|
Helpful
Considerations Regarding the Nature of Christ From the Writings of Ellen
G. White
How are We Led to Make Wrong Conclusions?
How are led to make wrong conclusions? What hoary dogma from ages past--an alien teaching inconsistent with Adventism--could be grafted into the very structure of our belief system? What would be the impact upon our understanding of Christ's humanity?
- Signs of the Times 10 April 1893
We are led to make wrong conclusions because of erroneous views of the nature of our Lord. To attribute to his nature a power that it is not possible for man to have in his conflicts with Satan, is to destroy the completeness of his humanity.
The Impact
of Grace
1 Mind, Character, and Personality, p. 29
Sin affects the entire being; so also does grace.
Could
Christ Be Our Substitute if He was Not Fully Human?
Signs of the Times 17 June 1987, 390
Had He not been fully human, Christ could not have been our substitute. He could not have worked out in humanity that perfection of character which it is the privilege of all to reach.Signs of the Times 17 June 1987, 390
He took human nature. He became flesh even as we are . . . While in this world, Christ lived a life of complete humanity in order that He might stand as a representative of the human family.
What
is Possible for Fallen Humanity?
- Review and Herald 24 April 1900
We must learn of Christ. We must know what He is to those He has ransomed. We must realize that through belief in Him it is our privilige to be partakers of the divine nature, and so escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. Then we are cleansed from all sin, all defects of character. We need not retain one sinful propensity.
- Fundamentals of Christian Education, p.
429
God is love. The evil that is in the world comes not from His hands, but from our great adversary, whose work it has ever been to deprave man, and enfeeble and pervert his faculties. But God has not left us in the ruin wrought by the fall. Every faculty has been placed in reach by our Heavenly Father, that men may, through well-directed efforts, regain their first perfection, and stand complete in Christ.
Fundamentals of Christian Education, p.
199
Jesus looked upon the world in its fallen state
in infinite pity. He took humanity upon Himself that He might touch
and elevate humanity. He came to seek and to save that which was
lost. He reached to the very depth of human misery and woe, to take
man as He found him, a being tainted with corruption, degraded with vice,
depraved by sin, and united with Satan in apostasy, and elevate him to
a seat upon His throne.
Signs of the Times, 22 December 1887:
God said in the beginning, "Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness;" but sin has almost obliterated the moral
image of God in man. Thsi lamentable condition would have known no change
or hope if Jesus had not come down to our world to be man's saviour and
example. In the midst of a world's moral degradation He stands, a beautiful
and spotless character, the one model for man's imitation. We must study,
copy, and follow the Lord Jesus Christ; then we shall bring the loveliness
of His character into our own life, and weave His beauty into our daily
words and actions. Thus we shall stand before God with acceptance, and
win back by conflict with the principalities of darkness, the power of
self-control, and the love of God that Adam lost in the fall. Through Christ
we may possess the Spirit of love and obedience to the commands of God.
Through His merits it may be restored to us in our fallen natures; and
when the judgment shall sit and the books be opened, we may be the recipients
of God's approval.
Idea
of Christ Overcoming Through a Separate Nature that is Inaccessible to
us
Signs of the Times 17 June 1987.
Christ did nothing that human nature may not do if it partakes of the divine nature.
- 3 Selected Messages, p. 130
He [Christ] was bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh... Christ came to live the law in His human character in just that way in which all may live the law in human nature if they will do as Christ was doing.
3 Selected Messages, p. 130
The higher attributes of His being it is our
privilige to have, if we will, through the provisions He has made, appropriate
these blessings and diligently cultivate the good in the place of the evil.
We have reason, conscience, memory, will, affections--all the attributes
a human being can possess. Through the provision made when God and
the Son of God made a covenant to rescue man from the bondage of Satan,
every facility was provided that human nature should come into union with
His divine nature. In such a nature was our Lord tempted.
Signs of the Times 10 April 1893
We need not place the obedience of Christ by
itself as something for which He was particularly adapted, because of His
divine nature; for He stood before God as man's representative, and was
tempted as man's substitute and surity. If Christ had a special power
which it is not the privilige of man to have, Satan would have made capitol
of this matter. But the work of Christ was to take from Satan his
control of man, and He could do this only in a straightforward way.
He came as a man to be tempted as a man, rendering the obedience of a man.
Christ rendered obedience to God, and overcame as humanity must overcome.
1 Selected Messages, p. 226
By living a sinless life He [Christ] testified
that every son and daughter of Adam can resist the temptations of the one
who first brought sin into the world.
