T:God punishes according to the principles laid out in the quote I cited.

1.The Jews had forged their own fetters. (i.e. God does not do this.)
2.They had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. (i.e. God does not do this.)
3.They but reaped the harvest which their own hands had sown. (i.e. God does not do this.) 4.They destroyed themselves. (i.e. God does not do this.)
5.They fell by their iniquity. (i.e. God does not do this.)
6.Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. (i.e. God does not do this, hence a "misrepresentation.")
7.It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work. (i.e. God does not do this, the devil does.)
8.By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them (i.e. God does not do anything, but rather is prevented from doing something.)
9.We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection which we enjoy. (i.e. God only protects.)
10.God's mercy and long-suffering holds in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil one. (i.e. God only protects.)
11.But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. (i.e. God only protects.)
12.God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; (i.e. God does not punish.)
13.He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. (i.e. God does not punish.)
14.The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan. (i.e. God does not punish; Satan does this.)
15.Never was there given a more decisive testimony to God's hatred of sin and to the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty.(i.e. God does not punish, but merely is prevented from protecting?)

GC:You speak from both sides of the mouth here. You say God punishes, but then turn and say He does not.

T:This outlines the principles involved. Notice that the last principle explicitly identifies the above principles as "punishment," saying that there is not example which serves as more decisive testimony of the certain punishment than the case of Jerusalem. That makes it a great case study!

GC:Indeed, but one is led to believe by your interpretation that this was no Divine act, merely a Satanic "justice."

GC:In my view it is God's love, mercy, and kindness -- and GRACE! -- which have earned Him the right, the privilege, the honor of cleansing the Universe from sin once and for all by destroying sin, sinners, and all traces of them, and restoring the repentant ones to righteousness.

This is what the cross was all about.

In which of those points is God "punishing" sinners? You say God punishes, and then turn around and try to prove the opposite?

15.Never was there given a more decisive testimony to God's hatred of sin and to the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty.

Herod's heart grew still harder, and when he heard that Jesus had arisen, he was not much troubled. He took the life of James; and when he saw that this pleased the Jews, he took Peter also, intending to put him to death. But God had a work for Peter to do, and sent his angel and delivered him. Herod was visited with judgment. God smote him in the sight of a great multitude as he was exalting himself before them, and he died a horrible death. {1SG 71.1}

Herod knew that he deserved none of the praise and homage offered him, yet he accepted the idolatry of the people as his due. His heart bounded with triumph, and a glow of gratified pride overspread his countenance as he heard the shout ascend, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man." {AA 151.1}
But suddenly a terrible change came over him. His face became pallid as death and distorted with agony. Great drops of sweat started from his pores. He stood for a moment as if transfixed with pain and terror; then turning his blanched and livid face to his horror-stricken friends, he cried in hollow, despairing tones, He whom you have exalted as a god is stricken with death. {AA 151.2}
Suffering the most excruciating anguish, he was borne from the scene of revelry and display. A moment before he had been the proud recipient of the praise and worship of that vast throng; now he realized that he was in the hands of a Ruler mightier than himself. Remorse seized him; he remembered his relentless persecution of the followers of Christ; he remembered his cruel command to slay the innocent James, and his design to put to death the apostle Peter; he remembered how in his mortification and disappointed rage he had wreaked an unreasoning vengeance upon the prison guards. He felt that God was now dealing with him, the relentless persecutor. He found no relief from pain of body or anguish of mind, and he expected none. {AA 151.3}
Herod was acquainted with the law of God, which says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3); and he knew that in accepting the worship of the people he had filled up the measure of his iniquity and brought upon himself the just wrath of Jehovah. {AA 151.4}
The same angel who had come from the royal courts to rescue Peter, had been the messenger of wrath and judgment to Herod. The angel smote Peter to arouse him from slumber; it was with a different stroke that he smote the wicked king, laying low his pride and bringing upon him the punishment of the Almighty. Herod died in great agony of mind and body, under the retributive judgment of God. {AA 152.1}
This demonstration of divine justice had a powerful influence upon the people. The tidings that the apostle of Christ had been miraculously delivered from prison and death, while his persecutor had been stricken down by the curse of God, were borne to all lands and became the means of leading many to a belief in Christ. {AA 152.2}

1.The Jews had forged their own fetters. (Check: Herod had acted on his own.)
2.They had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. (Check: Herod had filled his own cup of iniquity.)
3.They but reaped the harvest which their own hands had sown. (Check: Herod received a just judgment, earned by his own actions.)
4.They destroyed themselves. (Check/NOT: Herod destroyed himself. / But it was God who caused/facilitated Herod's destruction.)
5.They fell by their iniquity. (Check: Herod had filled his own cup of iniquity, and it was for this reason he was executed.)
6.Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. (Check: The Bible and Ellen White represent Herod's sufferings as by direct decree of God.)
7.It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work. (NOT! Even Herod declared to the people that he had been visited with death, and he knew the Source of his visitation.)
8.By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them (Check: Herod had caused God's protection to be withdrawn--to the point that God also visited him with death.)
9.We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection which we enjoy. (Check: And yet it is clear that God can also destroy when He chooses--both protection and destruction are within His power.)
10.God's mercy and long-suffering holds in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil one. (Check.)
11.But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. (Check.)
12.God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; (Check: This is God's general attitude. However, God executed upon Herod the sentence of death, he having passed the limits of God's forbearance.)
13.He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. (Indeed. Herod was "left" to reap that which he had sown!)
14.The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan. (Check.)
15.Never was there given a more decisive testimony to God's hatred of sin and to the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty.(Check. And yet there are other clear examples as well.)

