We've been busy. Morning and evening goes by, then another. As if a blink, two-thousand and fifteen is headed for the history books.

About this time each year some become dispirited and depressed. Hope ebbs. They feel isolated and failed and alone. People gather with loved ones for the holidays but others have experienced collapsed relationships. Their season is very solitary. Gloom enshrouds them. Some experience seasonal affective disorder from lack of sunlight. Daylight is short, the night is long, and a string of failures seems to choke them. It may be gloriously white outside, but theirs is a dark Christmas.

Let's take a theological and historical journey. We're headed for

• The 1950s,
• QOD,
• Adventist experimentation with original sin, and
• A review of what the Bible teaches concerning the same.

Consider this excerpt from the current Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Number seven, The Nature of Man:

When our first parents disobeyed God, they denied their dependence upon Him and fell from their high position under God. The image of God in them was marred and they became subject to death. Their descendants share this fallen nature and its consequences. They are born with weaknesses and tendencies to evil.

Our aim for this hour:

• Survey Adventist understanding of the nature of Christ from beginnings to the 1950s;
• Review best practices for interpreting Ellen White's writings;
• Review the Bible teaching on the nature of Christ;
• Consider Ellen White's main published statements on the nature of Christ; and,
• Investigate her chief "unpublished" writing: the Baker letter.

This approach should help us more clearly understand Ellen White's view on the nature of Christ. We're addressing her "Christology": what inspired writings tell us about Jesus and His Divinity and humanity in combination.