It would be interesting to see how others on this thread view your approach.



Jesus Christ is the corner stone for the building. All the Bible is included, but Jesus Christ is the corner stone. z
"All building blocks" isn't limited to just the Bible, as the Bible isn't the only means which God uses.



If your "bottom up approach" winds up with a picture of God's character which looks very different than Jesus Christ, that's a big problem.

Jesus Christ said when we've seen Him, we've seen the Father. It can't be the case that what Jesus Christ said is true, and that the Father has a character different than Jesus Christ.



What I've been saying is that the character of God the Father was fully revealed by Jesus Christ. You say that Jesus Christ revealed the same principles resulting in physical judgment. I claim that Jesus Christ revealed principles stated by the SOP such as:

1.Force is contrary to the principles of God's government.
2.God does not stand before the sinner as an executioner, but leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves.

Where do you see that Jesus Christ revealed "the same principles resulting in utter physical judgment"?



What I'm saying is that we need to first understand God's character in order to rightly interpret Scripture. I assume you agree with this.

Then I'm saying that in order to do this, we need to go to Jesus Christ. He is the corner-stone for our understanding. If we come up with a view of God's character which disagrees with what we see in Him, then we've got it wrong.

You don't disagree with this, do you?

A third thing I've asserted is that Jesus Christ is a full and complete revelation of the Father; that we don't need to go outside of Christ to know what God is like.

I think this is the point that you're disagreeing with. What you think is that we need to combine what Jesus Christ lived and taught with the rest of Scripture in order to come up with an accurate picture of God's character. Is this correct? That is, you agree with the first two points just mentioned above, but disagree with the third one?



I'm not the only one who holds the view I hold. We can take me out of the question here. Have you ever read any of Ty Gibson's books? My view is largely the same as his.

Robert Wieland is another who has taught principles related to God's character that I believe to be true.

In Ellen White's time, George Fifield eloquently expressed views I hold to be true.

There are thousands of people that hold the view I hold. I'm not arguing that this makes it right, but you write as if what I'm sharing is something that I just made up. The ideas I'm sharing are not original to me.

Regarding the final arbiter, that is God. He is the One who will judge how well we've understood His character, and how well we've treated one another. If our view of God's character does not lead to our treating one another as Christ did, it's not much good.



Christ did so by His words and teachings.



What do you mean by this?



You don't believe that Jesus Christ was a tangible and visibly present representation of God?

I was simply referring to the Sermon on the Mount. You didn't understand this?



The point is that the Old Testament was not understood. I've never said there was anything wrong with the Old Testament.

What I said was that if we see Jesus Christ acting or teaching differently than what we see in the OT, then there's something wrong. It doesn't sound like you're disagreeing with this, but simply repeating the same thing I said.



If this is the definition of "knee-jerkedly," then everything you write is also such. You can't get outside of your paradigm. You can allow your paradigm to change, however. And this is what Jesus Christ does. He is constantly challenging our paradigm. He presents a picture of God which is different than the one that we presently hold, always and forever. If we are willing, we can allow Him to mold our view of God to that it becomes more and more like what God is truly like.

The very first step in doing so is to recognize that our paradigm is faulty, and that we need His help. If we think we see, our blindness remains. If we think we are sound, we won't seek the help of a physician.



Is this yes or no? Do you believe that when we believe in Jesus Christ we, at that moment, have eternal life?



This could only be the case if sin were a physical problem only. But sin involves more than the physical. It involves the mind, and the longer a person lives contrary to the principles of God's government, the principles of agape, the worse and worse he becomes, and this isn't something a tree can fix, but only Christ.



This is simply seconding what I wrote.

That's not what EGW wrote! She didn't say that Jesus "designed/wish" to have this due judgment come upon the Jewish nation, but that He designed that His hearers respond the way they did. Surely you can see the different here, can't you?

In the quote she says exactly the same thing I've been saying all along:



The underlined portion is what He wished them to see, which is, again, what I've been saying all along.



You're saying that Christ wanted God to kill them, and He veiled the truth from them, so that God could kill them, rather than save them? The parable that Christ spoke to them said that God would kill them and given their land to another. So if what you're asserting were true, then my question at the beginning of this paragraph would follow.



Why do you think it's right for you to set yourself as a judge of Ellen White's writings? If God sent her as a prophet, shouldn't her writings judge you?



Where does she say this? Or is this an idea of yours? Or do you think the Scripture teaches this, that God's prophets should be correct by Scripture?

