How the Book was Inspired
Dr. Chris Lewis
Spectrum asked Chris Lewis, co-author of The Character of God Controversy, to explain how he became inspired to write a book exploring the character of God and His sense of justice.
Question: I note that the book cites scriptural references and carefully selected statements from the writings of Ellen White. In preparing for the writing of this book, did you and Steve Wohlberg consult sources outside of Scripture / Ellen White? What other sources (Adventist or non-Adventist) did you draw upon?
Answer: Other than consulting Greek and Hebrew/Chaldee lexicons, the only sources of authority on these topics for me are the Bible and writings inspired by the Holy Spirit of Prophecy in the modern era, i.e., Sister White’s writings.
Question: Did Pacific Press or the Biblical Research Institute pitch the idea for the book, or was it an idea that the authors pitched to the Press? Where did the impetus for this book come from?
Answer: After studying and discussing the concepts the book covers, I myself became confused on these topics and was drawn in by the possibility that this could be new light.
However, after thoroughly investigating the topic and studying for hundreds of hours, I came to the conclusions found in the book and became convicted that a book needed to written that would simplify and reveal the core issues involved.
There was no discussion between myself and the Biblical Research Institute or the publishing presses prior to researching and writing the book.
Question: The book refers to many Adventist proponents of the "God-doesn't-kill theory," though declining to mention any of them by name. Did you converse with any of those proponents or ascertain their views through reading their writings? In other words, how did it become evident that there was, as the book puts it "a controversy" over the character of God in Adventism?
Answer: I have a number of friends who subscribe to the “God-doesn’t-kill theory” and have spent many hours dialoguing with them. As I mentioned above, in the course of this dialogue, I began to wonder if this was new light.
The proponents of this theory genuinely want God to look good. They believe that their theory paints God in an accurate light. Their analogies sound logical. However, when I compared the ideas involved in this system of belief with the Bible, I found that it did not stand close scrutiny. It contradicts Scripture.
As an example, the way that God’s wrath is defined in this belief system is said to come from the first chapter of Romans. However, what Romans 1 really teaches - if one reads it honestly - is something very different, as we show in the book
Much in this belief system is also based on the well-known verse in Romans 6 which states that “the wages of sin is death.” Once again, as we discuss in the book, a careful study of this verse teaches something very different from the end-conclusions of this theory.
These are a couple of examples. The bottom line is that while this theory - which is being taught widely in Adventism by many people who I like very much and care deeply for - is, nonetheless, erroneous, and leads to conclusions altogether different from what the Bible teaches.
Question: Were there ideas/themes/directions that you or Steve Wohlberg would have liked to have pursued but did not, or would liked to have pursued in more detail? Anything else you would have addressed if time and space were immaterial?
Answer: We tried to be succinct with the book. Of course much more could be said on a number of the topics addressed.
I found that the more I studied the issues surrounding why Lucifer was not destroyed after he first rebelled, the more light was shed on how God deals with sinners in the very end. Studying Lucifer’s rebellion in Ezekiel, Isaiah and Job in the Old Testament also sheds much light on the nature of sin and just how terrible it is.
The Bible just keeps bringing home the point that the misunderstandings of how God will deal with sin and sinners comes back to a misunderstanding of how bad sin is and what its true nature really is.
Additionally, my study of the Bible shed new light on my understanding of why the wicked are resurrected after the millennium when they are “just going to die again” as well as the apparent mechanism used in the final destruction of the wicked. For brevity’s sake, these issues were not addressed in the book but are nonetheless interesting and show deeper sides of God’s love.
Question: It is evident from reading that both you and Steve Wohlberg care about how God is depicted. What misperceptions about God do you hope the book will help in clearing up?
Answer: It appears to me that many people do not understand how a loving God could still be loving and yet punish or destroy. How can a life-giving God take life?
Unfortunately, these issues are too often handled by “reasoning” from our sometimes inaccurate understanding of things like sin and wrath - using analogies to understand these issues instead of simply taking God at His Word and then trying to study more deeply to understand the “why” behind what He says. If an author or speaker uses an analogy that “makes sense” to us, should we base our definition or understanding of sin or wrath on that analogy instead of basing it on how God defines these ideas in His Word?
One truth that is taught throughout the Bible but that is denied in the theory in question is the truth of the atonement of Christ. It gets at the reason of why Jesus came to earth and died.
My children have a series of musical CDs with Scripture set to music, and my daughter’s favorite is Isaiah 53. She has the chapter memorized. Whenever she has the CD playing or when I hear her singing the chapter while she plays, I am struck by how simple and plain God is in His Word on the subject of the atonement.
Central to this topic is the concept that God’s law simply cannot be set aside. A part of that law is the decree “The wages of sin is death.” Paul was quoting God when he wrote Romans 6:23. Notice this clear statement from Review & Herald, May 7, 1901:
The fiat has gone forth, "The wages of sin is death." The sinner must feel his guiltiness, else he will never repent. He has broken the law, and in so doing has placed himself under its condemnation. The law has no power to pardon the transgressor, but it points him to Christ Jesus, who says to him, I will take your sin and bear it myself, if you will accept me as your substitute and surety. Return to your allegiance, and I will impute to you my righteousness. You will be made complete in me.
It is so very simple. None of God’s law can be set aside if the universe is to be kept safe. It is the way it has to be, whether we understand why or not.
Now read Isaiah 53 through again from start to finish. Don’t skip any verses. Why did it please the Lord to bruise Him? Because He knew that by God in human flesh dying, He could justly forgive sinners.
Why was Jesus “satisfied?” Because by faith He saw the millions who would be in heaven because He was put to death for their sins. God showed that the law cannot be set aside in order to pardon sinners. The penalty must be carried out. That is justice. No one, including Satan, the accuser of the brethren, can accuse God of not being just, because God took the full justice of the law upon Himself in the form of the Son.
But God is also merciful. Where the mercy comes in is where God says, in essence, “For the safety of the universe, I cannot set aside My law, but what I will do is take the penalty Myself so that I can extend pardon to the guilty.” The plan formed by the Godhead was for the Son to die the death required by the law, for us. If we will accept that death in our place, by faith, it is ours. It is as though we had received that death sentence, yet lived to tell about it.
The bottom line is that only One equal with the law, i.e., the Lawgiver, could pay the penalty and satisfy the justice of the law for us. Some say this shows God to be barbaric. I believe that it instead reveals a God that is just, and [yet] and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Romans 3:26).
The reason we don’t understand that this truth shows us how loving God is, rather than describing a barbaric God, is that we also misunderstand the law. To the degree that we misperceive how bad sin is, we also misperceive how good the law is. Sin and the law are opposites, for sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4).
Question: Do you feel as though all depictions of God in Scripture (even stories about God sending lying spirits to deceive) have reasonable explanations that do not misrepresent God, or are there any depictions of God in Scripture that you feel might misrepresent who God is?
Answer: I believe that when we fully understand Scripture, we will see that God’s love and His mercy - as well as His fairness or justice - can be seen throughout Scripture.
That does not mean that I can explain every single verse in Scripture. That being said, it is the rare verse that cannot be understood in the context of the surrounding verses, chapters and other books by the same author as well as other authors that address similar topics - given proper study.
I am reminded of 2 Timothy 3:16, which reads, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” I believe that if God appears unloving in a verse, either I don’t know what loving is, or else I don’t understand the verse.
Question: How would you define success for The Character of God Controversy?
Answer: “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13).
Read Jared Wright's review of The Character of God Controversy
here.
Dr. Chris Lewis, MD, is a surgeon at Loma Linda University. He and his wife Lela Lewis co-founded Right Arm of Love Ministries and co-host a program on the Loma Linda Broadcasting Network entitled Practical Living.
He is a co-author of "The Character of God Controversy" with Steve Wohlberg.
[Wohlberg did not respond to requests for an interview.]
Search
- Bonnie Dwyer on Mt. Ellis on the Brink of Winning Big
- Donna Haerich on Fascinating Adventist Mathematics
- victor on Fascinating Adventist Mathematics
- Andre Reis on Hate Speech?
- Your Friend on Fascinating Adventist Mathematics
- Your Friend on Hate Speech?
- Donna Haerich on Hate Speech?
- Your Friend on Laughing in Church
- bevin on Hate Speech?
- David Read on Hate Speech?
Comments
Thanks for putting up the interview so quickly. I posted my reply at http://cafesda.blogspot.com/2008/10/response-to-chris-lewis-interview.ht...
We are invited to read Isaiah 53.
JKV Isa 53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
NIV Isa 53:4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
GNB Isa 53:4 "But he endured the suffering that should have been ours, the pain that we should have borne. All the while we thought that his suffering was punishment sent by God.
CEV Isa 53:4 He suffered and endured great pain for us, but we thought his suffering was punishment from God.
NET Isa 53:4 But he lifted up our illnesses, he carried our hpain; even though we thought he was being punished, attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done.
Is this a prophesy? He suffered and died. And WE thought it was God killing him. It's not true, but we thought it. We continue to think it?
Thus the way was prepared for the Jews to reject Jesus. He who "hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows" was looked upon by the Jews as "stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted;" and they hid their faces from Him. Isaiah 53:4, 3. {DA 471.2}
God had given a lesson designed to prevent this. The history of Job had shown that suffering is inflicted by Satan, and is overruled by God for purposes of mercy. But Israel did not understand the lesson. The same error for which God had reproved the friends of Job was repeated by the Jews in their rejection of Christ. {DA 471.3}
Are we repeating the same error?
" these issues are too often handled by “reasoning” from our sometimes inaccurate understanding of things like sin and wrath - using analogies to understand these issues instead of simply taking God at His Word and then trying to study more deeply to understand the “why” behind what He says."
Is there another way to understand anything in the Bible other than through our "reasoning"? What would it be: emotions? spririts? osmosis?
Please, what method can possibly bypass the mind, which is our reasoning ability?
