That's a pretty tall order for me, isn't it? That is, you're asking me to enumerate the options of divinity? I don't think I'm qualified to do that.

I think an issue being discussed, which kland also chimed on, was the question of what God's expectations were. For example, God said he was going to destroy Israel, and found a new country, with Moses as its father. Moses argued with God and prevailed.



The point made above comes to play, I think. Was God displeased when Moses argued with Him when He said He was going to create a new nation with Moses as its father?

A point I've been making all along is that to understand incidents like this, we need to understand God's character. I've given the example of the hunter/father. In that example, the father's character was such that he was against hunting. That's fundamental to understanding the example.

Is it fair to say that God is against killing? (like the father in the story was against hunting). Is it possible to understand God's actions in a similar way to how the father's actions could be understood in the story?

Quote:
Exodus
22:20 He that sacrificeth unto [any] god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed.

Numbers
15:35 And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.

Deuteronomy
2:34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:
20:17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; [namely], the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:

Joshua
10:40 So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded.

You believe Jesus was willing to think and behave like a pagan god in order to gain the trust and respect of the Jews long enough to wean them off such ungodly expectations.

Do you believe anything else about it?

Wow! I had no idea Tom believed that way! I would be quite shocked if Tom confirmed that. From what I have seen Tom write, it is a rather opposite view.

Good point. I was thinking about the flood. If it was true, that God sent the flood, etc. to destroy people when He gets upset at them, or make a point with others as in you'd better not do that if you don't want to get what Joe got, then why did he flood the earth? The ones who drowned, weren't alive to get the benefits from the punishment, and the righteous who He didn't destroy, why did they have to suffer from the results of the destruction? And if he destroyed the earth and climate just to serve as a heading off means for the righteous remaining, why wouldn't He do something to stop the Holocaust? And a bigger question is, if He destroyed the earth to serve as some example, why did He promise not to do it again?

As a contextually accurate understanding of the DA “It is Finished” chapter (79) is key to this discussion, I have now taken the time to do a complete analysis and commentary on it to see what it is precisely saying. Here goes:

[{758.1}-{758.2}]



-From here it is introductorily, and thus not in full details, chiefly stated that ‘what was “victoriously finished’ at the Cross was the “great work of redemption. (Thus no notion here of ‘a understood knowledge that sin results in death.’)

-It also was: “the character of Satan”, his previously deceptively concealed “principles” and “the nature of his rebellion” that were “clearly revealed to the angels or to the unfallen worlds”.

[{758.4}-{759.1}]



-‘Satan was given time to develop the principles which were the foundation of his system of government in order “to place things [i.e. the resolution of the issues brought forth in this GC] on an eternal basis of security”.’

-During this time the Heavenly Universe watched these “working of Satan's principles”.




-During that time of 4000 years (i.e., ca. Creation to the Cross), the heavenly universe were beholding the ruin and degradation being done by Satan. Surely they would see and understand here that Satan sin and government involved suffering and death. Yet for some reason they were still “sympathetic” to His cause. Perhaps they were also thinking that they should be free to choose this course of life if they wanted to. Thus the option of obeying God’s Law or not, and suffering the consequences if one so chooses, should indeed be a free and also, not God condemned act for free moral agents.

[{759.4}-{761.1}] - At Christ’s First Advent, Satan now focused his efforts to destroyed Him from His birth and that reached a climax in the frenzied efforts that took place at the Cross. It is then and there that Satan betrayed himself. His true/actual “character”, “principles” and “the nature of his rebellion” were all fully exposed for what they were:



-It is striking to me, as it will be seen in the next section, that the angels made a somewhat arbitrary decision here to no longer be sympathetic to Satan as they still did not even then fully understand the issue involved in the GC which would only be further revealed in the 2000+ years that remained in the GC. So it is apparently simply out of allegiance to Jesus, who Satan here wanted to murder, that they decided to from then on completely shut Satan out. Yet the GC issues were still not fully resolved in their minds then.



-If ‘death was then (i.e., at the Cross) “finally” understood to be the inevitable result of sin,’ as you claim Tom, then it seems to me that Satan could and should have been destroyed then, rather than simply be shut out of Heaven. However the actual issue here was that: “The angels did not even then understand all that was involved in the great controversy. The principles at stake were to be more fully revealed.” The issues involved in the free choice to serve God or Satan still needed to be ‘further “deliberated”’ and eventually resolved.



