Section 2:

Is Ellen White Clear On the Nature of Christ?

1. Did Ellen White oppose or contradict the teaching of the 1888 message on this subject?

With few exceptions, the bulk of her statements on the humanity of Christ were made after the 1888 Conference, and it is these that some think are contradictory. If we use Bible or Ellen White statements out of their context, we are certain to end up in confusion. And her true context is the message of Jones and Waggoner as presented at the 1888 Session and in Signs editorials afterwards, in Waggoner’s Christ and His Righteousness (1890), and in Jones’s sermons in the 1893 and 1895 General Conference Bulletins. Their message, its impact on the church, and the influence of some leaders’ rejection of it, must be borne in mind. The facts indicate that she never opposed or contradicted their views on the nature of Christ, although she helped them to clarify them.

For example: before the Minneapolis Conference, Waggoner in 1888 had printed his The Gospel in Galatians as a response to Butler’s The Law in Galatians. The fact that Waggoner’s view aroused consternation even before 1888 is evident:

These texts (Galatians 4:4; Romans 8:3; Philippians 2:5-7; Hebrews 2:9) show that Christ took upon Himself man’s nature, and that as a consequence He was subject to death, he came into the world on purpose to die; and so from the beginning of His earthly life He was in the same condition that the men are in whom He died to save (Romans 1:3). … What was the nature of David, “according to the flesh”? Sinful, was it not? … Don’t start in horrified astonishment; I am not implying that Christ was a sinner. … His being made in all things like unto His brethren, is the same as His being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, “made in the likeness of men” [Waggoner is equating the use of “likeness” in Romans 8:3 with Paul’s use of the same syntax in Philippians 2:5]. One of the most encouraging things in the Bible is the knowledge that Christ took on Him the nature of man; to know that His ancestors according to the flesh were sinners. When we read the record of the lives of the ancestors of Christ, and see that they had all the weaknesses and passions that we have, we find that no man has any right to excuse his sinful acts on the ground of heredity. If Christ had not been made in all things like unto His brethren, then His sinless life would be no encouragement to us. We might look at it with admiration, but it would be the admiration that would cause hopeless despair [The Gospel in Galatians, p. 61, emphasis original].

You are shocked at the idea that Jesus was born under the condemnation of the law, because He never committed a sin in His life. But you admit that on the cross He was under the condemnation of the law. … Well, then, if Jesus could be under the condemnation of the law at one time in His life, and be sinless, I see no reason why He could not be under the condemnation of the law at another time, and still be sinless (ibid., p. 62).

2. Is there evidence that this teaching was presented at the Minneapolis Conference itself?

From Waggoner’s widow’s recollections of the 1888 Conference, L. E. Froom informs us that she took his studies down in shorthand and transcribed them as Signs editorials in the weeks immediately after the 1888 Session ended (MD, p. 200). There is no reason to doubt her testimony, for she was an eyewitness and was involved. The following statements appeared in a Signs editorial by “E. J. W.” on January 21, 1889. He could hardly have unpacked his suitcases after attending the Minneapolis Session before writing:

A little thought will be sufficient to show anybody that if Christ took upon Himself the likeness of man, …it must have been sinful man that He was make like, for it is only sin that causes death. … Christ took upon Himself the flesh, not of a sinless being, but of sinful man, that is, that the flesh which He assumed had all the weaknesses and sinful tendencies to which fallen human nature is subject to. … Sinless, yet not only counted as a sinner, but actually taking upon Himself sinful nature. … Himself voluntarily descended to the level of sinful man. … There was in His whole life a struggle. The flesh, moved upon by the enemy of all righteousness, would tend to sin, yet His Divine nature never for a moment harboured an evil desire, nor did His Divine power for a moment waver.

Indeed, this view must have been “shocking” to G. I. Butler. He telegraphed the delegates at Minneapolis to “stand by the old landmarks” and thus reject Waggoner’s message, for this as well as for other reasons.

