Tom asked on another topic after quoting me:
" 'But I think, Tom you may be asking me how He could take the sins of the yet unborn. Well, it's the same question as "How could He take the sins of the unrepentant?" He didn't take the records of their sins, as they had nothing recorded yet. But He did take the Sin Disease and crush it by providing the vaccine for all time, Himself. He conquered Satan's weapon, Death.'This is very poetic ... But I'd still like more info on what saying Christ took our sins means to you.' "

So here are my basic thoughts on this:

As numb as I am with worn-out theological terms, I have used the word "vaccine" in an unusual way so as to illustrate a few features of the Master's role in every human's salvation from Sin, if he will accept that salvation.

The word "vaccine",will not cover all aspects of Christ's "becoming sin for us", but will highlight some divine factors, I hope.

A vaccine is prepartion that actually is super-saturated with the toxic virus. It is not a placebo, or a merely a carrier, but it actually IS the virus at it's full flown stage.

Christ, in the wilderness, and even more so between Gethsemane and His death on the Cross, was progressively loaded down with that Sin-Disease, not anyone's acts of sin nor His own, as He had none. [see {FLB 101.4}] He actually took the final results of every sin, death, but also the symptoms of those sins while on the Cross.

As fully man, He took them, not as fully God. He had to experience all of this to actually become one with His "brothers", humanity. Before Calvary He "knew [experienced] no sin". He cannot be "touched by our feelings

Consider: How can a mother fully understand the pains of another mother who has lost a child, unless she has had the same experience? She cannot.

How can I know the "joys of salvation" without salvation? I cannot.

Imagine this: Christ went through the horrors of the end results of malaria, AIDS, cancer, murder, drunkeness, Ebola, war, hatred, adultry, loneliness, lying....all Sin, all that Satan has plagued humanity with since Day One. And He did not yield one micro from His position, nor lose His Divinity, temporarily.

He need not have taken the actual events of our sins, perhaps: Sinner A's wife-beating event of Jan.2nd, 1967 is no different than Sinner B's wife-beating event of June 23rd, 67 B.C. That is all recorded in Heaven of course, for our investigation.

However He did experience the results of total separation from God caused by A and B's sins. He felt the ravings of Sin PLUS the Father's turning away from that.

Only He could have handled that, and Praise Him forever, He did!

Summary for Skimmers:
Christ fully took on the Sin-Disease for us, beat it and offers Himself as the Vaccine to all.
Since He took the disease, He also took the results of the disease, our acts.
He can now (present tense) take the our records of sin, once we have given them to Him correctly.
Kill the disease and you kill the symptoms.

I'm not sure I understood your first paragraph Phil. Did you say that Christ covered the sins of the unborn and newborn child?

I like the new "Summary for Skimmers" feature, but shouldn't that be at the *beginning* of the post? (So the skimmers will actually read it)

I'm quoting the parts of your post which seem to me to most be dealing with my question, which is what it means to say that Christ took our sins.

quote:

---

Christ, in the wilderness, and even more so between Gethsemane and His death on the Cross, was progressively loaded down with that Sin-Disease, not anyone's acts of sin nor His own, as He had none. [see {FLB 101.4}] He actually took the final results of every sin, death, but also the symptoms of those sins while on the Cross.

...

Imagine this: Christ went through the horrors of the end results of malaria, AIDS, cancer, murder, drunkeness, Ebola, war, hatred, adultry, loneliness, lying....all Sin, all that Satan has plagued humanity with since Day One...

He need not have taken the actual events of our sins, perhaps: Sinner A's wife-beating event of Jan.2nd, 1967 is no different than Sinner B's wife-beating event of June 23rd, 67 B.C. That is all recorded in Heaven of course, for our investigation.

However He did experience the results of total separation from God caused by A and B's sins. He felt the ravings of Sin PLUS the Father's turning away from that.

---

From reading this it appears to me that what you mean by "Christ took our sin" is that Christ experienced the results of our sin. Is this correct?

DebbieNope; innocent babes cannot confess sins that they a) may not have acted out yet b) have not been convicted of and given to Christ. I stated "He didn't take the records of their sins, as they had nothing recorded yet. But He did take the Sin Disease and crush it by providing the vaccine for all time, Himself."
I see a difference between acts of sin and the Disease of Sin, the products of a polluted spring and the spring itself.

Tom Yes; that is correct. Christ actually took the end results of every species of sin none to man, not merely a judicial, mystical or intellectual plea-bargaining conceptualization, but the "harvests" themselves.

Sinful acts come from a sinful heart. Therefore it is the heart that must be exchanged for his Heart, not merely the list of sins one has done, yet keeping the same heart. This is a superficial repentance, however sincere.

Any amount of sorrow or repentence over sinful deeds means little until the sinful heart is given over the the Doctor and exchanged for His heart. "Ye must be born again", not only regret your sinful actions.

"Create in me a clean heart"...is not poetic or symbolic, at least to me."Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree;" and life's desert "shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." Isa. 55:13; 35:1. {DA 302.4}

P.S.: the EGW quotes you used seemed to me to be dealing with the issue of "Should we keep the 10 Commandments?" which most Evangelicals deny, not the subject I am dealing with here, directly. As Adventists we all know the answer to that; but many are uncertain over one aspect of the Victory over Sin on the Cross that Christ won.

Debbie Did that clarify your question?
John B. That is exactly my point.

The Master Teacher became involved in a discussion with the Pharisees and others who stood by in which He was able to set before them a clear definition of what sin is. To them He said,

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

These men revealed their ignorance of the basic principles of the sin problem by replying, "We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest Thou, Ye shall be made free?" (This is as if today, an Afro-American would be angered by His implying that they were slaves still, under bondage to a plantation!)

Now, in the reply of Christ we have set before us the full definition of what sin is.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." John 8:32-34.

Here sin is identified, not as an action, but as a master, for, if the sinner is the servant of sin, then the sin must be the master of the sinner. To be such a master, sin must be a power, for no one can rule as a master without the power to rule as such, especially when the subjects are unwilling to render service to that power.

Sin is a master, not a master who receives loving service from his subjects, but one who has to compel them to obey him. Thus, we are to think of sin as being a slave master. In fact, the original Greek word from which the word 'servant' is translated was the word used for 'slave', and is usually translated as slave in the more modern translations.

Consider: Are the leper, the lame, the blind, the herion addict, the bigot, the serial killer not enslaved by a power, a master, a Disease beyond their human ability to ignore or conquer??


This, then, means that our definition of sin must now be extended to the following:

Sin is a Disease/master who rules us against our will so that we are in the condition of bondage. For this problem, pardon or forgiveness in the sense in which this word is generally understood, is not the solution. What we need now is deliverance.

Some in our church believe that when babies are born they are sinning as soon as they take their first breath. This is not Biblical. They may as well join the Catholic church or any other church that believes in infant baptism.