EGW says clearly that the sinner had a debt with the law which was paid at the cross by a Substitute. This is penal substitution. Simple.

That's well said and true.

This tells me that those who attempt to deny the substitutionary atonement are, wittingly or unwittingly, attempting to drive out hope from every sinner's soul. Praise God for this Hope. May we understand it, and may it give us strength for the journey.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

If Christ death was a penal substitution, then all are pardoned, all will be saved. This is not the case. Sin is not a legal problem, it is a real problem. Notice in the EGW quote the GC provided, that Jesus our substitute and surety, is "ready" to pardon. He death is not the pardon, the penal substitution. It procured the ability to pardon.

Questions that no one here wants to answer:
1) Was Christ's death the death that a sinner will experience?
2) How does sin cause all creation to suffer?

Sickness, suffering, and death are work of an antagonistic power. Satan is the destroyer; God is the restorer. {MH 113.1}

By precept and example they must hold their perfect standard high above Satan's false standard, which, if followed, will lead to misery, degradation, disease, and death for both body and soul. {CH 480.2}

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. {DA 471.1}

The sacrificial offerings were ordained by God to be to man a perpetual reminder and a penitential acknowledgment of his sin and a confession of his faith in the promised Redeemer. They were intended to impress upon the fallen race the solemn truth that it was sin that caused death. {PP 68.1}

But no - Green, Rosangela, MM and dedication say that is it not sin that causes death, but God. How plain can EGW be? Sis is THE cause of death. First and Second.

The issue is not in what you affirm, but in what you deny.



Did you read the quote --
"The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands, will be exercised by evil angels when He permits."

Yes, angels are holding back the destructive forces, angels camp about them who fear the Lord and protect them. They protect the nations, as well as individuals from the full fury of destructive power of evil angels and men. We owe a lot to our guardian angels for the countless times they have kept us from harm.

But there are times when God commands the holy angels to destroy.

For example in 2 kings 19 and 2 Chron. 32

The Assyrian king is advancing with a huge army to Jerusalem, leaving devasted Judean villages smoldering in ruins on the way. He sends this boastful threat: "Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria...As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver His people out of mine hand."

King Hezekiah and his people pray to God for deliverance.

That very night deliverance came.
2 kings 19:35 And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

2 Chron. 32:21 And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land.

All the mighty men of valor, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria, were slain and the rest didn't even notice till the next morning.


The text is plain -- God punished the arrogant and cruel Assyrains by sending an angel to destroy 145,000 of them. Thus delivering Jerusalem from the would be conquerors (who had already laid waste to a lot of Jewish territory as well as being a terror in the whole region)

If Christ's death was not the death we deserve -- died in our place, then we are all lost.

1) Was Christ's death the death that a sinner will experience?

Yes, He experience that acute agony of the second death -- you look at it from a physical point of view (crucifixion) but the experience wasn't the fact that it was a cross.

The experience was the agony of having the sins of the world separate Him from the Father. For a time the assurance of the resurrection was gone, for the guilt of the sins He was carrying were just too great.

"The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father's acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish which the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father's wrath upon Him as man's substitute, that made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God. {DA 753.2}

In this Christ experienced the second death with more agony than even the wicked will endure.

Of course the tomb could not hold Christ because He Himself was perfectly innocent. The lost are definitely not innocent and for them the second death is permanent.

2) How does sin cause all creation to suffer?

I think we all agree that sin brought all the suffering, wars, greed, etc. That is not the issue here. Sin is the most terrible thing . Just think of the millions of turkeys that were probably raised in horrible conditions and then brutally killed for thanksgiving and Christmas (type "turkey cruelty" in your search engine if you think they didn't suffer). Indeed all creation is suffering due to sin.

But God will bring justice!



3) If Christ death was a penal substitution, then all are pardoned, all will be saved.

No, to believe that is a distortion, just as much as thinking one can "heal" away all their guilt and escape the wages of sin in their own "healing" attainment.

We've discussed that several times already.
There must be BOTH!
Christ taking our punishment and giving us His merits when we come to Him in confession and repentance. And then walking with Him in newness of life in love and obedience.

Perhaps you have not read the whole thread. Yes, I know the story of the 185,000 Assyrians (not 145,000) very well. You obviously do to. I suspect that you believe that knowing and understand the full story is important. That little details have bearing on the story. And points that are repeated should not be ignored. So, please explain the following little point of the story:

2 Kings 19:29 And this shall be a sign to you, You shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springs of the same; and in the third year sow you, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof.

Isaiah 37:30 And this shall be a sign to you, You shall eat this year such as grows of itself; and the second year that which springs of the same: and in the third year sow you, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof.

Oh, and at the same time, Hezekiah got sick. Coincidence? Is this point important to the story of the 185,000 Assyrians? Why are the people not to till the land for 2 years? The text is plain, is it not?

Another online reference for you reading pleasure by another Adventist. I guess she is wrong too.

http://sinbearer.com/light_on_the_dark_side_of_god.htm

I'm not bashful about answering these questions.

1) Yes. Both Christ and the sinner will suffer separation from the presence of the Father in the second death. It is this separation that causes the death, for all are sustained in life by God's power.
2) God's laws were designed to maximize happiness. Going against them causes unhappiness through myriad ways and means, many of them unexpected by the sinner.



