What is the name of the second goat in your Bible? In the KJV it is “Scapegoat.” In the original it is “Azazel,” and some of the modern translations will have that word. What does the word “Azazel” mean? In the Hebrew, words have meanings. What does the word mean? We do not know today because the Hebrew language changed in the ninth century and we do not know exactly what it means.

But here is what we have from the best of the scholars. According to the Hebrew scholars (these are not Christian scholars, but Jewish scholars), “Azazel” is the name of the devil. So the Hebrew scholars back us up. We do have not the Hebrew manuscript but we do have the Syriac manuscript, which is one of the oldest manuscripts. The Syriac manuscript for “Azazel” has this phrase “the angel that revolted.” Very interesting and a very reliable manuscript. Most Christian scholars interpret Azazel as the Scapegoat. What does scapegoat mean? If you looked it up in a dictionary, what does it mean? We use it in our English language.

Someone has to take the blame. That is the issue! When you deal with sin in a legal sense, as a transgression of the law, there are three things involved. First there is guilt. Then there is punishment. Then there is responsibility.

The thing is this: who is responsible for sin? One of the clear teachings of the Bible is the sovereignty of God. That means that nothing happens in the universe without the permission of God. That’s what it means. God is sovereign. Did God know that Lucifer would sin? Yes. Then why did He create him? That’s one of the big questions.

If God is sovereign, then He has allowed Satan to come in. He has allowed Satan to tempt Adam and Eve. This has created a problem and this was not solved on the cross. Let me give you an illustration. When Adam sinned and God came to visit him, what did he say to God when God asked why did you sin? He said, “This woman, whom You gave....” So upon whom was he putting the blame? On God. Today you will hear it all the time: “If God is love why is He allowing all the sicknesses and problems? If God is love, why is He allowing a drought in America?” These are the kind of questions that have to be solved if the great controversy is to come to an end.

So what does God do? God actually assumes the blame! He assumes the blame until the Day of Atonement. There is a text which I want you to look for, it’s in the Old Testament, where God is speaking. He says, “I have created evil.” You will find many texts in the Bible where God assumes the blame for many things. For instance God said, “I have hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” These texts cause a lot of problems to many Christians. You wonder why those texts are there. Well, it’s because God assumes the blame until the Day of Atonement. Because He’s sovereign and He allows things to happen, He has to assume the blame. Does He assume the blame for a good reason? Yes. But we will not know it until the judgment.

There is another text and I want you to look for this one too. I’ll give you a little more help, this in the Psalms. David says:

I will praise your name with uprightness of heart when I know of your righteous judgment.

Even in the minds of Christians, there are questions. Now we see through a glass darkly but then, face to face. When the Day of Atonement is over every knee will bow down, including Satan, and admit, “God you are right.” Every knee will confess. The purpose of the Day of Atonement is to put the blame where it belongs. And that is on Satan.

[Jack S.]

I agree with what you (or rather Jack S.) says about the scapegoat.

Some people use the verses you quote to show that all evil comes from Satan and never from God; that is to say, that God never takes the life of a human being.

Does God kill and does God destroy? Yes, he does, unless one wants to say the Bible writers said things that were not true about God. In that case, the prophets would prove we cannot depend on what they say. They say over and over again that God sent the flood to destroy the wicked, but we say that God did not send the flood nor did He send the fire down from heaven to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

And if that is true, then what about the final destruction of the wicked?

QR frame:

I would not rush in where angels fear to tread.

I submit that Xtian expositors are able to understand the ancient texts as well as anyone. Moreover, those 'scholars' you reference are often steeped in Talmudic thought and hold to the very 'unusual'.

I don't think they have access to mss re the subject - that are not also available to our own Xtian scholars.

Disabuse me should I err, but is it not required to apply to the Book of Enoch to arrive at a Proper Noun Azazel? What does that book tell us re Azazel as proper noun?

I don't think one can legitimize a Satan-is-Azazel from the reading in the Book of Enoch, Jewish scholars, notwithstanding.

Then God's a devil....

