No matter what Bible subjects we choose to study, there is one subject more important than any other. All of us run the risk of being wrong on Bible teachings because of the faultiness of human reasoning, but let us pray never to be wrong on the method of salvation. And yet, it is precisely on this subject that there is more confusion than any other. But this is really not surprising, because Satan knows well that this is the most important subject of all. So let us make a pledge never to become complacent in our study of salvation. We must not assume that we know how it works because someone taught us years ago. Are we really willing to risk our eternal life on the accuracy of a fellow mortal’s interpretation of the Bible? And it doesn’t make much difference if that person is a pastor or a layperson. If we can study only one subject thoroughly, let it be the method of salvation.
Justification and Sanctification
Some say that justification is the gospel and sanctification is the fruit of the gospel. This seems logical, especially when you hear it often enough. Why does it matter, anyway? The importance is simple. The gospel saves, but the fruits of the gospel are nice benefits of salvation. If sanctification is only a fruit of salvation, then we need to focus on justification and let sanctification take care of itself. But if sanctification is part of the gospel and part of the saving process, then we need to study it as carefully as justification.
It is really not that complicated, and it shouldn’t be confusing. Justification is God forgiving our past, giving us a fresh start, and treating us as innocent. But God never tells a lie. He does not just say we are clean while we are still dirty inside. If God is going to treat us as clean, it can only be because He has made us clean. Otherwise, He would be telling a lie. 1 John 1:9 is very clear. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So justification has two parts. God declares us right and makes us right at the same time. We have a fresh start.
But the start is just the beginning of the journey. What God really wants to do in the whole salvation process is to make us like Himself in character, so that we will enjoy the activities and conversations of heaven, where we will always be in the presence of God. What kind of heaven would it be if we were always uncomfortable around God and the angels? So God slowly begins to tell us what His laws and values are, and if our justification was real, we will be delighted to leave off the things which don’t fit into God’s plan, and replace them with God’s suggestions for happiness. If we are always complaining about God’s rules and values, isn’t that a sign that the heart was not really cleansed in justification? True obedience always flows from a heart that has been cleansed. Obedience isn’t the way to be cleansed.
So God treats us as holy, and then He goes to work on the hard job of changing our misunderstandings and misconceptions so that we will actually live holy lives. God teaches us new things and He enables us to put them into practice in our daily lives. That is sanctification. It is crucial to note that sanctification is just as much God’s work as justification, and is really the hardest part of God’s salvation process for us, because we’re all pretty slow learners. A very serious error here is that sanctification is part my work and part God’s work, which obviously makes sanctification a flawed process. This mistake makes sanctification just an added result or fruit of salvation, which is believed to be justification alone.
Justification and sanctification are just two parts of one saving process, and if either one is out of whack, the whole process disintegrates. The gospel is the justifying and sanctifying work of God to make sinners into saints. First God changes us, and then He brings our mind and character into harmony with His mind and character. Our job at each point is to say, "Yes, Lord," as we cooperate with His saving process. "But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." (1 Cor. 1:30) Righteousness and sanctification and redemption are all synonyms and mean the same thing. This is really a very simple truth that can be wrapped up in one sentence—Jesus came to save us from our sins, not in our sins.
Now every one of us can thank God that when this "making holy" process hits a bump in the road, and we fall into the old values of Satan and self, God is right there to forgive and cleanse again—that’s rejustification—and continue the work of making us like Him in character.
But there seems to be a contradiction to salvation being God’s work in Phil. 2:12, which says, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Here Paul is focusing on sanctification ever and always moving toward Christ-like character because of the prior work of God in justification. When people accept Jesus as their Savior (justification), it should have some real effect in their life. Being saved by God should affect our personalities, our characters, our traits, habits, and routines. In a world filled with indecent people, Christians should really be like Jesus: compassionate, caring, thoughtful, peace-loving, responsible, etc.
But how can we be like this? Are we supposed to work harder? The answer is in Phil. 2:13. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." God enables our will to make good choices, and then He provides the power to carry out those choices. Don’t miss the point that it is God’s Spirit working in us. Our work is to turn the initial justification of our salvation into a consistent pattern, a habit that grows each day in sanctification. His power changes us day by day. This work makes us easier to live with at home. This work makes us more pleasant in our jobs.
Ellen White summarizes nicely the balance needed in MH 487. "Not even God can make our characters noble or our lives useful, unless we become coworkers with Him." It is all about working together and allowing God to accomplish His will in us.
Assurance of Salvation
In the daily process of being saved, one question is always at the forefront of our thoughts. Am I sure that I am right with God today? A prisoner wrote, "I had begun to have doubts concerning my salvation. After serving more than 10 years for trespassing the laws of God and the law of man,...I began to allow my mind to entertain the ideas that, perhaps, I was not justified in God’s sight after all. Perhaps my salvation was not assured after all." All of us have had the same doubts at times. A pastor wrote, "Many Adventists and other Christians—possibly even pastors—are uncertain about their salvation."
While there are more important issues than our assurance of salvation, such as our vindication of God and the end of the great controversy, still we need to have peace in our hearts. Another pastor wrote, "Adventists need, and must have, assurance if their mission and message is to be truly effective in hastening the coming of Jesus. Assurance is being under the loving Lordship and saving grace of Jesus Christ in a relationship of confident commitment. If we have the Son of life we possess His life, and we know that our future is secure....It is only in assurance that we possess the peace that surpasses all understanding. From peace there is power: power to overcome our personal demons and power to offer grace to the lost we are in contact with every day."
If we want to find answers to our questions about salvation, there is no better place to look than God’s sanctuary—His object lesson about the process of salvation. "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?" (Ps. 77:13) If you were a Hebrew during the wilderness wanderings, you would learn about the plan of salvation from the portable tabernacle, because through the sanctuary service the gospel was presented to Israel.
Suppose, though, that your understanding of the plan of salvation was limited only to the death of the animal; that is, you knew only the part of the service that centered around the sacrifice. If nothing else was explained to you about the ministry of the priesthood with the blood of the slain animals brought into the sanctuary, would you not have a more limited understanding of salvation than someone who understood not only the death of the animal but the ministry in the tabernacle with that animal’s blood, particularly the ministry on the Day of Atonement when the high priest once a year went into the Most Holy Place to perform the work of cleansing the sanctuary?
Who would have a larger grasp of salvation—the one whose focus, knowledge, and interest ended with the death of the animal (symbolic of the cross) or the one whose understanding encompassed the entire sanctuary ritual, starting with the death of the animals and culminating with the Day of Atonement, when the sanctuary itself was cleansed by the blood of that slain animal? The answer is obvious. Those whose understanding of the plan of salvation is limited only to the cross without all that happens afterward, including the judgment, have a truncated view of the cross. We can’t fully understand the death of the animal without understanding the service that followed it, just as we can’t fully understand the cross without understanding the ministry that follows it, which includes the judgment, as typified by the Day of Atonement ritual.
Here’s the question: Was there any tension, much less contradiction, between the death of the animals, which symbolized the cross, and the ministry of the high priest in the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement, which symbolized the judgment? Of course not. As two parts of the whole, both were crucial aspects of the plan of salvation. Unfortunately, many Adventists have struggled with the pre-Advent judgment, seeing it as something not just in tension with the cross but in contradiction to it. Yet how could it be, if both are parts of God’s one plan of salvation?
The answer can be found in the earthly type of the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16, symbolic of the judgment. Did the high priest enter into the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement every year without blood? Of course not, for that would be death. In the earthly model of the Day of Atonement, everything happened with blood. We are in the Day of Atonement, and we can have assurance and peace because the blood of Christ is involved in every aspect of the day’s services. The grace of Christ is still very active during the judgment.
This truth says that professed believers will be judged by an all-seeing God, and ultimately either validated as sincere or exposed as phonies. This "scrutinizing of the saints" has been the most offending element of the sanctuary truth, but for those looking in from the outside, it provides a welcome reprieve from prevailing cheap grace. God is seen not as a doting sugardaddy playing favorites but as a loving Father governing all His children equitably. What is done in the darkness is seen and chronicled in the books of heaven to stand as objective testimony in heaven’s court. This tells those whose sense of justice is offended by man’s inhumanity to man that the Judge of the world can’t be bought off by pretended piety.
The psalmist saw this clearly. "For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked....Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end." (Ps. 73:3, 17) The poor man who trembles under the tyranny of the rich, the minority legally or socially enslaved by the powerful, the babies aborted for the sake of mindless pleasure, and the women forced to use their bodies as merchandise are seen and valued by a God who is no respecter of persons. The sanctuary doctrine reveals that we are significant to God, who notices the details of our lives sufficiently to record them all. He chronicles the spiritual journeys of His children in loving detail, and this is evidence that He broods over us like a compassionate, concerned mother.
The sanctuary is God’s tough love program—all the more desperately needed in today’s permissive climate. Sin is, after all, the cause of the damage in our lives. Why then do we reject a teaching because it’s tough on sin? Long before Dr. Phil, God designed a system of confrontation and accountability called the heavenly sanctuary. In God’s bidding to put away sin lies the promise that it is possible. The sanctuary doctrine speaks to our quest for holiness by showing us how sinful humans may, through the blood of Jesus, interface with a holy God. Of all the doctrines in our treasure chest, one stands out as the unique contribution we make to Christian theology. Other churches teach the biblical Sabbath, the health message, and conditional immortality. We alone teach the sanctuary truth. Will we cherish the treasure that makes us unique, or trash it as a useless relic?
The Danger of Idolatry
Our subject is righteousness and holiness, and one of the greatest barriers to both is a word that begins with "I," and the best example comes from the first high priest of the sanctuary. "All and the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a golden calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord." (Ex. 32:3-5) Aaron simply tried to compromise and maintain the security of his position.
We, too, minimize or simply deny our complicity with the idolatries of our culture. Idolatry is the universal human tendency to value something or someone in a way that hinders the love and trust that we owe to God. It is an act of theft from God whereby we use some part of creation in a way that steals honor due to God. We commit idolatry when we have an eye to pleasing humans rather than God. Of course, we rationalize it by thinking of it in terms of "meeting people where they are" and reminding ourselves that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. We fail to see that what looks like honey is an offense to God and is deadly poison both to us and to those to whom we offer it.
