Christ bore the sins and infirmities of the race as they existed when he came to the earth to help man. In behalf of the race, with the weaknesses of fallen man upon him, he was to stand the temptations of Satan upon all points wherewith man would be assailed. {RH, July 28, 1874 par. 3}

Those who claim that it was not possible for Christ to sin, cannot believe that He really took upon Himself human nature. But was not Christ actually tempted, not only by Satan in the wilderness, but all through His life, from childhood to manhood? Our Saviour took humanity, with all its liabilities. He took the nature of man, with the possibility of yielding to temptation. We have nothing to bear which He has not endured. {FLB 48}


As a man, Jesus also fought "the greatest battle" - else He is not our Example "in all things". Listen:


"If we had to bear anything which Jesus did not endure, then upon this point Satan would represent the power of God as insufficient for us." To say Jesus did not fight "the greatest battle" is to "destroy the completeness of His humanity". Again, listen:

" It is Satan's constant effort to misrepresent the character of God, the nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy."

Huh - I guess his work for the church before the government was all apostate. That is, if I believed you. And in the quote you have above written in 1893, EGW did not state that he was apostate. But remember that there are some whose eyes are intently fixed upon you, expecting that you will overreach the mark, and stumble, and fall. But if you keep in humility close to Jesus, all is well. . . . {1SM 379.2} From letter 44, 1893.

As soon as Christ entered the wilderness of temptation, his visage changed. The glory and splendor reflected from the throne of God which illuminated his countenance when the heavens opened before him, and the Father's voice acknowledged him as his Son in whom he was well pleased, was now gone. The weight of the sins of the world was pressing his soul, and his countenance expressed unutterable sorrow, a depth of anguish that fallen man had never realized. {RH, August 4, 1874 par. 1}

When did He bear the sins? Just in Gethsemane? NO!!!

Jesus denied self just like a born-again believer. The following passages describe what it means to be a true believer:


In light of the insightful descriptions posted above, what does it mean to "deny self as did Christ"?

You also said He had sin warring from inside His sinful flesh, which is completely contrary to walking in the Spirit.

Do you have your own interpretation of what "walking in the flesh" means? It means to be a human being to be a member of the human race which is prone to sin because we are born fallen. It means to walk in the imagination of our own hearts. That's what walking in the flesh means. We cannot do anything about it on our own. We are doomed to fail because you cannot bring a clean thing from an unclean thing.

"Shall we separate ourselves from God and heaven, and walk in the imagination of our own hearts, when this means separation from him who only can bless us?"

That is walking in the flesh. But to walk in the Spirit means to be in the faith of Jesus and search for the will of The Father. To walk in His name and character thinking on Him all day long. How could Jesus have sin warring in His sinful flesh and be the sin bearer, or How could He have "sin in His sinful flesh" and walk in the Spirit? You cannot do both. The words you chose have betrayed your intent I believe. I hope it is not the other possibility.

"Through being partakers of the divine nature we may stand pure and holy and undefiled. The Godhead was not made human, and the human was not deified by the blending together of the two natures. Christ did not possess the same sinful, corrupt, fallen disloyalty we possess, for then he could not be a perfect offering."—Manuscript 94, 1893.{3SM 131.1}

It is the divine nature of Christ that we are to behold. You are trying to turn the gospel upside down and behold the fallen nature of mankind.

"Was the human nature of the Son of Mary changed into the divine nature of the Son of God? No; the two natures were mysteriously blended in one person—the man Christ Jesus. In Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. When Christ was crucified, it was His human nature that died. Deity did not sink and die; that would have been impossible. Christ, the sinless One, will save every son and daughter of Adam who accepts the salvation proffered them, consenting to become the children of God. The Saviour has purchased the fallen race with His own blood.{5BC 1113.2}
This is a great mystery, a mystery that will not be fully, completely understood in all its greatness until the translation of the redeemed shall take place. Then the power and greatness and efficacy of the gift of God to man will be understood. But the enemy is determined that this gift shall be so mystified that it will become as nothingness (Letter 280, 1904).{5BC 1113.3}

YOU ALL NEED TO THINK ON THIS!!!!

Walking in the light and walking the Spirit are the same thing, and Jesus always walked in the Spirit from Birth. Nothing of sin warred within Him. Even When He had the sins of the world placed on Him in Gethsemane He was still strengthened by the Spirit.

"To “walk in the light” means to resolve to exercise thought to exert will-power, in an earnest endeavor to represent Christ in sweetness of character. It means to put away all gloom. Let no one rest satisfied simply in saying, “I am a child of God.” Are you beholding Jesus, and by beholding, becoming changed into His likeness? To “walk in the light” means advancement and progress in spiritual attainments. Paul declared, “Not as tho I had already attained, neither were already perfect: but ... forgetting those things which are behind,” constantly beholding the Pattern, I reach “forth unto those things which are before.”{ST June 3, 1903, par. 6}
To “walk in the light” means to “walk uprightly,” to walk “in the way of the Lord,” to walk by faith,” to “walk in the Spirit.” to “walk in the truth,” to “walk in love,” to “walk in newness of life.” It is “perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”{ST June 3, 1903, par. 7}

Jesus was in the LIKENESS of sinful flesh but He did not have "SIN IN HIS SINFUL FLESH". His flesh was not sinful though He has born with our nature with His heavenly nature.