The Christian re-interpretation of Isaiah must have been exasperating for the Jews to have their traditional scriptures employed in support of the Christian movement. Christians also used the apocryphal books in the same manner to argue their positions of the resurrection, the Messiah, angels, and demons. It is, in effect, saying the Jews didn't really understand their own Scriptures: Scriptures which Christians would not have had except for the Jews!
It's unfortunate that the SDA church keeps outsourcing its thinking about theology to people with no more scholarly skills (a concordance and a Bible)than William Miller had.
Just to underline how ill-prepared the good surgeon is, he assures us that this topic is not very complicated:
"...I am struck by how simple and plain God is in His Word on the subject of the atonement."
But at least the two gentlemen chose to take on an important subject. After all, how can you explain that our three monotheistic faiths portray God as a glorified oriental monarch, who revels in adulation and who kills anybody who steps two inches out of line--and yet is also supposedly the one who cares more about you than anybody else in the world.
If you call squaring that circle easy, you haven't understood much.
Of such simplistic thinking, agnosticism is born.
Jared
I have no idea what the authors of the book other views are but on this ONE I must agree...as does the scholarship of "classical Protestantism."
regards,
pat
Aage,
One would want to be cautious, perhaps, in contending that those without specific training in theology should be ineligible as authors on theological topics. I am grateful to many of my professors who have encouraged me to see the value in many conversation partners with a broad range of theological saavy. One should, my professors would say, be willing to learn from anybody.
Having said all of that, I begin to feel a little nervous when non-specialists assume the tasks of the specialists. There are many good reasons why I do not attempt to write difinitive or authoritative articles in molecular biology. Even if I were to take several classes on molecular biology, I probably would not write on molecular biology unless it were to express some insights I might have gained in molecular biology that translate to my own area of expertise (and I am not really an expert in any area, which is why I am pursuing graduate degrees).
There are good reasons why the Adventist Church invests significant resources into rigorous training for church theologians. Their work is very necessary for the community. They bring to the community questions that need our consideration; they point us toward helpful resources and tools; they provide technical and scholarly work that people without time to invest in such pursuits can't provide.
We all absolutely need lay people of all types (with varying degrees of learning) as conversation partners. At the same time, those lay persons can never take the place of professional theologians who help in the sort of discourse we're having here.
For that reason, I would be thrilled if more professional theologians had the time and the interest to join our conversations here on Spectrum! But in their absense, we rely on (and enjoy) the insights and perspectives of one another, which can often be as good or better than the insights of the pros.
Pat,
I didn't catch exactly what it is that you're agreeing with. Could you say more about your points of agreement with the authors or me or whatever it is you agree with?
Hi Jared,
The fact that God is Love. The fact that His love includes justice and mercy. The biblical position, as I see it and as classical Protestantism sees it, that God though not desirous that any should perish will in love will destroy the wicked (according to His righteous judgment).
But the "good news" through faith in Christ is:
"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."
Rom.5:6-10.
regards,
pat
God says it so I believe it, that is, I believe it so God must have meant it the way I believe.
Trouble is this could be said for every other religion and belief so it still doesn’t clear up who has the truth!
Or one could get insight on a different tac.
Do those who disagree with the books perspectives have spiritual walks you would choose to emulate?
It was said:
But the "good news" through faith in Christ is:
"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."
Rom.5:6-10.
Mark 1:14-15
Mar 1:14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.
Mar 1:15 "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"
When Jesus started proclaiming the "good news", this was very early in his ministry. Do you think that Jesus was saying, "Good news people, I have come, and ya'll are still sinners! You are going to be reconciled to God by my death and be saved!"
I don't think that is what Jesus was saying. I think he was telling the Good News about his God. He was telling us what God was really like. He was trying to dispel misconceptions about God. This was his mission on earth, to make God known. (John 17) The Good News is all about what kind of person God is.
Jared
You're more than charitable when you explain the absence of SDA theologians from the arenas of thought and analysis in terms of work load.
Adventist theologians have, with very few exceptions, done their utmost to make sure that history will not remember them for anything except that they made it to retirement without being busted by the thought police. Adventist history is singularly devoid of heroic personalities.
Desmond Ford, whether you agree with him or not, is an exception, a man who exemplified courage, courtesy and scholarship. He was keenly aware that the sharks were circling, and yet he did not sell out. In the same way that you heard the GC condemn aparteid when it was falling apart,
Adventist theologians will no doubt speak up when it will no longer matter.
What a waste of education and talent.
Aage,
Your point about the sad inadequacies of our theologians is well taken.
And it is so true... we once had a brave theologian who at last materfully and with deep spirituality combined theology with the gospel, and we...
well you are right, we fed him to the sharks.
Our theo-evangelists have not served us well either with their emphasis on scarlet women and beasts and dragons and investigative judgements.
Perhaps it would help to remember that Jesus was no theologian. He didn't go around Galilee "doing theology". It is said of Him that he "went about doing good", offering healing, love, acceptance and forgiveness.
Salvation by reason, by thinking doesn't work. Like my recovering friends in AA say..."our best thinking got us into this mess".
The best theologian we have is the Devil in hell! He knows more about God than any of us. Intellectual belief and understanding, correct theology is at best insufficient.
Salvation is about relationship, not about correct belief or carefully honed theology. A living connection with God the Father and Christ the Son through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is our true spiritual foundation and protection. Connection is everything!
My son is a student at Pacific Union College. I took the liberty of printing off the course list required for a person who wishes receive a major in theology.
To begin with, the student has to endure courses in learning Greek. Hours and hours, years of study and memorizing Greek and some Hebrew too! In this age of computer translation, on-line or CD lexicons that allow instant access to the accurate rendering of every Greek word, couldn't the precious years of learning be focused on something else of much greater value in preparing them for service in the real world?
If they must learn a language how about Arabic? Chinese? since we keep fretting in the Review about the dark and unentered areas of the world.
The young theologians are also required to take such courses as "The Books of Moses", "The Prophets of Israel" "Old Testament Historical Literature" "Studies in Daniel", (you would think they were training to be rabbis!) "Studies in Revelation" "Introduction to Philosophy", "Christian Bio-Ethics", "World religions", "Life and Ministry of Ellen White" "Last Day Events" and of course, "Theology of the Sanctuary". Yes, Yes, I know, some of these could be interesting and helpful. (I had most of them in my college and seminary training) BUT, what was most depressing to me as I reivewed the list of courses what was NOT there.
Other than the basic course on "The Life and Teaching of Jesus", the Lord appeared to be pretty much left out of the picture. There were no classes on the greatest sermon ever given. (the one on the mount) There were no classes in the parables of Jesus. There were no classes on what the gospels devoted one half to one third of their emphasis, the trial, crucifixion and resurrection of the Savior. And tragically, the second most important topic in Christendom, the Holy Spirit, was totally ignoreld. Ellen White said the the Holy Spirit was Jesus' favorite topic. "One upon which He loved to dwell"
There are 250 references in the Bible to the Holy Spirit. One or two at best on the investigative judgment.
In the early church when they picked believers out of the congretation to serve in the humble tasks of "waiting on tables" and ministering funds to the widows and orphans, even the people serving the church in this capacity were to be chosen to serve because they were "full of the Holy Ghost".
How wonderful it would be if we could be offering our budding pastors and theologians that experience as part of their training.
As for the young surgeon, I say bless his heart for reaching out beyond his comfort zone and trying to do some theology. Our church was founded by people much younger than him who were not theologians either. But perhaps he should stick with his scalpel instead of his pen for awhile longer.
Because, I am sorry, God does NOT kill anyone.
A fellow who works for me part time is a fireman. He has gone into places to save people's lives where the intense heat and lack of oxygen would have killed him in an instant... except for his protective clothing. The fire has no intent to kill Eric, but by virtue of its very energy and power and his human fragililty it will destroy him if he is not protected.
So it is with our God who truly is "a burning fire". (though a burning, purifying fire of love) He offers us through grace and mercy and His Son's sacrifice a robe of absolute protection. However, if a person chooses to ignore the Spirit's promptings, to neglect the gift, then they will not be protected when God returns to the physical realm of earth.
God will not kill them. They will cease to exist by default, by their own neglect, their own choice not to respond and connect to the Savior.
Respectfully,
Douglas Cooper
Douglas Cooper said:
Because, I am sorry, God does NOT kill anyone.
Question Douglas, does God EVER kill? Has he EVER killed? Killed in the sense of First death. I agree that God will not kill in the Second death, and God did not kill Jesus who of course is God, but some Substitution theorists say God did execute Jesus.
Douglas,
Thanks for giving us the required subjects for theology students. Now, if someone would give us a list of subjects required for the M.Div at Andrews, that would be most informative.
Notably absent were the Gospels, and the Pauline Epistles. Where but in Paul will you find the Gospel so fully explained? Perhaps that is why our preachers still give much more emphasis to Daniel & Revelation and the OT, than the NT.
If we truly are Christians, the NT is our guidebook, and not the OT, which was written for the Israelites to comfort and harrangue them. That is also why so much of the Adventist belief system is still largely based on the OT. It has been said that SDAs are a people of the Book, when the "book" was the Hebrew scriptures, long before there were any Christians or a NT.
Douglas,
I can relate to some of what you say because it's as simple as relationship and "Jesus loves me this I knoW for the Bible tells me so."
But tell me as far as the importance of "sound doctrine and experience."
We live in a blessed age on the work of others. How was it going for "experience only" about the time of Luther and Calvin?
Did the introduction of sound doctrine make a difference? Was it important that Luther and Calvin understood Greek and Hebrew? Was theological learning unimportant to understand the meaning of scripture?
You decide.
regards,
pat
Douglas wrote:
===
"Perhaps it would help to remember that Jesus was no theologian. He didn't go around Galilee "doing theology". It is said of Him that he "went about doing good", offering healing, love, acceptance and forgiveness.
Salvation by reason, by thinking doesn't work. Like my recovering friends in AA say..."our best thinking got us into this mess".
The best theologian we have is the Devil in hell! He knows more about God than any of us. Intellectual belief and understanding, correct theology is at best insufficient."