John Calvin is famous for saying that the human heart is a factory for idols. We churn out new ones as quickly as we throw out old, and once we have made them, the desire to serve and worship them is almost irresistible. The only effective and lasting way to rid our lives of idolatry is by replacing it with something else. So we turn to our Lord, praying that the rediscovery of the glory of Christ’s love for us and ours for Him will render idols irrelevant and powerless. When your heart goes into the sanctuary of God, when you allow yourself to fall in love with Jesus all over again, you can say with the psalmist, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is nothing upon earth I desire beside thee." (Ps. 73:25) The fresh wind of the Spirit blows away the old idols, extinguishing their glow and allure. Idolatry? It starts with "I," but it can end through the power of Jesus Christ at work within us.
"When we fall, all helpless, suffering in consequence of our realization of the sinfulness of sin; when we humble ourselves before God, afflicting our souls by true repentance and contrition; when we offer our fervent prayers to God in the name of Christ, we shall as surely be received by the Father, as we sincerely make a complete surrender of our all to God." (Ye Shall Receive Power, p. 369)
Higher Than the Highest Human Thought
For us living in the most dramatic and exciting period in human history—the cleansing of the sanctuary— justification and sanctification are not only about our assurance of salvation. All of the services of the sanctuary moved toward and found completion in the Day of Atonement, when for one glorious moment every heart and the whole nation stood spotless and clean before the all-seeing eye of God. Then almost immediately the whole process of sinning and repenting started over. In the real Day of Atonement God has something much better in mind, when the cleansing and spotlessness would not last for just one day, but would last for the rest of eternity. We will conclude our study of the method of salvation by looking higher than the highest human thought can reach. We will do some prophetic dreaming with God about what may be.
"Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own. It is the privilege of every Christian not only to look for but to hasten the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (COL 69) What an incredible day, when Christ’s character will be the character of every true Christian.
"The blessing of grace is given to men that the heavenly universe and the fallen world may see as they could not otherwise, the perfection of Christ’s character. The Great Physician came to our world to show men and women that through His grace they may so live that in the great day of God they can receive the precious testimony, ‘Ye are complete in Him.’" (GAG 97) God’s grace—justification and sanctification—is given to us so that we can show the universe what the word "complete" means.
"There is a clean, pure mind. The soul and the body...is to be presented to God without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing....A clean thing is brought out of an unclean, restoring the image of God in man. The human agent is to go forward to reach the highest standard of perfection of character by beholding the character of Jesus Christ." (7MR 274) Is this higher than the highest human thought can reach?
"The whole universe is looking with inexpressible interest to see the closing of the work of the great controversy between Christ and Satan." (IHP 363) Is our interest in the same place, or is it diverted to many other subjects?
"In the unfolding of God’s plan we are to be restored to a state corresponding to the perfection of divinity." (7MR 326) Is this higher than our highest human thought?
"The honor of God, the honor of Christ, is involved in the perfection of the character of His people." (DA 671) We see here that much more than my salvation is involved. It is the credibility of God’s promises which is at stake. Can He deliver what He promises? The same point is made again by Ellen White. "The honor of Christ must stand complete in the perfection of the character of His chosen people." (ST Nov. 25, 1897)
"The godly character of this prophet [Enoch] represents the state of holiness which must be attained by those who shall be ‘redeemed from the earth’ at the time of Christ’s second advent." (PP 88) This is the real point of any discussion of righteousness by faith.
"The truth must be brought into their hearts, sanctifying and cleansing them from all earthliness and sensuality in the most private life. The soul temple must be cleansed. Every secret act is as if we were in the presence of God and holy angels....The standard must be elevated, the imagination purified; the infatuation clustering around debasing practices must be given up." (1MCP 238, 239) Do we really think we can hide our actions from God? Purifying the imagination is one of the greatest miracles of God’s saving grace. We must pray for this miracle.
"Besetting sins are overcome; evil thoughts are not allowed in the mind; evil habits are purged from the soul temple....Wrong dispositions and feelings are rooted out. Holy tempers and sanctified emotions are now the fruit borne upon the Christian tree. An entire transformation has taken place." (YRP 50) Without this transformation, salvation and assurance are meaningless words.
"At every advanced point the heart is tested and tried a little closer....Some are willing to receive one point; but when God brings them to another testing point, they shrink from it and stand back, because they find that it strikes directly at some cherished idol. Here they have opportunity to see what is in their hearts that shuts out Jesus. They prize something higher than the truth, and their hearts are not prepared to receive Jesus. Individuals are tested and proved a length of time to see if they will sacrifice their idols and heed the counsel of the True Witness....Those who come up to every point, and stand every test, and overcome, be the price what it may,...will receive the latter rain, and thus be fitted for translation." (1T 187) Are we willing to be tested and give up our idols when they are revealed to us? Only this will bring us to the latter rain.
There is an interesting bit of logic from Hebrews 10. It starts with the declaration that the animal sacrifices did not make the Israelites perfect. Verse 2 states that if the worshippers would have been cleansed with no consciousness of sin, no more sacrifices would have needed to be offered. Verse 14 says that the purpose of the one-time sacrifice of Christ was to perfect for all time those who were being sanctified. Verses 16-18 tell us that when God’s law is obeyed from the heart, He will remember their sins no more, and where there is this final forgiveness, there is no more need for any sacrifice for sin. The point seems to be that total forgiveness and cleansing are made possible by the sacrifice of Christ, and His purpose is to perfect those who are being sanctified for all time, so that they will never need forgiveness again.
Another intriguing thought comes from Rev. 10:7. "But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets." What is this mystery which will one day be finished? "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." (Col. 1:27, 28) The mystery which will be finished is what Christ is able to accomplish in the lives of rebellious sinners.
"When God’s servants reach this point, they will be sealed in their foreheads. The recording angel will declare, ‘It is done.’ They will be complete in Him." (3SM 427) I want with all my heart to hear the angel say "It is done." This will be the greatest mystery of all time, that God can actually complete what He started in Eden.
"The grace of Christ must mold the entire being, and its triumph will not be complete until the heavenly universe shall witness habitual tenderness of feeling, Christlike love, and holy deeds in the deportment of the children of God." (GAG 235) The plan of salvation cannot triumph until Christ’s character is reproduced in every true Christian.
"He is effecting transformations so amazing that Satan...stands viewing them as a fortress impregnable to his sophistries and delusions. They are to him an incomprehensible mystery." (GAG 222) We can be part of the completed mystery when we are impregnable to Satan’s temptations. But how can this mystery happen?
"The Spirit of God...silences every other voice than that which comes from Him who is the truth and the life....When the heart receives this truth as a precious treasure, Christ is formed within, the hope of glory, while the whole heavenly universe exclaims, Amen and amen! We have absolute need of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit." (YRP 123) Can we pray for the Holy Spirit to silence every voice except the voice of Christ?
"Those who have trained the mind to delight in spiritual exercises are the ones who can be translated and not be overwhelmed with the purity and transcendent glory of heaven. You may have a good knowledge of the arts, you may have an acquaintance with the sciences, you may excel in music and in penmanship, your manners may please your associates, but what have these things to do with a preparation for heaven?" (2T 267) This is a penetrating question, which every parent must ponder carefully. Are we preparing our young people for the purity of heaven or success in adapting to human culture?
Some counsel from 1 John 3:1-3 seems appropriate here. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." The reality is that only those who are pure can see God and live.
"Wrestling with God—how few know what it is! How few have ever had their souls drawn out after God with intensity of desire until every power is on the stretch. When waves of despair which no language can express sweep over the suppliant, how few cling with unyielding faith to the promises of God." (GC 621) Let us determine to be one of the few who know what it is to wrestle with God, for this is the only possible way to experience the preceding promises.
"Not even by a thought could our Saviour be brought to yield to the power of temptation....Satan could find nothing in the Son of God that would enable him to gain the victory....This is the condition in which those must be found who shall stand in the time of trouble." (GC 623) Is this higher than our highest thought can imagine?
There is one very important component to consider if we have any hope of realizing the incredible promises we have read. "Our very bodies are not our own, to treat as we please, to cripple by habits that lead to decay, making it impossible to render to God perfect service." (20MR 115, emphasis supplied)
"If ever there was a time when the diet should be of the most simple kind, it is now. Meat should not be placed before our children....Grains and fruits prepared free from grease, and in as natural a condition as possible, should be the food for the tables of all who claim to be preparing for translation to heaven." (CD 63)
"Those who have received instruction regarding the evils of the use of flesh foods, tea and coffee, and rich and unhealthful food preparations, and who are determined to make a covenant with God by sacrifice, will not continue to indulge their appetite for food that they know to be unhealthful. God demands that the appetites be cleansed....This is a work that will have to be done before His people can stand before Him a perfected people." (CD 36) This is one of those idols which must be placed on the altar of sacrifice if we have any hope of being translatable.
"Among those who are waiting for the coming of the Lord, meat-eating will eventually be done away; flesh will cease to form a part of their diet." (CD 380) How serious are we about preparing for translation? Are these empty words, or is everything surrendered to Christ?
God’s plan of salvation is incomprehensible to ordinary human thinking. It is almost unbelievable even for those who have faith in God’s Word. It is truly the mystery hidden from the foundation of the world. God says that He will take an entire generation of ordinary human beings and make them the wonder of the universe. All will see that justification and sanctification are not just a coverup for ongoing sinning, but a proven method for removing all sin from the life and making men and women safe candidates for living in the holy environment of heaven. To God be the glory, great things He will do.
Dale Ratzlaff, a prominent ex-Adventist minister, has written: “Does the SDA doctrine of the cleansing of the sanctuary and the investigative judgment distort, undermine, or contradict the one and only new covenant gospel of grace?” (The Cultic Doctrine of Seventh-day Adventists, p. 319)
Exactly why has there been such opposition to the teaching of the investigative judgment? Less than two years following 1980, former Adventist professor Smuts van Rooyen was asked in an interview, “What do you see as being wrong with the Adventist doctrine of the investigative judgment?” He replied:
Letme answer that by reading a statement from Ellen White. She wrote this in the book The Great Controversy. “Those who are living upon the earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above, are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator. Their robes must be spotless, their characters must be purified from sin by the blood of sprinkling. Through the grace of God and their own diligent effort they must be conquerors in the battle with evil. While the investigative judgment is going forward in heaven…there is to be a special work of purification, of putting away of sin, among God’s people upon the earth.”