And about the temptation in the wilderness APL, that is not when the sins of the world were rolled on Him. Jesus received our sins in Gethsemane and that is what caused Him to sweat blood.

"The Garden of Eden with its foul blot of disobedience, is to be carefully studied and compared with the Garden of Gethsemane, where the world’s Redeemer suffered superhuman agony when the sins of the whole world were rolled upon Him.... Adam did not stop to calculate the result of His disobedience (Manuscript 1, 1892).{5BC 1103.6}

You think you are going to correct me, but your heart is hardened. God gave me a vision and you mock.

"In the garden of Gethsemane Christ suffered in man’s stead, and the human nature of the Son of God staggered under the terrible horror of the guilt of sin, until from His pale and quivering lips was forced the agonizing cry, “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me:” but if there be no other way by which the salvation of man may be accomplished, then “not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” Human nature would then and there have died under the horror of the sense of sin, had not an angel from heaven strengthened Him to bear the agony. The power that inflicted retributive justice upon man’s substitute and surety, was the power that sustained and upheld the suffering One under the tremendous weight of wrath that would have fallen upon a sinful world. Christ was suffering the death that was pronounced upon the transgressors of God’s law.{BTS September 1, 1915, par. 5}

Jesus was suffering the second death for us in Gethsemane, not in the wilderness.

In the wilderness he was tested by Satan and began His ministry by overcoming appetite, proving He was the Son of God, but He did not carry the weight of the worlds sins yet. It was an individual test He passed in the wilderness overcoming where Adam had failed.

In Gethsemane He stood in our shoes, each of our sins were placed on HIS HEAD. He stood before the wrath of the Father against sin "cut off" for our trespasses there, not before.

jsot - did read EGW? Christ had our burden of sin in the wilderness. Your idea that he was made to be sin for us only in Gethsemane is in one simple word, wrong.

These two quotes do harmonize.

"The weight of the sins of the world was pressing his soul, and his countenance expressed unutterable sorrow, a depth of anguish that fallen man had never realized."

"The Garden of Eden with its foul blot of disobedience, is to be carefully studied and compared with the Garden of Gethsemane, where the world’s Redeemer suffered superhuman agony when the sins of the whole world were rolled upon Him.... Adam did not stop to calculate the result of His disobedience (Manuscript 1, 1892).{5BC 1103.6}

The first quote was in the wilderness when He was permitted to be challenged by Satan, he felt the awful weight of sin pressing His soul, but it was nothing compared to the Garden of Gethsemane when the sins of every man and woman who had or ever would live where put on HIS HEAD!

Have you ever heard of an inclusio? Book end prophecies. Like the two times Jesus calmed the sea, the first time He was with them the second time He was walking on the water. Or the changing water into wine and then offering the cup at the last supper. One end of an inclusio is at the beginning of His ministry one at the end. This is like that.

In the wilderness He was tempted on the issue of appetite, selfish gain, vanity and tempting God. All the things men can be tempted on.

In the Garden He was tempted because He was about to be cut off from the Father.

(In Gethsemane)"Christ was now standing in a different attitude from that in which He had ever stood before. His suffering can best be described in the words of the prophet, “Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of hosts.” Zechariah 13:7. As the substitute and surety for sinful man, Christ was suffering under divine justice. He saw what justice meant. Hitherto He had been as an intercessor for others; now He longed to have an intercessor for Himself. As Christ felt His unity with the Father broken up, He feared that in His human nature He would be unable to endure the coming conflict with the powers of darkness. In the wilderness of temptation the destiny of the human race had been at stake. Christ was then conqueror. Now the tempter had come for the last fearful struggle. For this he had been preparing during the three years of Christ’s ministry. Everything was at stake with him. If he failed here, his hope of mastery was lost; the kingdoms of the world would finally become Christ’s; he himself would be overthrown and cast out. But if Christ could be overcome, the earth would become Satan’s kingdom, and the human race would be forever in his power. With the issues of the conflict before Him, Christ’s soul was filled with dread of separation from God. Satan told Him that if He became the surety for a sinful world, the separation would be eternal. He would be identified with Satan’s kingdom, and would nevermore be one with God. {DA 686.5}

In the wilderness Jesus was tempted in the things of the flesh, But In the Garden He was tempted by the loss of His faith in His Father, with Satan saying Jesus would be like Satan himself in the eyes of His Father. If Jesus failed in any of the trials humanity would have been lost but what made the Garden so much harder is He had the sins of the world literally on His soul. Like He committed them Himself standing before the wrath of the FATHER for our sins, suffering second death for us. Which one do you think was harder?

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" (Romans 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." {DA 311.5}

In sinful flesh, He lived a sinless LIFE, Not just 1 day.

James, did Jesus fight "the greatest battle" - "the warfare against self"? Or, must we bear the greatest battle which Jesus did not?

We have nothing to bear which He has not endured. If we had to bear anything which Jesus did not endure, then upon this point Satan would represent the power of God as insufficient for us.