I don't see this taught at all. What I see is that God's prophets should be judged by Scripture, not corrected by it. That is, if a person is speaking for God, then that's person's teachings will be in harmony with Scripture, and will not need to be corrected by it. If the person's teachings are not in harmony with Scripture, then that person's teachings should be rejected, as well as the idea that this person was a prophet.



Why not conclude that your exegesis may be wrong, or that you may be misunderstanding what she wrote?

I don't believe this is the case. If you think otherwise, please quote something I've written to support your idea here.



What you're suggesting is my view isn't my view.



It's obvious that God doesn't need the Tree of Life to give us life, isn't it? Assuming you agree this is the case, then God must have deliberately chosen to have us eat of the Tree of Life in order to live, just as He has chosen to have us breathe in order to have life. So why did God choose to have us eat of the Tree of Life when He didn't have to? Clearly, to my mind, it is because there are spiritual lessons that He wants us to learn by so doing.



I think you have to ignore a lot of teaching in both Scripture and the SOP to hold to this view. Both the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy teach that there is an organic relationship between sin and death. The number of statements in both far surpass the statements regarding the tree of life.

Consider Scripture, for example. There is one statement regarding the tree of life. There are many direct statements regarding the relationship between sin and death, as well as many stories and parables which illustrate the theme, such as "The soul that sins shall die," "The wages of sin is death," "Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death," "The sting of death is sin."

If what you are asserting were true, that any organic relationship between sin and death should be rejected, then somewhere in Scripture some Bible writer should have tempered what he wrote in regards to the relationship between sin and death with a mention of the tree. But the tree is never mentioned in this context, not even once.

If we consider the Spirit of Prophecy, we have the specific statement that "the inevitable result of sin is death." It is not possible to articulate the principle any more clearly than this, and, indeed, in the context this statement is made, she repeats over and over again that death (the second death) comes upon the wicked as a result of the choices they have made. She writes that had God left Satan and his followers to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished. And then, had He done so, onlookers would not have understood that the inevitable result of sin is death.

There is absolutely no connection to the tree of life here. We have the clearly stated principle that "the inevitable result of sin is death" in a context which cannot have any dependency upon the tree of life (since it's dealing with Satan).

The idea of Scripture, and the SOP, is the following:

1.We have all been bitten by the serpent (i.e., we have all sinned) and, because of such, need divine healing.
2.That healing comes by Jesus Christ (by believing in Him).
3.If we don't avail ourselves of the healing that Jesus Christ brings, we will die because of our sin.

I believe the Tree of Life is incidental. It's not necessary to form an accurate and complete theology. It's nice that God has provided this detail for us, but if He hadn't, it wouldn't make any difference, as I perceive things. That is, if He had simply said that in the new earth people would live forever because of their faith/obedience, that wouldn't materially change anything.

On the other hand, it appears that the Tree of Life forms the cornerstone of your theology. The cornerstone of mine is supported by literally thousands of statements. The cornerstone of yours is supported by something like two or three.

That is indeed true. However I suspect this was quote because God’s judgements are confused as acts to compel obedience. People are always free to choose whether they will obey God or not. However that does not bar Him from executing due and timely judgements. He indeed amply has throughout the Bible and billions still have refused to believe in Him. OT Israel is the most prominent example. Just give them a generation, or even a day (e.g., Num 16:31, 32, 35, 41) Even acts of miraculous intervention do not affect this as seen with the Golden Calf debacle just after the Red Sea Crossing. In the “secular world” The earth changing event of the Flood did not “compel obedience”. Indeed with the Ark probably still intact and visitable, the people soon after the Flood, in order to continue to live against the will of God decided, to built a tower to escape the flood. (Not much can also be said of the conduct of Noah and his son some time after the flood.)

So God’s effectuated judgement are not for any compelling purposes as, as many examples have shown, it is only those who want to fear God, who will let these judgements bring them in line with His will, (e.g., Acts 5:11) soon leading, again if they further want to, to a more friendly/loving relationship with him.

I think, given the great advantage of the life and eternal life that God can and will give, that it is quite a loving act on his part to seek to fair impress fallen men who cannot see Him to seek to “fearfully” know him. Clearly God realizes that “blind dating” is not always, with all, realistic expectation for a chance at a relationship.