-Here EGW restates the foundational issues involved in this GC which were actually resolved at the Cross. See also [{761.5}-{762.3}]

Conclusion:


-Still another issue(s) needed to be resolved, as follows:



{762.5b}-{763.3} - EGW’s elaboration on these Final Conflict Implications.



-It is this (end time) destruction of Satan that will then indeed not be construed as an arbitrary act of God as all of the self-actuating evidence will be in by then. That was not possible at the begin of the GC so that destruction act would have been misunderstood as arbitrary. I.e. there was no evidence that Satan’s sin was deserving of death, indeed this natural, self-combusting death.



-Time is given for opposers of God’s Law to “ develop their character and reveal their principles” and not to learn that sin results in death. When this is accomplished, indeed by the faultiness of their own, now fully developed course, which now, as such, indeed ‘itself brings death’ (James 1:15), “they receive the results of their own choice”. Can’t better restate/explain EGW’s statement that it is: “By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. ” So it seems clear to me here that it is a most advanced level of sin that comes to be “self-combustible material in the presence of God’s presence, and not, as commonly assumed, ‘just a trace presence of sin.’ That would explain many instances in the Bible and SOP where sinful people were not immediately consumed by just being in the presence of God (e.g., as previously discussed, Satan in the Job episode).

-Seeing the face of God on the other hand, which is distinct from His presence, and which also symbolically implicates “fully understanding”/discerning God, evidently instantly results in that immediate destruction. (Exod 33:20-22).

-I however do not see in the Bible that even the wicked at the end will be self-combustibly destroyed just by the presence of God. This further, and in this context here, says to me that though they will have unforgiven sins on their ledger, they may not have reached this “self-combustible” level. That is why they will have to variously be “forcefully” destroyed in the end by being actively thrown into the Lake of Fire vs. merely being destroyed by the glory of God, even before the Second Death judgement, at the pre-millennium appearing of Christ.



So then what would the angels did not have understood had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin (i.e., the “inevitable” consuming destruction merely at God’s glory) at the beginning of the great controversy?? That this, effectively pre-emptively accelerated judgement on Satan for his suggested contra-Law ways, was deserved. So he had to be given time to himself develop this sin to its fulness and thus, of himself bring about this then inevitable result. Hence this 6000+ year GC. For as seen in the next paragraph, the 4000 years leading up to the Cross were not even sufficient to make this “inevitable result” self-evident.



It is the “plan of redemption” that needs to be “completed” to self-reveal the true nature of sin. Not merely that sin (i.e., living outside of God’s Laws) results in death, as it can easily be seen, but that God’s destruction of sin and sinner is fully justified because their suggested course has no just, true nor redemptive qualities. So it was the immediate ending of a sinful course and the death of the sinner that were to be proven to not be an arbitrary act and this act was that sin, in its fullness would indeed itself result in this self-combusting end. If God had done this earlier in the GC instead of at the very end of it as stated here by EGW, it would have to be a forced act in the light of the not yet fully developed sin (=James 1:15) and not the natural one that it will be when this sin is indeed fully developed as allowed in the GC.

-However, and seriously, I still would need to see where this self-combustible destruction is said/envisioned to actually occur in the Bible or GC. It seems to me that much more time than what is found in a ca. 6000 year GC would be necessary to achieve this ‘critical mass’ stage. Also combined with the complete withdrawal of God’s restraining influence. So it very well may be that sinners will have to be actively destroyed in the end by God (vs. passively, merely by His glorious presence),because of a still not yet full matured level of sin. This may also be the case with Satan and His Angels who will similarly be forcefully/actively destroyed. All this to says, that, as indeed seen in the symbolism of 7, which is a ‘perfect representation of something’ and actually not a “complete” one, as other elements could have been added for this selective representation, that God, in mercy and for the sake of the righteous, cut short the time, (and also permitted extent) that would be needed for sin to fully mature to that full blown and ‘critical mass’ stage. This is why the Millennium period will be needed to answer the patent question of: “why wasn’t so and so saved”. I.e., that full blown sinfulness may not have been surfacely seen in their life. (Perhaps, symbolically speaking, 10,000 years for a GC would have been needed, but, again, for the ‘sake of the elect’ such a time was cut short by God, indeed, for the redeemed opting for “righteousness” vs. an enduringly achieved sinless state (i.e., much longer than what will be exacted in the end). The same conversely applied to the wicked. Indeed just looking at our world today, one can see and say that it could be many times much more evil and wicked then it is today, pointedly by people who do not believe in the God of the Bible. Other “regulating” moral religions other than Christianity are the perfect example of that.



