Mike,

Some quotes about temptation that could help us to analyze the subject:

Through sin the whole human organism is deranged, the mind is perverted, the imagination corrupted. Sin has degraded the faculties of the soul. Temptations from without find an answering chord within the heart, and the feet turn imperceptibly toward evil. {NL 59.2}

Apart from divine power, no genuine reform can be effected. Human barriers against natural and cultivated tendencies are but as the sand-bank against the torrent. Not until the life of Christ becomes a vitalizing power in our lives can we resist the temptations that assail us from within and from without. {ST, December 1, 1914 par. 9}

You are in danger from corruption within and temptation without. There are evil habits and traits of character which are constantly inclining you to selfishness and weakness of principle. {RH, January 20, 1885 par. 3}

Our foes are within and without. We are assailed by temptations which are numerous and deceiving, the more perilous because not always clearly discerned. Often Satan conquers us by our natural inclinations and appetites. {14MR 294.3}

A man may be trying to serve God, but temptations from within and from without assail him. Satan and his angels urge and coax him to transgress. And perhaps he falls a prey to their temptings. {7MR 400.1}

Just before his cruel death, Jesus said, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." Satan could find nothing in the Son of God that would enable him to gain a victory. He had kept his Father's commandments; and there was no sin in him that Satan could triumph over, no weakness or defect that he could use to his advantage. But we are sinful by nature, and we have a work to do to cleanse the soul-temple of every defilement. {RH, May 27, 1884 par. 11}

My point is that if Ellen White endorsed someone on a specific point of theology, she agreed with the person whom she was endorsing on the specific point she was endorsing.

She endorsed Crosier on the cleansing of the sanctuary, but there were some aspects in his position that were wrong.

She agreed with Crosier on the points she was endorsing, didn't she? Surely she wouldn't endorse him on something she disagreed with. In regards to Ellen White's endorsements of Prescott's, Jones and Waggoner's position on the nature of Christ, there was no qualification. She simply endorsed the positions as correct. You might be able to find some i or t somewhere that didn't get dotted or crossed if you look hard enough, but the position she was endorsing was the post-lapsarian position, and there is wide agreement as to what this entails. Jesus Christ partook of the flesh of fallen Adam, not unfallen Adam. Christ proved that it is possible for fallen man to keep the law. He was an example for us, and is able to sympathize with us, because He knows by personal experience what we go through. He was tempted in all points as we are tempted; tempted as one who has sinful flesh, like we have. These are general points which all agreed on.

quote: R: I don’t believe I would be helping you by saying that I do not regard what you say as correct.
T: I don't understand what you're saying.

R:I was referring to Waggoner. I don’t think that EGW’s saying that she didn’t consider as correct some of his interpretations of the Bible would help to eliminate any prejudice against him. What happens is that she endorsed his general message but said frankly she didn’t agree with some of his interpretations of the Bible.

Your interpretation here doesn't fit with the facts. If you read through the 1888 Materials, you will see that the scenario I presented was accurate. She wrote a lot about this. There's no need to be in error on this point.

quote:This is not how I perceive our difference. To the best of my knowledge, I have never made the statement that sinful tendencies reside in the body. I'm about 100% sure I've never made this statement.

R:Well, this is how I understood your position. You kept saying that sinful tendencies are genetically transmitted to the brain, which is a part of the body, and not to the mind (which is my position). What is your position after all?

The same as all the others; Prescott, Jones, Waggoner, et al.

quote:I believe a new position started entering in to the church starting from then (e.g. Bible Readings for the Home was changed at this time), and that this new position is incorrect.

There was not so much harmony of views before that time as some may believe. According to the 1895 General Conference Bulletin, Jones made several statements about Christ’s human nature during the meetings: "Christ's nature is precisely our nature" (p. 231); "In His human nature there is not a particle of difference between him and you" (p. 233); There is "not a single tendency to sin in you and me that was not in Adam when he stepped out of the garden" (p. 333). All the tendencies to sin that are in human flesh were in his human flesh," yet "not one of them was ever allowed to appear; he conquered them all. And in him we all have victory over them all" (p. 266, 267). Christ "was sinful as we" (p. 302). However, he was confronted by the delegates with some statements of Ellen White, such as that one of Christ sharing human infirmities but not the passions. It was then that he came up with that explanation that Christ was made in the likeness of sinful flesh but not in the likeness of sinful mind. The fact is that the delegates must have found a discrepancy between what he was saying and what Ellen White said, otherwise they wouldn't have confronted him with her words.
Curiously, both Prescott and Waggoner, several years after The Desire of Ages was written, still held the semi-arian concept that Christ’s life was derived from the Father. Ellen White had written clearly about it, but they didn't seem to pay attention to what she was saying.

