Depravity? Nay!

[sculleywr]

Guilt includes responsibility, of course....
But you still don't seem cognizant that responsibility might not include guilt.

Responsibility means you must be able to respond for something. You can't respond for something you did not do or command to be done. For example, if the President pushes the big red button without consulting Congress and drops a bomb on Wisconsin, we don't hold the man bumming coins off of people responsible for the bombing. He can't respond for it because he didn't do it.

But according to Protestant theology, the man bumming coins off of people on the street is held both responsible AND guilty of the bombing of Wisconsin that was the Ancestral Sin of Adam and Eve. What's more, it's the man bumming coins off of people on the street centuries later being held responsible and guilty. This is the same as when a blanket accusation is made against white people as if all white people today are responsible and guilty for the slavery of the 19th century. There is plenty enough real racism a black person could hold many white people responsible for, such as the companies that offered wildly variable salaries to people with identical qualifications, but different demographics. God commands us to not dwell on the past or worry unnecessarily about the future. Do you really think that God would violate that command Himself?

The only way God can be just is to abide according to Romans 2, as well as the depictions of the judgment that we have. There isn't a single depiction of the judgment where Adam's sin is brought up. Is that because it's left out or because it's just not there and Protestantism leaps to a conclusion that isn't there?

 

[PuerAzaelis]

The sinful nature is something OUTSIDE of human nature. I have rhinovirus in me, but the rhinovirus is not me.

There is a third view, which is that human nature is depraved, but not totally depraved, since after receiving prevenient grace, it possesses free will to cooperate with subsequent grace.

The problem with the "infection" picture is that it suffers from certain of the very same gnostic/Augustinian features which you are critiquing, that is, it removes sin from the realm of human choice, and conflates sin with temptation, which I think was R Otto's distinction between guilt and responsibility.

My own picture is that of a man who is not only drowning but who is in pitch darkness, clinging to a rock, but in a rising tide. i) Prevenient grace is the spotlight from the helicopter. ii) Subsequent grace is the coastguard reaching down to the drowning man. iii) Free will is the drowning man letting go of the rock, and reaching up to the coastguard.

PS: Maybe better: i) Prevenient grace is Shaun Connery. ii) Subsequent grace is Shaun Connery pulling Indiana Jones out of the bottomless pit, from which nothing can be retrieved. iii) Free will is Indiana Jones choosing to turn away from the holy grail and consenting to be pulled up out of the chasm by giving "his other hand" to Shaun Connery.

From what I understand, monergism denies iii) as a condition. Concupiscence affirms it. Regarding the incarnation, the issue therefore is whether it was Christ's divine and/or human nature which resisted temptation. Since monergism denies that human free will has any part in salvation, logically Christ's sole capacity to resist temptation is his divine nature. Consequently, Christ's merit is imputed (Shaun Connery grabs Indiana Jones by the scruff of the neck and hauls him up - Indiana remains a child), rather than imparted (Indiana Jones learns something from Shaun Connery's "Indiana - let it go" - Indiana grows up).

Further thoughts:

But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it;
James 1:14

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:15

PPS: Sin is "missing the mark", it is an error, an incorrect choice, not a nature or a condition.

 

[JoeP222w]

The obedience of Christ was not born out of His divinity, but out of His humanity.

Do you have a verse that references that? Jesus humanity and divinity are inseparable.

And unless you're saying that Mary was somehow excepted, as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception states, then Jesus inherited his humanity from a descendent of Adam.

No, Mary was a sinner like all mankind, hence she acknowledged her need for the Savior in the Magnifcat. Jesus was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit, breaking the Adamic sin nature lineage.

In either way, if temptation is a result of evil desires WITHIN US

Temptation in and of itself is not sin. Giving into temptation and transgressing God's perfect law is where the sin comes in.

Desires are not automatically sinful. I desire my wife greatly, but there is absolutely no sin in that, it is a gift from God.

We cannot have the great exception doctrine be somehow true without denying the full humanity of Christ.

I don't fully understand what you mean by "exception doctrine".

