T: God is not regulated by the law as to what He must and must not do. Putting the law above God is idolatry.

EGW: By His word God has bound Himself to execute the penalty of the law on all transgressors. {6BC 1095.4}

This says God is bound by His word. *He* chooses what He will do. This is in harmony with what I said.

The law is not above God, forcing Him to do things He doesn't want to do, which is what it sounds to me you are implying.

Yes, of course, God chooses to act in harmony with His law. That's one of the many reasons why sin will not arise again. It's just that you and I disagree as to what the law requires of God in the case of sinners.

I think the disagreement has more to do with the nature of sin. That is, you say, "The law requires death." To me, this is simply a recognition of the reality that sin causes death; as James puts it, "And sin, when it is finished, brings forth death". (James 1:15 I think).

Now if sin is innocuous, not having the effect of causing death, then it would make sense to argue God would have to take measures into His own hands, and do something to get rid of it. However, if sin has fatal effects, meaning that those who practice it will die (like a deadly serpent's bite infects one with poison), then the problem becomes one of healing the sinner.

The following brings out these points nicely:



What are the fundamental issues? I seem them in this way:

a.Satan, in order to win converts, misrepresented God's character.
b.By deceiving man, man became enslaved to sin.
c.Sin has fatal effects, from which man must be healed.
d.Since what enslaved man was a misrepresentation of God's character, what liberates man is the truth about God's character.

I understand the legal language to be a recognition of these facts. I don't see that the law changes any of these things, or in any way alters the Plan of Salvation. That is, without the law, elements a-d would exists, and the Plan of Salvation would have been just as necessary, and would have functioned the same way.

God gave the law as a way of making sin plain, so that the sinner would desire to be healed of it. The law, and God, have been misrepresented so that rather than being a part of the solution, the cure, they become the problem. Thus it is argued that it is not sin which causes death, but God, and God does so because the law requires it. This casts God in a completely different light than if we view sin as the problem, and God as acting to heal, or save, the sinner from sin.

Pardon me for interjecting on the tail end of this. Perhaps you two have discussed this before, but I couldn't help noticing it may be helpful to replace "law" with "God's character"?

For instance:



could become:



Not directly translatable in some of the specific comments, but just suggesting the idea of character could work better than law. Because, isn't that what the law is, which always existed?

kland, no need to ask for pardon, your comments are most welcome!

The second way you put it doesn't address the concern I had in regards to MM's comment. The way he phrases things makes it sound, to me, like he is saying that God would rather not do certain things, but the law makes Him do it. Rather than this, I see God as acting in harmony with His law because the law is a transcript of His character. In other words, the law is descriptive. God would have acted no differently with or without the law, but the law, given for our benefit, helps us to understand more clearly God's character and government.

Tom, you pretty much said what I was attempting to. Maybe as I said it isn't directly translatable to the comments made is part of the issue.

By "bounding Himself to execute the penalty" could also be considered as a snake being bound to eat a frog. None of this changes the way it sounds, but indicates the character does the "binding". The snake eats the frog, not because of some law which it wishes to go against and is unable to, but because that is it's nature.

Of course now, one would have to define "execute the penalty". I wasn't getting into that part here, but just addressing law versus character which you restated quite nicely.

Sinners would have lived indefinitely if allowed to eat of the tree of life. "And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." (Genesis 3:22) Thus, sin isn't what kills sinners. We both agree it is the glory of God that consumes sin and sinners in the lake of fire at the end of time. The first death is not the real results of sinning. The real results of sinning happen after the second resurrection.

There are aspects of the law which are not a transcript of God's character, namely, the law cannot pardon or save sinners from the death penalty. The law can only condemn sinners and point them to Jesus as the only source of pardon and salvation.

I agree with your comments. He bound Himself by His word to act in harmony with His character. Of course this had no effect on Himself, since He would always act in accordance with His character anyway, but how He communicates to His creatures opens up things about Himself to them.