Question: Is there evidence that Christ had to meet temptations arising from within? To fight against the "liability" or "tendency" to sin? Does Ellen White say that He had to resist the downward pull of an evil tendency? Or was the "inclination" which He "was put to the closest test ...to resist" a sinless option, and therefore not a real temptation to sin (cf. 7BC 930)? What does the context indicate?
Let us take the last question first. The following includes the general context of that statement:
It was as difficult for Him [Christ] to keep the level of humanity as for men to rise above the low level of their depraved natures, and be partakers of the divine nature.
Christ was put to the closest test, requiring the strength of all His faculties to resist the inclination when in danger, to use His power to deliver Himself from peril, and triumph over the power of the prince of darkness. Satan showed his knowledge of the weak points of the human heart, and put forth his utmost power to take advantage of the weakness of the humanity which Christ had assumed in order to overcome His temptations on man's account (7BC 930; from RH, April 1, 1875).
It seems fair to see the following in this passage:
(1) The necessity for Christ to "resist the inclination" was "the closest test," and therefore definitely a "temptation." ("Test" and "temptation" are synonyms). Such a test or temptation implies a potential for sin.
(2) This "inclination" was relevant to "the weak points of the human heart," and therefore cannot be equated merely with physical weakness or weariness. While the next clause speaks of "the weakness of the humanity which Christ had assumed" and could be interpreted as mere physical weakness, such an interpretation violates the context, for whatever "weakness" Ellen White refers to is definitely related to Satan's "temptations on man's account," and concerns "weak points of the human heart," not merely weakness of the human body.
(3) A "test" or "temptation" in this context could not involve merely a sinless option, for that would be an anomaly, virtually a self-contradiction. For Christ to sweat drops of blood in resisting a sinless option would be incomprehensible, and would contradict the inspired insight into His struggle: "Consider Him. ... Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin" (Heb. 12:2-4). "Christ … died unto sin," not unto mere physical infirmity (Rom. 6:10).
(4) If Christ had yielded to this "inclination," would the yielding have been sin? Many seem to think that if He had wiped the bloody sweat from His brow, refused the cross, and returned unscratched to the throne of His Father after rejecting the sacrifice involved and thus denied His Father's will, it would have been for Him merely a sinless option. All would still have been well. Refusing to save the world at the cost of Himself would not have been sin for Him.
But this cannot be true. The problem He faced was "danger" or "peril." The "inclination" He wrestled with was an appeal to self to escape it. If He had yielded to this "inclination," He would have refused the cross, what Satan wanted Him to do, exactly. We need only ask, Could Satan's will for Him ever be a sinless will?
If Christ had refused His cross, would it have been actual sin for Him? If in Gethsemane He had not "resisted unto blood, striving against sin," Ellen White indicates that it would have been sin for Christ to reject the cross:
Could one sin have been found in Christ, had He in one particular yielded to Satan to escape the terrible torture, the enemy of God and man would have triumphed (DA 761).
In other words, to "yield to Satan to escape the terrible torture" would have been "one sin ... found in Christ." He claimed to be sinless because "I do always those things that please" "the Father" (John 8:46, 29). "Christ pleased not Himself" (Rom. 15:3). It was in denying His own will and seeking instead His Father's will that He "overcame" (cf. John 5:30; Rev. 3:21). Therefore, had He refused the cross He could not have said, "I have kept my Father's commandments."
His going to the cross was (we speak reverently, in His own words) "not as I will, but as Thou wilt" (cf. John 15:10; Matt. 26:39). If "love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. 13:10), a crossless Christ would have transgressed the law, for refusing the cross would not have been love (agape). "Had He failed in His test and trial, He would have been disobedient to the voice of God, and the world would have been lost" (5BC 1083). This complete "test and trial" of necessity included His cross. Disobedience to the will of God is what sin is all about.
