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Re: Understanding Temptation
#48195
03/19/06 10:20 PM
03/19/06 10:20 PM
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Active Member 2012
14500+ Member
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
Lawrence, Kansas
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On the first point, you don't disagree that Christ was made to be sin for us I take it. So the disagreement must be that His being made to be sin for us enabled Him to be tempted as we are (referring specifically to tempted on the point of cultivated tendencies to evil), right?
On the second point, I misread your intention. Once their nature changed, they were stuck with it until Christ's Second Coming, just like us.
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Re: Understanding Temptation
#48196
03/19/06 10:28 PM
03/19/06 10:28 PM
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Sorry MM, we were in a meeting and had the phone turned off. The number I posted for you is my husbands...but the number in the back of the book- it should say 888-332-6343, doesn't it? That rings into my cell phone. It was off too, because of this meeting....but it still should have let you leave a message. Try to catch my husband tomorrow, if you can....thanks! Tammy
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Re: Understanding Temptation
#48197
03/20/06 12:48 AM
03/20/06 12:48 AM
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5500+ Member
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 6,154
Brazil
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quote:
On the first point, you don't disagree that Christ was made to be sin for us I take it. So the disagreement must be that His being made to be sin for us enabled Him to be tempted as we are (referring specifically to tempted on the point of cultivated tendencies to evil), right?
Right.
quote:
On the second point, I misread your intention. Once their nature changed, they were stuck with it until Christ's Second Coming, just like us.
Tom, this is another thing I don't agree with.
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Re: Understanding Temptation
#48198
03/20/06 02:47 AM
03/20/06 02:47 AM
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Active Member 2012
14500+ Member
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
Lawrence, Kansas
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On 1, to me it is clear from reading the Psalms that bearing our sin had a profound impact on Christ. It doesn't seem difficult for me to believe that this would include Him being tempted as we are. Actually, it includes far more than that. Being able to be tempted like we are, including our cultivated inclinations (not His but ours), was just the smallest part of what His bearing our sin involved.
On 2, what is your theory? How would Adam and Eve have lost their nature? This is an interesting thought. I've never heard this before.
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Re: Understanding Temptation
#48199
03/20/06 04:54 AM
03/20/06 04:54 AM
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SDA
Active Member 2023
5500+ Member
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Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 5,636
California, USA
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quote:
Originally posted by Mountain Man:
3T 84
You are of that age when the will, the appetite, and the passions clamor for indulgence. God has implanted these in your nature for high and holy purposes. It is not necessary that they should become a curse to you by being debased. They will become this only when you refuse to submit to the control of reason and conscience. (3T 84)
Do you believe Jesus was born with the same appetites and passions that God implanted in us for high and holy purposes? Or, do you believe He was somehow different than us, that His sinful flesh never perverted His appetites and passions, that His sinful flesh never clamored for sinful indulgence?
I believe Jesus was born with the same appetites and passions that God implanted in us for high and holy purposes. I also believe that Adam was created with the same appetites and passions.
We have the same faculties, but by default, they are not under the control of reason and conscience. In Jesus and unfallen Adam, reason and conscience were always in control. That's the big difference between Jesus and the rest of us.
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Re: Understanding Temptation
#48200
03/20/06 09:48 AM
03/20/06 09:48 AM
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Thank you for answering that for me, Arnold...that is what I believe, too, MM. (I think I am just spreading myself too thin...trying to communicate on too many different fronts....)anyways, that is how I see it.
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Re: Understanding Temptation
#48201
03/20/06 10:49 AM
03/20/06 10:49 AM
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5500+ Member
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 6,154
Brazil
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quote:
On 1, to me it is clear from reading the Psalms that bearing our sin had a profound impact on Christ.
Believing that just because a psalm is messianic everything which is written in it applies to Jesus may lead to very wrong notions. Messianic predictions are frequently mingled with purely local descriptions, and the safe procedure is to consider as messianic only the verses that a posterior prophet declares to have a messianic application. For instance, although Psalm 69 is a messianic psalm, I don't believe either v. 5 or v. 8 apply to Christ. Neither Ps. 69:5 can be used to prove that Christ said He was a fool and had sins, nor Ps. 69:8 can be used to prove that Mary had other children besides Jesus.
quote:
Being able to be tempted like we are, including our cultivated inclinations (not His but ours), was just the smallest part of what His bearing our sin involved.
