One of the big questions under discussion presently in the Adventist Church is this: "Is sinless living in sinful flesh possible?" This same question was raised during the 1888 era, and the 1888 messengers answered, "Yes."
Both, Waggoner and Jones taught that Christ conquered our sinful flesh by His perfect life, not only to justify us but also to set us an example. They taught that through the power of the indwelling Spirit, His total victory over our sinful flesh and His life of selfless love may be reproduced in us and that this must be the goal of every born-again Christian. This was the unique teaching of the 1888 message on righteousness by faith.
Listen to how Ellen White responded to the many letters she received concerning this matter:
Letters have been coming in to me affirming that Christ could not have the same nature as man, for if He had, He would have fallen under similar temptations. If He was not a partaker of our 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 battle as man, in man's behalf. His temptations and victory must tell us that humanity must copy the Pattern; man must become partaker of the divine nature....
He [Christ] laid hold on the throne of God, and there is not a man or woman who may not have access to the same help through faith in God. Man may become a partaker of the divine nature; not a soul lives who may not summon the aid of Heaven in temptation and trial. Christ came to reveal the Source of his power, that man might never rely on his unaided human capabilities (Review and Herald, February 18, 1890, emphasis supplied).
In chapter 8, we examined Romans 7:14-24 and saw how Paul identifies the stumbling block to sinless living in the experience of all believers. It is, he says, "the law of sin" dwelling in the flesh of fallen sinful nature (verse 23). According to Scripture, Adam's sin not only brought condemnation to all mankind; it also made us sinners by corrupting human nature (see Romans 5:19). Thus, by the Fall, all humanity was brought under the law of sin (see John 8:32-34; Romans 3:9, 7:14).
If Christ did not have to contend with this "law of sin" in His flesh, then we must conclude that He did not totally redeem mankind from sin. As a result, He cannot be set forth as the Saviour from our state of sin; He cannot be an example to believers. If this is true, then sinless living in sinful flesh becomes an impossibility this side of eternity.
Yet Scripture clearly declares that we may overcome even as Christ overcame (see Revelation 3:21). It admonishes believers, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal [sinful] bodies, to make you obey their passions" (Romans 6:12, RSV). Peter affirms that those who arm themselves with the mind of Christ will cease from sin (see 1 Peter 4:1). And, Paul told the Galatian Christians that if they walked in the Spirit they would not fulfill the sinful desires of their sinful natures (see Galatians 5:16; cf. Romans 13:14). All these admonitions become meaningful because in Christ's holy history, humanity has been set free from "the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2). As a result, "the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:4).
Having assumed our sinful humanity with all the force of sin dwelling in its nature, Christ conquered and condemned "the law of sin" through "the law of the Spirit of life" (Romans 8:2), and thus became forever not only the Redeemer of the world, but also the perfect Example for believers. This constitutes the full gospel I believe God has commissioned the advent movement to proclaim and demonstrate before the end comes.
We must not, however, confuse Christ as our Example with the "example theory" of the atonement as taught by some theologians. According to this theory, we realize salvation by imitating the example of Christ's holy living. Such teaching makes sanctification meritorious. Sanctification becomes the means of justification and therefore becomes a form of legalism which we must totally reject. The truth of the gospel is that human beings are justified by faith alone in the life and death of Jesus Christ. Nothing else must be added, not even our works of the law (see Galatians 5:4).
The New Testament presents both sanctification and glorification as making real in our experience, what is already true of us who are justified by faith in Christ. Our only hope, now and in the judgment, is through justification by faith in the doing and dying of Christ. But justification, or imputed righteousness, wonderful as it may be, is not the end of God's saving plan. Whom God justifies, He also sanctifies as the fruit and evidence of justification by faith. And those whose faith endures to the end, He will eventually glorify as the ultimate reality of that justification (see Romans 8:28-30).
When this imparted righteousness is completed and the earth has been made new, everlasting righteousness will be fully ushered in as a tangible fact. Christ will then have finished His heavenly sanctuary ministry as depicted by the service on the Day of Atonement. He will have accomplished all that He fulfilled for our humanity—that humanity He assumed and redeemed two thousand years ago. This is the meaning of the "final atonement"—reproducing the objective facts of the atonement He finished on the cross, when He tasted death for everyone (see Hebrews 2:9).