===
Really so Jesus was no theologian, though you would have to admit that in fact He knows God a whole lot better then the Devil does and yet you say that the Devil is the best theologian.
But then if you believe that an alcoholic's best thinking got them into trouble; rather then their poorest thinking you must have a very stilted view of reason and intelligence as well as theologians.
Douglas,
Wow...a lot that you just threw into the ring. I appreciate the thoughtful comments, and I'd like to respond to some of what you offered.
I might push back a little bit against the notion that Jesus wasn't doing theology. Whenever one sets about describing God and the content of one's faith, theology happens. When Jesus said to the crowds, "You have heard it said...but I tell you..." he was certainly engaged in the task of doing theology. I think that the gospels are bursting with instances of Jesus' doing theology, and I would agree that they are coupled with practical applications of theology--making humanity whole.
Calling Satan the "best theologian" equates theology with knowledge. Theology has to do with applying information to the task of enacting good in the world. On that count, Satan is as bad a theologian as ever there was.
I agree wholeheartedly that salvation has to do with good relationships. But notice that it was careful theological thinking that helped us to understand that very idea in the first place!
Good theology is extremely valuable because our beliefs dictate our actions. If we believe, for example, that this world will be destroyed but that God will come and fix it all after it gets destroyed, we will be less inclined to take the time to care for creation.
Again, if we believe that God sometimes commands killing and uses violence as a means of enacting divine purposes, we will be much more inclined to support war than if we believe that God does not kill and commands us not to kill.
Good theology begets good ethics (those questions about right and wrong; living well in the world). Bad theology begets bad ethics.
I would argue, then, that the training aspiring pastors and professional theologians receive matters a great deal. Ellen White demonstrated in her writings that even early on in the Church's history, Adventists saw value in rigorous, thorough academic higher learning. Our education system attests to that fact.
I will use my "reasoning" to respectfully disagree with the author who participated in this interview.
I wonder if he would someday counsel his little girl to marry a man who said, "I love you with all my heart, and I want us to be together forever. But if there comes a day when you decide to leave me, I will still love you, but I will find you and kill you."
Love constantly pursues the object of its affection. But if it is ultimately rejected, Love gives up. It does not destroy the object of its affection (or it was never true Love in the first place).
Kelley
I will defend Dr. Lewis on this point: Scripture says that God is love. Scripture also says that God kills. At some point, we have to come to terms with these claims.
Lewis and Wohlberg assert that there is no problem there. God can love and kill, and those features or acts of God demonstrate different facets of God's perfect nature--in tension perhaps, but not in conflict.
I admit that I feel more needs to be said about that. I still wait for somebody to satisfactorily explain how violence can be both the problem and the solution to the problem.
Too often, people revert to circular reasoning that says God is good, God is love, therefore whatever God does is good and loving, even killing, when God does it. That sort of circular reasoning has not convinced me as yet. I'm open to being convinced, but it hasn't happened yet.
"Circular reasoning" is another way of saying "I don't know how to explain it, but I believe it."
It's also called cognitive dissonance, even schizophrenia. You choose. Trying to correlate two contradictory facts can lead to neuroses.
Jared said:
I will defend Dr. Lewis on this point: Scripture says that God is love. Scripture also says that God kills. At some point, we have to come to terms with these claims.
These are as you say, claims, rhetoric. The following verses are rhetoric:
Deu 32:22 My anger will flame up like fire and burn everything on earth. It will reach to the world below and consume the roots of the mountains.
Deu 32:23 " 'I will bring on them endless disasters and use all my arrows against them.
Deu 32:24 They will die from hunger and fever; they will die from terrible diseases. I will send wild animals to attack them, and poisonous snakes to bite them.
Deu 32:25 War will bring death in the streets; terrors will strike in the homes. Young men and young women will die; neither babies nor old people will be spared.
Deu 32:26 I would have destroyed them completely, so that no one would remember them.
Deu 32:27 But I could not let their enemies boast that they had defeated my people, when it was I myself who had crushed them.'
Deu 32:28 "Israel is a nation without sense; they have no wisdom at all.
The following verses are evidence:
Deu 32:29 They fail to see why they were defeated; they cannot understand what happened.
Deu 32:30 Why were a thousand defeated by one, and ten thousand by only two? The LORD, their God, had abandoned them; their mighty God had given them up.
Jared,
I appreciate what you mean when you say that Scripture supports the view that God is love and that God kills.
In my mind, the fundamental point is whether one believes or not that there is a difference between the first and second death.
I believe that the "first death" on this earth was something that was actually instituted by God for the purposes of the Great Controversy. When you really think about it, it is a suspended-animation sort of state. One "goes to sleep." It is certainly not conscious life, but on the other hand, it is not truly death. That is, death meaning the opposite of life, the going-out-of-existence event from which there is no return.
Many people posit that the "first death" is the wages of sin that Romans speaks of. But that is hard for me to accept, because if that was the case, Satan would have to, at some point, die the "first death," and he never will.
All of the killing God does that is spoken about in the Bible is putting people to sleep in the "first death." With rare exception (I can think of 2), He has inflicted this sleep-death on every person who has ever lived. For if He alone can give life, once we are in a separated state from Him, He is supernaturally suspending our life (as He is now with Satan), and what are His options in that event? Either keep sustaining us all until the very end (you think 6 billion people on the planet are alot? Imagine if everyone from Adam and Eve on were still here on earth!) or put us to sleep for a while.
In my mind, as far as real life and real death goes, the "first death" isn't real death, the death that God is so desperately trying to keep us from rushing headlong into. Knowing that every created being will be "coming back" from this suspended state, the real question in my mind is whether or not God ultimately destroys the life He gives.
I think the answer to that question is no. And the "first death" is actually one of the ways He guards against us destroying ourselves.
Way too much to try to fit into one little post! :o)
Kelley
Kelley - how do you interpret "Thou shalt not kill"? 1st death or 2nd death? If it is only the second death, then we have nothing to worry about if we "kill" someone because we can't cause the second death.
Mat 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather be afraid of God, who can destroy both body and soul in hell.
If it is 1st death, is God bound by his law?
EGW:
In setting aside the law of God, men know not what they are doing. God's law is the transcript of His character. It embodies the principles of His kingdom. He who refuses to accept these principles is placing himself outside the channel where God's blessings flow. {COL 305.3}
Is God bound by his law, or in some situations, God can kill (1st death) to accomplish something important?
Consider this, God took Israel out of Egypt by non-military means. But then we see those worshiping the golden calf being killed by the sword, and the OT saying God ordered it. Was this really God's plan? Did he have to resort to this kind of killing, even though he could take them out of Egypt without military means? Jesus says Mat 26:52 "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him. "All who take the sword will die by the sword." So was this killing by the sword really God's plan?
Kelley
I don't think I've ready any better analogy than the one you use. I have in the past talked about conservatives speaking of God as if he were a celestial Don Corleone presenting you with an offer you can resist, but yours is better.
For those who skipped Kelley's posting, let me reprint it:
"I will use my "reasoning" to respectfully disagree with the author who participated in this interview.
I wonder if he would someday counsel his little girl to marry a man who said, "I love you with all my heart, and I want us to be together forever. But if there comes a day when you decide to leave me, I will still love you, but I will find you and kill you."
Love constantly pursues the object of its affection. But if it is ultimately rejected, Love gives up. It does not destroy the object of its affection (or it was never true Love in the first place)."
Kelley,
I apologize for pushing the issue a little bit...
Should we be comfortable with God's killing if it is only the first death? Scripture describes God as not only allowing humanity to fall asleep, but also as cutting off life. There are some important implications and consequences of saying that killing is alright when it is only the first death.
1. God takes human life. Scripture is full of instances of God treating human life very, very seriously--from the stories of creation to Jesus' death, human life is important. However, God's cutting off human life, even if only the first death, demands the conclusion that life (at least the life of the one God kills) is expendable to God.
2. When God kills or commands killing in Scripture, it eliminates evildoers or lawbreakers. Paradoxically then, killing seems permissible when it serves to promote good in the world.
3. When God takes a life, a person's ability to make choices obviously ends. Nobody can repent from the grave. God cuts off free will by taking life.
4. How would a person worthy of dying the first death not also be worthy of dying the second death? If a person is corrupt enough to merit death, the resurrection will not change things, will it?
I worry that when we start making a distinction between first life / second life or first death / second death, we run the significant risk of making human life on this earth expendable and invaluable.
It was Gnosticism, not Judaism or Christianity that said that the body is nothing, it is the soul (the part that will live on after the first death) that really matters.
BH,
I would agree that there is certainly some hyperbolic rhetoric evident in some of the threats God makes in Scripture. It seems more difficult to say in seriousness that times when death in Scripture is attributed to God rather than simply threatened by God are simply rhetorical flourishes.
I might disagree with the author's conclusions when he says, for example, "But God struck down some of the men of Beth Shemesh, putting seventy of them to death because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. The people mourned because of the heavy blow the LORD had dealt them" (1 Sam. 6:19).
I might say that deaths were attributed to God by people whose default explanation for events they could not explain was the Supernatural. But I must be honest and admit that I'm choosing to disagree with the conclusions of the storyteller.
The preference for the Secular Humanist Manifesto eliminates all the contortions, explanations, and dissonance for those who use the Bible as the source for all their questions and answers about life. It simply respects all human life, devoid of gods.
The Bible was written thousands of years ago, people! What other philosophical work would you choose as a text for defending or promoting all your beliefs about the human state? This is crazy-making demonstrated here. A million different answers, conclusions, and theses and all based on the same book!
Look at the face of a newborn baby and conjecture about the future for that child. Are you willing to base her future teachings on YOUR interpretation of one book--a book on which no one can conclusively claim to have it right.
Perhaps we weren't meant to take it so seriously and simply read it as the Hebrews intended: a mythic narrative revealing their thoughts about their origins, purpose, and how their god led them; much like the contemporary myths with gods activities. The only difference is that the Hebrews only claimed to have one god, while all the while worshiping other gods simultaneously--which was little different than polytheism, simply henotheism.
