The Golden Chain
Section 1:

Is the Bible Clear?

1. Does the Bible contradict itself?

No, but there are seeming contradictions. They are in the category of the “some things hard to be understood” that Peter says are in Paul’s epistles (2 Peter 3:16). Peter appears to be mildly rebuking Paul for not sufficiently honing his communication skills, but in fact the Greek word he uses (dusnoetos) means “misperceived.” Paul’s writing was clear enough but his readers’ “perceiving” was not. Let’s not criticize Paul.

Paul says that Christ “was made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3, KJV). There was no break in the genetic line. The word translated “seed” in the original is sperm, which means full genetic descent. The word translated “made” specifies that Christ became what He was not intrinsically. The word translated “flesh” is sarx, which denotes the common flesh or nature which all fallen descendants of Adam possess.

Although Christ was born of a virgin mother, He was sent through the process of human generation. Paul does not say that He was re-created from the ground as a replica of sinless Adam, but was “made … according to the flesh.” In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church sees the virgin Mary as a re-created replica of Eve that was “exempt” and “desolidarized” from our fallen genetic inheritance, so that she could give to her Son an “exempt” sinless flesh and a sinless nature (Fulton Sheen, The World’s First Love, pp. 15, 16, 48).

In chapter 8 of Romans, Paul adds that Christ was sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh” (verse 3). The question that perplexes many is what “likeness” means. Is it reality or mere resemblance?

There is no need for us to “misperceive” what Paul is saying because he explains himself by using “likeness” in the same Greek dative case in Philippians 2:7, where he says that Christ was “made … in the likeness of men.” Thus the word cannot mean mere appearance or outward form. To interpret it so in Philippians would be the heresy of Docetism (which denies the true humanity of Christ). If the word “likeness” means reality in Philippians it must also mean reality in Romans. It was in His human flesh that Christ “condemned sin.” The sinless Adam had no such problem in his flesh. It would be unnecessary and even impossible for Christ to “condemn sin” in sinless flesh, for such would be meaningless and irrelevant to us. Since Christ already “had” a sinless nature, the only nature He could “take” would be our sinful nature.

Hebrews 2 enlarges on this idea. “Jesus … was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death” (verse 9). As man is since he became subject unto death, this is what we “see Jesus” to be. Death could not have touched Him had He come in the sinless nature of Adam before the Fall. He “took not on Him the nature of angels: but He took on Him the seed of Abraham” (verse 16, KJV). That is, He took upon Himself the full heredity imposed by the genetic line from Abraham, that He might minister to them, not to the unfallen angels. The text does not say that He had to be made like unto His sinless brother Adam.

“In all things He had to be made like His brethren” (verse 17).

2. How can we be sure that this “flesh and blood” is not that of the sinless Adam, but that of our sinful selves?

“As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same” (verse 14, KJV). Thus He was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (4:15). How are we tempted? James makes clear that our human temptations derive from within, for “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin” (James 1:15, RSV).

Was sinless Adam “lured and enticed by his own desire”? It would be blasphemy to suggest that God created him with a sinful nature or with built-in temptations to sin. The Lord’s warning to the sinless pair was specific: they were to beware only “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:17). They were totally safe anywhere else in the Garden. Satan could not have appealed to them anywhere else. If there were temptations lurking within them that could spring up while they were anywhere else, the Lord was remiss in not warning them. We read how the temptation of the forbidden fruit was external: “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,” she sinned. The “desire” was created only by external stimuli. We dare not say that God implanted within her that evil “desire” like a seed waiting to sprout. She and Adam were tempted from without and fell. In their sinless state Adam and Eve did not need to deny their own will in order to follow God’s will; they knew no cross on which a sinful self needed always to be crucified.

In what consisted the strength of the assault made upon Adam, which caused his fall? It was not indwelling sin; for God made Adam after His own character, pure and upright There were no corrupt principles in the first Adam, no corrupt propensities or tendencies to evil. Adam was as faultless as the angels before God’s throne (Letter 191, 1899; 1BC 1083).

But Jesus makes clear that His temptability was in our realm of the inclination to follow His own will even as we are tempted in that same way, and His victory lay in the denial of His own will: “I came … not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” “I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 6:38; 5:30). Here was an inward struggle that Jesus bore constantly, which Adam never experienced in his sinless state. Before the Fall, Adam had no constant cross to bear, no need to deny self as did our Lord who “did not please Himself” (Romans 15:3).

3. Does Paul’s use of “like” in Romans 1:23 mean that his use of “likeness” in 8:3 means mere resemblance or similarity, and not identity?

The Saviour could not condemn sin in sinless flesh that only resembled the flesh where the problem is. God would never deceive us by sending His Son as a plastic resemblance or a veneer that denied reality and then claiming a victory that never truly took place. Paul makes his meaning clear when he adds that Christ condemned sin in that same flesh.