Nowhere in Scripture do we find sanctification identified as the believer's righteousness produced through his own efforts plus the help of the Holy Spirit. The formula of the gospel, when applied to either imputed or imparted righteousness, is "not I but Christ" (see Galatians 2:20, KJV; 1 Corinthians 15:9, 10; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Ephesians 3:7). Jesus does not send His Spirit to dwell in believers in order to help us to be good so that we can make it to heaven. The work of the Holy Spirit in the plan of salvation is to communicate Christ's righteousness in the life of the believer. Faith is a battle and always involves effort and self denial (see Luke 9:23). But genuine sanctification is the work of God's Spirit demonstrating the saving power of the gospel in the life of justified believers. Our cooperation in living the Christian life is to deny self so that the Spirit of Christ may take over and reproduce in us the holy life of our Saviour.
Such is the divine secret of Christian sanctification which distinguishes it profoundly from simple natural morality. The latter says to man, Become what thou wouldest be. The former says to the believer, Become what thou art already in Christ. It puts a positive fact at the foundation of moral effort, to which the believer can return and have recourse anew at every instant. And this is the reason why his labour is not lost in barren aspiration, and does not end in despair (Evan H. Hopkins, The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life, 15).
When Christian ethics is defined in terms of the believer's good works, even good works that are motivated by our human love for Christ, this ceases to give evidence of effective justification which is by faith. Such good works give evidence only of mankind's ability to produce self-righteousness, which are "filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6, KJV) because it is polluted with self.
What the world desperately needs to see is not man's goodness (the United Nations is already revealing this by its many humanitarian projects); it needs to see Christ manifested in His "body," the church. The church is to be "the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14). The word "light" in this text is in the singular and refers to Christ and His righteousness (see John 1:4). The world desperately needs to see this light that it may glorify the Father in heaven (see Matthew 5:16). Then there will be no excuse for sin to continue, and God will bring an end to it. This is the true meaning of what is included in the cleansing of the sanctuary, as the 1888 message taught it.
Sinless living must not be confused with sinlessness or perfectionism. This was the heresy of the Holy Flesh movement that once plagued the Adventist Church and which was taught in a modified form by the "Awakening" a few years ago. Sinlessness of nature will not be a reality until the second coming, when "this corruptible shall have put on incorruption" (1 Corinthians 15:54, KJV). Sinless living has to do with reproducing Christ's character of selfless love in sinful flesh. This process brings no change to the believer's hereditary nature; that nature remains inherently sinful until death or the coming of Christ.
That is why there will never come a time, this side of eternity, when we can live without the Saviour. But what about Ellen White's statement that believers will have to live "without a mediator" after probation closes (The Great Controversy, 425)? In the investigative, or pre-advent, judgment, the verdict will have been settled once and for all concerning all believers (see Revelation 22:11, 12). Therefore, Christ's role as intercessor and advocate will have ended. This is what Ellen White means by saying that we shall live without a mediator following the close of probation. She does not mean that Christ has ceased to be our Saviour. We must not confuse His priestly ministry with His saving ministry. The two are related because His role as our Saviour qualified Him to be our High Priest (see Hebrews 5:1,2,5-10), but these two functions are not identical. Christ is the Saviour of the world, but He is the High Priest only of believers.
Sinless living in the life of the believer is God's work produced in sinful flesh. The Scripture refers to this as "the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16). In His humanity, Christ lived a sinless life, and through faith in Him, victory over sin becomes the hope and goal of the justified believer—"Christ in you the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world [i.e., the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—see 1 John 2:15,16]: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4, KJV).
Now if Christ is to be truly our example and surety in holy living, He must have had to contend with and overcome the principle of sin—the love of self—residing in sinful flesh. And this is precisely what Scripture teaches. Having demonstrated the believer's total inability to overcome sin in and of himself, Paul concludes the struggle against indwelling sin with this cry of desperation: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:24). This cry is immediately followed by the shout of triumph in verse 25: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Then the apostle goes on to show that in Christ's humanity, which was like our sinful humanity, He totally conquered and condemned "the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2, 3).