 

[sculleywr]

There is a third view, which is that human nature is depraved, but not totally depraved, since after receiving prevenient grace, it possesses free will to cooperate with subsequent grace.

The problem with the "infection" picture is that it suffers from certain of the very same gnostic/Augustinian features which you are critiquing, that is, it removes sin from the realm of human choice, and conflates sin with temptation, which I think was R Otto's distinction between guilt and responsibility.

My own picture is that of a man who is not only drowning but who is in pitch darkness, clinging to a rock, but in a rising tide. i) Prevenient grace is the spotlight from the helicopter. ii) Subsequent grace is the coastguard reaching down to the drowning man. iii) Free will is the drowning man letting go of the rock, and reaching up to the coastguard.

PS: Maybe better: i) Prevenient grace is Shaun Connery. ii) Subsequent grace is Shaun Connery pulling Indiana Jones out of the bottomless pit, from which nothing can be retrieved. iii) Free will is Indiana Jones choosing to turn away from the holy grail and consenting to be pulled up out of the chasm by giving "his other hand" to Shaun Connery.

From what I understand, monergism denies iii) as a condition. Concupiscence affirms it. Regarding the incarnation, the issue therefore is whether it was Christ's divine and/or human nature which resisted temptation. Since monergism denies that human free will has any part in salvation, logically Christ's sole capacity to resist temptation is his divine nature. Consequently, Christ's merit is imputed (Shaun Connery grabs Indiana Jones by the scruff of the neck and hauls him up - Indiana remains a child), rather than imparted (Indiana Jones learns something from Shaun Connery's "Indiana - let it go" - Indiana grows up).

Further thoughts:

But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it;
James 1:14

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:15

PPS: Sin is "missing the mark", it is an error, an incorrect choice, not a nature or a condition.

Not really. Think of this: A person has ulcerative colitis. Now, he doesn't have a choice of whether he contracts the illness. However, he does have a choice on whether he treats the symptoms. He can choose to cut out the raw veggies, high fiber foods, and strong spices that will cause symptoms to flare up. Now, since UC is unique to each person, there will be other foods unique to him that he must also learn to cut out of his diet to prevent flare up. He will also take the Lialda and show up for Remicade infusions on time and regularly to maintain remission of the UC.

In this model, though he didn't have a choice to whether he became infected, he does have a choice as to whether the illness will cause any kind of strong effect on his life. Yes, it means he must alter how he lives from the rest of the world. But by altering his living, he improves his quality of life, with the direction of a physician who helps him bring his life back on track. Now, of course, he can choose to stop controlling his diet, and it will cause him to have a flare of symptoms.

In this, it is both his choice and the doctor's direction together that corrects his life, not something he does alone.

The problem is that the Protestant takes an immature person's tendency to do immature things as depravity, instead of it being a lack of knowledge about the disease with which he is afflicted. When I first started experiencing the symptoms of my UC, I did literally everything wrong, because I was immature about my illness. But just like my discovery of how to treat my illness, men are immature about their sin. It's not that they do not know the sin is bad. Literally every religion will state that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world, that there is good and evil, right and wrong. Shortly, they all espouse some view of sin as a real thing. It is not that the people in those various religions do not want to deal with their disease. IT is that they do not know how to deal with it. Men who do not know the nature of a disease will not know how to prevent contraction or spread of the disease to new members, thus all men become infected. But they all have need of the same spiritual medicine, what Ignatius called "The Medicine of Immortality", which is the Body and Blood of Christ given for us on the Cross and given to us in the Church.

This still makes sin an outside thing, while also showing man's choices, and getting rid of the problem of depravity altogether.

 

[sculleywr]

Do you have a verse that references that? Jesus humanity and divinity are inseparable.

Inseperable does not mean indistinct. The verses about temptation and stating that Christ was tempted EXACTLY like we are in every way state this. In either case, Christ was the perfect example of how it works. We know it was His human will that had many functions and control in His human life, as evidenced in Gesthemene. It was not that it did not act. It was that it did not act outside of submission to the Divine Will. That is the same thing we are called to do in our lives. It's something we are naturally capable of. We aren't trained to do it, but we are capable of it. Saying we can't is like saying that no person could naturally become an Olympic athlete. Sure, the number of people that actually succeed is short, and the number that do not work to achieve that status is nonexistent, but it is something we are capable of doing if we follow the path already shown for that.

