If you're talking about the Jones posts, you're welcome. I probably should have been posting these a long time ago. Ellen White said that Waggoner could teach righteousness by faith better than she could. Well, Jones could teach much better than I.

Anyway, these 1895 sermons are just great.

another thing just clicked for me in a different way. the only way Jesus can dwell in us is if self is dead. two beings cant dwell in the same body, two different goals. but yet we get to keep our individuality. what a paradox.

we also do the will of God as if it were our own will, carrying out our own desires.

but satan doesnt let us keep our own individuality when he owns us. we, also, many times do things against our will with satan in control.

Yes, Teresa, I've thought the same thing. When we yield our will to God, we keep our own personality and individuality. God does not dominate us in any way. But when people yield their wills to Satan (or to sin), then Satan (or sin) does dominate them. It's like when Paul said, the very thing I hate, that I do. That's what's Satan's mastery is like. But with God, we rejoice in doing His will, finding the greatest freedom in so doing.

This reminds me of something from Waggoner. Hold on a moment while I find it.

Thanks for your patience. Here it is:

Where shall we stand?--"In the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." And what freedom is that?--It is the freedom of Christ Himself, whose delight was in the law of the Lord, because it was in His heart. Ps.40:8. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Rom.8:2. We stand only by faith.

In this freedom there is no trace of bondage. It is perfect liberty. It is liberty of soul, liberty of thought, as well as liberty of action. It is not that we are simply given the ability to keep the law, but we are given the mind that finds delight in doing it. It is not that we comply with the law because we see no other way of escape from punishment; that would be galling bondage. It is from such bondage that God's covenant releases us. No; the promise of God, when accepted, puts the mind of the Spirit into us, so that we find the highest pleasure in obedience to all the precepts of God's Word. The soul is as free as a bird soaring above the mountain-tops. It is the glorious liberty of the children of God, who have the full range of "the breadth, and length, and depth, and height" of God's universe. It is the liberty of those who do not have to be watched, but who can be trusted anywhere, since their every step is but the movement of God's own holy law. Why be content with bondage, when such limitless freedom is yours? The prison doors are open; walk out into God's freedom.(The Glad Tidings; emphasis mine)

amazing, absolutely amazing!

"It is not that we are simply given the ability to keep the law, but we are given the mind that finds delight in doing it."

Interesting. Here Jones is agreeing with my view, that sinful passions/propensities are in the mind, not in the body. That's why Christ was not a partaker of our passions.

As to his view on Christ's temptations, it does not agree with Ellen White's view.

I've been trying to point this out to you for quite a long time now. It's rather odd for you to characterize Jones as agreeing with your view, however.



Yes it does. He quoted from her in his sermons. It's funny to me that you keep thinking that all of Ellen White's contemporaries were interpreting her wrong, which she worked with them, talked with them, and was right there to correct them, but that you have it right.

Haskell read from Ellen White. Jones read from Ellen White. Ellen White endorsed Prescott (who probably quoted from her too). Waggoner preached at the GC session that Ellen White attended (the 1901 one; of course, he preached at the 1888 one as well).

She endorsed them. They read openly from her. Yet supposedly they are all confused and self-contradictory, while you have everything right.

Here's some more Jones.

When grace reigns, it is easier to do right than it is to do wrong. That is the comparison. Notice: As sin reigned, even so grace reigns. When sin reigned, it reigned against grace; it beat back all the power of grace that God had given; but when the power of sin is broken, and grace reigns, then grace reigns against sin, and beats back all the power of sin. So it is as literally true that under the reign of grace it is easier to do right than to do wrong, as it is true that under the reign of sin it is easier to do wrong than it is to do right" (Review and Herald, July 25, 1899).

It can never be repeated too often that under the reign of grace it is just as easy to do right as under the reign of sin it is easy to do wrong. This must be so, for if there is not more power in grace than there is in sin, then there can be no salvation from sin. . . .

Salvation from sin certainly depends upon there being more power in grace than there is in sin. . . . [Man's] great difficulty has always been to do right. But this is because man naturally is enslaved to a power—the power of sin—that is absolute in its reign. And so long as that power has sway, it is not only difficult, but impossible to do the good that he knows and that he would. But let a mightier power than that have sway, then is it not plain enough that it will be just as easy to serve the will of the mightier power, when it reigns, as it was to serve the will of the other power when it reigned?

Do we understand the power of grace? But grace is not simply more powerful than is sin. . . . This, good as it would be, is not all. . . . There is much more power in grace than there is in sin. 'For where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.' . . . Then the service of God will indeed be 'in newness of life;' then it will be found that His yoke is indeed 'easy' and His burden 'light;' then his service will be found indeed to be with 'joy unspeakable and full of glory'" (ibid., September 1,1889.)

Take the man who does not believe in Jesus at all tonight. . . . If this man wants to have Christ for his Saviour, if he wants provision made for all his sins, and salvation from all of them, does Christ have to do anything now, in order to provide for this man's sins, or to save him from them?—No, that is all done; He made all that provision for every man when he was in the flesh, and every man who believes in Him receives this without there being any need of any part of it being done over again. He 'made one sacrifice for sins for ever'" (1895 GCB, 268)

Jones believed that sinful propensities are in the mind? So wouldn't that mean that sinful propensities are beyond the scope of "sinful/fallen flesh"?

Arnold, again, the two points that I'm aware of upon which there are disagreements are:

a)Did Christ, by virtue of taking our sinful nature, have inclinations, or tendencies, to sin? (or was the sinful nature which He assumed different from ours, in that it had no hereditary tendencies to sin).

b)Could Christ be tempted from within?

I've presented evidence that there are actual differences of opinions on these subjects. If you're going to assert that there's some other area of disagreement, that's fine, do so, but please quote something to demonstrate that there's some difference of opinion to discuss.

That latest thing about Jones is directly related to your point a. If Jones was saying that sinful propensities are a function of the mind and he also said that Jesus did not have a sinful mind ("don't drag His mind into it") then Jesus didn't have sinful propensities. If Jesus did not have sinful propensities, wouldn't that mean that He did not have them at birth?

How about our nature? Do we naturally have sinful propensities? I think so.