The chapter “It Is Finished” is one of the best chapters for studying the Great Controversy theme from the Spirit of Prophesy. It is packed with principles which help us to understand the issues involve.

It starts out telling us that the Great Controversy could not be won by force, as compelling force is not a principle of God’s government. Love and truth are the principles God employs to achieve His ends.

Consider, for example, the following verse:

"And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." Rev. 12:10.

This verse sounds as if God had defeated Satan by force, but here is the explanation:

"Satan saw that his disguise was torn away. His administration was laid open before the unfallen angels and before the heavenly universe. He had revealed himself as a murderer. By shedding the blood of the Son of God, he had uprooted himself from the sympathies of the heavenly beings. Henceforth his work was restricted. Whatever attitude he might assume, he could no longer await the angels as they came from the heavenly courts, and before them accuse Christ's brethren of being clothed with the garments of blackness and the defilement of sin. The last link of sympathy between Satan and the heavenly world was broken." (DA 761)

It was necessary for the principles Satan was espousing to be clearly seen.

“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. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them.

At the beginning of the great controversy, the angels did not understand this. Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished; but it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin. A doubt of God's goodness would have remained in their minds as evil seed, to produce its deadly fruit of sin and woe.” (DA 764)

God had the power to destroy Satan if He chose to do so, but God’s government is not governed by compelling force. It is moral and its governing principles are love and truth. So God would not destroy Satan.

In addition to not destroying Satan Himself, God would not even permit that Satan be left to reap the full result of sin, because if they had, he would have perished, but it would not have been apparent that the cause of Satan’s death was sin. It would have appeared that Satan was right, and that it was God and not sin that caused Satan’s destruction.

Satan spread lies about God in heaven. We can imagine him saying something like, “God appears to be kind and gracious, but in reality He has a dark side. If you cross Him in the least particular, He will destroy you. So if one day you look for me, and I’m not here, you’ll no why. And I’m just trying to tell you the truth about Him. You cannot trust Him.”

What would have happened had God allowed Satan to suffer the full consequences of sin and be destroyed as he would have been had God not intervened? We can imagine that angels in heaven: “Have you seen the Light Bearer? Where is he? I can’t find him anywhere? Do you suppose what He said about God is true….?”

God could have allowed Satan to have been destroyed, but that would not have won the Great Controversy. The root of sin would have still remained. The only way to destroy the root was to allow the full principles of sin to be seen, so that all could know what it is that sin does. This was seen in the cross of Christ, which made clear to all unfallen worlds and the unfallen angels that God is right, the wages of sin is death, and there is no defect in God or His government.

The only battleground left is our own. During the executive judgment, any questions relating to God’s government will be answer for the righteous. All that will remain will be the unrighteous who are raised up at the second resurrection. They will perceive the truth, and will confess that Jesus is Lord and God is righteous in all His way, not by force but by the same principles of love and truth which God always uses. Then when there are no more questions to be answered by any of God’s creation, He will allow the wicked to suffer the result of their own choice. They will reap the full results of their sin. God’s presence to them will be a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them. Because all questions will have been answered, and the principles of sin and God’s government will have been fully exposed, the destruction of the wicked will happen in an environment which is totally safe. Sin will not arise a second time. All are convinced of God’s goodness.

Tom, this thread is like all the other ones where we are studying the second death. If death is the natural consequences of sin, then why did God have to prevent us from eating the fruit of the tree of life? and why does He have to resurrect the wicked at the end of time? If sin naturally kills sinners, then why don't we die the moment we sin? If you believe God is somehow overriding the natural consequences of sin, in order to give us time to embrace Jesus, then what about after the second resurrection? what is keeping them alive at that time? And what about the fallen angels? what is keeping them alive? If they die because God pulls the plug, then who is responsible for their death?

Mike, I started this thread because I had an insight yesterday which I may not have communicated very well. The insight was that the issues involved in why Jesus dies were the same as those involved with the destruction of the wicked at the end of time. Both are tied into God's bringing sin to an end. Both can be looked at as God acting in an arbitrary fashion, or as God working in accordance with the principles of His governemnt, which are love and truth, in order to bring sin to an end.

Under the arbitrary way of looking at things, sin has no conquences. It's bad only because God established an arbitrary law of sin and death. If he didn't kill us, there wouldn't be a problem.

When we sin, we owe a debt to this arbitrary law of sin and death, so God out of love for us pays the debt of this arbitrary law Himself so that He can forgive us.

At the end of time, God executes this arbitrary law against the wicked who have refused to accept the gift of the arbitrary debt which He paid to cover His arbitrary law.