3. Did Ellen White specifically support the teaching of Jones and Waggoner on the nature of Christ?

Her statement published in the Review and Herald of February 18, 1890 supplies evidence. Some had written her complaining of what Jones and Waggoner were teaching; she rejected their complaints:

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 [the Roman Catholic view!]. If He did not have man’snature, 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 battle as man, in man’s behalf. His temptation and victory tell us that humanity must copy the Pattern (1SM 408).

Let us analyze this statement:

1. The timing is very soon after the initial publication of Waggoner’sviews of the nature of Christ in his Christ and His Righteousness, and Signs articles.
2. The “letters” she referred to were on the wrong side.
3. She did not take a neutral stand but took the opportunity in the Review to uphold his view. Her statement is not merely a general endorsement of justification by faith as the Protestant world and the 16th Century Reformers taught it; it is emphatically an endorsement of this unique feature of Waggoner’s message—Christ took the sinful nature of man after the Fall. Had she wished to fault Jones’s and Waggoner’s view of the nature of Christ, this was her excellent opportunity to do so. Not a word is evident of such a desire, only the opposite.
4. In fact, she goes a step further than Waggoner at that time. He apparently took the initial, immature view that it was impossible for Christ to have sinned—at least his faulty expressions seem to convey that idea in his early Signs editorials. Thus she implies that Waggoner in 1889 did not express fully the extent and reality of Christ taking man’s fallen nature. (By the time Waggoner edited his Signs editorials for publication as Christ and His Righteousness [October 15, 1890], he had harmonized his view with Ellen White’s position).

We must ask ourselves the question: Would Ellen White endorse Waggoner’s view of the nature of Christ in 1889 and 1890 and then contradict it in later years or even express grave misgivings about it?

4. Were her endorsements of the Jones and Waggoner message only selective and partial?

As some view her so-called contradictory statements, they know of no other conclusion possible than to surmise that when she endorsed their message she meant to exclude specifically their views of the nature of Christ. But that is logically impossible:

(a) She was extremely aware of the danger of false concepts, and of the proximity of error to truth, drawing very sharp lines between the two. According to the tenor of her writings of many decades, if she meant to endorse a portion of Jones’s and Waggoner’s message and not the whole, she would have made the distinction exceedingly clear, and done so numerous times. Her ability to emphasize a thought through repetition is very well known, even painfully so.

(b) Waggoner’s 1887, 1889, and 1890 statements on the nature of Christ were so radical or “shocking” that they would surely have elicited her very prompt and decisive disavowals if she had entertained even the slightest opposition to them.

(c) Although her more than 200 endorsements of Jones’s and Waggoner’s message show sympathy for them as hard-pressed messengers, she would never for a moment gloss over defects in their message if she disagreed with it. Her letter of correction to Jones dated April 9, 1893, is an example. If one suggests that she would not have written earlier letters objecting to their teaching for fear she might discourage zealous young workers, it is necessary only to remind ourselves that she knew very well how to write to hard-pressed workers rebuking them when necessary and yet give plenty of encouragement Letters to Dr. Kellogg are an example. Further, her 1887 letter cautioning young Jones and Waggoner is evidence that she was not above correcting them very decidedly when the occasion demanded. But not one letter expresses disapproval of their Christology.

(d) Their view on the nature of Christ was an integral part of their “message of Christ’s righteousness.” Delete this, and the very heart of their appeal for Christlike character disappears:

(1) The concept of “Christ’s righteousness” becomes a meaningless abstraction if separated from their emphasis on His sinless living in the likeness of sinful flesh. Such a concept they labeled a “sham.”

(2) The tie-in of “Christ’s righteousness” with the cleansing of the sanctuary would also have to disappear, for their view of the cleansing of the sanctuary involved the full practical realization in His last days’ people of the atonement wrought out by the world’s Redeemer in His life and death and resurrection.

(3) Their insistence (and Ellen White’s) that righteousness by faith is the “third angel’s message in verity” would have to be abandoned, for “the faith of Jesus” that the third angel calls for would cease to exist if Christ took a sinless nature with only the sinless infirmities of our weakened physical organism. Adam did not have faith nor did he need it in his sinless state.

