This concept of Christ's righteousness was unwelcome to Elder Butler, the General Conference president who contended sharply with Waggoner, as it is unwelcome to some in our midst today.
It was so unwelcome that some protesters wrote Ellen White complaining about this message of Waggoner and Jones. She replied with vigor in a morning talk at Battle Creek on "How to Meet a Controverted Point of Doctrine":
Letters have been coming in to me, affirming that Christ could not have had the same nature as man, for if he had, he would have fallen under similar temptations. If he did not have man's nature, he could not be our example. If he was not a partaker of our nature, he could not have been tempted as man has been. If it were not possible for him to yield to temptation, he could not be our helper. It was a solemn reality that Christ came to fight the battles as man, in man's behalf. His temptation and victory tell us that humanity must copy the Pattern; man must become a partaker of the divine nature....
Men may have a power to resist evil—a power that neither earth, nor death, nor hell can master; a power that will place them where they may overcome as Christ overcame.
All through the 1890's Ellen White made clear her unequivocal support of this key concept of the 1888 message because it had to do with getting ready for the coming of the Lord. In all her multitudinous endorsements of the message there is not the slightest hint that she was making any reservations about its central feature. In February 1894 she published a little tract entitled "Christ Tempted As We Are":
But many say that Jesus was not like us, that he was not as we are in the world, that he was divine, and therefore we cannot overcome as he overcame. But this is not true; "for verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham... For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted." Christ knows the sinner's trials; He knows his temptations. He took upon Himself our nature.
And if, as she says (and she is quoting the Bible), Christ was tempted as we are, what does she mean on her page 11? She must mean what she says:
The Christian is to realize that he is not his own... His strongest temptations will come from within; for he must battle against the inclinations of the natural heart. The Lord knows our weaknesses... Every struggle against sin ... is Christ working through his appointed agencies upon the human heart. Oh, if we could comprehend what Jesus is to us and what we are to him.
In her "The Desire of Ages", page 49, she expresses her convictions for the world to read, written during this post-1888 period. In none of her previous writings on the nature of Christ did she express the idea quite so clearly and forcefully:
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.
Did Christ "take" the sinless nature of Adam before the Fall?
He "was made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3). He was not created as a replica of Adam, formed of the dust of the ground anew with the breath of life breathed into his nostrils. He was "like every child of Adam" in accepting "the results of the working of the great law of heredity." To say that Christ "had" or "took" the sinless nature or the sinless mind of the pre-fall Adam is a pathetic failure to grasp reality. Christ's mind was agape, an amazing love that prior to the cross of Calvary was never comprehended even by the unfallen universe. Adam in his sinless state was ever so innocent, but he certainly did not have the mind of agape. He was not prepared to die for Eve to save her, but to die in sinful despair with her. There are lengths, and depths, and breadths, and heights in that agape that passed his knowledge.
The glorious paradox must ever be kept pure and clear. Christ's mind was agape, yet he came close to us who are sinners:
Clad in the vestments of humanity, the Son of God came down to the level of those he wished to save. In him was no guile or sinfulness; he was ever pure and undefiled; yet he took upon him our sinful nature.
The emphasis in her writings after 1888 is overwhelming. It would be wearisome to drag the reader through them all. Here are a few brief examples:
In our own strength it is impossible for us to deny the clamors of our fallen nature. Through this channel Satan will bring temptation upon us. Christ knew that the enemy would come to every human being, to take advantage of hereditary weakness, and by his false insinuations to ensnare all whose trust is not in God. And by passing over the ground man must travel, our Lord prepared the way for us to overcome.... There was in him nothing that responded to Satan's sophistry. He did not consent to sin. Not even by a thought did he yield to temptation. So it may be with us.
Temptation is resisted when a man is powerfully influenced to do a wrong action and, knowing that he can do it, resists, by faith, with a firm hold upon divine power. This was the ordeal through which Christ passed.