What the investigative judgment boils down to in practice is this: When John Doe confesses the sin of impatience, that sin is not cancelled, but recorded. The blood of Jesus has simply transferred the sin from John to the sanctuary. In the judgment John must face that sin again. If by that time he has not overcome the sin, it remains against him. This then makes it imperative that John overcome every sin he has ever confessed. He must, in fact, reach perfection….Now perfectionism is a terrible thing and it leads to devastating insecurity in one’s Christian experience, but perfectionism is an integral part of Mrs. White’s investigative judgment doctrine. (“Interview with Smuts van Rooyen,”Evangelica, May, 1982, p. 14)
So the real issue is not 1844, but righteousness by faith, specifically the teaching of victory over all sin before Jesus comes. Some years later, Morris Venden wrote: “The dialogue concerning the investigative judgment…within our church today seems primarily an attempt to settle on our beliefs concerning sin and righteousness and salvation.” (Never Without an Intercessor, pp. 7-8)
In his most recent book, Desmond Ford wrote the following: “I would also strongly recommend Woodrow W. Whidden’s book Ellen White on Salvation.” Ford’s wife Gillian was very explicit: “It was Ford’s emphasis on righteousness by faith that led him to see the necessity for reinterpretation of the SDA scheme of prophecy.” (For the Sake of the Gospel, pp. 85, 153)
It is very clear that all discussion of the investigative judgment and the final atonement and the most holy place is really about the gospel and the method of salvation. For Ford and others who hold to this salvation theology, the following are their key points:
Involuntary sin—the belief that all become sinners simply by being born.
The unfallen nature of Christ—the belief that the humanity that Christ took upon Himself was the sinless nature of Adam as it was before the fall [or that He had a hybrid nature, partly fallen and partly unfallen].
Salvation by justification alone—the belief that the ground of the Christian’s salvation includes justifying righteousness only, as distinct from thetransforming, empowering righteousness of regeneration and sanctification [which are only results of salvation].
Justification as exclusively declarative and not transformative—the belief that justifying righteousness only declares a believer righteous, as distinct fromactually making him righteous.
Imperfectability of Christian character—the belief that even through imparted divine strength, perfect obedience to the divine law remains impossible for the Christian in this life. (Kevin D. Paulson, “Righteousness By Faith and the Sanctuary Doctrine,” Adventists Affirm, Summer, 2009, pp.18-19)
There is also the question of whether the atoning ministry of Christ was finished on the cross. The “finished work of Christ” concept here considered goes beyond the simple truth that Jesus died for the whole world and brought an end to the Old Testament sacrificial system. Here are some sample statements: “Jesus Christ took away your sins…two thousand years ago.” (Desmond Ford quoted in Conflicting Concepts of Righteousness By Faith, p. 82) “God forgave us 2,000 years ago….And with His death, it is finished.’” (Steve Marshall, Blessed Assurance, p. 21)
Logically, this theory leads to the belief that all our sins—past, present, and future—have already been forgiven, and that once a person accepts Christ, future sins are forgiven just as surely as past ones. Adventist advocates of this teaching have used such terms as “overarching forgiveness,” “the umbrella of eternal grace,” and have illustrated the concept by a man wearing a black suit with a white umbrella overhead. One author believes salvation to be based on justification alone, declaring the “the righteousness God produces in us…has no saving value.” (Jack Sequeira, Beyond Belief, p. 170)
Ford insists that the final blotting out of believers’ sins takes place when one accepts Christ, without any need for a a future blotting out of recorded sins in a heavenly judgment. Because objectors to the sanctuary doctrine tend to believe our sins have already been removed by Christ on the cross, and thus need not be removed either from the heavenly sanctuary or the Christian’s earthly life, sanctification is thus reduced to an unspecified, never-completed work which functions only as proof that a person has been justified.
The definitions we give for sin, justification, sanctification, the basis of salvation, and God’s ultimate requirements for His people, exert tremendous logical force on our conclusions concerning such key Adventist doctrines as the sanctuary, the Sabbath, the remnant-church theology, and much more. If one accepts the evangelical gospel, with its “justification-alone” salvation and belief in the imperfectability of Christian character, the notion of a heavenly tribunal investigating the thoughts and deeds of professed Christians is both needless and noxious. Salvation has been completed at the cross, and all that is necessary for the Christian is to accept this finished reality.
Those seeking to blend key features of the evangelical gospel with the classic Adventist sanctuary doctrine must of necessity compromise features of both systems in order to achieve such a synthesis. [This is what has been happening over the past twenty years by the most respected pastors and teachers in the church, in a desperate attempt to blend two incompatible belief systems, so that we can avoid being labeled a cult.] But neither
Scripture, the writings of Ellen White, nor simple logic allow for such harmony. The consequences of such efforts will continue to be tension, inconsistent assumptions, and a precariously brokered peace. [What we are calling “unity in diversity” in actuality is “disunity in disagreement,” with much suspicion on both sides.] And in the end…such efforts must fail. (Kevin Paulson, pp. 27, 37,38)
What Is Sin?
Since the basis for opposite gospels is the meaning of sin, let us refresh our memories about what is at stake here. Ellen White stated, “Our only definition of sin is that given in the word of God; it is ‘the transgression of the law.’” (The Great Controversy, p. 493) When Ellen White made that statement, was she making a theological statement, or was she simply being devotional? When it comes to theological issues like sin and salvation, some interpreters have already decided that since Ellen White was not a trained systematic theologian, the statements in her books merely constitute a devotional description.
The Bible tells us that Jesus came to save us from our sins, which means that our understanding of sin is interrelated to other issues like justification, sanctification, and the high priestly ministry of Christ in the holy and most holy places. The interpretation of sin touches in practical issues like the nature of temptation and the possibility of developing a perfect character in this sin-filled world.
We are going to look at “paradigms” for a little while. A paradigm is a pattern of thinking to explain observed data. It is usually based on unproved but reasonable assumptions. One paradigm says that the earth is the center of the universe, while another paradigm says that the earth is on the edge of one galaxy.
The Ptolemaic paradigm did not morph into the Copernican paradigm by the accumulation of adjustments to itself. Rather, it was replaced by a paradigm that was diametrically opposed to it and completely incompatible with it. As Leonard Brand…stated, “Putting the sun in the middle of the universe is one option, and putting the earth in the middle is another. One can’t make a compromise between them; we must choose one or the other.” How does this relate to the issue of the interpretation of sin? The correct understanding of sin…must be placed in the correct paradigm. If this does not take place, then one cannot come to the correct understanding….
The early church fathers…were heavily dependent on Greek philosophy for their understanding of the doctrine of God, the doctrine of man, and…the doctrine of sin….Augustine [says]…”God sovereignly predestines everything that happens, including both sin and evil…and salvation and righteousness.”…The magisterial Reformers like Luther and Calvin tended to accept Augustine’s views on this matter. Also some Adventists tend to base their view of sin, justification, and sanctification on the view of the Reformers.
[How did this paradigm influence the meaning of sin?] “The newborn infant as well as the middle-aged person…is corrupt and guilty because of the connection with Adam.” Augustine stated that…after the fall “people are free to sin but not free not to sin.” Thus sin, righteousness, salvation, and damnation are all the results of God’s decision, not yours. If you cooperated with God and are saved, it’s because He decided, and if you are lost, you had nothing to do with it. The doctrine of original sin has its basis in the doctrine of predestination as interpreted by Greek philosophy….Under the Greek philosophical paradigm expressed by Augustine, freedom not to sin does not exist. Moreover, if that is the case, then to define sin as transgression and hold a person accountable for it makes absolutely no sense if the person was merely carrying out the irresistible will of an omnipotent God. (Karl Tsaltabasidis, “What Is Sin?” Adventists Affirm, Summer, 2009, pp. 43-45)
Now let us look at an inspired analysis, from the writings of Ellen White. “It is Satan’s constant effort to misrepresent the character of God, the nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy. His sophistry lessens the obligation of the divine law and gives men license to sin.” (The Great Controversy, pp. 568,569) Thus, the enemy’s mission statement includes misrepresenting the nature of sin because he knows that the end result will be a lessening regarding the obligation of the divine law.
“The teachings of the heathen philosophers…exerted an influence in the church. Many who professed conversion still clung to the tenets of their pagan philosophy….Serious errors were thus introduced into the Christian faith. Prominent among these was the belief in man’s natural immortality and his consciousness in death.” (The Great Controversy, p. 58) On account of the body/soul dichotomy, the experience of salvation takes place in the timeless soul that has no causal connection with the body. Furthermore, the body is where original sin reigns. Within this paradigm, condemnation is the result of having sinful flesh, which includes impulses, tendencies, and desires.
The immortality of the soul, as it is considered within the paradigm of Platonic philosophy, assumes the absolute sovereignty of God and the total depravity of man. While in this totally depraved state, man’s condition is hopeless. He is born into this world already guilty and condemned for Adam’s sin. The only freedom he possesses is the freedom to sin. He is incapable of even choosing not to sin. Augustine taught that God chooses some out of the human mass of perdition to receive the gift of faith by grace and leaves others to their deserved damnation.
The implication is clear, that sin has nothing to do with the transgression of the law. If God has decreed you to be righteous, then you cannot resist His will. The concepts of freedom, choice, and sin must be interpreted within the Greek philosophical framework, and when that is done, one is either saved or lost by God’s eternal decrees. Sin is forever divorced from choice and character development has already been fixed by God.
“To many minds the origin of sin and the reason for its existence are a source of great perplexity….There are those who, in their inquiries concerning the existence of sin, endeavor to search into that which God has never revealed….Others, however, fail of asatisfactory understanding of the great problem of evil, from the fact that tradition and misinterpretation have obscured the teaching of the Bible concerning the character of God, the nature of His government, and the principles of His dealings with sin.” (The Great Controversy, p. 492)
In the predestination paradigm, “the salvation of heaven depends upon nothing which we can do in this life; neither upon a present change of heart, nor upon present belief, or a present profession of religion.” (The Great Controversy, p. 538) The immortality of the soul, original sin, and total depravity lead directly to the conclusion that sin has nothing to do with choice. Thus, the root cause of the notion that sin is divorced from choice lies in the doctrines of the immortality of the soul and divine decrees that spring from the Greek philosophical paradigm. The consequences for Christology and lifestyle issues are enormous. The data can only be interpreted by either one system or the other but not by a blending of the two.
