God's Character:

The Best News in

the

Universe

by Dr. Elliot O. Douglin

Author of The New World Economic Order, The Hour of His Judgment is Come,

Ministration of Holy Angels, Absolute Rest and Principles of Sabbath Rest,

The True Church Prepares For Her Final Conflict, The Mystery Of Three Choices,

The Gathering Of The Nations, The Sealing Work, Abiding In Christ,

The Power of God's Word in the Science of Faith...

Copyright © 2001 by

Truth For The Final Generation

Contents

Chapter Sixteen
Answers To Objections

Chapter Sixteen
Answers To Objections

Any belief or doctrine which is popular and which by a long tradition has become entrenched in the minds of the masses of people, is difficult for the human mind to let go, even when shown to be error.

The blackening of God's character by Satan started in Heaven and therefore a false picture of the character of our Heavenly Father is the oldest of all errors.

Moreover Satan mounts an "all out" attack whenever the light on God's true character starts to penetrate the darkness. We should not be surprised at this. Satan's success in his work of deceiving souls depends on his painting a false picture of our Heavenly Father.

At the first Advent of Christ the Jewish people had a terribly wrong concept of God. Their misinterpretation of their scriptures had led them to believe that God was a stern Judge, an exacting tyrant who loved His friends but hated His enemies. They pictured God as One who delighted in the destruction of His enemies.

As a result of this wrong concept, this false image of God, their religious motivation was one of fear. And so they worked very hard to earn His favour and to appease His wrath. They multiplied their own rules in order to ensure that the law of God was kept while all the time they were so afraid of God that their souls became empty of love. They became so selfish in motive, that theirs became a religion of rigid legal orthodoxy devoid of any saving virtue.

The picture of God's character which Jesus gave was so different to the tradition they had that they refused to believe that He was the Son of God.

"And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not… He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not… For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." John 1:5, 10, 11, 17, 18.

They were looking for a Messiah who would use violent force to overthrow the Romans and put the Jewish Nation in the top spot of world glory. But Jesus disappointed their worldly hopes. Instead He revealed God to be a God of mercy who rejoices over one soul who is saved. He explained to them that what God desired most was their love and trust which would enable them to receive genuine righteousness as a gift and therefore experience victory over sin.

Jesus swept away their meaningless legalistic traditions and showed them that only love could fulfill God's law.

The Jews so hated the true revelation of God's character, which Jesus gave that they called Him a deceiver (Matthew 27:63), and Beelzebub (Matthew 12:24); they persecuted Him and ultimately crucified Him!

Whenever and wherever the true light of God's character starts to shine, Satan moves religious people to rise up in fear, unbelief and hatred against the truth.

The Jewish Nation was the true church in Jesus' day and oh how terribly they hated and rejected Him who was the Truth, while claiming that they were defending religious orthodoxy.

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not." John 8:44, 45.

There is nothing that Satan fears so much as the revelation of the true light of God's character because such light exposes the worthlessness and malignant nature of his government of sin in contrast to God's wonderfully benign character of love, righteousness and truth.

And remember perfect love dispels all fear.

"There is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear. So then, love has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment." 1 John 4: 18, (TEV).

Those who oppose the true light on the character of God raise a number of charges or objections which we shall now consider.

Objection Number One

It is being charged that this new doctrine teaches that God is so loving He will not punish the impenitent sinner.

Answer

Nothing could be further from the truth. Any honest reader of this book will see that such an objection is baseless.

In fact this truemessage of the character of God teaches that the impenitent will most definitely be punished and will suffer the ultimate wages of sin, which is the second death. What this message teaches is the true mechanism by which the punishment or destruction occurs.

God is not arbitrary, He is absolute in all His ways. Those who reject His mercy will most definitely suffer His wrath.

This message explains the true meaning of wrath and the mechanism by which it operates.

God has given to His intelligent creatures genuine freedom.

If they choose God's government they receive eternal life in Christ.

If they reject God's government they cut themselves off from the only Source of life. Ultimately Satan, his demons and all impenitent humans will suffer destruction by fire and end up in the second death. But such a fate will be the inevitable result of separation from God by sin.

In almost every area of religious belief there are those who go to extremes and therefore end up in error. Anyone who teaches that the impenitent will not be ultimately destroyed is not a believer in the true message of the character of God.

Objection Number Two

The Bible says that God destroys, that He has destroyed sinners in the past and will destroy them, finally, in the end. Therefore why do you say that God does not destroy?