Even the Gospel writers and Paul did not agree with themselves! One can prove entirely different positions within their own writings! And we think we know what they meant?
"I wonder if he would someday counsel his little girl to marry a man who said, "I love you with all my heart, and I want us to be together forever. But if there comes a day when you decide to leave me, I will still love you, but I will find you and kill you."
It starts off fine but loses it in the end.
Change it to this and then you have got something.
"I wonder if he would someday counsel his little girl to marry a man who said, "I'm a lifeboat Captain. I love you with all my heart, and I want us to be together forever. But if there comes a day when the ship goes down and you refuse to get in the life boat, I will still love you, but you will die."
Quote:
"I wonder if he would someday counsel his little girl to marry a man who said, "I love you with all my heart, and I want us to be together forever. But if there comes a day when you decide to leave me, I will still love you, but I will find you and kill you."
It starts off fine but loses it in the end.
Change it to this and then you have got something.
"I wonder if he would someday counsel his little girl to marry a man who said, "I'm a lifeboat Captain. I love you with all my heart, and I want us to be together forever. But if there comes a day when the ship goes down and you refuse to get in the life boat, I will still love you, but you will die."
But who sunk the boat? Did the captain sink it or was is some natural consequence? The first quote seems to represent the book in question.
Love me, or I will kill you.
Hi Jared,
I don't mind you "pushing the issue" at all... Let me try to explain more fully where I am coming from.
1. God is the only source of life in the universe. As such, He sustains the creatures He creates. Without Him actively sustaining our lives, we would cease to exist.
2. The death from which there is no resurrection comes as a result of totally separating ourselves from the source of life, thereby cutting ourselves off from the only thing that can sustain us.
3. Once Lucifer fully committed himself to his sin, what should have happened to him? He should have died right then and there. He should have gone out of existence.
4. God couldn't let Lucifer reap the consequences of his choice right then because nobody had ever seen death before, and God's other creatures would have had no way of knowing that God wasn't simply executing Satan for his rebellion.
5. Thus, God suspended the consequences of Satan's ultimate sin and has been sustaining him supernaturally in that "totally separated" state for thousands and thousands of years, long after he should have died.
If 1-5 make sense, let's proceed further and introduce our world into the equation.
6. Once Adam and Eve decided to plunge themselves and the rest of the world into a state of separation from God, was God not faced with the same choice as when Lucifer rebelled? One could argue that Adam and Eve hadn't committed themselves fully to their rebellion. Maybe they never did. But certainly by the time of the flood, there were human beings who had. The Bible describes the thoughts of most men at that time as being nearly continually evil. Yet, they came to the very same "end" as Adam and Eve had before them. No human being has died the extinction death that sin causes as of yet.
7. I believe God's universe runs on natural cause-and-effect laws; therefore, I don't believe there is any "natural" state like the first death. Either you are separated from God and you die, or you are connected to God and you live. There is no halfway (except that God made one up). If God hadn't suspended the natural consequences of sin for the purposes of the Great Controversy, Satan wouldn't be alive right now.
8. God suspended those consequences in order to give time for (1) the principles of rebellion to be fully developed in a society of people such as has happened on our earth and (2) to allow a public demonstration of what TRUE death is and God's involvement (or not) in it. This happened at the cross.
9. Thus, nobody before Christ had truly died, and nobody since Christ has truly died...yet.
10. In light of that, I don't see those who have entered the first death as dead. That is not to say that they are conscious somewhere. They are not. They are sleeping. But they haven't gone out of existence, which is the results of the second death.
11. Finally, once God starts suspending the natural consequences of sin for the purposes of the Great Controversy, what are His options here on this earth? Satan wasn't capable of reproducing, but we are. Should He have continued to suspend everyone's life just like Satan? In that case, we would have reached 6 billion people (which is treated like an emergency population number) a LONG time ago.
Should He just have put the wicked people to sleep and let the righteous continue living on this earth? In my mind, once He's supernaturally suspending us all, He's responsible for letting us all go to sleep (no matter how that happens: murder, disease, etc.)
12. Just one more: Christ demonstrated complete control over the first death. Lazarus went to sleep and Christ woke him up. And even after that miraculous resurrection, what happened? Is Lazarus still living? No, he eventually went back to sleep.
Now let me just respond quickly to a couple of things you wrote in your post, and then I'll be quiet, I promise. :o)
You said: "Should we be comfortable with God's killing if it is only the first death?"
Since I don't see it as true death, I don't see it as killing. He puts some to sleep sooner than others. But even if I'm the most righteous person on the face of the earth, He's going to "kill" me too in the first death (unless my name is Enoch or Elijah).
You said: "However, God's cutting off human life, even if only the first death, demands the conclusion that life (at least the life of the one God kills) is expendable to God."
To the contrary, I believe one of the reasons God instituted the first death was because God wants to keep us from rushing headlong into TRUE death, and the first death serves as the ultimate hedge against the second death. But that would take too long to go into here!
You said: "God cuts off free will by taking life."
Actually, it's ironic to note that God has cut off Satan's free will for the time being by DENYING him the consequences of his choices and sustaining his life. God judges and knows the heart, however, and I am personally convinced that the first death doesn't interfere with God's accurate read of a person's heart.
You said: "How would a person worthy of dying the first death not also be worthy of dying the second death?"
Boy I hope this isn't the case! That means, then, that everyone except Enoch, Elijah, and those still alive when Jesus comes will be lost. Everyone else dies the first death! Also, does Satan not merit the second death because he won't die the first death?
"I worry that when we start making a distinction between first life / second life or first death / second death, we run the significant risk of making human life on this earth expendable and invaluable."
I agree that there might be a risk there. However, it depends on your perspective. I could write a whole separate post on life, what makes it valuable, and whether you have to wait til heaven to live eternal life, or whether we can start living it now..... but I won't. :)
Somehow I'm afraid that this might have just made things more complicated, not less. I don't have a theology degree, so feel free to straighten me out! :)
Kelley
Michael,
You said:
"I'm a lifeboat Captain. I love you with all my heart, and I want us to be together forever. But if there comes a day when the ship goes down and you refuse to get in the life boat, I will still love you, but you will die."
Without having a conversation about what the boat is and why it sinks, :) I totally agree that our ultimate death is a result of what we have chosen, not something inflicted by God.
How about another analogy?
There is a syringe full of poison on my table. God says not to inject myself with the poison, because if I do, I will die. Does He mean that He will kill me if I disobey or that the poison will kill me because it's deadly?
So I'm curious and I inject myself with the poison. (Besides, this cool guy came along and told me that if I did it, I could be just like God.) God finds out that I injected the poison. He is sad, because He doesn't want me to die. He gives me the opportunity to drink the antidote, the potion that will SAVE me!!
What if I say no? The clock is ticking on that poison. It's working its deadly magic, spreading its harmful tentacles throughout my body. God starts to plead with me to take the antidote. But I refuse. I am adamant. I WILL NOT DRINK THE ANTIDOTE.
At that point, what does God do? Does He tell me that because I have disobeyed Him, He will now destroy me? No. He doesn't have to. I will die because I injected myself with the deadly poison and refused the cure.
God was telling the truth about the deadly nature of sin. Sin is dangerous because it KILLS, not because it is something that ticks Him off. He doesn't have to add anything to the already-deadly consequences of sin.
Kelley
Kelley
I resonate with your second version. Very good!
DH says who sunk the boat? In this hypothetical we could say Satan and/or Adam did since Christ would be the lifeboat Captain right?
The concept we do need to stay away from would be death as a punishment for disobeying.
If God were only concerned with disobeying be could have eliminated choice. Since choice is everything to him he expected from the beginning there would be those who as Kelley said, were to smart to take the antidote for whatever reasons appealed to them.
I've asked Dr. Lewis to join the conversation, because I feel as though trying to speak on his behalf does not do justice to his positions; having his input would certainly clarify where those in the "God-does-kill" mode of thinking are coming from. But being a surgeon may not provide much extra time for discussing the finer points of God's mercy and wrath and so forth.
Kelley,
For the most part I can track with you. What you articulate (very well) in your multi-pointed explanation is essentially the idea that God does not kill, but that death is a natural consequence of sin (separation from God, the life-giver). I don't mind saying that, and yet I think that we have a hard time accounting for all of Scripture and still coming out on that side of the discussion.
Scripture is quite explicit in many places (and here Wohlberg and Lewis are correct) that God, according to several biblical authors, physically, actively, unilaterally kills, and that God's killing is intended to be punishment.
We need to account for texts like these:
In those texts, it seems that the authors want us to understand that God is destroying life. Remember, Hebrews did not believe in a resurrection. For them, that was the end. If God strikes you down, you're done. The impression I get from texts like those is that while human life is a very significant thing to God, the taking of life is also very significant! That one of the Great Commandments deals specifically with killing should be an indication of the degree to which God takes killing seriously. It seems more significant than merely putting a person to sleep.
Because Scripture makes such claims, I feel as though we need to do Scripture the favor of wrestling with those passages and others like them, not ignoring them. As engaged readers, we have a duty to relate to God in light of the texts that make God look really good, and the texts (and they're out there) that make God look really bad.
"The Israelites set out from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the Passover. They marched out boldly in full view of all the Egyptians, who were burying all their firstborn, whom the LORD had struck down among them; for the LORD had brought judgment on their gods. (Numbers 33:3-5)"
This fits with Kelleys second version where an antidote is offered and refused. The egyptians could have painted lambs blood on the lentils of their doors too.
"The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:7)"
Again God gave warning and told the price beforehand. Sort of a futuristic lethal car alarm.
This is your best arguement
"Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. (Acts 12:23)"
No specific pre warning. An immediate result from a specific action.
Jared,
I think you and I are in a very large part in agreement. God does take death, real death, very seriously, even gravely (if you will pardon the pun).
I like the examples you gave. Texts like these do, indeed, make God look harsh and vindictive. However, when I read these, I bear in mind that (1) first death isn't true DEATH and (2) all those "righteous" people who watched Uzzah die ended up sleeping too.