The great controversy paradigm is very different from the predestination paradigm. It opens to view a complete system of truth, connected and harmonious. “The sanctuary in heaven is the very center of Christ’s work in behalf of man….It opens to view the plan of redemption….It is of the utmost importance that all should thoroughly investigate these subjects.” (The Great Controversy, pp. 488,489) If the plan of redemption itself must be interpreted from within the sanctuary doctrine, then by logical consistency, the doctrine of sin must also be understood from the same paradigm.
“Those who are living upon the earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator….Their characters must be purified from sin….Through the grace of God and their own diligent effort they must be conquerors in the battle with evil. While the investigative judgment is going forward in heaven…there is to be a special work of purification, of putting away of sin, among God’s people upon earth.” (The Great Controversy, p. 425)
This passage is clearly in opposition to several areas already discussed under the Greek philosophical paradigm…In the previous paradigm, guilt and Condemnation arise from simply having sinful flesh which includes tendencies. These have been received by inheritance and are not eliminated by conversion….If sin is to be put away by “the grace of God and their own diligent effort” then human beings must have freedom to sin as well as not to sin. This means that the biblical paradigm does not support the idea of total depravity and the bondage of the will….This definition of temptation and sin can only make sense in light of the great controversy theme where individuals have complete freedom. (Tsaltabasidis, pp. 52,53)
The following statement has great implications for sin, temptation, victory, and Christology. “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….This is the condition in which those must be found who shall stand in the time of trouble. It is in this life that we are to separate sin from us.” (The Great Controversy, p. 623) This passage indicates that sin as transgression is the only definition that will work.
In the following passage Mrs. White stated that contamination and defilement come only when a person is free not to sin. Christ’s “victories make it possible for us to conquer….No man without his own consent can be overcome by Satan. The tempter has no power to control the will or to force the soul to sin. He may distress, but he cannot contaminate.” (The Great Controversy, p. 510) “Willfully violating one of God’s requirements…silences the witnessing voice of the Spirit and separates the soul from God. ‘Sin is the transgression of the law.’” (The Great Controversy, p. 472)
Once the sanctuary/great controversy theme is discerned as the paradigm, the only definition of sin that works is transgression….Putting away sin does not refer to the sinful flesh but to the deeds of the flesh. Inheriting a sinful nature from Adam does not contaminate our character, neither does it make us guilty; it’s transgression that does that. Also, inheriting sinful flesh does not destroy a person’s ability to choose to be free from sin….Ellen White’s insistence that “our only definition of sin” is “the transgression of the law” is in fact a theological statement….She rejected the Greek philosophical paradigm that produced natural immortality, total depravity, and the doctrine of divine decrees which sees sin as totally divorced from choice, and when she referred to putting away sin by cooperating with the grace of God…her statements assume that human beings possess genuine freedom to choose whom they will serve….Judgment only makes sense if sin is defined as transgression…. It is no more possible to blend the two paradigms than it is to use the earth and the sun as models at the same time in order to explain planetary motion. Just like the correct definition of sin, one must choose in which paradigm to work. (Tsaltabasidis, pp. 55,56)
The great controversy theme must be the foundation and guide to our reasoning. It is very strange but very true that an irreconcilable division between two vastly different and opposite claims still remains in the great controversy theme as interpreted by some Adventist teachers. In the true great controversy paradigm sin has fundamentally two components: 1) the weakening effect of Adam’s transgression, passed down to us through the law of heredity in a fallen, sinful, sin-prone human nature, of which none are guilty, and 2) our own sinful choices and acts, for which we are responsible and liable. The only thing we inherited from the fall of Adam, and as a consequence of his fall, is a weakened human nature, the fallen sinful flesh. However, in no way do we receive any guilt or condemnation from, or deserve any punishment for, Adam’s sin. To believe this would necessitate accepting the Roman Catholic, as well as the Protestant, teaching of the dogma of “original sin.” Subsequently, we would be compelled to believe in and practice the error of infant baptism.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that we are born sinners, and that “original sin…is universal. Every child is therefore defiled at its birth with the taint of Adam’s disobedience….Hence baptism, which washes away original sin, is as essential for the infant as for the full grown man, in order to attain the kingdom of heaven.” (Cardinal James Gibbons, Faith of our Fathers, p. 311) The Augsburg Confession of Protestant Princes reads, “Since the fall of Adam, all men…are born in sin, which places under condemnation and brings eternal death to all who are not born again by baptism and the Holy Ghost.” (J.A. Wylie, The History of Protestantism, part 1, p. 597)
The Nature of Christ
The teaching of “original sin,” stemmed from Greek paganism, and was further channeled by…Augustine…into the Roman Catholic Church and held by the majority of Protestants…It is the false belief in “original sin”…that logically requires that Christ assume the human nature of man before the fall, to ostensibly free Him from the presumed guilt of “original sin.” The next logical step, of course, is accepting the false belief of the immaculate conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus, so that He could receive a sinless human nature….False belief about the nature of sin leads to false belief about the nature of salvation….Whatever conclusion is reached regarding the effect of the fall of Adam, (and the nature of the sin transmitted in that fall), will also logically determine our conclusions on the human nature of Jesus Christ….Norman Gulley wrote that the two conflicting understandings of the human nature of Christ “spring from two different understandings of what constitutes sin.”…
He became one of us in that He took on, at His incarnation…the same weakened, fallen, human raw material…that we have as a result of the fall. Sinless human nature before the fall could not die, but sinful human flesh after the fall could die….At His incarnation, Christ took on the fallen weakened nature of humanity, the “sinful flesh,” the same humanity of the men and women He came to save. That was the whole point of Him condescending to become a man….Jesus took on the same “sinful flesh” of the fallen human nature to which we are subjected and defeated the power of sin in that same fallen, human, sinful flesh. As Jesus relied on and received God’s strength to do all that He did, so we can, in complete surrender to Christ, experience victory and salvation from sin.
It may be surprising to many that the most eminent Protestant theologians of the second half of the twentieth century…have openly declared Christ’s human nature to be that of man after the fall….During 100 years, 1852-1952, Adventists taught the post-fall human nature of Christ as the undisputed…Adventist position….Today, a majority of Protestants, and increasingly (for the most part, unwittingly) in the SDA church today, have accepted that Christ took the human nature of Christ before the fall. (Daniel Ferraz.“The Humanity of the Son of God Is Everything to Us,” Adventists Affirm, Summer, 2009, pp. 68-74)
A few Ellen White comments are relevant here. “The humanity of the Son of God is everything to us. This is the golden chain that binds our souls to Christ, and through Christ to God. This is to be our study….And the study of the incarnation of Christ is a fruitful field, which will repay the searcher who digs deep for present truth.” (Youth’s Instructor, Oct. 13, 1898) “The great work of redemption could be carried out only by the redeemer taking the place of fallen Adam.” (Review and Herald, Feb. 24, 1874)
To shift the Seventh-day Adventist Church from its consistently held…position from 1852-1952 on the fallen human nature of Christ represented a formidable task…One of the strongest and most active proponents of this…new anti-Adventist interpretation, proposing the pre-fall human nature of Christ, was LeRoy Edwin Froom….When Barnhouse and Martin discussed with the QOD trio “the problem of the Incarnation,”…they were assured that “the majority of the denomination have always taught the humanity of Christ to be without sin, holy and perfect, despite the fact that certain of their authors have on occasion, succeeded into getting into print, opinions completely contrary and repugnant to the majority of the church.”…
Apparently, QOD did not significantly improve Barnhouse’s perception of Seventh-day Adventists. He is reported to have said: “All I am saying is that the Adventists are Christians. I still think their doctrines are about the screwiest of any group of Christians in the
world.”…
[In summary], the Bible teaches that we inherited the effect, and not the guilt of, Adam’s sin. Adam transmitted…a weakened, fallen, human nature, with an inclination to sin….We have fundamentally, two basic theological systems upon which to build. There is the Roman Catholic/Calvinistic/Evangelical grid, whose predominant claims are: the Augustinian sovereignty of God, we are all born sinners, need infant baptism, will continue sinning until the Lord returns….Romans 7 describes a converted man,…Jesus was born with a sinless human nature like Adam’s before the fall, His human nature was not like ours. Therefore, the crucial descriptions of salvation, the “new birth,”…being a “new creation,”…having Christ “dwell” in us,…are incapable of being rightly understood….
Then there is the Adventist form of Arminianism, which maintains that we were all born with a endency toward sin; however, if we live completely surrendered and dependent on God as Christ was, we can experience salvation “from” our sins now….”Christ in you, the hope of glory.”…Jesus is our substitute and our example of victorious living….Jesus was born with a fallen human nature like Adam’s after the fall, His human nature was like ours….Thus, crucial descriptions of conversion can be rightly understood….
Attempting to resolve the debate over Christ’s human nature cannot be done by amalgamation of the pre-fall and post-fall interpretations. It is a question of one or the other. QOD was the ultimate Trojan horse that “officially” opened the floodgates of Catholic and Calvinistic theology into the divinely established Seventh-day Adventist belief system. This book effectively seeks to reverse a hundred years of…Adventist teaching on the fallen human nature of Christ….This part of our church history…will help us understand the internal disunity regarding our Christian standards, our remnant identity,…the reasons for the delay of Christ’s second coming. (Ferraz, pp.77-87)
The stakes are extremely high as Jean Zurcher pointed out in Touched With Our Feelings. “If we are mistaken about the human nature of Jesus, we risk being mistaken about every aspect of the plan of salvation. We may fail to understand the redemptive reality of the grace bestowed upon humans by Jesus to set humanity free from the power of sin.”
