Admin Edit to say that this thread is a continuation of the following thread:

http://www.maritime-sda-online.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=114594#Post114594


Do "true believers" "consent" to having "corrupt channels of humanity"?

Php 2:4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Php 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Php 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
Php 2:7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
Php 2:8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

for this to be read in any sense other than Jesus humbling Himself as an example of how God is does away with the context and lesson of this passage.

not to mention that if Christ had literally emptied Himself of His divinity He would, in that instant, ceased to have existed before He ever had a chance to "clothe Himself with humanity".


its ok to tell God we dont see how Jesus humanity could die and not His divinity but to try and put texts together to come to a conclusion we, faulty, fallen beings, can understand is to walk on very dangerous ground. it is much better to wait on the Lord in many cases.

hmmmm, i wonder where i picked up calvinistic ideas, since i was out of any church for decades and had only the bible and egw.



i read that particular statement in light of these:




again, i read it in the context of what precedes it.


my attention is on Christs-Gods-humility. studying His humility because by "beholding we become changed". He came in a weakened body which green cochoa stated so well. but the important lesson as i see it, is the humility of God.

This would be interesting to pursue. When did you first have these ideas? Can you recall? Was it before you came back to the church, or afterward?



I'm not following you, teresa. She's not talking about Christ's body in either of the quotes I presented. Let's take a look:



This says Christ accepted "humanity" after 4,000 years of sin. She goes on to say that "like every child of Adam" He "accepted" the workings of the "law of heredity." Our fallen nature is passed by heredity. If Christ accepted the working of the law of heredity, like every other fallen human, then He received the same nature from heredity that every other fallen human ("child of Adam") receives. That should be clear.

Now comes the kicker. "What these results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors." What are the results shown in the history of His earthly ancestors. What are these results? All we need to is read the accounts of David, Rahab, Solomon, etc. to see.

She goes on to say that Christ came with such a heredity as ours to "share our sorrows and temptations." This could hardly be clearer. A Christians most difficult temptations come from within.



Even after regenerated, our most difficult temptations are from within. If Christ came to share our temptations, He must have been tempted from within.

Going back to the DA 24 quote:



Now if Christ took our nature for the purpose of passing through our experiences, and did not bear anything we do not endure, and was tempted in all points as we are tempted, and our most difficult temptations are from within, again it should be clear that Christ was tempted from within.

I completely agree, Teresa.

Sure it is.



Original Sin proponents make these arguments all the time. Christ could not have been tempted from within because being tempted from within is sin. This is the Original Sin idea. Similarly Christ could not have had heredity tendencies to sin, because this would have been sin as well. There is an equating of tendencies, desires and temptations with sin.



This is an impossible interpretation. It ignores the historical realities of the time. Had she had the ideas your investing her with, she could not have endorsed Jones and Waggoner as she did, she could not have endorsed Prescott's sermon, she could not have handled the Holy Flesh movement as she did, to name a few things. This would make her to be feeble-minded (not realizing the Jones and Waggoner's ideas regarding righteousness by faith were wrong) and without integrity (after saying it was important to hold arguments that are wholly sound, she would, in your view, be supporting false arguments).



How did Ellen White and her contemporaries understand "taint of sin"?



Christ had such flesh as our, was tempted in all points as we are, yet was without a taint of sin because He never, even in a thought, cherished a desire or sanctioned an inclination of the flesh.




"Taint of flesh" did not mean to them what it means to you, because they didn't believe in Original Sin.



This makes no sense, because Ellen White affirms that Christ took our sinful nature, and endorsed those who taught this. For example, she endorsed Prescott's sermon on the theme that Christ came in sinful flesh. She also endorsed Jones and Waggoner's teachings on righteousness by faith, which are built upon their understanding of Christ's taking our sinful flesh.



Original Sin is not predicated on Ellen White's sayings at all. It did not come from Ellen White. It came from without the church. This is obvious to see by simply following the history of the thing.

Before the 1950's, there was nothing in SDA literature anywhere proposing the Original Sin ideas. How did these ideas get into the church? Did the church leaders somehow receive an epiphany on how Ellen White's writings should be interpreted which no one had seen before? No! They brought the ideas in with them when they were educated at non-SDA seminaries.

Let's consider things abstractly. Say there is a group A which starts teaching idea X 100 years into their existence, having denied it for the first 100 years. There has to be a reason why. Something introduced idea X into the mix. The most probably explanation is that X came from outside the group and was brought into the group by ones who brought it in with them.

Ellen White says we are born in sin, while Christ took humanity without the taint of sin. Everything is very clear.

What is your explanation for her use of this expression? She says Christ took our fallen nature but did not take the taint of sin. He took our humanity without the taint of sin. He was born without the taint of sin. She obviously also uses this expression for the life He developed, but here she uses it for the humanity He took, for the condition He was born in. What does she mean, Tom?


You are ignoring the clear meaning of the text. Do not present Him as a man with the propensities of sin. Simple. There is no way around it, and there is no other way to interpret it.


As I said, this doesn't work for the passages where she is referring to the humanity He took, since the verb "to take" refers to His life from the moment He was born.