Plain
Ellen G. White Statements on the Nature of Christ
- 1 Selected Messages, p. 247
Christ did not make-believe take human nature; He did verily take it.
Desire of Ages, p. 49
It would have been an almost infinite humiliation
for the Son of God to take man's nature, even when Adam stood in his innocence
in Eden. But Jesus accepted humanity when the race had been weakened
by four thousand years of sin. Like every child of Adam He accepted
the results of the working of the great law of heredity. What these
results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors. He
came with such a heredity to share our sorrows and temptations, and to
give us the example of a sinless life.
Desire of Ages, p. 117
Satan had pointed to Adam's sin as proof that
God's law was unjust, and could not be obeyed. In our humanity, Christ
was to redeem Adam's failure. But when Adam was assailed by the tempter,
none of the effects of sin were upon him. He stood in the strength
of perfect manhood, possessing the full vigor of mind and body. He
was surrounded with the glories of Eden, and was in daily communion with
heavenly beings. It was not thus with Jesus when He entered the wilderness
to cope with Satan. 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.
God's Amazing Grace, p. 175
How glorious are the possibilities set before
the fallen race! Through His Son, God has revealed the excellency
to which man is capable of attaining. Through the merits of Christ
man is lifted above his depraved state, purified, and made more precious
than the golden wedge of ophir.
Confrontation, p. 31
In the desolate wilderness, Christ was not in
so favorable a position to endure the temptations of Satan as was Adam
when he was tempted in Eden. The Son of God humbled Himself and took man's
nature after the race had wandered 4000 years from Eden, and from their
original state of purity and uprightness. Sin had been making its terrible
marks upon the race for ages; and physical, mental, and moral degeneracy
prevailed throughout the human family."
When Adam was assailed by
the tempter in Eden, he was without the taint of sin. He stood before God
in the strength of perfect manhood. All the organs and faculties of his
being were perfectly developed, and harmoniously balanced.
Christ, in the wilderness
of temptation, stood in Adam's place to bear the test he failed to endure.
Here Christ overcame in the sinners behalf, four thousand years after Adam
turned His back upon the light of his home. Separated from the presence
of God, the human family had been departing, each successive generation,
farther from the original purity, wisdom, and knowledge that Adam possessed
in Eden. Christ bore the sins and infirmities of the race as they existed
when He came to the earth to help man. In behalf of the race, with the
weaknesses of fallen man upon Him, He was to stand the temptations of Satan
upon all points on which man could be assailed.
Confrontation, p.33
In order to elevate man, Christ must reach Him
where he was. He took human nature, and bore the infirmities and degeneracy
of the race."
Confrontation, p. 78
By experiencing in Himself [Jesus] the strength
of Satan's temptation, and of human suffering and infirmities, He would
know how to succor those who should put forth efforts to help themselves."
How
Do we Sin? How Does this Relate to Adam?
Signs of the Times 17 June 1987Notice that Adam lost the gift of life and immortality by disobeying God. And in the same way (that is, by disobeying God) all born of Adam forfeit the gift. Notice from the same article that although "As children of the first Adam, we partake of the dying nature of Adam. But through the imparted life of Christ, man has been given opportunity to win back again the lost gift of life, and to stand in his original position before God, a partaker of the divine nature." If we choose to receive the imparted life of Christ, our participation in the dying nature of Adam is anulled. This all fits in well with this extraordinary statement:
As Adam lost the gift of life and immortality by his disobedience, so all born of Adam forfeit this gift.
- Maranatha, p. 224
Everyone who through by faith in Christ obeys all of God's commandments, will reach the condition of sinlessness in which Adam lived before his transgression.
What
is the Experience Necessary for us to Stand in the Sight of a Holy God
when Probation has Closed?
- Great Controversy, p. 623
Now, while our great High Priest is making the atonement for us, we should seek to become perfect in Christ. Not even by a thought could our Saviour be brought to yield to the power of temptation. Satan finds in human hearts 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.
Desire of Ages, p. 123
"The prince of this world cometh," said Jesus,
"and hath nothing in Me." John 14:30. There was in Him nothing that responded
to Satan's sophistry. He did not consent to sin. Not even by a thought
did He yield to temptation. So it may be with us. Christ's humanity was
united with divinity; He was fitted for the conflict by the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit. And He came to make us partakers of the divine nature.
So long as we are united to Him by faith, sin has no more dominion over
us. God reaches for the hand of faith in us to direct it to lay fast hold
upon the divinity of Christ, that we may attain to perfection of character.
Last Modified 23 March 2000