In looking into the basic ideas that made the 1888 message of Christ's righteousness unique and powerful, we shall keep very close to Ellen White's parallel comments on the message and history of that era. In describing the revival meetings held at South Lancaster early in 1889, she directs us to the vital heart of the practical godliness aspect of the Jones-Waggoner message:
Both students and teachers have shared largely in the blessing of God. The deep movings of the Spirit of God have been felt upon almost every heart. The general testimony was borne by those who attended the meeting that they had obtained an experience beyond anything they had known before....
I have never seen a revival work go forward with such thoroughness, and yet remain so free from all undue excitement. There was no urging or inviting. The people were not called forward, but there was a solemn realization that Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance... We seemed to breathe in the very atmosphere of heaven.... What a beautiful sight it was to the universe to see that as fallen men and women beheld Christ, they were changed, taking the impression of his image upon their souls.... They saw themselves depraved and degraded in heart... This subdues the pride of the heart, and is a crucifixion of self.
The Jones-Waggoner idea of the divine, eternally pre-existent Christ coming to rescue man where he is, taking upon his sinless nature our sinful nature and experiencing all our temptations within his soul, and yet completely triumphing over them—this was a central feature of their message. It was closely tied to their unique view of justification by faith. Christ's righteousness was dynamic and glorious, the fruit of lifelong conflict even unto "the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:8). Speaking of the same meeting, Ellen White goes on to express her joy, like this:
On Sabbath afternoon, many hearts were touched, and many souls were fed on the bread that cometh down from heaven... The Lord came very near and convicted souls of their great need of his grace and love. We felt the necessity of presenting Christ as a Saviour who was not afar off, but nigh at hand.
The key to understanding the heart of the 1888 message lies in that phrase—"a Saviour who was not afar off, but nigh at hand". He who is "the way, the truth, and the life" made himself manifest to youth at the college as One "nigh at hand", "Emmanuel,... God with us", not with him only, but "with us" (Matthew 1:23).
Who is Jesus Christ?
He comes to us in the 1888 message in a unique way. And the baffling, often misunderstood, history of that message demonstrates the great controversy between Christ and Satan. Let Christ be revealed in his fullness, and Satan for sure will be aroused to oppose. It is so even today.
Was Christ indeed "in all points tempted like as we are" from within as well as from without? Or was he so different from us that he could not feel our inward temptations?
Was he really and truly man? Or was he tempted only as the sinless Adam was tempted? Can we be sure that he was tempted as we are tempted? Or was he tempted in some mysterious non-human way, irrelevant to our understanding, like turning stones to bread?
We have our initial clue from what Ellen White said of that early 1889 meeting that Christ was revealed in the message as "One nigh at hand". And she says: "We felt the necessity" of presenting him so—Ellen White heartily joined with Jones and Waggoner in their presentations.
This was what so impressed Ellen White's soul during this "revival work".
This was not cold theology; this was life. "Both students and teachers" "beheld Christ "It was genuine justification by faith, for it subdued "the pride of the heart, and [was] a crucifixion of self". "What is justification by faith? It is the work of God in laying the glory of man in the dust, and doing for man that which it is not in his power to do for himself." Let us look at a simple, straightforward example of the Jones-Waggoner message of Christ's righteousness "in the likeness of sinful flesh". Waggoner is summarizing what he has taught ever since and before the 1888 Conference:
There were two questions handed me, and I might read them now. One of them is this: "Was that holy thing which was born of the virgin Mary born in sinful flesh, and did that flesh have the same evil tendencies to contend with that ours does?"...
Now I do not know anything about this matter, except what I read in the Bible; but that which I read in the Bible is so clear and plain that it gives me everlasting hope. [Voices: Amen!] I have had my time of discouragement and despondency and unbelief, but I thank God that it is past. That thing which for years of my life made me discouraged, after I had as earnestly and conscientiously as anyone ever did, tried to serve the Lord—that which made me give up in my soul and say, "It is no use; I cannot do it", was the knowledge, to some extent, of the weakness of my own self, and the thought that those who in my estimation were doing right, and those holy men of old of whom we read in the Bible, were differently constituted from me so that they could do right. I found by many sad experiences that I could not do anything but evil...
I ask you: If Jesus Christ, who is set forth by the Father as the Saviour, who came here to show me the way of salvation, in whom alone there is hope—if his life here on earth was a sham, then where is the hope? [Voice: It is gone.] "But", you say, "this question presupposes the very opposite of the fact that his life was a sham, because it presupposes that he was perfectly holy, so holy that he never had even any evil to contend with."
