John you wrote, "The law, then, does not dictate or instruct them as it does creatures."

But John, in all due respect, you are missing the point here. To the children of God the law is in their heart just as it is in the heart of God. They do by nature (divine nature) what the law requires. They no longer have to be reminded of the letter of the law though they are fulfilling the letter of the law because the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto them. Thats why the Holy Spirit says that the law, the letter of the law, is for those who transgress it, not for those who have that law written upon the fleshly tablets of their hearts.

sky

I have to say that this is an Excellent post! I will only add that though we are sinful, through Christ we may be imbued with the same love for "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us." Rom.5:5.

And I will also add that because we are sinful channels the works that the Holy Spirit does in and through us must pass through the fire of Christ's merits and righteousness in order to be accepted of the Father.

sky

The point of the Great Controversy is summarized here:



Every sentient being who is able to will take part in this event. The is the culmination of the Great Controversy. Everything God has done since the inception of sin has been to get to this point. Those who have rejected God must take part every bit as much as those who have accepted Him.

Also this one should as well:

They're irrelevant to the question I asked, not irrelevant in general. You should have understood my meaning here. It's hard to believe you wouldn't.

The point is, could someone understand from the Bible alone that when it says that God sent fiery serpents upon the Israelites that what He actually did was to remove His protection?



Again, this is all irrelevant to my question, unless your answer to my question as to how we can know that when the Bible says that God took directly action against the Israelites that it was actually passive is because that's what Ellen White says.

Here's the point. You said that God doesn't speak in riddles. He doesn't say that He does what Satan does.

As the Bible presents God as directly doing that which He permits, I've been asking how you determine when this is the case. I haven't gotten a viable answer.

You said in the past that you do so according to the language. But the language here presents God as directly taking action against the Israelites. If you were consistent with your explanation in regards to Saul, you'd have said that God moved upon the serpents, so that they would attack the Israelites. But you appear not to be doing this. You appear to be ascribing to God a purely passive role.

So this makes of no effect your previous statement that you determine whether or not God is acting directly by the language that's used. You must be making the determination on some other basis. What is that basis?

I realize this is responding to sky, but I wanted to make a few points.



Of course no one wants to do this, but it can happen out of ignorance. Satan is actively trying to misrepresent God's character. He conceals his own work by ascribing it to God. We should be aware of this tactic, and aware that he may have been more successful than we have thought.



I don't think this is true. Especially the second part. I don't think "and not as people may want to hear it" has anything to with what "we want" to do. That makes it sound as if you would want to present things in a different way if you could, but you can't, because of what you think the Bible says, but I don't think you have any desire to present things in a way that's in any way different than you are.

I think more accurate would be, "We want to tell the truth as we perceive it to be in Scripture."



You're not grasping the important points here, IMO. Sky and I may differ a bit as to some of the details in the final destruction of the wicked, but agree completely in regards to the principles involved. The principles involved are:

1.God does not use an arbitrary act of power to destroy the wicked (arbitrary as per Webster's primary definition; i.e., and act of power originating from Himself, not related to sin in any direct way).
2.God does not take direct action to torture the wicked by setting them on fire to burn for days, a hideous idea.
3.The wicked separate themselves from God, cutting themselves off from Him, and suffer the consequences. This is straight from DA 764:



This is why the wicked die. The separate themselves from God, cutting themselves off from life.

Regarding the language of Scripture, much of Revelation is symbolic, almost all of it. The character of the fire is something that's been debated since the beginning of Adventism. It's not like this is a new idea. In the passage itself, it speaks of death being cast in the lake of fire. That's hardly literal.



You're looking at the details of the thing instead of the principles involved. Satan's lies have to do with these principles:

1.God does not use the tools of Satan to accomplish His purposes.
2.The inevitable result of sin is suffering, misery and death.

If you assert that God actively tortures and kills the wicked for their sin, then you deny that sin has the power to cause suffering and death, or, at least, not sufficiently. This makes sin innocuous. Otherwise God could simply allow the wicked to suffer the effects of their choice, to reap what they had sown.

There are other principles involved, but the above are two key ones. The view you are espousing would have God using the principles of the government of the enemy to accomplish His own purposes. Satan is the author of sin and all its results. Before Satan, the following did not exist:

1.Torture
2.Violence
3.Compelling power

These are Satan's inventions. To have God doing these things is having God use that which the enemy created to accomplish His own purposes. It would make the principles of God's own government, which have existed for eternity, insufficient for dealing with sin. It would mean that God's government is defective. THIS is a lie of the enemy that sky has been getting at.

the same argument could be used by those who believe in eternal torment.

who do you think those who torture are like? whose character are they representing? God or satan?

there are many who just cant understand even limited torture to be ok, even if it is supposedly for "punishment".

going on my own personal journey, there was a time when i wanted people to "pay". didnt matter if i intended to do it myself or thought God would do it for me. they needed to be "punished".

why isnt it possible for God to get the job done without actively doing it Himself? why is it incomprehensible that sin is so bad, so evil, that it would destroy itself as it did in the destruction of jerusalem in 70 ad and again in the reign of terror in france? just imagine when there is no longer any restraint from God worldwide?

since it is going on right now all over and throughout history and we call it "free will", im not sure where the difficulty lies...

how many wars are going on now? rapes? murder? on and on? so what is the difference between allowing freewill now and allowing freewill then?

Not from Ellen White it couldn't. She speaks very plainly, not only about where the destruction comes from, but about how it ends.