MM, I agree with Rosangela's response to you.



I believe this is the proper response of a Christian. I believe this is in harmony with the quotes I presented to you from COL.

Ellen White is not saying that we need to continue to sin in COL, but that as we come closer to Christ, our renunciation of self will deepen. She said:



This is the prayer of the Christian, and the closer one comes to Christ, the more deeply felt is this prayer.

One needn't be sinning to repent. This is made clear by her statement:





There's nothing I wrote which implies this.

I'd like to take a stab at this.

First, never present Christ as one altogether such an one as we are, for it cannot be. But if He's not exactly as we are, is His life of perfect obedience under every point of temptation a valid example for us? Yes, because His temptations were 100 times stronger than ours.

However, a bit of analysis shows that His inherited tendencies to sin could account for no more than 1% of the total. (see primary source of Christ's temptations) So we can accept His example of overcoming temptation under all circumstances, since His circumstances were much worse than ours, even though they were not identical to ours.

You're assuming your conclusion. You assert that Christ's temptations were 100 times stronger than ours, but how do you even known that it's possible for the temptations of one with an unfallen nature to be even as strong as ours, let alone stronger? If it's not possible for the temptations of an unfallen nature to be as strong as ours, then the fact that Christ's temptations were stronger is simply evidence that He took our nature.

Ellen White writes that Christ silenced Satan's accusations by taking our fallen nature. That makes perfect sense. But how could Christ demonstrate that a fallen human being could overcome by taking the nature of an unfallen being?

E. J. Waggoner writes:



This logic makes sense.

That's not MY assertion.

The logic is incomplete.

Jesus came to redeem corrupt man, rebellious man, evil man. If Waggoner's logic is correct, then Jesus had to be corrupt, rebellious, and evil. But we know that's not the case. The failure is in the unspoken premise that Jesus had to be like what He came to redeem.

Along those lines is the error that what Jesus did not assume, He did not heal. Therefore, Gregory N. was also wrong.

The doctor does not have to be sick, the teacher does not have to be ignorant. Those trapped in quicksand cannot be saved by one who is also in the quicksand.

How do you know that it's not possible?

Did you read the thread I linked to? I know I skipped a bunch of steps, but do you see how Christ's internal temptations could account for no more than 1% of His total temptations?

I looked at it, and it seems to have the flaw I pointed out. You're assuming it's possible that He could have had temptations as strong as ours even though He didn't take a nature like ours. How do you know that's possible?

I'll comment further on a couple of your assertions:



Ellen White points out that what made Christ's temptations in the wilderness so difficult to bear was the fact that He bore our sins. His bearing these sins were not like His carrying them in a backpack, so that they had not impact on Him. She points out that Satan's temptations to Christ were enticing to Him. How could that be? To a sinless being, with a sinless nature, how could anything Satan presented to Christ that appealed to self have any appeal whatsoever? It would have been Satan tempting us to eat dung. We would smell it, bolt in horror, and say, "No thanks."

But Christ took our sinful nature, and bore our sins, and that combination made His experience like ours, not unlike ours. Because of His greater character, and never having sinned, He was able to bear temptation to a far greater degree than we can, but what made the temptations difficult for Him are the same things that make it difficult for us; the clamoring of our sinful nature, and the impact of sin (in His case, of course, that sin being ours which He bore, rather than His own, since He had none).



Jesus Christ was not an amalgamation, half human and half Holy Spirit. Assuming the Holy Spirit contributed chromosomes to Christ, what would they have been to? Clearly, that of a human being who lived in 0 B.C. (or 4 B.C.).

As Prescott asked in his sermon, "The Word Made Flesh" (which Ellen White endorsed in the strongest terms, calling it something like "truth unmingled with error") "What flesh could Christ have taken but the flesh which existed at the time?"

The onus is on you to prove your assertion, Arnold.

You're suggesting a scenario which looks to be historically impossible.

1.Ellen White used the phrases "sinful nature," "fallen nature," "nature degraded and defiled by sin," "nature of Adam the transgressor." These terms were used by everyone, SDA's and non-SDA's alike, to indicate a nature with inherited tendencies to sin. Can you cite even one person, contemporary to Ellen White, either SDA or not, who used these expressions in a way that did not mean that Christ took a human nature with tendencies to sin?

2.Ellen White's writings were understood by her contemporaries as meaning that Christ took a human nature with tendencies to sin. For example:



Hence Ellen White used expressions that were universally understood to mean "a nature with tendencies to sin" and was understood by her contemporaries in this way, and *Ellen White understood this was the case*.

She would have corrected someone who was misquoting her on a vital issue like this, especially when the whole purpose of Haskell's arguments were to disprove the teaching of the Holy Flesh. It would hardly have been ethical for Ellen White to stand by mute while Haskell, working in concert with her against the Holy Flesh teachings, misquoted her writings to express a teaching from The Desire of Ages to counter the Holy Flesh movement which in reality agreed with what the Holy Flesh movement was suggesting.

3.Ellen White specifically endorsed messages which taught that Christ took our fallen nature, with its tendencies to sin. For example, she endorsed the sermon "The Word Made Flesh" by W. W. Prescott, whose theme was that Christ took sinful flesh. "Flesh of sin, flesh in which we sin, but flesh in which he did not sin." (from memory).

Prescott asked "What flesh could he have taken, but the flesh of the time?" He used the expressions "sinful flesh" and "flesh of sin" in relation to Christ dozens of times in this sermon. That Christ had flesh exactly like ours was the point of his sermon.

4.The existence of the Baker letter actually makes it *less* likely that Ellen White's Christology was different than that of Haskell, Prescott, Jones or Waggoner. Why? Because this letter indicates that Christology was an important issue to her, and that she would correct aberrant views where they existed.

Yet far from correcting Prescott, Haskell, Jones or Waggoner's Christology, she endorsed it!

Tom, are you implying that after we pray for a new heart and mind that the one Jesus gives us when we experience rebirth is also desperately wicked and deceitful?


Renunciating self is simply another way of saying we must keep the unholy clamorings of sinful flesh nature under the control of a sanctified will and mind.

Jesus demonstrated how to subdue these types of inherited besetting sins. It in no way means the Holy Spirit keeps us in darkness and ignorance regarding certain sinful behaviors until the day He thinks we are willing and able to confront, confess, and crucify them.