In Romans 1:23 Paul is not saying that the heathen made images that were a resemblance of God (that would be impossible), but that they made “a likeness of an image” of “corruptible man” and birds and animals (en homoiomati eikonos). The “likeness of an image” is the duplication or reality of that image. Every eikon or image is exactly like every other image. “The likeness of sinful flesh” in which God sent His Son “on account of sin” is likewise the reality of sinful flesh, not a mere resemblance of it But Paul uses the word “likeness” in Romans 8:3 to make clear that in so doing Christ did not participate in our sin, nor did He relinquish His divinity. C. E. B. Cranfield observes:

The intention behind the use of likeness here was to take account of the fact that the Son of God was not, in being sent by His Father, changed into a man, but rather assumed human nature while still remaining Himself. On this view, the word likeness does have its sense of “likeness”; but the intention is not in any way to call in question or to water down the reality of Christ’s sinful flesh, but to draw attention to the fact that, while the Son of God truly assumed sinful flesh, He never became sinful flesh and nothing more, nor even sinful flesh indwelt by the Holy Spirit and nothing more, but always remained Himself (i.e., God) (International Critical Commentary, Romans, Vol. 1, p. 383).

4. Jesus often used the word “like” in His parables. But He did not mean that “the kingdom of heaven” is actually leaven, or a fish-net, etc.

The word “like” is an adjective, whereas “likeness” is a noun. Jesus never said that a fish-net or leaven etc. is the likeness (or reality) of the kingdom of heaven. But His flesh was the reality of our sinful flesh. (See next question.)

5. Are you not going too far when you say that the nature which Christ “took” or “assumed” was “identical” to our own? Would it not he better to say it was “similar” or it “resembled” ours?

When Paul speaks of Christ “coming in the likeness of men” (the same Greek word in Philippians 2:7) he means that He truly became man, or He would be teaching the heresy of Docetism. He identified Himself with man, in nature He was “made” identical to man, although before His incarnation He was in “form” identical with God (vs. 6). And there is no other way to translate kath homoioteta in Hebrews 4:15 than to say He was “in all things tempted identically as we are.” The Twentieth Century New Testament translates it, “tempted exactly as we have been.”

Paul’s expression in Hebrews 2:17 clarifies how “in all things” Christ is “made like” His brethren who partake of a common fallen “flesh and blood.” Those who oppose this view confuse homoiomati in Romans 8:3 with another Greek word, paromoios which does indeed mean merely “similar” or “resembling” but not “identical to.” It is used in Mark 7:8, 13 (“many such like things ye do”). If Paul had intended his meaning in Romans 8:3 to be merely a “resemblance” or “similar to” our “sinful flesh,” paromoios would have been the proper word to use, not homoioma.

6. How was Christ tempted in the flesh?

Hebrews sums up Christ’s humanity by saying that it is only as Christ Himself suffered temptation as we suffer it that He is able to help us who are tempted. If in any way Christ was “exempt” from participation in our struggle, in that respect He must fail to be our Saviour: “In that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).

Does the New Testament elsewhere contradict this view? Two texts are commonly cited to imply a contradiction: “The child to be born [of you] will be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1:35, RSV). The angel’sannouncement to Mary cannot imply that Christ was not truly “made like unto His brethren,” that He did not truly “take on Him the seed [sperm] of Abraham.” The angel would not dare to deny that He was truly sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin.” He simply described Christ’sholy, sinless character. There can not be a contradiction. Christ’sperfect holiness was manifested in our sinful nature. Thus He gained the power to save us from our sins, not in them.

The other text is Hebrews 7:26: “Such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” Does the expression “separate from sinners” imply a kind of Immaculate Conception that exempted Christ from the inheritance of our fallen heredity?

We must distinguish between Christ’s nature of equipment, and what He did with it, namely, His performance. Our performance is that of sin; His performance was perfect righteousness. If Christ lived a holy life in holy flesh in a holy nature unlike ours, He would not be “Immanuel, God with us.” The glory of the “message of Christ’s righteousness” is that His amazing performance was with our equipment, even our fallen human nature. Christ was “in all things … made like unto His brethren,” sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” “Holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” means “without sin,”yet tempted as we are, not merely as the sinless Adam was tempted.

Thus Christ is “that Holy One.” The angel was glorying in Christ’sperformance, not His equipment, for He was to be “born of thee,” “made of a woman, made under the law” (cf. Luke 1:35, Galatians 4:4, KJV). His holiness was sublime and glorious, for it was perfected in fallen human flesh, the result of conflict with temptation, yes, even “unto blood,” “even the death of the cross” (Hebrews 12:4; Philippians 2:8, KJV). This is true righteousness!

Paul’s expression “separate from sinners” tells the Hebrews that Christ is a High Priest different from the sinful human priests ministering in the Jerusalem temple. It cannot mean He did not come near us, or take our nature, because we read, “Then all the tax-collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him” (Luke. 15:1). “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). Christ did not sin; thus He was “separate from sinners” who have sinned—different from all of us. Paul said He was “made to be sin for us.”

Fulton Sheen however maintains that “Mary was desolidarized and separated from … sin-laden humanity.” In defending the Immaculate Conception he says further, “There ought to be an infinite separation between God and sin.” “How could [Christ] be sinless if He was born of sin-laden humanity? … If He came to this earth through the wheatfield of moral weakness, He certainly would have some chaff hanging on the garment of His human nature” (op. cit., pp. 15, 16, 45). Sheen’s idea is a carryover from Platonism. Here we have an excusing of sin in all who are by nature “sin-laden humanity”! That was not Paul’s intention in his use of “separate” in Hebrews 7:26.

The phrase “Christ’s righteousness” denotes the victory of His holiness in conflict with temptation to sin, as we are tempted. If in any way He must be insulated from the struggle as we must face it, to that extent there has to be a “broken link” in His righteousness. There is no contradiction in the Bible regarding the humanity of Christ, because Luke’s proleptic concept of His holiness as an infant is fulfilled by His righteousness manifested in His perfect life, even to His death of the cross. And that involved a victorious but terrible conflict with temptation to sin.