No, Mary was a sinner like all mankind, hence she acknowledged her need for the Savior in the Magnifcat. Jesus was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit, breaking the Adamic sin nature lineage.

Then Jesus wasn't human and is the great exception. No Adamic lineage=no humanity. If Christ did not assume the flesh of Adam, then the flesh of Adam was not redeemed. If Christ did not assume the nature of Adam, then the nature of Adam was not redeemed. Whatever was not assumed cannot be redeemed.

Temptation in and of itself is not sin. Giving into temptation and transgressing God's perfect law is where the sin comes in.

Desires are not automatically sinful. I desire my wife greatly, but there is absolutely no sin in that, it is a gift from God.

Exactly my point. Desires are mistaken for depravity. The fact that we have uncontrolled desires is not depravity. It is immaturity. There is a huge difference between the two. An immature person needs help to become different. A depraved person will always be depraved.

I don't fully understand what you mean by "exception doctrine".

Christ being something other than human in any way is a great exception. If sin is part of us, instead of an outside force plaguing humanity, then Christ cannot be human and therefore cannot be a bridge to relationship between God and Man. The very reason that Christ can build this relationship is because He is not untouched by our frailty. He experienced every part of human life which is granted from nature. While we don't have the Scripture on it, it is certain that He skinned His knees, caught a cold, experienced grief and pain. Fully human means that He experienced everything that we have experienced as result of our inborn nature. If sin is part of the inborn nature, and Christ does not have sin, then Christ is a great exception and we cannot hope to be made pure as Scripture promises.

Granted, this makes perfect sense out of the doctrine of imputed righteousness, rather than the real righteousness doctrine of the Orthodox Church. If you can't really become righteous on earth, then you need the reputation of righteousness to be given to you without the actions of righteousness through which Christ showed His reputation of righteousness. Christ earned and showed His righteousness, but we can never hope to do that, so we need a nice Instagram Filter that hides the dirty stains that we really have.

Essentially, Orthodoxy offers to put you through the dishwasher while Protestantism just shines up the outer layer without worrying about the inside of the cup.

 

[PuerAzaelis]

... ulcerative colitis ... both his choice and the doctor's direction together ...

Ok. So the metaphors are similar, since there is an element of free will in response to grace. To that extent in either picture depravity is not total.

... they do not know how to deal with it ... Men who do not know ... will not know ... This still makes sin an outside thing ...

The original argument you were making was:

If we are totally depraved, the only way for Jesus to be tempted in the same way that we are tempted is if he was also totally depraved. But this is clearly not the case because Jesus never sinned. Therefore, we cannot be totally depraved.
http://lhim.org/blog/2014/02/06/three-arguments-against-total-depravity/

To me this is a good argument but I'm not sure why it's relevant to this argument to make temptation a form of ignorance or an "outside thing".

 

[sculleywr]

Ok. So the metaphors are similar, since there is an element of free will in response to grace. To that extent in either picture depravity is not total.


The original argument you were making was:

f we are totally depraved, the only way for Jesus to be tempted in the same way that we are tempted is if he was also totally depraved. But this is clearly not the case because Jesus never sinned. Therefore, we cannot be totally depraved.
http://lhim.org/blog/2014/02/06/three-arguments-against-total-depravity/

To me this is a good argument but I'm not sure why it's relevant to this argument to make temptation a form of ignorance or an "outside thing".

Temptation and sin are two different things. At least one large branch of Classical Protestantism puts sin INSIDE human nature, instead of the passions which are sinful when not controlled in the manner Christ controlled them. Most evangelical Protestants refer to it as a "sin nature", which is highly misleading, giving the impression that sin is part of human nature, and not something that plagues human nature

 

[Galatea]

Yes I am. It took people more than 1500 years to understand it to mean total depravity.