That's what I am referring to. I read, he "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." I read of his praying all night. I read of his praying in such agony the drops of sweat like blood fell from his face; but if that were all make-believe, if it were all simply show, if he went through that and there was nothing to it after all, if he were not really tempted, but that was merely going through the motions of prayer, of what use is it all to me? I am left worse off than I was before.
But O, if there is One—and I do not use this "if" with any thought of doubt; I will say since there is One who went through all that I ever can be called upon to go through, who resisted more than I in my own single person can ever be called upon to resist [Voices: Amen!], who had temptations stronger than ever has come to me personally, who was constituted in every respect as I am, only in even worse circumstances than I have been, who met all the power that the devil could exercise through human flesh, and yet who knew no sin—then I can rejoice with exceeding great joy. [Voices: Amen!]... And that which he did some nineteen hundred years ago is that which he is still able to do, which he does to all who believe in him.
Before we go further, let us catch what Waggoner was saying: (a) Christ was really tempted as we are; (b) he prayed because he had to; (c) He was "constituted in every respect as I am" except that he knew no sin; (d) He met "all the power that the devil could exercise through human flesh" (obviously, through temptations within and without), (e) Yet Christ "knew no sin", and demonstrated in his flesh and life a perfect righteousness, (f) All who believe in him truly will know his power to save them from sinning.
But to be fair we need to hear Waggoner out.
He continues, discussing the Roman Catholic view of the nature of Christ in the flesh:
Was Christ, that holy thing which was born of the virgin Mary, born in sinful flesh? Did you ever hear of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the immaculate conception? And do you know what it is? Some of you possibly have supposed in hearing of it, that it meant that Jesus Christ was born sinless. That is not the Catholic dogma at all. The doctrine of the immaculate conception is that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born sinless. Why?—Ostensibly to magnify Jesus; really the work of the devil to put a wide gulf between Jesus the Saviour of men, and the men whom he came to save, so that one could not pass over to the other.
This "wide gulf" is the very error that Ellen White spoke of in her March 1889 statement above, which "we felt the necessity" of avoiding. Waggoner reveals his awareness in 1901 of continuing opposition to the 1888 message:
We need to settle, every one of us, whether we are out of the church of Rome or not. There are a great many that have got the marks yet, but I am persuaded of this, that every soul who is here to-night desires to know the way of truth and righteousness [Congregation: Amen!], and that there is no one here who is unconsciously clinging to the dogmas of the papacy, who does not desire to be freed from them.
Do you not see that the idea that the flesh of Jesus was not like ours (because we know ours is sinful) necessarily involves the idea of the immaculate conception of the virgin Mary? Mind you, in him was no sin, but the mystery of God manifest in the flesh,... the perfect manifestation of the life of God in its spotless purity in the midst of sinful flesh. [Congregation: Amen!] O, that is a marvel, is it not?
Suppose we start with the idea for a moment that Jesus was so separate from us, that is, so different from us that he did not have in his flesh anything to contend with. It was sinless flesh. Then, of course, you see how the Roman Catholic dogma of the immaculate conception necessarily follows. But why stop there? Mary being born sinless, then, of course, her mother also had sinless flesh. But you can not stop there. You must go back to her mother,... and so back until you come to Adam; and the result—there never was a fall; Adam never sinned; and thus, you see, by that tracing of it, we find the essential identity of Roman Catholicism and Spiritualism....
[Christ] was tempted in the flesh, he suffered in the flesh, but he had a mind which never consented to sin...
He established the will of God in the flesh, and established the fact that God's will may be done in any human, sinful flesh....
Every body, your body, and my body, is prepared by God that Christ may do the will of God in it.
The simple idea Waggoner is presenting is that what Christ accomplished by overcoming in his flesh on earth, he can accomplish in the flesh of all who understand the pure gospel and believe in him truly. Righteousness is by faith. Note his conclusion:
When God has given this witness to the world of his power to save to the uttermost, to save sinful beings, and to live a perfect life in sinful flesh, then he will remove the disabilities and give us better circumstances in which to live. But first of all this wonder must be worked out in sinful man, not simply in the person [flesh] of Jesus Christ, but in Jesus Christ reproduced and multiplied in the thousands of his followers. So that not simply in the few sporadic cases but in the whole body of the church, the perfect life of Christ will be manifested to the world, and that will be the last crowning work which will either save or condemn men...