That's one way of looking at things. Another way is that sin really is bad because it really does cause death, just like God warned Adam and Eve it would. Because God hates sin, He has steadily worked to bring it to an end as quickly as possible. If He had allowed sin to have immediately caused death, it could have appeared to the heavenly angels that God had killed the rebellious angels rather than sin. This would not have resulted in the destruction of sin because the root of sin, unbelief (or distrust of or doubting of God) would have remained.

Christ demonstrated what sin does. By looking at Christ we can see that God was telling the truth. Sin is a terrible thing. We see what sin did to Christ, and we see the pain it causes to God. What we see makes us to want to have nothing to do with it. Neither now or in eternity. It also melts our heart to know that God so loved us that He risked losing His Son for all eternity and preferred our lives to His.

It is what Christ demonstrated that allows us to be forgiven, because forgiveness is being set right with God. As the Spirit of Prophesy says, justification and pardon are one and the same (Romans 4 also shows this to be the case). Our problem is not the payment of a legal debt, but of our hearts not being right with God.

Excellent questions Mike! I'll try my best to answer.

Q. If death is the natural consequences of sin, then why did God have to prevent us from eating the fruit of the tree of life?

A. He kept man from eating of the tree of life so as not to perpetuate his earthly life.

Comment: You keep raising this as some sort of argument, but I've never been able to follow what it has to do with anything. The only reason man did not die right away is because Christ immediately intervened. FW 21 makes this very clear. Our physical lives are only possible because of the death of Christ.


Q. and why does He have to resurrect the wicked at the end of time?

A. God chooses to resurrect the wicked at the end of time in order to do away with sin. His actions are entirely consistent with what He has done since sin began. Sin resides in the mind. When the wicked die the first death, they are "sleeping." Sin is still in their minds. It has not been done away with. It is just dormant as they sleep. When they awake, the continue their train of thoughts just as they were before they died.

God reveals the truth to them, and they voluntarily declare that God is just and true, the God was right in the Great Controversy. God fully reveals His love and truth to the wicked, just as He does to all His creatures. Unfortunately that revelation kills them.

This might sound like a contradiction if I say on the one hand that sin causes death and on the other that God causes their death by fully revealing Himself. There is no contradiction when we recognize that the natural order of things is that God fully reveal Himself to all His creatures. It is only because of His love and mercy that God cloaks His glory for a time, so that we may have a probation in which to form characters which are in harmony with God, so that we long for rather than our killed by God simply revealing Himself to us as He is.


Q. If sin naturally kills sinners, then why don't we die the moment we sin?

A. Please read FW 21, 22. This explains why in detail. Summarizing what it says there, it is by the grace of God in the sacrifice of His Son that allows us to continue living even though we sin.

Waggoner also explains this in detail in The Glad Tidings where he comments on Gal. 3:13. Please read that too.

Q. If you believe God is somehow overriding the natural consequences of sin, in order to give us time to embrace Jesus, then what about after the second resurrection? what is keeping them alive at that time? And what about the fallen angels? what is keeping them alive? If they die because God pulls the plug, then who is responsible for their death?

A. God keeps them alive so they have an opporunity for the principles of Satan's government to be seen clearly. One everybody has seen the truth, God no longer needs to keep them alive, and can allow their choice to reject Him bear its fruit.

"At the beginning of the great controversy, the angels did not understand this. Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished; but it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin. A doubt of God's goodness would have remained in their minds as evil seed, to produce its deadly fruit of sin and woe." (DA 764)

Every person who rejects Christ is responsible for their own death.

"This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God. The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown. God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life. He is 'alienated from the life of God.' Christ says, 'All they that hate Me love death.'" (DA 764)

The idea that the law of sin and death is arbitrary if it has no higher purpose than God’s personal dislike for sin assumes death is a bad thing. But whoever said death is always a bad thing? Ask the people who wish to pull the plug when it is clear there is no hope of recovering from a dreadfully painful illness, ask them if death is a bad thing. You see, that’s why God forbade sinners to eat the fruit of the tree of life. He denied them access because to live forever in a sinful state is torture, cruel and unusual punishment. God’s decision to prevent us from partaking of the fruit is akin to mercy killing, it’s like pulling the plug so we can die with dignity. But not before we have been given enough time to accept or reject Jesus as our personal Saviour.

Since you admit that we die the first death, because God forbids us to eat from the tree of life, then you should also be able to admit that God is responsible for us dying the first death. That’s why I keep bringing it up. How does it relate to the topic? You keep insisting that death is the natural consequence of sin, but this insight proves death is the result of not eating the fruit of life.