7. Is a correct understanding of the humanity of Christ essential to our salvation?

From a human point of view, it may not be essential to salvation if we expect to die before Christ’s second coming. Since Waggoner’s presentation of righteousness by faith at Minneapolis in 1888 was “the first clear [public] teaching from any human lips” that Ellen White had heard, apparently the Holy Spirit had not led anyone else among us to teach this truth forcefully prior to 1888.

But it would not be correct to say that a right understanding of Christ’shumanity is not vital to those who will be living on earth when “the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above.” Jones and Waggoner recognized that this truth was essential to demonstrating a vindication of Christ in the body of His church. And so did Ellen White: “The humanity of the Son of God is everything to us. It is the golden chain that binds our souls to Christ, and through Christ to God. This is to be our study. Christ was a real man” (1SM 244; cf. GC 425).

If we must die “in the wilderness” for decades or centuries more to come, then it can be said that this subject is not important now. But if we expect the Lord’s coming in our generation, a true understanding will be essential if the church is to manifest the beauty of Christ’s character in the final fearful trials. The sad moral failures of so many professed Christians in this age of “new morality” (including sexual permissiveness) are due to a failure to relate to Christ by faith in consequence of erroneous views of His righteousness. “In our conclusions, we make many mistakes because of our erroneous views of the nature of our Lord” (7BC 929). Those “mistakes” can be death-dealing (see next question).

8. Supposing that we may find the truth on this subject, what is its practical value?

As an example, let us look at one problem that is a frightful emergency in the church and in modern society: the world is drowning in a cesspool of sexual immorality. Some 70% of teenagers in the United States practice fornication, of whom 3 million a year contract STD’s; and over half of marriages are poisoned by infidelity. Studies indicate that the percentages among many Adventists are becoming alarmingly similar. Dr. Reo M. Christenson in Spectrum says:

Fornication causes more suffering in America than theft and perjury and random violence combined … high rates of illegitimacy, single-parent families, school dropouts following pregnancies, subsequent entries onto welfare rolls plus their children who get involved in crime, drugs, poor educational performance, and often lifelong poverty. Think of the parental distress all this brings, too. Add these up and the reader can see why I think fornication is an evil far greater than modern society likes to acknowledge. It is sad that even churches are unwilling to give this sin the attention it so richly deserves (Vol. 24, No. 2, p. 64).

Temptation to fornication and adultery is not sin, but yielding to it is, with all these horrendous consequences and much more. In fact, 100% of human beings are tempted, and sexual temptations are very alluring because human beings have “hot blood.” And these sinful drives are commonly considered to be irresistible. A succession of U. S. Surgeons General have assumed that it is impossible to expect teens not to indulge in this immorality, which is of course world-wide as well. It is appropriate to ask, Does the world have a Saviour “nigh at hand and not afar off?” Does He know how we are tempted? Can He save us from sin? William Johnsson declares that “Jesus wasn’t exposed to some areas of temptation that we face” (Bible Amplifier, Hebrews, p. 105). Many Christian people, including Seventh-day Adventists, agree with one of my esteemed correspondents who wrote me recently saying, “Bob, you can never make me believe that Christ was ever tempted to break the seventh commandment”

If this view is correct, according to Hebrews 2:18 we have no Saviour from that sin. All He can do is continually pardon us while we continually fall. In this highly ensconced view, He is not “able to aid those [of us] who are tempted” so that we can be saved from sin now. He is reduced to being the Ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, picking up the pieces after we fall, promising us a pie-in-the-sky salvation after we die or after we are translated. His High Priestly ministry consists of forgiving us continually after we continually sin—which is wonderful indeed. But Hebrews says He can and must do more than that!

In fact, the bottom-of-the-cliff ambulance is the Roman Catholic view of Christ’s (and Mary’s!) “intercession.” Only after we get rid of this sinful flesh and enter into a fleshless realm known as Purgatory will it be possible for selfish, sensual sin to be “purged” from us. And the conclusion is that if Christ had truly “taken” upon Himself “the likeness of [our] sinful flesh” with our hot blood, then He too would either have been forced to give in or be “exempt” from our temptations. In other words, Satan wins the controversy—he has invented something that even Christ could not have “overcome” if He had taken our fallen nature and been tempted as we are.

What kind of triumph would it be to declare Christ victor over Satan if He picked and chose the temptations He wanted to face, or if He took some deluxe “equipment” that kept Him above the battle-level where we live? How brave is a soldier with a bullet-proof vest in comparison to one who has none? How could Christ be either our Substitute or Example if He had special exemptions?

In Christianity Today Carol Anderson Streeter declares that adultery “is as hurtful as murder” (April 3, 1995, p. 38). If that is true, so is fornication—it’s only the prelude to the same murderous sin. In the same issue is a forceful article by R. Kent Hodges and John H. Armstrong pleading that although in church administration “the impulse to link forgiveness with restoration to ministry remains strong,” church leaders who commit adultery should not be re-admitted “to pastoral leadership.”But this moral abomination that Christianity Today decries is now knocking for entrance to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. What could children and youth think when they know that their spiritual “leader” in the pulpit is guilty of moral turpitude?

