I appreciate the exposition/view seconding/recognizing Tom, however I do not see that, nor how, it is complimented by GC 35-37 or the view that ‘God always does destructions indirectly, through a third-party’. I do not see that latter view as being taught in the Bible. As far as I know, no indication is made in the Bible or SOP as tho how God would have effectuated this destruction. So it cannot be assumed that it would have been done by a third party or even Satan. It would take quite a military expedition to kill over 2,000,000 people in virtually on shot. As God has been shown to orchestra natural events to capitally punish His people, such as an earth opening and swallowing earthquake, an epidemic fatal outbreak, even fire from Heaven, I rather see He would have done this destruction Himself, even through Angels of death.

I also see that God does this, not because He is mean, vengeful, “angry,” etc, but rather out of mercy. As David would later say, He would much rather have God’s people suffer punishment at the hands of God Himself than anyone/anything else, because of this mercy. Indeed when God had withdrawn His protection on Israel and allowed, even inspired, Babylon to come and physically punish Israel, God later so detested the extent to which Babylon did this that He vowed and effectuated punishment on Babylon for this overreach. (Jer 51 -see esp. vss. 1, 5, 6, 24, 36; cf. Psa 137:8, 9).

I think rather than try to literally “paint” God into what we would want Him to be as the ‘God of our expectancy’, we should rather take Him at His word, expressions and emotional manifestations and seek to find out “why” (i.e., on what justified basis) did God say, act or feel like that. I think Tom, given your expressed belief and understanding of, at least, the “Open View of God” you can do this. God is real and deal in a real way with this GC. (By the way, I believe my “Foreplanning” view is different from the Open Theist view, i.e., God is not awaiting for our input to shape the future, but rather seeking people to fulfill His already and perfectly laid out plans).



It’s confusing to me how you see the GC as a “real war” here but not the war in heaven??



I don’t see this as God allowing Satan ‘gratuitously’ to “have his sway”, but God rather having to choose which of the many deserving judgement that He will, in a quota way, allow Satan to exercise the open door that he naturally has because of the committed sin. Satan of course does it to seek to turn people against God, because as most people believe, and as I see the Bible teaches, God is indeed ultimately responsible for all that occurs on the planet, by simply letting it happen, however God is hoping that these limited number of judgements will serve as object lesson to both believers and unbeliever alike, showing indeed that sin has it terrible consequences. Of course I more widely believe that Satan does this out of spite that God did not permit sinners to live a healthy and perpetual life after the Fall, and so, is hoping that these actions will not lead people towards God but away from Him. And there indeed is a 50-50 chance of this going either way depending on the level of God/Biblical and GC knowledge of the individual(s).



Of course, I do not agree with this view, as stated in other posts. I rather see that the angels could, long before the Cross see the adverse effects of sin and also that this is not what they came to (partly) understand at the Cross. I rather see that they are seeking to understand why sinner cannot live perpetually as God barred that possibility at the Fall. I.e., is Satan right that God is arbitrarily afraid of letting people live while not obey His Law. So the Full GC is to demonstrate exactly why this indeed should not be and lawless people should be eternally put to death. So the issue may go way beyond simply the effects of sin. In other words, how would sinners be if God had not prevent them from living forever. The GC is probably to demonstrate that even good sinners, including Christians who only are breaking the fourth commandment, ultimately have no case for this implicated and more subtle version of lawlessness. So this GC is to demonstrate that lawlessness has no redeemable values and that was first demonstrated by the Antedelluvians, the at the Cross and in the future, with the last generation of people who will all be, either by force or by beliefs Sunday Keeping Christians.



To me this point is only true if the future actually does not already exist, contrary to what the Classical View of Foreknowledge claims, otherwise our praying would not be making any difference at all but just be what we were always going to do anyways. So we would simply be ‘going through the motions.’

That is indeed what I am saying APL and I believe I have stated satisfactory, though circumstantial evidence, just as your Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil direct inject view is, (also being based on a still not proven hypothesis). If man kept his perfection and health by the eating of the fruit of Life, then I see it as most sequitur and logical that that fruit and its supernatural powers was already internally preventing something harmful from ever starting to take place. If the imperfection and even genetic corruption was not self-containedly possible within man himself then there would be no need to eat of the Fruit of Life.

