Sin leads to death because of the way God made the constitution of His creatures to react to an exposure to His glory when they are in sin.

Neither do I.

That is much closer to what I believe.

Another way to look at it is that sin is, by definition, what God is not. Hence, the sinner doesn't want to have anything to do with life. And when you have no connection to the Life, all you have left is death.

An exposure of His glory sounds like chemical radiation or something like that. The glory of God is simply His character. To say that He constituted us to react to an exposure of His glory simply means that He created us with the ability to love Him and be loved by Him, as well as loving and being loved by our fellows.

He could have chosen not to make creatures to love and be loved, with the ability to appreciate His attributes of character and to know Him (like plants and animals, for example), but once He chose to make sentient beings, the rest follows from that.

The whole point I'm getting at is what I see expressed in DA 764. Death is "the inevitable result of sin" as opposed to something God does to people who act contrary to His will.

I've replenished my Ty Gibson supply. I'll present some quotes from him, and see what you think.

It seems from your comments that you agree with Maxwell's outlook on things. In this generally correct?

I agree with this. In fact, this sounds like what I've been saying. Now if we agree that life can be found only in God, how can this (the fact that sin brings death) be something which God arbitrarily set up? Wouldn't the only alternative to what you have postulated here be if life were somehow available apart from God?

When Jesus was on earth He manifested God's character without people dying because of that. What do you think that happened?

I would say that Christ divine nature was veiled when He came to talk to Adam and Eve, Abraham, and Enoch. But does anyone have any verses that gives us a hint or SOP...?

They left His presence.

I would say that God created us with the NEED to love others and be loved in return. A deficiency in that is fatal.


Death is the inevitable result of sin because that's how God made us and our environment. He didn't just find it that way; He made it that way.

And after God had set up the rule that you reap what you sow, then the onus is on each individual to sow appropriately. If he sows corruption, he will reap death.

But this setup was not arbitrary (different use of the word than in DA 764). He didn't just randomly select one of the possibilities and go with it. If one knew God well, he would have also known that this is the way God would make things, because anything else would have been "out of character" for God.

Part of God's character is its destructive effects to sin and sinners. His goodness is a consuming fire to sin's badness. And anyone who contaminates himself with sin alienates himself from God, and dies. The sinner inevitably dies because God's presence will consume him or God's absence will leave him lifeless.

Is that because that's how God found the universe? No. It is how God is, and therefore he set up the universe to work that way.

But can God suspend the way He set things up? Yes. From DA 764, we see that, "God gives them existence for a time that they may develop their character and reveal their principles." God made the universe such that sin ends in death, but He can hold that off when He chooses.

And when the time comes, He will stop postponing the reaping time. Note this quote regarding that:
When God stops shielding the sinner from the consequences of his sin, it is sometimes described as pronouncing sentence. And God is the Judge who has the authority to pronounce such sentences. In the end, or the beginning, depending on how you look at it, God was the one who made things the way they are.


I have read/heard very little from Maxwell himself. Most of what I have read/heard is not disagreeable to me. But I have reservations, because almost every one I've met who describes himself as "Maxwellian" has very disagreeable aspects to their theology.

In particular, every Maxwellian I can think of rejects the penal paradigm of the atonement. I can see truth in the "Jesus died so He can show us His love" paradigm, but I see it as a complement to the penal paradigm, not a replacement.

He couldn't have "found it," since nothing existed. The question is if He could have made it some other way. I don't believe He could, taking as a starting point that He desired to create sentient beings capable of loving Him and its fellows, and being loved by the same.

I agree that a different choice for making creatures would have been out of character for God, but believe the issue is more profound than that. It's not simply that God could have chosen to create said sentient beings differently, but didn't, because it would have been contrary to His character to do so, but there was no alternate way of creating sentient beings than the way He did, given that they should be capable of loving and being loved.

I would not make the statement that God made the universe such that sin ends in death (obviously this has to be true in some sense; God made the universe, and sin ends in death) because it gives what I believe is a false impression, which is that it could have been possible for sin not to result in death.

I don't know how familiar you are with Waggoner's thoughts on this, but I agree with them. Here's a small snippet from "The Glad Tidings"



Notice he says, "Disobedience to God's law is itself the curse." I agree with this. It's not that God curses those who sin, as if some other result were possible, like a blessing, but the disobedience (or sin) is itself the curse. Similarly "sin has death wrapped up in it." I believe this is a much better way of expressing things than simply stating that there is a link between sin and death.

I agree with your idea that God's pronouncing sentence upon the sinner is equivalent to His ceasing to shield them from the effects of sin.

Regarding Maxwell, the thing I quoted regarding poison is a good sample. That's how I see things.

Regarding the revelation being a compliment of the penal paradigm, the more I think about this the more it seems there is a conflict of interests here, so to speak. The underlying issue has to do with what is the fundamental problem that needs to be solved. I suppose one could argue that there were two independent problems which both happened to conincidentally have the same solution.

Here are a couple of difficulties I see with the penal paradigm. One is that those who hold it often get "hung up" by it so they speak of little else when discussing the atonement. A wonderful exception to this rule which jumps to mind is Robert J. Wieland, who one would have to describe as being in the penal camp (although in a more subtle way, because of his belief in corporate justification) but whose emphasis is overwhelmingly on the love of God manifested especially at the cross. Anyway I see these discussion over and over again dealing with legal technicalities on the part of those who defend the penal view with little or no emphasis on the love of God. Lip service is paid to this truth, for how could anyone deny it?, but there is not real emphasis made in its regard.

A second problem is that it presents God in a negative light. I believe EGW brings this point out eloquently here:



A third difficulty I see with the view is that it seems not to have been taught until Calvin started teaching it. Crossen's book "In Search of Paul" documents that this idea did not exist in the time of Paul. It's very clear that Jesus didn't teach it. I've repeated asked where Jesus taught it, and only this text has been presented:



However even a cursory look at this text makes it clear that Jesus is speaking of service, and not of making it legally possible for God to forgive us.

I may have digressed here. Sorry about that, but I thought it might be worthwhile making these points here.

Getting back to Maxwell, what are things which come to your mind regarding that with which you say you don't disagree?