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Re: What happens to our sinful flesh nature when we are born again?
#16059
10/28/05 02:51 AM
10/28/05 02:51 AM
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OP
SDA
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I posted the questions above to demonstrate that sinful flesh nature has, as it were, a mind of its own - the carnal mind. Before we are born again we are the slaves of sin, we naturally act out the unholy suggestions produced by our sinful flesh nature, our carnal mind.
But when we are born again Jesus implants within us the mind of the new man, which enables us to maintain a constant warfare against the unholy suggestions generated and communicated as conscious thoughts and feelings by our carnal mind/sinful flesh nature.
Although even after we are born again our carnal mind/sinful flesh nature continues to bombard our new man mind with unholy suggestions we are not, however, accountable or guilty for their initial existence. They are nothing more than temptations.
Jesus was born, as it were, born again. He started off like a born again believer. That is, He was not born in slavery to His sinful flesh nature/carnal mind. Therefore, He never committed a sin, or developed an unholy inherited trait of character. From the womb to the tomb He successfully resisted the unholy suggestions produced by His fallen flesh nature/carnal mind.
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Re: What happens to our sinful flesh nature when we are born again?
#16060
10/27/05 03:03 PM
10/27/05 03:03 PM
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So MM, you are stating that Christ received sinful suggestions from His carnal mind?
One again, conceptually I agree with what you are saying, but this language I find a bit troubling.
It's a difficult subject to get the language just right.
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Re: What happens to our sinful flesh nature when we are born again?
#16061
10/27/05 03:19 PM
10/27/05 03:19 PM
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OP
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I agree. The idea that Jesus became "sin for us" is equally as troubling - but it is the truth that sets us free. Thank you Jesus!
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Re: What happens to our sinful flesh nature when we are born again?
#16062
10/27/05 04:26 PM
10/27/05 04:26 PM
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Tom, 1) Then neither do we have a satanic element in ourselves, just in our flesh. quote:
The "corrupt principles" and "tendencies to evil" were... in His flesh
"Never, in any way, leave the slightest impression upon human minds that a taint of, or inclination to corruption rested upon Christ, or that He in any way yielded to corruption." {13MR 19.1}
There was no taint of corruption or inclination to corruption in Christ.
2) How could Christ have a carnal mind and still reflect the image of God perfectly?
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Re: What happens to our sinful flesh nature when we are born again?
#16063
10/27/05 05:13 PM
10/27/05 05:13 PM
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1) Then neither do we have a satanic element in ourselves, just in our flesh.
The "corrupt principles" and "tendencies to evil" were... in His flesh
"Never, in any way, leave the slightest impression upon human minds that a taint of, or inclination to corruption rested upon Christ, or that He in any way yielded to corruption." {13MR 19.1}
There was no taint of corruption or inclination to corruption in Christ.
This is why I have emphasized that there were no corrupt principles in Christ, nor tendencies to evil in Him. Only, as she pointed out, in His flesh (not in Him).
2) How could Christ have a carnal mind and still reflect the image of God perfectly?
This question should be addressed to Mike. I have not said that Christ had a carnal mind. I'm not comfortable with this language.
I would say that Christ took upon His sinless nature our sinful nature, or equivalently, that He accepted the workings of the great law of heredity, or equivlanently, that He partook of our flesh, or equivalently, that genetically He was a human being like other human beings. It seems to me that "carnal mind" has a different connotation, which implies actual participation in sin, which would follow under the guidelines of the quote from the Baker letter you cited.
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Re: What happens to our sinful flesh nature when we are born again?
#16064
10/27/05 05:46 PM
10/27/05 05:46 PM
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quote:
This is why I have emphasized that there were no corrupt principles in Christ, nor tendencies to evil in Him. Only, as she pointed out, in His flesh (not in Him).
Then the same dichotomy could be applied to born-again Christians. There is no corrupt principles in them, just in their flesh. Does this make any sense?
quote:
It seems to me that "carnal mind" has a different connotation, which implies actual participation in sin, which would follow under the guidelines of the quote from the Baker letter you cited.
The Baker letter was referring to Christ's human nature, and if EGW says that there was to taint of corruption or inclination to corruption in Christ, she was referring to His humanity - every part of it.
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Re: What happens to our sinful flesh nature when we are born again?