This outlines the principles involved. Notice that the last principle explicitly identifies the above principles as "punishment," saying that there is not example which serves as more decisive testimony of the certain punishment than the case of Jerusalem. That makes it a great case study!

T: I never said God compromised about anything. In regards to the punishment of the wicked, I've never said that God will not punish the wicked, nor that sin, not God, is what will punish the wicked. I do believe that suffering and death are the inevitable result of sin. Regarding punishment, I believe is plays out as described in GC 35-36.

M: If God made no compromise, does it mean you believe commanding people to stone, scorch, and smite sinners to death is perfectly consistent with His law and love? If you've never said sin, not God, is what will punish and destroy the wicked during the final judgment, does it mean you believe God is the one who will punish and destroy them?

T: To the first question, "compromise" is rather pejorative. What Jesus said was that certain things were permitted because of the hardness of their hearts. Regarding the second, I discussed in my response to GC how God punishes.

Herod was not only visited by God with death--but with a "horrible" death, eaten by worms, dying in "great agony" under God's "retributive justice." Mrs. White tells us this was a "demonstration of divine judgment." This post is slightly off-topic, and yet parallel to the topic, in that instead of God commanding people, God commanded an angel to inflict the death penalty.

PS - Of course, Tom cites this passage to prove holy angels have never punished or destroyed sinners in obedience to God's command. He interprets "the same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands" to mean holy angels are commanded to permit evil angels to punish and destroy selected sinners.

This is the a difficult thing to understand.

We shudder in horror at the Moslem methods of punishing the transgressors, but aren't they, in actuality just following Leviticus.
We point at the Mediavel Church and their witch burnings/drownings, their deadly persecution of those who "strayed", yet they can find their justification in those texts quoted above.

We as Christians don't believe this is the way to do things.
Why?

What has changed?

1.The Jews had forged their own fetters. (Check: Herod had acted on his own.)

2.They had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. (Check: Herod had filled his own cup of iniquity.)

3.They but reaped the harvest which their own hands had sown. (Check: Herod received a just judgment, earned by his own actions.)

4.They destroyed themselves. (Check/NOT: Herod destroyed himself. / But it was God who caused/facilitated Herod's destruction.)

5.They fell by their iniquity. (Check: Herod had filled his own cup of iniquity, and it was for this reason he was executed.)

But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown

6.Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. (Check: The Bible and Ellen White represent Herod's sufferings as by direct decree of God.)

7.It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work. (NOT! Even Herod declared to the people that he had been visited with death, and he knew the Source of his visitation.)

It was generally believed by the Jews that sin is punished in this life. Every affliction was regarded as the penalty of some wrongdoing, either of the sufferer himself or of his parents. It is true that all suffering results from the transgression of God's law, but this truth had become perverted. Satan, the author of sin and all its results, had led men to look upon disease and death as proceeding from God,--as punishment arbitrarily inflicted on account of sin. Hence one upon whom some great affliction or calamity had fallen had the additional burden of being regarded as a great sinner.(DA 471)

8.By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them (Check: Herod had caused God's protection to be withdrawn

--to the point that God also visited him with death.)

9.We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection which we enjoy. (Check: And yet it is clear that God can also destroy when He chooses--both protection and destruction are within His power.)

He (God) preserves them (humans) from a thousand dangers to them unseen and guards them from the subtle arts of Satan, lest they should be destroyed. Because the protecting care of God through His angels is not seen by our dull vision, we do not try to contemplate and appreciate the ever-watchful interest that our kind and benevolent Creator has in the work of His hands; and we are not grateful for the multitude of mercies that He daily bestows upon us. (3T 373;emphasis mine)

10.God's mercy and long-suffering holds in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil one. (Check.)

11.But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. (Check.)

12.God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; (Check: This is God's general attitude. However, God executed upon Herod the sentence of death, he having passed the limits of God's forbearance.)

13.He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. (Indeed. Herod was "left" to reap that which he had sown!)

14.The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan. (Check.)

15.Never was there given a more decisive testimony to God's hatred of sin and to the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty.(Check. And yet there are other clear examples as well.)

Herod was not only visited by God with death--but with a "horrible" death, eaten by worms, dying in "great agony" under God's "retributive justice."

Thus the arch-fiend clothes with his own attributes the Creator and Benefactor of mankind. Cruelty is Satanic. (GC 534)

Mrs. White tells us this was a "demonstration of divine judgment."