Ancient Israel at Baal-peor might be excused for their fornication and adultery on the borders of their Promised Land, but why should this cancer be allowed to spread in the Seventh-day Adventist Church today when we are so near the end? This is the church that claims to “keep the commandments of God”! The apostle says this particular sin must “not be once named among you, as becometh saints.” What’s back of this spiritual abomination that maketh desolate? The rejection of the 1888 message of Christ’s righteousness, the truth of a Saviour who can “succor them that are tempted” “in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted.”

Lift up the trumpet and loud let it ring: Christ can save from sin now, and can cleanse and purify impure hearts now, that His church “may become blameless, … without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom [they may] shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).

The Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception with its Augustinian Protestant echoes has resulted in a vast amount of misery. In the final judgment it will be revealed that “the blood … of all who were slain on the earth” is to be “found” in Babylon’s doctrine of a false christ (Revelation 18:24).

9. Does the Greek of Hebrews 4:15 imply that Christ was not really tempted “in all points like as we are”?

It says that He was tempted “identically” with us (kata panta kath ’homoioteta). No matter how you try to translate it, you end up with the same thought: He was tempted “identically” “in all things” as we are, or “in all points like as we are.” The Greek of Hebrews 2:18 further clarifies this text: “In that [which] He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.” In other words, “only in respect of the temptations He Himself has suffered, being tempted” is He “able to aid those who are tempted.” The context of Hebrews 2:9-17 is so clear that we cannot deny the equivalence and the necessity of Christ’s temptations as related to ours.

Was He tempted to watch TV? To eat too much ice cream? To listen to rock and roll? To indulge in illicit sex? To use cocaine? (Incidentally, no addict has ever felt more compulsion to take a fix than was Jesus tempted to bite down on that sponge filled with the narcotic offered Him as He hung on the cross in horrible pain, but He refused, Matthew 27:34). Hebrews 4:15 answers all our questions: as the second Adam “He was tempted identically with us,” and the reason this is so is that he was tempted to the indulgence of self as we are and felt the force of the temptation as fully as do we. All our temptations stem from that root

10. Were not Christ’s temptations different from ours in that He was tempted to use His divine power, which we of course are not tempted to do? And different because His were of greater intensity?

The fact that Christ was tempted beyond what we are tempted does not imply that He was not truly tempted in all points like as we are, as well. The greater temptations can never cancel the lesser. He was tempted to self-indulgence, as we are, and perfectly “overcame.” His temptation to evade His cross coincides with the principle underlying all our temptations.

11. Jesus said, “The prince of this world comes and has nothing in Me” (John 14:30). If He had taken our sinful humanity, how could He have said those words? Wouldn’t He have to say, “Satan has something in Me”?

No, the fact that Christ took our sinful nature would not mean that Satan had anything in Him. Since Christ “overcame,” it would mean the exact opposite, for only by “taking” our sinful nature and overcoming could Christ have truly defeated Satan so that he “has nothing in Me,” as He says. Unless Christ’s overcoming included His condemning “sin in the flesh,” Satan would indeed have had “something” in Him, for he would have accused Christ of being sheltered from the real conflict and therefore dishonestly winning only a sham victory. “The will must consent … before Satan can exercise his power upon us. … Every sinful desire we cherish affords him a foothold” (DA 125, emphasis added). Jesus simply said that Satan had no “foothold” in Him. Again, here is where the false Immaculate Conception doctrine logically yields to Satan the victory in the great controversy.

Here is an inspired comment on this text of Scripture and a clear explanation of this question:

Not even by a thought could our Saviour be brought to yield to the power of temptation. Satan finds in human hearts [ours, obviously] some point where he can gain a foothold; some sinful desire is cherished, by means of which his temptations assert their power. But Christ declared of Himself: “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me” (John 14:30). Satan could find nothing in the Son of God that would enable him to gain the victory. He had kept His Father’s commandments, and there was no sin in Him that Satan could use to his advantage. This is the condition in which those must be found who shall stand in the time of trouble (GC 623, emphasis added).

Note the point: for Satan to “have nothing in Me” means “there was no sin in Him that Satan could use to his advantage,” and sin is yielding to temptation, cherishing sinful desire. We must remember that a sinful nature is not the same as a sinning nature. Ours has been a sinning nature, true; but not Christ’s. And while we are still in sinful flesh, still with a sinful nature, we too can overcome, for “this is the condition in which those must be found who shall stand in the time of trouble.” The only alternative to this Great Controversy statement (p. 623) is “holy flesh” either for the saints in the time of trouble or for Christ in His incarnation, neither of which can be true.

Christ gained total victory over the power of sin which has its seat in the flesh. His mind was the mind of the Spirit and never yielded or consented to the desires of the flesh. Thus Satan “had nothing” in Him. Says Peter, “Arm yourselves also with the same mind” (1 Peter 4:1).

12. But if Christ was tempted as we are, does that mean that He would have what Dr. William Johnsson implies, “a corrupted nature that hankered after sin, that preferred the darkness to the light, and to which the devil could appeal with his enticements” (op. cit., p. 104)?

The 1888 messengers were “exceedingly careful” in their use of language about the humanity of Christ. They preferred not to say that He “had” a sinful nature, but consistently said that He “took” or “assumed” our sinful nature. To have “a corrupted nature that hankered after sin, that preferred the darkness to the light” would of course be sin itself. To “prefer” or to “hanker after” it is to choose sin, which Christ never chose. To attribute this distortion to the 1888 view is not only incorrect but unfair.