Rob

Strong statement, Rob. I'm OK with it if God tells me that He didn't kill or destroy. But what would you say to God if He told you that the Bible tells it straight and that the prophets got it right?

John, like many SDA, tradition gets in your way.

Please explain the following:

"So Saul died for his unfaithfulness; he was unfaithful to the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance, 14 and did not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore the Lord killed him, and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse." [1 Chronicles 10:13-14]


Saul said to his armorbearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it” . . . But his armorbearer would not. . . . Therefore, Saul took a sword and fell on it. . . . So Saul . . . died (1 Chron. 10:4, 6).

We've discussed this verse in relation to the same question many times before already. It is true that there are times when the Bible speaks of God's doing things that He actually merely allows Satan to do. But that does not explain away all the many clear references to God's destruction of wicked people, such as in the flood, Sodom, and many dozens of others.

I have no problem with your believing the way you do on this issue if you choose to think this.

Yes, but this time we need to stick only to one quote at a time. Let's look at this one closely.



Yes, like in Job..., but in my quote it didn't say anything about Satan killing. Let's look at it again:

"So Saul died for his unfaithfulness....the Lord killed him, and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse." [1 Chronicles 10:13-14]


"Saul took a sword and fell on it. . . . So Saul . . . died" (1 Chron. 10:4, 6).

Okay, if you take the Bible just as it reads you have a contradiction. God says He killed Saul, but then God, through the Prophet, states that Saul killed himself.

What do you do with this contradiction? (Of course I don't see it as a contradiction at all once one understands God's love).

I believe the evidence shows that 1 Chron. 10: 4-6 gives us a description of the events as an objective observer would see them unfold. It tells us what happened from the human viewpoint.

Then in verses 13-14, the narrator explains why those objective events occurred: it was God's plan for David to take the place of Saul. Saul took his own life finally because Saul disobeyed and rebelled against God.

The way in which Saul died was immaterial. What was important is that God was behind it in the ultimate sense, and this is the chief meaning of the Bible writer at that point.

Given this relationship between the two explanations, I see absolutely no contradictions between them.

By the way, as you probably agree, that doesn't mean Saul had no choice in the matter.

If we take this a few steps farther we see that this illustration does not help in the argument against God's having destroyed wicked people in the past.

Those verses also describe what happened and then tell us that God did it, and there is no contradiction, any more than there is a true contradiction between 1 Chron 10: 4-6 and 10: 13-14.

For instance, in the story of the flood, God says He's going to destroy the wicked, and then it shows the wicked being destroyed, and repeats that God did it. There is no indication at all that Satan did brought the flood.

Besides, when we read Ellen White about the flood, it becomes obvious that Satan feared for his own existence during the flood. Obviously it does not make sense to say Satan brought the flood and also feared at the same time that he himself might be destroyed in it.

That's a terrible answer, John. It's really saying nothing at all. Try again....

God didn't kill Saul.

Rob

Do you understand that little, helpless infants (through no fault of their own) drowned in that flood? And a loving God would do this? No, you've got it wrong.



Ellen White isn't the Bible....Prove this from the Bible!

The Devil is not God's hit-man. God doesn't call Satan up and say "You busy? Got some more wet work for ya... Oh, OK.. just call me back when you get time. I'll be here..."

God sends His own angels to kill people. That does not make Him a devil. If you know a man is going to kill 1000 people and the only way to stop him is by killing him, then you have to choose the lesser of two evils. If you take the shot, you save 1000 lives. If not, you have murdered 1000 lives.

That's a big IF you know. But we never have to wonder if God knows. We know He knows.

[indent][color:"#000080"][color="#BF0000"]Acts 12:23 [/color] And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.[/color][/indent]

Sure it does. If God kills He breaks His own law that says, "Do not kill."



God never chooses to do evil....Never! The lesser of two evils is still evil.



No, that man has murdered 1000 people....

Let's take your ignorant statement to its logical conclusion: Hitler killed millions of Jews, right? Did God intervene? Maybe in some cases, but overall no! According to your own nutty logic God killed those Jews.