As see that EGW further explains that the multiple falls were from stemming from a combination of wrong habits, immoral practices and violations of physical laws.



She also says:



It thus seems to me that this “intimate relation” is reciprocal and that a mental moral degeneration through the entertaining and practice of sin tangibly affects the body, possibly recoding one’s DNA.

Of course Hitler and the Germans, (at least at first) thought that their cause was righteous. However when a country invades another country and seeks to murder people simply because of their race and spurious claims of “economic impedance” you can expect that most, especially the murdered and invaded ones will rise up to defend themselves. Hence the inevitably of war to on one hand defend oneself against aggression and protect your life. So let the stronger one win! Unfortunately your desire not to have any war is indeed not tenable because someone will always try to get more than what they naturally have and life threateningly aggress someone else in this endeavor. That is why I do not see it as a wrong to defend oneself by taking up arms. War is just a necessary evil in this Fallen world. It even occurred in Heaven as a show of strength. In some circumstances, you either kill or you surely will be killed by what you would have allowed to live and freely have their murderous ways.



The problem is that your ideas are not rooted in realistic conditions, and that because you manifestly don’t bother, or feel a need, to adequately/fairly think them through. ‘No war’ and ‘not killing at all’ may sound great as a philosophical ideology and maxim however it would not adequately deal with the reality that some men will be murderously violent and many innocent people will suffer at their hands. So unless you know way better than God here in dealing with sin and sinful people since He allowed for War and judicious killings, then I defer to the wisdom of God. Your judicious killing free world would instead come to be a murderously filled quagmire with even more deliberately caused deaths.

If you don’t think so then do present your view of how this will not be the case if “all” killings were banned. What if people still wanted to have abortions. Would you become a dictator and force them to not have laws permitting it???



Actually no. God does not usually tell people who are not His Chosen people what to do. In this case the murderous regime of Nazism had to be dealt with and relatively good people got together and did what was right, over with the nuclear bombing of Japan and also many indiscriminate, carpet bombing of German cities, especially at night they also went way over the line; - though Hitler was doing this to London, so, in a way, it was relatively justified.



If a leader is corruptly and selfishly preventing his people from obtaining a livelihood and refuses to leave power than force, preferably internal force in a civil war is justified. (Btw, I see no valid justification for forcefully removing Gadaffi from power in Libya. Instead an internationally supervised national referendum should be conducted to see what exactly is the will of the people and if it is not only a minority few who want him to depart. He did make a mistake by using deadly force seeking to silence protest by using arms but even the U.S. have done that in their history e.g., Nixon. That mistake in Libya was adequately and justly dealt with to prevent it from occurring again. However the current arming of “rebels” by the CIA is not the way to go, as I do not see that other feasible diplomatic means have first been exhausted. When you so aggress and physically threaten someone, they will not only respond with force, but will no longer trust you
as an honest broker for diplomatic discussions.)



The evils of also letting sinful man live and/or also destroying the earth by fire vs. water.



It clearly does to me: i.e., doing that necessary destruction then to curtail evil and that through a less destructive flooding vs. letting evil thrive and having a very bleak, if even possibly future civilization, let alone worthy people (i.e., more than 8). That was a GC-crucial, judicious killing righteous and just intervention by God.

Because God is Just in his character, judicious killing harmonizes with how He sees best to deal with the sin problem. The Theodicy Truth here is not determined by what I need my God to be, but what He has revealed and done in the Bible. God never acts out of Character as that would itself be sin, since He/His Character is already and unimprovingly perfect.

I fully see and believe that Jesus completely revealed the Loving and Just, among other things, character of God in His Life and Ministry. The two are not mutually exclusive, nor do I need to selectively ignore some things in the OT, as I do not see them as violating God’s Character.



