If any doubt remains about the stance of Adventist pioneers on the subject of Christology, their reaction to the "holy flesh movement" should dispel them entirely.
This movement was born in the Indiana Conference churches between 1898 and 1899. Founded by Pastor-evangelist S. S. Davis, this teaching soon carried away the president of the Conference, R.S. Donnell, and several other pastors. Ultimately the entire Indiana Conference committee became favorable to "the holy flesh doctrine," as its supporters chose to call it.
Contrary to orthodox Adventist Christology, this "strange doctrine" asserted that Christ had taken Adam's pre-Fall nature and that He therefore possessed "holy flesh." Based on this premise, it was claimed possible to procure this same "holy flesh" by following Jesus in His experience through the Garden of Gethsemane. In this manner, those who followed the Saviour could reach the corresponding state of physical sinlessness, and obtain a "translation" faith similar to that of Enoch and Elijah.[2]
Confronted with the development of this belief in the churches of Indiana, the General Conference leaders thought it wise to send brethren S. N. Haskell and A. J. Breed as delegates to the camp-meeting held at Muncie, Indiana, from September 13 to 23, 1900. Upon his return to Battle Creek, Haskell felt compelled to inform not only his colleagues in the General Conference but also Ellen White. He sent a letter dated September 25, 1900, to inform her of the situation.
Haskell Informs Ellen White
Haskell[3] knew perfectly well the convictions of Ellen White in regard to the human nature of Jesus. He was himself in harmony with her teaching. The purpose of his letter was not to find out whether he or the supporters of the holy flesh doctrine were correct.
He simply felt it necessary to keep Ellen White informed.
Here is how Haskell presented the problem to Ellen White: "When we stated that we believed that Christ was born in fallen humanity, they would represent us as believing that Christ sinned, notwithstanding the fact that we would state our position so clearly that it would seem as though no one could misunderstand us."[4] As church spokesman, Haskell did not hesitate to include Ellen White, as well as the church, in his position statement.
Previously Haskell had clearly expressed his convictions in various articles. Already, in 1896, Haskell had written in the journal Signs of the Times on the subject: "He [Christ] did not come to this world and take upon Himself Adam's condition, but He stepped down lower, to meet man as he is, weakened by sin, polluted in his own iniquity."[5]
In yet another article he wrote: "Christ ... took not upon Himself the nature of angels, or even man as he was created, but our fallen nature. "[6] "Thus Christ from eternity was made the connecting link between the heaven and the fallen race. "[7] "He brought divinity from the courts of glory into fallen humanity."[8]
Such was Haskell's position when the holy flesh doctrine arose. He explains in his letter to Ellen White: "Their point of theology in this particular respect seems to be this: They believe that Christ took Adam's nature before he fell; so He took humanity as it was in the Garden of Eden, and thus humanity was holy, and this was the humanity which Christ had; and now, they say, the particular time has come for us to become holy in that sense, and then we will have 'translation faith' and never die."[9]
Ellen White Replies to Haskell
When Ellen White received Haskell's letter, she had just settled in Elmshaven, in California, upon returning from Australia. So seriously did she judge the situation that she replied immediately. Her letter dated October 10, 1900, establishes a firm and clear stand against the teaching of the holy flesh movement, which she defines as "strange doctrine, " "erroneous theories and methods, " and "a wretched invention of human ideas, prepared by the father of lies."[10]
The contents of Haskell's letter did not take Ellen White by surprise. She was already aware of what had taken place in Indiana. As she explains later, her departure from Australia was prompted by the teaching of the holy flesh movement. Here is her reply to Haskell:
"Last January the Lord showed me that erroneous theories and methods would be brought into our camp meetings, and that the history of the past would be repeated. I felt greatly distressed. I was instructed to say that at these demonstrations demons in the form of men are present, working with all the ingenuity that Satan can employ to make the truth disgusting to sensible people; that the enemy was trying to arrange matters so that the camp meetings, which have been the means of bringing the truth of the third angel's message before multitudes, should lose their force and influence."[11]
Solemnly she adds: "The third angel's message ... is to be kept free from every thread of the cheap, miserable inventions of men's theories, prepared by the father of lies, and disguised as was the brilliant serpent used by Satan as a medium of deceiving our first parents."[12]
If Haskell's information had not been in conformity with the truth of the message and Ellen White's convictions, she would not have hesitated to say so. In this case, not only did she approve Haskell but she also encouraged him to defend the truth.
