The Confessing Seventh-day Adventist

Eugene Shubert · by **Eugene Shubert** » Tue May 28, 2002 10:31 am

There is a mystery in Scripture regarding Christ’s human nature:

In order to save fallen beings, Christ “had to be made like His brethren in all things” (Hebrews 2:17). Jesus appeared on earth “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3). He was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11) and by what He suffered (Hebrews 2:18). “He was tempted in every way, just as we are” (Hebrews 4:15). Scripture also teaches that Christ is “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26).

How do we reconcile these seemingly incompatible statements?

Eugene Shubert · by **Eugene Shubert** » Mon Aug 12, 2002 3:39 am

I believe Jesus had the awareness within Himself that He was not to use His divine power to ease His own difficulties. As I’ve explained in the link, I believe Jesus had to struggle with and resist exercising His divinity for Himself and submit to His Father’s will in exactly the same way we are required to yield our own will, to walk by the Spirit and not carry out the desire of the flesh.

I believe that Jesus’ struggle with His nature is comparable to our own struggle and that this is what the Bible means by Jesus coming in “the likeness of sinful flesh.”

Eugene Shubert · by **Eugene Shubert** » Mon Aug 12, 2002 4:19 pm

How can a person have a divine nature and a human nature at the same time in the way that we believe Jesus Christ did?

To this question R. C. Sproul writes: “It is so difficult for us to understand how one person can have two natures. You are asking me the question ‘How?’ I don’t know how; I know that Jesus is one person with two natures.”

I believe I answered R. C. Sproul’s question reasonably well. Does anyone believe that I didn’t answer this ancient mystery in theology satisfactorily?

How can a person have a divine nature and a human nature at the same time in the way that we believe Jesus Christ did?

R. C. Sproul wrote: One of the great crises in evangelical Christianity today is a lack of understanding about the person of Christ. Almost every time I watch Christian television, I hear one the classical creeds of the Christian faith being denied blatantly, unknowingly, unwittingly. And of course, part of the of reason is that it is so difficult for us to understand how one person can have two natures. You are asking me the question "How?" I don't know how; I know that Jesus is one person with two natures. How can that be? Long before there was a human nature, there was a second person of the Trinity. Here the second person of the Trinity, very God of very God, God himself, was able to take upon himself a human nature. No human being could reverse the process and take upon himself a divine nature. I cannot add deity to my humanity. It's not as if Christ changed from deity into humanity. That's what I hear all the time. I hear that there was this great eternal God who suddenly stopped being God and became a man. That's not what the Bible teaches. The divine person took upon himself a human nature. We really can't understand the mystery of how this happened. But it is conceivable, certainly, that God, with his power, can add to himself a human nature and do it in such a way as to unite two natures in one person.

The most important council about this in the history of the church, whose decision has stood for centuries as the model of Christian orthodoxy and is embraced by Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Roman Catholics, Baptists -virtually every branch of Christendom- is the Council of Chalcedon. It was held in the year 451, in which the church confessed its belief about Jesus in this way: They said that we believe that Jesus is verus homus, verus Deus ~truly man, truly God. Then they went on to set boundaries for how we're to think about the way in which these two natures relate to each other. They said that these two natures are in perfect unity, without mixture, division, confusion, or separation. When we think about the Incarnation, we don't want to get the two natures mixed up and think that Jesus had a deified human nature or a humanized divine nature. We can distinguish them, but we can't tear them apart because they exist in perfect unity. —From "Now That's A Good Question" by R.C. Sproul.

by **RonA** » Mon Jan 20, 2003 5:34 pm

We all know that our Lord was God incarnate. That is, he resided in a human body. But was the body he indwelled in as inclined towards sin as ours is? This has been debated for centuries. The bible clearly says "he KNEW no sin." It doesn't just say he had no sin, but that within himself he knew no sin. We are aware of sin every day. We lust, we feel anger, we sometimes tell little white lies and we're not always faithful in our worship. I personally believe Jesus Christ the MAN was a perfect man, as Adam was before the fall. He had no sinful desires as we have, yet he was tempted by sin from outside himself. That is quite different. The devil tempted him repeatedly. That is my belief on the fleshly nature of Jesus. He was the PERFECT sacrifice for our sins. A lamb WITHOUT BLEMISH.

by **tewall** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 9:39 pm

My first post! We'll see how this goes.

I believe Christ's human nature was similar to ours in that He could be tempted and was tempted in all points as we are. That Christ was "holy, pure and set apart from sinners" is referring to that fact that Christ never sinned in thought word or deed.

From the Spirit of Prophesy we read: "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." DA 49

This is a well-know statement, of which I would like to especially point out the phrase, "What these results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors." There are those who think that Christ inherited only such results of sin as hunger, thirst and tiredness, but clearly the results E. G. White was referring to here are not such things.