And you ignored the point I made: If human NATURE is depraved, then Christ was either depraved or not human. If He was human, then He had ALL of human nature, because He got every single bit of human nature that His mother had, including her sinful nature, because He was CONCEIVED. The logic is simple:

1. Human nature is depraved
2. All humans have human nature
3. Jesus was a human
Conclusion: Jesus had a depraved nature.

If, however, we are to assume that the 1500 years of Christians who died for Christ were not too stupid to notice something that, according to you, is in the CLEAR MEANING of the text, then we have two questions:

1. Why did the message change to fit this legalistic, loveless view of salvation?
or
2. Why did anyone even pretend that God is loving when He makes us naturally sinful and is thus the source of all sin?

Here's the problem:

1. God forms us in the womb
2. We come out of the womb sinful
Conclusion: God creates the sinfulness in the womb.

We have done exactly zero sins at birth, and yet according to TD, we are already sinful. So from whom does the sin come from?

It is NOT from Adam, because that is the opposite of just as defined by Scripture. Consequences of sin pass from generation to generation, but not the sin itself.

Therefore, since God forms us, He creates the sin. He makes some imagined sin that we never really did, but only exists in His mind. And since He created it, it is His responsibility. If a man is fated to be evil, then his evil actions are not his responsibility, nor can a man who is fated to be good be praised for doing good?

Think of it like this, if a man uses a wrench to tighten a bolt, preventing the collapse of a bridge, does the wrench get praised for tightening the bolt? No. It was designed and made to do what it did. But if a man shoots a missile at that bridge and blows it up, does the missile get blamed for the destruction it caused? No. It did what it was designed to do.

Total Depravity makes us nothing more than pawns, tools used as playthings of God.

Total Depravity also completely negates any argument of free will, because a totally depraved person is incapable of confessing, repenting, or accepting Christ. Total means total. If there is even the slightest chance a person could choose to do a selfless good action apart from God, to confess or repent, then he is not totally depraved. And no, rationalizing that the Holy Spirit moves on them automatically begs the question of why the Spirit doesn't just do the same on every person.

Even if you explain past all that, you still end up with Christ not being human, so the Gnostics were correct.

You have a fallacy in your logic.
1. All squares are rectangles.
2. A coffee table is a rectangle.
3. The coffee table is a square.
This is fallacious. While ALL squares are rectangles (having right angles), not all rectangles are squares (having equilateral sides and angles). Therefore, this is a fallacious argument.

 

[sculleywr]

You have a fallacy in your logic.
1. All squares are rectangles.
2. A coffee table is a rectangle.
3. The coffee table is a square.
This is fallacious. While ALL squares are rectangles (having right angles), not all rectangles are squares (having equilateral sides and angles). Therefore, this is a fallacious argument.

Except in this case, Christ is a human, humans have sin nature, therefore Christ has a sin nature. Are either of the two premises false? Whatever else Christ is, besides, Christ is human, 100%.

Here's the logic:

All humans have a sin nature
Christ is human
Christ has a sin nature.

 

[Galatea]

Except in this case, Christ is a human, humans have sin nature, therefore Christ has a sin nature. Are either of the two premises false? Whatever else Christ is, besides, Christ is human, 100%.

Here's the logic:

All humans have a sin nature
Christ is human
Christ has a sin nature.

The premise that Christ is human is false. He is not human only but also God. The God-man.

 

[sculleywr]

The premise that Christ is human is false. He is not human only but also God. The God-man.

Then the premise is not false. Human AND God does not mean that the divine eliminates traits of the human. Either Christ was 100% human, or Christ was NOT 100% human. If Christ did not have a sin nature, then either humans do not have an innate sin nature, or else Christ is not fully human.

The premise is true, because if it is not true, then Hebrews 4:22 is false, since Christ was not tempted in every way like we were

 

[Rick Otto]

Responsibility means you must be able to respond for something. You can't respond for something you did not do or command to be done. For example, if the President pushes the big red button without consulting Congress and drops a bomb on Wisconsin, we don't hold the man bumming coins off of people responsible for the bombing. He can't respond for it because he didn't do it.

But according to Protestant theology, the man bumming coins off of people on the street is held both responsible AND guilty of the bombing of Wisconsin that was the Ancestral Sin of Adam and Eve. What's more, it's the man bumming coins off of people on the street centuries later being held responsible and guilty. This is the same as when a blanket accusation is made against white people as if all white people today are responsible and guilty for the slavery of the 19th century. There is plenty enough real racism a black person could hold many white people responsible for, such as the companies that offered wildly variable salaries to people with identical qualifications, but different demographics. God commands us to not dwell on the past or worry unnecessarily about the future. Do you really think that God would violate that command Himself?

The only way God can be just is to abide according to Romans 2, as well as the depictions of the judgment that we have. There isn't a single depiction of the judgment where Adam's sin is brought up. Is that because it's left out or because it's just not there and Protestantism leaps to a conclusion that isn't there?

I am responsible for my children's behavior even though I am not guilty of their trespasses.

Now do you understand how it is possible to be responsible for something you're not guilty of?

 

[sculleywr]

I am responsible for my children's behavior even though I am not guilty of their trespasses.

Now do you understand how it is possible to be responsible for something you're not guilty of?

If they do something as a result of your negligence, though, you ARE guilty. Say, if you teach them that stealing is ok, whether by word or by example, and then they go and steal because of your teaching, you are an accomplice in the sin.

But responsibility travels UP the ladder, not down the ladder. For example, if Obama directly does something without the knowledge of those under him, we lay the responsibility on him, not those under him. The consequences of Obama's actions will effect them, but it is not because they are responsible.

 

[faroukfarouk]

The premise that Christ is human is false. He is not human only but also God. The God-man.

'God manifest in the flesh' (1 Timothy 3.16); 'the Word became 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); He 'did no sin' (1 Peter 2.22); He 'knew no sin' (2 Corinthians 5.21); 'In Him is no sin' (1 John 3.5); 'He became sin...that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him' (2 Corinthians 5.21).

 

[AnticipateHisComing]

The problem is that that is not how temptation arises. Temptation occurs from within. James 1 states:

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.​

Scripture also says:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)
​

Now, if Jesus really was tempted in EVERY way that we are, then He had to have those same "evil desires" described in James 1:14-16, from which our personal temptations arise. If He did not have this, then the Scripture in Hebrews is not really true. This is why we say He has the truly human nature.

If the flesh was really completely unimportant, as you seem to be implying, then physical sins and physical actions are really unimportant. They mean nothing. We cannot divorce the concept that Christ did not have a human nature from the concept that He did not have a human body. As Athanasius said, whatever was not assumed was not redeemed. If He did not assume the natural human nature, then He did not redeem it.

Overall, the claim that Jesus did not have a fully human nature runs into many issues with Scripture itself, not the least of which being the fact that it makes many Scriptures out to be lies. Monophysites tried to rationalize this away, and it is certainly a lot easier to rationalize the nature of Christ rather than to simply accept Him as He is, but we do not have that luxury. Anything that attacks the nature of Christ as being fully God and fully man is turned away as false. This is what we profess in the creed of Chalcedon:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with us according to the manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the virgin Mary, the mother of God, according to the manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.
​

Two natures. The nature of man does not necessitate sin. Sin is not the desire to do something. It is the enaction of that desire. Part of man's nature is free will, the ability to choose between the passions and the virtues. The desires can spring up within us to do either, whether evil or good. It is not until we give voice to those desires that it becomes sin. Christ had those same desires pop up in Him. One needs only look at His prayer at Gesthemene. He, in His human frailty, desired to escape the cross and death. But He did not allow that desire to grow and conceive and give birth to sin. He pushed it down and starved it, being without sin.

People act as if this is something that humans didn't have from the Creation, but the ability to choose necessitates this reality. One can choose to sin without having a sinful nature. Eve shows that same desire being within her as it was coaxed out by the serpent in the garden. But if the desire were not there, the serpent could not have coaxed it out. Have you ever tried to just talk to a computer and convince it to let you around an encryption on a file inside it? Doesn't really work that way, now does it? It doesn't have desires. You can't convince it to do something. The only way to convince someone to do something is to feed one of their desires. But without those desires, there is no temptation. So Adam had these desires from creation, as do all humans. The desires for the passions are not in and of themselves sinful. Think of it. With all of the passions, there are right and wrong uses:

Lust is sinful when it is directed at people in a damaging way that does not uplift them. When directed at people outside of marriage, in brief, fleeting one night stands, it is sinful. But when one comes together in the marriage bed with his wife, there is nothing sinful about it at all. There is nothing sad, or disgraceful when two married people have consensual, loving sex with each other. And if Mark Gungor is to be believed, it can be wildly passionate and even fun. But it is special. The reason God told us it was sinful outside of marriage was not because of some arbitrary rule to say "thou shalt not have fun". It was because He knew what the effect of sex outside of marriage would be, with numerous negative effects on people who engage in sexual intercourse without the commitment it is tied to.

Anger is sinful when it is out of control and not based in righteousness. There is a story of a monk who came to his abbot in the desert and asked, "what does it mean to be angry without a cause?" He was referring to a passage in the Scriptures commanding us to not be angry, and in some texts it says "without a cause". The abbot answered, "do not be angry with your brother, even if he were to dismember you, for he only causes damage to that which is temporary. Be angry rather, when you see a man trying to separate another from God." The meaning here is that those who cause physical harm to us personally cannot separate us from God. But when someone seeks to fool a person of weak spirit into following a heresy, or into worshiping another god, to cause that person to stumble, then we ought to be angry. Even Christ spoke of this kind of person with righteous anger, saying it would be best if the misleading person were to have a millstone hung from their neck and cast into the sea.

I could go on with an example for each of the seven passions, but we do not have that space. The point is that sin is not something innate, but something other than us. It is something other than what God intended, something that is not our birthright, nor is it something we are born with. It is a disease that we contract. If it weren't for the demons going around tempting people, it would be possible for a child to be raised without exposure to sin. Since we are "monkey see, monkey do" people, we do not come preloaded with the desire to sin. Whether it is from us seeing mom or dad do something and mimicking them, or by satan or his minions planting the thought in our heads, we would have no exposure to sin. The desire has to precede the action.

So many words, did you refute a single point that I made? Jesus had a dual nature, God in spirit and man in his flesh. I never said Jesus was not fully human in his flesh. This is exactly what Heb 2:14 says:

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—​

As to what "human nature" is, as opposed to a spiritual nature, it is not something with a good common understanding. That is why I used sinful nature and defined it. As to the philosophical debate of which directs our actions more, our flesh or our spirit; it depends on where each places his importance. You seem to think the flesh/human nature to be the dominate source that guides our choices. I think the spirit to be dominate.


As to your thoughts on temptation, you should be careful to develop a doctrine on two verses of James. Further note James 1:13 says God can not even be tempted by evil. Do you think Jesus was not God? Take scripture in context and read it together with what the rest of scripture says. James 1 is not a doctrinal essay on the mechanics of temptation. It merely speaks of the process of how people fall into sin. It says evil desires lead to sin. Jesus said evil thoughts are just as much sin. So much for your argument that Jesus had the same evil desires that we have, only he did not act on them, therefore he was never guilty of sinning.

Look to the bulk of other scripture to learn that sin requires a temptation and since God does not tempt, Satan fills that job. Look to Genesis 3:6 to see that Eve did not even desire the fruit of the tree of knowledge until Satan deceived her. Look to the temptations of Jesus explicitly listed in scripture as being done by Satan himself. Look to the angels in heaven, they do not sin anymore. Maybe because Satan was thrown out of heaven at the fall. Look to the next age where there will be no sin, maybe because Satan will be in the lake of burning sulfur.

Christ had all of these desires. But He did not let them conceive in sin. He was in complete control of His passions, as we were intended to be. That does not mean He did not have them. If He didn't have them, then He couldn't be tempted.