The only difference between the first and second deaths is that there is no resurrection after the second death. The only reason why sin exists after the first death is because God resurrects sinners, otherwise their sins cease to exist. If God chose to resurrect them again later on, which He will not because He has promised sin will not arise again, but if He did resurrect them, their sins would exist again. When the wicked die the first death their sins cease to exist, except on record in heaven, but when they die in the lake of fire, the second death, they die with their record of sins.

Again, since you admit that God keeps sinners alive, that He supernaturally prevents them from succumbing to the natural consequences of sin, then you must also admit that sinners die because God chooses to withdraw His miraculous life sustaining power, the power that prevents them from dying the moment they sin. There is, therefore, nothing natural about their lives or their deaths. This insight disapproves the idea that they live or die based on whether or not God shields them from the glory of His brightness.

Going back to what I’ve been saying all along, I believe the perfect life and death of Jesus bought us probationary time to accept or reject Him as our Saviour, that we die the first death because God is not allowing us to eat from the tree of life, that God does not have to override the natural consequences of sin and death in order for us to be alive, that He will punish and destroy sinners in the lake of fire, with literal flames, because they rejected Jesus and/or refused to comply with the conditions of salvation – to perfectly obey the law of God.

You wrote this, "The idea that the law of sin and death is arbitrary if it has no higher purpose than God’s personal dislike for sin assumes death is a bad thing." and then spoke about the death the Bible calls "sleep" rather than the death which "the wages of sin is death" is realing talking about. It is the final death of the wicked, from which there is no resurrection, that is the wages of sin.

Is this death not a bad thing?

"Since you admit that we die the first death, because God forbids us to eat from the tree of life, then you should also be able to admit that God is responsible for us dying the first death."

This seems like twisted reasoning to me. God is not responsible for death. That's Satan's argument. Adam and Eve (and Satan) were responsible for their death, not God.

"You keep insisting that death is the natural consequence of sin, but this insight proves death is the result of not eating the fruit of life."

No it doesn't. If Adam and Eve had not eaten of the forbidden fruit, the wouldn't have died. The only reason they died was because they ate of that fruit. God told them they would die if they ate of the fruit. God was right. Satan was wrong. So are we if we disagree with God.

"The only difference between the first and second deaths is that there is no resurrection after the second death."

I'm glad you posted this. In my opinion this is profoundly wrong. I think this warrants a thread of its own.

"Again, since you admit that God keeps sinners alive, that He supernaturally prevents them from succumbing to the natural consequences of sin, then you must also admit that sinners die because God chooses to withdraw His miraculous life sustaining power, the power that prevents them from dying the moment they sin."

This is why I believe sinners die:

quote:

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This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God. The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown. God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life. He is "alienated from the life of God." Christ says, "All they that hate Me love death." Eph. 4:18; Prov. 8:36. God gives them existence for a time that they may develop their character and reveal their principles. This accomplished, they receive the results of their own choice. 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. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them.

---

As this points out, God is not to blame.


"There is, therefore, nothing natural about their lives or their deaths. This insight disapproves the idea that they live or die based on whether or not God shields them from the glory of His brightness."

You keep using the word "natural" That's not a word I've been using, I don't think. It's OK if you mean "natural" as in "expected." I don't think it's a good word to use, however, as it can be easily misunderstood. If I ever used that word, which I don't think I did, but if I did, I repent. Let's stick with "expected."

OK, back to your statement. You said something about something disproving "my" idea that they live or die depending on whether God shields them from the brightness of His glory. I read above, "The glory of Him who is love will destroy them." These aren't "my" words nor "my" ideas. I don't think these ideas can be disproved.

"Going back to what I’ve been saying all along, I believe the perfect life and death of Jesus bought us probationary time to accept or reject Him as our Saviour,"

I agree

"that we die the first death because God is not allowing us to eat from the tree of life,"

We die because of sin, not God.

"that God does not have to override the natural consequences of sin and death in order for us to be alive,"

You just said above that the perfect life of Jesus Christ bought us probationary time. You seem to be contradicting your own thought, but I'm probably misunderstanding you. Regarding whether God overrides the natural consequences of sin and death in order for us to be alive, FW 21, 22 makes it clear that He does. Please read!

"that He will punish and destroy sinners in the lake of fire, with literal flames, because they rejected Jesus and/or refused to comply with the conditions of salvation – to perfectly obey the law of God."

Yes, you keep saying this, but you do not deal with the principles of DA 764. How do these inspired principles reconcile with your view?