13. If Christ “took” our sinful nature or flesh, would that mean that He also had our sinful mind?

No, for His mind was totally sinless. Paul urges us, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Then he lists seven steps in condescension that Christ took in our behalf, extending to “even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5-8). Such a “mind” was pure and sinless. Paul sharply contrasts the “mind” and the “flesh” in Romans 7:23 and Ephesians 2:1-3. Christ’s flesh was our flesh; His mind was His, totally guided and filled by the Holy Spirit. To confuse Christ’s mind with His flesh is to betray a basic misconception of New Testament teaching about Christ’srighteousness as well as the nature of sin.

14. If Christ truly took our nature, would not His righteousness have been frustrated by that sinful nature?

The answer can be found in Romans 8:3, 4 where Paul declares that “the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” The “might” is the subjunctive mood of the verb, indicating that the righteousness can be “fulfilled in us,” opposed by the flesh indeed, but not frustrated.

What kind of nature will God’s people have in which that righteousness is “fulfilled”? Sinful, for the sinful nature will not be eradicated until glorification at the return of Jesus. Nevertheless, the righteousness will be fulfilled in them. “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness . . .” (Titus 2:11, NIV). Surely the “mind” can say “No!” to the “flesh” through the exercise of “the faith of Jesus.” To take the position that sinful flesh must succeed in “frustrating” a sinless mind is the essence of antinomianism (anti-lawism), the source of the world’s crime and immorality, and yields the victory in the great controversy to Satan.

15. If Christ took our nature, did the cross save Him? Did He have the experience of Romans 7:14-24?

Christ did not have the “experience” of Romans 7 for He never did that which He would not, nor what He hated did He do. He never sinned. But He would have sinned if He had taken Peter’s advice and evaded His cross (Matthew 16:22). Here is the sublime truth of the incarnation of our Saviour: in order to “condemn sin in the flesh,” He needed the cross. And so do we! The cross was not His “saviour,” but He needed the cross in order to become our Saviour, and thus to “be made sin … for us.”

16. If the 1888 view is correct, would Christ Himself need a Saviour? Would not His sacrifice have been imperfect, polluted?

On the contrary, His sacrifice could have been perfect only if He had identified Himself fully with us by taking our fallen, sinful nature. A messiah “exempt” from our inheritance or from the identical conflict we have with temptation would have been a useless sacrifice because he could not have made full satisfaction for our sin. Heaven would never be secure against a recurrence of sin unless the Saviour’s victory were won by triumphing completely over our sinful nature with all its liabilities “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Any “exemption” through genetic advantage would raise the cry “unfair” and create an unsuppressible conviction that sin is justified in all the fallen sons and daughters of Adam. This would automatically negate Christ’s sacrifice and reduce it to the level of Roman Catholicism, and in the end completely satisfy Satan. It would be the “broken link” in God’s great chain let down to save the world.

17. Would it not be impossible for Christ to take sinful human nature after 4000 years and “bypass the universal infection of sin” that has polluted everybody else (cf. Dr. Roy Adams, The Nature of Christ, p. 38)?

“They shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23). God is agape. And whenever agape comes in conflict with sin, a cross is erected. The cross is the answer to this question. Yes, by His identity as agape in human flesh and His sanctified human will, He “bypassed this universal infection of sin.” He chose not to be infected.

18. Did Christ in His incarnation have to “keep under” His “body” like Paul said he had to do (1 Corinthians 9:26, 27)?

This is an important question. Paul learned from Christ how to “keep under his body,” for he says, “I am crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). Of course, Jesus kept under His body! “I do not seek My own will,” He said. This is the very essence of His being sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3, KJV). Christ is our perfect Example in self-control, temperance, purity, physical fitness, and unselfish love.

19. But does not this imply that He was under a life-long “tension”? That He had to repress sinful tendencies?

In response, we ask a reverent question: was Jesus under “tension” in the Garden of Gethsemane? Was His desperate prayer, “If it be possible let this cup pass from Me?” a mere actor’s role?

If He was under “tension” in Gethsemane and as He hung on the cross, could He not have been under a holy tension during His entire lifetime when He said, “I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 5:30)? The verb is zeto which is the present indicative, meaning, “I continually do not seek My own will, but … ” If we say that that was not “tension,” but that it was easy, how can we explain His sweating of blood in Gethsemane, His “strong crying and tears” (Hebrews 5:9)? He sweat blood in His struggle to surrender His own will, to let the “I” be crucified.

We ourselves do indeed have a never-ending “tension” to surrender self to the constant convictions of the Holy Spirit, to bear our cross. Christ never resisted the Holy Spirit as we have done, but surely He knew the full force of our temptation to resist. And not only did He know our never-ending “tension” or struggle, He also knew a never-ending victory over the temptation to indulge the “as-I-will” as opposed to His Father’s will. In his sinless state Adam knew no such inner tension, but Christ assures us that He did have such a holy conflict “even unto blood.”

Again let it be emphasized that “tension” is not sin; temptation is not sin; wrestling with temptation to indulge self is not sin. A consciousness of self is not sin. The possession of a self that is opposed to the Father’s will is not sin. Yielding to self is sin. And that, Christ never did.

This is the crux of the problem—seeing Christ as He truly is apart from the clouds of confusion thrown up by the Antichrist of 1 John 4. This is no mere tempest in a theological teapot It has a direct bearing on the spiritual and moral health of the church. Our teens desperately need a Saviour who is “nigh at hand and not afar off.” And so do we all!