Answer

(The reader is referred back to Chapters 7 and 12). Bible language in reference to God must be correctly understood.

For example true Christianity does not teach that God hardens the hearts of men and makes them impenitent. On the contrary, true Christianity teaches that God does not harden men's hearts, He does not make people impenitent. In fact it is God's goodness which leads to repentance (Romans 2:4)

So the question could be asked why do christians teach that God does not harden men's hearts when the Bible clearly states that He hardened Pharaoh's heart and hardened the hearts of Israel's enemies and sends strong delusion to make people believe a lie? The reason is that true Christianity interprets these statements correctly to mean that God's Spirit, persistently resisted, ultimately leaves the soul encased in its own hardness and deceived by the lies and falsehoods it has chosen.

Similarly, as has been explained in earlier chapters, the statement "God destroys" means that He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to reap the destruction which sin causes by separating sinners from His protection.

Objection Number Three

The Bible says there is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy (James 4:12). What do you say to that?

Answer

What a wonderful text in James 4:12. The reader is referred back to chapter 14. God's ability to destroy is not arbitrary, it is absolute; therefore those who surrender to His redemptive work in Jesus Christ are saved whereas those who reject the free gift of salvation separate themselves from the Source of Life and God will eventually give them up to reap the ultimate consequences of sin. Only He can destroy in this way.

Objection Number Four

Careful study proves that God withdraws and leaves the rejectors of His mercy to reap destruction, but that is only one method by which God destroys, surely in other cases He personally and directly kills His opponents.

Answer

This objection is interesting in more ways than one.

First of all before the light on God's character came every single statement about "God destroying" was understood to mean a direct and personal act of God to kill the sinner.

Then came the light on God's character and the mechanism of destruction became clear.

In Bible exegesis (interpretative analysis) the correct method is to find the underlying principles and use those principles to interpret any statement. Statements do not change principles, rather principles must interpret statements.

Where is the evidence that God has other methods of destroying? What is meant by a method of destroying anyway?

God withdraws His protection because the sinner has irreversibly rejected His mercy and the separation from God leaves the sinner exposed to any calamity which the unrestrained forces of evil might produce. The calamity is called the method of destruction but the underlying mechanism is always God's withdrawal from the sinner i.e. sin's separation of the sinner from God.

Every time there is an explanation in the Bible for a "God destroys" statement it is the mechanism of withdrawal producing calamity. Obviously the correct exegesis is that God's withdrawal is the consistent underlying mechanism because God is changeless (see Chapter 12). Those who argue otherwise must bear the burden of proof which proof they cannot supply. All they do is to quote a statement of destruction by God and argue that it is a direct act. It is like reading statements of fire burning forever and ever. Once the underlying principle is found we should know how to interpret such statements. Yet some people will want to say that some of such statements may literally mean eternal fire.

The point is they have rejected the underlying principle of correct interpretation.

Opponents of the message usually spend considerable time searching the Old Testament for examples of destruction by God. When an explanation is given for one they search for another and so on and on.

We should remember that in every doctrine there are some perplexing statements but we should make our decision on the weight of evidence.

The Bible makes it clear that all the evils, which befell His ancient people, had the same mechanism. They forsook Him and He withdrew from them and gave them up to reap the consequences of their choice. Read it again in Deu. 31:16-18.

Consider, for example, the judgement or punishment which God pronounced upon king David after his double transgression of adultery and murder. It is written down in 2 Samuel 12:10-12.

"Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun." 2 Samuel 12:10-12.

Notice the language again. God said:

"I will raise up evil against thee …."

"I will take thy wives… and give them to thy neighbour."

Does God take men's wives and give them to others? How does God raise up evil? What does the language mean?

It means that God would, in a measure, withdraw His protective restraint and allow David to reap the evil consequences of his terrible sin.

In Chapter 12 we proved the important principle that:

Whenever any text of scripture describes God as causing, doing, or sending evil or calamity, it must be interpreted to mean that God allows or permits the evil by withdrawing his protection and restraint.

Objection Number Five

Some opponents charge that this character of God message is a species of pantheism.

Answer

Pantheism is a false doctrine which teaches that God is merely an essence pervading and indwelling every thing animate or inanimate. In contrast, true Christianity teaches that God is a Personal Being whose existence is above and beyond the creation. He sustains His creation by His Spirit.

When God withdraws His sustaining, protective grace from any part of creation that part must collapse to destruction because the creation cannot sustain itself.

The character of God message proves that pantheism is wrong and safeguards the believer against pantheism.