If God's wrath in other places is His removing Himself from the arena of willful, entrenched sin & unbelief, why isn't it here?

If God's striking the firstborn of Egypt, the patriarch Job, and His own Son entailed releasing them to the power of the destroyer or the forces of this earth weakened under sin, why isn't it the same here? and other places as well? Would not the results, perceivable evidence, be the same? If you cannot agree that God's role in all these incidents is consistent and in harmony with His changelessness (See Malachi 3:6), you assume the burden of proving it is not.

That's a good point. There's also the millions of Christians that God fed to the slaughter of the wicked.

Psalms 44:22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

But saving people from the first death is not God's main concern, but saving people from the 2nd death, from which there is no resurrection. That's why God told his people to stone a man to death for willfully breaking the Sabbath or taking the Lord's name in vain, or cursing his mother and father, or sleeping with a man's wife. That's the only thing God could do to keep apostasy from overtaking His holy nation.

Do you think it was Satan that told them to stone a person to death? Don't you realize that was a commandment from God? Do you think that if you command someone to commit murder, that you are guilty of murder? Yes of course. If you pay a man to kill your wife, you are a murderer.

But murder and killing are not always the same thing. In fact the 6th commandment really should read like Jesus read it: "Thou shalt do no murder", (Matt. 19:18).

God commanded His people to go to war, to kill millions of people, but He did not command them to commit murder. That was not murder, that was judgment.

There's no need to talk about the people that God has killed to keep apostasy in check. There's no need to talk about the 7 billion people God is going to kill at the glorious 2nd coming of Christ. If He didn't kill them, they would make God's people completely extinct. They have the technology now to do it. Then what would it be like for Satan to have control over 100% of the population of the earth and with all that technology?

He'll never know, because God won't let it happen:

Matt. 24:22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

Was King David guilty of murdering Uriah? Yes? Why? He just released Uriah to the destroying power of the Philistines.

2 Sam. 11:15 And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.

All the soldiers did was stop protecting Uriah. But you say that God is not a murderer, because He didn't kill, but just stop protecting the people from the destroying forces.

That's not what makes God not a murderer, but it's the difference between judgment and judgment.

Also when the death penalty is imposed, it is not murder, it's justice.

What the Bible writer is saying is that it was God's will that Saul die at that time. God did not take the sword in His hand, but it was the same as if He had because Saul's death was according to God's decision and activity, due to Saul's disobedience and rebellion.

No...the Bible writer didn't say that...you did! The writer says, "He [God] killed him"....




This is real good BS! I mean I have no respect for such nonsense. Do you simply make this stuff up as you go?

Rob

Why are you walking around? You should be pushing up daises! You have no right to live, according to God's law! The reason you stand is because of God's love. If you want justice then tell God you're not interested in mercy. Tell Him you want to be under law like the Jews in the OT were under law. Then maybe someone will place a stone up side your head and knock some sense into it....

Rob

Jesus predicted two thousand years ago that thus it would be. "The time is coming that whosoever kills you will think that he offers God service," He said (John 16:2). History confirms His prophecy. How could we, as Christians, have been so blind, so callous, so indifferent to human life? Jesus distills the answer down to its core. "These things they will do to you," He continues, "because they have not known the Father nor Me" (v. 3).

If it is sin for us to kill, then it is equally sin for God to kill! Otherwise God plays the hypocrite!

"The Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them" (Luke 9:56).

There was nothing in Jesus' life to correspond to a dark or destructive side in God. This no one can deny. Yet the life of Jesus holds insights into God's ultimate plans for dealing with the terrible problem of sin. When spurned or subjected to disrespect, He simply walked away. Where our carnal humanity would wreak a powerful kind of vengeance on our tormentors, He who healed the sick and raised the dead, who had infinite resources at His disposal to deal with any enemy, gave us the example of His gracious habit of departing from where He was unwanted.

It is when God removes Himself that natural calamities are prone to happen. It is when God withdraws that the "deceiver" comes in to paint his attributes on our loving, selfless non-aggressive God. This can be proven again and again.

