Yes, and this:

“But the point is that Christ is a begotten Son and not a created subject. He has by inheritance a more excellent name than the angels; He is 'a Son over His own house.' Heb. 1:4; 3:6. And since He is the only- begotten son of God, He is of the very substance and nature of God and possesses by birth all the attributes of God, for the Father was pleased that His Son should be the express image of His Person, the brightness of His glory, and filled with all the fullness of the Godhead.”


It was easy to avoid misunderstandings. She could say that Christ’s humanity had “inherited tendencies” to sin. And when she said that Christ was not “a man with the propensities of sin” she could have said He was not a man with acquired propensities of sin.


Although you want to make me seem dumb, there is a context for what I said, obviously. I was saying that there is a difference between looking at the final result and looking at the difficulty of the process. I mentioned examples, like that of Mary. If you say that Mary’s probability of getting pregnant without the participation of a male was 100%, this is misleading because you are not considering the difficulty involved in the process.


By the way, pleased to meet you.

Tom,
I’m going to repost my questions you didn’t answer.

William,

The text says that the humanity Christ took (not the humanity He developed) was perfectly identical with our own, except without the taint of sin. Do you think someone can take acts of sin (choices)?

The passage also says he took our nature, fallen but not corrupted. Do you think it makes sense to say that He took our nature, fallen but without acts of sin?

When Ellen White applies the word "corrupt" to Adam, it doesn't seem to me she refers to acts of sin:

"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." {BEcho, September 3, 1900 par. 10}

Regarding #112202, I quoted what you said in #112181.



No, not at all. Here's what I said:



You have a tendency to assert things more strongly than your familiarity with the subject matter should warrant. It's clear you're not very familiar with probability theory, yet you were arguing with me about it, making strong assertions, just as if you knew it well.

When you write things, you assert things so strongly, it's difficult to tell, from your tone, whether you know something about the subject matter you are writing about or not. I think it would be more prudent to qualify your assertions when dealing with matters you're unsure about.

Regarding #112205, Christ, like Adam, was without sin. This is how they were similar. Unlike Adam, Christ's assumed human nature was not sinless. They were different in this regards:



We, before being converted, have only one nature, a sinful one. This makes our life a life of sin. When converted, we become partakers of the divine nature, and thus have two natures, like Christ did, one human and one divine, one inherent, and the other by means of partaking of it by faith.

Christ's inherent nature was divine, not human. He was, by nature, sinless. However, the human nature He assumed was "our sinful nature." His assumed human nature was sinful, just like ours is (hence it is called "our sinful nature").

Because Christ was, of Himself, sinless and divine, and because Christ never sinned, we should be very careful in how we refer to Him and His humanity. This is precisely what I find Ellen White to be doing. She is clearly postlapsarian, but she is a careful postlapsarian. She affirms, over and over again, that Christ took "our sinful nature" (or synonymous expressions) but makes clear that Christ was sinless and divine, and never sinned. We note the same carefulness with the Bible authors.

For example, Paul doesn't simply say that Christ "became sin for us," but that "He who knew no sin" did so. Similarly Peter says no guile was found in Christ, before saying that He bore our sins in his flesh. Similarly Paul says that God sent His Son in the "likeness of sinful flesh." From Prescott, we know this really was sinful flesh, not simply flesh similar to sinful flesh but somehow different (However, Prescott was also very clear to point out that Christ was sinless).

At any rate, I think you're misinterpreting Ellen White's carefulness of expression with an affinity for Original Sin, which she couldn't have had, given her endorsements of Jones and Waggoner, and Prescott, and how she dealt with the Holy Flesh crisis (as well as her own comments on the subject, such as DA 24 and DA 49).

In fairness to Waggoner, we must remember that Seventh-day Adventists at that time believed that inclinations and tendencies to sin were not sin in the proper sense of the word. —Prefall Pfandl

Rosa and TQ, let's try something a bit fanciful, at least more stimulating to the senses, while at the same time addressing your points of interest. Surely, in the end, you will have more doubts, but your "original sin" line of questioning is historically resolvable. Here's why:

I'm going to first add just a little more contextual meat to the quotation in question, and after fattening the proverbial calf, I'll briefly divide the same quotation into three parts, prefaced only by a few comments.

(How I wish I had more time!)

This will hopefully pull our weary minds away from the typical fare of theological minutiae, while at the same time focus our attention on the documented panorama of Ellen White's Christology. . .

Manuscript 111 is written in 1890; Adventism is still reeling from the spiritual after-effects of Minneapolis. Controversies new and old continue to divide the old guard and new. But the Seer has taken a side, has seen anew.

But she is still having nightmares about what could have been through the message of the Third Angel, seeing that had leadership been receptive to the Boys of Righteousness By Faith, that winning rhetoric before Blair might not have fared so well.

Hope is still swelling in her dreams: to hear the end of the loud cry arrest the world's attention about Lucifer's unholy day.

Two years prior, at the General Conference of 1888, Ellet J. is convincingly making Christ's divinity and humanity the foundation of his "justification by faith" messages, having already listened to Ellen White depict the "humanity of the Son" as meaning everything to her, "the golden chain that binds our souls to Christ, and through Christ to God" (1SM 244).