In this conflict the humanity of Christ was taxed as none of us will ever know.... These were real temptations, no pretense... The Son of God in his humanity wrestled with the very same fierce, apparently overwhelming temptations that assail men—temptations to indulgence of appetite, to presumptuous venturing where God has not led them, and to the worship of the god of this world, to sacrifice an eternity of bliss for the fascinating pleasures of this life.
Error is always divisive; truth is always unifying.
Did Jones and Waggoner perfectly agree with each other in their presentations of Christ's righteousness? It is really phenomenal that two men temperamentally "unlike as garden fruit and apples of the desert" (a phrase from A. W. Spalding) could thread their way through the maze of hidden theological pitfalls awaiting anyone who studies these subjects, and yet remain in such vital unity. They believed in unity, they appealed to the church to be in unity, and they admirably demonstrated unity during the time when their message was the critical issue facing the church.
They were not concerned with splitting theological hairs or settling semantic difficulties. They were primarily messengers, reformers, evangelists, soul-winning shepherds, burdened with the finishing of God's work in their generation. Their theology was concerned only with making a people ready for the coming of the Lord. Note one of Jones's presentations of the righteousness of Christ:
Being in all things made like us, he, when tempted, felt just as we feel when we are tempted, and knows all about it: and so can help and save to the uttermost all who will receive him. As in his flesh, and as in himself in the flesh, he was as weak as we are, and of himself could "do nothing" (John 5:30); so when he bore "our griefs, and carried our sorrows" (Isa. 53:4), and was tempted as we are, feeling as we feel by his divine faith he conquered all by the power of God which that faith brought to him, and which in our flesh he has brought to us.
Therefore, his name is called Immanuel, which is "God with us." Not God with him only, but God with us.
It is on the words of Jesus that Jones bases his convictions on the nature of Christ and his righteousness. As such, Jesus' own words (John 5:30) deserve our closest scrutiny, for they are neglected in current disputes:
I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
Was Jones correct in his understanding?
In these words of Jesus lies the acorn of truth that produced the oak of the 1888 message. Here the Lord discloses the internal struggle within his flesh and his soul that makes the term "Christ's righteousness" meaningful and relevant to the needs of fallen mankind. This is the basis for Waggoner's statement noted above—"There was in his whole life a struggle."
Jesus had to do something constantly that the sinless Adam never had to do—he had to deny an inner will ("mine own will") that was perpetually in potential opposition to his Father's will. This struggle came to a climax in Gethsemane, where he prayed in agony, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Matthew 26:39). Such an internal struggle could be possible only to One who knew "the clamors of our fallen nature," yet never yielded to them.
Seen in this light, Christ's victory appeared to Jones and Waggoner as a glorious dynamic righteousness, the fruit of struggle and conflict rather than the usual concept of a passive entity of holiness divinely inherited and easily natural. Let us catch the high points of Jones's presentation of Christ's glorious righteousness:
If he were not of the same flesh as are those whom he came to redeem, then there is no sort of use of his being made flesh at all. More than this: Since the only flesh that there is in this wide world which he came to redeem, is just the poor, sinful, lost, human flesh that all mankind have; if this is not the flesh that he was made, then he never really came to the world which needs to be redeemed. For if he came in a human nature different from that which human nature in this world actually is, then, even though he were in the world, yet, for any practical purpose in reaching man and helping him, he was as far from him as if he had never come: for, in that case, in his human nature he was just as far from man and just as much of another world as if he had never come into this world at all....
The faith of Rome as to the human nature of Christ and Mary, and of ourselves, springs from that idea of the natural mind that God is too pure and too holy to dwell with us and in us in our sinful human nature: that sinful as we are, we are too far off for him in his purity and holiness to come to us just as we are.
The true faith—the faith of Jesus—is that, far off from God as we are in our sinfulness, in our human nature which he took, he has come to us where we are; that, infinitely pure and holy as he is, and sinful, degraded, and lost, as we are, he in Christ by his Holy Spirit will willingly dwell with us and in us, to save us, to purify us, and to make us holy.