(e) In an effort to show that Ellen White did not give them “a blank check in theological matters,” one writer cites three of her statements: their position was not “perfect” in 1886; “some things presented in reference to the law in Galatians … do not harmonize with the understanding I have had of this subject,” and “some interpretations of Scripture given by Dr. Waggoner I do not regard as correct” (Ms. 15, 1888). This sounds like we have a “blank check” for disregarding anything of their message we may not like.

But the contextual evidence gives quite a different impression. As to whether or not they were ever “perfect” is irrelevant to the issues—nobody is “perfect” except God, according to Ellen White. But the two November 1, 1888 statements cited above are followed by a categorical one uttered five minutes later: “That which has been presented harmonizes perfectly with the light which God has been pleased to give me during all the years of my experience” (idem). Did she contradict herself? No. In her personal, finite understanding she confessed the need for more study. Our author omitted her key statement, “if I fully understand his position” (cf. George Knight, Angry Saints, pp. 43, 44). Later she did understand, and she endorsed it fully.

To my knowledge, no serious-minded Adventist has ever accorded to Jones and Waggoner the status of infallibility. All we need is common sense and reason. Ellen White is clear: the Lord “sent” them with “a most precious message,” and we need to give it a fair hearing. To reject their message is to reject Christ (1888 Materials, p. 1353).

5. Were Jones and Waggoner in harmony with themselves?

Ellen White deeply appreciated their perfect harmony between themselves. Repeatedly we discover that each came to the same conclusions independently. In her many endorsements of their message, she linked their names together as a unit. For example: “God is presenting to the minds of men divinely appointed precious gems of truth, appropriate for our time” (1888 Materials, p. 139; 1888). “I have deep sorrow of heart because I have seen how readily a word or action of Elder Jones or Elder Waggoner is criticized. How readily many minds overlook all the good that has been done by them in the few years past, and see no evidence that God is working through these instrumentalities” (p. 1026; 1892).

6. What does the following mean: “[Christ] is a brother in our infirmities, but not in possessing like passions. As the sinless One, His nature recoiled from evil” (2T 202)?

If we say that Christ took the sinless nature of Adam before the Fall, this statement would be meaningless, for Adam in his sinless state surely did not recoil from evil.

Does it imply that Christ was not truly tempted by sin? We dare not interpret it so, lest we deny Scripture. I find quinine an extremely bitter medicine to take—I used to take it when I had malaria in Africa. Truly, my “nature recoiled” from drinking quinine, and I would actually shudder physically when I had to take it Would it make sense to say that I had to resist the temptation to drink quinine? When hot and thirsty I might have to resist a temptation to drink a cold cola, but I never had to resist an impulse to drink quinine!

I believe drinking cola is harmful. Suppose I am trying to help a cola addict to stop using it, so I say: “Friend, look at me—I have the strength to resist a temptation to drink quinine, in fact ‘my nature recoils from’ drinking it; now you must give up your cola drinks.” Would such “encouragement” be relevant to him?

Was our temptation “quinine” to Christ’s human nature? If so, it was no struggle for Him, no temptation. I have never had to plead with the Lord to give me strength to resist an impulse to take a glass of quinine! But Christ pleaded for “this cup” to be taken from Him. To interpret the above statement thus would be to deny the reality of Christ’s temptability and destroy the completeness of His identity with us in temptation. No one is “powerfully influenced” to drink bitter quinine, yet we read that Christ was “powerfully influenced to do a wrong action. … This was the ordeal through which Christ passed Otherwise temptation is no temptation for Him or for us (cf. 5BC 1082).

