When one gets caught in a discussion, points get made back and forth, but one's actual position can be lost in the shuffle. So I'd like to take the opportunity in this post to present a position without reference to points being discussed elsewhere in this thread. Specifically, I'd like to make some observations regarding the judgment.

I have been heavily influenced in my views by Ellen White's writings in "The Great Controversy" pages 541-543. I first read these pages many years ago and they had a profound impact on me then, and still do.

The first point that struck me was this:



I found the idea that God desires that we obey Him because we have an intelligent appreciation and admiration of His attributes of character to be very appealing.

Following this, she writes:



A number of points are made here:
1)The principles of kindness, mercy and love are manifest in the judgment.
2)God executes judgment upon the wicked for the good of all, including the wicked themselves.
3)God would make the wicked happy if they could.

Going on:



Here we see that
4)The purity, holiness, and peace of heaven is torture to the wicked.
5)The glory of God is a consuming fire to the wicked.
6)The wicked welcome destruction, as this is preferable to seeing the face of their Redeemer.
7)Their exclusion from heaven is voluntary with themselves.
8)Their exclusion from heaven is just *and merciful* on the part of God.

In considering this description, we see that God acts in harmony with His own character, the character which Jesus Christ revealed, of loving His enemies, acting in mercy, seeking to good for them, giving them what they want.

It seems that many miss the point that the wicked to not wish to be in heaven. God gives them what they want, although it causes Him great sorrow to do so.

Another point which should be brought out is that God does not act cruelly. Cruelty is Satanic. A bit earlier we read:



God does not, in the judgment, don a different character than what Jesus Christ revealed. He does not all of a sudden act cruelly, but He acts consistent with the attributes of His character of love and mercy, and acting the best interests of His loved ones. The judgment is not an event where the wicked are treated cruelly, nor given an eternal destiny against their will.

1: Jesus saw fit to do much of His teaching in parables, but now you say that Jesus parables are unreliable for understanding truth about God. Theology = God knowledge.

2: The way you treat Jesus teaching in these parables, saying they are unfit for theology, why should I pay attention to what you say about commentaries (ie Ellens book) when you treat the original which the commentaries speak about like you do here?

3: What I meant by "another full round" is that I now have your posts concerning these teaching by Jesus to add to the evidence of your use of the word "arbitary". And as I thought, you are not agreeing.

4: Do I think that angels will cast humans into fire and they will suffer through this? It seems this is what the bible teaches. It would be presumtious of me to claim that what the bible teaches is not really the truth about this.

5: Do people cast into this lake of fire suffer for long periods of time? Have no idea. We are not told how long they suffer, only that they will have time to do just that.

6: Why doesnt these people die right away since thats what humans usually do when in contact with lakes of fire? Have no idea, no more so than I have any idea of how Jesus could walk on water or feed 5000 men and maybe their families with one single lunch package.

7: I cited some scripture? Did I forget to add the info about where the scripture come from? No, didn't think so. You cite some scripture and hope that it will be enough to close the case. Not quite so fast. Isaiah 33:14-15 is not the only thing Isaiah has to say about the terrible day of the Lord. This is shown by the two quotes I made. You read the text as to say that God himself is the consuming fire giving life to the righteous while slaying the wicked. Was this what Isaiah himself had in mind? In chapter 2 he writes about God taking action to humble the haugty and proud, and in chapter 66 he wrote that God will execute judgement by fire. And even in chapter 33, if you start from the first verse. There you read about the suffering and chaos in the land, being plundered by both grashoppers and bandits. The people implore the Lord for deliverance, and in verse ten we read: "Now I will arise," says the LORD, "Now I will be exalted, now I will be lifted up. How will the Lord do this we may ask. "You have conceived chaff, you will give birth to stubble; My breath will consume you like a fire. "The peoples will be burned to lime, Like cut thorns which are burned in the fire. "You who are far away, hear what I have done; And you who are near, acknowledge My might." And so we finally ask, what will be the result of this act from the Lord. The wicked: Sinners in Zion are terrified; Trembling has seized the godless "Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with continual burning?" And the righteous will answer this question in this way: He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, He who rejects unjust gain And shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe; He who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed And shuts his eyes from looking upon evil; He will dwell on the heights, His refuge will be the impregnable rock; His bread will be given him, His water will be sure. Your eyes will see the King in His beauty; They will behold a far-distant land. Have we read the same Isaiah 33?
This also reminds of the question we read about in Revelation 6:9-11. There also the saints are imploring for justice to be done and Revelation also assures us that it will be done in time.