The faith of Rome is that we must be pure and holy in order that God shall dwell with us at all.
The faith of Jesus is that God must dwell with us, and in us, in order that we shall be holy or pure at all.
Jones sees great significance in Paul's phrase "in the flesh" in Romans 8:3, as referring to the flesh of Christ, that Christ actually condemned sin in his flesh, and thus condemned it in all flesh. With this understanding, Jones sees the word likeness as meaning more than superficial appearance that really means unlikeness:
Only by his subjecting himself to the law of heredity could he reach sin in full and true measure as sin truly is... There is in each person, in many ways, the liability to sin, inherited from generations back, which has not yet culminated in the act of sinning, but which is ever ready, when occasion offers, to blaze forth in the actual committing of sins....
There must be met and subdued this hereditary liability to sin,... this hereditary tendency that is in us, to sin....
Our liability to sin was laid upon him, in his being made flesh....
Thus he met sin in the flesh which he took, and triumphed over it, as it is written: "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin IN THE FLESH." ...
To keep us from sinning, his righteousness is imparted to us in our flesh; as our flesh, with its liability to sin, was imparted to him....
Thus, both by heredity and by imputation, he was laden with "the sin of the world." And, thus laden, at this immense disadvantage, he passed triumphantly over the ground where, at no shadow of any disadvantage whatever the first pair failed...
And by condemning sin in the flesh, by abolishing in his flesh the enmity, he delivers from the power of the law of heredity; and so can, in righteousness, impart his divine nature and power to lift above that law, and hold above that law, and hold above it, every soul that receives him.
On his next page follows the powerful evangelistic appeal, the basis for Ellen White's judgment that "this is the message that God commanded to be given to the world":
God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh Christ taking our nature as our nature in its sinfulness and degeneracy, and God dwelling constantly with him and in him in that nature—in this God has demonstrated to all people forever, that there is no soul in this world so laden with sins or so lost that God will not gladly dwell with him and in him to save him from it all, and to lead him in the way of the righteousness of God.
And so certainly is his name Emmanuel, which is, "God with us" (emphasis supplied).
It is clear that this message is based entirely on Scripture.
Jesus' own words in the Gospels of John and Matthew disclose to us the nature of his own inner struggle against temptation (John 5:30; 6:38; Matthew 26:39). When he took a will upon himself that had to be constantly denied in order to follow his Father's will, the struggle was so intense in Gethsemane that he sweat drops of blood. Paul saw that he denied self (Romans 15:3).
This explains how he was sent "in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, [and yet] condemned sin in the flesh" (8:3). Paul explains how we "were in bondage under the elements (stoicheia) of the world: but... God sent forth his Son,... made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law" (Galatians 4:3-5). Christ was sent to solve the problem of sin where it existed, entering the sphere where these powers had become entrenched. And having invaded enemy territory, He conquered. He assumed fallen human nature, the fallen psyche, that had been invaded by the evil powers, and alone in enemy-occupied territory he won the victory for us.
To be made "under the law" in Galatians 4:4 cannot possibly mean under the physical terms of the ceremonial Jewish law, for that would mean that the only ones he came to "redeem" were literal Jews. "Under the law" therefore clearly means the same sphere of "the elements of the world" that we all have known. He knew our conflict with the will, and where we failed, He overcame.
He has reconciled us "in his body of flesh by his death." "He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him" (Colossians 1:22; 2:15). He "abolished in his flesh the enmity" that alienates us from his Father (Ephesians 2:15).
The author of Hebrews piles words on words to make his meaning clear. Only the supreme sophistry of a master enemy could have inspired the Roman Catholic Church to becloud these inspired concepts through centuries of history:
He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren... Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same... Verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren... In that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted (Hebrews 2:11-18).
We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:15,16).