It is important to note that in Romans 8:2 our being set free from the "law of sin and death" is expressed in the aorist tense, the past historical tense. In other words, this "law of sin and death," which Paul identifies in Romans 7 as the stumbling block to holy living, has in reality already been dealt with in Christ's humanity by "the law of the Spirit of life." That is why Paul says that there is "now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1) and that the righteous requirements of the law can be fulfilled in us who walk in the Spirit as Christ did (see Romans 8:4).
When the New Testament speaks of holy living, it does so on two levels: mental and practical. In His humanity, Christ lived a sinless life on both levels, demonstrating that when fallen men and women totally surrender their wills to God as He did, they are able to overcome sin through God's power (see John 6:57; 8:28; 14:10).
Jesus said, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart [mind], and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Matthew 11:29, 30). Many have thought that Jesus is saying that He will do most of the pulling while we do just a little. But anyone who has seen a farmer working with a plow pulled by oxen knows that the moment a strong ox and a weak one are yoked together, it becomes almost impossible to plow a straight line. When Christ said we should take His yoke and learn of Him, he did not mean to let Him do most of the pulling. He simply meant that we should be totally God-dependent, as He was on this earth. "As the living Father has sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he who feeds on me, will live because of Me" (John 6:57). This is the principle of the cross (see Luke 9:23). Christ's yoke is in complete contradiction to legalism which the apostle Paul describes as a "yoke of bondage" (Galatians 5:1; see also Acts 15:10, 11).
Sinless living in sinful flesh is possible only when we have "the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5). As humans, our primary concern with reference to holy living has to do with our actions or performance, but God sees things differently. His primary concern is our minds or hearts. "The Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
This is why the apostle Paul says twice in Romans 7 that when he sinned and did those things he really didn't want to do "it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me" (verses 17,20). By the pronoun "I" Paul meant his converted mind. His mind was already serving the law of God, but without the power of the Holy Spirit, the flesh was taking the converted mind into captivity so that when it came to his actions, he was serving sin (see verses 22-25). This, of course, is the experience of every born-again Christian who has not yet lost confidence in the flesh and who is, therefore, sincerely trying to live the Christian life in his or her own strength.
So the first step in holy living is for the mind, the will, to surrender the sinful flesh to the cross of Christ where it belongs (see Galatians 5:24). This means we have chosen by faith to depend entirely on the Spirit of Christ to reproduce His holy life in us. This is what the Bible calls the fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22,23), and it is possible only when we have put away sin in the mind through repentance—a turning around of the mind. This is putting into practice our baptismal vows—"Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:11).
According to Scripture, every born-again Christian, who has truly understood and obeyed the gospel from the heart, has said "good-bye" to sin in his or her converted mind from the moment of conversion. This is because New Testament faith is more than merely a mental assent to the gospel; it also includes a heart obedience to the truth as it is in Christ (see Romans 1:5; 6:17; 10:16; Galatians 5: 7; 2 Thessalonians 1:7, 8; Hebrews 5:9). This is Paul's whole argument in Romans 6, where he counteracts cheap grace. In verses 3-14, He endeavors to show that every believer "baptized into Christ" must consider himself or herself (in the mind), "dead unto sin," and "alive unto God." Ellen White has this to say, commenting on these verses:
The new birth is a rare experience in this age of the world. This is the reason why there are so many perplexities in the churches. Many, so many, who assume the name of Christ are unsanctified and unholy. They have been baptized, but they were buried alive. Self did not die, and therefore they did not rise to newness of life in Christ {Seventh-day Adventist Commentary, 6:1075).
When it comes to living sinless lives in the mind, as Paul expounds it in Romans 6, this is how one scholar accurately explains it:
The believer does not get disentangled from sin gradually; he breaks with it in Christ once for all. He is placed by a decisive act of the will in the sphere of perfect holiness, and it is within it that the gradual renewing of the personal life goes forward" (Even H. Hopkins, The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life, 15, emphasis supplied).