When Jesus started His ministry, He spoke plainly, without parables. But meeting resistance from the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders, He switched to parables. The parables were used specifically to teach truths in a indirect way, so that Jesus could continue teaching in the open.

Jesus spent much of His time teaching without the use of parables, so we can corroborate His teaching with other direct statements. There is no need to rely solely on the use of a parable in order to establish a doctrine, and, indeed, this is not a proper use of such. Not a single denomination, including ours, relies upon parables in order to establish points of doctrine.

As you are using the parable to establish that angels will cast human beings into a literal fire so that they can suffer by being burnt by a literal fire, so others have used the exact same parable to teach that there suffering will continue forever. For example, here is one such commentary:



This is using the same methodology you are using, which goes to demonstrate its flaw. This methodology can be used to establish many different ideas. How do we know the wicked will not suffer eternally? We have to consider *all* of what Scripture teaches, not simply look at a portion of a parable.



You should pay attention because what I cited from Ellen White destroys your argument, unless you wish to level the same accusations against her as you have against me. You have accused me of disregarding what Jesus taught about the judgment because I used the word "arbitrary." I demonstrated that I merely reused the word, which I borrowed from Ellen White. So if your accusations have any weight against me, they bear equally heavily against Ellen White, which was the point of my argument. So if I am disregarding what Jesus taught on this subject, so is she.

Regarding the treatment of the original, I am treating the original as it should be treated, which is to consider all of what Scripture teaches, and not rely unduly upon a parable to establish doctrine.



You haven't established this. You haven't stated what you think Jesus is teaching, nor how I am agreeing.



So I take it you also believe that Lazurus and the rich man can converse with each other in hell?



If they are suffering because there are being burned alive, why is their weeping and gnashing of teeth? Their should be shouts and shrieks of pain. Your idea doesn't make sense. The weeping and gnashing of teeth speaks of remorse, not of physical pain.



The people don't die right away because they aren't being burned by a literal fire. That should be clear. The only way around they could continue to live would be if God did something supernatural to keep them alive, which perhaps is what you had in mind by citing Jesus' walking on water. So let's clarify this.

By citing Jesus' walking on water, is what you're saying is that God does something miraculous to keep them alive, but you don't know how this works any more than you know how Jesus was able to walk on water?



What I wrote is that you cited Scripture with no commentary without responding to what I had written, which is exactly what you did. Also, I did not simply cite some Scripture hoping that would settle the case, but presented a well reasoned argument of which the citing of the Scripture was a part.



There are other texts which speak to God's being a consuming fire. For example Deut 4:24; 9:3; Heb 12:29, as well as being compared to such in Exod 24:17; Isa 30:27, 30, as well as other places.

If you wish to take issue with my interpretation of Isa. 33, the following is clear enough:



Now you have accused me of disregarding the teaching of Jesus because it doesn't fit in with my view of God, but if we accept Ellen White's writings as being representative of Seventh-day Adventist teaching, then my ideas are representative of Seventh-day Adventist teaching, and I am no more disregarding Jesus' teaching that she is.

Also, if one does not use one's view of God to understand Scripture, what does one use? That is, if you read some text in Scripture, and you're trying to understand what it means, what is your basis for doing so? Do you not consider what it says about God? Do you simply set aside what you believe about God to be true, and read the text as if you knew nothing about God?

This would be much more enjoyable if you were to acctually pay attention to what I write. If Jesus main point of His parables cannot be used for teaching, then we may aswell take some scissors and remove every single one of them. ...I cannot make the willfully blind to see...Sigh...Remorse? Are you arguing that someone will be repenting in the face of eternal death? Would God really kill someone who was truly repenting of their sin, even at the very last moment? I wrote that I do not know how it works and by that I intended to mean that I do not know how it works. Nothing more complicated than that.
It would seem proper to me to let scripture guide ones understanding of God. Having done that it is fitting to do as you propose here.

I paid attention to what you wrote, and made the point that following the same methodology you are using, others come up with the doctrine that Jesus taught that the wicked will suffer forever in an eternally burning hell. In order to counteract this, one would need to consider what Scripture has to say as a whole.