Especially with the Israelites, God used the first death in fearful, awesome ways; mainly, I think to get the Israelite's attention and respect. (Imagine resorting to spanking a child determined to run out into the busy street in front of your house.)
Let's take your Uzzah example. God used Uzzah's plunge into the "first death" to make a statement to Israel. And it looked awful. I'm sure it made the impression it was designed to make on those watching (not that it lasted--because love can't be commanded by force.... anyways, that's a different topic).
But what if Uzzah had been upright and righteous? God wouldn't have "struck him down" that day. But living on this sinful planet means that God was already supernaturally sustaining Uzzah's life anyways. So if Uzzah had gone peacefully into the "first death" from old age or the flu or whatever.... how is that different in terms of the "death"?
If God is supernaturally sustaining us right now, there's no reason He couldn't go on and do that until the Second Coming. He's doing it with Satan. Why not humans? The fact is, God puts us ALL to sleep in the "first death." (From Abraham to Uzzah to Lazarus - twice!)
To me, the fact that there is a resurrection possible from it means that it is not really death, because true death involves extinction.
Kelley
PS. I feel like I start out intending to address your questions, but then I get to the end and feel like I haven't addressed anything. I hope I am making some degree of sense. You certainly are -- I am very much enjoying your posts!!
" How would a person worthy of dying the first death not also be worthy of dying the second death? If a person is corrupt enough to merit death, the resurrection will not change things, will it?"
That raises the question of why, if our death is only a "first death" why would a loving God bring someone back to life only to kill him again? It's like the persecutions during the Middle Ages, when it wasn't sufficient to kill someone, but they exhumed the body and then burned it and tossed it into the sea.
The entire convoluted SDA doctrine of death, the first and second (what other Christian denomination believes that?) is so full of conjecture and uncertainty that it has tempted many minds to write and "explain" it all. Except, in the explanation, there are even more questions that are asked.
Thankfully, this is one of the crazy-making SDA doctrines that made some of us realize that the church had a back door for exit purposes.
If this is difficult to explain to long-time Adventists, what about explaining it to a new convert? Anyone with a modicum of upper education (Not SDA) would classify this belief commensurate with Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses or Far Eastern beliefs. Is this what Christianity is all about? Please, someone reassure us how other Protestants explain this problem.
BTW, Mormons at least get to occupy a planet and enjoy it for their family. What's in it for SDAs? A maybe of a first resurrection, but when raised, still wondering whether it's No. or No. 2 resurrection. John really did mess things up for those it take it all literally! But then, there are those who took Dante's Divine Comedy or Milton's Paradise Lost as literal (see EGW for the latter).
Hi Elaine,
What you wrote really intrigued me!
You said: "The entire convoluted SDA doctrine of death, the first and second (what other Christian denomination believes that?) is so full of conjecture and uncertainty that it has tempted many minds to write and "explain" it all. Except, in the explanation, there are even more questions that are asked."
Would you be willing to share what your view is of death on this earth and what happens after that death? Is there resurrection? Of the righteous only? Is the death we experience on this earth what Paul talks about as the "wages of sin"?
Kelley
Elaine,
Your excitement about this topic certainly shone through in your last post ;o]
I would want to be slightly more cautious in making first death / second death a basis for exiting out the back door. After all, Revelation uses that language, and it isn't hard to see how people could be compelled to apply that in a literal way. Once again we land back at questions about how to apply Scripture and what sort of hermeneutical tools we accept and use.
I would agree with you that we have some work to do in sharpening our understanding of the state of the dead and how God is involved in the processes of living, dying, and living again.
Michael,
Interesting explanations you offer. Just for fun, I'd be interested to hear how you think those in the "God doesn't kill" camp might respond to your replies.
Kelley,
What I gather from your comments so far is that death and taking life are not really big issues because everyone must die at some point, and so what really matters is not that people die, or how people die, but rather that God will raise them up again, some to permanent death, and others to eternal life. In that light it would be perfectly acceptable for God to knock off a few of the less savory characters in order to knock some sense into the heads of God's people.
Help me to understand how to hold this belief without trivializing life here and now. How can I believe that killing is acceptable to make a moral or theological point when God specifically commands me not to kill? What kind of ethic says killing is acceptable in order to teach a lesson, but aside from teaching, killing is wrong?
If the theory of a "second death" is to be a lesson, who for? Surely, not the lost. And what benefit for the saved? How many are planning to enjoy that final barbecue, potentially of family members and friends? Will that make heaven somehow safer? Or happier?
Personally, I haven't formed any belief but reject the traditional SDA doctrine (whatever it is, and it seems to be yet finalized). Universalism is much more to my liking, as if we truly believe that God loves all his children, we all should be given an opportunity to see the "true God" and how many have? Most only have an idea implanted by parents, schools, and clergy, and who can say that they gave the correct impression? Who believes that those who have never heard about God or a very fearful picture of God will be forever lost?
I refuse to accept such a simple explanation: that there are people who are 100% good, or else those who are 100% evil. What about the large majority that fits neither description? What is our future?
Christians claim that we all must accept Jesus in order to be saved. Now, what are the odds of that ever occuring? How about the far larger number who've never heard of Jesus? Yet, if one believes literally in the Bible, those are the requirements. Kind of a dilemma. Maybe that's how the idea of no more than 144,000 fits the SDA description.
The simple answer: The good go to heaven. Do you know someone, personally, who is 100% evil? We are all a mixture, and the motif of the Great Controversy first was born in Persia with its good and evil, and the Jews first, then Christians bought the idea as a wonderful explanation for their previous belief that everything, both good and bad, was controlled by God.
This is only one of the "strange" doctrines that end up in many becoming "former SDAs."
Jared,
Some very good questions! I'm not sure I can answer them all at the moment, but I will give it a shot.
You said: "In that light it would be perfectly acceptable for God to knock off a few of the less savory characters in order to knock some sense into the heads of God's people."
Maybe to try and say it a bit more clearly: once God is supernaturally sustaining us in this separated state (we should have been dead at Adam and Eve), at some point He makes the choice to discontinue that supernatural sustainance for now FOR EVERYONE, unsavory or not. Nobody over the age of, say, 115 (not sure who the oldest is right now) is still alive on this planet.
I would maintain that God lays the righteous down to sleep just as He does the wicked. Some of the wicked (in the OT at least) went to sleep in a more spectacular fashion. Did God use those events as opportunities to discipline? Yes, I think He did.
You said: "Help me to understand how to hold this belief without trivializing life here and now. How can I believe that killing is acceptable to make a moral or theological point when God specifically commands me not to kill? What kind of ethic says killing is acceptable in order to teach a lesson, but aside from teaching, killing is wrong?"
I'm not quite sure how to answer the question of why it's ok for God to put someone to sleep in the first death and it's not "ok" for me.
Having said that, though--while the command to not murder is in the 10 Commandments, there are plenty of commands to "justly" kill given in Deuteronomy. We may not understand what the differences are between those concepts...
Or, if God uses the 1st death as a disciplinary tool (to totally wrench us away from the fallacy of autonomy), perhaps He asks us not to employ this on each other just like a parent might spank a child in discipline, but he doesn't want his children hitting each other...
Why doesn't God send people to sleep in such blazes of glory any more? I think we forget the unique circumstances of the Israelites in the OT. These were people who had just come out of 400 years of slavery. They didn't know who God was and, furthermore, they weren't eager to listen to Him at all or even acknowledge that He was the only God.
Plus, this was a totally barbaric culture. The Hebrews had 20-some different words for "kill" that could depict nuances of killing and murder (I can't remember the exact count right now. Could be more than that.) So, you've got people who don't want to acknowledge your existence, but what they do pay attention to--even respect--is force and power. In that way, then, I think in a lot of those OT stories that look so awful to us now, God was speaking to them in their language, trying to get their attention so they would at least listen long enough for Him to get a word in edgewise.
About life:
Life is SO very precious, and I see God as desperately trying to keep us from rushing headlong into that which will destroy it. (Which is, giving ourselves totally over to sin and rebellion.)
At the tree, Satan told Eve that she could be autonomous. This was a lie. The only source of life in the universe is God. So I think one of the reasons He allows the 1st death now is as a protective hedge against the ultimate death that He doesn't want us to experience.
If you have children, you undoubtedly treat them as EXTREMELY precious. Because of that, you discipline them and do everything possible (even painful things) to help them to grow up to be wise and responsible citizens. You do this for THEIR own good, because to grow up selfish and shallow is harmful for THEM, and you desire their happiness.
So I think one of the ways God helps us to understand that we are not autonomous and that that road leads to self-destruction is to make us face the reality on this earth that we are dependent on Someone outside of ourselves. So I would say He uses sleep-death in order to promote life, not trivialize it.
I guess for now that's the best I can explain it.
Kelley
Elaine,
Some great thoughts! I hope you don't mind if I respond to a few.
You said: "If the theory of a "second death" is to be a lesson, who for? Surely, not the lost. And what benefit for the saved?"
I don't see the second death as a lesson, because at that point, there's no instruction left to be done. At that point, God says that we will all remain as we have chosen to be: the wicked will be wicked, the righteous will be righteous.
I think the wicked are brought forth for the second death because God doesn't decide who will live and who will die. He's not arbitrary. In His unveiled presence, the righteous live and the wicked are consumed. He doesn't kill one group and save the other.
As butter and clay react differently to the sun, so the wicked and the righteous will react differently to God's presence. But I think everyone is resurrected for that final event precisely because God is NOT involved in ultimately taking the lives of His creatures.
You said: "Who believes that those who have never heard about God or a very fearful picture of God will be forever lost?"
I don't believe that either.
You said: "Christians claim that we all must accept Jesus in order to be saved. Now, what are the odds of that ever occuring? How about the far larger number who've never heard of Jesus?"
This is a wonderful point. What about Enoch and Elijah? They were taken to heaven thousands of years before anybody had heard the actual name of "Jesus." It's about knowing God, and though we don't like to admit it (because we think we're somehow indispensible to the salvation process), the Holy Spirit strives with every person, whether or not they've heard the name of "Jesus." God is able to save people without our interference or intervention. That is not to say that He doesn't prefer to have our assistance. He does. But He does not require it.