To say that the mechanism of withdrawal is pantheistic is a desperate attempt to discredit God's truth. Does God teach pantheism?

NO!

And God told the Israelites that all the evils which would befall them would be caused by His withdrawal from them. (Deuteronomy 31:16-18).

Objection Number Six

The doctrine that God is harmless makes Him look weak.

Answer

This charge is founded upon ignorance. Far from making God look weak, this message shows that God is infinite in power.

So absolutely, infinitely powerful is our God that those who depart from Him write themselves off. Only He can destroy without force because He alone is the Source of life, those who reject Him cut themselves off from life.

Objection Number Seven

This character of God message makes people believe that God and Satan are in partnership.

Answer

When God withdraws His restraint from the forces of evil Satan is as helpless as anyone else to stop calamity. In the very end when He withdraws from Satan, he (Satan) will be burnt into non-existence.

So to say that this message puts God and Satan in partnership is a ridiculous falsehood.

God invites us all to reason logically and truthfully. Those who trust, surrender and obey will live, those who rebel will be given up to the sword of destruction.

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isaiah 1:18, 19, 20.

"O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters." Jeremiah 17:13.

Objection Number Eight

God gave Samson the strength to destroy the Philistines. And Elijah slew the prophets of Baal in the name of God. Therefore God kills.

Answer

In chapter 11 of this book it was shown that Israel in her gradual and progressive departure from God's ways chose to have her own civil punishments, her own military system and eventually her own monarchial system. Israel chose the way of the "sword." God simply gave the best instructions within the context of Israel's chosen methods of operating. Israel's methods of operating were not God's methods and did not reflect His character. To prove this, remember that Samuel anointed Israel's first king in THE NAME OF THE LORD but God had already indicated that their having kings was not His will for them. Yet when they were fixed in their choice of a king He directed Samuel to anoint king Saul in the NAME OF THE LORD.

They did all their operations in the name of the Lord and in the strength of the Lord not because the particular operation was God's way but because God worked along with them, in their chosen methods, giving them the best counsel and success in their wrong choices, while all the time seeking to bring them back to His perfect ways and will! It was His willingness to still work along with them, notwithstanding their wrong ways of doing things, that reflected His character of patience, mercy and love.

Moreover Ahab and Jezebel had led Israel into apostasy and Baal worship. The true prophets of God were persecuted and many people were enlisted to be prophets of Baal. It was as a direct result of departure from God that destruction befell the prophets of Baal by the method of execution. Destruction befell Jezebel and Ahab in warfare. All these evils, every one, came upon them by the mechanism written down in Deuteronomy 31:16-18.

Objection Number Nine

Jesus was the One who fully revealed the character of God yet it was Jesus who said in Matthew 10:28.

"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."Matthew 10:28.

Here Jesus plainly taught that God will kill soul and body in hell.

Answer

The words of Jesus like God's words in the Bible must be interpreted by the same rules of interpretation by which all scriptures are interpreted.

If we are saying that these words of Jesus need no interpretation we will run into trouble with the parable of Luke 16:19-31, where His words state that Lazarus was taken to heaven when he died and the rich man went to hell after death.

They are those who use this parable to support the teaching of immediate rewards at death and the natural immortality of the soul. But this parable has to be correctly interpreted.

In the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6:13 Jesus asked His Father not to lead us into temptation.

Does God tempt people? What is meant by "leading us not into temptation?" Is God the Source of temptation? Obviously all scripture, including statements of God or Jesus, must be correctly interpreted by absolute principles of interpretation.

Also in John 11:26, Jesus told the Jews "whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." Again, this statement must be correctly understood!

The key point is that Jesus demonstrated in His life and, supremely, in His death the character of God and the mechanism of wrath. He was separated from His Father by our sins and died our second death for us. This means that the second death is caused by the ultimate separation from God by sin. God will "destroy" soul and body in the end by withdrawing His life-sustaining grace from those who do not want Him and they will be killed by that terrible and terminal separation from God by sin.

Objection Number Ten

Since God made natural powers and laws like the power of gravity if a person jumps off a high building or is thrown from a great height and is killed the Lord has done it because the Lord made the power of gravity.

There are people who believe that since God made the universe with all its laws then He is responsible for and is the cause of the results of breaking natural law.

So the cigarette smoker, who gets lung cancer, believes that the lung cancer is caused by God!

Answer

In making the universe God of necessity had to make powers and systems (called natural laws) for the perfect well being of His creatures.

