I think Christ's experience was like ours, except that He never participated in sin. However, Christ bore our sin, which allowed Him to share in our experiences, which is born out in the Psalms. For example:



Basically (setting aside character) your theology has Christ and His experiences being as unlike ours as is possible, whereas mine is the reverse, which explains our respective emphases.

It's interesting that you could read something like Prescott's sermon and think you agree with it, when he was doing the same thing as I; emphasizing that Christ's experience was as like ours as possible. To do this, he emphasized over two dozen times that Christ took flesh (or a nature) like ours. As you point out, in your theology, this doesn't matter, as you see Adam's experience, in regards to temptation, before the fall as no different than ours. Yet Prescott (and the other "old guys") emphasized over and over again that Christ took our fallen nature so He could be tempted as we are. If there were no difference in our temptations due to having sinful flesh, such an emphasis would have been totally out of place.

So you think that Christ needed his heart to be renewed and the law written in it, like us? And at what point did this happen?

About the fact that Adam was placed under law:

"In the beginning God placed man under law, as an indispensable condition of his very existence. He was a subject of the divine government, and there can be no government without law." {ST, July 23, 1902 par. 8}

God, the great governor of the universe, has put everything under law. The tiny flower and the towering oak, the grain of sand and the mighty ocean, sunshine and shower, wind and rain, all obey nature's laws. But man has been placed under a higher law. He has been given an intellect to see, and a conscience to feel, the powerful claims of God's great moral law, the expression of what He desires His children to be. {ST, July 31, 1901 par. 1}

This can't mean "under the condemnation of the law."

God's mercies are new every morning. He didn't need it because of His sinning, of course, but He took our sinful nature and bore our sins. I don't think that Christ's experience was static, but I think He learned and grew.



This is apples and oranges. You responded to Colin:



Adam was not born "under the law" in the sense that Christ was born "under the law" in Galatians 4:4. "Under the law" in Gal. 4:4 means the same thing as "under the law" in Romans 6:15.

Also, Ellen White didn't say that Adam was "under the law" but that he was "placed under law," and similarly for us.

This happens at our conversion/new birth, that is, at a specific point in time.
And what makes you think that Adam's experience was static and that he didn't learn and grow?


This is your/Waggoner's opinion, which is different from what Ellen White says. Ellen White nowhere says that Christ was under the law in the sense of being condemned by the law, but she does say that when He came in human form He became subject to the law. This is more than clear.

It happens throughout our lives. Morning by morning new mercies we receive. Justification is not a one time thing.



Adam didn't need grace before he sinned. I meant that Christ learned and grew in grace. Adam learned and grew, of course, as the redeemed will in the new earth, but his unfallen experience was very unlike ours. I believe Christ's experience was like ours (not like unfallen Adam's), with the caveat, of course, that Christ, unlike us, never committed sin. However, Christ, bearing our sins, as well as our sinful flesh, needed grace to overcome, as we do.



No it's not. Ellen White endorsed Waggoner on the law in Galatians (See 1SM 234, 235.) Gal. 4:4 follows from Waggoner's view of the law in Galatians.

Have you read "The Gospel in Galatians"? This is available online. http://dedication.www3.50megs.com/1888/waggonerbutler_twolaws3.html

This pamphlet was passed out to the disciples in 1888. People often wonder what was taught there. By reading this pamphlet, one can get an idea, putting themselves in the delegates place, in a manner of speaking, and seeing what it was that Ellen White got so excited about.

Starting from the point of view that the law in Galatians is primarily the moral law, Waggoner's positions logically follow, as he explains in the pamphlet. Unfortunately, your reasoning is usually the same as Butler's on the points we discuss, and contrary to Waggoner's. You're on the wrong side, just like like with Donnell/Haskell.



Ellen White didn't do a commentary on Galations. That she didn't comment on this specific verse in a theological way isn't even worth mentioning. You treat her like she was a Bible Commentary, as if our understanding of Scripture depends upon her commenting on some verse. This wasn't her role, and she never claimed it.

Ellen White affirmed the same truths that Waggoner brings out in his exposition of Gal. 4:4, which are:

1)Christ bore our sins His whole life.
2)Christ came in our sinful flesh.

That Christ became a human being is of course clear. I'm glad Ellen White said this, so you can believe it.

That Christ was subject to the law is also true, even in the sense the Jews are, since He was a Jew. However, this has nothing to do with what Paul is saying in Gal. 4:4.

One more comment regarding Waggoner's "opinion," it wasn't simply an "opinion," but a well-reasoned argument. Waggoner explained why "under the law" in Gal. 4:4 means what it does.

The continuous work of conversion in our lives follows the one-time event of conversion/new birth, which happens at a point in time. So, was Christ born again? In this case, when? Is it your contention that He needed daily conversion, like us?


Hadn’t you said that he needed grace before sinning? Is this the same grace that Christ needed, or did Christ need saving grace, like us?


I’m not going to comment about that, for you already know my opinion.


For her comment to be "theological," what do you think she should say? Something like: "I'm now going to comment theologically on verse..."? That there is a clear reference to the verse in question is evident.

There's no reason to think conversion is a one time event. Just as one example, a person can be converted, fall away, and be re-converted. Also, this doesn't matter to the point I was making, which was that the law being written in our heart is not a one time thing, as you said.



Like us in the sense that He bore our sins and bore our sinful nature. Of course Christ never sinned, so He didn't need it for that reason.

Regarding Christ being born again, one needs to choose one words carefully (which we should do when talking about Christ at any time). When we are born again, we become a partaker of the divine nature. There was never a time when Christ was not a partaker of the divine nature, so if we consider born again as meaning being a partaker of the divine nature, being a child of God, there was never a time when this did not apply to Christ, once He was incarnated.



No.



I was using "grace" as you use the term.