You said: "Do you know someone, personally, who is 100% evil?"
My boss. :o)
Kelley
Kelley,
Your recent comments do clarify your stance. I also think that your depcition of God is consistent with the Hebrew concept of God, inasmuch as I understand the Hebrew mindset.
You suggest that people live because they are sustained by God somewhat artificially (i.e. supernaturally). People live as long as they do only because God keeps them alive. People die when they do because God "puts them to sleep".
This seems pretty consistent with Hebrew thinking that saw God as the sustainer of life, and further, that attributed everything, both good and bad, to God. The Hebrews, I'm told, appealed to the supernatural as the default explanation for all things that seemingly lacked an obvious cause.
My concern is always with the consequences of ideas. Concerning the consequences of believing that life lasts as long as it does because God keeps it going, and life ends when it does because God chooses to end life, I would ask the following:
How does that play out in reality? What about people who are struck by cars or killed in war? Does that mean that God simply cut them off? What about people who die prematurely because of lifestyle-related illnesses, cancer from smoking, cirrhosis from drinking...? What about research that indicates Adventists in Loma Linda live longer than the average populace because of healthy lifestyle choices?
It seems that once we peek behind the curtain of the worldview that attributes everything to God, including life and death, what we actually find back there is a bevy of non-supernatural explanations for why some people live longer than others. In other words, we do not need to invoke God as the reason that some live and others die.
Another consequence, and an unpleasant one, of believing that God decides when someone lives or dies is the inevitable conclusion that horrific deaths--tsunamis, fires, drownings, car accidents, etc. were all part of God's will. You hear this sort of thing at funerals occasionally, where people try to console one another by appealing to God's will. Inevitably, it makes people feel worse rather than better.
At this point, we return back to the original questions about God's character. Is the suffering and death in the world consistent with God's plan, or is it rather the case that God's kingdom has not come and God's will is not being done on earth as it is in Heaven?
We seem to be confronted with a theological choice about God's character, and I say choice intentionally because I don't believe that God has been revealed nearly as clearly as some people make believe.
The choice is between a God on the one hand who is in control--who orchestrates and coordinates the events of the cosmos including life and death (and we would have to include in that tragic, senseless, meaningless death), and a God on the other hand who controls some things but not other things (including human will - autonomy if you like). The latter view is what some people like theologian Richard Rice of Loma Linda University call the open view in which there are some things that are open (not fixed) to God, and therefore God cannot know them in advance.
Again, we should consider the consequences of each line of thinking before choosing which picture to buy into.
-----------------
A couple of other notes:
1. I think there is a very compelling, very worthwhile view of God in the Old Testament that deals with the killing and violence while maintaining God's goodness. I'll mention it further in another post.
2. As for the idea that the Israelites were a barbaric people, I would simply point out what I find very interesting: we can make them out to be barbaric and cruel where violence in the Scriptures is concerned, and yet we have a different take on the Israelites in light of the fact that some of the earliest stories of God upon which we build so much of our theology just happens to derive from this barbaric people. I'm not convinced that they were as barbaric as some would make them out to be, many words for "kill" notwithstanding.
(whew, that was long...)
Hi Jared,
Maybe we're talking "past" each other a little bit.
I think God instituted the first death after the fall of Adam and Eve. This was a decision that would obviously, in time, affect each member of the human race individually at different times. In my mind, however, the fact remains that since God is the one who is sustaining us when we should not be sustained, we enter this "halfway" place of the first death also by His ordaining.
Now, how that happens is a different story. Obviously, as we have discussed, God has actively sent many, many of His children to the first death at a time of His choosing. As you pointed out in your last post, many more people "die" of "other" things: old age (what is that?), disease, murder at the hands of other human beings, tsunamis, etc.
What I meant when I said that God puts us all to sleep is not that He actively chooses every circumstance in which a person goes to sleep, but that He is the one who instituted this unnatural, suspended animation state in the first place. Why do I think it's "unnatural" and not just the results of sin? Because Satan doesn't ever go to sleep in the first death.
Obviously, God can choose who will be subjected to this sleep state. As further evidence, He decided for some reason that Enoch and Elijah would not be subjected to it either...
Your statement "The choice is between a God on the one hand who is in control--who orchestrates and coordinates the events of the cosmos including life and death (and we would have to include in that tragic, senseless, meaningless death)" was very interesting to me.
I'm always curious about hearing something like "tragic death," "senseless death," and such. On this earth, why is one death tragic and not another? Would you say that the death of someone who died of old age at 95 is tragic? Or is that term only applied to people under.... what age? Or is it the circumstances of the death?
Was it tragic the first time Lazarus went to sleep? And though the Bible is silent on the second time he went to sleep, if he had been an old man, would that have been less tragic?
What about the remaining Holocaust survivors who are alive? We talk about the millions who tragically died in the Holocaust; what about those who are dying now because they're about to die? They may have escaped death at the hands of Hitler only to find it 60 years later. Nobody can escape it.
Now don't misunderstand. The Holocaust was tragic. But why? I think, in part, it was tragic because it was a gross display of one group of human beings treating other human beings as they had absolutely no right to.
But why would we call the death of a Holocaust victim in the 1940s "tragic" and not apply the same label to a Holocaust survivor who dies in 2008?
Kelley
"But why would we call the death of a Holocaust victim in the 1940s "tragic" and not apply the same label to a Holocaust survivor who dies in 2008?"
Because even the Bible seems to make this distinction. It speaks of the deaths of people like Abraham as being at a time when they lived out the fullness of their days/years (having made their contributions to their people and to the world), as opposed to the death of someone like Jonathan...wasted potential because they died "before their time."
In fact, this relates to how the Hebrews viewed murder. If you took someone's life, you not only took their life, you took the life of every potential generation that would have succeeded them. A tragedy of wasted potential.
It is why there is a commandment against murder. The commandment itself stands against the tragedy of such waste of life and potential vs. death from natural causes. The commandment also stands against the tragic outworking of man's inhumanity to man in the senseless taking of life...whether in a crime of passion, or in a ghoulish circumstance such as the Holocaust.
That said, on a macro level, all death is tragic...and was never God's original intention. Sorry for jumping in...
Thanks...
Frank
Hi Frank,
Thanks for "jumping in." Some great thoughts!
I wonder, though, if the Bible writers who wrote about deaths from old age differently from deaths of young people weren't also infected with the same erroneous ideas that we are. After all, it sounds just like us, doesn't it!
Kelley
"I think the wicked are brought forth for the second death because God doesn't decide who will live and who will die."
If that is your premise, then who "decides" whether we live or die? If not God, who? Are you saying that the oddly-named "second death" is of another state?
Since time began, men have always faced death. Of course they attributed it to many things, and the Hebrew story, for Christians, won the day. But while other cultures and many religions believe in an afterlife, how many, other than SDAs have the doctrine of a "second death" and what is its purpose? Why would a loving God be discontent to let his children die once, only to raise them up for a period (short or long ?), only to have them die again?
This makes no sense to the rational mind, but in religion and faith, as the ad above infers, perhaps Adventists do leave their brains at the church door :-).
But while other cultures and many religions believe in an afterlife, how many, other than SDAs have the doctrine of a "second death" and what is its purpose? Why would a loving God be discontent to let his children die once, only to raise them up for a period (short or long ?), only to have them die again?
This makes no sense to the rational mind, but in religion and faith, as the ad above infers, perhaps Adventists do leave their brains at the church door :-).
Posted by: Elaine Nelson (not verified) | 22 October 2008 at 9:36
Other Christians believe they go direct to heaven when they die. Can you not see that has a direct bearing on the concept of the second death?
I of course assume you know about the state of the dead.
Jared, you wrote:
"Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. (Acts 12:23)"
The imagery of "eaten by worms" was a typical mode of death for tyrants.
Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" says that the occasion of Agrippa's appearance in Caesarea was a celebration in honor of the emperor. Herod's royal robes, according to Josephus, were made "wholly of silever," and it was his appearance which led the people to acclaim him divine. The angel of retribution is a feature of OT religion (cf. 11 Kings 19:35). Josephus says that the appearancer of an owl, taken as an evil omen, signified Herod's death. Failure to give glory to God is understood as evidence of sinful pride. Josephus says that Herod was stricken with a severe pain in the abdomen and died 5 days later. (Taken directly from "The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible."
One thing you should remember as you digress into first and second death is that through most of Israel's history they knew nothing of the idea of life after death. No going to be with God in heaven nothing else then the best thing is to be buried with your fathers.
I guess while I am at it I will address the fly in the ointment also. There is no need for a second death unless there is a second life. The Bible writers (that being mainly John the Revelator and Daniel books) seem to understand that only in the aspect of a resurrection to stand before the judgment seat of God. which means that trying to separate first death from second death really has little relevance as far as I can see.
My view is that if God grants everyone a second life even if it is just to answer a question or demonstrate to them the truth of God then it is a supernatural life and it makes sense that a supernatural life given by God has to be removed by God or remain.
Of course that is a far different view then Ellen White who says they come up from the grave with the same ailments they went into it with or that the wicked with suffer in torment some from many days as their life is extinguished. I think God can end their supernatural second life without the need for the slightest pain. The only question would be what is the purpose of bringing the wicked back to life for a judgment if He is just going to take that life away again. I don't think it is necessary but I think it produces the effect of making people think more about the consequences of their lives. Then again even if God brought them back I don't think it would have to be painful for them at all in which case it matters little if they are or are not resurrected. In predicting the future our accuracy rate is pretty close to zero so far so I would not get too concerned with our expectations versus reality.
Hi RC,
You said: "There is no need for a second death unless there is a second life."
I wholeheartedly agree with that! That is why I think it's a shame that we call the first death, "death." We should have another word for it, because it's not really death.
Kelley
Elaine,
Great point!!
You said: "If that is your premise, then who 'decides' whether we live or die? If not God, who?"