In order to understand how God intends to deal with sin, we must look at how He dealt with His own Son, Jesus Christ, the great Sin-bearer. Here's the typical point of view:

"I [God] will strike the Shepherd. . . . We esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God" (Mark 114:27; Isaiah 53:4).

But Jesus' own words give a glimpse of what really happened:

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Mark 15:34).


"He [God] that spared not his own Son, but delivered [abandoned] Him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32, KJV; Romans 4:24, 25).

It was the Father who delivered Him (or released Him) to the destructive forces around Him. (See also Matthew 26:2, 14, 15; 27:18; Mark 10:33, 34; 14:10; 15:1, 11; Luke 22:4; Acts 2:23.)

This is how God works....He does not kill - He does not torture - He simply removes Himself from the scene after one's continual rejection. As I said, what kills is the results of sin - be it a world that is falling apart or Satan himself working through the unconverted.

The Lords gives, the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

If God creates life, He has a perfect right to take it away. Romans 9: 18-22.

God is not a human being subject to laws made for humans. If God had destroyed all of the human race when they rebelled, He would have been right to do it.

Then the woman can abort her baby because she created that life. If you say God created her baby then God creates sinners. Hence then God would be the author of sin.



Just like our government, huh? They have rules for us and rules for them...called loopholes.

No, that's playing the hypocrite! God is agape....It is not an attribute of God, but who He is. He is love and therefore it is impossible for God to do something against His own law of love.

Rob

Does the woman OWN the baby? Doesn't that baby really belong to God, who made it?

Don't we all really BELONG to God in the ultimate sense?

Do mothers make life?

God makes life. Big difference there.

Look...am not defending abortion, but I am taking your defense of sin (in your case killing) to it's logical conclusion.

And BTW, God didn't create me as I exist today. He created me when He created Adam. In Adam God made the whole human race. That creation was perfect...it was complete, until the fall.

If you insist that God created me in my mother's womb then God is the author of sin. Why? Ps 51:5

Rob

I thought that you were going to come back and refute my statement. Okay, I guess not, so I'll do it myself:

Ps 139:13 For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb.

There it is, Rob....You are just wrong. Reading Jack again?

Huh, this isn't easy talking to myself, but....

Anyway, that's the quote you should have used, John.

But, if you had, well, I would have said - "Read the context!"

Verse 14 I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;Wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.

Hmmm? "made in secret"? No one was around. And then David says, "skillfully wrought (made) in the depths of the earth."

What does that mean?

Who was around when the Lord was creating Adam? No one! That's made in secret. From where was Adam made? The earth...the dust of the ground.

So you were made...not in your mother's womb, but rather from the earth when God created Adam.

Acts 17:26 He [God] made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth....


Note, from one man [Adam] God made the entire human race. Note also that Eve came from man....She came from Adam's side. She was bone of his bone....

"For man did not come from woman, but woman from man" [1 Cor 11:8]

So, you were created when God created Adam. In Adam you were made perfect. Hence God can't be accused of creating sin!

Now Adam fell and with him the human race. He fell before he had children. So the only thing that Adam could pass on was a sinful, condemned life. Simply stated we are the multiplication of Adam's fallen life.

What makes us fallen and sinful?

We are born separated from God. He is not dwelling in our spirit (inner mind) by birth. Instead we are born with a fallen nature, which means we are born in iniquity.


Ps 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin [iniquity] my mother conceived me.

Paul goes on to tell us that this iniquity dwells in us...i.e., our members...our bodies.

If it was something that could be surgically removed your doctor could remove it, but it is at our DNA level. By Adam's fall we were made sinners.

Again, what is iniquity? The root meaning of this word is “crooked” or “bent.” Scripture uses it to describe our natural spiritual condition. The term iniquity does not primarily refer to an act of sin but to a condition of sinfulness.

As a result of the Fall, men and women are by nature spiritually “bent.” Love of self is the driving force of our natures. Paul defines this as “the law of sin and death” that is at work in our lives [Romans 8:2; cf. 7:23]. It is this condition that underlies all our sinning and makes us slaves to sin [see Romans 3:9-12; 7:14] by birth.

