First Quarter 2004 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"The Gospel Of John"

Insights to Lesson 2
Jesus Is the Best
January 3-9, 2004

(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." John 1:14.

"The Word was made flesh." What kind of flesh? Are there various kinds of human flesh? Why was it necessary for Christ to become flesh? Does Jesus assuming a human nature only mean that "he was subject to human limitations" and "frailty" or only that He "became sweaty, tired, and hungry" while being "exempt" from the pulls of the sinful nature which we all suffer?

Through the incarnation, Christ took upon Himself the fallen flesh of Adam, becoming a genetic descendent of Adam through His mother, Mary. Adam had no children until after he sinned. To all his children Adam passed on his fallen nature. Therefore, as a daughter of Adam, sinful flesh was all Mary had to impart to her divinely conceived Child.

Romans 1:3 declares that Christ was descended of David. Hebrews states that Jesus did not become as the angels who possess an unfallen nature, but was the child of Abraham, and a "partaker of flesh and blood" (Hebrews 2:14-16). Romans 8:3 unequivocally conveys the truth that Christ came in the likeness (not unlikeness) of sinful flesh, while Philippians 2:7 says that He came in the likeness of men. Since all men are fallen, to come in the "likeness of men" cannot mean anything other than that in His incarnation He assumed fallen flesh like all men possess.

These same verses are just as clear regarding the reason for Christ assuming our fallen human nature. He came to "condemn sin in the flesh"—which leaves absolutely no excuse for continued sinning. We can’t blame our nature as the reason for our continued indulgence in sin. Christ assumed the fallen human nature of Adam so that He could "become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Unfallen flesh was not subject to death. If Adam had never sinned, he would never have died. However, through His death, Christ destroyed "him that had the power of death, that is, the devil [that He might] deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

A.T. Jones put it this way: "The first chapter of Hebrews reveals that Christ’s likeness to God is not simply in form or representation, but also in very substance; and the second chapter as clearly reveals that His likeness to men is not simply in form or in representation, but also in very substance. It is likeness to men as they are in all things, exactly as they are. Wherefore, it is written: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,. And the Word was God . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.’ John 1:1-14. And that this is likeness to man as he is in his fallen, sinful nature, and not as he was in his original, sinless nature."¹

In Bible Readings for the Home Circle, E. J. Waggoner answered the question, "How fully did Christ share our common humanity?" by stating: "In His humanity Christ partook of our sinful, fallen nature. If not, then He was not ‘made like unto His brethren,’ was not ‘in all points tempted like as we are,’ did not overcome as we have to overcome, and is not, therefore the complete and perfect Saviour man needs and must have to be saved. The idea that Christ was born of an immaculate or sinless mother, inherited no tendencies to sin, and for this reason did not sin, removes Him from the realm of a fallen world, and from the very place where help is needed. On His human side, Christ inherited just what every child of Adam inherits,—a sinful nature. On the divine side, from His very conception He was begotten and born of the Spirit. And all this was done to place mankind on vantage-ground, and to demonstrate that in the same way every one who is ‘born of the Spirit’ may gain like victories over sin in his own sinful flesh. Thus each one is to overcome as Christ overcame. Revelation 3:21. Without this birth there can be no victory over temptation, and no salvation from sin. John 3:3-7."²

Until 1957, the official position of the church was that Christ assumed the fallen nature of Adam. What happened to change the church’s position on this vital subject?

Two evangelical men approached the General Conference in the spring of 1955 asking for dialogue with the leadership of the church to clarify certain points of theology.³ From examining the statements in Bible Readings, Walter Martin and Donald Grey Barnhouse had understood that the Seventh-day Adventist Church taught that Christ had assumed the fallen nature of Adam. Martin and Barnhouse wanted to know if this was indeed the true position of the Adventist church. If the church did hold this position, then Martin determined to include the Adventist church in his forthcoming book, Kingdom of the Cults.

