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The Son of Yahweh is returning soon. He returns for a righteous nation, spiritually mature, and not those who are “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” (Eph 4:14)
We know that there are various “winds of doctrine,” carefully crafted by the enemy of souls to keep those who would be Christ’s in a vulnerable state, subject to emotions rather than principles, and the opinions of men rather than the Word of God. One of these doctrinal inaccuracies, which is certainly not a new notion, is the teaching that Yahweh, the Creator, is never directly responsible for death or destruction.
While this may sound comforting to certain personalities, it undermines confidence in the Word of Yahweh as it is written, and distorts the character of our Father, attempting to mould it to the expectations of modern sensibilities rather than the eternal, unchanging Sovereignty whom we worship and love. The truth is always better than the deception, and it is only the truth – not a pleasant-sounding fiction – that sets us free from sin, self, and Satan. It is an unusual thing for Yah’s children to speak of Him in such a way as to acknowledge that He directly causes the end of life, but if we do not acknowledge this aspect of His Person, we really do not see Him clearly, and do not understand the fullness of what Agape is.
It is not necessary to fully comprehend the nature of Yahweh in order to understand Agape; in fact, we are not capable of knowing the nature of Yahweh in our current, mortal state. However, it is necessary to know the character of Yahweh to know Agape, and that’s a different thing. The character of Yahweh is the way that He reaches out to those in need, the way that He responds in love and forgiveness even to abuse and insult. It is the way that He is patient, and kind, and longsuffering, and all those aspects of the fruit of the Spirit that Paul describes in his letter to the Galatians. The nature of Yahweh is a mystery, but the character of Yahweh is our personal gift in Christ.
And so when we say that we know that Yahweh, our Father, sometimes causes the death of His creatures, this is not a statement we make lightly. But is important to make that statement, because we know what a faulty understanding of our Father’s character does to those who might otherwise be redeemed.
For example, we have seen people turned away from Christianity because of the lie that there is an eternally burning place of torment after death for sinners. This is such an alien concept of love and justice that we cannot truly love a god that would ordain this; those who believe in the pagan version of “hell” must ignore, must avoid, much of what is true, and ultimately need to conclude, “He is God, and there must be an explanation, even if we can’t understand it.”
Here again, we see the confusion between the character of Yahweh and the nature of Yahweh. How someone deals with his enemies is a very strong indication of character. Yahweh could not even show His face to Moses, but He invites us to examine His expression of justice. One of the most important passages in the entire Old Testament is found in the Book of Micah. The entire chapter is a key to understanding the character of our Father, but those verses in particular read, “Hear ye, O mountains, Yahweh’s controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth, for Yahweh hath a controversy with His people, and He will plead with Israel: O my people, what have I done unto thee? And wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me.” (Micah 6:2, 3)
Yahweh invites Heaven and Earth to bear witness to His justice. He invites us to testify against Him, to bring it to trial before the universe, if in any way He has wearied us, or done anything to us that is contrary to our best good. This means that His justice is not something we are incapable of understanding. To know Him, we must know what His justice looks like; it cannot merely be brushed off by saying, “He is God, therefore we cannot understand His ways.”
It is entirely inconsistent with the concept of justice (as we can understand it) to envision a God who eternally burns His enemies, or allows them to be eternally burned. The Scriptures tell us what befalls the wicked. The smoke of their torment goes up forever, yes… the results of their transgression, and their rejection of salvation, is everlasting; but as for the transgressors themselves, the Scriptures tell us in both Old and New Testaments. Malachi 4:3 says, “And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this.” John 3:16 tells us that those who reject the Savior “perish,” which literally means “go away to nothingness” in the Greek original.
We are blessed to know the truth about the way that Yahweh deals with His enemies; they are subjected to the second death, but there is an end to their suffering, and ultimately even they will know peace. But this is only the ditch on one side of the strait and narrow road of truth. The Scriptures have a verse that outlines two equal and opposite errors about the character of Yahweh in this matter of life and death. We read, “And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees, that say in their heart, ‘Yahweh will not do good, neither will He do evil.’” (Zephaniah 1:12)
Modern readers of the Bible need to understand the way that the word “evil” is used in Scriptural languages. It’s only one word in English, but in Hebrew there are several different words that are translated in that way. In this verse in Zephaniah, the same word is used as in Isaiah 45:7, in which Yahweh says, “I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I Yahweh do all these things.”
There are some words translated as evil that mean moral evil… wickedness. But there are other words that mean misfortune, harm, or punishment. For example, we read, “Evil shall slay the wicked; and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.” (Psalm 34:21)
The wicked are rewarded for their actions with “evil,” which is not moral evil, but misfortune, disaster, and righteous judgment. This is the sense in which it is used in Zephaniah and Isaiah.
