Column by Pr. Larry Kirkpatrick published on GreatControversy.org December 26, 2003

QOD 2003 Annotated Edition Series

New Era Opens for Nature of Christ
In the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Time is not standing still. The activity of heavenly agencies has never ceased. Let's ponder where the things which are revealed (Deuteronomy 29:29) today place us. We need to know the time of our visitation with truth. Consider then the church's current position on the nature of Christ controversy which began in the 1950s. All of the sources mentioned below (except as noted) were delivered to the church via her foremost official organs in news or publishing.

1985. Pacific Press publishes Dennis Priebe's Face-to-Face With the Real Gospel, a book demonstrating that views held on the nature of Christ's humanity are mutually exclusive, and have logical (either positive or negative) ramifications for the church's distinctive message and mission.¹

1999: Review and Herald publishes J.R. Zurcher's Touched With Our Feelings, which states clearly that in the 1950s “doctrinal change about the human nature of Jesus”² took place. This was also called a “radical change,”³ even a “180 degrees”³ shift in position. The publishing of Zurcher's book was remarkable, in that he verified the historical position on this doctrine, verified just where the change was imposed upon the church without a General Conference Session vote, and demonstrated that change indeed had occurred.⁵ Zurcher also (as had Priebe) pinpointed the question of the doctrine of sin—hamartiology—as being the central theological question involved,⁶ and even pointed to the original sin concept specifically as standing behind the shift in views.

2003: The Adventist News Network published a news item that makes some fascinating reading. But first we take a paragraph to consider what they were announcing. Andrews University Press had republished an annotated edition of the 1957 book Questions on Doctrine, with added material by George R. Knight. The book admits not only that the nature of Christ teaching was changed, but that in order to sell the change to the church, its advocates bent the evidence to favor their position, and did not handle the evidence ethically. (Andrews University Press, we note, is essentially a private press, having nowhere near the stature or “officialness” of Pacific Press or Review and Herald.) But they could only republish QOD with the current secured permission of Review and Herald as the entity which holds the copyright to QOD! Incidentally, the Review admitted this to me on the telephone in October, and said they would research and get back to me with the information, but somehow this has not happened. In any case, the act of republishing QOD, a book which to a large segment of Adventists has come to symbolize compromise and apostasy, was inflammatory and enormously unwise. But it led to the following statement made by the Adventist News Network:

The new edition [of QOD] includes pages of additional material clarifying the issue of Christ's human nature, as well as adding context and background to numerous other matters raised in the book. While conceding that previous generations of church leaders sometimes held varying opinions, the revised book makes clear Adventist thought today—and in a line traceable to Ellen White and other pioneers—accurately reflecting general Christian understanding that while Jesus took on the ‘innocent infirmities’ of hunger, pain, weakness, sorrow and death, He did not have the propensity toward sin that humans after the fall possess.⁷

Let's ponder this statement with care. It says much and admits much, but requires a careful look.

Translation to fact: “While conceding that previous generations of church leaders sometimes held varying opinions” = As Zurcher and others have shown, until the 1950s there was an essentially unified view that Jesus had the nature of Adam after the Fall. Also, it should be noted that most influential among pre-1950s church leaders was, of course, Ellen G. White. Her writings, including the deeply defining Desire of Ages published in 1898 became prominent guardians of the post-Fall biblical view.

Translation to fact: “the revised book makes clear Adventist thought today” = The solution proposed for the nature of Christ question in the annotated material is the latest imposed solution for the church, presented as a done-deal, asserted to be what is “Adventist thought today.” Here the church is presented with yet another “new” position on the nature of Christ which has not been agreed upon by the world church in a General Conference Session, but rather is yoked to us in the same manner as the original 1957 innovation QOD-view was.

Translation to fact: “and in a line traceable to Ellen White and other pioneers” = The new position is not the position of Ellen White and other pioneers, it is not the position of all church leaders previous to the 1950s. It is asserted to be “in a line traceable to Ellen White and the other pioneers.” It is thus admitted not to be her position or the consensus position of the church until the 1950s. It is a different position. It is not homodoxic but heterodoxic; as a position it is “other.” It is different, claimd to be connected by some unexplained line.

Translation to fact: “accurately reflecting general Christian understanding that while Jesus took on the ‘innocent infirmities’ of hunger, pain, weakness, sorrow and death, He did not have the propensity toward sin that humans after the fall possess” = While not explicitly here spelled out, this is presented in the annotated QOD as meaning that Ellen G. White took the same position on the nature of Christ as Henry Melvill had proposed. This all spins on the meaning given by Ellen G. White to the term “propensity.”⁸ Yet as others have shown, the proper method in understanding Ellen White's positions is not to turn to uninspired writers, but to follow the same pattern set by comparing Scripture with Scripture. Mrs. White herself has declared the only valid methodology: “ The testimonies themselves will be the key that will explain the messages given, as scripture is explained by scripture.”⁹ Kevin D. Paulson has presented an explanation consistent both with Ellen White's other writings on the nature of Christ and also with her own interpretive methodology.¹⁰

Added to all this is our discovery that the prepublication manuscript of QOD included several explicit references to the doctrine of original sin.¹¹ That is a scandal. The book went to press in 1957 with virtually the same lines intact, barely modified to keep the original sin wording out, The doctrine still remains underneath the sanitized wording.