I hear this! It's hard enough to get people just to look.



Not repenting, remorse. That's what "weeping and gnashing of teeth" refers to. Or do you disagree with this? Do you think "weeping and gnashing of teeth" means something other than remorse?

If the wicked were truly repentant, I agree with you that they would not be destroyed. One can suffer remorse without being repentant. Judas is a textbook example of this.



You don't know how what works? What is it that you believe? You've been very vague on this, but this is precisely the point that needs to be explained, as this is precisely the point that I've been taking issue with. That is, I have been arguing against the idea that God will cause the wicked to suffer for many hours, or many days, by supernaturally keeping them alive so that they will suffer physical pain while being burned. It is not clear to me that you believe this, so what I've been arguing against may be something that doesn't even apply to what you believe.



It sounds like we are in agreement here, if I have understood you correctly. So I would come back to your original accusation, which is that I have disregarded Jesus' teaching because it does not fit into my view of God, an accusation you supported because of my use of the word "arbitrary."

In defense, I pointed out that I borrowed that term from Ellen White, because I thought her use of it was accurate. If your accusation stands against me, then it stands against her as well. Do you agree with this? If not, please explain how what I'm saying is different than what she is saying. If you don't disagree with this, but think that both she and I are disregarding what Jesus taught, then please make that point clear.

Maybe you misstook my methodology for someone elses?I clearly misstook the meaning of this word "remorse".It is like the trinity. I do not know how it works, I only know that this is where Gods selfrevelation leads us and therefore I believe it is true. Because I see Jesus teaching that God will have justice and in another scripture a prophet wrote, "mine is the vengence says the Lord". I see you saying that vengence is not something God would be about so therefore I see a conflict between your position and the bibles position. If I have missunderstood this... your telling me so has drowned in the details of how God would have His vengence. I have not considered your referals to Ellens writing. What she wrote is secondary to the scripture we are studying.

I'm speaking of the methodology of trying to develop a theology solely on the basis of parables. For example, I see no difference between the reasoning you are using to establish that angels literally throw human beings into literal fire where they literally suffer in literal flames, and the reasoning those who use this parable to establish that they wicked will literally be burned forever.

They would say, and do say, the Bible says they burn forever, so I believe it, which sounds like the same thing you are saying.



So we're in agreement on this point?



I would question that God's self revelation leads us here. God has revealed Himself in Christ, fully and completely. If some interpretation of a parables leads us to a conclusion which is contrary to what we see revealed in Jesus Christ, we have to question whether our interpretation is correct.

If we want to see how God treats His enemies, all we need to do is look at how Jesus treated His enemies. This is God's self revelation.



People have a presupposition as to what it means to take vengeance. For us to take vengeance means eye for eye and tooth for tooth. This is how we see justice being served. But Jesus presents another picture. His way of dispensing justice is to turn the other cheek, walk the second mile, give the shirt off his back.

If you've read Les Miserable, Victor Hugo does a nice job describing a similar process. The fellow chasing the protagonist is led to commit suicide because he cannot deal with the mental conflict between the justice of God (represented by the kindness of the protagonist) and the justice of man (represented by the fellow pursuing him). But I digress.

In terms of vengeance, in Romans 12 where Paul speaks of "vengeance is mine" he quotes from the Old Testament, Proverbs I think, where it says that if your enemy thirsts, to give him drink, because in so doing you heap coals of fire upon his head. This is how God gets vengeance. This is the same theme that Jesus spoke of in the sermon on the mount.

Judas is also an illustration of the principle. Like the character in Les Miserable, Judas was destroyed by the love (which is the glory) of Jesus Christ. The love of God is such a powerful force that either we open our hearts to it and are transformed by it, or our own selfishness leads to our destruction in our inability to deal with God's unselfishness.



You accused me of disregarding what "we" had said (I don't know who we is) regarding Jesus' teaching of the judgment, and when I asked for evidence, you pointed to my use of the word "arbitrary." I think your accusation was totally out of line. A better "accusation" would be simply to have a dialog with the hopes of coming to a better understanding of what is being said, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. There's no need to throw out accusations.

