Jesus didn't demonstrate how unconverted sinners can obey the law. Instead, He demonstrated how born again believers can obey the law. There is a huge difference between sinners before and after rebirth.

Jesus began life as a human in the same state born again believers begin their new life of partaking of the divine nature, walking in the Spirit and mind of the new man. He was born, as it were, born again. We begin at rebirth where He began at birth.

Jesus' inherited tendencies, inclinations, propensities warred against Him in the exact same way they war against born again believers. Nevertheless, there was not one sinful propensity in Him that He cherished or craved. Jesus was repulsed by the sinful suggestions and clamorings that tempted Him from within.

A new heart and mind refers to the process of conversion. Do you agree?

Our heart refers to our innermost desires. Upon being converted, our desires become to live in harmony with God, and with the principles by which He runs His government. At the same time, we still have much to learn and unlearn. Millions of selfish decisions we have made in our lifetimes have an impact on us, and we need to be healed from these things. This healing doesn't happen in an instant.



That's not the focus of the COL quote. She writes that we should pray:



Is this your prayer, MM?

She writes:





Agreed (although, not the focus of the COL quotes).



You have a remarkable gift for twisting one's meanings into something else.

Read my argument again. The argument does not rest on His nature, whether fallen or unfallen. There are only 3 premises:

• Jesus' temptations were 100 times stronger than any of us will ever face.
• Jesus' hereditary tendencies to wrong were not the worst in history.
• Jesus' cultivated tendencies to wrong were nonexistent.

If these three are correct, I can prove with mathematical certainty that Jesus' external temptations were 99 times stronger than His internal ones. Do you agree, at least, that the logic is valid, i.e., assuming the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true?

Of these three premises, your only beef is with the strength of His cultivated tendencies, which you believe came from the sins of humanity. I'll address that next time.

You said this, in your post # 98158. I used your terminology. Do you hold the same view as Jones or a different view?
The point is, Ellen White says we received selfishness as an inheritance. Besides, selfishness is the essence of sin, so a sinful human nature is a selfish human nature. Now, this selfishness can’t refer to the body, but just to the mind. How can selfishness be excluded from the mind of a Christ who took a sinful (selfish) nature?


I can give several examples of people who held doctrinal errors which she didn’t correct through a private message. After she wrote The Desire of Ages semi-arian views continued to be presented in our periodicals and books and she didn’t correct the authors. Uriah Smith held wrong prophetic views in his book and she recommended it, instead of pointing out its errors. In 1888 she wrote she disagreed with some points Waggoner had presented, but never wrote him, nor did she mention which these points were.


This is not true. The body-related aspect seemed to be one of the most prominent aspects of the movement and they addressed it.
http://egwdatabase.whiteestate.org/nxt/g...hapter15023.htm

http://egwdatabase.whiteestate.org/nxt/g...hapter13927.htm

It’s interesting that through the above links we can see that Ellen White addressed the noise and confusion which characterized the meetings. She also addressed fables such as that the blind, the deaf, the lame, the deformed, will not receive the seal of God and that we are to pray that colored hair or gray hair shall become black. She also addressed the possibility of obtaining holy flesh in this world, saying that it would lead to the claim that those who possessed it could not sin, and saying that we will always have to fight tendencies to wrong. But, interestingly, she didn’t address the issue of Christ’s nature.


She didn’t write this to Baker, but to "My Brethren in North Fitzroy" (November 18, 1898), and she doesn’t seem to be correcting them, but just making a doctrinal remark.


No, I don’t believe Adam’s sin is imputed to his posterity, but I do believe God condemns the sinful nature with which we are born. That’s why babies need a Savior.


I provided the context of the quote. How can you contest what is clear?
Besides, Satan had declared in the opening of the great controversy that it was impossible to obey the law, even for angels – this was his excuse for transgressing it. Thus, evidently his logic is different from yours.


Your point had been that, if Christ did not have tendencies to sin, we could claim that He didn’t demonstrate that it’s possible for us to obey the law and use this as an excuse. This is not true because, although circumstances make it less difficult or more difficult to obey under temptation, the strength of the temptation is not only determined by the weakness of one’s resistance, but also by Satan’s deceptive power.


