So you are saying that if I commit a sin, I am genetically altered such that chromosomes I pass on to my posterity will have an inclination to that same sin? And this is a physical phenomenon?

And wouldn't you call that an evil (tending to sin) propensity (strong inclination)?


There's a problem with that in my case. My strongest temptations are the result of cultivated sin, not hereditary inclinations. If Jesus was to be tempted as I am tempted, He needs to have cultivated sin. If all He had was hereditary, His problem was nothing compared to mine, not to mention (despite the fact that I am mentioning it now) that my heredity is 2000 years/50% worse than His.

Furthermore, and more to the topic, the sad fact is that I sometimes desire and lust to sin, a propensity which I must struggle mightily against. Did Jesus also desire and lust to sin?

Yes, as I said in my post 108862, there are other evidence to consider.

Now, besides the Baker letter, Ellen White wrote on many other occasions about the subject in question:


If propensitites of disobedience are not sinful propensities, I don't know what are.

Does desiring and lusting to sin contaminate us if we don't do it?

No, I didn't say this. I said you have inherited inclinations which tempt you to sin.



Neither Ellen White nor her contemporaries used this language in reference to genetically inherited inclinations, so no, I wouldn't. I think this would be extremely confusing in a topic where communication is already challenging.

Let's get back to what Haskell said, which I think is very clear and easy to understand. "This is fallen humanity, with all its hereditary inclinations." Two points:

1.All the hereditary inclinations which are passed genetically were passed to Christ, just like any other child of Adam.
2.These hereditary inclinations are not evil propensities (which are something else).

We agreed on point 2. Do we agree on point 1?



This isn't a problem in terms of our discussion. It's simply a separate issue, which, as such, I'll treat separately.

It's probably hard to know this for a fact, but this is certainly our impression of things.



This is true, and this point was treated in detail in A. T. Jones' sermons in 1895. (I altered your "have" with "or take/bear" to make clear I'm not suggesting Christ had to sin).



Agreed. However, not all that Christ had was heredity. He bore our sins as well. He took our nature, or "flesh of sin", and in that flesh of sin He bore our sin, giving Him the whole package (indeed, much more, since you only have your own cultivated sins to deal with, while Christ bore the sin of the world), allowing Him to be tempted in all points as you are, and much, much more.

Again, this is treated in detail in the 1895 GC A. T. Jones sermons.



He was tempted to do so. If you intend "desire" to mean the desires which come from temptations, what Ellen White calls to be strongly influenced, then yes. If you mean in the sense of an act of the will to choose to harbor a wrong thought, then no.

The word "lust" is unfortunately ambiguous. In older English, it simply meant "desire." That is, it was a neutral word. In modern English, it's not. So some things written in the past which speak of "lust" mean "desire," so the context would have to determine whether this desire was good, bad, or neutral. For example, you could lust to be holy, which certainly sounds odd in modern English.

Given you're using the word "lust" without reference to written statements of the past (i.e., simply the modern English usage of the word), then we can say without qualification that Christ did not lust to sin.

Thanks, Teresa. It seems that three of us interpret in the same way what Ellen White wrote in the Baker letter. Arnold said the same in his post #108485 (Feb 16):

Yes, and these are what we should be considering, assuming they're not from private letters.



It is a rather odd expression, but we can see what she means by comparing it with similar expressions. For example:



Clearly this isn't referring to sinful flesh (or sinful nature). Since she says that Christ took our sinful nature, yet not our sinfulness, it's easy to see that "sinfulness" must be something which does not pertain to "sinful nature."



Right. He was capable of yielding to temptations because He took our nature. However, He never sinned, so developed no corrupt propensities. She never used the word "carnal" in reference to Christ (by which I mean His assumed human nature), although she did use the word "sinful" (again, in reference to His assumed human nature) as well as other terms such as "offensive," "degraded," "fallen," etc. Anyway "carnal" was never used in this context (e.g., she never said that Christ took our "carnal nature").

Regarding taint of sin, if we see how she uses the term, we can see it doesn't apply to the physical nature. For example:



Christ's *spiritual* nature was without a "taint of sin." Regarding her saying that He was born without a taint of sin, this could be simply a rejection of the Catholic doctrine of original sin; that is, denying the idea that one can receive the taint of sin simply by being born. I couldn't find any references to her saying that human beings are of necessity born with a taint of sin (nor that humans are born with a taint of sin at all).

Actually, I think I only found on reference, which is the one you cited, although it seems to be repeated in many different compilations. I see it comes from a "Letter 97," which makes me wonder if this also might be from a private letter.

Of course it was Christ's *spiritual* nature that was without a taint of sin when He was born. This is my contention from the beginning. Post #108289 (Feb 13):



Is our spiritual nature without a taint of sin when we are born?

"When Adam came from the Creator's hand, he bore, in his physical, mental, and spiritual nature, a likeness to his Maker. . . . Through sin the divine likeness was marred, and well-nigh obliterated. Man's physical powers were weakened, his mental capacity was lessened, his spiritual vision dimmed. {AG 246.2, 3}

Are we born with full spiritual vision or is our spiritual vision dimmed?

As far as Christ's humanity is concerned, genetically it was like ours, since he, like every child of Adam, accepting the working of the great law of heredity.

Christ had two differences from man.

1.He never sinned.
2.He was God.

So while it's fine and good for us to emphasize that Christ was like man in terms of heredity, in doing to we should make clear the distinctions above, which Ellen White was ever careful to do.

If terms of our birth, we may not have had the advantage of godly parents that Christ had, and we certainly did not have the advantage of being God. So in examining differences between Christ's birth and ours, these distinctions need to be born in mind.

Is a spiritual nature transmitted "genetically" or not?