I've told you in the past that the text you quote doesn't say what you want it to say.

"These words are not addressed to any human being, except to the Son of the Infinite God. Never, in any way, leave the slightest impression upon human minds that a taint of, or inclination to corruption rested upon Christ, or that He in any way yielded to corruption. He was tempted in all points like as man is tempted, yet He is called that holy thing. It is a mystery that is left unexplained to mortals that Christ could be tempted in all points like as we are, and yet be without sin." {13MR 19.1}

The text evidently refers to His whole life, not just to His childhood.

"The humanity of Christ is called 'that holy thing.' The inspired record says of Christ, 'He did no sin,' he 'knew no sin,' and 'in him was no sin.'" {ST, January 16, 1896 par. 7}

Then it's OK for you to use a circular reasoning. "Original sin can't be true because if it were Christ couldn't have been born with sinful tendencies in His humanity."
Being born with sinful tendencies in His humanity would be a logical contradiction to the idea that Christ's humanity didn't possess sinful propensities, to the idea that the humanity He took was without a taint of sin.
Christ took our sinful nature - He took the form of man, not the defective character with which man is born.

If we couldn't know her thoughts on a matter through her other manuscripts, she wouldn't have authorized the publication of compilations from them.

Yes it is irrelevant because Jesus fullfilled Heb 2:17 and this argument having an advantage or disadvantage has nothing to do that he didn't come in the Flesh. He came in the flesh and lived like one of us. However, He was the son of God also which makes him different from us. Despite his divinity, he fullfilled Heb
2:17 and other scriptures. If he wouldn't of have, then we wouldn't be here.


Because of phi 2:7 and other scriptures, I will believe that Jesus did not have omni-presence, omni-potence, immortality, and omniscience. If you want to believe that Jesus had omnipotence and that what Satan was tempting him, then you can read the scriptures that way. That temptation can be read in either way. I choose to read it according to the light of other scripture and according to Heb 2:17. My strongest problem with that type of belief is Jesus could of not been able to die if he had immortality. It just doesn't work. It does not harmonize with the rest of scriptures.

This was a private letter. If she had wanted us to come to conclusions based on private letters, she wouldn't have given us counsel to consult her published works to know her thoughts on a case. To prefer a private letter over a published book is absurd.

In the consideration of the opinions of any writer, there is an order of preference. First comes books. Then come articles and other similar published works. At the bottom of the heap are private letters. If we knew something of the circumstances of what Baker was teaching, that would provide a context for her remarks. But we don't, so people can make up whatever interpretations they want, which is just what's been done, which is why the whole idea of investigating a private letter for which we don't know the circumstances should be rejected on the face of it.

At the time of the Baker letter, Ellen White endorsed Prescott's sermon that Christ came in sinful flesh. Prescott's thoughts and logic were typically postlapsarian. There's no way Ellen White would simultaneously endorse Prescott's sermon while taking Baker to task for the same things that she was endorsing Prescott for saying.

Also during this same time period the Holy Flesh controversy arose. There's no way she would have approved of the work Jones, Waggoner, Haskell, and others were doing, bringing forth the postlapsarian line of defense, if she really agreed with Donnell and thought Haskell was wrong. The idea that she would privately correct Baker, while conveying the false impression that she agreed with Jones, Waggoner, Haskell, and others is absurd.

She also was endorsing Jones and Waggoner's soteriology, repearing their logic in her own works, during this same time period. If she really believed Luther's Gospel was more correct than Jones and Waggoner's, why would she endorse Jones and Waggoner the way she did, when they were so wrong?

If A implies B, then if B if false, A must be false. A in this case is "Original Sin is true" and B is "Christ did not take sinful flesh."

Here's the argument I'm making. If Original Sin were true, then it could not be the case that Christ took our sinful nature, because in this case He would be guilty of sin, would have been tempted from within, would have had tendencies to sin which the flesh has. This is how Original Sin proponents see things. The argument that Christ did not take our sinful nature is predicated on Original Sin being true.

We can go the other direction. If Christ did take our sinful nature, if He was tempted from within, if His flesh did have the same genetically passed hereditary tendencies that ours has, then Original Sin must be false.

Haskell read from "The Desire of Ages" and concluded that Ellen White was speaking of "fallen humanity, with its hereditary inclinations." Given this is the case, Original Sin cannot be true.



This assumes the Original Sin idea of "taint of sin," which Ellen White and her contemporaries did not have. For example:



You can see there's no contradiction. Christ took our sinful nature, with its desires and inclinations, yet did not have a "taint of sin."



"Our sinful nature" was understood as including the tendencies and desires of the flesh. See above.

No one has asserted Christ took a defective character. That's a red herring.

thats funny, because no matter how many times i have read the book it has not made me a postlapsarian. i guess it shows how we each can read things differently.

if i may add to your thought, roseangela. when Jesus commanded satan to get behind Him He did it in His own authority, yet when we "command" anything it is in the authority of Jesus" name=authority=character. one such verse:
Act 3:6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

Jesus never said, in the name of the Father......
yet we are to always say, in the name of Jesus....

Yes, I do think it's odd. There are other Calvinistic ideas which have come into the church as well, which I gave up when I became an SDA. It just makes me scratch my head to see these ideas which I gave up to become an SDA reappear. (For example, the idea that Christ's Second Coming is simply a "matter of time.")

I don't see how any one can read this:



or this



and think that Christ didn't take our fallen nature.

No, this is not how Original Sin proponents see things.
Ellen White says, in the Baker letter, that Christ was not a man with the propensities of sin – so this precludes the existence of any sinful propensity in His humanity - whether genetic, inherited, acquired or whatever.

She also says that

Christ “had not taken on Him even the nature of angels, but humanity, perfectly identical with our own nature, except without the taint of sin” (Ms 57, 1890).

And

”He humbled Himself in taking the nature of man in his fallen condition, but He did not take the taint of sin.” {20MR 324.1}

So it’s very clear that in the humanity Christ took (not in His divinity nor in the humanity He developed) there was no taint of sin, and this is the only difference between His humanity and ours. So she considers something we are born with as being a taint of sin. It’s obvious that this could only be the sinful nature.

Therefore, the concept of Original Sin is predicated on two kinds of Ellen White statements: 1) those which say that Christ’s humanity never had any propensities for sin, and 2) those which say that Christ took humanity without the taint of sin, and was born without the taint of sin.