Some read into one unpublished Ellen White letter an esoteric meaning that presumably contradicts all the voluminous emphasis in her other writings on Christ's righteousness in the likeness of sinful flesh. It is said that she was trying to rebuke Jones and Waggoner. But she does not implicate them. She cautioned an obscure evangelist in New Zealand to be "exceedingly careful" how he taught "the human nature of Christ." She wasn't trying to shoot down the 1888 messengers:
Do not set him before the people as a man with the propensities of sin.... Not for one moment was there in him an evil propensity....
Avoid every question in relation to the humanity of Christ which is liable to be misunderstood. Truth lies close to the track of presumption. In treating upon the humanity of Christ, you need to guard strenuously every assertion, lest your words be taken to mean more than they imply, and thus you lose or dim the clear perceptions of his humanity as combined with divinity....
Never, in any way, leave the slightest impression upon human minds that a taint of, or inclination to, corruption rested upon Christ, or that he in any way yielded to corruption....
On not one occasion was there a response to his [Satan's] manifold temptations. Not once did Christ step on Satan's ground, to give him any advantage. Satan found nothing in him to encourage his advances.
Several important factors must guide our understanding of this testimony:
1. The caution against careless, imprecise, or sloppy terminology is needed by all of us. This is a topic that requires exactness in the use of inspired words. For example, it is not right to say that Christ "had" a sinful nature, for this may be construed "to mean more than" it implies. The correct statement is that "he took upon his sinless nature our sinful nature, that he might know how to succour those that are tempted."
2. The letter means exactly what it says in its context. But there is no reason to twist it out of its context, and make of it a condemnation of the 1888 message as taught by Jones and Waggoner. In fact, its author is telling Baker that he would be safe if he would follow Jones's and Waggoner's example, and stick to their precise and sharply defined expressions. This is evident in that she used syntax and terminology almost identical to that of Waggoner about seven years earlier. Let us compare Waggoner's and Ellen White's statements side by side—both describe Christ's battle with temptation in the flesh and his perfect victory:
Waggoner, January 21, 1889 (Signs):
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.... He returned to the throne of the Father, as spotless as when he left the courts of glory.
Ellen White, Letter 8, 1895:
Jesus Christ was the only begotten Son of God. He took upon himself the human nature, and was tempted in all points as human nature is tempted. He could have sinned; he could have fallen, but not for one moment was there in him an evil propensity.... Never in any way leave the slightest impression that a taint of, or an inclination to corruption rested upon Christ, or that he in any way yielded to corruption... On not one occasion was there a response to...[Satan's] manifold temptations. Not once did Christ step on Satan's ground.
3. The idea that Ellen White was writing this letter to Baker as an oblique or backhanded rebuke to Waggoner and Jones is preposterous. Anyone who appreciates Ellen White's open and honest character knows she was no coward to try to beat around the bush behind one's back. She knew well how to address herself to them if she at all wished to correct their teaching that Christ took our fallen, sinful flesh or nature. Never once did she do so in any written communication extant.
4. She made no attempt to publish this letter during her lifetime. (In fact, it never came to light until the 1950s.) This would hardly be characteristic of Ellen White if she felt that Jones's and Waggoner's teachings had misled the world church.
5. W. W. Prescott's understanding of the nature of Christ was the same as Jones's and Waggoner's. He had been visiting Australia shortly before the writing of this letter to Baker, and had presented clear sermons at the Armadale camp meetings in October which Ellen White attended. She wrote as follows of Prescott's Armadale sermons:
In every sermon Christ was preached, and as the great and mysterious truths regarding his presence and work in the hearts of men were made clear and plain,... a glorious and convincing light... sent conviction to many hearts. With solemnity the people said, "We have listened to truth tonight.
"In the evening Professor Prescott gave a most valuable lesson, precious as gold... Truth was separated from error, and made, by the divine Spirit, to shine like precious jewels...