Obviously, she always affirmed that Christ took our fallen nature, but she was very specific. She said Christ took "the nature of man in his fallen condition, but He did not take the taint of sin" (20MR 324.1). She says Christ took "the nature, but not the sinfulness of man" (ST, May 29, 1901 par. 11).

This is what Ellen White says about Adam:

God did not create man sinful. Adam came forth from the hand of his Maker without the taint of evil. {ST, August 26, 1897 par. 4}

The first Adam was created a pure, sinless being, without a taint of sin upon him; he was in the image of God. {13MR 18.1}

What does she mean here? That Adam was created without having sinned? (Would this make any sense?) Or that he was created without sinful tendencies?

Only if you ignore any interpersonal relationships Ellen White had.



She means what she said elsewhere. Christ took our sinful nature upon His sinless nature. Neither she nor any other SDA's used "taint of sin" to mean original sin.

She says that Christ took "our sinful nature." I don't see how this can be unclear.

She said, in one place:



In another place she said:



She also said:



Although Christ took our sinful nature, He had not "taint of sin." He remained "that only thing," although He took our sinful nature. This would be another way of saying it.



It makes much more sense to interpret the Baker letter with the presupposition that Baker was teaching Adoptionism than that he was teaching the same thing as Jones, Waggoner, Haskell and Jones. Surely you can see the logic of this. Why correct Baker, but not endorse Jones? Why correct Baker, but not Haskell? Why not admit that Donnel was right and Haskell was wrong? Why not correct Jones or Waggoner? Why endorse their teachings of righteousness by faith?

The simple fact of the matter is there is more than one way of interpreting the Baker letter. There's probably a half dozen ways of interpreting it. To force an interpretation upon a private letter which disagrees with the facts of history smacks of desperation.

One could just as well say that there is no other way of interpreting the following than how Haskell did:



This interpretation has the advantage of their being a contemporary of Ellen White who interpreted her writings in the way suggested. You can't produce a single contemporary of hers who interpreted her writings as you suggest.

We know Ellen White endorsed postlapsarians, and we know postlapsarians interpreted her writings to be postlapsarian. You're swimming way, way upstream to suggest she wasn't. There'd have to be much stronger evidence than a private letter of which we don't know the circumstances to deal with this current.



Which is the same thing that Jones and others taught. But none of them believed in Original Sin.



As shown above, Christ was without a taint of sin, although He condescended to take humanity. But she's not saying Christ's sinful nature was sinless.

You've offered no explanation for why she would have acted the way she did. Why would she have endorsed Prescott's sermon that Christ came in sinful flesh? You suggested you agreed with Prescott's sermon, as if Prescott had the same idea in mind for a sinless sinful flesh that you have, but I showed to you that he didn't. Prescott meant by "sinful flesh" just what Haskell, Wagonner, and Jones (who most influenced him on his theology) meant. Ellen White knew what Prescott meant. She was familiar with what Prescott had been teaching. Prescott didn't just present that one sermon. Prescott had been preaching at the 1895 General Conference session as well as at other sermons at Avondale. Ellen White's endorsement of Prescott was continuous during this 1895-1896 period.

Isn't it curious that the more strongly postlapsarian the preaching, the more ringing the endorsements from Ellen White?

???
Sorry, I cannot harmonize what you say with what she said.

"He had not taken on Him even the nature of the angels, but humanity, perfectly identical with our own nature, except without the taint of sin." {16MR 181.4}

"We should have no misgivings in regard to the perfect sinlessness of the human nature of Christ." {1SM 256.2}

Tom,

I'm with Rosangela on this one. The statements are too clear to be misunderstood, and you are kicking against the pricks. The desperation you speak of is yours, which is why you started out trying to invalidate the Baker letter, and now you are just trying to say it could be interpreted in at least half a dozen ways. I truly do not understand where someone could go wrong on this, but seeing that you are fully convinced in your own mind and wish not to be persuaded otherwise, I will respect that, and not torment you with a bunch of other statements from Ellen White which say the same thing as the "Baker letter." She is consistent. You are not.

There are clearly two parts to "human nature":

1) The flesh
2) The sin

The flesh, in and of itself, is not sinful. If it were, we would all be hopeless sinners until we are transfigured at His coming. In such a case, Jesus has given an impossible command to us, that we obey His commandments. And, in such a case, Jesus Himself would have been a sinner. So the flesh is not sinful, nor is it the source of sin.

The sin which we inherit comes from prenatal influences within the womb. It has little to do with genetics. Genetics may give us weaknesses, but it cannot give us actual sin. Again, if such were the case that the sin was implanted in our genetics, then Jesus would have been a sinner, for He took our genetics.

Jesus took our sin-weakened flesh, but never did He take the sin. He was not born a sinner. He did not start off as a sinner and "come from behind" in order to conquer on our behalf. He was perfect all the way through His life.

This reasoning is so sound and sensible to me, that I do not need Ellen White to tell me. The Bible agrees with this.

Jesus did not need to be tempted from within in order to be "tempted on all points like as we are, yet without sin." He only needed to be tempted. The source of those temptations matters not. There is no text of the scripture that says "Christ was tempted from within." Nor should there be. It is an unnecessary requirement to our salvation.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.