What then do we have? (1) Highly official church press publishes admission that there are mutually exclusive positions on the nature of Christ. (2) Highly official church press admits that in the 1950s the doctrine on the nature of Christ was changed “180 degrees.” (3) Highly official church news service admits that the newest new position on the nature of Christ is different than the position of Ellen G. White and the pioneers.

Bottom line: Is this good enough for you? Is this good enough for the church? Is this good enough for Jesus? Is it spiritual maturity on our part to discard light and go with “accurately reflecting general Christian understanding”? An era is closing. Brethren, we now know too much. The history of the generation-delaying debacle of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's distraction-detour on the nature of Christ, which has consumed so much—and so needlessly—of the church's energy, is now falling into line before us with clarity. The entire essence of the situation is crystallizing. Things are coming to light that point us to a return to our sound biblical position of the pre-1950s era. Jesus had the humanity of Adam after the Fall. He faced precisely what we face. He was as human as we are. He exercised no special exemptions or exceptions inherent in any nature alien to our own, but rather He came with the same humanity as us, He wrestled and overcame in flesh identical to our own and by means identical to those which we must exercise. As One who was deeply and truly and actually one of us, He and the Father gave Him as our legitimate substitute. He took the punishment that was meant for us and died upon the cross, tasting that death. He also lived a life without sinning, a sinless life in sinful flesh, and thus presents to us the example for how to live.

Whether or not the church ever elects on a General Conference Session basis to make our belief statement on the nature of Christ more specific to reflect the mounting set of facts, our people will increasingly move forward with a recognition that this issue—the humanity of Christ—has been largely clarified. That is, we will now gravitate inevitably to the pre-1950s position of the church.

The world is opening up, a vast crowd is before us, only waiting to hear, almost all of them for the very first time, the everlasting gospel. Core to this gospel is the Savior who came and lived and died and today functions as our great High Priest—One who is touched with our feelings because He is truly one of us in the most direct and authentic sense. Jesus is not only God the Son, but His humanity was the same as our own: fallen, sinful, sin-affected, damaged. But Jesus lived in it, and never chose to sin. All this is so very crucial to our faith. In fact, the post-Fall nature of Christ is as vital, is as core to Seventh-day Adventism, as is the seventh-day Sabbath and the Second Coming. This is inescapable.

Certain Adventists have tried to wiggle out of this for a generation, only to discover themselves face-to-face with the present situation. The wigglers may persist in their gyrations. But for the willing church, a new era for the “nature of Christ” understanding is now open in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Let us break through by our Lord's design, and cease from kicking against the pricks. Let us unite in the truth, and move together as an army of workers. There is so much still to do!

1. Dennis E. Priebe, Face-to-Face With the Real Gospel, (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1985).
2. J. R. Zurcher, Touched With Our Feelings, (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1999), p. 153.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid, Kenneth H. Wood, Preface, p. 18.
5. Ibid, pp. 153-165.
6. Ibid, pp. 287-294.
7. Mark A. Kellner, “‘Questions on Doctrine’ Book Annotated, Republished,” Adventist News Network, November 18, 2003, http://www.adventist.org/news/data/2003/10/1069166562/index.html.en, accessed November 23, 2003, 3:15pm PST.
8. George R. Knight writes, “Melvill held that the incarnate Christ was neither just like Adam before the Fall nor just like fallen humanity since the entrance of sin.” Annotated Edition (2003): Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine, (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2003), p. 523. The real essence of Melvill's position is that Adam was affected morally by the Fall in a way that Jesus was not. Contrast Melvill's position with Ellen G. White's unequivocal statement in Desire of Ages, p. 117: “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.” Jesus partook of the same Fall-fallout liabilities as us in terms of degeneracy and moral worth, for only thus could He rescue man. Kevin Paulson's forthcoming article “Revisiting the Roots of Contemporary Conflict” will provide a fuller discussion of the question here, the scope of which extends beyond the purpose and space considerations of this document.
9. Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 42.
10. Kevin D. Paulson, “The Lower and Higher Natures,” http://www.greatcontroversy.org/reportandreview/pau-lhnature.php3.
11. Larry Kirkpatrick, “Questions on Doctrine Authors Attempted to Explicitly Introduce Original Sin Doctrine,” December 4, 2003, http://www.greatcontroversy.org/columns/c-lk031204.php3.

Pastor Larry Kirkpatrick is an ordained minister of the gospel. Since 1994 he has served in the American Southwest as pastor to several churches. He received his BA in Religion from Southern Adventist University in 1994 and a Master of Divinity from Andrews University in 1999 with a specialization in Adventist Studies. While in Michigan he was employed by the General Conference at the White Estate Berrien Springs branch office. More important than his scholastic preparation has been his immersion in the biblical and Spirit of Prophecy materials. He is author of the 2003 book Real Grace for Real People. Presently he serves as Pastor of the Mentone Church of Seventh-day Adventists, located near Loma Linda, California. Larry is married to Pamela. The couple presently live in Highland, California along with their two children, Etienne and Melinda.