But the above statement harmonizes perfectly with all that Ellen White has written if it is understood as saying that Christ perfectly resisted every temptation. He did not “possess like passions” because he did not “for one moment” yield to the temptations that produce “passions.” The temptation being perfectly resisted, no “passion” ever had a chance to develop. The next sentence adds that this perfect resistance to temptation was so constant that it was a “recoiling from evil” as prompt as when a spring stretched out of shape “recoils” to its original shape. There was in Him no response to temptation, even momentary, involuntary, or unconscious. Thus it was His “nature” to “recoil from evil.” The word “nature” in this passage refers to character, not to innate genetic inheritance. But we dare not say that for Him to “recoil from evil” did not involve a painful struggle with temptation “even unto blood” (Hebrews 12:4, KJV). Bearing His cross was never easy.

Here is an example of Ellen White’s use of the word passion:

One little girl was partaking of her boiled ham, and spiced pickles, and bread and butter, when she espied a plate I was eating from. Here was something she did not have, and she refused to eat. The girl of six years said she would have a plate. I thought it was the nice red apple I was eating she desired; and although we had a limited amount, I felt such pity for the parents, that I gave her a fine apple. She snatched it from my hand, and disdainfully threw it quickly to the car floor. I thought, this child, if permitted to thus have her own way, will indeed bring her mother to shame. This exhibition of passion was the result of the mother’s course of indulgence (CD 240).

Of course, Christ never exhibited any such exhibition of passion. He never “hankered after sin” or “preferred the darkness to the light” as some suggest the 1888 view asserts of our Lord (cf. William Johnsson, op. cit., p. 104).

7. As “the second Adam, in purity and holiness connected with God and beloved by God, Christ] began where the first Adam began,” and willingly passing “over the ground where Adam fell [He] redeemed Adam’s failure” (cf. YI, June 2, 1898). What does this mean?

Let us ask: Did Christ redeem only Adam’s failure? Did he end His atonement where He began it—by passing over the ground where Adam fell? If so, while His righteousness may prove that there was no justification for Adam’s sin, it justifies our sins. (This idea is undoubtedly responsible for the continuing lukewarmness of the church). Ellen White does not take that position.

The problem that God has to deal with is “indwelling sin” in His people today, not Adam’s condition in the Garden of Eden. The remnant church is “lukewarm.” It worships every Sabbath; but Laodicea is forced to confess, “That which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good [Laodicea has long “consented” that the law is good!]. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. … For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom. 7:15-18, KJV).

The sinless Adam had no such problem. Merely for Christ to redeem Adam’s failure and stop with such a victory would mean that the church is doomed to perpetual lukewarmness, and the problem of sin that dwells within and compels us to sin can never be solved. Hence the incarnate Christ must “condemn sin in the flesh,” “abolish in His flesh the enmity” (Romans 8:3; Ephesians 2:15), which the sinless Adam never had to do.

8. Does this mean that “Christ was born with indwelling sin”?

Certainly not Here is where “truth lies close to the track of presumption” (Letter 8, 1895; 5BC 1128). Never did He sin, or “do that which He allowed not,” or helplessly “find not how to perform that which is good” (cf. Romans 7:15-18, KJV). In Paul’s inspired phraseology, all these frustrations are the evidence of “sin that dwelleth in me.” His expression is the exact equivalent of Waggoner’s expression “harbored.”A ship that “harbors” in a port “dwells” there. With us, as fallen sinners we are the “port” that has “harbored” sin and permitted it to “dwell” in us. Thus the corruption “rests” there, to borrow Ellen White’s verb. In contrast, Christ “condemned sin in the flesh.” He did not permit His “flesh” to be the port to “harbor” an evil desire or act, nor did He permit a taint of sin to “rest” upon Him or “dwell” within Him (Christ and His Righteousness, p. 29).

9. But does Ellen White ever specifically attribute to Christ the need to resist an “inclination” that was a powerful incentive toward sin?

Yes, she does, specifically:

Christ was put to the closest test, requiring the strength of all His faculties to resist the inclination when in danger, to use His power to deliver Himself from peril, and triumph over the power of the prince of darkness (7BC 930).