Do these results only arise passively, as if the universe itself were balancing a spiritual equation? This is where the question comes in. Does Yahweh directly intervene in free will to cause harm, even death, on some occasions? The Bible is clear that yes, Yahweh is God, not the Universe on its own. Therefore, there are times when the Creator steps in directly. He declares on several occasions that He “does” these things, bringing misfortune on the wicked, and that word is not passive. It does not mean He merely allows it, but actively brings it forth into reality. When He does, though, it is always for a greater good, for a blessing that exceeds the cost of life for the transgressors as only divine wisdom may determine.
Because of our understanding of hell and the lake of fire, of all Christians Seventh-Day Adventists are in best position to explain the balance of justice and mercy that exist within our Father’s character. And yet SDAs that are not standing in victory, and experiencing the blessing of that very judgment that they seek to explain, often fall into terrible doctrinal traps.
I recently saw a video on YouTube, which ran about an hour long, explaining the nature of the Lake of Fire and the Second Death. I agreed with much of what was put forth… God does not desire the destruction of anyone. He is sorrowful at the death of the wicked, and it is not an act of vengeance as we would use the term, but it is the sin itself – the rejection of life – that leads to destruction. Every knee bows, and acknowledges that the sentence of death is fair for the sinners. All that is true, but what is not true is the idea that our Father is only a passive observer in this process.
It is His glory, it is His light, that destroys sin and sinners, but He created all things, including the relationship of life to death. It is by His decree that sinners are destroyed in the presence of His glory, rather than sentenced to an eternity of self-destructive misery. It is an act of love that He requires death as the wages of sin, but according to some, He just “allows” it to come to pass, as if the circumstances were not of His making and beyond His direct control.
In the video that I watched, the main error made by the presenter was a mixing of the nature of natural death and the second death in the lake of fire. It is Yah’s glory that causes the final destruction, yes. It is the consequence of rejecting life that sinners perish, yes. But this has nothing to do with natural death. Many of the beliefs underlying the teaching that Yahweh does not cause death under any circumstances arise from the confusion of these two, almost entirely separate, events.
Death is just the cessation of life, and may occur for a variety of reasons. Destruction is a deliberate act, and it takes a lot “mental gymnastics” to ignore this distinction, and conclude that Yahweh has never acted in the best interest of His servants by taking life from those who would do them harm in either the short or the long term.
In the interest of time, I want to go over three points that the video’s presenter intended to make, and then show what the Scriptures say about them:
1) Verses in Ezekiel 38 are used to show that when the wicked are destroyed, it is at the hands of “strangers,” and this should be used as a pattern for the final destruction of the wicked in the Lake of fire. In other words, it is not Yahweh, but the unrepentant, who turn on each other and cause death.
2) The idea that death is caused by sin automatically. Therefore, Yahweh does not need to step in and destroy the wicked; their own actions lead to their destruction.
3) The 10 Commandments say “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” therefore if God kills, He would be violating His own Law, and cannot ever be directly responsible for death.
To that first point, it is true that there are prophecies in Ezekiel that speak of the deaths of sinners. One in particular cited in the video is Ezekiel 28:10: “‘Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it,’ saith the Lord Yahweh.”
This is made into a prototype of all death, both the first and second deaths, and it is concluded that this is never by the hand of one holy or righteous, but merely permitted… and the act is carried out by other wicked people or forces. The false thought being expressed here comes from that mistake identified earlier, that the word “evil” always means moral evil. It does not; sometimes it refers to entirely righteous judgment, which Yahweh specifically says He enacts. In fact, if we keep reading Ezekiel 28, we find this in verse 23: “For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.”
In an attempt to extend the principle, the video’s presenter said that the death of Lucifer will come from a fire that starts within himself; in other words, it is his sin that destroys him from the inside out, and not Yahweh. But that is not the full picture. If we go to Revelation 20:9 we read this: “And they [the wicked] went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” So yes, fire comes out of the midst of demons and destroys them. But fire also comes down from Heaven, from Yahweh, that leads to the general destruction, and then the renewal, of earth. Both those things are found in prophetic predictions. They are equally true, they are equally symbolic; therefore, it would not be honest to say one is merely a symbol, and the other a direct expression of reality.
The argument is often stated that the means Yahweh uses is the sword of the heathen, or circumstantial events, to bring about the death of the wicked, but this is not always the case. He has used angels before, and not just as symbols. We read of the angel that wiped out the Assyrian army in a single night. We read of the firstborn of Egypt dying in the Passover, which was clearly a supernatural event. The blood of lambs does not protect one from a disease or misfortune; that is superstition, not religion. An actual supernatural messenger from Yahweh caused the death of young and old in a way that would make no sense to explain by any normal occurrence.
But this leads to the second point. The wages of sin is death, yes… but that death does not always occur automatically. Here is a description of an incident that really throws this doctrine that Yahweh does not kill entirely off its foundation. We read in Numbers 15:32 – 36, “And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks [this word should be lumber, logs, or wood] upon the Sabbath day. And they that found him gathering [wood] brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.