Ellen White warns us, “In our conclusions, we make many mistakes because of our erroneous views of the human nature of our Lord. When we give to His human nature a power that it is not possible for man to have in his conflicts with Satan, we destroy the completeness of His humanity.” (Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 929)
Why, then, do some strategically placed conservative Adventists…persist in holding to the pre-fall view?...1) Respect for authority….What is assumed and taught through the church’s established channels—especially if its promoters appear gracious, deeply spiritual, and otherwise faithful to classic Adventist teachings—is easy to accept and take for granted. Such persons often ask themselves, silently if not vocally, “How can so many good, intelligent, obviously committed Seventh-day Adventist Christians be mistaken?”…
2)Negative associations with the post-fall view….The assumption has been widely promoted…that belief in post-fall Christology is a trademark of critical, anti-denominational malcontents more interested in throwing rocks at the church than in doing God’s work….
3)Pious revulsion to the thought of Jesus experiencing fallen, fleshly temptations….The idea of our pure, spotless Saviour having anything that could be called “sinful” is abhorrent to certain ones….To think of wicked desires pulsing through the nerves and senses of their unblemished Lord, even if thoroughly resisted by a sanctified will, is deeply disturbing. Knowing their own penchant to yield to such urges,…they don’t want the incarnate Christ anywhere near such struggles. (Kevin D. Paulson, “Why Some Conservative Adventists Remain Confused About the Human Nature of Christ”)
Justification and Sanctification
What bearing do the issues of sin and the nature of Christ have on the daily experience of salvation, which we know as justification and sanctification? The following two letters were sent to Ministry, one from a Catholic priest and one from a Lutheran pastor. Both letters referred to the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church. The priest commented, “It details a common understanding of our justification by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus.” The Lutheran pastor said, “Roman Catholics and Lutherans now agree on the essence of justification by grace through faith.” He referred to “Benedict’s wonderful paper on justification which he gave last year.” (Ministry, May, 2010, p. 4)
Are the commonly held false views of sin and the nature of Christ blurring the lines between Catholicism and Protestantism on the practical issues of the gospel, like justification by faith? The truth is, the Adventist gospel is not the typical Catholic gospel or the typical Protestant gospel, which may be why it is not liked by either group. Ellen White states, “It is by continual surrender of the will, by continual obedience, that the blessing of justification is retained.” (1 SM 397) This theme is repeated throughout Scripture, and it places a major emphasis on sanctification in this gospel. The following letter is an example of the unique Adventist understanding of the gospel. “Here is where many Protestants and Catholics fail equally, substituting church traditions for the standard of God’s Word….Christians are fully justified from the first moment they believe, on the basis of Christ’s works and none of their own. Yet this free gift may be lost if we fail to appropriate the other blessings that come with it: conviction of God’s will and the power to carry it out.” (Ministry, May 2010, p. 4) In other words, justification without sanctification is a false gospel.
Johnny…loved sledding. One snow-white day Johnny climbed a hill behind his house that he had never sledded down before. It was steep, so he knew he’d really fly….His mom was out in the backyard and saw the sled bearing her son speeding down the hill. Then she saw the half-hidden, neck-high barbed-wire fence that he was speeding toward. “Lie down,” she screamed. Against the blinding white snow Johnny didn’t see the fence nor any reason to lie down. ut he heard his mom’s command, and he did what he had always done: he obeyed. Lying back on the sled, he flashed under the fence and into his mom’s arms….
Johnny brings us face-to-face with a question in our relationship with God: Are we to obey God even when we don’t understand why?...Does a trust relationship with God ask for obedience even when we don’t understand God’s commands?...We all have one great pressing need in common: the need to base our faithfulness to God on His utter, unwavering, unfailing faithfulness toward us. Sometimes that means obeying without understanding; being willing to act before the fact. (Adventist Review, June 27, 2010, p. 23)
The truth that obedience comes before complete understanding because we trust God sets the Adventist gospel apart from all other versions of the gospel. Remember, righteousness is supposed to be by faith, and it is always connected with our response of total, unquestioning obedience. This is why only the Adventist gospel can honestly speak of true Christian perfection. True Christian perfection is seen most clearly in Christ. His pure attitude motivated His absolute obedience resulting in a complete oneness with the Father. Ellen White applies this to our experience. “This sacrifice was offered for the purpose of restoring man to his original perfection: yea more…to give him an entire transformation of character.” (Ms. 49, 1898)
The imparted righteousness of Christ is the work He does in us, of changing us into His image, a oneness with Him. This is what being perfect in our sphere truly means. It is to be perfectly one with Him. Our attitudes are changed, motivating obedience in us to reflect Him fully….We grab everything of Christ we can get a hold of, denying that which shadows His glory. By beholding we become like Him and are changed into His glory….
Scientists have recently discovered a way to make the first 100 percent completely flat and smooth surface on machined and highly polished glass. It is so flat and smooth that when two of these thick sheets of glass are slid one over the other, displacing all the air, the bond between the molecules becomes so great that it is near impossible to separate the two sheets of glass. They are truly one….The righteousness that He wants to impart to us is the perfect oneness we can have through His Spirit’s leading. Obedience motivated by genuine love allows Him daily to grind and polish us until we are so absolutely bonded as one in Him that we will be nearly impossible to separate. (Adventist World, Dec. 2009, p. 31)
This unique and precious Adventist understanding makes it especially difficult to hear the previous editor of the Adventist Review say, “The issues frequently heard involve…Christ’s human nature and Christian perfection. A small but vociferous minority continue to urge the ideal of sinless perfection. They do not have the support of church leaders, however….If we are to speak of uniqueness concerning Adventist doctrine, then it is in the configuration of doctrines rather than in individual beliefs.”
This doesn’t square with inspired counsel, however. “There is as great difference in our faith and that of nominal professors as the heavens are higher than the earth.” (2 SG 300) Raymond Cottrell wrote, “Were Seventh-day Adventists to yield their distinctive teachings in order to win and wear the robe of theological respectability, they would doubtless be accepted by other Christian bodies, but in so doing they would be traitor to the truths that have made them a people….They would no longer be Seventh-day Adventists.”(Review and Herald, May 15, 1958)
“Satan is now using every device in this sealing time to keep the minds of God’s people from the present truth and to cause them to waver. I saw a covering that God was drawing over His people to protect them in the time of trouble; and every soul that was decided on the truth and was pure in heart was to be covered with the covering of the Almighty.” (EW 43) “We need to be enlightened in regard to the plan of salvation.
There is not one in one hundred who understands for himself the Bible truth on this subject that is so necessary to our present and eternal welfare.” (RH Sept. 3, 1889)
The promise of the most holy place is the promise of perfection of character, a perfection from all sins, both known and unknown. By ignoring the two apartments and teaching only the blessing of the first apartment is in essence saying that there is no difference. It is marching back toward Egypt and back before 1844. It is attempting to close the open door and to open the closed door. “The enemies of the present truth have been trying to open the door of the holy place, that Jesus has shut, and to close the door of the most holy place, which He opened in 1844.” (EW 43)
The only special truth that Adventists have that is not taught by any other denomination is the message of the final atonement—the cleansing of the sanctuary. “The minds of all who embrace this message are directed to the most holy place, where Jesus stands before the ark, making His final intercession for all those for whom mercy still lingers.” (EW 254) “Everything that is imperfect in us will have been seen and put away. All envy and jealousy and evil surmising and every selfish plan will have been banished from the life.” (3 SM 427)
But why should all this be delayed until 1844? The only sensible reason is that God is seeking to prepare a people whose unqualified conquest of evil in their lives will forever demolish the charges of Satan against God’s government. The final atonement has been held off until the end of time because only then will God have a totally perfected people. God could use a man like Martin Luther in a previous era—one who drank beer and hated Jews—but He cannot accept such performance from believers at the close of the great controversy. Time has lingered through Inquisition and Holocaust, slavery and segregation, because God continues to wait for a generation whose unbroken triumph over sin will forever silence the charges of the adversary. What some have called “last generation theology” is, therefore, the logical and essential corollary of the 1844 ivestigative judgment doctrine.
STILL UNDER GRACE
Now all this is high theology, in fact, higher than the highest human thought can reach. I want to close with some encouraging thoughts.
God’s first statement to the fallen world was Genesis 3:15. Despite their sin, the Lord immediately gave to Adam and Eve the promise of redemption. It is worth noting that only after this promise was given, only after grace and salvation is revealed, does the Lord pronounce judgment on Adam and Eve. The promise of salvation came first, followed by judgment. Only against the promise of the gospel does judgment come.
The very concept of the gospel carries within itself the concept of condemnation—a condemnation we don’t have to face. That’s the “good news.” Though we have violated God’s law, and though God will judge those violations, in Christ Jesus we are spared the condemnation that this judgment would certainly bring. In Revelation 14 the “eternal gospel” comes first, followed by the announcement of judgment, just as in Genesis 3. Judgment is there, but not before the gospel. Thus, the foundation of our present truth message has to be grace, the good news that though we deserve condemnation, we stand pardoned, purified, and justified through Jesus.
From Israel there is more good news. To ancient Egyptians, a person’s name was a very real part of a person. Their houses, although primarily mud brick, were constructed with stone doorposts and lintels. On the doorpost was inscribed the name of the person who lived inside. Even if the house was destroyed, the chance of the name existing through the survival of the stone was very good.
When God required the Israelites to paint the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts and lintels, He was asking them to cover their names with the blood of the Lamb. Their names on stone did not ensure their future life; only the blood of the Lamb could do that. We need to learn the same lesson. It matters where our name is written. The only important book is the Lamb’s Book of Life. To have our names written in that book we need to accept the Lamb’s blood, which takes the place of our own.
Of course, there is more to our walk with God than this, but it all starts here. The Israelites began their exodus out of Egypt by putting the blood of the Passover lamb over their names, and then they began their journey with God. It is the same for us. Our path may be long and hard, but we can begin our journey with our names covered with the blood of the Lamb.
There are some subjects that people just don't like to talk about. Even when they are appropriate for discussion, they are carefully avoided. Often we are told that these subjects are not important to understand, that they really don't make any difference. During the last twenty-five years the human nature of Christ has been one of these subjects. How many speakers are willing to speak publicly about it? Yet, strangely, this subject seems to keep on appearing in our publications. A recent example of this comes from Ministry magazine.
Old Issues Ongoing
"While there is a profound fatigue within the Adventist soul when it comes to such discussions and the tensions and divisions they tend to bring, there is also a compelling significance to aspects of the dialogue. [The reason for the compelling significance is because the subject is so tightly intertwined with issues in the great controversy and the plan of salvation.] The publication of two articles in this journal have and will inevitably raise questions about these things among some of our readers.