You choose to view a part of the picture which is true but incomplete. A drunk driver has an accident and kills two innocent people. What is "THE cause" of their deaths? Alcohol? The driver? The driver's car? All of the above?

God plays a direct role in the final deaths of the wicked. But so did they, so did Satan, so did sin, and so do the flames. It is not a simple matter to reduce to just one of the above by the finding of some special quote from the pen of inspiration. One quote may look at one aspect. The broad and balanced mind will accept all of the quotes together in understanding the correct teaching.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

From the thread The Atonement:

The atonement was not just to save man. It was also to establish the authority of God’s law and government.

The law condemns sin. Sin doesn’t cease to exist when the person stops sinning, but, as LaRondelle says, God's justice requires that sin be carried to judgment. God must therefore execute judgment on sin and thus on the sinner, for the weight of God's condemnation of sin will kill the sinner. This is the curse of the law. Without a Substitute to bear this curse in our place we would be lost, independently of any repentance on our part.

“After Adam and Eve had sinned, they were under bondage to the law. Because of their transgression they were sentenced to suffer death, the penalty of sin. But Christ, the propitiation for our sins, declared: 'I will stand in Adam's place. I will take upon myself the penalty of his sin. He shall have another trial. I will secure for him a probation. He shall have the privileges and the opportunities of a free man, and be allowed to exercise his God-given power of choice. I will postpone the day of his arraignment for trial. He shall be bound over to appear at the bar of God in the judgment.' ... God's law has lost none of its force. In his sight sin is still a hateful thing. Because we have sinned, we must personally bear the condemnation of the law, unless some one else, one in whom no taint of sin can be found, will bear the condemnation in our behalf. Without a substitute, we have no hope of pardon and salvation.... Sinners are committed for trial. They must answer to the charge of transgressing God's law. Their only hope is to accept Christ, their Substitute. He has redeemed the fallen race from the curse of the law, having been made sin--a curse--for mankind. Nothing but his grace is sufficient to free the transgressor from bondage. And by the grace of Christ all who are obedient to God's commandments are made free.” {AU Gleaner, August 19, 1903}

“So great is the deceptive power of Satan, that many have been led to regard the atonement of Christ as of no real value. Christ died because there was no other hope for the transgressor. He might try to keep God's law in the future; but the debt which he had incurred in the past remained, and the law must condemn him to death. Christ came to pay that debt for the sinner which it was impossible for him to pay for himself. Thus, through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, sinful man was granted another trial.” {RH, March 8, 1881 par. 4}

Ellen White is clear about the two aspects of the atonement:

"But because the law of God was as changeless as his character, 1)it was necessary in order to preserve the authority of the universal Sovereign, and 2) at the same time save man from the consequences of his transgression, that Jesus Christ should die, a sinless offering for a sinful world. The death of Christ therefore testifies to the immutability of God's law." {ST, March 7, 1878 par. 16}

"Christ on the cross 1) not only draws men to repentance toward God for the transgression of His law--for whom God pardons He first makes penitent— 2) but Christ has satisfied Justice; He has proffered Himself as an atonement. His gushing blood, His broken body, satisfy the claims of the broken law, and thus He bridges the gulf which sin has made. He suffered in the flesh, that with His bruised and broken body He might cover the defenseless sinner." {AG 153.2}

“Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed. God, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, met both these requirements. By dying in man's stead, Christ 1) exhausted the penalty and 2) provided a pardon.” {1SM 340.1}

I see --
So scripture and Spirit of Prophecy has to be rewritten to eliminate all the cases where God ORDERS an angel to destroy destructive people who have passed the point of no return, and we have to dream up some "natural case" for their destruction. Isn't this a denial of miraclous power of God?

Hezekiah reigned 29 years (1 Kings 18:2)
In his 4th year Assyria besieged the Northern Kingdom (1 Kings 18:9)
In Hezekiah's sixth year, the Northern Kingdom fell to Assyria (1 Kings 18:10)
So now Judea alone remained.

In the 14th year of Hezekiah's reign the Assyrians started taking the villages and cities of Judea.(1 kings 18:13)
Also , although all wars are cruel, the Assyrians were notorious for their widespread use of torture.

It got to the place where only the CITY of
Jerusalem was unconquered. Now consider what happened to the crops and fields of Judea? The surrounding cities and villages destroyed. The Assyrians tramping all over their country. The people could no longer plant and cultivate their fields. The Assyrian army ate and/or destroyed what was growing.

Isaiah's prophecy was not a command but a promise!

Obviously after the supernatural defeat which caused the Assyrians to withdraw, the fields were a mess and not planted. But the people could now go out and glean whatever they could find that was growing naturally. The next year they would have been busy rebuilding their towns and villages with little time for fixing their fields and plowing and planting. By the third year they would be back to a more normal life.


I don't believe 185,000 soldiers, dying in their sleep all in the same night is from natural causes. If they all had boils like Hezekiah got, there would have been a lot more commotion in the camp and not that element of surprise when they awoke and found the camp filled with dead men.

Remember our life is a gift from God. Every heart beat, every breath is due to the life giving power He imparts. All He needs to do is stop sending the life giving electrical current within us and life is gone.

The fallacy in this "God can't remove life" theory is some kind of idea that life is our own and the Creator has no right to take it from us.