By faith He believed, right? His inability to see through the portals of the tomb was temporary. Before He died He knew He had won and would rise again, right?

Note the reason why fallen man has opportunity for redemption, while Satan does not:
So if the SOP is right (of course it is) and you are right (I believe you are), then man (generally) knows God less than Satan, and Satan knows God less than Jesus. That makes Christ's condition in this very important aspect superior to that of even unfallen Adam. That's why I'm not postlapsarian.

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Do you really think it was only fallen flesh that caused this difficulty for Jesus? Consider these.

Do you think that if unfallen Adam was given the choice to live a normal life or to die a painful and ignominious death, he would not have had a problem choosing the latter? Do you think unfallen flesh wanted to suffer any less than fallen flesh? I don't think so. I think the desire to avoid suffering is an innocent, God-given desire. It is not only fallen flesh that has such a desire. If anything, fallen flesh tends to lust after that which causes suffering.

More importantly, what did Jesus have to go through at the cross? More than physical suffering, He suffered the separation from God that sin causes.


This is what Jesus wanted to avoid - separation from God. In stark contrast is the desire of fallen humanity to run away from God. This great desire to avoid the cup was due, not to Christ's fallen flesh, but to His holy mind.

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My point in this thread is that the mind has a vastly greater impact on the flesh. If the mind is clean, the flesh's impact is limited.

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Let's take a look at Romans 6:6 (click here to see it in multiple versions).

When we crucify the old man, and the new man is born (which comes with a new mind), the "body of sin" is "done away with." The NIV footnotes give the alternate reading of "rendered powerless." The NLT translates it "rendered powerless" and the YLT has it as "made useless." The margin in my NKJV bible says "made impotent."

So, yes fallen flesh might cause great difficulty, but when put in subjection to the mind of Christ, it is impotent.

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What was Jesus shown?
Do you think only fallen flesh can appreciate this? I can pretty much guarantee that unfallen Adam would have appreciated this more than fallen Arnold, who has a penchant for city life. While fallen men are attracted to evil, Satan hid every trace of evil in order to tempt Jesus. See the difference?

Where would the strength of the temptation come from, if not the flesh? It comes from the fact that sane men, whether fallen or unfallen, prefer "templed cities, marble palaces, fertile fields, and fruit-laden vineyards" over being nailed naked to a piece of wood while being separated from the one you love most. All else being equal, only one with a messed up mind would prefer the cross.

However, not all else was equal. Satan put strings on his offer. Jesus had to choose between gratifying His God-given desires or following God's will for that particular case. Therefore, He had to forego the fields and carry the cross.

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Sin is very rare in the untainted universe. But when you add in the factor of an external and very persuasive agent of temptation, such as Satan, it is much more common. Consider that half the angels fell for his lies, while living in God's house, in the perfection of holiness, living in perfect circumstances!

On the field of battle, Christ's circumstances were vastly inferior, and more difficult. Even if He had holy flesh, the battle would have been difficult. His fallen flesh, further weakened by 6 weeks of fasting, made it that much worse.

As a sidenote, let's take a short look at what Christ's fast should teach us.

To experience the strength of our debased appetite, Jesus had to fast for nearly a month and a half! That should tell us something about how fallen our flesh is in comparison to Christ's flesh.

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You see only pre and post; I see another option. So it's clear that you don't see what I'm looking at.

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Here's AT Jones in his 1895 GC sermon:
Now let's compare the verses he referred to (which you can see side by side by clicking here):
Consider the mind of Christ as described by Paul and Jones, do you think unfallen Adam had that, or fallen Adam, or both, or neither?

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Wait. You do not see any middle ground between prelapsarianism and postlapsarianism, yet you see something between sinlessness and sinfulness?

Either one is born with sin (sinful) or he lacks sin (sinless). There is no middle ground. If there was something in the universe that was binary, this is it.

Sinlessness is defined as the condition of lacking sin. If a newborn has to do something in order to come to the point of lacking sin, that must necessarily mean that he had sin to begin with. Isn't that obvious?

If one is without sin, then he is, by definition, sinless. For example, when Adam was created, he had no sin, and therefore, was in a condition of sinlessness.

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Inspiration tells us of "the condition of sinlessness in which Adam lived before his transgression." It wasn't something he was working toward; he was already there. So the question is, Did Jesus live in this condition that pre-Fall Adam did? Consider also that "every one who by faith obeys God's commandments" will reach this condition of sinlessness.

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When you say Jesus had the nature of Adam "after the Fall" do you mean immediately after the Fall or at the end of his life?

