“Human nature is depraved, and is justly condemned by a holy God.” {RH, September 17, 1895 par. 7}

Here's a similar statement:

“Think of Christ's humiliation. He took upon himself fallen, suffering human nature, degraded and defiled by sin....”

Regarding "born in sin," here is a parallel passage:

Concerning the creation of Adam it is said, "In the likeness of God made He him;" but man, after the Fall, "begat a son in his own likeness, after his image." While Adam was created sinless, in the likeness of God, Seth, like Cain, inherited the fallen nature of his parents.(PP 80)

So EGW's point had to do with Seth's inheriting the fallen nature of his parents.

R: Again I have a couple of questions for you. Is it your contention that we aren't born with a sinful spiritual/moral nature? Isn't a sinful/spiritual moral nature condemned by God?

T: In asking if we are born with a moral/spiritual nature, I'd want to know that is defined. If this is dealing with hereditary inclinations, I'd say yes. If this is dealing with character, I'd so no.

Do you think it is a sin to be sexually attracted to the person you are dating?

I don't understand why you are making the distinction between having a desire for sex and having a desire for sex with a specific person.

SDAism is the only denomination that has the idea that a fallen nature can mean a nature without tendencies to sin. Amazing! And the only reason this exists is because of Ellen White statements. The content of our belief is no different than that of Evangelicals (except some Evangelicals believe Christ could have sinned), but the expression of the idea is different. The Evangelicals would say the same thing as #2.

Octavius Winslow is another author that Ellen White read and borrowed from in her understanding of the human nature of Christ. The following passage in found in Winslow’s book The Glory of the Redeemer in His Person and Work (London: John Farquhar Shaw, 1855), pp. 129, 132-135. One can see Ellen White’s similar use of Winslow’s thoughts in 5BC 1131 and 16MR 181-183 (quoted above).

But his [Christ’s] taking up into subsistence with his own, our nature in its fallen condition, comprehends the sinless infirmities and weaknesses with which it was identified and encompassed. “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.” (129)

Our Lord’s exposure to temptation, and his consequent capability of yielding to its solicitations, has its foundations in his perfect humanity. It surely requires not an argument to show that, as God, he could not be tempted, but that, as man, he could. His inferior nature was finite and created; it was not angelic, it was human. It was perfectly identical with our own,– its entire exemption from all taint of sin, only excepted. A human body and a human mind were his, with all their essential and peculiar properties. He was “bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh:” he travelled up through the stages of infancy, boyhood, and manhood; he was encompassed with all the weaknesses, surrounded, that belong to our nature. He breathed our air, trod our earth, at our food. The higher attributes of our being were his also. Reason, conscience, memory, will, affections, were essential appendages of that human soul which the Son of God took into union with his Divine. As such, then, our Lord was tempted. As such, too, he was capable of yielding. His finite nature, though pure and sinless, was yet necessarily limited in its resources, and weak in its own powers. Touching his inferior nature, he was but man. The Godhead, as I have before remarked, was not humanized,– nor was the humanity deified, by the blending together of the two natures. Each retained its essential character, properties, and attributes, distinct, unchanged, and unchangeable. (132-133)

But let no one suppose that a liability in Jesus to yield to Satan’s temptations, necessarily implies the existence of the same sinful and corrupt nature which we possess. Far from it. To deny his capability of succumbing to temptation, were to neutralize the force, beauty, and instruction of this eventful part of his history altogether. It were to reduce a splendid fact to an empty fable, a blessed reality to a vague supposition; it were to rob Jesus of the great glory which covered him when left alone, the victor on this battle-field. And yet, that he must necessarily be sinful in order to be thus capable of yielding, does not follow; it is an error in judgment to suppose that the force of a temptation always depends upon the inherent sinfulness of the person who is tempted. The case of the first Adam disproves this supposition, and in some of its essential features strikingly illustrates the case of the second Adam. In what consisted the strength of the assault before whose fearful onset Adam yielded? Surely not in any indwelling sin, for he was pure and upright. There was no appeal to the existence of any corrupt principles or propensities; no working upon any fallen desires and tendencies in his nature; for, until the moment that the blast swept him to the earth, no angel in heaven stood before the throne purer or more faultless than he. But God left him to the necessary weakness and poverty of his own nature, and thus withdrawing His Divine support and restraint, that instant he fell! That our adorable Lord did not fall, and was not overcome in his fearful conflict with the same foe, was owing solely to the upholding of the Deity, and the indwelling and restraining power of the Holy Spirit, which he possessed without measure. (133-134)

Winslow argues that Christ did have weaknesses and infirmities but no corrupt principles or propensities in him. Like Melvill, Winslow espoused a view of Christ’s nature where Christ inherited the post-fall human infirmities and weaknesses which enabled him to be tempted as we are but he inherited no propensities to sin.

Yes, it is a sin when I have an unholy desire and it must be confessed. However, there is a difference between "having" an unholy desire versus an unholy thought and feeling tempting us from within to be unlike Jesus. Do you agree?

And, do you agree all temptations begin as unholy thoughts and feelings? If not, how, then, do you think people become consciously aware of the fact they are being tempted?

R: One of the quotes you posted says, “A genuine conversion changes hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong.” Another one says, “The thorns in the heart must be uprooted and cast out, for good and evil cannot grow in the heart at the same time. Unsanctified human inclinations and desires must be cut away from the life as hindrances to Christian growth.”

MM: Amen! However, this isn't true of all hereditary and cultivated inclinations to evil which clamor for sinful expression. The other quotes I posted above make this point painfully clear. How do you reconcile them with the idea we are guilty in the sight of God until we rid ourselves of all sinful inclinations to evil?

