Hi Tom,
I think we are saying the same thing. That Christ was stripped of all physical, mental, and emotional touchstones and left only with His trust in God and love for us to keep Him on the cross!

My definition of faith is "intimate loving trust", but I am thinking about changing it to "an intimate love of goodness" or "an intimate love of righteousness".

scott

After your discussion over this, I don't think you agree.

The lost's beliefs about sin cannot essentially be correct, since they don't agree with God's truth: they think they're right. They're wrong, but their fate is right(eous), so annihilation of the wicked is God's correcting judgement - not their deluded perception of themselves. They only agree to stay away from heaven & God after they realise they were wrong. Their sinful beliefs cannot be the independent reason for their eternal death.

Belief has nothing to do with the end of sin & sinners, since they're wrong and their fate isn't. Once God has corrected their viewpoint, they agree he is right and their penalty for averting grace is divine.

Belief has nothing to do with judgement, so you don't agree.

Scott, I thought we might be saying the same thing too.

Robert Wieland defines faith as "a heart appreciation of the love of God, especially as revealed on the cross."

How do you like that one?

If they realize they are wrong, then they are being judged in a way they recognize as correct, which would have to be according to the standard of judgment they themselves have, or else they wouldn't recognize the validity of the judgment.



This can't be the case. The root of sin is unbelief. The inevitable result of sin is death. Their belief, or, more precisely unbelief, is precisely that which results in their death.



It's not just that they agree that He is right, but they want to have nothing to do with Him. They do no like God, nor His principles, nor those who love God and His principles, and choose to have nothing to do with Him or His followers. Their exclusion from heaven is voluntary with themselves, and just and merciful on the part of God. It is not something forced upon them against their will, but what they choose. They wouldn't make such a poor choice if it weren't for their beliefs, primarily their beliefs about God and righteousness.



Well, I don't agree with you, but Arnold said:



So if Arnold says I was mistaken in understanding that our opinions were different, I have to accept what he says, don't I?

I love it!

Since the cross is God's ultimate revelation of love it make sense that our appreciation for the cross would cause us to love Him and long to be like Him. The law written on the heart!

scott

Here is a good understanding of how Christ was confronted by the 2nd death...
"...In Christ's death is no hint of the Saviour's effort to win the favor of the Father. With that favor already in hand, His confidence carried Him to Calvary, despite a shuddering of His human frame. Only on the cross, confronted by withdrawal of His Father's presence in revulsion against sin, did the stark break become clear. As the veil of our guilt fell over Him, there was expressed from His lips an agonizing cry, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46).
With this He slipped into the pit of the second death carrying the burden of rejection for rebellion against God. At that point He is in our place. His is the despair of lost sinners staring into a black hole of oblivion, devoid of hope. Standing in our place, "The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. (The Desire of Ages, p. 753). Death overtook Him as the abandoned sinner, alone, in the place where each of us really belongs....."

From:Why Did Jesus Die?
How God Saves Us
by George W. Reid, Former Director
Biblical Research Institute

I don't think this part works. God did not withdraw His presence from Christ! To the contrary, God drew near to Christ:



The statement that "He makes darkness His pavilion" is a reverence to Psalm 18.



This is a little known psalm of the cross. He poetically depicts God's leaving heaven to be with His Son. The Desire of Ages passage cited gives some more detail.

Many people think that God abandoned Christ, but He didn't. God was right there with Christ. The following speaks of Christ's experience:



Christ's experience is similar to the wickeds' in that in neither case does God forsake either the One or the other. It is the "sense of sin" that causes one to *feel* abandoned by God. Sin causes us to believe things that aren't true, which is part of what makes it lethal. The difference between Christ and the wicked is that Christ knew His Father's true character, and was able to work out by faith alone, apart from His senses, His feelings, all that was happening around Him, what was really happening. By faith, He knew God had *not* abandoned Him, and He died triumphantly, committing Himself to God. The wicked, not knowing God, will simply be overwhelmed by sin.

No. But neither does it sound like the 1st death. What it sounds like is the death of a faithful person.

However, THIS sounds like the 2nd death:
When the faithful die the 1st death, they go down knowing that they will be raised conquerors. They can see through the portals of the tomb. This was not Christ's experience.

Hi Richard,

G.W. Ried obviously believes that Christ died the second death, but does that make it so? I really like Ellen statement that he quoted. Notice how she says that it is "the veil of our guilt" that fell over Him.

Guilt is something we all carry simply because we sin and we are guilty, but most of us run from our guilt. We don’t face up to it, but find any way we can to avoid discussing it with others or even facing it alone.

There are two ways that I know of to face one’s guilt. The first is to admit we are guilty, confess to those we’ve harmed, and be willing to make amends. The second is to run until we are caught and forced to admit we are guilty. Courts are good at finding the truth.

Our guilt is in the fact that we sin. Adam might have started this whole mess, but I know that I’ve joined in his rebellion many times and done it willingly. So I’m guilty. But what is sin? It is to harm others and hurt God and others out of selfishness. It is to put “me” first at the cost of others. Jesus’ was not guilty, but placed Himself in the hands of pious murderers. Because we are guilty of sin we deserve to be left in the hands of sin and sinners. Our fate is to be destroyed by sin.

The wages of sin is death and sin pays the ultimate wage. Death by our own insane sin or death by the insanity of others. Jesus suffered the death caused by the insanity of others. He took our guilt in that He didn’t deserve any of this, but because He loves us He determined to experience the whole realm of humanity which included death. He did it so that we could relate to Him knowing that He understands our plight and has empathy and compassion. But most of all He died to give us the assurance of a resurrection.

Had Christ not been resurrected we would be most miserable. Our hope is in the fact that there is a resurrection and Christ promised all would be resurrected. In order to give us this hope . . . Jesus died willingly. Thus our guilt drove Him, out of love, to experience our death so that we could have the hope of the resurrection.

This idea that Jesus was a sin capacitor who somehow collected the whole of human guilt and responsibility is ridiculous. Sin happens in the mind and is expressed in our words and deeds. Jesus couldn’t take our literal sins on Himself. So now some say He didn’t take our sins, but the condemnation for our sins was laid on Him.

What kind of justice system, what kind of jury, what kind of public would accept the innocent being punished in the place of the guilty???? Jesus became sin for us in taking on the whole human experience. In the incarnation He experienced the human birth and a life of woe, betrayal, loneliness, and emotional pain. In His death He experienced our death, but the grave couldn’t hold Him and in His resurrection He gave us the hope of eternal life. Now He sits on His throne in the human glorified body for eternity as our representative and King, our divine substitute.

scott

Actually, it would have been closer to what I was thinking if I had said that the death of the wicked is dependent on God's nature. Things are the way they are because God is the way He is.

But let's explore God's actions for a moment. (Yes, God's actions are determined by His nature, but amuse me for now. )

Can God keep someone alive who has irrevocably chosen to separate from Him? Yes, He can. He has done it with Satan.

Let's say that sinners, if left to themselves, will kill each other. How could God prevent them from dying off? He could quarantine everyone from everyone else. So, you have a universe full of sinners who are separated from each other, and God keeps alive even if they are separated from Him. Thus, everyone stays alive.

Is that scenario possible?