Don't postlaps believe that "selfish by nature" applied to Jesus, since it applies to us? I'll tell you right now, my selfish nature is definitely one of those foes I fight against all the time. And there are some postlaps out there who teach that Jesus fought against exactly the same foes, in the same way.

Tom, isn't that right?

From a comment like this, one would get the impression you hadn't read her! Of course she commented on her agreements. For example, she agreed with Jones, Waggoner and Prescott, and she so commented -- over 1,000 times!



She said there wasn't a thread of truth in the whole fabric, Rosangela. You can't just ignore that. She also said that our arguments against those who oppose us should be wholly sound. You can't just ignore that either.



Nope. Not a joke. Please quote something.



No, it's not a red herring. I'm simply continuing the logic of your argument so you can see its absurdity. By the way, do you know for a fact that fetuses won't be in heaven? If so, on what basis? If a new born could be in heaven, why not a still born fetus?



No. Please re-read what I wrote. I said nothing like this. You wrote the only reason God does not the sin of ignorance against newborns is because of Christ's sacrifice. I think you're scratching where it doesn't itch. It seems you believe God is saying, "If it weren't for my sons death, I would judge these infants guilty of sin. But since He died, I won't." If this is the case, then why aren't all newborns saved? Christ died for all of them, so God shouldn't imputed their "sin" against any of them, so why aren't they all saved?



The difficult is you're asserting the only reason God doesn't judge newborns accountable for their sin is because of Christ's death. If they've rejected, then there's no reason for "the frown of God," with or without Christ's death. The purpose of Christ's death is not to all God to excuse the sins of newborns.



If you want to have a meaningful conversation, you do. If you just with to invent your own straw men to argument against, you're right, you don't.

He needed no atonement for Himself because He never sinned.



Are you saying you don't believe Christ was righteous by faith?

What are you talking about? The moral issue is giving in to temptation. It doesn't matter if the temptation comes from inherited or cultivated tendencies. Of course this is a moral question. Would you please quote something? These made up things are tiresome.

Please, please, please! Quote something by Jones, Waggoner, Prescott, Haskell or Fifield, and we can discuss that.



Ok, you can agree with Donnell, and I'll agree with the "old guys." However, please remember that Ellen White said there was not a thread of truth in the whole fabric of what Donnell was teaching.

It applies to the "our sinful nature" which He assumed. Christ took that nature upon His own sinless nature which was sinless and divine. Christ was agape, and as such, was not selfish.

You need to distinguish between Christ and the nature He assumed. I'm not understanding your difficulty with this. You keep asking these same similar questions, and I keep responding in exactly the same way. I'm not understanding the problem here. Isn't this explanation clear?



Christ fought against "our sinful nature" the same way we fight against ours. The "our sinful nature" which Christ assumed was no different than ours, which is why it is called "our sinful nature." If it were different, she wouldn't have said Christ assumed "our sinful nature," but something else.

The difference between Christ and us (laying aside, for the moment, that He was God, and had His own sinless and divine nature) is that Christ never sinned, even taking our sinful flesh. (However, He did take our sins upon Him, so was able to be tempted in all points as we are).

Let's get back to the real issues. I see two:

1)Did Christ have any tendencies to sin?
2)Could Christ have been temped from within?

Regarding question 1), both sides agree that Christ had no cultivated tendencies to sin. Also we know that his mother was specially chosen by God, and the prenatal influences He received from her should not have caused Him to have hereditary tendencies to sin which were not genetic. So the question comes down to whether Christ had the hereditary tendencies that fallen humanity has passed genetically, or is some special exemption was made for Christ. The answer is given here:



Christ "accepted" our heredity, "like every child of Adam." This is how He assumed "our sinful nature." The results of this heredity is shown in the history of his earthly ancestors.

What are the results of Christ's earthly ancestors? They are every sort of sin and vice one can think of. This is the heredity which Christ "accepted." Why did He do so? To "share our sorrows and temptations."

Now if our sorrows and temptations only involved being tired, or such things, then that's all His heredity would need to cover. But given that our sorrows and temptations involve more than that, His heredity had to involve those things as well.



Here we see the reasons for Christ's taking our nature spelled out. He refuted the enemy's lies by bearing everything that we have to endure. Do we have to endure being tempted from within? Yes. Then so did Christ. "He endured every trial to which we are subject." Surely this covers more than being being hungry, or tempted by Satan.

I think I've asked the follow question a number of times, but don't recall receiving and answer. Do you think there is a connection between how one views Christ's human nature and righteousness by faith?

You can agree with the old guys if you want. But if they do not agree that Jesus was righteous and holy, they, and anyone who agrees, are all messed up.

And please, don't drag EGW into that mess. I may not know what the old guys wrote, but I've read enough of the old lady's writings to know better.

Might I suggest that your universal application of "whole fabric" is unwarranted, especially if it means that you can't get yourself to agree that Jesus was righteous and holy. He was, after all, the "holy" One of Israel.

Arnold, this is tiresome. Some old red herring.



You're not reasoning things through here. Say we're interested in what some scholar wrote of the 19th century. If there were some doubt as to the meaning of some passage, would you simply ignore the testimony of his colleagues. Who would know better the meaning of the author? You, who live over a century detached from the scholar, or those who lived and worked with him? You're like an ostrich putting its head in the sand here, and have been consistently. At least Rosangela has made some attempt to consider the history of the situation. You act as if it doesn't exist.



You might as well accuse me of saying that Jesus was from Mars. This has absolutely no relationship to anything I've said. This is like slander.

...in his life and death: yes, by virtue of his righteous human character, produced by using our sinful flesh, he had earned what Enoch got, but his choice to be the Messiah required he die for sin, to atone for us.


I appreciate your point, and we are at a loss of words to distinguish between Jesus and us his brethern on spiritual "physiology"!...As I pointed out with the two covenants truth, both saved and Saviour experience/d selfish inclination overcome with the power of God's Spirit, but Jesus' experience of that righteousness by faith dates from his birth - mysterious as the incarnation itself, and irrelevant to our spiritual instruction, and not from conversion like we do. Essentially, His spiritual walk spanned his entire life, not just part of his. There's no word for that, in theology, that I know of, but it's akin to our justification, regarding being (made) righteous.

Submitting to God straightens our spiritual human bent away from God, thus resulting in justification: Christ's righteousness, based on the spiritual model that we receive at conversion renders his experience of defeating sin in his flesh the only reality that was his. IOW, that Christ modelled the reality and experience of justification by faith for us means his human character was meritorious and unsullied, indeed worthy of translation: wholly qualifying him to Saviour of the World, thanks be to God.

Is that more agreeable, while we may well disagree on Christ's human nature's moral set-up, though we obviously agree that he had the presence of his Father's Spirit all the time.

As I was doing the lesson on Sabbath the thought struck me, that if the sins of the fathers after the report of the 12 spies was passed on to the children, then why were their children allowed to come into the land of Canaan. Its because only those that had reached the age of understanding suffered death as judgement and with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, were kept from entering the land of milk and honey.

This shows God takes that into account when He passes judgement and I would say it applies to the question of sin and infants..

64But among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered, when they numbered the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. 65For the LORD had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness. And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
Numbers 26:64,65

"automatic condemnation because of Adam’s sin"

Seems like a problem to me. I'd like to not experience that, if possible.