20. Is this not a new idea-that Christ knew such an inner struggle? Is it not the usual idea that Christ’s personal righteousness was innate and not by faith, that His temptations were external? Are you sure that He experienced a battle with “I” or “self” like we have?

It’s impossible for us to “look unto Jesus” meaningfully unless we understand this. Without exception all our temptations to personal sin involve that “I” or “self.” Here is the sinner battling with a terrible temptation to indulge self. If you remove the Saviour from that identity with his temptations, you set Him “afar off,” and the sinner is left only with a vague sense that Jesus was tempted in ways far different from his temptations. You throw a smoke screen between him and his Saviour. However he may be told that Christ’s temptations were “greater” or “more intense” than his in a totally different realm, if he is robbed of the conviction that He was tempted “in all points like as” he is, he will inevitably fail of the succor Christ wants to give him. Tell the gambler, the cocaine addict, the alcoholic, the adulterer, the embezzler, that Christ was not tempted as he is but that He was instead tempted in totally irrelevant ways like turning stones to bread, jumping off pinnacles without a bungee, etc.,—how can the embattled sinner relate?

Again, the fundamental problem is the lurking idea that temptation is automatically sin. It is assumed that because Adam did not have an inner conflict, then no conflict existed in the nature of Christ. But the nature which He took or assumed was a nature that required painful self-denial—something unknown to the sinless Adam. Jesus chose to say “No!” to what self naturally wanted, and to say “Yes” to the Father’s will. Of course, we can call that choice His “will” because He willed to make the choice; but it involved the complete denial of “I” or “self.” The Greek word thelema used in Ephesians 2:3 of “the desires of the flesh” is the same as that “will of My own” that Jesus says He denied (John 5:30; 6:38). Indeed, Jesus was “unlike us” in this respect—we have “fulfilled” those “desires of the flesh.” He denied them. The real issue boils down to one simple question: was that self-denial easy for Him, or did it involve a continual cross that led Him at last to that lonely hill called Calvary?

Once that question is answered, every sinner in the world can “look unto Jesus” meaningfully. He can see his own cross looming up before him whereon self or “I” can be “crucified with Christ.” Christ’s identity with us (the objective gospel) becomes our identity with Him (the subjective gospel). The sinner can overcome because now he sees how Christ “overcame.” And that, we insist, is not a ludicrous, contemptible “perfectionism,” a straw man, as it is sometimes portrayed. (Incidentally, for Laodicea to “overcome even as [Christ] overcame” does not involve the eradication of the sinful nature, but overcoming within fallen, sinful nature).

21. David says that he was “shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5, KJV). Was there anything in the words of Jesus that parallels this cry?

If one understands that all human acts are inherently sinful apart from redemption, David is giving voice to the realization of the compulsion that self-seeking imposes on us all. The virgin Mary was a sinner, for she said “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour” (Luke 1:47), but the angel said “that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20). It was a holy, not a sinful conception. But Jesus inherited from Mary the same kind of flesh or nature that she had. There was no cutoff or “exemption” that removed Him from her genetic inheritance.

There is something in the words of Jesus that parallels this cry of David’s but does not compromise His total sinlessness. Remember, “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6) and He was “made to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In two Messianic psalms Christ speaks of the realty of His identification with us. He had no sin of His own, but He took ours, and was made to be sin for us:

Then I said, Behold, I come; in the scroll of the Book it is written of Me, I delight to do Your will, O My God, and Your law is within My heart. … Innumerable evils have surrounded Me; My iniquities have overtaken Me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of My head; therefore My heart fails Me (Psalm 40:7-12; cf. vs. 9 and John 2:17, etc.).

Those who hate Me without a cause are more than the hairs of My head; they are mighty who would destroy Me, being My enemies wrongfully; … O God, You know My foolishness; and My “sins” are not hid from You (Psalm 69:4, 5; cf. vs. 9 and John 2:17, etc.).

There is no contradiction here. “We should have no misgivings in regard to the perfect sinlessness of the human nature of Christ.” Peter says that He bore our sins “in His own body” (1 Peter 2:24). He must have felt the guilt of our sin as though it were His own. Thus He was “made to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). His identification with us was complete. He truly took the sinner’s place. Ellen White speaks further of this complete identification with us:

After Christ had taken the necessary steps in repentance, conversion, and faith in behalf of the human race, He went to John to be baptized of him in Jordan (GCB, 1901, p. 36, emphasis added).

Christ came not confessing His own sins; but guilt was imputed to Him as the sinner’s substitute. He came not to repent on His own account; but in behalf of the sinner. … He takes upon Him their sins, numbering Himself with the transgressors, taking the steps the sinner is required to take; and doing the work the sinner must do (R&H, January 21, 1873, emphasis added).

He [Christ] had taken the steps which every sinner must take, in conversion, repentance, and baptism. He Himself had no sins of which to repent, and therefore He had no sins to wash away. But He was our example, in all things, and therefore He must do that which He would have us do (IHP p. 252, emphasis added).

These inspired comments on the humanity of Christ throw much light on otherwise inexplicable statements in the Messianic psalms. And they are in perfect harmony with “all Scripture.” They elucidate the inspired name of “Immanuel, … God with us.”