You have quite grossly mal-construed what the SOP said here in ST, April 11, 1895 par. 3. EGW used that “but” to say that while God is Love and wants to convince people of this through a overwhelming demonstration of this, which He cannot do if man does not want to be in a relationship with him, as it is only possible through faith in this GC, he however is Just and as such “will by no means clear the guilty”. As EGW then adds (and as you partly quote, but then misexplain):



There are definite rules in this GC and that all to prevent Satan from fairly and duly “overwhelming us with evil, thus forcing us to live ungodly and be doomed eternally.

And in the future, limit you view to what you actually know, or can know, and do not presume to know what I need or not. You, and quite sectarianly vs., at least, societies at largely, don’t even understand, or refuse to understand, this view, so how can you know what I actually would need??

And, if you can handle it... God does “hate” things/people. E.g., “divorce” (Mal 2:16) and Esau (Mal 1:2). He even deliberately made Esau and his descendants live out a perpetuating life of misery (Mal 1:3, 4) and all that because Esau despised the Israel Nation birthright that was to be his despite having the Miracle Child of Isaac as his father proving that God could and would accomplish this great Abraham Nation promise. So that shunning and punishing was most deserved to make him and his descendants them forever understand that grave sin of this National despising (Mal 1:5).



Well guess what the Biblical reality states and reveals kland, God does not only not sanction sin, but also, and many times effectuates the killing of sinners. Indeed He variously made this a legal requirement in the Law He gave to His people. So your ‘gospel according to kland’ or ‘testimony of kland’ does not even begin to harmonize with, respectively, the Word of God, or the SOP (= Testimony of Jesus).

Well then let me proceed to LOL for this distinct case! Did you even bother to read what I had posted on my referred to blog post which includes what the SOP said about this, from which that statement was directly based??! I do not see so!!


I did not say that the war in Heaven was to destroy Satan, but actually to indeed, “brutely” demonstrate who was physically stronger here. That was the agreed condition to have a partial settlement in that conflict. The loser was then forcefully, apparently by God’s direct power, “hurled” out of Heaven. God did not use this force to “compel” Satan to believe in Him.

NJK, I've read a number of things on your website. I've read this thread. I've read your plain statement, that this was a battle of brute strength. The Desire of Ages quote addresses this very clearly. Was the devil "compelled" to leave heaven under your paradigm, by force? You say yes. The devils know who has the power, and they tremble. (James 2:19). It is not a question of power.

Yes. And these led to physical changes, and further degradation.
No question, the mind affects the body. But there is no science that shows the mind can create all the chaos we see in the DNA. Epigenetics greatly affects offspring, but epigenetic does not constitute changes in the underlying DNA base pairs, it changes the expression of those genes. But we see more in the DNA, destruction of genes, and this by transposable genetic elements. And these affects all life forms. You can not explain this by a thought pattern in man.

You also make the jump that eating the fruit would have maintained perfect health. The fruit of the tree of life could have preserved life. But what kind of life? A life of sin and misery. "For earth's sin and misery the gospel is the only antidote.{MH 141.2}" What Christ achieved, was the only antidote. The physical tree of life could not undo all the damage.

As to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the evidence is there right after the eating of a physical change. They knew there were naked, the robe of light was gone. A physical change had occurred. And yes, their attitudes changed. Adam who transgressed because of his love for Eve, was ready to accuse her of his change. (also see 1SP41) "Satan trembled as he viewed his work. {SR 26.1}" Was this work just in his mind? "He [Satan] shuddered at the thought of plunging the holy, happy pair into the misery and remorse he was himself enduring.{1SP 32.1}" Was this just being barred from the tree of life? No, this is what a life a sin produces, and the physical tree of life would only perpetuate this, not cure it.

Come on APL.... Is that a serious answer?? That semi-vexatious, peripheral, and thus, at least, effectively, obfuscating retort does not begin to pertinently prove anything. Again, did you read that particular linked blog post??! My detailed records still strongly indicate “no.” You can read all the 43 other posts currently on my blog, but if you have not read that one, you won’t know what I am referring to.

My, indeed, ‘plain, (and/been convinced), statement’ is based on the unequivocal SOP quotes cited there and thus my view is Biblical. (If, however, you are outrightly citing James 2:19 in blind opposition to whatever EGW may have said, then that’s a different story. However here statements there were I was shown’ type of statements.)