Another point is that there was no disagreement within Sevent-day Adventism regarding the human nature of Christ during E. G. White's lifetime. Her views were in harmony with her colleagues, such as W. W. Prescott, S. N. Haskell and scores of others. One can see what the views of the S. D. A. church were by reading the Signs of the Time articles, Review and Herald articles, books and so on.

I find it ironic that there was no controversy regarding the human nature of Christ in the 19th century, but there was on the divine nature of Christ. Now we have controversy regarding the human nature of Christ, but not regarding the divine.

Eugene Shubert · by **Eugene Shubert** » Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:30 pm

Hi tewall,

Welcome to the forum. I'm no expert on SDA church history but it seems to me that there was less of a struggle in the Seventh-day Adventist church of the 19th century over both the human and divine nature of Christ than there is today.

With respect to the specific question raised in the opening of this thread, I've noticed that different Seventh-day Adventists are able to formulate an answer to the mystery from the writings of Ellen G. White, coming up with diametrically opposite conclusions. Based on EGW, one chap in our jail forum says, in effect, that Jesus Christ had Satan's nature. Naturally, I have reached the opposite conclusion.

Since the Midheaven and High Mountain forums are for teaching truth as this ministry sees it, I am of course interested in what side you take in the great debate. Did Christ have a sinful human nature or did Christ have ascendful human nature?

Eugene Shubert · by **Eugene Shubert** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 2:26 pm

There is a controversy over describing the "human" nature that Jesus had while on earth. There are four contending interpretations:

1. The nature that Jesus possessed and struggled with was to not manifest His divine nature.
2. Christ's human nature was degenerate. It tended to pull him downward toward moral depravity.
3. In Christ's flesh were corrupt principles, tendencies to evil, but the mind of Christ was so much higher than His sinful flesh that Christ had no evil urges, no propensities to sin.
4. Spiritually, the human nature of Christ was exactly like that of Adam before the fall.

The value in option 1 is that it makes Christ's experience fighting temptation comparable to ordinary human experience. The drawback in option 3 is that it interprets Christ's nature as that of a weakened super-being that could be tempted by evil. By definition, a divine nature requires that Christ could only be tempted to manifest his true self and to change his mind about the contract he made with his Father, to be a probationer in behalf of the human race.

by **Mrod3910** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:11 pm

Based on the following texts:In order to save fallen beings, Christ “had to be made like His brethren in all things” (Hebrews 2:17). Jesus appeared on earth “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3). He was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11) and by what He suffered (Hebrews 2:18). “He was tempted in every way, just as we are” (Hebrews 4:15). Scripture also teaches that Christ is “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26), the only contradiction is the one we assign to them when we do our own interpretation. If we look at the overall picture of the great controversy we know that Adam became the focal point in the battle between God and Satan. Romans 5:12 clearly tells us "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." And vs 18,19 "So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous."
This can only determine that when Christ came to earth, he put himself in place of Adam, before the fall. That his human physical flesh was of those 4,000 yrs after Adam did not change in any way the 'nature' of Christ. That he hungered, thirst and tired . . . who is to say Adam did not? These are not traits of sin. Are we to say Adam was never to eat, drink or rest???

by **Woodchuck** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 3:29 am

I would like to suggest that Jesus DID NOT have any divine power as a man.
I base my conclusion on scriptures like the following:

Jn 14:10: Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

Therefore, the miracles, etc in which Jesus was involved were done by the Father.

Jn 7:16: Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

Jn 8:28: Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.

Everything Jesus taught was given to him by the Father.

To me, this makes Jesus life more closely associated with mine. He depended on and trusted completely in the Father to guide him and keep him. Yes, he could call thousands of angels to help, but can't we too?

Regarding the human nature he took, the argument seems to always to be whether it was a sin-nature, or, a sinless-nature. Perhaps we need to define what is a sin-nature and it might help answer the question.

by **BobRyan** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 7:19 pm

Eugene Shubert wrote:I believe Jesus had the awareness within Himself that He was not to use His divine power to ease His own difficulties. As I’ve explained in the link, I believe Jesus had to struggle with and resist exercising His divinity for Himself and submit to His Father’s will in exactly the same way we are required to yield our own will, to walk by the Spirit and not carry out the desire of the flesh.

I believe that Jesus’ struggle with His nature is comparable to our own struggle and that this is what the Bible means by Jesus coming in “the likeness of sinful flesh.”

Agreed. He came with Adam's sinless nature (no propensity to sin) before the fall - and with Adam's fallen nature (weakness) after the fall.

But his temptation was was much greater than ours - as His nature as God is greater than ours.

in Christ,

Bob

by **BobRyan** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 7:22 pm

Woodchuck wrote:I would like to suggest that Jesus DID NOT have any divine power as a man.
I base my conclusion on scriptures like the following:

Jn 14:10: Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

Therefore, the miracles, etc in which Jesus was involved were done by the Father.