22. What kind of death did Jesus die on His cross? How does that relate to the real purpose of His becoming one with us?

In past decades we as a denomination have not emphasized the reality of Christ’s death on the cross as being the second death. But recently, this idea has begun to find recognition. It was clearly recognized in the Sabbath School Quarterly for the Fourth Quarter 1994, and in Dwight Nelson’s The Godforsaken God (1993). It is also presented in this author’s Grace on Trial (1988, pp. 39-41), and “Lightened With His Glory” (1991; pp. 17, 18, etc.). This truth packs a powerful charge of spiritual dynamite.

In becoming man and dying our death, Christ won the right to become the new Head of the human race. He is now the “last Adam,” having replaced the former head of our race who fell into sin. Had Christ not taken our fallen nature and “become sin for us who knew no sin,” He could not have died, for the only “wages of sin” is “death” (the second). Christ became corporately united with us in order that we might by faith become corporately united to Him. He partook of our sinful nature that we might become “partakers” of His divine nature. Thus He was entitled to “taste death for every man,” even the second death (Hebrews 2:9, KJV).

Since the world began, how many people have truly died? Only One! All the rest have gone to “sleep,” according to Scripture (John 11:11-13).

If Christ had sidestepped taking our sinful nature, He could not have earned the right to be the second Adam and die “every man’s” second death, nor could He have become our Substitute had He not assumed our corporate nature; no “Adam” can stand at the head of the human race unless He corporately shares “the flesh and blood” of that race. The first Adam in his sinless state stood at the head of the unfallen human race; now the second Adam must stand at the Head of the only human race there is at the present time—a fallen human race.

Hence He must become “Immanuel, God with us,” not God with the sinless Adam. Here is where the problem is, and here the Son of God must come in order to solve it, all the way to where we are. He can redeem only that which He assumed.

If God has called the Seventh-day Adventist Church to proclaim “the everlasting gospel” to “every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” in this time of the cleansing of the sanctuary, this truth of the cross must find central place in our message. Our Evangelical friends are hungering to understand it We must no longer deprive them of the blessing they deserve. This is “the beginning” of that light which must yet lighten the earth with glory, the fourth angel’s message. “Of all professing Christians, Seventh-day Adventists should be foremost” in proclaiming that larger truth of the cross. Our spiritual impotence in the face of the world’s desperate need is due to our failure to behold Christ as He truly is, and to present Him thus to the hungering multitudes. There is grave danger that the false christ of Babylon can confuse us and deflect us from our true mission.

Those who believe in the natural immortality of the human soul cannot appreciate the dimensions of the love that led Christ to His cross; they cannot comprehend the reality of the second death which He died.

Here is the truth that will make the Sabbath truth come alive, the truth that will penetrate to the inner consciousness of that vast host of honest people in “Babylon” who will someday soon hear that “voice” from heaven saying with authority and power, “Come out of her, My people” (Revelation 18:4).

23. Here is the question of questions: How could Christ be sinless as a Baby before He came to the age of accountability? Why was He “different” from “other children”? Why for example did He never have temper tantrums as other children have? Does this not indicate that He took on Himself the sinless nature of Adam before the Fall?

Several factors may be worth looking at:

Not all babies have temper tantrums, or exhibit perversity and rebellion. “Before he is old enough to reason, he [the child] may be taught to obey” (CG p. 82). Our “children have sensitive, loving natures.. .. Brought up under the wise and loving guidance of a true home, children will have no desire to wander away in search of pleasure and companionship. Evil will not attract them. The spirit that prevails in the home will mold their characters” (MH 388, 394). If these things are true of our children, could they not also be true of Jesus? “Even the babe in its mother’s arms may dwell as under the shadow of the Almighty through the faith of the praying mother” (DA 515). John the Baptist was an example of a baby who was “filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15). Yet we recognize that such babies as here described are not born with a sinless nature!

The real problem here is the question of “original sin.” The phrase does not appear in the Bible, nor in Ellen White’s writings as a theological term. Paul’s discussion in Romans 5 makes clear that the evil brought upon the race by Adam has been canceled by Christ Verse 12 for example says clearly: “As by one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men-well, all sinned.” The Greek eph ho is significantly used-Paul is almost on the verge of articulating the Augustinian “original sin” theory, affirming that because death has passed upon all men it must stem from “original sin” genetically inherited from Adam, but he catches himself and using the eph ho, adds, “well, the fact is, all sinned.”

Then he goes on to say most clearly that not only as Adam’stransgression brought a curse did Christ bring a blessing, but He did so “much more.” “As by the offence of one [Adam] judgment came upon all men to condemnation [wouldn’t this be “original sin”?]; even so by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (verse 18, KJV). For “all men” Christ has canceled out the guilt of “original sin.” We have no reason to adopt the Catholic theory.

We are born with a sinful nature, however, which means that we are born in a state of natural separation from God-alienation from Him. If that terrible gulf of separation is not bridged by divine love expressed through “the praying mother” (and father), the child’s natural alienation from God will result in its becoming perverse in disposition, expressing temper tantrums, etc. Actually, it is “the faith of the praying mother” that enables her babe to “dwell as under the shadow of the Almighty.”

24. In what way then was Christ different from us as a baby?

Christ was indeed different from us in that “God is agape,” says 1 John 4:8. He Himself exercised faith. Since Christ was agape in human flesh, He was always divine as well as human. Thus He was different from us, who are born without agape, and are only human, not divine. But that is just the point of the teaching of the nature of Christ that Jones and Waggoner, with Ellen White’s endorsement, so earnestly proclaimed: Christ was like us in all respects, “yet without sin;” and what He exercised that we have not exercised, was faith. He had perfect faith because He was agape, so that “not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity.” His righteousness was not innate, natural-born, automatic, advantageous over us; it was by faith. (Faith and agape are frequently tied together in Paul’sepistles; see Colossians 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 1:3, etc.) As Son of God He brings to us a tremendous advantage!