I have been pointing out that the use of the word "arbitrary" is borrowed from Ellen White. It seems to me that it would be prudent of you to be open to at least the possibility that she was correct in what she wrote, and perhaps the use of the word "arbitrary" does not constitute a rejection of Jesus' teaching.

And here I thought we had reviewed both things written by Isaiah and the apostles in addition to the parables, where one of the "parables" was not even a parable. Maybe you are so focused on the parables thread that you missed these other bible passages?Jesus forgave His enemies. So if everything we can know about God can be learned by what Jesus did while on earth, we may conclude that there will be no lost people, because there will be no enemies of God because once God has forgiven somebody, this person is no longer an enemy of God, and we know that God always forgives His enemies. Did we just slip into universalism? Judas was destroyed by love? Taking a swift look for these two words occuring together in the bible, I found the following from another person who appears to have missunderstood God's character:Psalm 145

20The LORD keeps all who love Him,
But all the wicked He will destroy. We who are studying, ie you and me. You sure have a hard time moving on from that "arbitary" thing. And i wish I had know you wore your nevers upon your skin before writing that first post...I have learned is prudent is to not take anyones single paragraph (no Mike, a train of single paragraphs are none better) with an "Ellen said" attached to it as the final say on anything. More often than not it isn't even an honest quote. (Notice that this is not an attack on you).

Why don't we start from scratch here. I invite you to present your case that man will be punished for his sin by being cast into literal fire, and that he will be suffering because of being burnt by literal fire. Use whichever Scriptures you would like, and I'll respond.

In this point here I was addressing your use of the parable. You seem to think we're discussing something else, so let's back off a bit and start over.



If forgiveness saved a person without their response being important, what you wrote here would be true. But forgiveness involves two parties. From the part of God, you are correct, Jesus did forgive His enemies, and God, in answer to Jesus' prayer "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." has forgiven each of us. Indeed, we can only live physically because God has forgiven us. Every breath we take was paid for by the blood of the lamb.

However, while God has forgiven us, that doesn't mean we have experienced forgiveness. In order to experience forgiveness, we must repent. This isn't an imposed condition, but is a reality. If you and are are in a fight, and you have wronged me, and I forgive you in my heart and offer you forgiveness, in order for our relationship to be healed and us to be brought into harmony, you must recognize your wrongdoing (i.e. repent) and accept my forgiveness. Otherwise we remain estranged.

Now if you don't feel you've done anything wrong, but, in reality, I'm the one at fault, it's likely you will never accept my offer of forgiveness, because you don't think you need it, and you probably don't think much of me either.

Well, this is precisely God's problem. Man doesn't like God, and doesn't feel like he should have to humble himself and accept God's forgiveness. It's takes the love of God to melt the heart, and then comes thankfulness for that love, and an appreciation for the forgiveness offered, and its terrible cost.



Judas chose not to live rather than repent. He was driven to suicide by his refusal to respond positively to God's love.



What you wrote was that when "we" presented Jesus' teaching on the judgment, you (meaning me) disregarded it because it didn't fit in with your view of God. This is rather strong, IMO. It's a bit surprising to me that you would think my taking offense at this is my wearing my nerves upon my skin. I'm actually rather thick-skinned because I get quite a lot of abuse. However, I was rather surprised to read this from you because up until now you've struck me as being quite reasonable.

When I asked you to either retract your statement or produce evidence for it, *you* were the one who cited my use of "arbitrary" as evidence. When I protested that this was flimsy evidence, you argued that it wasn't. I supported my position by pointing out that I simply borrowed the use of the word from Ellen White, doing so because I believed her use of the term was accurate. So if simply the use of the word "arbitrary" is enough for being indicted for rejecting Jesus' teaching on the judgment, then you are indicting her as well as me. This is what I've been pointing out.

If you will retract your accusation, I won't have any difficulty "moving on" from arbitrary.



Thank you for the qualification here. I agree with you that her writings are often misused. Of course, the same thing could be said regarding Scripture.

I believe it's important that we develop a view of whatever, the judgment, the atonement, whatever the subject is, that makes sense. God says, "come let us reason together."