-The angels did not understand all in the GC at the Cross. Yet they understood that ultimate victory was guaranteed by this event. Christ ‘fully comprehended this’ and hence His thus prescient statement: “It [the GC] is [i.e, surely will be] finished [resolved].”

I actually meant that God could prevent any ‘“bad things” as a consequence of this already established evil/sin in the universe’ from occurring if He so chose. Satan is indeed the originator of sin, however God has the last word on what he can and cannot do in even this sinful world. Demons cannot even say things to oppose the work of God is God does not want it. (Mark 1:34b).
Indeed by God removing the Tree of Life from this fallen world, many naturally occurring ‘adverse effects of sin’ where just in that one action permitted by God to occur.




Substantively (i.e., Bible/SOP) correct if I am wrong here but I see, as expressed in the Garden of Eden, that Satan’s foundational argument in the GC is that God does not want His Creatures to truly be free by being free to know and practice things contrary to His stated will if they so choose. I.e., doing what they think is best for them. I however do not see Satan explicitly blaming God for causing, at least all (i.e., also the natural) adverse effects of sin. Satan rather is blaming God in this regard for having taken measure so that sin and sinners die because they have chosen to disobey God. And as I Biblically see it, though we may not understand how, God knew that sinful man could live forever just by eating of the Tree of Life. So Satan is here implicitly also trying to blame the adverse effect of sin on God mainly because God took measures for this to be the result upon sinners.

So I am not saying that God caused sin/evil (= your: ‘God is responsible for evil’ misunderstanding/misconstruing), but the He has indeed allowed for its adverse effects to come to pass. And that is what Satan is trying to paint as being unfair by God, i.e., artificially/arbitrary hindering his cause, hence this protracted GC to self-demonstrate that God’s sin/sinner limiting action is fully warranted and thus fully deserving of the utterly eradicating and death judgement that God wants to execute on it.



Based on God’s statement in Gen 3:22-24, as previously discussed I have to disagree with you here. God knows that the fruit of Life can perpetuate the life of a sinful person. As seen today, variously, blatantly sinful people do not contract some unique disease by which they die. They can live just a long and as healthy as a just person, and many times even longer and healthier. So it seems clear to me that on an even field, i.e., without any intervention by God (e.g., removing the tree of life, healing and preventing diseases) any sinner would have been able to life perpetually.

By banning and removing the Tree of Life God came to effectuate this needed physical separation from God which result in physical death, through this non-access to a tangibly imparted source of perpetuating life for Created Beings. That is why in Heaven, we will not live for ever merely by being in the presence of God, but by tangibly eating of the tree of Life, thus tangibly taking in whatever tangible, supernatural ingredient He manifestly is injecting in it, in the Water of Life flowing from His Throne.



Not at all to me as explained above. It all makes perfect, and “real”, Theological/Biblical sense. This misrepresenting action is merely to further turn people against God so that they will not accept His way of Life as stipulated in His Laws nor His provisions for redemption. The same tactic is seen in political campaigns to try to secure votes for oneself and a political party’s cause.



Explicitly no. However most people who do not believe in God do so because they look at all the pain, sickness and suffering in the world and say: How could a purported ‘All-Loving and Omnipotent God exist and allow this.’ And all these ‘adverse effects of sin in humans, animals and nature would have been kept in check by the continue access/presence of the Tree of Life in nature, as it was the case in Eden, indeed for ca. 1700 after the Fall, while this Garden, thus maintained in its perfect state, was while still on earth until its removal by God just before the Flood.



Understood. I closed that single quote mark above.



Again here, as priorly throughout, what I meant by “evil” was not “sin” but the adverse effects of sin. I think that clarification completely renders moot your expressed object.