(a) If Christ had yielded to this “inclination,” the yielding would have been sin. The problem He faced was clearly “danger.” The “inclination” He wrestled with was to escape danger. If He had yielded, He would have refused the cross, just what Satan wanted Him to do. And if Christ had refused the cross, it would have been a denial of His Father’s will and therefore sin for Him. Paul says, “Consider him who endured. … You have not yet resisted to bloodshed [as He did], striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:3, 4). If Christ had wiped the bloody sweat from His brow and come down from His cross, Ellen White indicates He would have sinned:

Could one sin have been found in Christ, had He in one particular yielded to Satan to escape the terrible torture, the enemy of God and man would have triumphed (DA 761).

Christ claimed to be sinless because “I always do those things that please” “the Father” (John 8:46, 29). “Christ did not please Himself” and it was in His denying His own will and seeking instead His Father’s will that He “overcame” (cf. Romans 15:3; John 5:30 and 6:38; and Revelation 3:21).

(b) Therefore, had He refused the cross He could not have said, “I have kept My Father’s commandments.” Going to the cross was (we speak reverently) “not as I will, but as You will” (cf. John 15:10; Matthew 26:39). If “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10), a cross-less Christ would have transgressed the law, for refusing the cross would not have been love. “Had He failed in His test and trial, He would have been disobedient to the voice of God, and the world would have been lost” (5BC 1082, 1083).

(c) The “inclination” Christ resisted was terribly strong, for it required “the strength of all His faculties to resist” it Here was an inward “inclination” to resist His human soul was aghast at the contemplation of the horror of the cross: “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.” So overwhelmingly strong was the “inclination” that He was “in agony . .. and His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). As we know the inward hunger for sinful indulgence, the terrible compulsion of illicit desire, so Christ knew the inward hunger of soul for release from that cross. In reality, all our inward “inclinations” to sin are a compulsion to evade the cross. (Surrender of self to the cross with Christ will take care of every one of them!)

(d) Let us remember that the Bible is also “the Spirit of Prophecy.”Ellen White’s writings are the “lesser light” to guide us to the “greater light” And the words of Jesus Himself in the Bible surely must be the prime witness. His words in John 5:30 and 6:38 can’t make sense except that He constantly chose to resist His inward “inclination” to “seek” His own will: “I do not seek My own will.” “I have come down from heaven [I became incarnate that I might demonstrate how] not to do My own will.”

10. If Christ took upon Himself the temptation to resist our “inclination” to do evil, would He need a SaviourHimself? Would His “corruption” need to put on incorruption”?

Of course not, for there was no corruption of character there. The confusion in many people’s minds is due to preconceived ideas of Platonic Augustinian original sin that are not sustained in Scripture. An “inclination” to sin resisted and “condemned in the flesh” is not sin. We must not permit Roman Catholic error to lessen the full impact of the gospel. It was “in the flesh” that Christ “condemned sin,” and the condemning of it was complete and total. He would have needed a Saviour only if He had failed to condemn sin in the flesh. Ellen White also says specifically that Christ was “mortal” (DA 484; 5BC 1127). Had He not been resurrected, He would have “seen corruption” (Psalm 16:10; Acts 13:35).

11. Why did Ellen White say that Christ “was a mighty petitioner, not possessing the passions of our human, fallen natures, but compassed with like infirmities, tempted in all points like as we are” (cf. 2T 509)?

“Passions” are identical to the “evil propensities to sin” that Christ did not have “for one moment.” A “passion” in this context is a compulsive surrender to evil. However, her use of a pivotal “but” indicates how she wished to preserve the truth that Christ was tempted on the point of “passions.” She says, “His mind, like yours, could be harassed and perplexed. … His enemies could annoy Him … . Jesus was exposed to conflict and temptation, as a man” (OHC 57). Jesus knew the emotion of anger, for He was often righteously angry; and the ability to be righteously angry “as a man” presupposes the ability also to be tempted to unrighteous anger. “Passions” may not be inherited genetically, but they are inherited environmentally. But it is impossible for any human being to yield to the prompting of evil passions if he has the faith which Christ had.