Now I don't recommend this movie (unless you see the TV version), but in the movie "The Devil's Advocate" the following is said:

Vanity...is definitely my favorite sin. Kevin, it's so basic. Self-love, The all-natural opiate! It's not that you didn't care for Mary Ann, Kevin...it's just that you were a little more involved with someone else: Yourself!


Now usually Hollywood doesn't get it right, but this one part was right on the mark!

If we are honest (and a lot of us aren't), it's not that we don't care about our neighbor, it's just that we care a bit more about our needs...our desires. That's our problem. That's how we are born. We love self...and if that self-love is semi-satisfied, then we might share a bit with our neighbors. That's iniquity!

Rob

Robert, be honest. Are you really just trying to prove that you are good in debate by taking there weirdest, and most unsupported view possible on every given subject?

Gen. 6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

I have also said plainly that if God stops protecting someone and as a result that person died, then God would be killing that person.

And I'm not going to the electric chair because I have not committed a crime that calls for the death sentence in the country where I live. I guess you would say I'm boasting now.

No, what I'm proving is that bad religion, such as yours, actually produces good atheist.



Terrible....You remind me of what Adam said to the Lord when he sinned:

Gen 2:11 "Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

So Adam was blaming God for sin. And like Adam, you too are blaming Him for sin ....That just goes to show that you are ignorant concerning spiritual things.

Why does God says things such as, "I will destroy man whom I have created" or "I killed Saul" or "I the Lord create Evil" or "Who makes him dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?"

Does God kill? Does God causes infants to be born blind or deaf? Does God cause diseases? The answer is no!

The Bible teaches that God is sovereign. What does that mean? It means nothing happens without God's permission. Did God know Lucifer would eventually sin and thereby become Satan? Yes! Then isn't God to blame for sin? No, but throughout the Bible He does assume the blame until "the day of atonement."

When you deal with sin in a legal sense, as a transgression of the law, there are three things involved. First there is guilt. Then there is punishment. Then there is responsibility.

The cross took care of the guilt and punishment, but the cross didn’t take care of “who is responsible for sin?” So throughout the Bible you see these statements that make it look like God is the bad guy.

So how did this problem come about? Lucifer started to question God’s agape. He saw it as to restrictive. Slowly He became less satisfied with his position. He wanted to move up the corporate ladder.

Thus Lucifer began to develop what the Bible calls “iniquity”, which is the opposite of God’s agape. Instead of seeking the good of those around him, Lucifer began to bend his agape back towards himself. Hence, the development of self-love – a u-turn agape!

As I said, Lucifer saw God’s love as too restrictive. Instead, he rationalized, the love of self would a great improvement over this love called agape.

Well, you know the story….Pretty soon the two systems, agape &. self-love, collided. This led to open revolt in heaven. But God was not going to allow Lucifer’s theory of love to be tested in heaven. So he and 1/3 of the angles were expelled.

Now fast-forward to this newly created planet called “earth”. God allowed Lucifer, now Satan, to test his theory. Ellen White tells us (and it sounds plausible) that he went to many worlds before coming here. Our parents failed because they didn’t take God at His word. And so here we are.

Now who is to blame? You see God had a conundrum: He knew Lucifer’s heart…He knew the results of iniquity (self-love), but the sinless worlds didn’t. If God had abandoned Lucifer and the angels (which results in death) then all His created being would have worship God out of fear. So the only way God could legitimately expose Lucifer’s theory is to put it to the test.

Because God is sovereign…because allowed Lucifer to develop his own version of love, God assumes the blame until the “day of atonement.”

