Yes! Here we have a Baby different from any other ever born into this world. This little Fellow is pure, sinless, sweet, unselfish—no temper tantrums. As a Baby, no problem to His mother. And according to Isaiah 9:6 (which tells us "unto us a child is born") "the government" of earth and heaven is laid "upon His shoulder."
Get it? That's the shoulder of a helpless Infant who can't yet hold His bottle! If He as a Child falls into our universal sin, that "government" will crash. Everything has come to depend on Him and His perfect sinlessness, while He is born "unto us" who all are sinners.
How and why is He so different from all other babies?
Roman Catholicism claims it has the answer: "His sinlessness is because He has been born of a sinless Mother who experienced an Immaculate Conception in the womb of her mother. This broke the genetic link and gave her a sinless nature all her life so she never knew sexual desire. Thus she gave to Him her sinless, sexless flesh or nature."
Some Seventh-day Adventists also answer that Jesus couldn't be sinless as a baby unless He had been “exempt" from the common genetic inheritance all our babies have to share.
Could there be another solution? "Though he was in the form of God," Christ left His home in heaven and "emptied himself" to be "born in the likeness of men [and] humbled himself" (Phil. 2:7, 8, RSV). Is it possible that He "took" or "assumed" the same heredity of fallen, sinful flesh, the same nature that all humanity has, and yet was sinless as a baby?
The angel told the Virgin Mary that He is "that holy thing which shall be born of thee." Paul says He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" (Luke 1:30; Heb. 7:26). And Ellen White speaks of His sinless babyhood:
Christ … was not like all children …. His inclination to right was a constant gratification to His parents …. No one, looking upon the childlike countenance, shining with animation, could say that Christ was just like other children (5BC 1117).
One temper tantrum would have made Him a sinner; and that would have destroyed Him as a Saviour because He would then have had "an evil propensity." A sinful "savior" couldn't save anybody. The question is: Why was He so different as a baby?
The problem is not trivial. It's way beyond mere theological contention. Ellen White tells us that "the humanity of the Son of God is everything to us. It is the golden chain that binds our souls to God" (1SM 144). It must have something important to do with our day to day Christian living.
Our Roman Catholic friends also think they see "the humanity of the Son of God" as "everything" to them. They have been pondering this problem for well over a thousand years. That's why they came up with their idea of an "Immaculate Conception" for His mother. For them, this must be a pre-programmed genetic "exemption" from the hereditary stream of fallen mankind. Their idea is a holy separation, the opposite of identity with us. He must not be allowed to come too close to the problem of human sin.
In other words, Mary must have holy flesh so she can pass it on to her Son, so He can come into the world with a sinless nature unlike ours. For Roman Catholics, this answers our question: as a baby Christ couldn't help being good, long before He could reason or think. There was no genetic link with the fallen Adam.
We naturally assume a baby can't reason, can't judge between right and wrong; and it's also true that all our babies are born sinners, by nature selfish. So, do we need that "exemption" for Jesus that excused Him from the legacy that all other babies receive?
Thoughtful Seventh-day Adventists are perplexed. Some see no way for Christ to have been sinless as a baby unless He was "exempt" from our heredity. This idea is usually desig- nated as "pre-Fall," that is, Christ "had" the sinless spiritual nature of Adam before the Fall, unlike ours.
Others (equally thoughtful) see that Christ accepted our full human heredity from the beginning of His incarnation and "took" upon Himself the same burden of our genetic down- load of sinfulness, yet was holy and sinless even as a baby, and all His life. This is known as the "post-Fall" position, and is identical to the 1888 message view.
Protestants in general say they reject the Immaculate Conception dogma, but they also demand some "exemption" some- where in the genetic line for Jesus. They still carry considerable baggage from Rome such as Sunday sacredness and the natural immortality of the soul. Is their view of Christ's humanity also borrowed from Rome?
The Bible and Ellen White's writings are clear. Jesus "took" or "assumed" our fallen, sinful nature, an idea diametrically opposed to both the Immaculate Conception and the "exempt" idea. The problem that has occupied centuries of discussion finds its focus in Christ's sinlessness as a baby. How could "the government" be upon His "shoulder" even then? Let us reverently inquire why. If there is an answer to our question, it must be part of the Good News of the gospel.