#16065
10/27/05 05:58 PM
10/27/05 05:58 PM
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This is why I have emphasized that there were no corrupt principles in Christ, nor tendencies to evil in Him. Only, as she pointed out, in His flesh (not in Him).
Then the same dichotomy could be applied to born-again Christians. There is no corrupt principles in them, just in their flesh. Does this make any sense?
It would make sense for the 144,000.
It seems to me that "carnal mind" has a different connotation, which implies actual participation in sin, which would follow under the guidelines of the quote from the Baker letter you cited.
The Baker letter was referring to Christ's human nature, and if EGW says that there was to taint of corruption or inclination to corruption in Christ, she was referring to His humanity - every part of it.
What the Baker letter is referring to as a matter of controversy. Ellen White suggested we not use her personal correspondence in resolving matters like this, but instead stick to her published works. Perhaps we would do well to follow her counsel on how to use her writings.
Also the interpretation you are suggesting seems to me to contradict the Bible Echo reference I quoted, which constrasts unfallen Adam to Christ as to "corrupt principles" and "tendencies to evil".
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Re: What happens to our sinful flesh nature when we are born again?
#16066
10/28/05 01:07 PM
10/28/05 01:07 PM
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Tom, In her will, Ellen White herself authorized "the printing of compilations from my manuscripts." Also, the words of the Baker letter are very clear, and I see nothing difficult to understand in them. quote:
Also the interpretation you are suggesting seems to me to contradict the Bible Echo reference I quoted, which constrasts unfallen Adam to Christ as to "corrupt principles" and "tendencies to evil".
It is a pity you are focusing just in part of the text.
“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. But when Christ came to meet the temptations of Satan, He bore ‘the likeness of sinful flesh.’ In the wilderness, weakened physically by a fast of forty days, He met the adversary. His dignity was questioned, His authority disputed, His allegiance to His Father assailed by the fallen foe.” {BEcho, September 3, 1900 par. 10}
We have already discussed this, so I’ll not go into detail again, but it is easy to see that if the contrast involves corrupt principles and tendencies to evil, it also involves indwelling sin. It’s also easy to see that “corrupt principles” and “tendencies to evil” are an expansion of what constitutes “indwelling sin”. However, the true contrast lies in the fact that Christ was “weakened physically by a fast of forty days, ... His authority [was] disputed, His allegiance to His Father assailed by the fallen foe.”
Ellen White says about the corruption of believers:
“The religious services, the prayers, the praise, the penitent confession of sin ascend from true believers as incense to the heavenly sanctuary, but passing through the corrupt channels of humanity, they are so defiled that unless purified by blood, they can never be of value with God. They ascend not in spotless purity, and unless the Intercessor, who is at God's right hand, presents and purifies all by His righteousness, it is not acceptable to God.” {1SM 344.2}
Attributing any kind of corruption to Christ is unthinkable to me.
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Re: What happens to our sinful flesh nature when we are born again?
#16067
10/28/05 04:13 PM
10/28/05 04:13 PM
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Tom, In her will, Ellen White herself authorized "the printing of compilations from my manuscripts." Also, the words of the Baker letter are very clear, and I see nothing difficult to understand in them. Old Tom:Also the interpretation you are suggesting seems to me to contradict the Bible Echo reference I quoted, which constrasts unfallen Adam to Christ as to "corrupt principles" and "tendencies to evil". The Baker letter was a personal letter, not a manuscript. What Baker was teaching is debated. One suggestion is he was teaching adoptionism, a teaching that Christ actually committed sin, and there looks to be merit in this idea. For example, there is the statement:
"He could have sinned; He could have fallen, but not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity." Some have understood this to mean that Christ did not take our sinful nature, because our sinful nature has evil propensities, and it says here Christ didn't have an evil propensity. However, there are several reason why this interpretation is suspect. First of all, Ellen White in her public works many times affirmed that Christ did take our sinful nature, so this interpretation would cause her to go back on what she had written public. Secondly, the statement says "not for one moment" which would refer to something transitory (such as the commission of sin), not something static (such as nature). For example, one would not say, "Not for one moment were his eyes blue" if one were referring to one's natural eye color, but could if one were referring to the type of contact lenses one used. How one should interpret the phrase "Christ didn't have an evil propensity" is debated. This is just one example of the amiguities involved.