“And Yahweh said unto Moses, ‘The man shall be surely put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.’ And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones and he died, as Yahweh commanded Moses.”
It is true that this person was put to death by human hands, just as the enemies of Israel might be slain with heathen swords. But Yahweh is not merely watching this unfold, doing neither good nor evil. He is directly commanding. He is decreeing. He is deciding. Those that believe Yahweh has never caused death must conclude that He ordered human beings to do something that He Himself cannot do. He has instructed His creation to do the “dirty work” for Him, while He keeps His hands clean. Is this the God of Abraham? Is this the God of Yahshua, who would command others to do things that are contrary to His own holiness?
Those who truly believe this should be ashamed of their god. This is just as absurd, in my mind, as a God who oversees an eternally burning hell. This is a contradiction of His character, as if He were some mob boss commanding His minions to do atrocities while taking no personal responsibility. That does not work for human justice, and even less does it work for the divine. There is also the tribe of Levi, whose members were made Yahweh’s priests for cleansing the camp of Israel and slaying their idolatrous brethren. Were they made priests because they broke the commandment against killing? Clearly, those who believe that Yahweh does not cause death misunderstand the commandment that says, “Thou shalt not kill.”
It is not about killing. The word in Hebrew used in the commandment is rasah, which specifically means “to slay, to murder.” The general word for “kill” in Hebrew, such as to kill an animal, is sahat, and the phrase “put to death” (Heb: mut/mavet) is used for the lawful execution of a transgressor such as the Sabbath-breaker in Numbers 15. The language of the Old Testament is very specific about these terms, but the lack of distinction due to the English translations is a critical component of this faulty belief.
Even if we ignore every verse that speaks of Yahweh slaying the wicked, explaining it away that He is merely allowing it to happen… even if we speak of the second death as the natural consequence of standing in the Father’s glory with a sinful soul… none of that explains this passage and others like it, where sinners were killed “as Yahweh commanded.”
Yahweh has caused the death of human beings, both by commanding others to do it – holy men who observed His Law – and by directly supernatural means that would not arise directly due to the cause and effect of sins. Does this make Him less loving? No, but it reveals a character more complex than some understand it to be.
One of the statements made in the video is that Jesus has the same character as God, but Jesus is a lamb, a completely harmless animal. The Bible does use the imagery of a Lamb to describe Yahshua, yes, but that is not the only analogy it uses. We also read this: “Yet I am Yahweh thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no God but me, for there is no Saviour beside me. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion; as a leopard by the way will I observe them.” (Hosea 13:4, 7)
Yahshua the Savior is unto His people as a lamb, but He is also the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. He is the Son of Yahweh, the God of “Hosts,” which literally means the God of Armies. It is not the right dividing of Scripture to take every verse about His mercy literally, but make every verse about His judgment a metaphorical explanation of His inaction. It is a disservice to the fullness of Yahweh’s character to make Him a bystander in the execution of His own justice, and it is not necessary to do so, if agape is fully comprehended.
And yes, it is important to make a distinction between a first and a second death. The firstborn of Egypt did not die because they were exposed to Yahweh’s glory. They died by a kherev, an angel’s weapon… a very real, a very consequential, weapon. The Sabbath-day wood gatherer did not die because He was exposed to Yahweh’s glory; he was “put to death” by divine command. It was not the natural outworking of cause and effect, but heavy stones directed by the command of Yahweh that ended his life. Korah, Dathan and Abiram, who rebelled against Moses, were swallowed up by the earth because Moses specifically prayed that Yahweh would “make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up.” (Num 16:30) Their guilty consciences did not cause an earthquake; Yahweh did that in response to His servant’s request.
The point is this: whether Yahweh acts, or orders others to act, it is His love that does it, a love that we CAN understand, and that we CAN explain, otherwise we could not worship Him in spirit and in truth.
Here is another perspective. Esau, the brother of Jacob, sinned by trading away the sacred priesthood for a bowl of soup. He came to regret that decision, and the Scripture says “he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” (Hebrews 12:17) He knew He was guilty of transgression, to the point where He was denied repentance, but He did not fall over and die. He did not experience the first death due to his sin.
On the other hand, we read in the Book of Acts, Chapter 5, of Ananias and Sapphira, who deliberately blasphemed the Holy Spirit by rejecting the promptings of conscience and lying to the apostles. Both fell dead at distinct times because of their sin. They did not have a chance to bow to Christ and acknowledge the justice of their sentence; they just died. Again, there is that important difference between the first and second deaths. We have two examples, Esau on one hand, and then this man and his wife. Both had sinned presumptuously, knowingly, and had closed their probation. Esau did not die, but Ananias and Sapphira did. This happened in such a way as to make it clear that their deaths were supernatural events. It was not poor health, or an accident. It was not the stress of a guilty conscience. Yahweh slew them, because it was in the best interest of the early Church to understand how seriously they ought to handle holy matters.