"First, there is Roy Naden's doctrinal study, 'The Nature of Christ: Four Measures of a Mystery.' Then there is Woodrow Whidden's important article in this issue, reporting and commenting on the republication of the book Questions on Doctrine.
"Given these articles, we felt it would be both helpful and interesting to republish an insert...that Ministry first presented 33 years ago in its October 1970 issue.
"While volumes of water have passed under the theological bridge of our Church since 1970, we at Ministry find ourselves in basic agreement with the positions that were taken on the issues discussed by the three essayists in this insert....
"It is clear that Jesus was born and came to this earth under entirely unique circumstances, different from ours, and therefore received a one-of-a-kind nature....His nature is and was completely sinless." Ministry, August, 2003, p. 4, brackets supplied by present author
Evidently the editors felt that the issue of Christ's human nature was sufficiently important to dedicate several articles to prove that Christ's nature was substantially different from ours.
Four Basic Issues
The following statements are taken from Roy Naden's article. ( Ministry , June, 2003, pp. 8-11)
"Unlike us in our sinful state, Jesus had not the slightest inclination or desire to sin." The first point is that Christ had not the slightest inclination to selfishness, pride, impatience, doubt, discouragement, or avoiding of trials.
"He had accepted our humanity with the physical limitations which thousands of years of sinful disintegration had imposed, but He took human nature without in any way inheriting the sinfulness of being human. Mystery!" The second point is that Christ had a partial human inheritance, because He inherited no sinful inclinations. "He inherited our human nature, but not the sinfulness of this exceedingly sinful human heritage. Mystery!"
Eric Webster supported this viewpoint in a letter to the editor. ( Ministry , October, 2004, p. 30)
"In speaking of the birth of Seth, Ellen White writes: 'Seth...inherited from the nature of Adam no more natural goodness than did Cain. He was born in sin' ( Signs of the Times , Feb. 20, 1879)....If Christ possessed a sinful nature as Seth did He would have needed a Saviour." The third point is that a sinful nature is sin, and in need of forgiving grace.
"Was Christ like Adam before the Fall or after the Fall? I would say both. He was like Adam before the Fall in His sinlessness, purity, and holiness of mind and character. He was like Adam after the Fall in the frailties, infirmities, and weaknesses of the flesh. As Naden says, ' Jesus was affected by sin but not infected.'" Once again we are being told that Jesus accepted a partial heredity of the human race.
The following statements are taken from a "Supplement to THE MINISTRY," (October, 1970, reprinted August, 2003).
"Adam's posterity has ever come into the world inheriting fallen, sinful natures, evil propensities, and apart from the Saviour, condemnation to eternal death." (p. 7) It is of some interest that there is no mention of automatic condemnation in our official statement of belief #7. "Their descendants share this fallen nature and its consequences. They are born with weaknesses and tendencies to evil." ( Ministry , June, 2003, p. 8)
In the Ministry Supplement we are told that "Christ did not inherit at birth the fallen nature inherited by Adam's posterity....If Christ had inherited the evil nature earned by Adam's fall He too would have been born in sin, under condemnation, and, therefore, Himself in need of a Saviour....He did not have that within His nature that predisposed Him toward sinning. He did not possess the passions and inner promptings which we are daily obliged to subject by the grace of God."
God's people are limited by "their inability to equal in a positive way the infinite character perfection of Christ because their natures, faculties, mental and moral powers or capacities are still imperfect and remain so until the second coming of Jesus....As long as we retain these imperfect faculties, as long as our powers are inferior, as long as our basic human natures show such evident results of the Fall, we cannot claim to be sinless."
"He did not inherit the type of nature that we inherit at birth. If this were so He inherited the type of human nature which...is to be the possession of God's people at the Second Advent." Again we are told that Christ did not inherit normal human nature, but received a special, created nature.
"It is not possible for them in this life to achieve perfect equality with the human nature of Christ because of their possession, until the Second Advent, of faculties, powers, and capacities which result from man's fall into sin." (pp. 7-16)
"To teach from the Bible uses of this word (perfect) that ultimate sinless perfection is possible to inherently sinful man here on earth is not supported by the Word of God, and is denied by the very nature of man himself." The fourth point is that as long as we possess fallen nature we can never be sinless.
"Salvation by grace and the merits of Christ's atonement still avails for the saints after probation closes." Saving grace is "available at any time in the Christian life until the day of our Lord's coming....Sinners are the only persons with whom saving grace is concerned....There is no evidence anywhere in Scripture or in the Spirit of Prophecy that indicates the slightest change in salvation by grace ministered daily to the saints." We need to grasp "the Biblical doctrine of salvation by grace beyond the close of probation....If he is under grace, then it is because he is not yet sinless." (pp. 18-22) If we will always be sinners and never sinless, then we will always need saving or forgiving grace until Jesus comes.
"Note the results of Adam's sin insofar as it pertains to us: we were made sinners,...we are born in a state of guilt inherited from Adam....We inherit guilt from Adam so that even a baby that dies a day after birth needs a Saviour though the child never committed a sin of its own." (p. 27)
Those who believe that Christ did not take our fallen nature hold these four points as central to their position. It is precisely these four points that are at issue in any discussion of Christ's human nature, and it is for these reasons that the issue of Christ's nature is not likely to go away any time soon.
Some Recent History
In the early 1980's there were rather lengthy debates in our church papers over these very issues. Norman Gulley wrote about the pre-Fall and post-Fall views that "both views are found within Scripture and in the writings of Ellen White....Jesus came from the hands of the Creator Holy Spirit--'that Holy thing'--just as much the result of the creative work of God as was the first Adam." This means that Christ's human nature was created, not inherited. "He was like the first Adam, or like that which the redeemed will be when changed at the Second Advent....He took that weakened, deteriorated sin-affected nature--but, without taking its propensities or taint of sin, predisposing to a leaning to sin....He had a pre-Fall and a post-Fall human nature combined in a unique way....Sin is not so much a breaking of the law as it is a broken relationship that leads to lawbreaking. Did Christ have a broken relationship with either God or man in coming into history?" ( Adventist Review , June 30, 1983, pp. 4-8)
"The Bible opposes a sinless birth for all humans. It indicates that all men are 'constituted sinners by Adam's transgression.'...Only the two Adams entered Planet Earth sinless. All others are born sinners....The entire human race is born in that land of estrangement from God." ( Ministry , August, 1985, p. 11)
Now these strongly expressed positions on the nature of Christ, both recent and two decades ago, did not go unnoticed by the readers of our papers. Following are some excerpts from letters to the editors responding to these issues.
"The author has Jesus speaking to Satan: 'I stand here like the first Adam before you tempted him. I, too, have never sinned. And I have a sinless nature like the first Adam at his creation.'...Christ was born a descendent of Abraham. What nature did Abraham and Isaac and Jacob have? A sinful nature, a fallen nature. Jesus took on the nature of man as it was after the Fall....The only nature we have is a sinful nature. It was the only nature available to Jesus when He clad Himself in humanity....It is not the sinful nature that condemns us, but sin. We are all born with a sinful nature. But we are not sinners at birth."
" I was disappointed and bewildered over the confusion that exists because of this and other articles that have come during the last 50 years. When God is leading us out onto a platform of eternal truth, how come we have to step off the one He gave us during the first 100 years? Why do we as a church support teachings which come from those who have not been blessed with the light from the throne of God? Our aim, since the books Questions on Doctrine and Movement of Destiny came out, seems to be to try to satisfy the fears of those who want to follow the papacy's teachings. At the 1901 General Conference, Dr. Waggoner said, 'Do you not see that the idea that the flesh of Jesus was not like ours (because we know ours is sinful) necessarily involves the idea of the immaculate conception of the virgin Mary?' George Knight says, 'Christ's nature created no controversy in the Adventism of the 1890's. It was a generally accepted theological nonissue.'...Why did it in the 1950's? We sought the fame of not being called a 'sect' at the expense of compromising the truth." ( Ministry , June, 2004, p. 3)
"If sin is a state of being inherent within our natures,...then Christ could not have been born with our nature or He would have been a sinner, and He could not be our example except idealistically (unless He is going to give us unfallen natures too), and therefore we cannot overcome as He did and must continue sinning, and therefore Jesus' primary ministry in the heavenly sanctuary is to administer justification."
"SDA theology does not present two alternative views concerning the human nature of Jesus our Lord....It's as if we as a people have decided to believe that Sundaykeeping and Sabbathkeeping are justified in the eyes of God. Obviously, there has been a change in our historic position."
"Is every baby born with the sentence of the second death hanging over it? Does God ascribe guilt to the newborn baby, making it worthy of the second death even before it has a chance to commit any personal sins?...No one will be cast into the lake of fire because of Adam's sin, but only because of his or her own personal sins....He not only confuses sin with the effects of sin, but moves into the area of making a sinful nature equivalent to sin itself....Since the fallen nature is the same as guilt and sin, every baby born is in need of redemption before it can think or speak or act. This means that Jesus would be guilty by just being born, unless His nature was different from all other babies....How did he establish this inherited 'broken relationship' for infants? By recounting Eve's visit to the tree and speculating that she sinned in her mind by doubting God even before she took the fruit. So the relationship was broken before any act of sin was committed. On this basis, he claims that every baby is born with a broken relationship and in a lost condition, without committing any act of sin. We can only assume that he believes Eve would have been lost whether she ate the fruit or not....
"Please take note that there is a big difference between 'separation from God' and 'the result of separation from God.' Adam's children did not inherit 'separation from God.'...They inherited only the 'result' of Adam's separation from God, which involved a weakened, fallen nature, and the inevitability of the first death....In the same way that he confuses sin with the sinful nature, the results of sin with sin itself, and separation from God with the fallen nature, the author confuses evil propensities with natural propensities....I don't know a single person who believes that Jesus sinned or was born a sinner. Neither do I know anyone who believes that Jesus had 'sinful propensities.' But I do know many who believe that He had 'natural propensities,' just as all of us do, as a result of being born like us, with a fallen nature. Evil propensities are those leanings toward sin that have been cultivated and strengthened by indulgence in sin. Natural propensities are those leanings that have been inherited. Guilt is involved in one, but not the other. It is not sinful unless one yields to the propensity."