There was no difference in the position, which was post-lapsarian. Just in the expression of some finer points of the position. To give an analagous argument on the pre-lapsarian side, the vast majority of pre-lapsarians believe Jesus could not have sinned. Just about the only exceptions to this are SDA's, many of whom, because of Ellen White, believe Christ could have sinned. Pre-lapsarians can argue about this point, but it doesn't impact the fact that the position is pre-lapsarian. It is a point of refinement. Similarly, none of those who were asking for clarification were pre-lapsarian, or held a position materially different than Jones. They were just trying to understand what he was saying, and if his understanding of Christ's taking our sinful nature was the same as Ellen's White's understanding of Christ's taking our sinful nature. There is no evidence that there were any pre-lapsarians involved.

Tom,

The question is very simple, and this is where I want to end my participation in this discussion. There are not three or four options, but just two. Either sinful propensities/passions reside in the mind or in the body. It's either one or the other. Since I don't think that selfishness, pride, covetousness, envy, jealousy, etc. reside in the body, and since Jesus didn't have a sinful mind, to be coherent I have to disagree with you, Prescott, Jones, Waggonner et al.

Rosangela, thank you for the quotes. I think I understand your position now. Satan is the origin and source of all temptations; if evil angels were dead and gone, then temptations would cease to exist.

Based on this understanding of temptation, why doesn't God simply eliminate evil angels and save everyone? People would stop sinning if they weren't tempted, wouldn't they? Do you see what I mean?

Or, did I get it wrong?

The question is very simple, and this is where I want to end my participation in this discussion. There are not three or four options, but just two.

I agree, there are two positions. The post-lapsarian position, the unanimous church of the SDA church, including Ellen White and all other Adventists who were published in our works until 1947, and the pre-lapsarian position, which started infiltrating the church in 1947.

Either sinful propensities/passions reside in the mind or in the body. It's either one or the other. Since I don't think that selfishness, pride, covetousness, envy, jealousy, etc. reside in the body, and since Jesus didn't have a sinful mind, to be coherent I have to disagree with you, Prescott, Jones, Waggonner et al.

This is a straw man argument. No one mentioned by you ever said Christ had a sinful mind. The acticle of Jones I presented makes this as clear as could possibly be made.

The et al. of Prescott, Jones, Waggoner et al. includes Ellen White. There is not a whit of difference between her position and theirs.

I think I asked you at least half a dozen times if you agree with the Jones article, and for some reason you have refused to answer, as far as I can tell (I apologize if you answered my question somewhere and I missed it). I think that article is very clear, is in perfect harmony with Scripture and Ellen White, and very, very easy to understand.

When Ellen White preached with Jones and Waggoner, she defended their position by saying "letters have come to us questioning how Christ could have come in our nature. If He did not come in our nature, He could not have been tempted as we are, and could not have been our example." (paraphrase from memory of the 1890 statement I cited several times). This statement shows:
1)People with the pre-lapsarian position from outside our church were questioning the post-lapsarion position that she, Jones and Waggoner were preaching.
2)She endorsed Jones and Waggoner's position.
3)She preached the same position they did.

Ellen White's position is very simply stated in the Desire of Ages, page 49:

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.

---

The portion in bold is significant. It makes clear that it was not simply "innocent infirmities" which Christ accepted, but the results of the working of the great law of heredity He accepted "is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors." What results are these? Every kind of vice and sin. This is the heredity He accepted, a heredity just like ours. He did this to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life.

This is simple, and very easy to understand.

Over and over again, Ellen White wrote that Christ took fallen nature proving that we, fallen man, could perfection obey the law of God. Clearly if Christ overcame the law in a nature different than ours, He proved nothing in relation to our nature.

As Waggoner puts it:

"A little thought will be sufficient to show anybody that if Christ took upon Himself the likeness of man in order that He might redeem man, it must have been sinful man that He was made like, for it is sinful man that He came to redeem." (Christ and His Rightouesness)