Indeed to bring “sin” to an end as sin is “the transgression of God law”. Thus to bring the arguments that claim that this transgression is warranted to an end, such GC character defending and exposing for respectively, God’s side and Satan’s own, indeed have to be done. However keeping in check the adverse effects of sin can be independently done if God had wanted this to be the case, indeed starting with the permitting of access, and profusion in nature, of the supernatural powers placed in the Tree of Life.

As stated in COL 71.1 the sowing of the tares was ‘an act of revenge’. I understand this act of revenge being for Satan feeling cheated by God for taking measures so that sinful men could not live for ever. And so, as these adverse effects of sin can indeed be attributed to God’s measures here, as with the Fruit of Life and its God-inject supernatural ingredient, this would not have been the case (Gen 3:22-24), Satan is trying to enrage people against God. He indeed can easily claim that He is not responsible for these adverse effects, but that God’s methods have enabled them. However this parable is trying to show that the root cause of all of these “tares” are from the Devil’s noxious seed sowing (= suggesting this concept of “sin”). I.e., the tares did not spring up in the field of themselves, but ultimately came from this sin-seed that had been sown by Satan in his GC rebellion.

It is noteworthy to see in the Bible, especially the OT, how all non-natural adverse acts in nature were understood to be “Acts of God”. If only in the sense of ‘God having allowed it’. Indeed it is explicitly related that God at times summons evil angels to be “lying/deceiving spirits” to people who God wants to fasten in deception. (1Kgs 22:22, 23). God is indeed in total authority of what occurs on this earth, even of the harming works of the Devil, probably all as a purposeful punishment for sin which indeed serves to wisen up many people to the futility of a sinful course.

Also, relatedly to DA chapter 79:





Again I did not understand “evil” to be synonymous with “sin” but instead speaking of “the adverse effects of sin”. (To me that key distinction entirely resolves the misunderstanding here.)



I however do not think that every adverse occurrence in nature or individual lives are such “natural occurrences” as the Bible repeatedly shows that God actively effectuates adverse effects: E.g., Plagues, Flood, Red Sea Crossing Egyptian destruction, epidemics, earthquakes (Jericho), even military defeats, etcs. However most, if not all, calamities especially today, given the collective absence of a worthy people in pointed instances, are ‘naturally occurring/resulting adverse effects of sin.’



Perhaps the Fruit of Life could have “supernaturally” prevented even the harmful effects of smoking, if furthermore, the harmful components in Tobacco, or Tobacco plants itself, would have come to be found in nature. Perhaps this is one of the noxious plants that Satan concocted and then planted in nature. Surely God did not create (harmful) Tobacco, if at all. So Satan here would have sought a way to addictively harm the life of man, and that all so that he can keep people from truly following God and His ways or not enjoying the ‘more abundant life’ that Jesus wants to give them, even in this fallen world, as seen e.g., in Christians who smoke cigarettes, and also consume alcohol. Hence the reason for, and purpose of, the Remnant Church’s GC Health Reform message. So it is indeed all “related” and relevant in a greater and pertinent cause to effect issue. Perhaps Tobacco plants of themselves became self corrupted and harmful by the removal of the perfection preserving Fruit of Life.



Again my Theological understanding is based on this manifest Biblical reality that Satan is responsible for sin and God is ultimately responsible for having allowed the adverse effect of sin by the ‘perfect protection removal measures’ He opted to take following the Fall.

Indeed it could be because of this very fact that sin in undeveloped self does not result in death unless God so intervenes to make it so, it the reason why the GC objection that ‘Creatures of God did not need to live according to His Laws to actually live for ever’ was so widely accepted as plausible, including amongst unfallen angels. So God needed time to demonstrate this harmful evil in this proposed course of “living independent of God’s Law (= “sin”).



Here is the exegetical Biblical evidence:
Exod 4:21 - God says in advance to Moses that: ‘He will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will not let the people go.’

