How does the following insights fit in with your definitions of old man versus sinful flesh? Also, how do you define the new man versus the old man?


"Will every soul before the old year closes put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man, Christ Jesus?" {UL 367.2} What happens to our sinful flesh when we put off the old man and put on the new man?

Developing the mind, or the character, doesn't mean that the mind, or the character, didn't exist before that.


Luke 1
41 And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
42 Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
43 "But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
44 "For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

I think we're getting off track here. When EGW and contemporaries (e.g. Jones, Haskell, Prescott, Haskell etc.) spoke of Christ's taking human nature, or sinful flesh, they emphasized that

1.Christ united "flesh of sin" with divinity, thus preparing the way for the rest of us to be victorious as He was.

2.Christ took fallen humanity with all its hereditary inclinations.

People after the age of accountability are judged on the basis of their cultivated character, of course. People before the age of accountability (children) are not judged, for we will be judged by the truth that reached our understanding (RH, February 25, 1890 par. 7}. However, even not having to face judgment, and not being accounted guilty because of their sins, children are saved by Christ's sacrifice, for it is the faith of the parents which saves them (3SM 313, 314).
If children are saved by Christ's sacrifice, did Christ also need salvation? If not, why not?


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Judas was always thinking that he would reform, but then he thought that his good qualities would counterbalance his hereditary and cultivated traits which were evil. {12MR 41.1}

We are to strive most earnestly against our hereditary and cultivated traits of character. If our evil characteristics are not overcome, they will through exercise become stronger and stronger, and pollute mind and character. {2MR 268.2}

No, we are not. There's no way a mind can't be affected by sinful tendencies. And there's no way a tendency can be in the brain and not in the mind.

I think we're getting off track because neither EGW nor her contemporaries talked about this. What they did talk about was

1.Christ united "flesh of sin" with divinity, thus preparing the way for the rest of us to be victorious as He was.

2.Christ took fallen humanity with all its hereditary inclinations.

"All have sinned" applies to everyone, including infants. The reason it doesn't apply to Jesus is because He never sinned.

Do you think infants are sinless until they reach the age of accountability, that is, do you think all of their thoughts, words, motives, and actions are sinless?


Do you make a distinction between traits and tendencies? Or, do you see them as synonymous? That is, what words do you use to differentiate between the traits and tendencies we inherit and the traits and tendencies we cultivate? Do both sets war against us and cause us to be guilty? Is there any difference between them in judgment?

Ellen White's contemporaries said that Christ took fallen humanity with all its hereditary inclinations. What Ellen White said was

"[Adam's] posterity was born with inherent propensities of disobedience. But Jesus Christ ... could have sinned; He could have fallen, but not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity." {13MR 18.1}

There is a contrast here between Adam's posterity, born with inherent propensities of disobedience, and Jesus Christ, in whom there weren't any evil propensities.

I don't think children sin before being born, but as soon as they are born they need a Saviour.


Sin is not imputed to them.


I see them as synonymous.

Ok, let's consider these two things. On the one hand, we have the Baker letter, a letter written to an obscure individual, of which no one knows what he was teaching.

On the other hand, we have her contemporaries reading publicly from her books with her knowledge and openly interpreting her writings in the Review and Herald.

So you would have Ellen White keep silent when a public figure, working hand in hand with her, makes a public declaration in the most widely read publication of the SDA church while making a fuss when an obscure private figure teaches the same thing? That just doesn't make sense!

Isn't it more likely that if someone sees a contradiction between what she said to Baker and what S. N. Haskell said, who lived and worked and talked with her, that such a person, rather than Haskel, was misunderstanding her? How could Haskell have been so confused? And how could she have kept quiet?

This imputes to her a character I don't think is possible she could have had. For example, she wrote:



To meet the Holy Flesh (HF), who taught:

1.HF teaches that Christ took the nature of Adam before the fall.
2.HF teaches we must have the same unfallen nature of Adam in order to be sinless like Christ.

they countered by arguing

1.We do not believe that Christ took the unfallen nature of Adam like the HF does, but rather he took the fallen nature of Adam.

For example:



Waggoner made the same argument at the General Conference session, which Ellen White also attended.

A. T. Jones also wrote a series of articles in the Review on this theme, which later became published under "The Consecrated Way To Perfection."

It's interesting to note that Ellen White's strongest statements one the subject come during this time period as well, such as Christ took the "offending nature of man," and a nature "degraded and defiled by sin," and "the nature of Adam, the transgressor."

Again, supposedly, Ellen White not only kept silent while the leading figures of the church were feverishly fighting against the Holy Flesh movement, armed with unsound arguments and untruths, but she supported them, and, to their understanding, echoed their thoughts, but secretly, unknown to anyone except Baker, she believed contrary to their teachings?

One also wonders how she could endorse so strongly Prescott's sermons at Avondale.

I don't see how one can even remotely think this is possible.

Let's give an example. Let's say Lincoln wrote something to somebody in a private letter, which gave some idea X. Let's say that he wrote very much of the subject to which X pertains, and said certain things which his contemporaries understood was Y. Say, for example, X is pro-slavery and Y anti-slavery, although any well known and important view point would suffice as an example.

Let's further suppose that in addition to Lincoln's own words on the subject, his best friends and contemporaries wrote and spoke publicly about the subject in Lincoln's presence and wrote about it in the most widely read newspapers, quoted from Lincoln's works, and said that Lincoln believed Y.

Now someone comes, 100 years later, on the basis of a private letter, asserts that Lincoln actually believed X. Isn't it obvious this hypothesis would be rejected out of hand?