By no means! What you are proposing is that the same word is used in the same paragraph with different meanings.

"Be careful, exceedingly careful as to how you dwell upon the human nature of Christ. Do not set Him before the people as a man with the propensities of sin. He is the second Adam. The first Adam was created a pure, sinless being, without a taint of sin upon him; he was in the image of God. He could fall, and he did fall through transgressing. Because of sin, his posterity was born with inherent propensities of disobedience. But Jesus Christ was the only begotten Son of God. He took upon Himself human nature, and was tempted in all points as human nature is tempted. He could have sinned; He could have fallen, but not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity. He was assailed with temptations in the wilderness, as Adam was assailed with temptations in Eden." {13MR 18.1}

Propensities is used in this paragraph as something people are born with, therefore it can't imply actual participation in sin.

Words often have different meanings in the same paragraph. They can even have different meanings in the same sentence. However, that being said, I'm not suggesting that the word means something different. "Propensities" means "tendencies." Tendencies can be something passed genetically, or something developed by sinning. Christ had the former, but not the latter.

From what you quoted: "He could fall, and he did fall through transgressing." (speaking of Adam)

A bit later: "He could have sinned; He could have fallen, but not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity." (speaking of Christ).

Clearly "did fall through transgressing" is parallel to "not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity." In other words, Christ never sinned, and thus never had a propensity that would come from sinning.

If this were speaking of a genetically passed propensity, we would have several problems.

1.It wouldn't make any sense to say, "not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity" because a genetically passed tendency is not something you can have one moment but not the next; you either have it or you don't. For example, one wouldn't say, "Not for one moment did Christ have blue eyes." One would simply say "Christ did not have blue eyes." Not for one moment did Christ have an evil propensity because not for one moment did Christ yield to temptation.

2.The passage is parallel to Adam's experience. Adam could fall, and did fall. Christ could fall, but didn't.

3.It would disagree with her teachings elsewhere. For example:



4.It would disagree with the view that the SDA church as a whole held. Every church publication, every book, every magazine article, every sermon, everything, presented one view. It would be singularly out of place for her to be presenting a contrary view to what the church held in a private letter.



If we wish to know Ellen White's view of Christology, the best place to look is, of course, "The Desire of Ages."

In between those two: "Because of sin, his posterity was born with inherent propensities of disobedience."

That's the one she is comparing/contrasting with. The sentence after this starts with, "But Jesus Christ..."

The contrast is between Adam and Jesus Christ. Regarding Adam:

"He could fall, and he did fall through transgressing."

Regarding Christ:"He could have sinned; He could have fallen," but He didn't.


There are also the points I brought out to consider. The strongest argument that Ellen White could not have had the idea being suggested is the historical one. Not only did her colleagues hold to the post-lapsarian view, but they believed she did, and expressed this belief in her presence. It is inconceivable that she would have remained moot on this point, while supposedly expressing her true thoughts to an obscure figure in Australia.

Also, she endorsed preaching which was specifically regarding Christ's taking the nature of Adam after the fall! As I mentioned previously, the sermon "The Word Made Flesh" by W. W. Prescott was regarding this theme. She referred to his preaching as "truth, separated from error." It could hardly be the case that Ellen White secretly disagreed with something which she classified as "truth separated from error."

Fill in the blank based on the quote: _________ had propensities of disobedience, but Jesus didn't.


But I haven't seen any of them or any currently living poslapsarians say that Jesus had an evil nature, in harmony with Satan. Nor have I seen them teach that Jesus had the same propensities that we do, including those gained by active participation in sin. You're the only one I have seen to hold these views.

And one of these days, when I have more time, we'll get into the passions Jesus didn't have.

Arnold, I'm not following you here. I'm not saying anything any different than what Prescott, Jones, Waggoner, Haskell, or the other contemporaries of Ellen White taught.

Trying to make out a case from a private letter is like trying to make a rope of sand. If we want to see what Ellen White's views of Christology were, we should consider the Desire of Ages, of course.

Your argument is completely ignoring the historical realities. It's easy to interpret Ellen White this way or that. We see discussions regarding the divinity of Christ, whether the Holy Spirit was a person or not, all sorts of things from those who interpret her writings in different ways. When the historical considerations are taken into consideration, whether we are dealing with the teachings of Jesus Christ, or Paul, or Ellen White, we have a better chance of getting to the heart of the matter.

As I pointed out previously:

1.It wouldn't make any sense to say, "not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity" because a genetically passed tendency is not something you can have one moment but not the next; you either have it or you don't. For example, one wouldn't say, "Not for one moment did Christ have blue eyes." One would simply say "Christ did not have blue eyes." Not for one moment did Christ have an evil propensity because not for one moment did Christ yield to temptation.

2.The passage is parallel to Adam's experience. Adam could fall, and did fall. Christ could fall, but didn't.

3.It would disagree with her teachings elsewhere. For example:



4.It would disagree with the view that the SDA church as a whole held. Every church publication, every book, every magazine article, every sermon, everything, presented one view. It would be singularly out of place for her to be presenting a contrary view to what the church held in a private letter.

In addition to the DA 49 quote, there are many others that bring out that she believed Christ took our sinful nature. For example:



Also:



Regarding Christ's not having passions, these statements of hers have been well known for over a century. During his 1895 sermons, A. T. Jones quoted these statements! A. T. Jones, S. N. Haskell, and others developed their post-lapsarian positions because of Ellen White's influence! They quoted from her, to prove the post-lapsarian position, and she endorsed them when they presented these teachings! She defended these teachings, which she taught side by side with them.

How can you think her position was not post-lapsarian when she endorsed a sermon entitled "The Word Made Flesh" whose entire subject matter was that Christ took the nature of Adam after the fall?

I should point out that I've never asserted anything like this! When you make extraordinary claims like this, please provide some sort of evidence for your claim. Jesus had an evil nature in harmony with Satan? Please, Arnold; be reasonable.

She just means, neither was He born with any nor did He develop any. So "not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity" - from the moment He was born to the moment He died (differently from both Adam and his posterity).

Read post #104866 and your response in post #104874.

According to the SOP, fallen Adam had an evil nature in harmony with Satan. Therefore, I say Jesus had a different nature from fallen Adam. Yet, you say that He did. Hence, my assertion. Did I misunderstand you?

I agree. In contrast to Jesus, we are born with inherent propensities of disobedience.