Exod 7:13 - (Rod-to-Serpent Miracles) - Pharaoh’s heart was (naturally = Qal) hardened
1. Exod 7:22 (Blood) - Pharaoh’s heart was (naturally = Qal) hardened
2. Exod 8:15 (Frogs) - Pharaoh begs relief, promises freedom (8:8) but “causes his heart to be heavy” (#03513) = Hiphil here (vs. naturally be, or have it forcefully made to be, “hardened” (#02388), including by God.)
3. Exod 8:19 (Gnats) - Pharaoh’s heart was (naturally = Qal) hardened
4. Exod 8:32 (Flies) - Pharaoh bargains (8:28) but then causes his heart to be “heavy” (#03513) = Hiphil
5. Exod 9:7 (Livestock Diseased) - Pharaoh saw that no Israel livestock was affected (9:7a) but ‘caused his heart to be “heavy”’ (#03513) = Hiphil
6. Exod 9:12 (Boils) - Magicians cannot stand before Moses (8:11) but Yahweh (forcefully = Piel) hardened Pharaoh’s heart
7. Exod 9:34, 35 (Hail) - Pharaoh, with cessation of plague of Plague, ‘caused his heart to be “heavy”’ (#03513) = Hiphil (9:34) and thus his heart was (naturally = Qal) hardened. (9:35)
8. Exod 10:20 (Locust) - Pharaoh concedes (10:11) and asks for forgiveness (10:16-18) but Yahweh (forcefully = Piel) hardened Pharaoh’s heart
9. Exod 10:27 (Darkness) - Pharaoh concedes (10:24) but Yahweh (forcefully = Piel) hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he threatens Moses with death for any future return. (10:28)
10. Exod 11:9, 10; 13:15 (Death of Firstborn) - Yahweh (forcefully = Piel) hardened Pharaoh’s heart

Exod 14:4, 8, 17 - God continues to harden Pharaoh heart after the Exodus, so that he would chase after the Israelites while they were on their journey, in order to destroy the Egyptians armies in the Red Sea.

Based on this,it seems to me that God fulfilled His promise of hardening Pharaoh’s heart only when it was necessary. (I.e., Plague #6, 8, 9, 10). Otherwise Pharaoh either “naturally” (Qals) did this or “caused it to become the case” (Hiphils) on his own. EGW states in PP 268 that:



however I see this as not an “I was shown statement” but only a reasoned understanding, and, as seen in the exegetical indicators in that Biblical episode, God Himself did “forcefully” bring about this hardening result, indeed when Pharaoh conceded defeat, in at least four of the plagues and also following the plagues in the Military Expedition.



I rather see it, as God Himself states in e.g, Exod 7:3, 4; 11:9 that this hardening was actively done by God, when needed, so that: ‘God’s wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt.’

It was to be a striking National object-lesson for Israel and its enemies of a show of force and the strength of Israel’s God and not actually an attempt to compel Pharaoh to do something against his will. As I understand it, if that had been the case, God would not have actively and forcefully hardened Pharaoh in, and from, the sixth plague (Exod 9:12ff).




That is ‘spirit (i.e., psyche) of Pharaoh.’ That is God wanted through this to have the initial phase of the Exodus unhindered by Pharaoh and his army until Israel was in a place/position where God could use nature to defeat the Egyptian armies, drawn then, by God’s hardening; and the financial, slavery reparations equating, reward was also achieved through the fear brought about by these multiple mighty acts (Exod 3:21, 22; 11:2, 3; 12:33, 35-36; Psa 105:37, 38).



I think you are conflating or confusing the object of this ‘use of force’. I Biblically see and understand that God uses force to effectuate non-natural events/judgments but not to “compel” people to do His will. These effectuated judgement can produce such a compellation but this would be as ‘non-compelling to freely do right’ as someone being sentenced in civil court to pay full damages after having lost the case. A change of mind to right at the threat of judgment from God, as found throughout the Bible (e.g., Rev 14:9-11) is not an act of having been compelled as the judgement was not yet manifested. (= the Ninevites repentance). If however God accepts the doing of right after the previously clearly threatened consequences/judgement had started, that would be “compellation”. The key in all of this is whether the right is done out of faith vs. due to manifested consequences.



A) I do not see God as “violent” except only as this is understood as Him having to use force to do something that is necessary for the good, either way , in this GC.