*We* decide whether we live or die. That's what we're all in the process of deciding on this earth. Sin is what kills. That's why God is so against it -- it destroys!
Let's look at it this way. On this earth, we are all deciding whether we are going to be butter or clay. We get to make that choice. God is trying to convince us to become, say, clay. But we can choose which one we'll be.
One day, we're all going to be exposed to the sun. The butter will melt. The clay will harden. But it's not like the sun decides who's going to melt and who's going to harden.
At the end, God treats all His children the same -- wicked or righteous.
Kelley
---
Hi RC,
You said: "There is no need for a second death unless there is a second life."
I wholeheartedly agree with that! That is why I think it's a shame that we call the first death, "death." We should have another word for it, because it's not really death.
Kelley
---
No I would not agree with a new meaning for the word death just because there is an expectation of a second life and possible second death. Death is still what it is the cessation of life. Just because God can perform a miracle to restore life does not make the meaning of death as we observe it in the world around us without its real meaning.
To follow your logic you would have to say that a person who cannot see should not be called blind because there is a possibility of a miracle whereby the person could then see or could see for a temporary period.
The Bible uses the standard definition of death until the symbolic book of Revelation. Definitions don't need to change because God is beyond the natural world. And the symbolic meaning in Revelation is most likely never meant to replace all previous meanings.
I thought it might be useful to respond to some of Douglas Cooper's observations and concerns about the requirements for a theology major at PUC, since he brought it up in a public forum and since I currently am a faculty member in the PUC Religion Department. I don’t know if he was reading older and obsolete requirements for our majors, but I’ll focus on a few points in regard to what we currently require. First, it is true that theology majors must take numerous classes in Greek and Hebrew (21 credit hours). One must keep in mind that within the Seventh-day Adventist education system, the undergraduate degree in theology is not considered the required, terminal degree before ordination/commissioning; an M.Div. is typically required as well. Since most Adventist pastors or theology major graduates attend Andrews University for the M.Div. program, they are there required to pass qualifying exams at the beginning and intermediate level in both Greek and Hebrew, otherwise they will need to take these courses there at a more accelerated pace (I taught both Beginning and Intermediate Greek there while a graduate student, and it was much more compressed than here at PUC). Consequently, we attempt to make our program at PUC dovetail into the requirements for M.Div. students at Andrews.
Second, theology majors at PUC are not currently required to take "Prophets of Israel," "Old Testament Historical Literature," "Introduction to Philosophy, "World Religions," "Last Day Events, or "Theology of the Sanctuary." That's a pretty long list of classes Dr. Cooper said were required of theology students, but we have not required our majors to take all of these courses (or even most of them). Most of these courses are not even required for our religion majors (a different major than the theology major), although the actual required courses depend on which emphasis one takes with that particular major. Furthermore, a theology major is currently required to take either "Studies in Daniel" or "Studies in Revelation," but not both. And "Christian Bioethics" is one of four ethics classes a theology major must choose from, but that particular class is not required for all theology majors.
Third, the suggestion that Jesus is "pretty much left out of the picture" except for the basic course on the "Life and Teachings of Jesus" is simply not true. Material about Jesus and his teachings and ministry is taught in a number of other courses, such as "Studies in Daniel," "Studies in Revelation," "Last Day Events," and "Theology of the Sanctuary." Furthermore, the course “Christian Theology: Salvation and the Church” spends weeks on the nature, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus is not locked into or isolated in just one biblical studies or theology course at PUC. Students can also take at least two other courses that focus specifically--throughout the entire course--on material in the gospel accounts about Jesus and his teachings and ministry.
Fourth, and related to the point above, Dr. Cooper indicated there were no classes in the parables of Jesus. I'm assuming he means no class on the parables is required for majors at PUC, since I am currently teaching that course ("Parables of Jesus") and will teach it again next quarter (by the way, my "Parables of Jesus" course has 43 students this quarter, including several theology and religion majors). "Parables of Jesus" is not required of theology majors at PUC. Why? Our department offers a number of courses which we do not require our theology majors to take. Instead, they are able to take them as electives. Theology majors are required to take a certain amount of electives, but again, the choice of what to take is largely theirs. If we required our majors to take all of the courses that we teach, our students would find it difficult to graduate in a reasonable time frame. Our theology major currently requires 98 hours of courses (pared down from 116 last year), a very large number of required courses compared to most majors on campus. It includes courses in biblical studies, historical studies, biblical languages, applied theology [praxis], and theological studies.
Our department would welcome concerned observers dialoguing with us about the course requirements for our majors before they share those concerns with others. That procedure seems to be congruent with the instructions of Jesus as expressed in Matthew 18.
Jimmy J.
Salvation is a gift. The consequence of accepting that gift is relationship. Tom
""The best theologian we have is the Devil in hell."
And thea church certainly does have a belief in the Devil, which it helped create. What is taught about the Devil at PUC? (Or, do the students teach you? :-)
Did you mention Paul and his epistles? What about Paul's message, since I believe he was the founder of Christianity in the first century. What approach is taken toward him and his message?
"Other Christians believe they go direct to heaven when they die. Can you not see that has a direct bearing on the concept of the second death?
I of course assume you know about the state of the dead."
Posted by: Michael | 22 October 2008 at 9:57
Michael, perhaps you can enlighten me about the "state of the dead." I believe that when I die, it's the end of life. IF, If, there is more then it will be a happy surprise; but not expecting more, should I be disappointed if there isn't any life beyond the grave?
Most Christians believe that they and their fellow loved ones go to heaven at death, and there are text in the NT that can affirm that
belief, while there are texts in the OT that denies anything beyond. The Jews never believed in life after death, so if they are not resurrected, they don't expect it, do they?
How does belief that good people go to heaven at death impact on belief in the second death? Perhaps I'm too dense to get your point, so please explain. If one doesn't read Revelation as a literal book but highly apocalyptic then there really shouldn't be a problem. Maybe Luther was right--Revelations didn't belong in the canon. However, it has certainly given many preachers through the years plenty to postulate about, and no one truly know what it means to this day! Adventists have made the two a apocalyptic books their purview (as noted above theological curriculum says). Do SDAs really have all the answers on those books?
My question about the requirement for Pauline Epistles in the theological or religion major was from ignorance: I do not know, but am asking what subjects are required? World Religions and Philosophy should be, IMO, part of the requirement. It seems that while Greek and Hebrew are important, that the extent of time devoted to those languages would, inevitably, eliminate other subjects which would seem of more importance to understanding our world today.
Ross and Jimmy
The only complaints that I have about SDA theologians is that they don't do theology in public.
There are those who celebrate anti-intellectualism as a way of doing theology (or governing); I'm not one of them. Insight is a function of knowledge, not merely raising their hand to opine.
The sorry state of affairs you describe with respect to the religious knowledge base of today's students seems to indicate that the SDA church has given up on knowledge as an avenue of truth. Do you think it could reflect an institutional attempt at insulating oneself from troublesome facts? I'm thinking of Stephen Colbert's advice to Bush to go with his gut and avoid relying on facts, because facts have a known liberal bias.
You guys find yourself in a very difficult situation, no doubt, and I realize it's easy for me--no longer even a church member or believer--to ask you stick your necks out. But I wish SDA theologians would share their thinking with the extra-mural world.
Thanks for your nice compliments, Jimmy. My son is a teacher, so I'm not immune to the multiple problems teachers have and you have illustrated them only too well, as Aage says:
"The sorry state of affairs you describe with respect to the religious knowledge base of today's students seems to indicate that the SDA church has given up on knowledge as an avenue of truth."
The sorry state of all high school education is well known among college teachers, but perhaps we had assumed that it would not be so prevalent from SDA academies, but your remarks indicate otherwise. My three are all products of SDA schools through 16 years, only getting graduate degrees from California state universities.
No, I realize the necessity of learning the languages for deeper biblical studies; as long as the time doesn't detract from equally relevant subjects such as other world religions and philosophy (which of course, religion is). It would be much better, IMHO, to devote more time to such subjects and eliminate EGW as while she is fading from memory of many in the SDA church and should be replaced by more literature or other subjects (again, a personal opinion).
Michael, perhaps you can enlighten me about the "state of the dead." I believe that when I die, it's the end of life. IF, If, there is more then it will be a happy surprise; but not expecting more, should I be disappointed if there isn't any life beyond the grave?
(snip)
How does belief that good people go to heaven at death impact on belief in the second death?
Posted by: Elaine Nelson (not verified) | 23 October 2008 at 8:14
Your playing here right?
How can a girl growing up with SDA Pastors and Conference Presidents for uncles and attending SDA schools and sending their own kids to SDA schools for more than a decade, not know about the state of the dead?
Ross,
Yeah!!! There is life over there in the PUC religion department!
I am glad I could bring you kicking and screaming out of your theological cave!
Speaking seriously now, your response to my comments about the courses offered in your department was done with much patience and kindness.
And I do apologize for not finding the course you teach on the Parables of Jesus in the catalog of courses I printed off last week. I am so very pleased that you are doing that and my thoughts and prayers and blessings are with you as you teach and inspire your students with these wonderful spiritual ideals. Jesus really was more of a story-teller than a "theologian" in the traditional sense. But kudos to those of you that pointed out that in one sense He was the greatst theologian of all because He came to teach us the truth about God. He was the ultimate revelation! He was the express image of God's person. And can you believe it, best of all, He taught us that God is Christlike!
But He did not achieve this wonder by "teaching theology" as we have come to do it. He did it mainly by His acts of unconditional love and by His touching stories from real life.
Wasn't it Francis of Assisi who said, "Always preach the Gospel. Use words when necessary"?
I also stand corrected for saying that certain courses
were "required" for your majors to graduate. It is encouraging to me to know that such courses as Theology of the Sanctuary and Last Day Events that to me would hold very little of spiritual value are not required, but are optional.
