The paragraphs don't allow this interpretation. This isn't what she's saying.



This contradicts what she wrote.



If she meant that Satan was going to be killed by capital punishment, these paragraphs don't make sense. For example, the last one:



What is "this"? "This" cannot be that the wicked would be killed by capital punishment! There's not a word suggesting this in the first paragraph. Here's the end of the first paragraph:



The "this" which wasn't understood is what's being described here. Again, this isn't capital punishment! This is saying the wicked ruin their own characters, and receive the result of their own choice. They cannot bear to be in God's presence. The glory of God, His character (she actually says "of Him who is love," which is a clear reference to His character) destroys them.

It's obvious she's saying that sin ruins their character so that cannot be in God's presence, as DA 108 also brings out.

Again, there's nothing about capital punishment here.

Now let's consider the second a bit more:



If Satan dies because God kills him, then it could not be said that if God had "left" Satan to reap the full result of his sin, he would have perished. You can't "leave" someone to perish if you are causing them to perish!

Also, what really brings the point home is that she says "it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin." If Satan dies because God kills him, of course, there's nothing to misunderstand. She couldn't possibly have said it would not have been apparent that Satan's death was the inevitable result of sin if it wasn't!

The things you were mentioning.



Yes, this is a big stretch. You might as well argue that the Romans will put people to death in the judgment.



Death isn't something "imposed" by God, but is the "inevitable result of sin."



The wages of sin is death. When God warned Adam and Eve not to eat of the forbidden fruit, He didn't say, "If you do this, I will kill you" but "if you do this, you will die."

This whole idea that sin doesn't result in death, but in God's killing the victim is the whole thing I've been talking about in regards to arbitrary. You see not natural connection between sin and death. You see that sin, in and of itself, is innocuous. It only results in death because God kills you if you do it.

This makes the substitutionary death of Christ an arbitrary thing as well.



Disconnecting the result of sin from sin is what leads to the arbitrary interpretation of the judgment, and the meaning of the sacrifice of Christ.



The sinner kills the lamb to illustrate that his sin resulted in the death of the lamb, just as his sin resulted in the death of the true Lamb.

No. Sin cannot "itself" punish because it's not a sentient being. I've made this point many times. What I've said, or rather quoted, is that death is the inevitable result of sin.



Death is the punishment for sin, but it's not an arbitrarily imposed punishment. Rather, it's the consequence of the choice made.

If one thinks of this logically, it should be easy to see why sin results in suffering, misery and death. The essence of sin is selfishness. Selfishness is not a principle which can support life. Only misery, suffering and death can come of selfishness. There is not need for God to arbitrarily cause these things to happen when they happen as a result of the choices those who sin make. Also, it's contrary to God's character to do so. These things come from Satan, not God. He is the author of sin and all its results.





My point was that the form of punishment is arbitrary. You are admitting to this by your questions. If the form of death is not specified by the law, then it's a matter of individual discretion on the part of God.



What I said was the form of punishment, using fire to cause people to suffer by burning them alive, and then killing them, is arbitrary.



She says nothing like this in the DA 764 passage, which is what I was discussing.



This is difficult to respond to, as it does not appear to be based on anything I've said. But evidently, in your mind, it is. So before responding, let me ask you to explain (or better yet quote) what it is you think I've said (or actually have said, if you can quote it) that has led you to write these things.



No, this is just "sleep." It is not death, which is the second death, which involves the issues of judgment.



The second death is a consequence. It is the inevitable result of sin. The reason some suffer more than others is that they have sinned more. Sin causes suffering. More sin equals more suffering.



What you have described in regards to burning sinners alive would be arbitrary. There's nothing in the law that says that sinners have to be burned alive for hours or days.



In your example, the teacher decides the punishment. It's not specified by some law. Therefore the punishment is arbitrary; it's of the teachers individual discretion. Whether or not it is fair has nothing to do with whether or not it is arbitrary.