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This is one reason why I can't be postlapsarian. Postlapsarianism seems to be obsessed with human nature in general, and the flesh aspect of that nature in particular. In contrast, I find inspiration telling us that the key to godliness is having the divine nature, and in the realm of human nature, the spiritual aspect is the most crucial.

The reason Jesus is superior to Adam in this very important aspect is because He is God. That Jesus is God is certainly no reason to reject being a postlapsarian!



Please be careful in your reading, or in your representation of what I've said (I'm not sure which is at fault here). I've never said that it was only fallen flesh that caused the difficulty for Jesus. I said that without fallen flesh Jesus would not have had the difficult He had, which is quite a different thing to assert.



Sure, there's no problem with this. This is all the more reason to accept that Christ took our flesh, as He would have no trouble controlling it with His mind.



Agreed. So why object to Christ's taking our flesh?

Btw, A point it seems to me missing from your theology, which Jones, Waggoner, and Prescott all emphasized (endorsed by EGW) is that the very reason *why* the flesh is impotent if we have the mind of Christ is precisely because Jesus Christ took it and triumphed over it.



Christ was the King of heaven. I have trouble seeing how the kingdoms of this world would hold an attraction to Him had He not taken our flesh.



This isn't clear at all. I could be seeing what you see and just not agree with it. I could think you're simply wrong. That's another option. Maybe what you see as another option isn't another option at all.

Regarding the mind of Christ, I asked you to define what it means, but you asked me a question instead. Please define what you think it means, and I'll answer your question as to whether unfallen Adam had it or any other questions you have about it.



When EGW uses the term "sinlessness" she is speaking of performance, not the flesh. She says that we (who have sinful flesh) can reach the level of sinlessness that Adam had. This is clearly not referring to the flesh.



Jesus lived without sinning. This is what a condition of sinlessness has to do with, not the flesh.

I'm not seeing why you would think that her stating "Consider also that "every one who by faith obeys God's commandments" will reach this condition of sinlessness." would be supportive of a prelapsarian position. It makes clear that Christ could take our sinful flesh and still have a condition of sinlessness. Isn't the whole objection against postlapsarianism is that it would degrade Christ?



This is referring to Adam's flesh, not his spiritual nature. One needs to be careful with the word "nature." Depending on the context, it can mean one's flesh or one's spiritual nature. One is hereditary, one is not. Christ received the same heredity that we have, including the inclinations of the flesh which are passed by heredity. But His spiritual nature was sinless.

Adam's nature, in terms of what postlapsarianism and prelapsarianism involves, did not change from the time he fell until the end of his life, just as ours doesn't. When one reaches the condition of sinlessness of which EGW refers, this speaks of a change in one's performance, what one thinks, speaks, and does, not one's hereditary constitution. We will still have, while in a condition of sinlessness (should be obtain such) the same temptations of the flesh common to humanity.



It seems to me you may not have a clear understanding as to what the issues are which differentiate between postlapsarianism and prelapsarianism. So you may (hopefully) be disagreeing with a phantom. We seem to agree on quite a lot (regarding Satan's using deception as his means of power, specifically deception regarding God's character, and the need for the truth about God's character to be known in order).

Let me ask a simple question. You've apparently read the 1895 sermons by A. T. Jones. Do you disagree with him? It seems to me possible that you might agree with him, and simply think that modern day postlapsarians are misapplying what he wrote. I'd like to pursue that possibility.

OTOH, if you disagree with Jones, I'd like to discuss what it is you disagree with. I think this approach might be a fruitful one.

Are you saying that only divinity can know God better than Satan? First, didn't Jesus lay aside His divine omniscience? Second, aren't we told that Jesus didn't have any power, such as a very intimate knowledge of God as a shield against sin, that is not also available to us? Therefore, and third, is this complete and correct knowledge not also possible for us non-divine and even fallen beings?


Christ's divinity is not a problem for me. However, such a key point where Jesus is not post-Fall is a good reason for me to stick to my position that it is misleading, if not misgided, to characterize Jesus as more similar to post-Fall Adam than pre-Fall. While I agree that Jesus was post-Fall in certain aspects of humanity, I firmly assert that He was pre-Fall in the most important aspects of humanity.

I've come across a few postlapsarians that agree with me on this, and I expect that you are one. A tell-tale sign of such a one is the sharp distinction between Christ's body/flesh and spirit/mind.

I'll get to the rest of your post as time permits. There are things in there that I definitely want to cover.