In the second half of Romans 6, Paul continues the argument that sinning must be unthinkable in the mind of the converted believer, but he approaches it from another standpoint: The believer, he says, has been set free from sin in Christ, and by his own heart choice he has become a slave of God, the author of righteousness (see verses 17, 18). On the basis of this dual reality—"dead to sin" and "slaves of God"—the truly converted person does not cherish or cling to even a single sin in his or her mind. Freedom from sin's ruling power and dominion is the immediate privilege of every one who takes hold of it by faith. This does not mean that Christians have necessarily begun to live a sinless life in performance from the moment of conversion. On the contrary, Ellen White tells us, in Steps to Christ, that we will have to come many times to the foot of the cross because of our shortcomings. But this does not mean Jesus has forsaken us or that we become unjustified every time we fall (see page 64).
Day by day, we are to grow in Him and gain victories by the renewing of our minds (see Ephesians 4:17-24; Romans 12:1, 2). But because of our sinful natures, the closer we come to Christ the more sinful we will actually feel. And because these sinful natures of ours will not change until the second advent, we are never to feel that we have attained perfection (see Philippians 3:12-15).
The other side of the coin is that even though we are in a constant battle with indwelling sin, we must never condone sinning (see Romans 6:2,15). To excuse sin is a denial of our faith obedience to the gospel.
Is sinless living in sinful flesh really possible, at least on the actual, or performance, level? The answer of Scripture is a definite Yes! But sinless living in performance is a possibility only when it is preceded by sinless living—or obeying the law—in the mind (see Romans 7:25), only when the believer has first put on the yoke of Christ and lives in total dependence upon God. As Paul expressed it: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5).
Genuine righteousness by faith means that we have fully identified ourselves with the holy history of Christ—His perfect life and His death to sin. When we realize and believe this, then the way is open for God's Spirit to take over and demonstrate to the world the power of the gospel in us. This is when the church will experience a second Pentecost. At the heart of every failure to live up to God's ideal is unbelief.
True New Testament faith is taking God at His word, even though it disagrees with our human reason, the scientific method, or even human experience. Abraham believed God against all hope and therefore became the father, or prototype, of all true believers (see Romans 4:16-18).
What the Christian fails to accomplish through his or her own strength in Romans 7 is made possible by faith through the power of the indwelling Spirit in Romans 8. "If the Spirit of Him that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you," says Paul "He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you" (verse 11). "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:17, 18, RSV).
In these last days, the Holy Spirit is preparing a faithful and willing people who by the grace of Christ will mature to the point that they will fully overcome even as Christ overcame. This is the practical result of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, a unique message of Adventism.
In Ephesians 2:8,9, Paul makes a clear gospel statement that we are saved by grace alone through faith and not by our works. But in verse 10 he adds, "We are His [God's] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (see also Colossians 2:6). Again, in Titus 2:14, Paul reminds us that Christ "gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works."
In view of this gospel truth, let us, therefore, remove all unbelief and have "the mind of Christ" (Philippians 2:5)—a mind, or attitude, that is fully emptied of self and surrendered to the cross of Christ (see Luke 9:23) so that God may take over and enlighten the earth with the glory of His Son.
But as long as we deny the true humanity of Christ, as long as we do not believe that God was manifested in our corporate, sinful flesh, we will never be able to truly enter by faith into the present work of our High Priest in heaven—a work which includes the cleansing of the soul temple (see The Great Controversy, 488).
It is impossible for us to appreciate forgiveness of sins unless we see Christ bearing the wages of our sins on the cross. Likewise, we cannot experience victory over sin's power unless we see Christ conquering and condemning the law of sin in our sinful flesh which He assumed at the Incarnation and overcame by His life and executed on the cross.
We are told that Christ is waiting with longing desire to reproduce His character in His church (see Christ's Object Lessons, 69). How long are we going to keep Him waiting? "When the Lord rebuilds Zion [the church], He will reveal His greatness" (Psalm 102:16, GNB; see also Ephesians 2:19-22; 5:25-27).
Key Points in Chapter Fourteen Christ, the Believers' Example