As I mentioned earlier, one of the things that made a profound impression on me was EGW's statement that God would have us worship Him because we have an intelligent appreciation of His character, and because we admire Him. I just love this! I love that God would be this way, desiring our fellowship not because of who He is, in the sense of being powerful and almighty, number One, the creator and so forth, but because of who He is in the sense of His character. Because God is so supremely unselfish, kind, patient, humble, compassionate, just plain good, it is an honor and a privilege to be able to have anything to do with Him, let alone contribute to His cause.

I don't believe God wishes that we believe something that doesn't make sense to us, simply because He said it. I'm not saying "doesn't make sense" in the sense of not knowing how He does something (like how He fed the 5,000, or created the worlds by speaking them into existence) but doesn't make sense in that it doesn't fit with our view of reality, and specifically, with our view about Him.

It may be the case, when presented with evidence, that we need to revisit our perception of reality, and our perception of Him (which is, indeed, what I'm inviting you to do), but these changes in perception do not happen in a moment. They are the process of much thought. Nor would God expect that we willy-nilly change all of our idea just because we came across some new Scripture or whatever that we hadn't seen before.

Sorry about being long-winded here, but, to summarize, I don't believe that God wants us to believe something that doesn't make sense to us (again, in the sense of not fitting in with our view of reality, or of Him) simply because someone said so, even Him. He's not interested in servitude base on authority, but on our being genuine friends of His because we are inspired by His character. We will only admire His character insofar as we understand it.

What does God's forgiveness mean in perspective of those who refuse to acknowledge it? God opens his arms in forgiveness and some people respond by throwin stones at Him. What then? You say that forgiveness requires both to agree on the need for forgiveness and then for one to give it and for the other to recieve it. What about those who crucify Christ anew?

Lets use a human example. Person A and person B are friends. Then person A insults B publicly. Person B becomes angry and their relationship is strained. Person A then says to B, "I forgive you". B is not at all happy with the situation as it implies that it is B who has done something wrong. B refuses to recognise any "wrongdoing" and accept A's offer of "forgiveness". Is it B's fault that the relationship remains strained? (this ought not be taken as a summary of any real event but merely as an example)

Besides, Jesus words of forgiveness from the cross did not wait for any concent from His enemies standing on the ground all around. If forgiveness requires mutual concent to be of any value, those words of Jesus had little value for the people who heard them spoken. So I strike you as somewhat less reasonable when I disagree with you then I do when I agree with you? Hmm?
Seriously though, not that you would take offense at it, but that you would linger upon it for this long. I made my statement in light of everything I read you write in your endless discussions with Mike and others regarding these issues. I realise that such is not evidence that would hold in court, or in a scientific paper but it is non the less what I am about here. Reading someone speak on a subject from different points of view over a lengthy period of time, but without taking notes (therefore requiring me to reread it all again in order to make a watertight case) creates a view of how the land lays.
If I read everything the apostle John has written in the bible and conclude that his main thing is speaking about the love of God, if I then got an oportunity to speak with him and he would deny this being the case, this would be a somewhat suprising turn of events. If he then would go on speaking of the love of God in his denial of him speaking about the love of God, well... This is somewhat how I experience this discussion. When your argument goes like this "I request that you retract the accusations you made about me saying that I do not believe God punishes sinners at the judgement day of the Lord, and by the way, those verses over there which you say mean that God punishes sinners, they say nothing of the sort". Every other post is about me taking back my words and the rest contain confirmation that what I intended to say is what you acctually believe. How can I take back my words under these circumstances without creating a lie?The diffence of course is that Scripture contains some 2000 pages and the average book or letter is much much shorter than that. Some of Ellens major books are by themselves that large and if someone would want to get an overview of everything Ellen wrote on a subject, this person would have maybe 20 000 pages rather than 2000 to read. It is much easier to misuse Ellens work based on this. Creation as explained in genesis does not make sence to a lot of people, so I expect God would then not require these people to believe it just because. I read in John Stott's "the Cross of Christ" that God's character has two major parts. His love and His holiness. His love cannot stand the death of creation and His holiness cannot stand the presence of sin. (By the way, before you give a reply considering the details here, notice that a summary is always just that, and you would be adviced to read the chapter itself if you are inclined to critique it.)I guess the issues start when we (both you and I) make the assumptions that if something makes sence to me it should also make sence to everyone else. I have noticed that this is almost never the case. If I got a $ for every time that something which spoke to me also was meaningfull to someone I tried to share it with, im not sure I could order a McD burger meal with the money.