The fact of the matter is that no on knows what Baker was actually teaching, because there's no record of that. There's just a private letter responding to something which EGW found to be at fault. Without knowing what the actual issue is, complicates correctly interpreting her response, which is probably why she counseled that we refer to her published works in knowing what her thoughts are, rather than private letters.It is a pity you are focusing just in part of the text. This is just for convenience. I've quoted the text many times. I shouldn't have to quote the whole thing each time. quote:
“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. But when Christ came to meet the temptations of Satan, He bore ‘the likeness of sinful flesh.’ In the wilderness, weakened physically by a fast of forty days, He met the adversary. His dignity was questioned, His authority disputed, His allegiance to His Father assailed by the fallen foe.” {BEcho, September 3, 1900 par. 10}
We have already discussed this, so I’ll not go into detail again, but it is easy to see that if the contrast involves corrupt principles and tendencies to evil, it also involves indwelling sin.
It’s also easy to see that “corrupt principles” and “tendencies to evil” are an expansion of what constitutes “indwelling sin”.
The portion dealing with Christ cannot be dealing with indwelling sin, because Christ didn't have any. She is contrasting the lack of "corrupt principles" and "tendencies to evil" that Adam did not have with something Christ did have. "But when Christ came to meet the temptations of Satan, He bore the likeness of sinful flesh." It was this flesh, not Christ, which has "corrupt principles" and "tendencies to evil".
However, the true contrast lies in the fact that Christ was “weakened physically by a fast of forty days, ... His authority [was] disputed, His allegiance to His Father assailed by the fallen foe.”
This doesn't take into account the "corrupt principles" or "tendencies to evil". The contrast is "There were in him no corrupt principles, not tendencies to evil. But when Christ came to mee the temptations of Satan, He bore 'the likeness of sinful flesh.'" It's not "In Adam was no weakness or propensity to tiredness, but ... He 'bore the likeness of sinful flesh."
However, there's no need to dwell on this one statement. There are dozens of similar statements. For example:
quote:
But Jesus accepted humanity when the race had been weakened by four thousand years of sin. Like every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity. What these results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors. He came with such a heredity to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life." DA p 49.
What were the results of the heredity which Christ accepted? Every sort of vice and sin. This was His ancestry.
Ellen White's contemporaries had the same view she did. For example, to counteract the Holy Flesh movement, Waggoner preached at a General Conference sesssion which EGW attended:
quote:
"We need to settle, every one of us, whether we are out of the church of Rome or not. Many have the marks yet. Do you not see that the idea that the flesh of Jesus was not like ours (because we know ours is sinful) necessarily involves the idea of the immaculate conception of the virgin Mary?
"Suppose we start with the idea that Jesus was so separate from us, so different that He did not have in His flesh anything to contend with—sinless flesh. Then you see how the Roman Catholic dogma of the immaculate conception necessarily follows. But why stop there? You must go back to her mother, and so back to Adam; and the result?—There never was a fall. Thus you see the essential identity of Roman Catholicism and Spiritualism.
"Christ was tempted in the flesh, He suffered in the flesh, but He had a mind which never consented to sin. He established the will of God in the flesh, and established that God's will may be done in any human, sinful flesh" (General Conference Bulletin, 1901, pp. 403-405, condensed).
This is the way the SDA's attacked the Holy Flesh heresy. The Holy Flesh doctrine was:
a)Christ had a sinless human nature
b)The 144,000 must perfectly overcome sin, as Christ did
c)Therefore we need to have sinless flesh, like Christ.
The response to this was to point out that we (SDA's) do not believe that Christ had sinless flesh. This is the context of Waggoner's sermon. Stephen Haskell used the same technique:
quote:
“Their point of theology in this particular respect seems to be this,” Haskell continued. “They believe that Christ took Adam’s nature before he fell; so He [Christ] took humanity as it was in the garden of Eden, and thus humanity was holy, and this is the humanity which Christ had; and now, they say, the particular time has come for us to become holy in that sense, and then we will have ‘translation faith’ and never die.” ...
"When we stated that we believed that Christ was born in fallen humanity, they would represent us as believing that Christ sinned, notwithstanding the fact that we would state our position so clearly that it would seem as though no one could misunderstand us."
W. W. Precostt preached a sermon in Avondale on the nature of Christ, entitled something like "The Word Became Flesh." Ellen White heard the sermon and praised it as "truth separated from error". The sermon presented the position that Christ had flesh identical to ours, except that Christ never committed sin.