"The question of the nature of Christ is not a debate over certain theological fine points....Either the cleansing of the sanctuary that began in 1844 is to purify and perfect a people to stand without sin or our denomination is the result of the inability of a group of disoriented fanatics to admit that their prophetic understandings of Daniel were wrong. The real issue is upon the point of overcoming sin. If Jesus could not enter the conflict and overcome in our flesh, then we cannot."
The author "claims that the Bible gives two definitions of sin--behavior and relationship. Contrary to his assertion, there is only one Biblical definition. First John 3:4 is that one....And further, it has not been proved that a broken relationship with God comes before the act of sinful choice. Isaiah 59:2 states unequivocally that active sin separates man from God. Any discussion to the contrary takes us out of the arena of Biblical exegesis into the quagmire of interpretive philosophy." ( Ministry , December, 1985, pp. 26-27)
It is readily apparent that the reactions to the pre-Fall view of Christ's human nature were very strong, both recently and two decades ago. This issue is not going away or dying down, because the surrounding conclusions are so vital to the mission of the Adventist Church. I will close this section on our recent history with some thoughts from Herbert Douglass, a prominent participant in the debates of the 1980's.
"The view that Jesus assumed Adam's pre-Fall nature appeared only recently within our church. This position emerged in the 1950's during a series of events that saw basic Adventist concepts reformulated. The consequences of these changes have had much to do with the trauma and theological divisions the church has experienced....The study of our Lord's humanity is not 'merely academic hairsplitting.'...Why Jesus became man...can be understood only from the standpoint of the great controversy--a perspective largely missing in 'orthodox' Protestantism as well as in Catholicism....There were several issues, but none more important than Satan's charge that sons and daughters of Adam could not keep God's laws, that such laws were unrealistic and not in the best interest of created beings. Such primary issues determined the kind of humanity our Lord would assume in order to satisfy justice and silence Satan." ( Ministry , August, 1985, pp. 10-11)
No Inclination to Sin
The first of the four major issues surrounding the human nature of Christ is whether Christ had any normal human inclinations toward sinning. In the Ministry editorial of August, 2003, it is stated that Jesus faced "all the temptations common to humans." Right here we need to consider two New Testament texts together. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Christ "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." James 1:14 tells us that "every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." Was Jesus really tempted like "every man is tempted," or not? The word "lust" certainly includes every man's desire for pleasure, profit, and honor. Were not the wilderness temptations of Christ designed by Satan to fulfill these basic human desires or lusts?
But we are being told today that Jesus had not the slightest desire or inclination to pride, impatience, doubt, or discouragement. If we are tempted when our inclinations or desires draw us to these things, and Jesus did not have these inclinations, then Jesus was not tempted in any of these areas as "every man is tempted."
It is often said that Christ's temptations were to use His divine powers or to abandon His mission of saving man. This is very true, but is this a sufficient reason for ignoring Hebrews 4:15? Was Jesus really tempted like we are tempted?
Let us check some inspired evidence here. In John 5:30 Jesus said, "I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." Why did Jesus say that He did not seek His own will? "The human will of Christ would not have led him to the wilderness of temptation....It would not have led him to endure humiliation, scorn, reproach, suffering, and death. His human nature shrank from all these things as decidedly as ours shrinks from them." ( Signs of the Times , October 29, 1894) If Christ would have followed the natural desires of His human will He would have abandoned His mission and God's plan for Him. In other words, His human will would have disobeyed God, and He had to deny His own will to do the will of His Father. Isn't this exactly like our situation? Our will and desires are naturally in opposition to the will of God, and we must surrender the exercise of our own will in order to obey God.
One inspired sentence has a wealth of meaning in it. "By experiencing in Himself the strength of Satan's temptation." ( Review and Herald , March 18, 1875) Now just where does the strength of Satan's temptations reside? "His (our) strongest temptations will come from within, for he must battle against the inclinations of the natural heart." ( Christ Tempted As We Are , p. 11) If our strongest temptations come from our battle against the inclinations of the natural heart, and if Christ experienced within Himself the strength of Satan's temptations, then obviously those inclinations were within Christ also. "If we had to bear anything which Jesus did not endure, then upon this point Satan would represent the power of God as insufficient for us....He endured every trial to which we are subject." ( Desire of Ages , p. 24) Is the power of God really sufficient to overcome the inclinations of the natural heart? If Jesus did not have these inclinations, then Satan's accusations have never been answered, and our salvation is very uncertain.
"Even doubts assailed the dying Son of God." ( Testimonies , vol. 2, 209) Christ was tempted by His own thoughts not to believe His Father's promises.
"He blessed children that were possessed of passions like His own." ( Signs of the Times , April 9, 1896) Do all children have inherited desires toward selfishness? Christ had the same "passions."
"The Son of God in His humanity wrestled with the very same fierce, apparently overwhelming temptations that assail man--temptations to indulgence of appetite, to presumptuous venturing where God has not led them, and to the worship of the god of this world, to sacrifice an eternity of bliss for the fascinating pleasures of this life." ( Selected Messages , vol. 1, p. 95) Are we not drawn to these things by our own desires? What makes them fierce and overwhelming is our desire for them, and here we are clearly told that Christ had the same temptations.
"He knows how strong are the inclinations of the natural heart." ( Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 177) Just how does He know this? "He knows by experience...where lies the strength of our temptations." ( Ministry of Healing , p. 71) Without question, Jesus has experienced the strength of the inclinations of the natural heart.
In Gethsemane "His depression and discouragement left Him." ( Desire of Ages , p. 694) Was not Jesus drawn to discouragement by His own thoughts and natural inclinations?
"He had the same nature as the sinner." ( Manuscript Releases , vol. 10, p. 176) The question must be addressed --Was Adam in Eden a sinner? Is a nature partly like Adam and partly like us the same nature as sinners? The reality is that all sinners have fallen natures and are drawn strongly by them.
The difference between Christ and us is not in His being exempt from natural fallen inclinations to sin. The difference is that He did not cherish these inclinations and incorporate them into His character as we do. The temptations of the natural heart were as strong for Christ as they are for us.
No matter what words are used by pre-Fall advocates, if Christ had no natural inclinations to sin, He could not be tempted like us , and one of the major links of Christ with the fallen human race has been destroyed.
Partial Heredity
The second issue at stake in considering Christ's humanity is the nature of His inheritance, through Mary, of human nature. The only way that Jesus could take human nature without inheriting the "sinfulness of our sinful human heritage" is by His being exempted from some aspects of human heredity. The Holy Spirit would have to block some human genes from reaching Jesus in the normal way. In other words, Mary's genetic deficiencies were altered by the Holy Spirit so that she would pass on a totally unique heredity to Christ, completely unlike the heredity we receive from our parents.
In Romans 1:3 Paul says that Jesus "was made of the seed of David according to the flesh." But we are being told that Christ was made partially but not completely of the seed of David. Ellen White is even more specific. "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." ( Desire of Ages , p. 49)
One of Christ's ancestors was Seth. "Seth, like Cain, inherited the fallen nature of his parents." ( Patriarchs and Prophets , p. 80) Whatever Seth received through heredity, Jesus received through heredity. This is the only possible conclusion that can be reached from these passages, and it is due only to a preconceived assumption about the nature of sin that these statements are not accepted at face value.
Harry Johnson, in his book The Humanity of the Saviour , says it most simply and pointedly. "There is no evidence to suggest that the chain of heredity was broken between Mary and Jesus." (London, The Epworth Press, 1962, p. 44)
Protestants have historically rejected the doctrine of the immaculate conception on the basis that it is not found in Scripture. But today many Adventists teach that in the womb of Mary a special miracle was performed so that no sinful tendencies or drives would be passed from Mary to Jesus. We as a church profess to repudiate the doctrine of the immaculate conception, but at the most critical point we fall back on its explanation for Jesus' birth. While we reject Mary's sinlessness, and we reject the teaching that Mary passed nothing on to Jesus through heredity, we eagerly accept a partial blockage of the hereditary line when it comes to desires and tendencies. This is simply a modified and more subtle version of the immaculate conception. Are we really sure that we are out of the Church of Rome? Our current teaching is a direct descendant in the theological line of the immaculate conception.
Sinful Nature Equals Sin
The third issue is the real problem at the heart of all discussions of the human nature of Christ. Does having a sinful nature make one a sinner and in need of a Saviour? If this issue could be resolved, we would have no more disagreements over the humanity of Christ.
The editor of the Adventist Review , William Johnsson , expressed his view very clearly. "Some arguments go on and on because the antagonists never get to the real issue--the underlying concern behind the surface debate....The issue behind the issue is the concept of sin. Those who want to understand more clearly Jesus' human nature would get further if they stopped debating whether Jesus came in humanity's pre-Fall or post-Fall nature and spent time looking at what the Bible says about sin itself....Not only are our acts sinful; our very nature is at war with God. Did Jesus have such a nature? No. If He had, He would Himself need a Saviour. He had...no warping of His moral nature that predisposed Him to temptation." (August 26, 1993, p. 4)
Richard Taylor put it very well in his book, A Right Conception of Sin . "One who does not have correct views of sin is not apt to have correct views of any other fundamental question. This will especially be manifest in regard to his theory of the atonement and God's method of redeeming man." (Beacon Hill Press, 1945, pp. 9-11)
The doctrine of original sin, held by Johnsson and many others in Adventism, twists every aspect of the gospel and the atonement, so that nothing survives intact. It is gradually becoming the dominant view among Adventists, even among those faithful to the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. It is now believed by some who are trusted by loyal, careful Adventist laypeople.
One of the reasons that this subject has seemed so confusing is because of a lack of simple definitions. There is a crucial difference between the effects of sin and sin itself. Although the effects of sin are far-reaching and ultimately lethal, no one ascribes personal guilt or condemnation to the effects of sin. On the other hand, the concept of sin is associated with guilt, condemnation, separation from God, judgment, and the second death. Our focus, as we discuss righteousness by faith or the nature of Christ, must be on sin itself rather than the effects of sin. Our basic question here is simple. Is fallen nature part of sin itself, or is it one of the effects of sin? Our conclusions regarding the nature of Christ will be determined by the answer we give to this simple question.