A soul that is sinful, even sinful beyond all mercy, does not automatically meet with the first death, otherwise Esau and many others would have simply fallen dead. But Yahweh will sometimes do a strange work, a strange act, and destroy a city with fire and brimstone. He will command His followers to kill a transgressor. He will send His angels to end lives. He will command His people to wipe out the Canaanites. It is unpleasant? Yes. Is it a very strange thing for a God of love to do? Absolutely. Does it require unity with Him to understand and praise? Of course.
In fact, the presenter of the video, in a rather self-aware moment, said something like, “Wouldn’t it be strange if a loving God were to take a life that He created?” And yes, it would… which is why the Bible uses that very word for those rare occasions. “Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it […] For Yahweh shall rise up as in mount Perazim; He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that He may do His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act.” (Isa 28:17, 18, 21) Note that in the valley of Gibeon, Yahweh commanded the very sun to stand still, a very deliberate act, so that the destruction of the enemies of Israel should be complete. (Joshua 10)
What does all this mean to us, who are Yahweh’s messengers? We have not been commanded to take away any human’s life, and thank Yahweh for that. But we have been given a sacred duty to explain to sinners that the wages of their choices is death. The world must know, and has been given object lessons, that transgression leads to destruction. While the ultimate form of that is the Lake of Fire, there are antitypes, natural deaths, which come before. There are examples of times when Yah will, for the protection of His people, move beyond the natural outworking of cause and effect and act. It will be a strange act, yes… but it will be an act, just as the Scriptures describe: an act, and not an observation.
On a very practical level, the idea that Yahweh does not actively administer judgment is a very destructive one for the concept of sanctification. If it is only guilt for sin that causes destruction, only the imputation of transgression, then it why are the disciples commanded to teach others the Gospel? The more one learns of righteousness, the more deeply guilty that individual would be for sins that are not confessed and put away. It would be in the best interest of the new Christian to learn as little as possible about righteousness, to avoid any rebukes or attempts at correction, so that no greater sensitivity, and thus guilt, would be experienced. Thus, those who believed in the passive nature of God’s justice would be more resistant to new light than the average Christian.
This sounds absurd, but it is the natural consequence of following this belief to its ultimate conclusion. If it is not Yahweh, but a guilty conscience, that ultimately causes destruction, then those who know the least, and are convicted of the least amount of sin, are actually in the best position in the judgment. It would be a “clean conscience,” and not the objective standard of divine righteousness, that would stand against them before the Throne, and while sincerity and a clean conscience are evidence of a righteous life, it is the character of Christ that constitutes the dividing line between the sheep and the goats.
The Scriptures speak of 144,000 who actively stand in Yahweh’s judgment. They know all that may be learned of righteousness, and eagerly seek out defects of character, and false thoughts, so that they may be submitted to destruction before the close of probation. They know that Yahweh destroys sin; thus, they utilize His grace, His mercy, and His love, to rid themselves of all sin. They know that, for the eternal good of the universe, the Creator can “by no means clear the guilty;” therefore, they receive the innocence of the Son as their own robe of righteousness, and are transformed into the likeness of His pure character. This is the Gospel, the “good news,” and it requires a God who is actively purging away the sins of His people while there is time yet for repentance, and will actively cleanse the universe of transgressors in the great Judgment to come.
Let me close with this memory: a few years ago, at a Creation Seventh Day Adventist Camp Meeting, we were going over a workbook from an earlier SDA ministry called Life, and How It Supports You. It did a very good job of explaining cause and effect. It spoke of consequences for sins, and rewards for obedience to the Word and its principles. But something about the book bothered one of our brethren. He couldn’t put his finger on it for some time, and then Yah revealed to him what he problem was.
The book was so focused on the principle of cause and effect that, much like early SDA doctrinal errors, it removed the “personality” of God. It made Him into more of a force than a Person, setting up mechanisms and watching them play out, rather than being actively and directly involved in the lives of His creations.
This doctrine, the idea that Yahweh does not cause death under any circumstances, does the very same thing… it removes the “act,” it removes the “agency,” and it destroys the full understanding of our Father’s character – what He does on behalf of His people. “For the eyes of Yahweh run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” (2Ch 16:9) He is Lamb and Lion, He is Savior and Judge. He is Priest and King. He is all these things, at the same time, and He does not ask for us to make excuses for Him. He does not ask us to apologize for His actions, or to try to explain them away. He is the Savior and Champion of those who serve Him. He does all things well, and is worthy to be praised, to be glorified in the words and actions of His people, so that they and others may truly come to know Him, and in that knowledge find His everlasting life.
David.