Indeed Jesus is so, and that “everything” includes the ministry of Divine judgement/wrath/(zeal/passion)! Again all in realistic (i.e., non-manufactured simply to ‘explicitly replicate’) dealing with the circumstances and pointed and forbearing purposes then, especially during His ministry. But upon ample warning, given one’s level of knowledge, for waywardness, like the OT model and principle, judgement is deservingly allowed to happen, even directly done (cf. e.g., Acts 5:1-11).



I see/think that EGW had an “ultimate” sense in mind here, i.e., Satan as the author of sin, was ultimately responsible for ‘all the results of sin’. However there are a plethora of clear cut episodes in the Bible, and also the SOP, that show that God, in acts of judgement, effectuates punishment and death for sins. Even by simply commanding capital punishment for certain sin, that Israelites carried out, God had effectuated that death, yet the ultimate being responsible for it was Satan. So that text cannot be used as a platform to say that God never effectuates any death or suffering. The Flood also is another immovable example of this Theological/Biblical Fact. Satan, and this is what EGW was seeking to dispel, wants to make it seem that God is responsible for this, and as I understand it, all, vindictively, out of the fact that God had taken measure to prevent sinful man to live forever.



No explanatory words from you at all here. It is thus hard to exactly understand what you mean with this quote?

I do not see, at least, full agreement. Perhaps, in thematic part, only with Adam Clarke’s comment.

Albert Barnes’ point was way off the mark. It physically spoke of ‘a pressing of the throng/crowd to now hear Jesus’ and that merely because they surfacely wanted to obtain the supposed immediate blessing, (like Black Friday/Boxing Day shoppers).

How also would that “similar physicality’ be different from ‘what had occurred/been suffered up to John vs. the Kingdom proclamation now’, as Jesus put it?

My problem with such early “scholarly work” is exegesis in never documented, so one has to either do it on their own to validate that view or just take their word for it. That was fine for the 19th and early 20th century, but not today, at least not for me. I want to see the transparent and objective proof for any beliefs. So defaultly using such works really causes double work, at least for my interests.



Not this “own idea” of yours:



Where the notion of “‘similar mental bias’ here??

I follow the convention of using single quote for a paraphrase. Since it seemed to me that you had indeed said that ‘the sinner must die because of the “organic relationship between sin and death; that the inevitable result of sin is death”’, thus sin is also threatening to the sinner himself’, I added that understood understanding in that paraphrase.



As already said, I see this as fully blown/accomplished sin/sinful behavior. You are not giving the proper weight to the word “finished/completed” (Gr. #658 which is not ‘merely committed’ which was here expressed as “birthed”). Indeed the intended illustrative ‘development progression’ by James is: “conception” (#4815)... “birth” (#5088) and “finishing completion” (#658) = “fully lived and aged life” which, as it naturally really does, likewise then ends in a natural death; and all this stemming from the committed “union” act of ‘having given in to temptation’ (vs. 14).

-I also do not see in the Bible (or even in direct revelation in the SOP) a consuming fire type of destruction at the end of the 6000 years of GC.



Succinctly said, out of exegetical, and not your “proof-texting”, reasons:

the sting of death is sin - (1 Cor 15:56) = sin is the ‘sharp goading point’ reason that make it why death can occur in sinning created beings, and that by the barring of access to the Tree of Life!
the wages of sin is death - (Rom 6:23) = “wages” are optionally received - Already discussed here - Also implied ed in this verse: no work done at all to be due, actually outrightly “given”, a “gift”. So sin is also shown as being more taxing/demanding than God’s salvation.
the soul that sins shall die - (Ezek 18:20 (God )) = ‘the living being who has committed the wrong (= sin) will pointedly be held responsible and die. vs. a generalized/indiscriminate judgement (Ezek 18:1-32)

I don’t see these as ‘conveying your inevitable result thought’, but rather that sin is what makes death: possible (1 Cor 15:56); justly and pointedly deserved (Ezek 18:20); duly “collectible” (Rom 6:23); and when not externally carried out in judgement; self-inflictable at the reached end of its “completed/full blown” stage (James 1:15).