The prophet Isaiah speaks of the innocent childhood of Jesus as a time when He knew “to refuse the evil, and choose the good” (Isaiah 7:14-16). The prophet is speaking metaphorically of the excellent prenatal and postnatal care that Mary and Joseph gave the holy Child. Given such care, we are told that even our “children will have no desire to wander away in search of pleasure and companionship. Evil will not attract them” (MH 388, 394). Certainly Isaiah is speaking of our Saviour’s character in the emphasis he gives to His “refusing” evil and “choosing” good. Such righteousness through the exercise of His will by choice meant that “Christ, coming to the earth as man, lived a holy life, and developed a perfect character” (DA 762).

25. Can a baby have faith?

If John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb and, says Elizabeth, leaped “in my womb for joy” at the sound of Mary’s greeting (Luke 1:44), the answer must be “yes.” “The fruit of the spirit is … faith” (Galatians 5:22). But please note: the “faith” a sinless infant could have must of course be infantile; but at the same time the “temptations” an infant would have under the care of a loving, praying mother would also be infantile. We must not neglect the effect of proper prenatal influence. We need to give more attention and respect to the virgin mother of our Lord. She had a marvelous faith. She gave to the Baby Jesus the finest care any human mother could have given. And His stepfather Joseph deserves our respect. He tenderly cared for the pregnant Mary and shielded her from the terrible influence that a lonely, shameful pregnancy without a husband would have brought

If before the birth of her child she [the mother] is self-indulgent, if she is selfish, impatient, and exacting, these traits will be reflected in the disposition of the child. Thus [environmentally, not genetically] many children have received as a birthright almost unconquerable tendencies to evil (MH 372, 374).

Thank God for the adverb “almost”! Though Christ was not abused as a fetus or as an infant and thus did not have our “evil propensities” or “passions,” He came in the genetic stream of fallen humanity, and grew up to humble Himself to take the full burden of our sins and to feel the effect of our abuse. He was “made to be sin for us.” He knows the strength of our “almost unconquerable tendencies to evil.” And thus he is able to “save perfectly those that come unto God by Him” (Hebrews 7:25).

26. If Christ took upon Himself our sinful nature,, would there not be “indwelling sin” in Him, which was not in the sinless Adam?

No, for “indwelling sin” is already sin. “Indwelling sin” is a habit pattern that has been planted among the brain cells by the sinner’s choice. It causes us to “do that which I allow not … What I hate, I do. … Now it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (Romans 7:15-18, KJV). “Indwelling sin” makes us captive to sin, so “how to perform that which is good I find not” (verse 18). If my problem is “indwelling sin,” then “the evil which I would not, that I do” (verse 19). This is the problem of our “evil propensities.” Christ never “did evil” or did what He “hated,” or could “will to do good” but not know how “to perform” it (Romans 7:18). To assert such of Christ would be blasphemy.

27. Was the fallen nature that Christ “took” limited to the innocent physical effects of the Fall, such as weariness, hunger, thirst, fatigue, etc.?

Surely He physically took upon Himself those innocent consequences of the Fall. But He makes clear that He also “took” upon Himself the inner spiritual battle that we have with temptations—He had to battle with the urge to gratify self. “I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 5:30; that necessity for constant denial of self was what Ellen White says Christ took upon Himself—the “decreasing … in moral worth” (DA 117). Please note: the necessity for Christ to deny self did not mean that He was selfish; His perfect self-denial meant the opposite. In fact, there can be no such thing as unselfishness without a denial of self. And for Christ, that was as painful as it is for us, more so in the light of the agony of His cross.

28. All agree that the body or flesh which Christ “took” in His incarnation was the weakened physical organism possessed by fallen humanity. But can we say that Christ had (or took) the sinless mind of Adam before the fall?

It is true that the mind of Christ was totally sinless. Before the fall, the mind of Adam was also sinless, as is the mind of all the holy angels and the unfallen universe. But that sinless mind of created beings was not the “mind … which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). There was an infinite difference between the sinless mind of created beings and the mind of the Creator-Redeemer.

The mind of Christ was agape. No sinless created mind in eternity had ever grasped the dimensions of that kind of love until Christ demonstrated it at the cross.

To compare the mind of Christ with that of the sinless Adam therefore lowers the Creator down to the level of His creature. Adam in his sinless state could not have known how to die for the sins of the world. He could not have known “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of “the agape of Christ … which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:18, 19). He could not have known how to die the second death in order to redeem his fallen race, how to suffer the anguish of the lost in order to effect the salvation of those who believe. We read of Adam's pure innocence, but never do we read of his righteousness.

If Adam had known or believed such agape, he would not have chosen to sin. He would have chosen to die on a cross. He could not fathom the kind of love that would do that. Instead of having that mind of agape, Adam selfishly chose to suffer Eve’s fate—not in order to redeem her, but because he loved her more than he loved God He joined her in sin. He did not have the divine love (“mind”) in order to be her savior.

Thus the sinlessness of Adam before the fall was neither agape nor righteousness. But Paul describes the mind of Christ as “the righteousness of One [by which] the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Rom. 5:18).

Read Section 2