Now when we get hold of that, we have healthful living in mortal flesh, and we shall glory in infirmities.... I could be perfectly content never to know any higher joy than this, that Jesus gives us, the experience of the power of Christ in sinful flesh—to put under foot, and make subservient to his will, this sinful flesh. It is the joy of victory; and there can be a shout in the camp when that is done...
He brings victory out of defeat; out of the depths of the pit he lifts us up, and makes us sit together with Christ in heavenly places. He can take the child that is born in sin, it may be even the product of lust, and can make that very child to sit with the princes of God's people. The Lord has shown us this in that he did not conceal his own ancestry from us... We have mourned the fact that we inherited evil tendencies, sinful natures, we have almost despaired because we could not break with these inherited evils, nor resist these tendencies to sin.... Jesus Christ was "born of the seed of David according to the flesh."... Jesus was not ashamed to call sinful men his brethren....
Thus we see that no matter what our inheritance may have been by nature, the Spirit of God has such power over the flesh that it can utterly reverse all this, and make us partakers of the divine nature....
O, may God help us to see some of the glorious possibilities in the gospel ... so that we may say, "I delight to do thy will, O God; yea, thy law is within my heart," revealing its power even in my sinful, mortal flesh, to the everlasting praise of the glory of his grace.
The basic idea remained clear and undistorted. Note what Waggoner wrote in a letter to G. I. Butler, February 10, 1887, and published late in 1888 (he presented copies to the delegates at the session):
Read Rom. 8:3, and you will learn the nature of the flesh which the Word was made: "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Christ was born in the likeness of sinful flesh... [then quotes Philippians 2:5-7 and Hebrews 2:9].
These texts show that Christ took upon himself man's nature, and that as a consequence he was subject to death. He came into the world on purpose to die; and so from the beginning of his earthly life he was in the same condition that the men are in whom he died to save. Now read, Rom. 1:3: The gospel of God, "concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh." What was the nature of David, "according to the flesh"? Sinful, was it not? David says: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Ps. 51:5. Don't start in horrified astonishment; I am not implying that Christ was a sinner... [quotes Hebrews 2:16, 17].
His being made in all things like unto his brethren, is the same as his being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, "made in the likeness of men". One of the most encouraging things in the Bible is the knowledge that Christ took on him the nature of man; to know that his ancestors according to the flesh were sinners. When we read the record of the lives of the ancestors of Christ, and see that they had all the weaknesses and passions that we have, we find that no man has any right to excuse his sinful acts on the ground of heredity.
If Christ had not been made in all things like unto his brethren, then his sinless life would be no encouragement to us. We might look at it with admiration, but it would be the admiration that would cause hopeless despair... [quotes 2 Corinthians 5:2].
Now when was Jesus made sin for us? It must have been when he was made flesh, and began to suffer the temptations and infirmities that are incident to sinful flesh. He passed through every phase of human experience, being "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin". He was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief". "He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows" (Isa. 53:4); and this scripture is said by Matthew to have been fulfilled long before the Crucifixion. So I say that his being born under the law was a necessary consequence of his being born in the likeness of sinful flesh, of taking upon himself the nature of Abraham. He was made like man, in order that he might undergo the suffering of death. From the earliest childhood the cross was ever before him.
You say: "That he did voluntarily take the sins of the world upon him in his great sacrifice upon the cross, we [General Conference and Review and Herald leadership] admit; but he was not born under its condemnation. Of him that was pure, and had never committed a sin in his life, it would be an astonishing perversion of all proper theology to say that he was born under the condemnation of the law." It may be a perversion of theology, but it is exactly in harmony with the Bible, and that is the main point....
You are shocked at the idea that Jesus was born under the condemnation of the law, because he never committed a sin in his life. But you admit that on the cross he was under the condemnation of the law. What! had he then committed sin? Not by any means. Well, then, if Jesus could be under the condemnation of the law at one time in his life, and be sinless, I see no reason why he could not be under the condemnation of the law at another time, and still be sinless...
I simply cannot understand how God could be manifest in the flesh, and in the likeness of sinful flesh.... I simply accept the Scripture statement, that only so could he be the Saviour of men; and I rejoice in that knowledge, because since he was made sin, I may be made the righteousness of God in him.
What makes this rather extended statement on the nature of Christ so interesting is that Waggoner actually published it in 1888, and then only after allowing the subject matter to mature in his mind for over a year.