It seems like I did not understand what you meant in the post I was replying to. Here's what I was replying to (emphasis mine):
What I got from this, especially the last two sentences, is that you believe that if Jesus had not taken fallen flesh, there would have been no struggle, that His will would not have balked. Is this not what you meant? Please clarify.

As part of your clarification, I'd like to hear your answer to your own question. "Had He not taken our flesh, where would the struggle have come from?" And my follow-up: If there was a struggle even without fallen flesh, would it have been an easy struggle, or difficult?

??? How do you get this? I said Jesus knew God better than Satan did because He was God. How do infer from this that only divinity can know God better than Satan?



Is there some statement that says He did? I'm not aware of one.

We're entering deep waters here! I find the dual nature of Christ to be difficult to understand (I know I'm not alone in this), but my opinion is that He was God and man at the same time, and that, as God, He was omniscient, while as man, he wasn't. I believe this is still the case, although it's difficult (or impossible) to understand. That is, I believe Christ is omniscient now, today, even though He is a human being.



As a man, yes.



I think thorough all eternity we will be approaching Jesus' knowledge of the Father, but there will always be more to know. He will always no God better than we do.

I believe Christ had a will that had to be denied, a cross to bear, one could say, which He bore His whole life, and that this will arose from His flesh, as it does for us. So, even though we are born again, there is still a force from our flesh that tempts us to sin. I believe this applied to Christ as well.

I think the biggest contributing factors to Christ's temptations were:

a.He took our flesh.
b.He bore our sins in that flesh.

There could have been other factors too, such as being tired or hungry, or needing to struggle mentally to make sure He wasn't being deceived, or to make sure He was interpreting things correctly, etc. But I think a) and b) were, by far, what made things difficult for Him.



I don't know anyone who affirms this. Being a post-lapsarian does not mean one believes Christ was more similar to post-fall Adam than pre-fall Adam; it simply means that Christ too the flesh of fallen Adam. There is more to a man than flesh.



This seems moot to me.



I don't know any who wouldn't. That doesn't mean there aren't any, of course, I just don't know any.



OK. I'm really most interested in your response to what I wrote at the very end of the post.

Well, you said that the reason that Jesus was superior to unfallen Adam in this aspect - the aspect of knowing God - is because He is God. The implication is that if Jesus was not God, as the rest of us are not God, then He could not have been superior to unfallen Adam in this regard. If so, since Satan knew God better than Adam did, that must also necessarily mean that non-divine beings cannot be superior to Satan in this regard.

So let's just cut to the chase and answer this simple question: Is it possible for non-divine beings to know God better than Satan did?

That shows that He was not omniscient. He even had to learn what He Himself had taught. Then there was His first trip into the temple, when He was learning of His mission.

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He is glorified now. He wasn't glorified in the wilderness of temptation. He hadn't yet taken back the glory He had with the Father.

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So, is this intimate knowledge, which was superior to Adam's and Satan's, available to mere men?

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Yes, Jesus will always know God better than we do. The question is, will we surpass Satan's knowledge?

Of course in His humanity He was not omniscient.

That is, I believe Christ is omniscient now, today, even though He is a human being.



We will be glorified too. Receiving glorified bodies does not make us omniscient.



Ok. I'll state what I perceive you to be thinking, and what I think.

You:

a.When Christ was incarnate here on earth, something happened which affected His divinity.
b.When Christ was glorified, that thing was undone.

Me:
a.When Christ became a human being, He remained God, while becoming a man. He has two natures, one His own, divine, and one assumed, a human one.
b.When Christ was glorified, nothing changed on the divine side. Only His humanity changed.

These are deep waters, so I don't claim to have all the answers here by any means, but this is how I understand things. My thinking on this has been influenced by the following EGW statement:



I understand this to be saying that Christ had a dual nature. On His divine side, He could not die, but on His human side He could, and did, die. I believe the same principle applies to other attributes, such as omniscience and omnipotence. He did not use these attributes during His walk with us on earth, because He came to give us an example, to mention one thing, and certainly He could not have been our example had He used powers we do not have. However, I believe, He could have used these powers had He wanted to. There's an EGW statement which talks about how it was as difficult for Him to keep these powers under submission (that is, not use them, because He wasn't allowed to under the "rules" of the contest, to demonstrate the Satan was unjust in his accusations regarding God's having a law that humanity could not keep) which I think you are familiar with. I don't know it well enough to find and produce, but this would have the same idea that He had powers He could have used had He chosen to.

Regarding surpassing Satan's knowledge, we already know things about God that Satan never knew. His mercy and grace, for example.