The power of gravity is absolutely essential for life and order on our planet. If there were no law of gravity everything on earth would float away into outer space. If the law of gravity were not constant in quantity and direction we could go to sleep on our beds at night and wake up stuck on to our roofs next morning!

God is a God of order, precision and precise mathematical exactness. God's absolute, eternal moral law, which is a transcript of His nature and character, must guide His intelligent creatures in their use of the natural powers of creation.

Power without righteousness (law) is destructive.

Wisdom or Righteousness without power is useless.

The righteous and wise use of power is life maintaining.

God has made us all free moral agents. You can use the natural powers of your muscles to help an old lady carry her load or you can use these same powers to hit and injure her.

When you use your natural muscular powers to hurt her it would be manifestly absurd to say that God has hurt her. He has not.

The perversion or transgression of law causes hurt and death.

The correct use of all law, moral and natural, is life maintaining. The violation of any law produces disastrous results. It is not the righteous law but its violation, which produces destructive results. God never uses His power unrighteously. When men transgress moral or natural law it is the transgression which produces the pain and suffering and death; not God, not God's laws. Transgression of law is not law, it is sin.

Furthermore this charge is as sinister as it is absurd because it is really blaming God for sin and all of its consequences and this is precisely the charge which Satan laid against God in the beginning.

Notice too that when God approached Adam and Eve immediately after the Fall (Genesis 3) each of them had an excuse.

When God asked Adam if he had eaten of the forbidden tree he blamed Eve and he blamed God since God had given him Eve, he told God,

"The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Genesis 3:12.

Using God's wonderfully created natural gifts and laws to blame God for the results of transgression is an error as old as the earth and must be exposed not only as absurd but as echoing Satan's unreasonable and illogical charges against our loving and gracious Creator.

As we learnt earlier Adam's one act of disobedience sold out our planet with its created powers and systems of nature to Satan's government of sin. Sin perverted these powers by separating them from God's perfect righteousness. God, by His mercy through the Holy Spirit and His angels, is holding in check the perverted powers of nature. The ongoing separation of these powers from God's mercy by sin will produce increasingly frequent and severe natural calamities and disaster. In the end-time Satan will say that God is causing these calamities because people are neglecting Sunday worship when in fact these calamities will be the inevitable results of transgressing the Ten Commandments.

It has already been clearly shown by the study of Job that evil, sickness, suffering, calamities and death are the results of the work of Satan and sin when God's protective hedge has been withdrawn.

The consequences of the wrong use of any God-given gift cannot be blamed on God.

Objective Number Eleven

Whatever may be the mechanism of destruction before the end of the world, the final destruction will be personally inflicted by a direct act of God because the Bible says that fire will come down from God out of heaven and burn up Satan, his angels and all unrepentant sinners.

Answer

The statement in Revelation 20:9 reads,

"and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."

To conclude that this statement means a direct and personal act of God to send fire from heaven, is to ignore correct principles of exegesis or analytical interpretation.

The term "the fire of God fallen from heaven" is also found in Job 1:16 and the mechanism by which God "sent" that fire from "heaven" was the removal of His protective hedge and allowing the sin-perverted forces of nature to breakout into a destructive holocaust. That fire was obviously a massive storm of thunder and lightning which struck when God's restraint was removed. In fact the Today's English Version translates it as "lightning" Job 1:16 (TEV).

Now what about the final fires of Revelation. 20:9?

When the final fires "come down from God out of heaven" at the end of the millennial 1000-year reign, God will be in the Holy City New Jerusalem on earth. And no fire will come out of the Holy City. As a matter of fact the Holy City with the Godhead, the angels and all the saints will be untouched by the fire and will neither be the source nor the victim of the fiery destruction!

According to Peter and Ezekiel the fire will have three (3) sources. Fire from the skies (called heaven); fire from within the earth; and fire from within Satan.

Not only will God's protection and restraint be withdrawn, His life sustaining grace will also be withdrawn.

That will be the ultimate and total separation from God which sin, whenever it is finished, causes and it will produce the irreversible destruction of sinners in the second death.

"Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men...

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness." 2 Peter 3:6,7,10,11.

"Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee." Ezekiel 28:18.

"Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James 1:15.

"For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Malachi 4:1.

There are other passages in the Bible which describe the final destruction.

"Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate." Psalm 34:21.

"And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the Lord our God shall cut them off."Psalm 94:23.

"But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death." Proverbs 8:36.

(See also chapter 21).