GREEN - I quoted other authors. It is not ME saying these things. Did you read the opening post?

GC, I agree with you. Jesus did not crave or clamor to sin. Nor did He sin. However, His sinful flesh nature did crave and clamor for sinful expression. It tempted Him from within to sin in the same way it tempts born-again believers to sin. No one incurs guilt, corruption, or contamination because their sinful flesh nature clamors for sinful expression (i.e., tempts them to sin).

Mike,

I've been a bit unsure for years regarding your interpretation here, and I'm still unsure. I would agree, mostly, with your statement above, but it is insufficiently clear to satisfy me, for it leaves open some possibilities that would be incorrect.

I'll use an example or two to illustrate:

1) Appetite: We know Jesus was tempted to eat bread during His fast. But the sin would not have been in the eating, but rather in the eating it to prove His identity. In other words, the temptation was really about proving Himself. It is no sin to eat bread. Was He tempted to eat it on account of His hunger? Certainly. But His hunger was not even close to a sinful propensity. It is a normal, non-sinful, bodily need.

However, I might be tempted to eat donuts and ice cream when I'm tired and on the verge of getting sick already. Jesus was never even tempted to do such a thing. He did not want to sin, which includes doing anything that will be damaging to health and longevity.

2) Other physical weakness: Jesus was tempted not to go through with the sacrifice on the cross. He pleaded with the Father to remove the cup from Him, if possible. Again, it was no sin to desire life, in place of death. The sin would have been in the fact that He had promised us that He would do this on our behalf, and to not go through with it would have turned those promises into lies. The sort of death He was to face was not an easy one, and He knew that. But He went through with His selfless act of love, in spite of the desires of His flesh to avoid death.

I, on the other hand, might be tempted to betray someone else in the hopes of sparing my own life. Quite a different sort of temptation it would be for me than it was for Him. Jesus would never have been tempted to betray a friend of His. He would have loved His friends too dearly to even think of such a thing.

***

I hope those examples show what I'm trying to say. Basically, Jesus was tempted "in all points," but not in all of the same ways or for all of the same reasons. Obviously, Jesus could not have been tempted to divorce His wife without a cause and marry another if He never had a wife. But He was most certainly brought into places where the devil tempted Him to be selfish. He just never caved. He was never selfish, and never wanted to be selfish.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

GC, I agree Jesus never wanted to sin. He suffered when tempted because the thought of sinning was repulsive to Him. Equally repugnant to Him was the fact He inhabited a human body whose sinful flesh nature craved and clamored for sinful expression, that is, it tempted Him from within to indulge His innocent and legitimate needs (appetites, passions, drink, food, rest, happiness, companionship, etc) in sinful ways. Sinful flesh nature, as you know, cannot actually commit a sin - it can only tempt us to sin. It is not a sin to be tempted.

To say Jesus was never tempted to satisfy His human needs in sinful ways is to say He was not tempted in every way we are tempted. This would give Satan an advantage. "If Christ had a special power which it is not the privilege of man to have, Satan would have made capital of this matter. . . . When we give to His human nature a power that it is not possible for man to have in his conflicts with Satan, we destroy the completeness of His humanity." (3SM 139)

If Jesus' sinful flesh nature never tempted Him from within to satisfy His innocent and legitimate needs in sinful ways (remember, it is not a sin to be tempted) it would have given Him an advantage not available to us. However, Jesus became like us so we can be like Him. He was tempted in every way we are tempted thereby proving born-again believers are safe to save. "Jesus revealed no qualities, and exercised no powers, that men may not have through faith in Him. His perfect humanity is that which all His followers may possess, if they will be in subjection to God as He was." (DA 664)

It so happens that, in the same paragraph, Ellen White says that Adam's "posterity was born with inherent propensities of disobedience." So "propensities" is something you are born with.

We are!

What did Christ have to overcome? Peer pressure?

All the Adventist pioneers believe that Christ came in sinful flesh. Your pre-fall condition of Christ came about in the 1950s. Romans 8:3-4 AKJV For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Rosangela - EGW wrote to Baker about his error. She was a prolific writer. After the 1888 general conference meeting, she travelled and worked with Waggoner and Jones. They wrote the things you call error. They repeated them many times! Please if you can, show me where she took these men to task for this blatant error. She certainly would not have left this out right error go on without stern instruction. That is, unless it was not in error and she her self agreed.

APL,

Mrs. White did not set herself to correct every error. You are greatly mistaken. She often spoke of the principles of the matter, leaving God's people to use their own judgment and discernment to make wise choices regarding belief and action.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

You are right. Taught by so many in her day and they wrote so much on it, but such a minor doctrine there was no need to set the record straight.

Assuming that you and Wieland and Walper and EGW are all "on the same page," you four believe that all of us are born with inherent "sin acted upon" and have participated in "yielding to temptation" and "harboring of an evil purpose, that would be the compulsive result of a previous involvement in an act, word, or thought of sin" even before leaving the womb. Really? Fetuses commit acts of sin? That is a strange page to be on. I doubt EGW was there with you and the others.