Your idea that temptation requires an evil desire doesn't fit very well with two of the three temptations explicitly listed for Jesus. First temptation, I give you that after fasting for 40 days, Jesus' humanity/flesh was hungry. To say that he had an evil desire to feed himself, I don't think so. Temptation two, Jesus had an evil desire to throw himself down to the ground, NOT. Temptation three, Jesus had an evil desire to rule the world, NOT, besides God already gave that to him.

As to your quote of Hebrews 4:15 and thinking that Jesus was tempted like us in every way, Not. I don't think Jesus had gay desires and was tempted to sodomy, so I think your literal interpretation needs an adjustment.

"What has not been assumed has not been redeemed".

Since you take to such a legalistic reading of these words, I will test you. Did Jesus redeem women? He certainly did not assume to be a woman. So where do you draw the line when talking about Jesus' nature, being both God and man? You seem to dismiss his being God along with his spiritual nature. Understand that we all are the joining of flesh and spirit. How much our decisions are based on our heart, mind and soul is a mind game. How much Jesus was like us being driven by desires of the flesh vs. desires of the spirit is also a mind game. It is not even important to the concept that God sent his Son to die for us and redeem us. Is there even some law that said God had to come as a human to redeem us? No, scripture says he did this so that we know his compassion is true.

 

[SeventyOne]

The sinful nature is something OUTSIDE of human nature. I have rhinovirus in me, but the rhinovirus is not me. It still effects me. A person who has AIDS in him is not naturally the HIV within him, but a victim of the HIV. People are controlled by viruses in their body. I am controlled by the autoimmune disease attacking my colon. But I am not the disease. The disease is not part of who I am. It is not part of my human nature.

You are like the Jews who looked at all of the prophecies of the Messiah's comings and assumed they were talking of one single coming. You look at the descriptions of human nature as if it was the same as the sinful nature within us, but even Paul said there are two natures, the old self, and the new creation. It's not as if these did not exist prior. Even people who knew not the law were managing to live according to it according to Paul in Romans. No exposure to the Church, to Christ, to the Bible, and yet according to Paul, this law written in their hearts can defend them in the day of judgment. It is there as part of their basic human nature.

Human nature is ONLY what Adam had at Creation. EVERYTHING ELSE is other. Anything that was not there in man when God said "everything I have created is very good" is not part of the fundamental human nature.

Ummm, ok. It's a virus? Then it's a really sucky one considering you have to die to get rid of it.

 

[SeventyOne]

That makes no sense. We now have a chicken-egg problem.

Ultimately, if Christ didn't have ALL of the same sources of temptation we have, then He didn't get tempted in all ways like we were. We are tempted by our human passions, because we do not have the maturity to handle them. But if Christ did not have these passions, the "sinful nature" within us, then He did not have the same temptations we have. All of Christ's temptations were coming from outside of Him, and none from within. Basically, the temptations of Christ were not born according to the formula of James 1. If Christ had no evil desires, then He was not tempted like we are. It's just that simple.

Ummm, ok. You keep believing that lie. Toodles.

 

[Wordkeeper]

Ummm, ok. It's a virus? Then it's a really sucky one considering you have to die to get rid of it.

Not really. All one had to do was to be in the GARDEN. Or in Christ.

 

[Inkfingers]

Temptation is temptation to Sin.

Sin is rebellion against God.

For Jesus to have been tempted by Sin he must then have been tempted to rebel against God (as was seen in Gethsemane).

The question then is whether the temptation to rebel against God is itself sinful...

Christ teaches that temptation itself IS Sinful; hence Matthew 5:22 and Matthew 5:28

Which means that Christ gained Sin in coming to earth in human incarnation; hence 2 Corinthians 5:21. Read that. Seriously read it!

 

[JoeP222w]

Christ earned and showed His righteousness

I would disagree that Christ "earned" His righteousness. He was already perfectly righteous. He demonstrated His righteousness.

Protestantism just shines up the outer layer without worrying about the inside of the cup.

And that would be a misrepresentation of Protestantism, and through implication, Reformed Theology.