No, for it’s evident that the subject is the same. Compare the quotes:

Letters have been coming in to me, affirming that Christ could not have had the same nature as man, for if he had, he would have fallen under similar temptations. If he did not have man's nature, he could not be our example. If he was not a partaker of our nature, he could not have been tempted as man has been. If it were not possible for him to yield to temptation, he could not be our helper. It was a solemn reality that Christ came to fight the battles as man, in man's behalf. His temptation and victory tell us that humanity must copy the Pattern; man must become a partaker of the divine nature. (1888 Mat. 533)

Many claim that it was impossible for Christ to be overcome by temptation. Then He could not have been placed in Adam's position; He could not have gained the victory that Adam failed to gain. If we have in any sense a more trying conflict than had Christ, then He would not be able to succor us. But 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. {DA 117.2}

In the quote you posted, notice that Ellen White is by no means analyzing if Christ’s nature was fallen or unfallen, but the fact that He took “man’s nature,” otherwise “He could not have been tempted as man has been.” As far as I know, man could be tempted both before and after his fall, so she is here speaking of the human condition, not of a pre-fall or post-fall condition.

Right, I said this. I said, "I suppose one could say ..."



AFAIK, my view is the same, but the comment was mine, so I wouldn't want to ascribe it to someone else.



Christ took our nature, along with "all its hereditary inclinations," which includes inclinations to being selfish. However, Christ, unlike ourselves, perfectly denied Himself. He "please not Himself" (Rom. 15:3).



That's not what's needed. What's needed is an important doctrinal error which she corrected privately but not publicly.



There was never any controversy regarding Christ's human nature, though. We only had one view. If some one given person were out of step, there would be no reason for her not to correct him or her, as she demonstrated with Baker. (i.e., she would have to treat the situation as delicately as she would the Arian question).



That was a whole book, though. If Uriah Smith had presented an article in the Review and Herald, about some specific thing, like Turkey and the King of the North, and EGW endorsed that, one could certainly validly conclude that she was endorsing Uriah Smith's view on that particular thing, given that this this was the subject and focal point of the article. In the case of W. W. Prescott's sermon, the sermon was entitled "The Word Made Flesh," and the them was that Christ took our flesh, exactly the same as ours, and he repeated that point to make sure his hearers got it, over and over again, over 30 times.



She allowed for the possibility that she was in error. She was trying to promote a spirit of investigation amongst those who were opposing Waggoner.



That's a 10 page article. It would be kind if you would quote the specific point you were wishing to make. I did a search on "Waggoner" and found nothing, so I can't see how your assertion can possibly be true in regards to him, since he is apparently not even referenced by the article.

I did see that Haskell was involved, and saw that Ellen White was asked certain questions, like this one:



It makes sense that they would ask this question, since they believed that Christ took Adam's nature before the fall, instead of after the fall, like SDA's at the time believed. Haskell wrote:



which is the point I was making.

Haskell also commented:



which is very interesting, since the same thing happens today.

Regarding Waggoner, can you produce any statement of his where he deals with the "prominent" aspects of the Holy Flesh movement, that is, involving the body, because I am aware of no such statement, and the articles you referenced didn't have any.

At any rate, Haskell quoted Ellen White in the Desire of Ages, and commented that Christ took our nature, with all its inherited inclinations, and this was to disprove the view of the Holy Flesh people. Whether they included grey hair or whatever in their view is a moot point, in regards to the point I was making, which is that Ellen White was understood by her contemporaries as believing, and teaching, that Christ took our fallen nature, with all its inherited inclinations.

The links were interesting.



So if God did not condemn our sinful natures, babies wouldn't need a Savior? It's too bad that God does that then.



Because what you are suggesting makes no sense. God could not create a being capable of creating Him? Who would believe that?



I think Satan's purpose was to misrepresent God's character by deception, by representing God as being as he (Satan) was, and by so doing to deceive angels and men, so that they would pay homage to himself (Satan). Satan represents the law as unjust, and tries to lead people into disobedience. The reason for his trying to show the law is unjust is to try to show that God is unjust.

Nobody has any doubt that the law can be kept by unfallen beings. Millions of worlds, and billions of angels have been keeping the law for eons.



I'm very careful not to say that Christ had tendencies to sin. EGW counsels us to be careful in how we discuss these things, and I believe that counsel is well-founded. Christ took our fallen nature, with its tendencies to sins. The problem with saying that "Christ had tendencies to sin" is that this can be misconstrued to mean that Christ sinned, and I want to be very careful not to give that impression.



Your logic here doesn't follow. I am arguing that one cannot argue A because of B. You are saying my argument isn't true because what makes A hard to do is also C. So what? The fact that C also makes A hard, doesn't imply that B doesn't.

IOW, you are saying that my point that one could argue that Christ did not demonstrate that one with a fallen human nature could keep the law if Christ did not take a fallen human nature is not true because in addition the difficulty of one's temptation being affected by "the weakness of one’s resistance" it's also affected by "Satan’s deceptive power." This has no logical impact on my argument. It could "also" be affected by 1,000 other things, and the point I made would still be valid.

