Does what human nature Christ assumed impact righteousness by faith? If so, how?

The purpose of this topic is not do debate what human nature Christ took, but to discuss if and how Christ's assumed human nature impacts righteousness by faith (We have other threads discussing what human nature Christ assumed).

Yes. Since Jesus was able to exercise faith and experience righteousness it proves we can do the same thing with the same results. Ellen wrote:

The love and justice of God, and also the immutability of His law, are made manifest by the Saviour's life no less than by His death. He assumed human nature, with its infirmities, its liabilities, its temptations. "Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses" [Matthew 8:17]. "In all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren" [Hebrews 2:17]. He was "in all points tempted like as we are" [Hebrews 2:14]. He exercised in His own behalf no power which man cannot exercise. As man he met temptation, and overcame in the strength given Him of God. He gives us an example of perfect obedience. He has provided that we may become partakers of the divine nature, and assures us that we may overcome as He overcame. His life testified that by the aid of the same divine power which Christ received, it is possible for man to obey God's law. {17MR 337.4}

PS - If Jesus' humanity was unlike ours or possessed powers not available to us it would be impossible for us to imitate His sinless example. We would have no reason to believe we can have faith like He did or to experience righteousness like He did.

1 Peter
2:21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:
2:22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:

His example = no sin

Yes, what nature Christ took during the Incarnation does have a major impact on righteousness by faith.

The Spirit of Prophecy expresses this idea in a variety of ways. Here are a couple of my favorite quotes:

Christ is the ladder that Jacob saw, the base resting on the earth, and the topmost round reaching to the gate of heaven, to the very threshold of glory. If that ladder had failed by a single step of reaching the earth, we should have been lost. But Christ reaches us where we are. He took our nature and overcame, that we through taking His nature might overcome. Made "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3), He lived a sinless life. Now by His divinity He lays hold upon the throne of heaven, while by His humanity He reaches us. He bids us by faith in Him attain to the glory of the character of God. Therefore are we to be perfect, even as our "Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Desire of Ages, page 311)

The Son of God was assaulted at every step by the powers of darkness. After His baptism He was driven of the Spirit into the wilderness, and suffered temptation for forty days. Letters have been coming in to me, affirming that Christ could not have had the same nature as man, for if He had, He would have fallen under similar temptations. If He did not have man's nature, He could not be our example. If He was not a partaker of our nature, He could not have been tempted as man has been. If it were not possible for Him to yield to temptation, He could not be our helper. It was a solemn reality that Christ came to fight the battles as man, in man's behalf. His temptation and victory tell us that humanity must copy the Pattern; man must become a partaker of the divine nature. (Selected Messages Book One, page 408)

This is a rich theme, and there's a lot more material of this sort available.

Glen, great quotes. Couldn't agree more. Here's another one I'm sure you like as much:


Jesus proved that we can, like He did, possess sinful flesh and partake of the divine nature and resist every temptation. More than this, like Jesus, we can mature in the fruits of the Spirit on a daily basis. Sinning and repenting isn't a necessary or inevitable cycle we are doomed to live with because we possess sinful flesh. God requires of us the same obedience Jesus rendered. Ellen wrote:


PS - Welcome to the forum. I look forward to studying with you.

Obviously, if Christ could not be tempted, and if He could not fight our battles, He could not be our helper. He had to assume man's nature. But to what extent must Christ's human nature go? J & W taught that, to be our helper, Christ must be, and indeed was, born with the propensities of sin, something which there is no basis for asserting.

As I see it, it's impossible to discuss one thing without discussing the other.

If we look at the sanctuary doctrine, one of the really central ideas that comes through is that of gaining complete victory over sin, during the great antitypical Day of Atonement since 1844. The Spirit of Prophecy talks about this in many places, for example GC 424-25.

The same idea applies in some related areas, for example with reference to the 144,000 and standing without intercession for sin during the time of Jacob's trouble.

There seem to be several reasons why such complete victory is important -- we are fitted for heaven, we demonstrate God's power to save to the uttermost, Satan's rival kingdom is repudiated, and so on.

Is such victory possible, and if so, how? The only way that I know of is through total dependence on Christ, as our substitute, forerunner, helper, and example. We appropriate the perfect life that He worked out in a human body during the Incarnation. Christ overcame by depending totally on His Father, and we overcome by depending on Christ (John 5:30, John 6:54-57, Revelation 3:21). See also chapters 2, 4, and 5 of Hebrews.

If Christ's nature was fundamentally different than ours, then all this goes out the window. In such a case, we would still have the idea that we need to reach perfection of character, but no way of achieving it.

Glen

Adam and Eve, before the Fall, possessed advantages not available to us nowadays. We cannot point to them, therefore, to prove living without sinning is possible. Why not? Because they weren't anything like us. They were sinless. Their nature was in perfect harmony with the will of God. It encouraged them to mature in the fruits of the Spirit. Nothing in them craved or clamored for them to express their innocent and legitimate needs in sinful ways. They were not tempted from within to be unlike Jesus. They did not have internal foes. They didn't inherit sinful inclinations, tendencies, propensities from their parents. They didn't have defects, weaknesses, and imperfections. For all of these reasons we cannot point to them as proof we can be like Jesus.

And for the same reasons we cannot say Jesus is unlike us. We cannot say He is like Adam and Eve before the Fall. To say Jesus did not have to resist internal foes the same as us makes Him so unlike us that we cannot point to Him as proof we can live without sinning like Him. True, as God, He had to set aside His divinity in order not to have advantages not available to us. However, Jesus did not possess any human advantages He had to set aside in order to be like us. Having a human nature like Adam and Eve before the Fall would have given Him an advantage not available to us. nowhere does it say He set it aside to be like us. Which, obviously, means He didn't have it.

Because they sinned!