Tom, being tempted is being powerfully influenced to do something. Insisting that Christ was powerfully influenced to smoke one more cigarette, to visit once again a questionable website on the Internet, or to watch once again a questionable video or television program, or to commit again an immoral act does not make sense.
quote:
On 2, what is your theory? How would Adam and Eve have lost their nature? This is an interesting thought. I've never heard this before.
Tom, when Adam and Eve sinned, what was primarily affected was their mind; the body was affected only in the same sense that plants and animals were affected. Since the mind can be renewed, nobody is stuck with sinful tendencies until Christ comes. But nobody can have holy flesh now, since holy flesh means the nature Adam had before the fall, including the absence of the physical effects of sin, and these will only be removed at Christ’s coming.
“Jesus became a man that He might mediate between man and God, . . . that He might restore to man the original mind which he lost in Eden through Satan's alluring temptation. . . . Disobedience is not in accordance with the nature which God gave to man in Eden.” {TMK 291.4}
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Re: Understanding Temptation
#48202
03/20/06 11:50 AM
03/20/06 11:50 AM
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Active Member 2011
3500+ Member
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 3,965
Sweden
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quote:
Originally posted by Rosangela:
quote:
Being able to be tempted like we are, including our cultivated inclinations (not His but ours), was just the smallest part of what His bearing our sin involved.
Tom, being tempted is being powerfully influenced to do something. Insisting that Christ was powerfully influenced to smoke one more cigarette, to visit once again a questionable website on the Internet, or to watch once again a questionable video or television program, or to commit again an immoral act does not make sense.
Is there no temptation to smoke the first cigarette, to have a first inapropriate look at the beauty next door, to join the first conversation on gossip and rumors or to act out on the lust or rage for a first time?
/Thomas
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Re: Understanding Temptation
#48203
03/21/06 03:01 AM
03/21/06 03:01 AM
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Active Member 2012
14500+ Member
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
Lawrence, Kansas
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quote:
Believing that just because a psalm is messianic everything which is written in it applies to Jesus may lead to very wrong notions. Messianic predictions are frequently mingled with purely local descriptions, and the safe procedure is to consider as messianic only the verses that a posterior prophet declares to have a messianic application.
The safe procedure is outlined here:
quote:
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. (1 John 2:7)
It is the Holy Spirit's pleasure to guide us into all truth. Many of the Psalms and much of the Scriptures open up the mind of Christ to us, if we can discern it. The approach you are suggesting seems to rely not upon the Holy Spirit for understanding, but upon another man. But the same insights God gave to Paul (for example) in His study of the Old Testament, He will give to us.
The point I'm making is that the Holy Spirit did not give to Paul special insight that only he could see, as if the truth that Paul encovered was there or known until Paul revealed it. The truth was always there, and God simply made it known to him. God is pleased to make truth known to us as well. We are not dependent upon men to know truth, but upon God, who uses men.
Here is A. T. Jones' comments on Christ in the Psalms, and in particular Psalm 40. I felt bad abriding this, but tried to as much as I could, for the sake of brevity. I'd encourage anyone to find the sermon on line and read the whole thing. It's a wonderful sermon:
quote:
It is impossible to touch the whole 150 Psalms in detail in one lesson or in a dozen lessons; yet in a sense we can touch the whole 150 by so touching a few as to show the one great secret of the whole number and that secret is Christ. We shall take some of the Psalms of which God Himself has made the application to Christ so that there can be no possible doubt that that Psalm refers to Christ. Then when we read these Psalms, we know that we are reading of Jesus Christ and of God's dealings with Him....
Take the fortieth Psalm, which refers to Christ at His coming into the world. Turn to the fortieth Psalm and the tenth of Hebrews both at once. Beginning with Psalm 40:6: "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened." ....