The meetings with these two men continued until the summer of 1956. In the fall of 1957, the church published "a new, definitive statement of [our] faith" in a book titled Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine.⁴ In the Appendix B, "Christ’s Nature During the Incarnation," the authors of this volume included a subtitle which declared that Christ "Took Sinless Human Nature" and followed it with a discussion which attempted to prove that this was true. Since its publication, there has been unrest in the Adventist camp over the subject of the human nature of Christ.

Does it really make any difference what we believe on this subject? Is it worth taking the risk of possible disagreement by accentuating these differences? How are we to understand the inspired statements: "Be careful, exceedingly careful as to how you dwell upon the human nature of Christ. Do not set Him before the people as a man with the propensities of sin . . . let every human being be warned from the ground of making Christ altogether human, such an one as ourselves: for it cannot be"?⁵

"The humanity of the Son of God is everything to us. It is the golden linked chain which binds our souls to Christ and through Christ to God. This is to be our study. Christ was a real man, and He gave proof of His humility in becoming a man. And He was God in the flesh."⁶

"While cast down, we shall not be forsaken of God, unless we shall sever the golden link of the chain which binds us through Christ to God. Jesus is our Pattern. The Majesty of heaven, the King of glory, was tempted in all points like as sinful man is tempted. But through Christ we may be placed upon vantage ground, and become partakers of the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust."⁷ This statement is essentially what Waggoner said in his Bible Readings Note, even using the same phrase "vantage ground."

By claiming that Christ took the unfallen nature of Adam, we are "sever[ing] the golden linked chain which binds us through Christ to God." What we need to understand fully is that it’s not the equipment itself that is the problem—it’s what the equipment does that’s the problem. Jesus took the dilapidated, imperfect equipment⁸ and in it worked out the perfect obedience to His Father’s will. Not even by a thought did He consent to sin. He is therefore, to the fullest extent, fitted to be our Saviour from all sin (Matthew 1:21). After perfecting our corporate character in His fallen nature, He took that nature to the Cross and died eternally to sin, forever freeing us from bondage to Satan. What greater expression of love toward their rebellious creatures could the Godhead give, than to lay down the life of the Son of God for us?

This glorious truth is to be our study throughout eternity as we contemplate the love and humility of our Saviour who "made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:7-11).

NOTES:

1. A. T. Jones, The Consecrated Way to Christian Perfection, p. 21, (ellipses and emphasis in original). (return to text)

2. Bible Readings for the Home Circle (Mountain View, Calf.: Pacific Press, 1914), p. 174. This Note written by Waggoner remained in the Bible Readings through the 1949 edition, after which it was replaced with the current Note. (return to text)

3. The points under contention were 1844, the change of Christ's ministry to the most holy apartment, the investigative judgment, the nature of Christ, the nature of the atonement (whether or not it was complete at the Cross), and salvation by grace plus works (Sabbath-keeping). The Calvinistic evangelicals the church leadership were dealing with assumed that if Christ took upon Himself our fallen nature, then He was automatically as sinner who was Himself in need of a Saviour. (return to text)

4. George R. Knight, "Introduction to the Annotated Edition," Questions on Doctrine (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 2003), p. xvii. (return to text)

5. White, "The Baker Letter," Manuscript Releases Vol. 13, pp. 18-19. These statements were made to Elder W. L. H. Baker probably in 1895. Baker was a conference worker in the Tasmanian Mission Field who began to teach a form of heresy on the nature of Christ known as "adoptionism." Adoptionism claimed that, after he had proven through his obedience that he was perfect, a fully human man was chosen by God to be the savior of the human race through his witness and death. It was in response to this heresy that Mrs. White warned Baker to avoid making Christ "altogether human, such an one as ourselves: for it cannot be." (return to text)

6. White, Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary Vol. 7, p. 904. (return to text)

7. White, Signs of the Times, Jan. 2, 1896. (return to text)

8. "It would have been an almost infinite humiliation for the Son of God to take man's nature, even when Adam stood in his innocence in Eden. But Jesus accepted humanity when the race had been weakened by four thousand years of sin. 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 to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life." White, Desire of Ages, p. 49. (return to text)

Read the study notes for Lesson 3