From interviews with Waggoner's wife, Froom informs us that she took down her husband's studies at the 1888 Conference in shorthand and transcribed them. Waggoner then edited these notes for articles in "The Signs of the Times" and later published them in his "Christ and His Righteousness" and other books. Waggoner hardly had time to unpack his bags after the 1888 Conference before he was writing in the January 21, 1889 Signs (the passage also appears in slightly edited form in "Christ and His Righteousness", pages 26-30) as follows:
A little thought will be sufficient to show anybody that if Christ took upon himself the likeness of man, in order that he might suffer death, it must have been sinful man that he was made like, for it is only sin that causes death. Death ... could not have had any power over Christ if the Lord had not laid on him the iniquity of us all. Moreover, the fact that Christ took upon himself the flesh, not of a sinless being but of sinful man, that is, that the flesh which he assumed had all the weaknesses and sinful tendencies to which fallen human nature is subject, is shown by the very words upon which this article is based. He was "made of the seed of David according to the flesh."...
Although his mother was a pure and godly woman, as could but be expected, no one can doubt that the human nature of Christ must have been more subject to the infirmities of the flesh than it would have been if he had been born before the race had so greatly deteriorated physically and morally... [quotes Hebrews 2:16-18 and 2 Corinthians 5:21].
This is much stronger than the statement that he was made "in the likeness of sinful flesh". He was made to be sin....
Sinless, yet not only counted as a sinner, but actually taking upon himself sinful nature... [quotes Galatians 4:4, 5].
Jesus spent whole nights in prayer to the Father. Why should this be, if he had not been oppressed by the enemy, through the inherited weakness of the flesh? He "learned... obedience by the things which he suffered". Not that he was ever disobedient, for he "knew no sin", but by the things which he suffered in the flesh, he learned what men have to contend against in their efforts to be obedient...
Some may have thought, while reading this article thus far, that we were depreciating the character of Jesus, by bringing him down to the level of sinful man. On the contrary, we are simply exalting the "divine power" of our blessed Saviour, who himself voluntarily descended to the level of sinful man, in order that he might exalt man to his own spotless purity, which he retained under the most adverse circumstances.... His humanity only veiled his divine nature, which was more than able to successfully resist the sinful passions of the flesh. There was in his whole life a struggle. The flesh, moved upon by the enemy of all righteousness, would tend to sin, yet his divine nature never for a moment harbored an evil desire, nor did his divine power for a moment waver. Having suffered in the flesh all that all men can possibly suffer, he returned to the throne of the Father, as spotless as when he left the courts of glory.... Then let the weary, feeble, sin-oppressed souls take courage. Let them "come boldly unto the throne of grace", where they are sure to find grace to help in time of need, because that need is felt by our Saviour, in the very time of need.
The observant reader will note: Waggoner did not say that Christ "had" his own sinful nature. He says Christ "took" our sinful nature, a nature that had within it all the capability of being tempted from within or without, a nature like ours with all the results of our heredity, but never for a moment did Jesus yield to temptation.
Did Ellen White fully endorse this concept of Christ's righteousness?
At the 1888 Conference itself she said, "I see the beauty of truth in the presentation of the righteousness of Christ in relation to the law as the doctor [Waggoner] has placed it before us... That which has been presented harmonizes perfectly with the light which God has been pleased to give me during all the years of my experience." "The righteousness of Christ in relation to the law" is obviously not his pre-incarnation holiness in heaven, but his character and sacrifice wrought out in his incarnation "in the likeness of sinful flesh." As we have seen above, Waggoner made clear to Elder Butler that he believed Christ was "born under the law... [as] a necessary consequence of his being born in the likeness of sinful flesh, of taking upon himself the nature of Abraham." It would be impossible for Ellen White to endorse as "the beauty of truth" Waggoner's concept "of the righteousness of Christ in relation to the law" unless it included this tremendous idea of Christ taking "our sinful nature" and yet developing therein a perfectly sinless character.
In fact, she was enthusiastic about the over-all message she heard from him:
When Brother Waggoner brought out these ideas in the Minneapolis Conference it was the first clear teaching of the subject from any human lips I had heard, excepting the communication between myself and my husband. I have said to myself, it is because God has presented it to me in vision that I see it so clearly, and they [the opposing brethren] cannot see it because they have not had it presented to them as I have; and when another presented it, every fiber of my heart said amen.
How could Ellen White have said something like this if Waggoner was merely reemphasizing Lutheran and Calvinist ideas or what the Evangelicals of their day were saying?
And this message was not the hair-splitting, partisan, cerebral theological contentions that are so common among us today.
It was simple, powerful, soul-saving Good News that won sinners, including tempted teenagers!