The devil 'tempts' Jesus to use his real God-powers to turn stone into bread. It was a "real temptation" for God - but is not a real temptation for any of us -- hence satan never tempts US to do that - no not even once.

By the same token Ellen White describes Jesus' "divinity flasing THROUGH humanity" at the transfiguration and at the purging of the temple.

So he had the power -and at times when approved by the Father - He used it.

in Christ,

Bob

Eugene Shubert · by **Eugene Shubert** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 1:43 pm

Brother Wright wrote:There was some truth in what you quoted, but the last sentence contains the poison pill. "I am suggesting that fallen human nature tends to pull human beings downward and has a descendful quality, whereas the nature that Jesus possessed and struggled with was to not manifest His divine nature."

I agree that one temptation Jesus dealt with that we do not was the stuggle not to manifest His divine nature. I also agree that fallen human nature TENDS to pull human beings downward. That said, I believe the that "in all things it behoved Him to be made like His brethren." (Heb. 2:17) If Jesus did not overcome sin with the same nature I have, there is no gospel.(Rom.1:1-3)

Brother Wright,

Aren't you ignoring the importance of the Spirit of Prophecy text placed in bold? "It was as difficult for him to keep the level of humanity as it is for men to rise above the low level of their depraved natures, and be partakers of the divine nature." You called that a poison pill. I'm saying that Christ's nature to ascend and our nature to descend are mirror-like reflections. Therefore Christ, in essence, had the same struggle with sin as we have. His fight was to keep the level of humanity that God gave Him, which was programmed into His very being. The difference between us therefore is that you want Christ to have been tempted by vice, corruption and all manner of unholy behavior (such as adultery and injustice) and I assert that Christ was only tempted to break the contract He made with the Father to complete the atonement, which is not really sin as we understand it. I assert that Christ, as Divinity, had the freedom to change His mind but that would have only brought contradiction into the Godhead.

by **Gunther** » Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:15 pm

Eugene Shubert wrote:
Brother Wright wrote:There was some truth in what you quoted, but the last sentence contains the poison pill. "I am suggesting that fallen human nature tends to pull human beings downward and has a descendful quality, whereas the nature that Jesus possessed and struggled with was to not manifest His divine nature."

I agree that one temptation Jesus dealt with that we do not was the stuggle not to manifest His divine nature. I also agree that fallen human nature TENDS to pull human beings downward. That said, I believe the that "in all things it behoved Him to be made like His brethren." (Heb. 2:17) If Jesus did not overcome sin with the same nature I have, there is no gospel.(Rom.1:1-3)

Brother Wright,

Aren't you ignoring the importance of the Spirit of Prophecy text placed in bold? "It was as difficult for him to keep the level of humanity as it is for men to rise above the low level of their depraved natures, and be partakers of the divine nature." You called that a poison pill. I'm saying that Christ's nature to ascend and our nature to descend are mirror-like reflections. Therefore Christ, in essence, had the same struggle with sin as we have. His fight was to keep the level of humanity that God gave Him, which was programmed into His very being. The difference between us therefore is that you want Christ to have been tempted by vice, corruption and all manner of unholy behavior (such as adultery and injustice) and I assert that Christ was only tempted to break the contract He made with the Father to complete the atonement, which is not really sin as we understand it. I assert that Christ, as Divinity, had the freedom to change His mind but that would have only brought contradiction into the Godhead.

Actually, Jesus Christ came to earth on a "one-way" trip. His mission was not simply to test the waters and see if they were tepid enough for Him to "Obey" His Father's will . Jesus came to do the Will of His Father, which is the criteria for anyone, including Himself, to enter the Kingdom [Matt. 7:21; Matt 12:50].

The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:10 (New International Version)
10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[a] our sins."

Ah, the dilemma presented by Jesus, who supposedly, if like a prodigal son He had gone to earth, but failed in His mission could have returned to Heaven to a somewhat lukewarm reception. (Impossible scenario)

Of course, this did not happen because:

Philippians 2:8 "And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." And so we see, Jesus was obedient, which means that had He decided to take a pass at Calvary, He would have become disobedient, making Him a sinner and therefore a member of Satan's Kingdom - unable, as Satan has always asserted - to follow God's Law, which is His Character.

Not going to Calvary would have essentially made John 3:16 & 17 lies, and we know that God cannot lie. . .

Titus 1:2 "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;" If eternal life was promised from the foundation of the earth, and it could come only through Christ, His refusal or failure to follow through with this mission would not have been a LOVING act, and therefore disobedience to God's will, which is transgression of God's law of love. And we know what sin is. We also know that the wages of sin is death [eternal].

The Confessing Seventh-day Adventist

The Mystery of Christ's Human Nature

The Mystery of Christ's Human Nature

Was Christ's flesh absent from sinful desires?

Re: The Mystery of Christ's Human Nature

Did Jesus have ascendful human nature?

Sinful or ascendful?

Christ human Nature

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