To say that all babies need a Saviour has become one of the most misleading clichés in current thinking on righteousness by faith. Yes, a baby needs a Saviour, a suffering planet needs a Saviour, blind men and lame men need a Saviour, but not in the sense of personal forgiveness for personal sin and guilt. Once again, we are confusing the effects of sin and sin itself.
James 4:17 tells us that "to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." The clearest texts describing sin say nothing of fallen nature being an inevitable, ongoing state of sin. To say that sin is nature is to say that we are sinning even when we are choosing not to sin. Could it be that this understanding of sin as something inevitable and ongoing has greatly dulled our sensitivity to real sin (transgression of God's law) so that now we have come to accept specific transgressions as simply expressions of the greater sin of having a fallen nature? In other words, we have come to accept sinning as a normal part of life and even Christian life. We have even started calling fallen nature SIN and acts of sin "sins."
Isaiah 59:2 tells us that "your iniquities have separated between you and your God." It is sin that separates us from God, that breaks our relationship with Him, rather than the other way around. Yes, sin is indeed a state, but it follows the decision to sin against God, and it continues as long as the heart remains unrepentant.
Those who want to prove that fallen nature is sin itself rather than an effect of sin have simply not proved their case. Being born into this world means that we are subject to hunger and thirst, weariness and pain, suffering and death. It means that the planet we live on may try to destroy us. It means being born by sinful parents, receiving a sinful nature, and living in a sinful environment. But it does not mean being born guilty of sin or condemned. Although we receive all of the effects of sin, including a fallen nature, we are not automatically guilty of sin.
The conclusion that a man is a sinner by nature does not come from the Bible or Adventism. Its roots reach back to Augustine in the Roman Catholic Church, and it has been transmitted to mainline Protestantism through the writings of Luther and Calvin. Today evangelical Protestants champion this view of sin, and they have been quite eager to see this view become part of Adventism. The evangelical view of sin is accepted within the highest levels of Adventist scholarship today. One wonders, when will we go back to infant baptism, which is the only logical solution for being born in need of a Saviour?
The evangelical position on sin makes it impossible to accept the long-standing Adventist position that Christ took our very nature of sin, triumphing over sin in that dangerous nature. Because of the evangelical position on sin, we are being told that Christ could not be our Substitute if He really took our fallen nature from birth, and we are now forced to devise rather complicated devices to allow Christ to take part of human heredity while being exempted from certain hereditary traits.
It might be well to note one point in regard to being born "in sin." In Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 1, page 60, Seth was "born in sin." When Ellen White developed this more fully in Patriarchs and Prophets , p. 80, Seth "inherited fallen nature." This parallel passage shows what Ellen White meant by being "born in sin."
No Sinless Perfection
The fourth issue may be the underlying motivation for all the emphasis in recent years on Christ's unfallen or partly fallen nature. In the Ministry editorial at the beginning of this paper are these thoughts. "The soul mate of the 'nature of Christ' issue...is the question, of course, of the role of Christ's imparted sinless perfection, worked out in the heart and behavior of the Christian believer by faith....These particular issues...are particularly potent in the Adventist mind and heart when coupled with the close of 'probation,' the final judgment, and the second coming of Christ." (August, 2003, p. 4)
We quoted statements earlier in this paper that sinless perfection is impossible because of our sinful nature, and that saving grace must be available until Jesus comes because we will never be sinless. Woodrow Whidden put it this way. "Will our nature and performance ever become so sinless this side of glorification (even after the close of probation) that we will cease to need the constant justifying merits of Jesus? Do we really take Ellen White seriously when she says the believers' 'unavoidable deficiencies' are made up for them by the 'imputed' righteousness of Christ and that 'Jesus loves His children, even if they err'?...Isn't perfection primarily an attitude rather than a performance?" ( Ministry , October, 1993)
Might it not be relevant right here to take another look at 1 Peter 2:21,22? "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth."
Ellen White presses home the same theme. "If he did not have man's nature, 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....His temptation and victory tell us that humanity must copy the Pattern." ( Review and Herald , February 18, 1890)
By accepting the evangelical doctrine that the atonement was completed at the cross and that Jesus was born with the sinless human nature of Adam before the Fall, most of our church pulpits no longer tell us that Jesus is our Example in overcoming all temptation and sin. Therefore, the sanctuary message is no longer relevant, and the warning message of the three angels' messages of Revelation 14 is no longer relevant to God's plan of salvation. We can then be saved in our sins, character development is no longer necessary, the commandments of God cannot be kept perfectly by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Prophecy is considered an irrelevant antique of the nineteenth century, and the seventh-day Sabbath is not kept according to Isaiah 58:13.
William Johnsson shared a powerful story in one of his editorials. "Dr. Paul Brand, who pioneered restorative surgery for lepers, tells of an epidemic of measles that struck Vellore in south India, where the Brand family was then living. The Brands had an infant daughter, Estelle, and because of her age she was exposed to high risk. The pediatrician explained that convalescent serum--serum from a person who had contracted measles and had overcome it--would protect the little girl. Word went around Vellore that the Brands needed the 'blood of an overcomer.' 'It was no use finding somebody who had conquered chicken pox or had recovered from a broken leg. Such people, albeit healthy, could not give the specific help we needed to overcome measles. We needed someone who had experienced measles and had defeated that disease,' writes Brand in his book In His image . The Brands located such a person, took out some of his blood, and injected their daughter with the convalescent serum. Armed with the 'borrowed' antibodies, their daughter fought off the invading disease. The injected serum gave her body time to manufacture her own antibodies. Estelle overcame measles--not by her own body's strength, but as the result of a battle that had taken place previously within someone else." ( Adventist Review , April 13, 1989)
I don't think that I have ever seen a better illustration of why Jesus had to come in our fallen nature. Because He has experienced fallen nature and defeated it, we can borrow His antibodies and defeat our fallen nature. And this from an editor who believes that Christ had an unfallen nature!!
Let us take a brief look at some of the inspired evidence that Christ's example proves that the final generation will actually live sinless lives, contrary to what our "experts" are telling us.
"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. 49)
"He sent His Son to this world to bear the penalty of sin, and to show man how to live a sinless life." ( Reflecting Christ , p. 37)
"He came to this world and lived a sinless life, that in His power His people might also live lives of sinlessness." ( Review and Herald , April 1, 1902)
"He placed us on vantage ground, where we could live pure, sinless lives." ( Signs of the Times , June 17, 1903)
"Every one who by faith obeys God's commandments, will reach the condition of sinlessness in which Adam lived before his transgression." ( Signs of the Times , July 23, 1902)
"Christ has left us a perfect, sinless example. His followers are to walk in His footsteps." ( Sons and Daughters of God , p. 294)
"Christ's life is a revelation of what fallen human beings may become through union and fellowship with the divine nature." ( Manuscript Releases , vol. 18, p. 331)
"The Saviour took upon Himself the infirmities of humanity and lived a sinless life, that men might have no fear that because of the weakness of human nature they could not overcome....His life declares that humanity, combined with divinity, does not commit sin." ( Ministry of Healing , p. 180)
"God did for us the very best thing that He could do when He sent from heaven a sinless Being to manifest to this world of sin what those who are saved must be in character--pure, holy, and undefiled." ( Manuscript Releases , vol. 9, p. 125)
"Christ came to the earth...to show in the controversy with Satan that man, as God created him, connected with the Father and the Son, could obey every divine requirement." ( Signs of the Times , June 9, 1898)
"Having taken our fallen nature, he showed what it might become." ( Selected Messages , vol. 3, p. 134)
"Brethren and sisters, we need the reformation that all who are redeemed must have, through the cleansing of mind and heart from every taint of sin." ( Counsels on Health , p. 633)
"We are cleansed from all sin, all defects of character. We need not retain one sinful propensity." ( Review and Herald , April 24, 1900)
"Every hereditary and cultivated tendency to sin must be seen, subdued, and cleansed." ( Signs of the Times , July 18, 1895)
"They will hate sin and iniquity, even as Christ hated sin." ( Faith and Works , p. 115)
"When we know God as it is our privilege to know Him, our life will be a life of continual obedience. Through an appreciation of the character of Christ, through communion with God, sin will become hateful to us." ( Desire of Ages , p. 668)
"They would hate sin with a perfect hatred." ( Fundamentals of Christian Education , p. 291)
Conclusion
The issue of Christ's human nature is not going away any time soon, because the whole plan of salvation is at stake. Hebrews 1:14, 15 tells us that "through death" Jesus would "destroy him that had the power of death" and would "deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Verse 17 tells us that the only way Christ could do this was "to be made like unto his brethren," not in some things but "in all things." Inspiration further tells us, "The great work of redemption could be carried out only by the Redeemer taking the place of fallen Adam." ( Review and Herald , February 24, 1874) It could not be accomplished if Christ took unfallen Adam's place, or if He took no one's place (partially like Adam and partially like us). To be our sinless Substitute, He had to overcome the liabilities of our fallen nature. What had become an irresistible force to man, Christ must make a conquered power.
Even though this statement from the SDA Bible Commentary is not inspired, it shows a deep understanding of Christ's redemptive act. "Christ met, overcame, and condemned sin in the sphere in which it had previously exercised its dominion and mastery. The flesh, the scene of sin's former triumphs, now became the scene of its defeat and expulsion." (Vol. 6, p. 562)
The issue of the Incarnation was, Could God really overcome sin in Satan's ultimate stronghold, the fallen human heart? If human weaknesses and desires could be subject to God's law, then Satan would lose his greatest battle, and the great controversy would be truly decided. But if God would exempt His Son from some human tendencies, then would the great controversy be any closer to its conclusion then when Satan was expelled from heaven?
When Jesus prevailed on the cross, a loud voice was heard in heaven proclaiming, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down." (Revelation 12:10) Do we really want to rob Jesus of His great victory under the guise of making Him our "sinless Substitute"? Will we continue to deny Him the full salvation that He wrought not only over acts of sin, but over fallen, weak, sinful human nature, in which Satan thought he reigned supreme since the fall of Adam? Let us allow Christ to be truly our sinless Substitute as well as our holy Example. Only the real Christ, providing a real atonement, can lead His church through to final victory.