Christ’s Human
Nature Was Created
This is why the three persons
of the Godhead are not co-eternal. The human nature person of Christ was
created, so how could it be co-eternal with the eternal Holy Spirit Divine
Nature of the Son of God, and the Father? This is also the reason why many folk
conflate the Bible statements about the humanity of Christ with the ones about
His Divine eternal nature Holy Spirit.
Was Christ Capable of Yielding to Temptation?
In your letter
in regard to the temptations of Christ, you say: “If He was One with God He
could not fall”....The point you inquire of me is, In our Lord’s great scene of
conflict in the wilderness, apparently under the power of Satan and his angels,
was He capable, in His human nature, of yielding to these temptations? {3SM 129.2}
I
will try to answer this important question: As God He could not be tempted: but
as a man He could be tempted, and that strongly, and could yield to the
temptations. His human nature must pass through the same test and trial Adam and
Eve passed through. His
human nature was created; it did not even possess the angelic powers. It was human, identical with our
own. He was passing over the ground where Adam fell. He was now where,
if He endured the test and trial in behalf of the fallen race, He would redeem
Adam’s disgraceful failure and fall, in our own humanity. {3SM 129.3}
Christ Had a Human Body and a
Human Mind—A human body and a human mind were His. He was bone of our
bone and flesh of our flesh. He was subjected to poverty from His first
entrance into the world. He was subject to disappointment and trial in His own
home, among His own brethren. He was not surrounded, as in the heavenly courts,
with pure and lovely characters. He was compassed with difficulties. He came
into our world to maintain a pure, sinless character, and to refute Satan’s lie
that it was not possible for human beings to keep the law of God. Christ came to live the law in
His human character in just that way in which all may live the law in human
nature if they will do as Christ was doing. He had inspired holy men of
old to write for the benefit of man: “Let him take hold of my strength, that he
may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me” (Isaiah 27:5). {3SM 129.4}
Abundant provision has been made that finite, fallen man
may so connect with God that, through the same Source by which Christ overcame
in His human nature, he may stand firmly against every temptation, as did
Christ. He was subject to inconveniences that human nature is subjected
to. He breathed the air of the same world we breathe. He stood and traveled in
the same world we inhabit, which, we have positive evidence, was no more friendly to grace and righteousness than it is
today. {3SM 130.1}
His Attributes May Be Ours—The higher attributes of His
being it is our privilege to have, if we will, through the provisions He has
made, appropriate these blessings and diligently cultivate the good in the
place of the evil. We have reason, conscience, memory, will,
affections—all the attributes a human being can possess. Through the provision
made when God and the Son of God made a covenant to rescue man from the bondage
of Satan, every facility
was provided that human nature should come into union with His divine nature.
In such a nature was our Lord tempted. He could have yielded to Satan’s lying
suggestions as did Adam, but we should adore and glorify the Lamb of God that
He did not in a single point yield one jot or one tittle. {3SM 130.2}
Two Natures Blended in Christ—Through being partakers of the
divine nature we may stand pure and holy and undefiled. The Godhead was
not made human, and the human was not deified by the blending together of the
two natures. Christ did not possess the same sinful, corrupt, fallen disloyalty
we possess, for then He could not be a perfect offering.—Manuscript 94, 1893. {3SM 131.1}
The Reality of Christ’s
Temptations—When the follower of Christ meets with trial and perplexity, he
is not to become discouraged. He is not to cast away his confidence if he does
not realize all his expectations. When buffeted by the enemy, he should
remember the Saviour’s life of trial and discouragement. Heavenly beings
ministered to Christ in His need, yet this did not make the Saviour’s life one
of freedom from conflict and temptation. He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without
sin. If His people will
follow this example, they will be imbued with His Spirit, and heavenly angels
will minister to them. {3SM 131.2}
The temptations
to which Christ was subjected were a terrible reality. As a free agent He was
placed on probation, with liberty to yield to Satan’s temptations and work at
cross-purposes with God. If this were not so, if it had not been possible for Him to fall, He could not
have been tempted in all points as the human family is tempted. {3SM 131.3}
The temptations
of Christ, and His sufferings under them, were proportionate to His exalted,
sinless character. But in every time of distress, Christ turned to His Father. He “resisted unto blood” in that
hour when the fear of moral failure was as the fear of death. As He
bowed in Gethsemane, in His soul agony, drops of blood fell from His pores, and
moistened the sods of the earth. He prayed with strong crying and tears, and He
was heard in that He feared. God strengthened Him, as He will strengthen all
who will humble themselves, and throw themselves, soul, body, and spirit, into
the hands of a covenant-keeping God. {3SM 131.4}
Upon the cross
Christ knew, as no other can know, the awful power of Satan’s temptations, and
His heart was poured out in pity and forgiveness for the dying thief, who had
been ensnared by the enemy.—The Youth’s Instructor, October
26, 1899. {3SM 132.1}
Christ’s heart was pierced by a far sharper pain than
that caused by the nails driven into His hands and feet. He was bearing the
sins of the whole world, enduring our punishment—the wrath of God against
transgression. His trial involved the fierce temptation of thinking that He
was forsaken by God. His soul was tortured by the pressure of great darkness,
lest He should swerve from His uprightness during the terrible ordeal. {3SM 132.2}
Unless there is
a possibility of yielding, temptation is no temptation. Temptation is resisted when 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.—The Youth’s Instructor, July 20, 1899. {3SM 132.3}
We May Overcome as Christ Overcame—The love and
justice of God, and also the immutability of His law,
are made manifest by the Saviour’s life, no less than by His death. He assumed human nature, with its
infirmities, its liabilities, its temptations.... He was “in all points tempted
like as we are” (Hebrews 4:15). He exercised in His own behalf no power which man cannot
exercise. As man He met temptation, and
overcame in the strength given Him of God. He gives us an example of perfect obedience. He has provided that we may
become partakers of the divine nature, and assures us
that we may overcome as He overcame. His life testified that by the aid of the same divine
power which Christ received, it is possible for man to obey God’s law.—Manuscript 141, 1901. {3SM 132.4}