Nature in Overcoming

[Gus Foster]

In current threads and the Adventist forum achieves there are many considerations as

to the nature of Christ and the nature of man. Alexsandr Solzheniysyn

concluded in his "The Gulag Archipelago" that 'committing insidious evil' is

not compartmentalized but possibly intrinsic in the whole human race.

Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo in his "The Lucifer Effect"

writes that a human defect is 'a transformation of character that leads

ordinarily good people to do extraordinary evil things'.

Scripture only recognizes One 'good' Person, that being Jesus. We may read

many opinions on these natures. Those choosing Jesus as inheriting 'fallen

flesh' teach sinless living is possible, while those advocates of the

unfallen nature of Adam in Jesus generally teach that it is not possible to

live without sinning. Authors such as the Standish brothers, of the authors

of the 1888 message, and most currently of the compilation in "Here We

Stand" edited by S K Pipim herald the Sanctuary Doctrine instruction of

Jesus moving His ministry from the Holy Place to the Most Holy Place in the

middle 19th century, and teach that the church lives in the Days of Awe

under intense self-examination and repentance, awaiting the final Day of

Atonement.

Allow me to offer my opinion. Jesus was born with Mary's fallen flesh and

God's perfect righteous nature. His whole life His godly nature totally

subjected His self. He constantly referred to living in the Father's will,

and not His own. This was concluded at Gethsemane, with sweating blood. He

told His disciples in John 16:33 that He 'had' overcome the world; He

completely lived in the will of His Father. Man is born in sin incapable of

righteous living without the influence of the Holy Spirit; Genesis 6:5; John

2:24, 25. Most Christians can agree with that, but then it gets cloudy. Many

teach that man lives his whole life in Romans 7, where he does what he does

not want to do, and can't do what he wants to do. Many contend definitions

of sin, and yet Jesus said in John 16 that He was going to send another, the

'paraclete,' to instruct man of sin and righteousness and judgment; thus

eliminating the middle ground, that gray area between black and white, good

and evil. In 1 John, the apostle teaches that all sin, but can control '

intentional sin.' We see that in Psalm 32 where one sin is 'missing the

mark' while the other three are intentional.

Galatians 3:11 echoes Habakkuk 2:4 upholds Hebrews 10:38, while Romans 1:16,

17 gets its origin from Gen 15:6; all of man's righteousness is through

faith, which the godhead supplies to us. It is all Jesus' righteousness,

which the Holy Spirit, when fully accepted, suppresses our human nature of

sin. It is choice; Philip 2:13. We live by faith and that merit is Jesus'

righteousness, never ours. It is apparent to me that Jesus had a fallen

nature, not one of sin, but weakened humanity, which was totally controlled

by his godly nature. He in turn shares that with His people, giving them a

spiritual nature, Rom 8; Gal 5; and a new regenerated heart; Titus 3:5-7.

The old covenant of Jeremiah 31:33 is quoted in Hebrews 10:16 as the new

covenant, that results in a true worship of our God. His Spirit changes our

heart, so that we no longer 'keep' His law, but live it in our hearts, with

no desire to do anything else. We, today, are inundated, permeated by the

world, and Romans 1:32 tells us that participation of any nature through any

of our senses disqualifies eternal life consideration, and fails for us to

be the 'overcomers' of the Revelation churches. We see in Rev 17 and 18 and

are witnessing today that all the world's 'mysteries' have been absorbed in

modern religions, and are being upheld by global monetary concerns.

Now, as in historical crisis, God's people need to search out a embrace the

mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior, as our dependence has never been

greater. We know from the 5th seal that imminent testing is consuming

truth. I have used texts not as a pretext of proof texts, but as embracing

this truth.