In the same year Waggoner also publishes the tract, The Gospel in the Epistle to the Galatians, where he unabashedly emphasizes Galatians 4:4, John 1:14, and Romans 8:3, each delving into Christ's flesh. From these he concludes: "Christ was born in the likeness of sinful flesh."

Waggoner's notes are missed at Minneapolis, but shortly after, in the Signs of the Times, and as early as January 21, 1889, his first article appears, again highlighting “God manifest in flesh.”

Adventism's confirmed Christology is slowly hardening in temporary stone.

In the exact year Ellen white writes Manuscript 111, Christ and His Righteousness jumps hot off the press. And again Waggoner's doctrine of Christ leads him to justification by faith (p. 66):

"When Christ covers us with the robe of His righteousness, He does not furnish a cloak for sin, but takes the sin away. . . It actually clears him from guilt; and if he is cleared from guilt, is justified, made righteous, he has certainly undergone a radical change. He is, indeed, another person. . . 'He is a new creature' (2 Cor. 5:17)."

She silently weeps.

He is then invited to the 1891 General Conference session to present a series of 16 Bible studies on the Epistle of Romans, where he deals with the statement that God sent His only Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh."

In typical fashion, he carefully lures his listeners, "There is a common idea that this means that Christ simulated sinful flesh, that he did not take upon himself actual sinful flesh, but only what appeared to be such."

To establish the reason for Christ coming in sinful flesh, Waggoner juxtaposes Romans 8:3-4 and 2 Corinthians 5:21. In every explanation on Christ's human nature, he's faithfully connecting the incarnation of Christ—having taken man's fallen nature—with the purpose of redemption: to free us from the power of sin and death through the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2).

During the 1890s Waggoner's influence and theological authority in the church is unparalleled. From camp meetings to pastoral conventions, from colleges to General Conference sessions, Ellen White is right there beside him, unquestionably supporting his specific teachings on Christ's fallen flesh, and proving so by accompanying both Waggoner and Jones on their Christological campaigns—on her own dime.

And O how people are being moved, she writes. They are seeing Christ in clarifying, unadulterated light—saving light. Prescott's sharp, confirming pen is shadowing the traveling trio.

The obvious question simultaneously puzzles and irritates scoffers:

If Waggoner's Christology throughout this whole decade is antagonistic to the denomination's own understanding of Christ's nature, why in the world are they continually inviting him to almost every influential gathering?

Heads are scratched, hearts are shut closed, and the skepticism persists:

If Waggoner's view is controversial or even unorthodox, why ask him to the General Conference Committee session in 1901 to refute “the strange doctrine” of the holy flesh movement, and their heretical teaching that Christ has taken "the nature of Adam before the fall"?

It is impossible, 19th century historians assure us, to divorce Ellen White from her immediate community of faith. Impossible.

So it is in this very unambiguous milieu that we find Ellen White reiterating her Christology in 1890:

1. She ecstatically echoes the commonly-held view of Adventist Christology:

"Christ. . . 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."

2. For those having any difficulty understanding a view that differs so widely from mainline Protestant churches, the prophetess adds a cautioning specification.

"But here we must not become in our ideas common and earthly, and in our perverted ideas we must not think that the liability of Christ to yield to Satan’s temptations degraded His humanity and He possessed the same sinful, corrupt propensities as man."

3. Then comes her conclusive appeal, showing that if Jesus had lived a sinless life in a human nature different from ours, and if He had not been "made like his brothers in every way" (Heb. 2:17), He would not be "able to help those who are being tempted" (Heb. 2:18).

"The divine nature, combined with the human, made Him capable of yielding to Satan's temptations. Here the test to Christ was far greater than that of Adam and Eve, for Christ took our nature, fallen but not corrupted, and would not be corrupted unless He received the words of Satan in the place of the words of God. To suppose He was not capable of yielding to temptation places Him where He cannot be a perfect example for man, and the force and the power of this part of Christ's humiliation, which is the most eventful, is no instruction or help to human beings."

A Happy Sabbath to all. Until next week,

William

Does this describe what you have in mind when you speak of "the nature of Adam after the Fall"? Is this dual nature - divine and human - what Adam had after his fall?

What I'm hearing from postlaps today is that Jesus had "the same sinful, corrupt propensities as man." Otherwise, how could He have experienced the same struggles that we do, since we struggle against these sinful, corrupt propensities?

Are you saying that Jesus DID NOT have "the same sinful, corrupt propensities as man"?

After Adam's fall, after he was converted, of course, like any other believer he had his own sinful nature and was a partaker of the divine nature by faith.

you all read too many he said/she said!! makes communication most difficult, not to mention the assumptions made of what another believes. must be an adventist thing!

im asking what you understand these fleshly desires to be, or as another has put it the clamorings of the flesh. you see, id rather not make assumptions of what you believe or what you mean by such and such but ask you.

now what "zurcher" said or tom, dick or harry, does not really help me know what you understand them to have understood.

kind of reminds one of that circle where one person whispers something to the next person and by the time it gets back to the first person it has no resemblance to what was originally said.