Not only is the point valid, but it's one that Adventists commonly made.



This is just a minor point, but sometimes I miss a bit of the context of our conversation, so I have to go back and hunt to see what it is. I may do the same thing to you as well, but I try to include enough of the context of our conversation so you can answer just by looking at what I provided.

Here's a bit more of the context:



Ellen White wrote that letters had been coming to her questioning how Christ could have taken our nature. She responded:



She is explaining two things here:

1.That Christ took our nature.
2.Why that is important.

We know what Jones and Waggoner preached! They preached that Christ took our fallen nature. That was an essential part of their message on righteousness by faith. People had questions regarding this. So Ellen White responce explains why it was important that Christ took our nature.

I don't see how your explanation makes no sense on the face of it, because she writes, "Letters have been coming in to me, affirming that Christ could not have had the same nature as man...." This has to mean that man took fallen nature because:

1.That's what Jones and Waggoner preached, and this was a point many had questions about.
2.Nobody questions that Christ was a man.

IOW, when the statement is made, "Christ could not have had man's nature, because then He would have fallen to temptation," this has to be understood as "Christ could not have had man's fallen nature, because then He would have fallen to temptation," because this is the question that people really have! I've never met anyone who questions that Christ was a man. (i.e. took man's nature, as in man vs. something different than man) However, many question that He took our fallen nature.

One needs to keep in mind the context of her statement, which is that she was preaching side by side with Jones and Waggoner.

Please do so. Prove it mathematically.



Your argument seems to make no allowance for the fact that Christ bore our sins as He was being tempted. His bearing our sins accounts for our cultivated tendencies to evil. He bore *all* of our tendencies to evil, which is what made His temptations so difficult. We only have the cultivated tendencies or ourselves to worry about. That, in combination with the fact that He did this while taking our sinful nature. It was that combination that made His temptations immeasurably stronger than our own (The 100 shouldn't be taken literally; I'm sure His temptations were more than 100 times more difficult than ours).



I think the first one is understated.

I'm not sure about the second one. Is there some statement which says that Christ's hereditary tendencies were less than ours? If you include as "hereditary tendencies" non-genetic factors, such as the mother using drugs, I would agree.

You mentioned the third, so I'll bait my breath and await your comment.

You can take the hook out now.

Let JIH = Jesus' Internal temptations by Heredity
Let JIC = Jesus' Internal temptations by Cultivation
Let JE = Jesus' External temptations
Let WIH = Worst person's Internal temptations by Heredity
Let WIC = Worst person's Internal temptations by Cultivation
Let WE = Worst person's External temptations

Jesus' total temptations = 100 * Worst person's total temptations
JIH + JIC + JE = 100(WIH + WIC + WE)

JIC = 0 (because He did not cultivate any sins)
JIH + JE = 100(WIH + WIC + WE)

Given: WIH > JIH, and both are non-negative
WIH + JE > 100(WIH + WIC + WE)

after some combining of terms
JE > 99WIH + 100WIC + 100WE

because WIC and WE are both non-negative, we can simplify
JE > 99WIH

because WIH > JIH, we can substitute
JE > 99JIH

There, Jesus' external temptations were more than 99 times His internal hereditary temptations. From here, it is trivial to show that His internal hereditary temptations were less than 1% of His external temptations.

If we want, we can show that JIH is significantly less than 1% of His total temptations. First, 100WIC + 100WE, which we removed for simplicity of the proof, is much bigger than 0, and very likely to be much bigger than 99JIH. Second, you are correct that the temptations Christ faced were more than 100 times what we face -> the ratio JE/JIH gets bigger. (It is left as an exercise to the reader to prove that, if necessary.)

There is allowance for imputed sins and tendencies, but it would be counted as coming from an external source, since such tendencies cannot be attributed to "the great law of heredity" or to personal cultivation of sin.


There's a SOP quote that says His temptations were more than 100 times greater than ours.

However, what you just wrote makes my argument stronger. If the strength of His temptations are to be attributed to His taking our sins, then it cannot be attributed to His taking humanity after 4000 years of degradation. My humanity has 6000 years of degradation, but I only deal with my own sins. Therefore, His example of overcoming temptations is not founded on "the great law of heredity," regardless of how often postlapsarians invoke it.

Furthermore, the example that is paramount is not in how strong His temptations were (which none of us will ever face), but in how strong His power is (which all of us have within our reach). If we would submit to God as He did, then we can have the power that He did, and walk as He walked. No matter how fallen our flesh may be, His grace is sufficient.

That quote says IT ALL, Daryl....

If people just believed that statement....most of this discussion wouldn't even be taking place....

Arthur, regarding post #98485, very cool!