We cannot read into this statement more than Ellen White said, making it imply that because Christ did not take or possess “the passions of our human, fallen natures” He could not have taken our fallen nature. The word “human” is linked to “fallen” in her context If we interpret the statement to mean that He did not take our fallen nature, we must also make it mean that He did not take our human nature. The “infirmities” He took are evidently related to our temptations, and are far more than physical weaknesses.

12. What does this statement mean: “He was to take His position at the head of humanity by taking the nature but not the sinfulness of man” (ST May 29, 1901)?

This one sentence does not contradict Ellen White’s numerous other statements on the humanity of Christ. Whatever Christ did in taking “His position at the head of humanity,” it was sinful humanity, not sinless, that He came to stand at the head of. The next sentence is as follows: “In heaven was heard the voice, ’the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.’”

In harmony with her general teachings, Ellen White is saying simply that Christ “took” upon His sinless nature our sinful nature, but “not the sinfulness of man.” The “sinfulness of man” would be man’ssinning. In this He did not “participate.”

13. “Did Christ have a unique nature unlike either Adam’s or ours?” To what extent were her ideas of the nature of Christ taken from Anglicans Henry Melville and Octavius Winslow?

The evidence is clear that she borrowed ideas and expressions from them, but she never recommended or endorsed their writings as she did those of Jones and Waggoner. In an excellent article published in the December 1989 Ministry Tim Poirier prints in parallel columns Ellen White’s and Winslow’s statements. Both Melville and Winslow were very perceptive in their defense of the perfect sinlessness of Christ But neither of these godly Anglicans at that time could understand the relationship between Christ’s righteousness and the cleansing of the sanctuary—a preparation for the coming of the Lord. Ellen White discerned that added light in the message of Jones and Waggoner, and rejoiced. She could gather all the help possible from the Anglican theologians in defining the sinlessness of Christ, and also embrace a more complete view than they could have understood.

A careful reading of Melville and Winslow raises the question whether they disengaged themselves from Augus-tinian “original sin.”In the 19th century, few Anglicans or Presbyterians could do so. Poirier quotes Melville:

“Whilst [Christ] took humanity with the innocent infirmities, He did not take it with the sinful propensities. Here Deity interposed. The Holy Ghost overshadowed the virgin, and, allowing weakness to be derived from her, forbade wickedness, and so caused that there should be generated a sorrowing and a suffering humanity, but nevertheless an undefiled and a spotless. … [Thus] Christ’s humanity was not … in every respect the humanity of Adam after the fall” (idem.).

It is interesting that in Ellen White’s use of phraseology from this Anglican writer she carefully avoided this tincture of Roman Catholicism that was implicit therein. Part of Ellen White’s gift was to adapt what best expressed her thought and to leave untouched what was contrary to her own convictions.

14. Was Christ’s sinlessness due to Deity “forbidding” and “interposing” so as to prevent defilement, as Melville believed?

We must be careful not to bypass the exercise of Christ’s own power of choice. Can we take the position that “sinful propensities” are genetically transmitted through the genes and chromosomes? If so, we would certainly want “Deity to interpose” and “forbid” it! But then we would need for Christ at least a substitute for the Roman Catholic doctrine of the intervention of an Immaculate Conception. And if “Deity interposed [and] forbade” it for Jesus externally, why should He not be fair and do it for us as well?

Some Seventh-day Adventists feel driven to the idea of an Immaculate Conception by the assumption that if Christ “took” our fallen, sinful nature then He must have “had” a sinning nature. And there the door is opened at least a crack for the Roman Catholic idea that Christ would not dare to come in our “flesh,” which is our sarx. Thus, as Poirier says, Melville’s and Winslow’s view is that Christ took “a unique nature unlike … ours.” In contrast, the 1888 concept sees Him as taking a “nature like ours.”