The point is that there's no need to depend on a portion of the Bible Echo text to make the point that our denomination, including Ellen White, was teaching that Christ took our sinful flesh, because there is voluminous evidence which points in this direction.
Ellen White says about the corruption of believers:
“The religious services, the prayers, the praise, the penitent confession of sin ascend from true believers as incense to the heavenly sanctuary, but passing through the corrupt channels of humanity, they are so defiled that unless purified by blood, they can never be of value with God. They ascend not in spotless purity, and unless the Intercessor, who is at God's right hand, presents and purifies all by His righteousness, it is not acceptable to God.” {1SM 344.2}
Attributing any kind of corruption to Christ is unthinkable to me.
I agree.
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Re: What happens to our sinful flesh nature when we are born again?
#16068
10/28/05 10:33 PM
10/28/05 10:33 PM
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quote:
The Baker letter was a personal letter, not a manuscript.
It so happens that many, if not most, of the manuscripts are personal letters.
quote:
Secondly, the statement says "not for one moment" which would refer to something transitory
Just the opposite is true. I’m not aware of any quote of Ellen White which uses “propensity” or “inclination” or “tendency” as something transitory. If you have a propensity/inclination/tendency, this refers to something that is always present with you – you must always keep it under subjection. So, if she says that not for one moment was there in Christ an evil propensity, for this to be true He couldn’t have been born with, nor could He ever had acquired, any evil propensity.
quote:
She is contrasting the lack of "corrupt principles" and "tendencies to evil" that Adam did not have with something Christ did have.
As I said in the previous time we discussed this passage, the contrast being made is not between the words "corrupt principles"/"tendencies to evil" and Christ's "likeness of sinful flesh". The contrast involves everything that is being said about Adam - he had no justifiable reason to fall, yet he fell; but Christ was in every sense in disadvantage in relation to him, yet He overcame.
This parallel passage throws further light on the text:
"In what consisted the strength of the assault made upon Adam, which caused his fall? It was not his indwelling sin; for God made Adam after His own character, pure and upright. There were no corrupt principles in the first Adam, no corrupt propensities of tendencies to evil. Adam was as faultless as the angels before God's throne. These things are inexplainable, but many things which now we cannot understand will be made plain when we shall see as we are seen, and know as we are known. What humiliation our Lord was subjected to when assailed by the powers of the prince of darkness. Was it no degradation to the spotless Son of God that His dignity should be questioned, His authority disputed, and His allegiance to His heavenly Father assailed by a fallen foe? How humiliating to Christ to have Satan show a superiority to Him. We but dimly comprehend why Christ was brought in contact with the adversary of God and man. It was in behalf of fallen humanity that the compassionate Christ was made to appear in His humiliation." {16MR 86, 87}
The true contrast is between the strength of Satan’s assault upon Adam and upon Christ. Christ was weakened, in a desert, and far from the presence of God. Satan questioned Christ’s dignity, disputed His authority, assailed His allegiance to His Father and the very purity of His principles; tried to humiliate Him in every way possible. Now compare this with the assault made upon Adam.
Another passage that helps to define what the contrast is:
"Adam had the advantage over Christ, in that when he was assailed by the tempter, none of the effects of sin were upon him. He stood in the strength of perfect manhood, possessing full vigor of body and mind. He was surrounded with the glories of Eden, and was in daily communion with heavenly beings. It was not thus with Jesus when He entered the wilderness to cope with Satan. For four thousand years the race had been decreasing in physical strength, in mental power, in moral worth; and Christ took upon Him the infirmities of degenerate humanity. Only thus could He rescue man from the lowest depths of degradation. Every device that the enemy could suggest was brought against Him. It was when Christ was in a weakened condition, after His long fast of forty days, that the wisest of the fallen angels used the most enticing words at his command in an effort to compel the mind of Christ to yield to his mind." {ST, December 3, 1902}
About the heredity Christ took, the passage above mentions three things:
Physical strength;
Mental power;
Moral worth – moral worth has to do with character:
"It is moral worth that God values. A Christian character unblotted with avarice, possessing quietness, meekness, and humility, is more precious in his sight than the most fine gold, even the golden wedge of Ophir." {ST, March 22, 1883 par. 5}
"God did not value the riches of this wealthy man, because he had not true moral worth. His character was worthless." {ST, March 22, 1883 par. 9}
"Through the perfection of Christ's character, man was elevated in the scale of moral value with God." {ST, August 7, 1879 par. 8}
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