Continuing:

The question is, “Does the heavenly sanctuary need cleansing?” We [SDA] have come under fire; the reason for this is that the blood of Christ, which He took with Him after the cross, doesn’t defile the sanctuary. We say that, in the earthly sanctuary, the priest or the sinner confessed his sin on the lamb. The lamb was slain and the blood was taken into the sanctuary. The record of the sins was kept in heaven. The problem is that, once a year, the curtain and the sanctuary had to be cleansed. What is it that transfers our sins from the earth to heaven? It is the blood. If the blood of Christ defiles the sanctuary that sounds blasphemous. So we need to deal with the issue. Look at verse seven. This is dealing with what the priest does on the day of atonement:



We as a church take the position that the one goat which was chosen for the Lord represents Christ. The other goat represents Satan. We are unique in this position as a denomination. There are non-Adventist scholars who agree with us, but [as a whole] the other Christians take the position that both the goats represent Christ. So here is where the problem is. Look at verses twenty and twenty-two:



Keep in mind, the priest comes out of the sanctuary, he places his hands on the live goat, and he confesses all the iniquities of the children of Israel:

And all their transgressions and all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their [i.e., children of Israel] iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness:

If the live goat, which we say is Satan, bears the iniquities of the children of Israel, then aren’t we making Satan our sin bearer? That’s the accusation of the Evangelicals, and it’s also coming from within our church. So we need to settle what the issue is. Does the heavenly sanctuary need cleansing almost two thousand years after the cross? Let’s look at it step by step. Look at verse seven:



What was the condition of those two goats? What were the qualifications of the two goats? Did the goats have to meet certain specifications? They had to be without blemish. One of them or both of them? Both of them had to be without blemish, so that you could interchange the goats. You cast lots and the lot falls on either this goat or the other. So we must be clear that the second goat doesn’t represent Satan as we know him but Lucifer as God created him, because both Christ and Lucifer were spotless.

Look now at the second goat for a moment. What is the name of the second goat in your Bible? In the KJV it is “Scapegoat.” In the original it is “Azazel,” and some of the modern translations will have that word. What does the word “Azazel” mean? In the Hebrew, words have meanings. What does the word mean? We do not know today because the Hebrew language changed in the ninth century and we do not know exactly what it means.

But here is what we have from the best of the scholars. According to the Hebrew scholars (these are not Christian scholars, but Jewish scholars), “Azazel” is the name of the devil. So the Hebrew scholars back us up. We do have not the Hebrew manuscript but we do have the Syriac manuscript, which is one of the oldest manuscripts. The Syriac manuscript for “Azazel” has this phrase “the angel that revolted.” Very interesting and a very reliable manuscript. Most Christian scholars interpret Azazel as the Scapegoat. What does scapegoat mean? If you looked it up in a dictionary, what does it mean? We use it in our English language.

Someone has to take the blame. That is the issue! When you deal with sin in a legal sense, as a transgression of the law, there are three things involved. First there is guilt. Then there is punishment. Then there is responsibility.

We were driving once with the president of our union who is a Swede. We were driving in a Volkswagen in Ethiopia. There was a man walking on the side of the road. We were keeping the speed limit and he turned around and saw his friend. Without looking he just turned on the road. There was no way we could stop him. He turned right into our car and his head hit the windscreen. He died instantly. Of course, the parents of this man took us to court. We had to admit that it was our car that killed him. We couldn’t deny that. The witnesses that saw the whole thing all agreed that this man crossed the road without looking. We killed the man, but who was responsible for his death? He was responsible. Therefore we were set free, even though we were involved in the man’s death.

The thing is this: who is responsible for sin? One of the clear teachings of the Bible is the sovereignty of God. That means that nothing happens in the universe without the permission of God. That’s what it means. God is sovereign. Did God know that Lucifer would sin? Yes. Then why did He create him? That’s one of the big questions.

If God is sovereign, then He has allowed Satan to come in. He has allowed Satan to tempt Adam and Eve. This has created a problem and this was not solved on the cross. Let me give you an illustration. When Adam sinned and God came to visit him, what did he say to God when God asked why did you sin? He said, “This woman, whom You gave....” So upon whom was he putting the blame? On God. Today you will hear it all the time: “If God is love why is He allowing all the sicknesses and problems? If God is love, why is He allowing a drought in America?” These are the kind of questions that have to be solved if the great controversy is to come to an end. [js]

That really is very interesting.

