There are two natures involved, Elle. The way Sister White puts is it that Christ took upon His sinless nature our sinful nature. You're correct that our sinful nature had inherited tendencies to sin. His being the Son of God did not "override" these, because, if He did, the following would not be true:



If His being the Son of God "overrode" the tendencies to sin incumbent upon our sinful nature, then He have exercised in His own behalf a power that is not freely offered to us. Now Christ did defeat these tendencies, but He did so not by His own power, but by the power of His Father, a power which is freely offered to us.



Everyone agrees with this. It's a bit of a mystery why the bring this up.



Amen!

It's true we are called to overcome them, but simply having sinful flesh is not of itself a sin.



That Christ was understood as having the tendencies to sin common to sinful flesh is how Ellen White's writings were understood by her contemporaries. For example:



The first paragraph is Ellen White from "The Desire of Ages." The second is S. N. Haskell commenting on that as SDA's were fighting against the Holy Flesh ideas.

Actually she's right. Of course we have to be careful in how we phrase things to make clear we're not implying that Christ sinned, but Elle is right on point. John says that Christ "knew what was in a man." Christ was born "under the law." He took our sinful nature in order to share in our temptations and sorrows.

The best I've seen at explaining this is A. T. Jones. I quotes a bit from him a littler earlier. I'll see if I can find it.

Green I made clear many times that I want to base my belief on the Bible alone.

Moral perfection is based on a spiritual/mental born again continual dependancy experience. Ellen is saying that we shouldn't lower the standard in order to accomadate cultivated tendencies. She's did not say that cultivated tendencies are sins. She's talking about perfection of character which is manifested through the spirit of Christ which we depend on.

I see no problem with this quote either and is an explanation of the born again man. His natural heart must "subdued" by the grace of Christ,
- then man is "quickened to new life in Christ" (this is the working of the mind of Christ in you.
- "divine love fills his heart" (this is not your carnal heart that springs out love, but "divine love" fills his heart which is Christ love in you),
- "his understanding is sanctified" (here our faculties are not changed, but they are sanctified by the presence of Christ in you)

I don't see it at all. The tendencies to sin is part of the seed of the fallen Adam. Adam before committing sin, did not have the tendencies to sin, and yet he fell. How did he commit sin? By the spirit of rebellions. Not because of his flesh. It is through the spirit that we commit sin or not, not by the flesh. Jesus never rebelled against the father and was sinless even thought his body had the genetic inheritences of the Fallen Adam. God made it clear that our body will only be changed(tendencies to sin will be removed from our bodies) at the second coming.

Tom,

Did you miss my post #111950?

Why? I wasn't presenting this quote in reference to the baby question. When Ellen White was asked such questions, she tread on egg shells. She was very guarded in what she said. I don't wish to go beyond her comments, which, if memory serves, is in 3SM.

There's a quote by EGW which talks about how people will go into areas of speculation in order to avoid the straight lines of truth. I've got this way wrong in the words, but not so wrong in the general idea. We have very little revelation about babies. We have very clear revelation that Christ took our sinful nature. We know what the position of Ellen White's contemporaries was (hers too, unless we go through twisted contortions of logic).

For example, W. W. Prescott preached a postlapsarian sermon on the theme that Christ came in sinful flesh. Not "likeless of sinful flesh" as flesh like ours, but actually different, but "flesh of sin" exactly like ours. She endorsed this sermon as "truth separated from error." This should be enough to resolve the question. Imagine if Donnell had preach a sermon with the Original Sin ideas he had, like this:



and Ellen White had endorsed this sermon. It would then be clear that Ellen White was a prelapsarian. But she didn't endorse these ideas. She endorsed the ideas of those who combated these ideas.



What you are presenting as postlapsarian positions are not the positions that Jones, Waggoner, Haskell, Fifield and others held, as I've been demonstrating by their quotes. You've not quoted anything.

I know many postlapsarians who believe the ideas of Jones, Prescott, and Waggoner that I've been sharing. I've mentioned several of them here, such as Wieland, Short, Finneman, Sequeira and Gibson.

Here are a couple of things I'm sure all postlapsarians would agree with:

1.Christ took our sinful nature upon His sinless nature.
2.Haskell was right "This is fallen humanity, with its hereditary inclinations" and Donnell was wrong "did not possess the tendency to sin."

John the Baptist was not "the son of God" and fell short of the glory of God. However, Jesus said, that there weren't a greather man than John the baptist.


Scripture said the temptation was to "command" which shows that Satan knew that Christ still had authority because He was the "son of God". Just as Christ said about us, A"nd the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you." Luk 17:6 We have the same authority as Christ representative, but do you believe?

View Ellen White as you wish. What she says on this matter, as a prophet of God, I feel obliged to accept. However, in the following quote, she does cite several passages of scripture. Perhaps you wish to study them carefully and see how they compare to her words.



Jesus was the second Adam. This is Biblical. Adam was created perfect. So was Jesus. Hence the comparison.



Ellen White speaks very boldly on this topic. "Never" is a strong word. As touching this topic, Ellen White would have us know we are treading on holy ground. She warns us to be very careful of how we present the nature of Christ.

Once again, based on these passages, which I accept as God's Word to us, I view the fleshly nature of Christ as including only that level of weakness in health and constitution to which our sin-filled millennia of inheritance had brought, to the exclusion of any moral weakness whatsoever. Christ had no tendencies to sin, only weakened defenses against it.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

It all depends on your definition of "perfect" or "sin". According to scripture he put on human nature and it was an obligation for Him to do so for him to take our place. Heb 2:17, Rom 8:3, Phil 2:7. I agree with EGW that Christ was the second Adam and perfect in Character for he never in his mind took a bent toward sin eventhough he inherited a body the same as ours with a bent towards sin. That's what makes him perfect and the second Adam, because 100% of all his existence on earth, he abided in the Father. Never once, did he let the Father go. So through his dependency to the will of his Father, he became victorious.

Again look where EGW puts the emphasis, and I agree with her, Jesus never in any way yielded to corruption in his mind. There's some that says that having the thoughts of sin in their mind, but if they didn't consent to it, they didn't sin. I don't agree with that. I totally believe that Jesus never had a thought of sin in his mind.

Elle,

You and I will perhaps continue to differ on this, for I do take the view that a "thought of sin," so long as it is not cherished but is at once banished from the mind, amounts only to a temptation, and is not a sinful choice. Such is within the Tempter's capability, to plant evil thoughts in our minds.

Every person has two voices to which he or she may listen: the voice of conscience, and the voice of the tempter. Jesus surely must have had a "thought of sin" in His mind when it was presented by the devil, or else we would say He had an unfair advantage over us in that He did not actually hear Satan's suggestions. However, He met these thoughts with the Word of God, and gave a prompt rebuff to them.

And regarding Mrs. White's emphasis, she is emphasizing all of the points in that sentence, not one above another. Regardless of the emphasis, each point stands true in its own right. She says very plainly that Christ did not have any "inclination" to sin. This word has the same meaning as "propensity" or "tendency."

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.