Now as Christ came into the world as man, He said to the Father: "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened." Mine ears are opened to thy word, ready for thy commands; I will not go out; I love my Master and my children. I will not go out. I am thy servant forever.
"Burnt offering and sin offering has thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God."
Now see Heb. 10:5-9: (Jones quotes the text in Hebrews)
There is the Lord's application of the fortieth Psalm to Christ, and He said this when He came into the world. Let us read on, then, in the fortieth Psalm:
I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord: let thy loving kindness and thy truth continually preserve me. For innumerable evils have compassed me about [Who? Christ.]; mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.
Who? Christ. Where did He get iniquity? Oh, "the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all."
Were they not more than the hairs of His head? And when He would look at Himself and consider Himself, where would He appear in His own sight? Oh, "my heart faileth me," because of the enormity of the guilt and the condemnation of the sin--our sins that were laid upon Him.
....
Who said so? He who was conscious of iniquities in such number that they were more than the hairs of His head. He who was so bowed down and so burdened with these--He was praising and rejoicing in the Lord!
But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and deliverer; make no tarrying O my God.
Now turn to the first verse of the fortieth Psalm:
I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
Who? Christ, and He was ourselves. Shall we, then, say the word: "I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me and heard my cry?" Assuredly. What, laden with sin as I am? sinner as I am? sinful flesh as I have? How do I know that He hears my cry? Ah, He has demonstrated it for a whole lifetime in my nearest of kin. He has demonstrated it in my flesh that He inclines--leans over--to listen to my cry. O, there are times, you know, when our sins seem to be so mountain high. We are so discouraged by them. And Satan is right there ready to say, "Yes, you ought to be discouraged by them. There is no use of your praying to the Lord; He will not have anything to do with such as you are. You are too bad." And we begin to think that the Lord will not hear our prayers at all. Away with such thoughts! Not only will He hear but He is listening to hear. Remember the statement in Malachi, "The Lord hearkened and heard." To hearken is to listen, then the Lord is listening to hear the prayers of people laden with sin.
But there are times in our discouragement when the waters go over our souls, when we can hardly muster up the courage of faith to speak our prayers aloud. O, at such times as that, if they are too faint in our faith to reach him as He listens, then He leans over and listens; He inclines His ear and hears. That is the Lord. That is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lover and Saviour of sinners. Then if He should lead you and me through the deep waters and they go over our souls as they did over His, O, we can wait patiently for the Lord. He will incline unto us. He will lean over and hear our cry!
He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord. [Who said so? Jesus.] Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust and respecteth not the proud nor such as turn aside to lies. (1895 GCB Sermon# 15)
I think Jones' hermaneutic is correct. The Psalms are all about Christ, and we are safe in applying them to Him. We don't need a prophet to discern this. For example, Ps. 119 are the thoughts of Christ as a young man. We don't need Ellen White to know this is true, although I'm sure if you look through her writings, this will be born out. Lamantations 3 is also Christ. Many other examples could be given, awaiting those who are willing to dig through Scripture and look for Christ.
He's there!
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Re: Understanding Temptation
#48204
03/20/06 05:53 PM
03/20/06 05:53 PM
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5500+ Member
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 6,154
Brazil
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Tom,
Sorry, but to me the idea that the following words apply to Christ is absurd:
"O God, thou knowest my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from thee" (Ps. 69:5).
Once I discussed with someone who said that Ellen White was wrong about Jesus' brothers, and he insisted that they were sons of Mary, using Ps. 69:8 as a basis to prove this.
Psalm 45, for instance, which describes the king's wedding, speaks about the queen with her maids of honor, about the king´s daughter with the virgins (her companions), about the daughter of Tyre with a present, etc. etc., and some try to find a "spiritual" symbolism for all this. One commentator even suggested that these daughters of the kings (the maids of honor) are the angels, or the ministers of the gospel. This is simply absurd.
We know that Hoseah 11:1 is a messianic text because Matthew told us so. Same with 2 Sam. 7:14. Paul applied the first half of the verse messianically, but the second half could hardly be applied in this way.
The Holy Spirit helps us discover the application of the biblical text to our lives, but the interpretation of the Bible is reserved for prophets. "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:20,21).
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