Those were conditions with sinning people after the tree of life was removed. As I already addressed here things could have been drastically different without that measure. And just as a comparison, why don’t you see that “killing everywhere” debacle in our world today?? (as I’ll later point out)

I have, during this discussion, come to ponder why God took that measure which seems unjustified vs. allowing sinful man to live on this planet without Him being present at all, but having access to the Tree of Life, as taking away the Tree and thus perpetual life solely because these are choosing to live apart of at least one of God’s law would seem like a petty: ‘...or else I’ll take my ball and go home’ act on the part of God, however in your response above, I have seen the reason why. You say it is the ‘grace of God’ that prevents a total debacle on the earth which could also be understood as “mercy”. So I see that God really had two option here:

Option #1 - Let sinning man indeed live on his own with the Tree of Life, but without His tempering Spirit and also under the full control of Satan, but also procreating. As I see it, it is because of the total absence of His Spirit then, that your scenario may indeed come to occur here. However I see it that Satan would have here his opportunity to grow his kingdom of rebellion, so he would not be, like he is now, seeking to vindictively lead these “subjects” to destruction, but would set himself up as a god over them and, ironically enough, probably have something similar as the last 6 commandments to maintain this needed life and livelihood, just as secular societies do today.

Also the GC war would go on as new territory and resources beyond this planet would come to be needed to and since Satan cannot created he would seek to overtake other worlds. So this would resemble “George Lucas’s Intergalactic Star Wars”. And for a fight to be considered as fair, it would have to be (Sinning) Humans vs. (Unfallen) Humans and not Angels vs. Humans. So other unfallen worlds would inevitably be drawn into this war and also their death, completely undeserved would then be likely to occur, despite having access to the Tree of Life. (That is another reason why I understand, derived from my understanding of Gen 3:22-24, that it is not sin itself that causes death but a forceful act is to be taken to effectuate (a deserved) death.

Option #2 - (Chosen option) Remove the Tree of Life and instead allow His Spirit to ‘strive with even sinful men, His outrightly undeserving creation’ (Gen 6:3a), until there, as it was the case by the Flood, no longer any redeemable “thoughts” in them for Him to work with (Gen 6:5). This option also allows for the fairer and safer demonstration of the GC. Hence God’s Choice was perfectly wise. And the only way in which this world will come into a total sinful debacle is when, in the utter, past probation end, in the last Plague, God will become indivisibly “empassioned” and thus no longer have any sort of grace/mercy while the 4 winds that affect human passions will also have been allowed to blow, culminating in the 7th Plague utter suffering and chaos.

Indeed no, especially by now...


The reason why is that both these active and passive actions by God directly come from God Himself or by His allowance. I therefore now see that the real difference is not in what God Himself actively or passively does, but rather what God (actively or passively) does vs. what, though He also allows it, Satan (actively or passively). I see that Satan acts “passively” when he merely inspires people to do wrong and they freely choose to act out those suggestion, then not having the Spirit of God to offset this evil spirit. So the real issue is between God vs. Satan actions. So e.g., God allowing the serpents was a passive act of God and not one of Satan. However, in the ultimate sense, the deadliness of the serpents goes back to author of sin, Satan. Unless taken control of by Satan, which may not be possible, serpents and any other animal are equal opportunity killers in regards to any human or other living creation.

So I do see many passive acts of Satan, especially on individuals, when allowed, as shown to EGW in 14MR 1-3. That of course can have a collective effect such as in the destruction of Jerusalem, at least in part because mercy was demonstrated there (Matt 24:22) So as brought forth by APL from DA 471.3:



That is why I see that the destruction of Jerusalem was not entirely under the total merciless “passion” of God principle, nor will it be for all of the Last Plagues.



On top of the specifying reasons that I have just related, I have a distinct difference and opposition to your view because it has thus far been wrongly, selectively oblivious. You unexegetically tried to make all judgements in the Bible fit your, at least passive view, which you then tried to claim that God was thus not at all responsible for the judgement, (e.g., your world in constant chaos argument for the Flood). As your view was going against the clear Word God never (upon closer study if necessary) actually opposed in the SOP, I did not see any light in it (Isa 8:20). That’s just the natural category for which it fit in for me.

Interesting rationalization here, though substantively off issue/point. Since your view that ‘Jesus did no judgement so that must also be the case everywhere for the OT God’ then you need to demonstrate this to uphold your view!! That the only way to prove that it is valid!

[So do continue past your posted explanation of the Flood which I’ll address later. By the way, you could potentially say: God (scientifically) saw that it would happen for everything however: (A) that would not explain why the Bible and SOP say and describe God as actively doing many of these things and (b) if we indeed have free choices and the future is, at least to you, “Open”, (“inexistent” to me), the timeliness in the needed elements of Location, Time, Force, etc., in crucial combination to even spontaneous free choices.]

By the Way the perfect Mercy and Justice of God in regards War is clearly stated in Deut 20:10-18. It states the reason why He allowed Israel to use military force for Canaan cities (vs. 18) and also how He tried to avert it with further cities (vs. 10ff).