She wrote again, this time to Brother and Sister Haskell: "By the Lord's faithful ambassadors the truth must be presented in clear-cut lines. Much of that which today is called testing truth is twaddle which leads to a resistance of the Holy Spirit."[13]
A Vigorous Protest
Without waiting for the official reaction of the General Conference, pastor S. G. Huntington published a vigorous protest in a small 16--page leaflet entitled The Sore of Man. Its aim was to reaffirm the position of the church and to explain how Jesus was able to live a sinless life even in sinful flesh. "Through His implicit faith in His Father, He was fortified so that His divine nature overwhelmingly triumphed over His sinful nature and hereditary tendencies.
Thus from the cradle to Calvary, His days of trial and probation, He lived a pure, holy, and sinless life. Thus He met the demands of a broken law, and became 'the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth."[14]
Then, wishing to explain the advantages for those who believe in Christ and who receive Him as their Saviour, Huntington adds: "Just as God in Christ, 4,000 years this side of Creation, lived a perfect, spotless life in sinful flesh, so through faith in Him, He will cleanse us from all our unrighteousness, impart to us His own righteousness, take up His abode in our hearts, and live the same kind of a life in our sinful flesh six thousand years this side of Creation. Then we can truly say, 'as he is [in character] so are we in this world' (1 John 4:17)."[15]
Waggoner Refutes the Holy Flesh Doctrine
Faced with the spread of the holy flesh movement, the General Conference found it necessary to take action. The problem was included in the agenda of the 1901 session. Ellen White was urgently requested to attend. As she pointed out in her presentation, if it had not been for this movement and its erroneous teaching, she would not have responded positively to the invitation. She was then 73 years old. She had just returned from Australia, and traveling through the United States to Battle Creek was not a small matter for someone of her age and fragile health.
Waggoner was also present at the session. As a specialist of the problem, he, along with Ellen White, was asked to refute this "strange doctrine" and to confirm the official belief, as acknowledged by the church, on the subject of the human nature of Christ. He accomplished that in his study of April 16, 1901, devoted entirely to rejecting the affirmation that Christ had come in holy flesh.
Waggoner began in his presentation with a question he had been asked: "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?"[16]
Before replying to the question specifically, Waggoner wanted to help his audience understand the underlying concept so well hidden in the question: the Catholic doctrine of the immaculate conception. To his thinking, the concept of "holy flesh" was nothing less than "the deification of the devil."[17] "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. That is all."[18]
"Do you not see," asked Waggoner, "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 marvel of the ages, the wonder of the angels, that thing which even now they desire to understand, and which they can form no just idea of, only as they are taught it by the church, is 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?"[19]
By doing that, "He [Christ] established the will of God in the flesh, and established the fact that God's will may be done in any human, sinful flesh. But first of all this wonder must be worked out in sinful man, not simply in the person of Jesus Christ, but in Jesus Christ reproduced and multiplied in thousands of His followers. ... 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."[20]
Generally speaking, "men like to conceal the fault of their ancestors, and if there be a blot anywhere in the family, that does not appear when the family record is written. Jesus Christ was 'born of the seed of David, according to the flesh,' and in the seed of David was Manasseh, who filled Jerusalem with innocent blood from one end to the other. In that line was Judah the adulterer, and the child born of incest, and likewise the harlot Rahab. All of that class who were set forth as the ancestors of Christ show that Jesus was not ashamed to call sinful men His brethren."[21]
From the lesson of Christ's victorious experience in sinful flesh Waggoner concluded: "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 can make us partakers of the divine nature, giving us freedom from the corruption that is in the world through lust; and so God manifests His power through us."[22]
Ellen White Rejects the Holy Flesh Doctrine
The following morning, on April 17, 1901, it was Ellen White's turn to condemn the holy flesh movement publicly. Of course, she did not repeat the theological arguments already presented by Waggoner. Her objective consisted rather in exposing the false conclusions derived from the concept of Christ's holy flesh.
Here are some extracts from the message she had prepared for that purpose, under the title "The Late Movement in Indiana."
"Instruction has been given me in regard to the late experience of brethren in Indiana and the teaching they have given to the churches. Through this experience and teaching the enemy has been working to lead soul astray."[23]
Ellen White did not address the presuppositions regarding the nature of Christ in the holy flesh controversy. Instead, her argument that "the teaching given in regard to what is termed 'holy flesh' is an error "[24] was based on two essential points. First, she rejected the claim that sinful human beings may attain holiness of the flesh.
