As if you could convince anyone that ceasing to sustain life isn't killing! Just read the account of Acts 5 to anyone and try to convince them that God didn't kill Ananias and Sapphira.


So you think sinners will be judged because they want to be judged? And that Satan was expelled from heaven because he wished to be expelled? And that the same is true about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden?


I feel the same about yours. Look at the cross.

God has given in His word decisive evidence that He will punish the transgressors of His law. Those who flatter themselves that He is too merciful to execute justice upon the sinner, have only to look to the cross of Calvary. The death of the spotless Son of God testifies that "the wages of sin is death," that every violation of God's law must receive its just retribution. Christ the sinless became sin for man. He bore the guilt of transgression, and the hiding of His Father's face, until His heart was broken and His life crushed out. All this sacrifice was made that sinners might be redeemed. In no other way could man be freed from the penalty of sin. And every soul that refuses to become a partaker of the atonement provided at such a cost must bear in his own person the guilt and punishment of transgression. {DD 16.4}

Did you read the quotation???
"every violation of God's law must receive its just retribution" Cause and effect.
"He bore the guilt of transgression, and the hiding of His Father's face" Did you read it? "the hiding of His Father's face". Did God play peek-a-boo? No. Sin makes it impossible for the sinner to communication with God. Did the Father arbitrarily go hide? No. "It was sin that separated man from his God, and it is sin that maintains this separation." {16MR 115.2} Or course, you still need to explain how Christ was "made to be sin for us". And notice, those the refuse the atonement, will bear their own guilt and punishment of sin. It is sin that destroys God's creation. God will not force the atonement on anyone. He will not force life on anyone. "Choose life".

The retribution will be the same that happened on the cross - "the terrible manifestation of His [God's] displeasure because of iniquity" (DA 756).


The complete separation at the last day will occur because the sinner will be in God's presence, and sin is the opposite of everything that God is. God will show Himself in His unveiled glory (character) - which is the antithesis of sin, and this will make those who are identified with sin to be blotted out of existence. So both elements are necessary for the destruction of the sinner - sin and its antithesis (God's glory). You will say that if it weren't for sin, there would be no destruction, but if God didn't unveil His glory there would be no destruction either (people weren't destroyed in Christ's presence because His glory was veiled).


As man's substitute and surety, the iniquity of men was laid upon Christ; He was counted a transgressor that He might redeem them from the curse of the law. . . . He, the Sin-Bearer, endures judicial punishment for iniquity and becomes sin itself for man. Sin, so hateful to His sight, was heaped upon Him till He groaned beneath its weight. {FLB 104.5, 6}

This doesn't speak at all of DNA. Laid upon, counted, heaped upon... Terms which indicate that our sins were imputed to Him at that specific moment in His life.


What I don't understand is how bearing guilt is related to something in the DNA.

APL,

Your "sin destroys" argument cannot answer some of the most important questions in this discussion. This is why you have been forced to remain silent upon them. Why not consider broadening your sights until you can reach a view that is able to answer these questions?

For example, "Why will God raise up the wicked, give them life again after 'sin killed them,' only to face more punishment?"

You cannot answer this. It is blatantly OBVIOUS that neither sin nor the devil could have power to give life. Therefore, why would a merciful, "non-punishing" God do this?

Your present theory cannot answer this. But the Bible is clear--God WILL PUNISH.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Originally Posted By: rosangela

The retribution will be the same that happened on the cross - "the terrible manifestation of His [God's] displeasure because of iniquity" (DA 756).

I can understand how God can be displeased! Sin is destroying His creation.

Originally Posted By: rosangela

The complete separation at the last day will occur because the sinner will be in God's presence, and sin is the opposite of everything that God is. God will show Himself in His unveiled glory (character) - which is the antithesis of sin, and this will make those who are identified with sin to be blotted out of existence. So both elements are necessary for the destruction of the sinner - sin and its antithesis (God's glory). You will say that if it weren't for sin, there would be no destruction, but if God didn't unveil His glory there would be no destruction either (people weren't destroyed in Christ's presence because His glory was veiled).

Why did God veil His glory? Because if He did not, then all sinners would have perished. Read again the very first chapter of the Conflict of the Ages, titled "Why was sin permitted?" If Satan would have experienced the natural results of sin, he would have died. The on looking universe would not have understood that it was not God executing him. Christ came, took on sin, and experienced what sinners will experienced. Isaiah 53:3-4 "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." Did you catch that??? "we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted." We thought it, it is not true, but we STILL believe it.

Originally Posted By: rosangela

"was laid upon", "was counted a transgressor", "was heaped upon Him".

Yes! But what does this mean? Was it "really" laid on Him, or was it just a pretend? It was REAL. He really bore our sin in His body. It was not some magic accounting going on.

I acquired a number of digital books from the Adventist Pioneer Library (hint - APL). One of the authors is Carsten Johnsen who taught at the SDA Seminary for a number of years. Some of his writings can be found here: http://www.carstenjohnsen.org. One of the books is titled, "The Mystic Omega of Endtime Crisis". I have not finished it, but one of the topic he talks about is the battle between Christian realism and pagan idealism and the Western World. Our Western world is steeps in paganism. I read him to say that sin is real and it is physical. To deny this, is the omega of apostasy, if I read Carsten Johnsen right.

Originally Posted By: green

For example, "Why will God raise up the wicked, give them life again after 'sin killed them,' only to face more punishment?"

You cannot answer this. It is blatantly OBVIOUS that neither sin nor the devil could have power to give life. Therefore, why would a merciful, "non-punishing" God do this?

Your present theory cannot answer this. But the Bible is clear--God WILL PUNISH.

You've made this accusation before and it has failed to stick. ALL mankind suffers from the first death, which was brought about not by their own doing, but that of Adam's sin. Romans 5:12 "Why, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed on all men, for that all have sinned:" Ezekiel 18 tells us that we die for our own sins. All are raised back to life. All will have the same environment at the very end. The righteous will live, and the wicked will die. They die for their own sin. When the new Jerusalem comes down and is on the earth, EGW tells us that the gates to the city are open. If they are open, then anyone can go in. They don't. Why? Because this is absolute proof that they have chosen their own fate. They are not raised in order to punish them, but to give the final answers to the questions in the Great Controversy. The idea that the wicked are raised in order to punish them, is PAGAN to the core. Sorry to be so blunt.

Our greatest problem is that we live in a society where even some of the thinking of the greatest "saints" among us is so hued with the "miasma of speculative philosophy's most cryptic language"1) and we read both the writings of Ellen White and the Bible that way. Thus we have no idea what Revelation is all about.

1) Expression used by Carsten Johnsen

Let's see.... Once a smoker, always a smoker. Once a sinner, always a sinner.

I'm glad God will take us back and "restore" us to a state of perfection we had never previously known.

Come to think of it, I have gone fishing a couple times in my life. Caught a snapping turtle once. But I am not a fisherman. I haven't fished in many years. But I guess, APL, to you I must be a fisherman--and an expert at it too, I suppose?

You're welcome to your own definitions, of course.

I have felled a few trees too. I guess I'm now a lumberjack. I've soldered a few electronic components, so I must be an electronics technician. I've sewed a few things, I guess I'm a tailor. I've slept a few times in my life, I guess I'm a sleeper, too. I have picked up trash once in awhile. I guess I'm a trash collector or a "garbage man." In fact, I must be so many identities--who could really tell which face I should wear?

If, because God has destroyed, He's a destroyer, then you cannot avoid this conclusion, APL. If you claim that having done something one or more times permanently fixes one's identity, then you have some explaining to do about who destroyed and why God lied in saying that He did it if He didn't.

The antediluvians
Nadab and Abihu
Korah, Dathan & Abiram
Uzzah
Ananias and Sapphira
Herod (struck by worms)
The 185,000-strong army
Elijah's fires
etc.

You simply cannot prove that these events were NOT God directly causing the destruction of these people. God takes full credit for them. Why not accept God's own words?

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Here are some statements from Mrs. White regarding what the wicked dead are raised for at the end of the thousand years.



Note also that this final event of the destruction of the wicked is the final triumph of Christ.



Why does Christ "triumph" in the destruction of the wicked?

God calls it punishment. Why do you call this "pagan?" Truth is no such thing.



Blessings,

Green Cochoa.