Of course they aren’t similar. Ellen White doesn't use the words “depraved” and "corrupt(ed)" when speaking of Christ.

Adam was tempted by the enemy, and he fell. It was not indwelling sin which caused him to yield; for God made him pure and upright, in His own image. He was as faultless as the angels before the throne. There were in him no corrupt principles, no tendencies to evil. But when Christ came to meet the temptations of Satan, He bore "the likeness of sinful flesh." (BE 9/3/00)

This is very funny. You say that the concept of original sin involves the idea that simply the act of being requires a Savior. What about your view? Doesn’t it involve the idea that simply the act of being requires a Savior? “When Adam fell, the race fell, and all in the race need a Savior.” Could you please clarify?

The Condemnation. "Death passed upon all men;" or, as stated later, "judgement came upon all men to condemnation." "The wages of sin is death." Rom. 6:23. All have sinned, and, therefore, all are in condemnation. There has not a man lived on earth over whom death has not reigned, nor will there be until the end of the world. Enoch and Elijah, as well as those who shall be translated when the Lord comes, are no exceptions.

There are no exceptions, for the Scripture says that "death passed upon all men." For the reign of death is simply the reign of sin. "Elias was a man of like passions with us." Enoch was righteous only by faith; his nature was as sinful as that of any other man. So that death reigned over them as well as over any others. For be it remembered that this present going into the grave, which we so often see, is not the punishment of sin. It is simply the evidence of our mortality. Good and bad alike die. This is not the condemnation, because men die rejoicing in the Lord, and even singing songs of triumph.

"Justification of Life." "By the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life."Â There is no exception here. As the condemnation came upon all, so the justification comes upon all. Christ has tasted death for every man. He has given himself for all. Nay, he has given himself to every man. The free gift has come upon all. The fact that it is a free gift is evidence that there is no exception. If it came upon only those who have some special qualification, then it would not be a free gift.

It is a fact, therefore, plainly stated in the Bible, that the gift of righteousness and life in Christ has come to every man on earth. There is not the slightest reason why every man that has ever lived should not be saved unto eternal life, except that they would not have it. So many spurn the gift offered so freely. (Waggoner on Romans)

A question for you: Isn’t Jesus part of the human race? Why then doesn’t He need a Savior? He was in Adam, too, wasn’t He? Why wasn’t He born condemned, under the sentence of death?

Pages 43-48. Waggoner argues that to be "under the law" always means to be "under the condemnation of the law." He protests George Butler’s citation of lexicographer Greenfield (turned commentator) as an authority that "under the law" in Galatians 4:4 means "subject to the law." Waggoner wrote, "Seventh-day Adventists, of all people in the world, ought to be free from dependence upon the mere opinion of men. They should be Protestants indeed, testing everything by the Bible alone" (44:1).

Galatians 4:4-5: "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent for the His Son,
having become of a woman, having become under law, that those under law He
might redeem, that the adoption of sons we may receive" (from the Greek).

George Butler took great exception in his assessment of E. J. Waggoner’s understanding of Gal. 4:4. Butler wrote, "That He did voluntarily take the sins of the world upon Him in His great sacrifice upon the cross, we admit; but He was not born under it condemnation. Of Him that was pure, and had never committed a sin in His life, it would be an astonishing perversion of all proper theology to say He was born under the condemnation of God’s law" (Butler, The Law in Galatians, p. 58). Waggoner retorted by quoting John 1:1, 14; Rom. 8:3; Phil. 2:5-7; Heb. 2:9; Rom. 1:3, Heb. 2:16, 17 to show that Christ really became a human being, descending from a heritage of sinful human beings. He cited II Cor. 5:21 ‘made Him to be sin for us’ as parallel to Gal. 4:4. He cited Isa. 53:4 about Him bearing "our griefs and sorrows" and even cited Ps. 51:5 to show that David, an ancestor of Jesus, had a sinful nature.

* Page 46:5. "It may be a perversion of all proper theology, but it is exactly in harmony with the Bible, and that is the main point. Can you not see that your objection lies just as much against your position as against mine? You are shocked at the idea that Jesus was born under the condemnation of the law, because He never committed a sin in His life. But you admit that on the cross He was under the condemnation of the law. What! Had He then committed sin? Not by any means." (http://www.jesusinstituteforum.org/1888message.html)

Exactly! And inheriting the fallen nature of his parents means being born in sin. This is the whole point of the statement. Notice the contrast with Adam, who "was created sinless."

Ellen White said Christ took humanity without a taint of sin. She also says His spiritual nature was free from any taint of sin. Therefore, she refers to His (human) spiritual nature. Is it your contention that we are born with a spiritual nature free from any taint of sin?

Christ's life of humiliation should be a lesson to all who desire to exalt themselves above others. Though He had no taint of sin upon His character, yet He condescended to connect our fallen human nature with His divinity. (Christ Triumphant 232)

T:Do you think it is a sin to be sexually attracted to the person you are dating?

R:What do you mean by “sexually attracted”?

Of course a person may have a physical appearance, or personality profile, or masculine/feminine charm, or whatever, which you like or admire. This is different from wishing to have sex with that person.

Please notice how Ellen White drew extensively from him. It would be very strange for her to use his terminology if she didn't agree with his view.

R: Of course a person may have a physical appearance, or personality profile, or masculine/feminine charm, or whatever, which you like or admire. This is different from wishing to have sex with that person.

T: Your thought is that it's OK to admire a person physically that you are dating, but it would be a sin to feel a desire to have sex with that person, right?

I'm 100% certain that Christ was tempted sexually. What of it?

Temptation is not a sin.

"For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15, EKJV)

If He were NOT tempted sexually....now THAT would be big news.

"For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15, EKJV)