(Also this isn't anything I've been discussing. I haven't said anything about varying punishment or fairness of punishment. I don't know why you brought this up.)

From my point of view, there are the same shortcomings in the view your are sharing as what I brought up in responding to MM. Namely, there is a disconnect between the results of sin and sin, which causes these results. I won't repeat my comments here, but invite you to respond to what I wrote in response to MM, especially in relation to DA 764.

Tom,

You have affirmed that sin, not being a sentient being, does not itself cause death. We agree here. MM will also agree on this I am sure.

The law, again not being a sentient being, has no power to cause death either. Would you agree here?

MM and I would agree that God is the one who causes the death of the lost, but that He does so according to the law (not a sentient being) and the sin (not a sentient being) of the lost. In other words, God chooses the end of the lost according to what they have earned. That is the whole concept of "wages" given in scripture.

"Wages" cannot appear out of thin air. "Wages" do not magically fatten the wallet of the worker according to his/her faithfulness or lack thereof.

It is God who gives the wages: crowns, new names, harps, honor, and eternal life to those who were righteous and worthy; death for those who rejected God's salvation, according to their deeds.

"The wages of sin is death." Those wages come from God, not from sin...sin, as you have said, is not a sentient being.

Mrs. White's point is that God is not arbitrary in handing out these wages, but rather is just, and gives the wages in accordance with the law, and by a careful record of the sins of each one. Her use of the term "arbitrary" is synonymous with our modern word "subjective." In her day, "subjective" did not carry the meaning our modern term does, and she would have been obliged to seek another word. It is my understanding that "arbitrary" was the nearest equivalent she could have used.

Take a look at this:

And here are the ONLY THREE sentences in which Mrs. White used the term "subjective."

As you can see, "subjective" meant something entirely different to Mrs. White than it does for us today. She did not have the option to use this word in place of "arbitrary," and yet it was with the intent of helping us realize that God was not being subjective in dishing out rewards, but rather objective, that she used the word "arbitrary" (in her day, "subjective" and "objective" were not even opposites).

However, Tom, if as you say, the law does not specify what kind of death, then it matters not how the sinners die, for according to you, it would then be arbitrary.

Poor God! He cannot please Tom no matter what form of death He chooses for the wicked!

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

You seem to waffle between saying sin will kill them and God’s character will kill them. What do you believe?


Loyal beings were uncertain evil angels deserved to die. If God had executed them prematurely loyal beings would have feared Him.

The only thing I mentioned was capital punishment. Do you think everything else correlates?


And yet you believe the destruction of Jews and Jerusalem by Romans perfectly portrays the final judgment. I agree with you, though, that God, not enemy soldiers, will destroy the wicked. Although, I wonder how many will be killed when enraged sinners turn upon the leaders: “Their rage is kindled against Satan and those who have been his agents in deception, and with the fury of demons they turn upon them.”


Do you agree the suffering and first death are the result of God implementing the plan of salvation and that it is unnatural and arbitrary? Do you also agree had God not implemented the plan of salvation A&E would have died the same day they sinned? And, if second death is the inevitable result of sin why, then, do you also say God’s character is what will slay them in judgment?


Yes, sin ends in second death. You believe it’s because God’s character kills sinners. I believe it’s because the radiant firelight of God’s person and presence consumes them to death. This isn’t to say sin is innocuous.


Not so. The Lamb of God tasted, consumed, and conquered sin and second death. Sin did not kill Jesus. He laid down His own life and took it up again to prove He possesses the keys of hell and of death. The scapegoat, not the Lord’s goat, dies the second death with the sins of the saved.

GC, at this point it is not clear to me that God employs literal fire to punish and destroy the wicked. If it were so, then I agree with Tom that it would be arbitrary in the sense it is not cause and effect related like drinking arsenic. However, I agree with you that it is not arbitrary in the sense God would be satisfying the demands of law and justice.