I never said that God is responsible for sin. When God says He creates evil, that doesn't have anything to do with the origin of evil:

Ez. 28:15 Thou [wast] perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

God had nothing to do with that original iniquity. I'm not so simple I can't understand that. God creating evil and killing people is a completely different topic. God gave mankind thorns and thistles:

Gen 3:18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.



So here we see God creating evil. Thorns are a kind of evil. They hurt us, but we create gloves and we pull the weeds and it keeps us busy. So the result is good. As they say "idle hands are the devil's play things.



Jesus said:

Matt. 6:34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day [is] the evil thereof.

That's the evil God gave us. We have to toil and labor so we can keep busy. That's a part of our redemption according to Ellen White.

Sin can do us alot of evil, too. Sin gets us in over our heads. It curses us. It invites the Devil in. The Devil causes us to curse our Maker. We have to overcome sin if we don't want to be ruled by it. This overcoming takes work. It's toil. You have to fight the Devil, fight against temptation. You have to be willing to die instead rather than to give in and sin.

But "sin" is not necessarily the same thing as "evil". We can call sin evil, because sin causes evil, but it's still not totally accurate. An evil man is someone who doesn't care about God's law. But still, to say that "sin" and "evil" are the same thing, is a little over-simplistic.

And I understand the concept of God taking responsibility for Satan's actions against mankind, (not for his rebellion). I'm not disagreeing with that. Obviously Satan creates evil too. We see the evil Satan brings against Job and Job said it was God doing those things. And look:

Job 6:4 For the arrows of the Almighty [are] within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.

Job 2:3 ...and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.

God has to take responsibility for that because He was protecting Job and it was because He withdrew His protection that Satan had access to hurt Job.

Here's one thing about God that apparently you don't know: God is agape. That simply means that God is the servant of all. He lives, not for Himself, but His creation. There is no self-seeking...no self-love is God's character...in God's agape. God will not, cannot, force Himself on anyone. Agape can't force...it can't coerce.

Then why did God partially abandon Job? Something in Job's life caused God to step back. There was something Job's life that pushed God away...something where God wasn't needed. Let's see how God works:



A] Because unbelief/sin is chosen

B] God withdraws

C] Trouble results

"My anger [i.e., God’s wrath] shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them [see B], and I will hide My face from them [see B], and they shall be devoured [see C]. And many evils and troubles shall befall them [see C], so that they will say in that day, 'Have not these evils [see C] come upon us because our God is not among us?' [see B] And I will surely hide My face [see B] in that day because of all the [evil] which they have done [see A], in that [they have turned to other gods] [see A]" (Deuteronomy 31:17, 18).


Job was self-righteous. A self-righteous person really, in the end, doesn't need God in his life. And so Job's sin - the sin of self-righteousness (which is a form of unbelief) caused God to step back. God will not stay where He is not welcome. He needs our permission.

Rob

OK, then what was it in Jesus' life that caused God to take a step back?

Matt. 27:46 ...My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

I think it was, as the very first verse says, that Job was blameless and just, feared God and eschewed evil.

Without those characteristics, would God have done what He did? And without that being true about Job, would Satan have done what he did? I doubt it.

I think that saying there was something wrong with Job's life which caused God to abandon Job, is basically saying the same thing that Job's "friends" said about him.

Is it also possibly saying the same thing about God? It seems to me that it means those kinds of things don't happen to people unless there is some sin in their life. On that view, the sin of Job was self-righteousness. But at the end of the book, isn't God's answer that this is not true-- those bad things did not happen to Job because there was something wrong with Job? In fact, on the contrary, those things happened to Job for the same reason they happened to Christ, because God knew he could trust Job. Job was God's friend. Job knew God and knew that he could trust Him.

What was the purpose of the "day of atonement"?
The purpose was
to point to Christ who "taketh away the sins of the world"
The anti-typical "day of atonement" was the day that Christ made the supreme sactifice on the cross for you and me.
mel