It is only eisegesis if the Bible does not support it in other places.

Can I absolutely prove it? No. But Matthew 13 sure hints at it, and Romans 5:12, 18, and Psalms 51:5.

John 8:44 AKJV You are of your father the devil...

Is the devil a father? Does he have offspring? Or, could this be interpreted in another way with respect to genetics?

Question - is God arbitrary? Is God ever arbitrary? When God said, do not eat of the tree, was this an arbitrary test of obedience on the part of God?

Did God arbitrarily forbid the eating of the fruit?

Through the pope of Rome the same work has been carried on here on earth as was carried on in the courts of heaven before the expulsion of the prince of darkness. Satan sought to correct the law of God in heaven, and to supply an amendment of his own. He exalted his own judgment above that of his Creator, and placed his will above the will of Jehovah, and in this way virtually declared God to be fallible.

The idea that "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain" can be interpreted to mean sin and death will continue to play out in the New Earth is hard to swallow. Ellen wrote:

"But we desire to enter heaven, for there, there is no disappointment, no sorrow, no sin, no one who shall say, "I am sick." There, there is no burial train, no mourning, no death, no parting, no broken hearts; and Jesus is there, peace is there. {ST, February 8, 1892 par. 4}

If, as you say, sin and death will continue to play out in the New Earth, why, then, did Ellen say, There will be "no sin . . . no disappointment . . . no parting"?

Oh, we must be with him, for in his presence is fullness of joy, at his right hand there are pleasures forevermore! And it is here that we must behold him, and become changed into his image. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Oh, it is important that we behold him here by the eye of faith, that we may be made like him, but what will it be to behold him as he is without one dimming veil between?

As you should also properly know and understand, EGW is not the final arbitrator in matter of Theological understanding or Biblical Truth,...

T: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.

NJK:This “full result” in context speaks of the immediate destruction of Satan and his host for having sin by opposing the government of God, prior to sin having been allowed to fully develop.

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.

There is no mention or implication here at all by the SOP that “It took the cross to make the connection between sin and death clear.”

It is simply how sin exactly, we fully develop, will bring about death, that is the issue here as explicitly stated in the preluding 763.4-764.1. (This is what I mean by eisogesis and not allowing the text to plain read for itself, but reading it through one’s own theological views.)

APL:(quoting EGW)In order to possess an endless existence, man must continue to partake of the tree of life. Deprived of this, his vitality would gradually diminish until life should become extinct.(end quote)


Originally Posted By: Tom
Does this mean you think this passage is implying that entropy did exist before there was sin?


I personally see the EGW statement here pointedly saying that such “entropy” only began when man/nature would be “dperived” of the fruit of life.

Is it only me, but I clearly see that this SOP quote completely disprove your ‘genetical misinformation injection through the forbidden fruit’ hyposthesis as it relates that the fruit itself was completely harmless. The pivotal issue here was that eaten of it would concretely prove a decided and deliberate disobedience to God. And the harmful consequence of this would come to be physically realized by God having to banned such a now sinful man from eating of the Tree of Life. So as I continue to see it, the harm that occurred in man and nature came from this withdrawal of the ‘supernaturally empowered’ Fruit of Life from their system, which caused it to become self-corrupt.

As EGW says elsewhere, ‘the fruit was not poisonous’ and if something had been injected it from the time when God had banned it, then I think EGW would correspondingly have been given such a revelation, just as she was spiritually impressed, if not directly “shown”, that it was ‘harmless’ and ‘not poisonous’.

She ate, and thinking she felt the sensation of a new and more exalted life, she bore the fruit to her husband. The serpent had said that she should not die, and she felt no ill effects from eating the fruit,—nothing which could be interpreted to mean death, but, instead, a pleasurable sensation, which she imagined was as the angels felt. Her experience stood arrayed against the positive command of Jehovah, yet Adam permitted himself to be seduced by it. {CTBH 42.2}

She expressed greater, higher love for him than before her disobedience, as the effect of the fruit she had eaten. He saw in her no signs of death. She had told him of the happy influence of the fruit, of her ardent love for him, and he decided to brave the consequences. He seized the fruit and quickly ate it, and, like Eve, felt not immediately its ill effects. {ST, January 23, 1879 par. 1}

All tares are sown by the evil one. Every noxious herb is of his sowing, and by his ingenious methods of amalgamation he has corrupted the earth with tares. {16MR 247.2}

Satan gathered the fallen angels together to devise some way of doing the most possible evil to the human family. One proposition after another was made, till finally Satan himself thought of a plan. He would take the fruit of the vine, also wheat, and other things given by God as food, and would convert them into poisons, which would ruin man's physical, mental, and moral powers, and so overcome the senses that Satan should have full control.

