychological stress can cause death…………………………………….. 21

III. FIRE FROM THE MIDST

Atomic/cosmic fire which sustains…………………………………………….............. 25

The fire of dissolution……………………….…………………………………………… 26

Lake of fire………………………………………………………………………………. 28

Fire of fervent heat that dissolves elements………………………………….............. 30

The fire of Elijah’s altar as type of fire of fervent heat……………………………….. 30

The supper of the Great God…………………………………………………………… 31

Lake of fire as clean-up operation……………………………………………………… 32

The fire of dissolution at the cross……………………………………………………… 34

IV. THE FIRE RESERVOIR

Fire at the Second Coming is geophysical, under the seventh plague…................ 38

Fire reservoir plays a part after the millennium……………………………………….. 39

V. APPENDIX “A”

A synopsis, or sequence of events in “The Controversy Ended,” ChapterXLII in

The Great Controversy by E. G. White…………………………………................... 43

An analysis and commentary of “The Controversy Ended”…………………………. 45

VI. APPENDIX “B”

Three synopses of the fires………………………………………………………......... 63

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