The Lord is working in power through his servants who are proclaiming the truth, and he has given brother Prescott a special message for the people. The truth comes from human lips in demonstration of the Spirit and power of God.
6. Never did Jones or Waggoner set Christ before the people as a man with the propensities of sin. The etymology of "propensity" is the Latin propendere, "to hang or lean forward or downward" (The Oxford English Dictionary). We get our word pendulum from the same source. The word propensity implies a "response to gravity," "a definite hanging down" instead of resistance. It is actual participation in sin, and Ellen White used the word inits finest 19th century English meaning.
7. To equate "propensities of sin" with Christ's taking upon his sinless nature our sinful nature is not correct. Although we are "born with inherent propensities of disobedience" as sinners, and thus have evil propensities, it is also true that "we need not retain one sinful propensity, "even though we will still have a sinful nature until the moment of glorification. If that is true, then Christ could have taken our sinful nature and yet not have had an evil propensity! Ellen White did not equate "evil propensities" with "tendencies" or "inclinations," which we all have as "the results of the working of the great law of heredity" and which Christ took upon himself in his battle with temptation as we must fight it. She stated that Christ had "to resist the inclination" that would have led to sin.
Even though some non-theological dictionaries equate propensities with inclinations, the etymological roots are different. "Inclination" implies only the capacity "to feel strong pressure exerted" but not "response" thereto. Indeed, we must be "careful, exceedingly careful."
Nevertheless there were questions and tensions throughout the 1888 era, hindering the acceptance of the gracious message of salvation. Jones considers one of the questions:
In Jesus Christ, we meet him whose holiness is a consuming fire to sin... The all-consuming purity of that holiness, will take every vestige of sin and sin-fulness out of the man who will meet God in Jesus Christ.
Thus in his true holiness, Christ could come, and did come, to sinful men in sinful flesh, where sinful men are...
Some have found, and all may find, in the "Testimonies" the statement that Christ has not "like passions "as we have. The statement is there; every one may find it there, of course... [Testimonies, Vol. 2, p.50].
Now there will be no difficulty in any of these studies from beginning to end, if you will stick precisely to what is said, and not go beyond what is said, nor put into it what is not said. Now as to Christ's not having "like passions" with us: In the Scriptures all the way through he is like us, and with us according to the flesh... He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. Don't go too far. He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, not in the likeness of sinful mind. Do not drag his mind into it. His flesh was our flesh; but the mind was "the mind of Christ Jesus."... If he had taken our mind, how, then, could we ever have been exhorted to "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus"? It would have been so already.
Jones was merely saying that never "for one moment" did Christ yield or consent to participation in sin. He uses "mind" in Paul's truest sense—that of purpose or choice. We must look beyond the confusing controversies that we have built up in our day in order to see the simple charm of the 1888 message in its beauty. Some nights after revival meetings following the Minneapolis session, Ellen White could not sleep for joy. The Holy Spirit was working on the hearts of college youth through these presentations of the righteousness of Christ:
Meetings were held in the College which were intensely interesting [if righteousness by faith is not interesting, there is something wrong with it!]... The Christian life, which had before seemed to them undesirable and lull of inconsistencies, now appeared in its true light, in remarkable symmetry and beauty. He who had been to them as a root out of dry ground, without form or comeliness, became "the chiefest among ten thousand," and the one "altogether lovely."
Concluding his presentation of Christ's righteousness "in the likeness of sinful flesh," Waggoner makes this powerful appeal to the heart:
But someone will say, "I don't see any comfort in this for me. To be sure, I have an example, but I can't follow it, for I haven't the power that Christ had. He was God even while here on earth; I am but a man. Yes, but you may have the same power that he had if you want it. He was "compassed with infirmity," yet he "did no sin."...
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. He is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities."
Surely today we also must feel "the necessity of presenting Christ as a Saviour who is not afar off, but nigh at hand"! A dying world needs to see Him thus.