At this point I am more inclined to believe the radiant firelight of God's person and presence is what will cause the wicked to suffer and to die. Literal fire will be present. The wicked will be surrounded by it, but I'm not sure it's what will cause them to suffer and to die.

Yes, I agree with this. Mrs. White is using "arbitrary" in a negative sense.

I think it would be clearer to say that sin "does not, of itself, cause death," What I said before was that sin "itself" does not cause death (I put "itself" in quotes on purpose) meaning, as I explained, that sin is not a sentient being that can act of its own volition.

EGW explains the principle here:



This is very similar to DA 764. Here she says



There she says:



So the principle "This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God" can be seen as parallel to "God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression."



Yes, and I've made a similar point on a number of occasions. For example, saying "the law requires the sinner be punished" means "God requires the sinner be punished."



In DA 764 the point is made over and over that the destruction of the wicked is due to the result of the choice of the wicked themselves, as opposed to something God does to them. Death is a *direct* consequence of sin, not an indirect one.



This is rather the reverse of the idea in Scripture. The GNT renders Rom. 6:23 thus: "For sin pages its wages -- death," which is the Scriptural idea. It's not saying that sin is innocuous, so someone else must kill those who sin, but that sin results in death. James puts it this way:



Our disagreement is stemming from whether or not there is a direct relationship between sin and death, or just an indirect one, where God kills those who sin.



No, this isn't what she's saying in DA 764. This is clear by reading what she wrote there. If her argument were along the lines of what you're suggesting, she would have said something about God being fair. But she didn't. Not a word. What she said, repeatedly, again and again, is that the death of the wicked comes as the result of their own choice. She said "they receive the result of their choice," for example. She also spoke of God's "leaving" the wicked to reap the full result of their choice. She also spoke of how this could have led to not a misunderstanding, because it had not been made clear that death is the inevitable result of sin.

Every point she makes in this passage supports the idea that "arbitrary" means what Webster's primary definition states. No point she makes supports the idea that she was speaking of God's causing the death of the wicked by a judicious use of power. This idea simply isn't there.

Regarding what you wrote about "subjective," that doesn't fit the context either. For your convenience, here are the paragraphs:



You can see that the subject here is not God at all. She's not discussing whether God's actions are fair or not, or subjective or not, but what the cause of the destruction of the wicked is. She makes the point over and over again that their destruction is due to their own choice, which gets to the heart of our disagreement, in that you see no direct link between sin and death, whereas it is clear to me that this is precisely what she is explaining here.



It's not simply that I say this, but this is the case. There's no place in the law that says that the wicked must be burned alive by fire to make them suffer. Remember that the punishment for sin, in your way of thinking, includes God's inflicting them with horrific suffering, not just killing them. Neither the method (nor the fact!) of horrific suffering being inflicted upon the wicked, nor the form of death, is specified in the law.



If the law does not specify a form of death, then the form of death is up to God's individual discretion. Therefore it's arbitrary, using Webster's primary definition.

What Webster's primary definition is for "arbitrary" is clear. It's also clear that, from your perspective, God is using His individual discretion to determine how the wicked are punished. So it's difficult to see what you're arguing against.

The wicked do not die because of God! The problem is not that the wicked die because God kills them, but that the inevitable result of sin is death. God does not choose a form of death for the wicked, but they do. This is DA 764.

I've been quoting what EGW wrote. She seems consistent to me. Sin ruins their character, so that they cannot abide His presence. The light of the glory of God, which gives life to the righteous, will slay the wicked. The inevitable result of sin is death. God is the fountain of life; when one chooses to separate from God, one cuts himself off from life. She said all these things.



This is not the point made in DA 764. The point she made was that had God left Satan and his followers to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished, but it would not have been apparent that this was the inevitable result of sin.



Sure, for the same reason many fear Him today. If you believe God will inflict horrific suffering upon you and kill you if you don't obey Him, of course you'll fear Him! How could you not?