I would only wish, that they along with serveral others and along with requirements for Greek and Hebrew could be replaced with something much more practical and helpful in the real world. Every pastor in training should have far more courses focused on relationships and people and the problems they face in this world today. I am thinking of courses you could be offering to future pastors such as "Pre-marital Counseling" and other basic courses in marriage, famly and child counseling. With one out of twenty persons in our churches afflicted with some form of mental illness,
some basic courses for pastors in recognizing and ministering to parisioners suffering from depression or schizoprenia could be very helpful.
Just this Sabbath, the pastor of the PUC church in his sermon acknowledged the serious problems on the campus with students who use illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco. How are your fellow religion/theology professors ministering to these kids who need help and are right under their feet? Why not teach your religion majors some courses that help them recognize problems with addiction, courses that would give them some clue how to respond to people like their fellow students whose behavior is a cry for help?
Let's ditch the archaic language course requirements, let's get rid of some of the outdated theology courses that are hanger's on from the 19th century. Truth is progressive. Let's not be content with the Adventism of our great-grandmothers. Let's teach the next generation of ministers how to deal in an insightful, informed and educated and compassionate way with the problems that are out there where the rubber meets the road. And oh yes... let's have a couple of great new courses on the second most important doctrine in Christendom... the one everybody ignores... Jesus favorite topic... The Filling of the Holy Spirit.
Hey man, I live just 5 minutes away from the theology department door. I accept the invitation to "dialogue" with you brothers and sister at your next departmental meeting. I only ask for 15 minutes!
Blessings.
Doug Cooper
I've just now been introduced to this book, a friend of mine wants to see what I think about it after I read it.
This is going to be loooooooong....
I've been an Adventist for 17 years. I have studied in SDA schools all my life, except graduate school, and I'd like to say I've been exposed to the majority of theological nuances found in our church.
I'm a very logical person and I believe God is too. There's enough reason and evidence in the world to believe in God, in the inspiration of the bible, although some people in this forum do reject that.
Having said that, I tend to agree with the healing model of salvation because it makes logical sense. That's the bottom line, there's always going to be a different interpretation of scripture, but unfortunately much interpretation leaves no room for reasoning, arguing or logic.
Therefore, I believe it's pointless to discuss with a fundamentalist that says, "I'll read nothing but the bible and EGW to make my point and dare you to say that I'm wrong if I just copied and pasted countless paragraphs supporting my argument."
I'm glad I haven't seen any of those people in this forum.
I must say that I do not hold to the idea that God will kill all the wicked in the end of time. I tend to hold the view from Graham Maxwell, Ty Gibson, Herb Montgomery that explain the healing model and the character of God with so much logic and reasoning, explaining the "dark speech" of the bible in such a mastery.
You may disagree with these people's arguments, but you can't disagree that they expound on their beliefs without resorting to a, "that's what the bible says and that's all there's to it."
In my view, strongly influenced by that line of thinking, I will admit, is that God created beings in order to love them.
It starts there. Love by definition is other-centeredness. That's God. He is other-centered, unselfish, self-giving. In the creation process, in order to share that love, He cannot have beings that are not free to be other-centered.
Freedom is a requirement for love, otherwise love is transformed into narcisism. If there are no free beings, and everyone is demanded to love God there's no assurance that love is ever present, in fact, it's easier to believe that people are mere robots fulfilling the will of a egotistic, selfish being.
God did not want to do what He did to Satan or humanity, but that was the only way.
Think for a second. Everyone in heaven lived in perfect peace and harmony, but the choice is still there, all the evidence can be for God, but the doubt is still there.
A free being may doubt God, but ultimately accept that His ways are better based on the enormous evidence of His love and kindness, respect and trustworthiness. That's faith. I have faith, enough evidence, that my wife will not cheat on me, not based on just arguments or words, but based on the way she lives her life, the way she treats me and treats other people.
I may still doubt all that demonstration of her love, but if she gave me no reason to doubt her, that will go away in a second, it might not even come up...
Now, did not Satan think that? When he said, "I'll be like the Most High", "I will sit at the throne of God"? He must have doubted the hierarchy of God being the only one deserving worship, "God must be hiding something, look at me, look at my glory, I'm so much like him, I deserve a little of that"...
What should God have done? Wipe him out and silence that? Or prove that doubting God, denying His word, living for self is a terrible idea?
After that demonstration of this being a terrible idea, then should God wipe him out? What good would it do to wait all these years to kill Satan? People would say, "he deserves it, so he got it?"
Is that freedom though? Not choosing God ultimately leads you to your execution?
To me, freedom is allowing you and me to make my own choice, going on the direction I want to go until I reap the consequences of my decision.
That said, is the ultimate elimination of Satan and the wicked intrinsic or imposed?
That's the question. If I leap from a building and smash my brains out is that imposed on me or intrinsic of the laws of gravity?
God has given His creation life, and choice. If His creation says I want life, but I want it apart from You, can God ultimately do that? That's the most important question to ask.
Is being apart from God deadly? That's the evidence of the final fate of everyone.
God is so holy, so glorious, that no one can withstand this glory and live, unless they are clothed with God's righteousness.
That's the picture of the bible, if you have the Son, you have life, if you don't, you don't have life... When you don't have life and you were given a provision ("a second probation" - all EGW readers), when you come in the presence of a holy God you will be consumed.
So, I do not hold to the idea that God will kill people in the end, that He will burn the disobedient, that He will torture them in an imposing manner.
I do belive they will burn, they will be tortured, they will be consumed, but the evidence of scripture teaches us how that happens.
If God is a consuming fire, and the sons of Aaron where consumed by coming into God's presence unprepared, and they were consumed (note that they were pulled out by their tunics, though), what's the ultimate fate of those who have received a second probation, what's the ultimate fate of Satan?
When all the glory of God shines undiluted in their lives, and God appears in all His glory, He will show the world the ultimate fate of these people. They all have exercised their freedom, they've made a conscious choice (meaning the ones who couldn't make a conscious choice might not be there), they chose to live apart from God, but can they? Is that intrinsic or imposed?
Everyone who has been clothed with the Sun of Righteousness will be able to withstand the everlasting burnings (Isaiah anyone?), but those who have not given up their sin, their rebellion and they see God in His undiluted glory, how will they feel?
When you go to a party with a very strict dress code and you show up with your jeans and t-shirt (filthy rags, huh?), what do you feel? Why? Let's suppose no one has come up to you to reprehend or anything, how do you feel still?
That's exactly what happens to the wicked. They are keenly aware of their filthiness and cannot live in the presence of such goodness and glory. They are consumed by the ultimate revelation of God because the guilt, pain and shame is absolutely unbearable, it will break your heart and severely injure you.
That's what happened at the cross. God himself took upon Him the overwhelming burden of sin. He became sin, all the rebelliousness, all the hate, all the sickness, destruction was in full upon Himself as He showed the world what will happen to you if you try to carry your own sins.
If the cross is not enough to show you the extreme burden you will have to carry, and that you don't have to, you will never be happy in heaven. If you prefer to murder, cheat, steal, and you are given a third probation, without any hope of getting better, you will ultimately self destroy.
So, the second question is, does God punish, judge and kill people here on this earth, if He ultimately does not in the end of time?
My short answer is yes.
In this case there are two groups of people being eliminated, the real wicked and the innocent that die because they cohabitate or mingle with the wicked.
If they are ultimately wicked and God has to take care of a bigger problem by ceasing their life, they are but reaping the consequences of their last day fate.
If they are innocent, but God has ended their life, who's to say they will not be in heaven reaping the consequences of that?
But some might say, well, if that's the case, God is still ending life, punishing, killing...
And I say YES and No. He has to, He does not want to, though. Also, there are many places where the bible explains itself, for instance in Exodus it says that God hardened pharaoh's heart, but in another place (I can't recall) the bible writer explains that it was pharaoh himself hardening his own heart...
Is this a contradiction, or is this God allowing people to act in the light that they have, explaining things as they see based on their culture of the time, but the more evidences they see of God's dealings with humanity their view expands a little?
We're so quick to say it's culture when Paul is saying that the women should be quiet in church, but we say it's God's infallible word when it says God's judgment "took care" of the problem, even if all the innocent went with it.
In an emergency, unfortunately, you end up sacrificing some to save the majority.
Then another question arises, well, why would He do that if He's all powerful, can't He just wipe out the people who deserve it? Or can't He just deal with them without ending their life? Is He then transgressing His own law?
My topic would be three times longer if I tried to address all these questions, so I'll leave it to a later time.
I would just remind us that Christ himself appeared to "contradict" His own laws He told Moses about (eye for eye, tooth for tooth). In reality what God was saying was, the best way to deal with this is through love, however if you need a supernatural show of hands to believe, I'll give it to you. I'll wipe out cities, armies, nations, just so you can see that I have your best interest in mind. I'll tell you it's ok to divorce, I'll say eye for eye, tooth for tooth, I'll give you an extra 15 years of life, I'll do all these things if that means you will listen.
Think about that and let me know your thoughts.
God has set out to destroy in in the universe because it causes irreparable harm to its perfect order.
If you decide to create in your heart a home for sin, then you will be destroyed along with it. It's not personal--or better yet; it's not all about us.
The effects of sin are clear for all to see--and by this, we mean the entire universe.
God offers us a chance to get out of the house before He burns it down. As long as the house stands it will make everybody else ill, so He cannot delay for too long.
Also, who is to say death is "bad"? Where do we get that idea from? What does "bad" mean to a materialist?
How does "burning sin" get rid of sin?
If sin is a state of mind, heart, spirit and it affects our physical being too, how can an imposed punishment "on sin" erradicate it with literal fire?
How about the psychological implications of sin? The full understanding of its destructive power (or is it really destructive, if God has to step in and do it?)??
If destroying sin means destroying sinners, and sin can only be defined by what is inside sinners and not anywhere outside the marred creation, how does a literal imposed fire, or "burning down the house" get rid of the problem in the first place?
And if that's the case, God is really NOT destryoing sin, but destroying sinners and he would be as sadistic, vengeful and ineffective in demonstrating the overwhelming PROBLEM of sin to saved people and the universe...
That is a scary thought.
Post new comment