I asked:
Are you saying that if Man had not been barred from the Tree of Life, that out nature would have remained perfect?

For some reason, you have clouded, even misconstrued, my straightforward, and straight-flowing, statement here. I clearly, at least to me, said that Man (first) fell and then, as a “caused” result, the Tree of Life, which would maintain his physical perfection, was removed thus allowing for this physical/genetic self-corruption. So clearly I had implied and actually explicitly expressed that ‘their nature had become fallen/“imperfect” before that removal.’

I think you are overstating my view here with you manifest ‘playing out’ understanding. I am not saying that sin will be a normative development in Heaven, as this implies. To the contrary, I am saying that, indeed unlike the past 6000+ year GC, it will not at all be allowed to “play out” anymore. It will instead be “nipped in the bud” indeed even at the (mentally) “devising stage” as stated in Nahum 1:9 as God can easily expose anyone who chooses to engage in such thoughts as Lucifer had done, to God’s knowledge, before beginning to express them out loud (PP 37.1; cf. Ezek 28:15).

So I do not see EGW’s statement here as preventing this Theologically-realizable, ever possible, reality. Indeed, Theologically-speaking, there can, and will, always be the possibility that ‘there will be one who desires to pervert the freedom that God had granted to His creatures.’ (PP 35.1).

As you should also properly know and understand, EGW is not the final arbitrator in matter of Theological understanding or Biblical Truth, and she indeed did not understand, at least for most of her ministry, the full Truth about ‘God and the Future.’ So this Theological understanding may have never come to her mind as with many other “fuller” and even correct truths. Notice, also that EGW’s emotional and exhortational statement, which may thus all be “by permission and not commission” is saying, with specifications, much more than it was revealed in Rev 21:4. The fact that God will then work to nip any of these possible rebellions in the bud will indeed assure that “distress” and any such adverse resulting feelings from again becoming the norm.

Also notice the rest of what EGW interestingly says in that Signs article:



Note: She is also here (merely!) calling us to, prepatorily, do “in faith” what we will manifestly do and have to do, once we get to Heaven.

That all supports the Theological point that I had advance earlier in this post that, many will be saved despite not having had formed full/perfect Christlike/Christian characters but will have a chance to improve them in heaven, however with their sinful characters having been excised and expunged from their “psyche”. However it is pointedly because of such, effectively, “half-baked”/incomplete, even Christian characters which they will have to freely improve, indeed as they, yet still by choice, behold the glory and perfection of Christ, as EGW describes here, that a “base devising of evil ways” can occur. So this “hazardous” “growing up in Christ” may be done during the period of the Millennium and maybe even beyond, especially as we are return to this very same planet and now have to build up our lives and livelihood, freely, i.e., out of our own planning and organization, sharing and allocating the variety resources that God has provided for us. (If our history means anything, as it significantly does in this GC, some “half-baked” (Protestant) Christians will probably, once again, staunchly-recommend Capitalism!!)

This all accords with the Biblical/SOP related fact that not everyone who God will justly/righteously redeem, will have reached the same full Christian character, knowledge and/or development.

But we desire to enter heaven, for there, there is no disappointment, no sorrow, no sin, no one who shall say, "I am sick." There, there is no burial train, no mourning, no death, no parting, no broken hearts; and Jesus is there, peace is there. {ST, February 8, 1892 par. 4}

The problem I see with the idea that sin is only in the mind, is that then how do you explain from the Bible, why there are thorns and thistles? Genesis 3:18. EGW explains this and I think I already quoted, that it was via genetic engineering.