Certainly, she writes, "all may now obtain holy hearts, but it is not correct to claim in this life to have holy flesh. ... To those who have tried so hard to obtain by faith so--called holy flesh, I would say, You cannot obtain it. Not a soul of you has holy flesh now. No human being on the earth has holy flesh. It is an impossibility."[25]
"If those who speak so freely of perfection in the flesh could see things in the true light, they would recoil with horror from their presumptuous ideas. In showing the fallacy of their assumptions in regard to the holy flesh, the Lord is seeking to prevent men and women from putting on His words a construction which leads to pollution of body, soul, and spirit. ... And while we cannot claim perfection of the flesh, we may have Christian perfection of the soul.
Through the sacrifice made in our behalf, sins may be perfectly forgiven. Our dependence is not in what man can do; it is in what God can do for man through Christ. ... Through faith in His blood, all may be made perfect in Christ Jesus."[26]
"I have been instructed to say to those in Indiana who are advocating strange doctrines, You are giving a wrong mold to the precious and important work of God. Keep within the bounds of the Bible. ... When human beings receive holy flesh, they will not remain on the earth, but will be taken to heaven. While sin is forgiven in this life, its results are not now wholly removed. It is at His coming that Christ is to 'change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body' (Phil. 3:21)."[27]
Second, Ellen White also found fault with the boisterous and fanatical manifestations of the holy flesh advocates." The manner in which the meetings in Indiana have been carried on, with noise and confusion, does not commend them to thoughtful, intelligent minds. There is nothing in these demonstrations which will convince the world that we have the truth. Mere noise and shouting are no evidence of sanctification, or of the descent of the Holy Spirit. Your wild demonstrations create only disgust in the minds of unbelievers."[28]
So Ellen White's reasons for rejecting the holy flesh movement were bath theological and practical. She rejected their bizarre behavior, and she rejected their doctrine that human beings could achieve holy flesh in this life. Although she made no comment on their position about the nature of Christ, she clearly condemned those practices and beliefs that flowed from that premise.
Arthur White explains in the biography of his grand-mother: "To meet this fanaticism was one of the reasons she had left Australia and returned to the United States. The situation she was dealing with had been revealed to her in Australia in January 1900, 'before I left Cooranbong."[29]
The holy Flesh Doctrine Condemned
Waggoner's message and Ellen White's testimony were heeded.
As early as the next day the two main leaders of the movement, R. S. Donnell and S.S Davis, confessed their error in front of the approximately 300 in attendance. The other delegates, as well as the members of the conference committee of the Indiana churches, followed their president's example. Officially the holy flesh movement seemed to have collapsed. But in reality the doctrine had not disappeared from the churches themselves. Donnell and Davis continued to believe and teach that Christ took Adam's pre-Fall nature. As a result, they were ultimately dismissed from the ministry.
In her address Ellen White offered some advice on how to deal with this type of situation: "Fanaticism, once started and left unchecked, is as hard to quench as a fire which has obtained hold of a building. Those who have entered into and sustained this fanaticism, might far better be engaged in secular labor; for by their inconsistent course of action they are dishonoring the Lord and imperiling the people."[30]
In 1903 I. J. Hankins, who had succeeded R. S. Donnell as president of the Indiana Conference, wrote to S. S. Davis, the promoter of the holy flesh movement, to enquire of his faith. He asked him eight questions, four of which bore directly on the doctrine of the Incarnation."[31] For we should not forget that their basic theological argument consisted in saying that "Christ took Adam's nature before the Fall, "as clearly shown by Haskell in his letter to Ellen White.
Davis's reply confirms that he had not altered his opinion regarding Christ's human nature. We do not know if the same questions were also put to Donnell. But in 1905 Donnell was readmitted into the ministry, whereas Davis was indefinitely excluded from it.
He ultimately left the Adventist Church to join the Baptists, where he was re-ordained as a minister.
Aside from Davis, it appears that all who were involved in the holy flesh movement ultimately accepted Ellen White's testimony.
However auspicious the outcome, the attitude of opposition to this doctrine taken by the General Conference in session is indicative of the official teaching of the church on the subject of the human nature of Jesus at that time.
Conclusion
The holy flesh movement was a first attempt to introduce into Adventist Church a doctrine radically opposed to its teachings up to that time. If the pronouncements of Waggoner, Jones, and Prescott, as well as that of others had been erroneous, Ellen White would have corrected them, just as she corrected the "strange doctrine" of the holy flesh.
A testimony written in 1907 leaves no doubt about her position: "During the General Conference of 1901, instruction was given me in regard to the experience of some of our brethren in Indiana, and regarding the doctrines they had been teaching in the churches. I was shown that through this experience and the doctrines taught, the enemy has been working to lead souls astray."[32]
Notes: