What?! This doesn't make any sense.



She says that Lucifer was given an opportunity to confess his sin, and not be banished from heaven. It's parallel to this:



Had Lucifer confessed his sin, he would have been restored to his position. Before being banished from heaven, Lucifer was given the change to repent. This couldn't possibly be any clearer.

When she writes



this has to be referring to sin he had already committed. There's no other possible way to read this. Ask anyone.

As I pointed out, it's a reasonable question, but it's a different issue. These aren't simply issues, MM. I would say that understanding the commands of God of this sort is quite a bit more difficult to understand than understanding the issues involved in God's supposed active involvement.



She didn't say that God killed Uzzah, did she?

Let's consider the case of the fiery snakes and the destruction of Jerusalem. According to Scripture, God killed the Israelites in both these incidents. However, from EGW, we see that God permitted these things to happen, and we read the following rather stunning comment:



What principle do we use to understand Scripture when it speaks of God's killing people? Do we say, what Scripture says is correct, unless Ellen White says something different? This seems to be the principle you are using. Is it? If not, what principle are you using?





If you don't understand the point, I'll explain this answer, which is a bit cryptic.

You didn't address my point.



What basis would she have of limiting this principle to this one specific case? Why would the great deceiver, only, in this one specific case, be hiding his own work in this way? How does that make sense?

How, from Scripture, could we make the case that the destruction of Jerusalem was actually Satan's doing? Or is that impossible? Do we need Ellen White to understand Scripture correctly here, to be able to discern from God's work and Satan's work?

If you can't tell the difference between God's work and Satan's work without Ellen White, how will you avoid being deceived in the time of the end?

I'd like to see you expound on this topic. It seems hypocritical for God to require something that He would not do Himself.

Yes, it does, which is why I acknowledge that the question is reasonable. If anything, God's commanding another to kill is *worse* than His doing it Himself.

However, of the following three subjects:

a)Penal substitution
b)God's use of violence
c)God's commanding of violence

c) seems quite a bit more difficult than the other two. Since we are already discussing the other two, I'll think I'll pass on c) for now. If we can make any progress (probably on a), which is easier than b)), we can come back to c).

I think your position on penal substitution is firmly founded on your rejection of the idea that God uses violence. Logically, your belief that God does not use violence is the major premise from which you conclude that penal substitution is hogwash. Am I right?

The answer to your question is a bit long.

About 30 years ago, I started to have some questions about God's use of violence. That kind of just stuck in my subconscious until I started posting here about 5 years ago, when others here started to make observations regarding God and violence/force/killing which made sense to me, but I hadn't made any decisions about it, rather than it made some sense to me.

About 4 years ago or so, I went to a SDA conference, and I got into a conversation with someone there who didn't believe in the penal view. As we were talking I had an "aha!" moment where I realized what I believed regarding penal substitution was not in harmony with what I believed about God's character in general (viz a viz force, being like Jesus Christ, that sort of thing). So that's when I started to rethink my support of penal substitution.

As I studied into it, I began to see that there was very little support for it from an historical perspective or Scripture, and, in the case of the latter, particularly in regards to what Jesus Christ lived and taught, on which I became convinced that the Gospel should be based (as opposed to, for example, the idea that Jesus lived the Gospel and Paul explained it).

The specific idea that penal substitution is a problem because of the violence aspect is a more recent idea, probably largely influenced by J. Denny Weaver's book "A Non-Violent Atonement." But even before reading that book, I had already come to the conclusion that there were problems with the penal substitution idea.

A couple of others that were instrumental in my thinking were Ty Gibson and George Fifield (a contemporary of Jones and Waggoner, who had some sermons in the 1897 GCB that blew me away; I first read them around 1990. They also kind of festered in my subconscious for awhile.)

There aren't many SDA's that I know of that agree with my point of view regarding violence. I know a great deal more that agree with my point of view regarding the final judgment and penal substitution (I'm linking these together, because most I know see these as two sides of the same coin; having to do with the question of whether justice/judgment/death at the end comes about as a natural consequence of sin or not. If it's an imposed penalty, rather than a natural consequence, that seems to be more in harmony with the penal substitution idea).

I'm leaving out a lot. If you're interested, I can provide more detail. (For example, the 1888 message had a lot to do with how I conceive of things, and I left that part out.)

Tom, thank you for sharing the background of your views.

Your welcome.

Thanks.

I figured God's use of violence was a major point. I'd like to hash it out one of these days.

I haven't thought about this topic too much, but I have spent a few minutes considering if death is an externally-imposed penalty or the natural consequence of separation from God. I lean toward that latter, but have not found sufficient reason to completely reject violence as part of God's MO.

I think if you take the position that death is not an externally-imposed penalty, you will come to the same conclusions I have in regards to penal substitution and the final judgment. I think these are logically equivalent. I haven't tried to prove that, however. I think I'll think about it and maybe give it a try.

Regarding your question as to why I hold to the idea that penal substitution is not correct, I thought of a simpler answer, which is simply that if it were true, it would say certain things about God which I believe are false.