B) I do not see this as necessarily having to be a trait of God. It is just a required type of action. And He is not using it in anyway to “compel” anyone to do what is right. But ot either bring a fully deserved judgement that in turn will right a wrong crucial for the successful carrying out of this GC, but as the righteousness of His professed people, even if simply as small, faithful Remnant, permit Him to do so.

I personally see, as apparently also Mountain Man and Green Cochoa, that Jesus did indeed demonstrate that “Ministry of Wrath” (= the SOP’s “ministration of judgement” {PP 162.3}) though it was very limited, though having to most utter consequence for Israel, because He only needed to express it most explicitly at the end of His ministry (=Luke 21:22).

So indeed by also demonstrating this righteous aspect of God as found in the OT, and also through fully deserved Justice, Jesus here did fully complete His Revelation of God. This also honours/vindicates the manifested OT character and actions of God and Jesus probably did this because He had seen the Father also do this in the OT (e.g., John 5:19, 22, 30).

Ironically enough, if this is not seen/recognized from His ministry years, it is then that this Revelation becomes deficient/incomplete.

For the following bloc of objections see my commentary on DA Ch. 79 here. These comments/objections are addressed there, and the basis for my observed, and here expressed, derived GC view is there concretely demonstrated, substantiated and/or clarified.



----



In the context of an existing “survival of the fittest” where Men could die from various causes, such violence was probably borne out of that, including mental imbalances. However in a perfect physical and mental state, many of the reasons for such violence may have been removed/not utilized from even a sinful, but, assuredly, perpetually living people. E.g., no need to basely covet your neighbor’s spouse if your own spouse is just as physically perfect.

That of course does not mean that no violence would exist, as it surely would, but that it probably may have been much less, indeed simply from the removal of that constant angst, stress, anxiety, pain, etc., to simply survive in a world that was naturally non-productive or cooperative, among other such hardships brought about by the removal of the fruit of life. Also no need to fight for a would be “more favorable” geographical place to settle in.” etcs.



It still is a foundational and intrinsic part of the GC and this issue, hence its discussion, in pertinently applicable part. I.e., why couldn’t sinful man be allowed to perpetually, and physically perfectly, live.

As I believe that God is in total control of all that occurs, and that He allows to occur, on this Planet, indeed as most crucially necessary so that He can accurately bring about the prophetic plans that He has made long ago (Isa 46:9-11), I see that everything that God thus allows or directly does is for a particular purpose in this GC, even if it is merely naturally permitted (i.e., not supernaturally averted) quasi-quota, facially seeming, injustices, (e.g., infants getting AIDS), a Tsunami killing hundreds of thousands, so as to impress others to seek to do what is right.




It is all an unremovable part of our freedom for a truly genuine relationship with God. (See also e.g., Jer 20:7-18; Matt 11:1-6 (DA 214.1-218.2)). In our present state where we are living by faith and not by sight, I think God fully expects this and non-reproachingly, candidly and understandingly interacts with it. (E.g, Gen 18; Exod 4:1-9) God only opposes this when ample and adequate evidence has already been given. (Exod 4:10-17).



As a Man Jesus had ample evidence in to have the level of faith He needed to not faithlessly as such doubting question, however when all such evidence was suddenly seemingly completely useless in the light of what He was experiencing at the Cross, He did cry out “in a loud voice” where all heard him: “God! God! Why have Yo forsaken Me??! (Matt 27:46, 47). This was probably the only time in His earthly life that He “real-ly” felt abandoned by God and thus did not hesitate to openly express this.

Again God has nothing against man to be real with Him. The unnatural opposite is really hypocrisy and one can say you are not really loving God but are only in it for some benefit, like a silent and uncomplaining spouse married to known an unfaithful spouse, keeping silent so that certain terms of a marital agreement can be met so that she will make off with a large part of their fortune when she much later, after much accumulated commonwealth, divorces him on these costly faulting grounds of marital infidelity.



And Christ’s question on the Cross mentioned above was one of those “sincere questions”. Had Christ lost faith He could have come down from the cross and that then, vs. before this great psychological ordeal, may not have been sin for Him given this manifest utter and genuine sincerity. (Rom 14:23b)

Yes, Tom, that principle is false. It has come from the great book of "Tom Says," and not from an inspired source. Mrs. White never says what you say here, despite your tenacious ideas about what you think she has said.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.