By requiring an exemption for Christ that bypassed His freedom of will in the nature which He took, Melville and Winslow would probably be uncomfortable seeing the “flesh” of 1 John 4:1-3 as Jones and Waggoner saw it Ellen White was very perceptive to go only so far and no further in using the Anglicans’ language. Not only did Jesus take the “innocent infirmities [that are] consequences [of] guilt which are perfecdy guiltless,” as Melville said; He also went further:

For four thousand years the race had been decreasing in physical strength, in mental power, and in moral worth; and Christ took upon Him the infirmities of degenerate humanity. Only thus could He rescue man from the lowest depths of his degradation (DA 117; emphasis supplied).

If we were to hold strictly to Melville’s and Winslow’s position we would have to conclude logically that Christ can “rescue” us only from “hunger, pain, weakness, sorrow, and [physical] death.” “The third angel’s message in verity” must go further. Jones’s plea in behalf of sinners is as follows:

The papacy … puts God and Christ so far away that nobody can come near to them. … Mary … and … the Catholic saints … have to come in between God and men. … But … Christ is not so far away as that … God wants us to view Him,—so near that it is impossible for anything or anybody to get between. … He is not far from every one of us, even the heathen. … The false idea [is] that He is so holy that it would be entirely unbecoming in Him to come near to us and be possessed of such a nature as we have,—sinful, depraved, fallen human nature. Therefore Mary must be born immaculate, perfect, sinless, and … Christ must be so born of her as to take His nature in absolute sinlessness from her. …

But if He comes no nearer to us than in a sinless nature, that is a long way off; because I need somebody that is nearer to me than that. I need some one to help me who knows something about sinful nature, for that is the nature that I have; and such the Lord did take. He became one of us. …

It is true He is holy; He is altogether holy. But His holiness is not that kind that makes Him afraid to be in company with people who are not holy, for fear He will get His holiness spoiled (GCB, 1895, p. 311).

About the time that Jones preached this sermon (February 24, 1895), Ellen White was writing her most enthusiastic approval of his message (cf. TM 77-98, May 1, 1895).

The powerful appeal of this truth for practical godliness and evangelistic soul-winning is evident here:

Christ was in the place, and He had the nature, of the whole human race. And in Him meet all the weaknesses of mankind, so that every man on the earth who can be tempted at all, finds in Jesus Christ power against that temptation. For every soul there is in Jesus Christ victory against all temptation, and relief from the power of it (A. T. Jones, GCB, 1895, p. 234).

In His coming in the flesh—having been made in all things like unto us, and having been tempted in all points like as we are—He has identified Himself with every human soul just where that soul is. And from the place where every human soul is, He has consecrated for that soul a new and living way through all the vicissitudes and experiences of a whole lifetime, and even through death and the tomb, into the holiest of all, at the right hand of God (The Consecrated Way, p. 84).

Then let the weary, feeble, sin-oppressed souls take courage. Let them “come boldly unto the throne of grace,” where they are sure to find grace to help in time of need, because that need is felt by our Saviour in the very time of need. He is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (E. J. Waggoner, Christ and His Righteousness, p. 30).

Could this be one reason why Ellen White so rejoiced to hear this message as “the beginning” of the loud cry that must lighten the earth with glory? Sinners must see the Saviour “nigh at hand”!

15. Why do some scholars downgrade the 1888 messengers, warning the church that their message of Christ’s humanity is dangerous?

These authors themselves may not know why they feel driven to do this. Some possible reasons may be:

(a) They focus on minor inconsistencies or imperfections in Jones’s and Waggoner’s message while they disregard its overall spiritual impact

(b) They may be influenced to regard popular Evangelicalism as more important to guide our thinking than the special light the Lord gave us.

(c) Some scholars are tempted to build up their own image by being iconoclasts—that is, acquiring a reputation for intellectualism by destroying or bespattering “icons” of a previous generation. This is widespread in the modern literary world. In the Adventist Church, anyone who has been a spiritual leader is fair game for this same kind of attack.

(d) It is possible that the same unbelief that afflicted the 1888 generation is alive and well today. But if so, it’s too late in the day to repeat this sin.

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