(5) We have to agree that the "inclination" Christ wrestled with was terribly strong, for it required "the strength of all His faculties to resist" it. If yielding would have been sin for Him, this was an inward "inclination" to sin which He perfectly (though painfully) resisted. He was "in an agony ... and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground" (Luke 22:44).
Yes, His temptations were infinitely greater than any of ours; but that does not mean they were unrelated to ours. As we know the inward hunger for sinful indulgence, the terrible compulsion of illicit love or desire or addiction, so Christ knew the inward yearning of soul for release from His cross. All our inward "inclinations" to sin are a similar compulsion to evade the cross on which self is to be crucified with Him! It is sin which made the cross necessary, and for either Christ (or us) to evade it is sin.
Coming now to the other related question: We must note what Jesus Himself said which seems to have been mysteriously neglected for centuries. Yet it is the clearest and most authoritative statement ever given us on the subject of the human nature which Christ "took" or "assumed" in His incarnation. These are His own words:
I can of Mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and My judgment is just; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me (John 5:30).
I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me (John 6:38).
O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt (Matt. 26:39).
Thus Christ subjected Himself to the inner conflict that we all have. He took a will which had to be denied. (Such a "will" is subservient to an inner choice.) This is not to impute sin to Christ. The veil which has hidden this Christological statement from theologians for centuries may be Augustinian "original sin," which most entertain. Without clearly thinking through the problem, they assume that human nature which includes a will naturally opposed to God's will is automatic participation in sin. But they don't understand "the third angel's message in verity." Temptability is not sin, nor even wrestling with the allurement of sinful or selfish desire; sin is yielding to the temptation or desire in opposition to the will of God.
Our sinful nature is not merely the inherited consequences of six thousand years of sin; it is the inward inclination to the love of self which if indulged is "enmity against God" (Rom. 8:7). But Christ never indulged.
"Mine own will" resisted, rejected, overcome, "condemned ... in the flesh," would not be sin for Christ. Likewise for us, inward "inclination" to sin perfectly resisted through the grace of Christ is not sin. (Apart from faith in Him, that's of course impossible for fallen man.)
Because the popular idea is that an inward inclination is already sin, many reason themselves into tragedy:
Since the temptation to fornication or adultery has already made its appeal, therefore they think the temptation is already sin. Then they conclude they might just as well fulfill the desire and yield to the deed, since they think full obedience to God's law is impossible anyway. If you must seek pardon for one sin, why not seek it for two? Thus they fall into a deadly trap.
In other words, if feeling the inward allurement of temptation is already sin which requires Someone vicariously to keep the law in your place (excusing you), you might just as well let Him go a step further and "cover" your actual illicit sexual act. Is it any more bother for Him to "cover" a sinful deed than to "cover" a sinful thought? This is the logic that excuses a vast amount of immorality, even some within the precincts of the "remnant church." It's raw antinomianism masquerading as "the gospel."
Like Bunyan's Pilgrim walking through the Valley of the Shadow, we sometimes cannot distinguish between the whispered suggestions of the enemy perched on our shoulder (whispers that are not sin) and our own personal mental involvement with sin through participation or fantasizing. Luther wisely said we can't keep the birds from flying over our heads, but we can stop them from making a nest in our hair. It is vain to argue whether it takes one second or a thousandth of a second for Satan's whispered evil thought to become our participation; what's important is that through faith in Christ it is possible "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:3, 4). We serve a Saviour who saves.
"But," says someone, "denying His own will was easy for Him but hard for me!" In reply, look at the agonies of Gethsemane and the cross. Here is where He was put to "the closest test, requiring the strength of all His faculties" to resist. To recognize that Gethsemane and Calvary were "the closest test" is not to deny that His whole life was an unending "test." Identify with Him and you die to sin in Him.
Lastly, Ellen White herself fully supports our Lord's statement about the reality of His inner struggle with His "own will" and "inclination." In 1894 she published her little tract which demonstrated her support for the 1888 idea of the nature of Christ entitled, Christ Tempted As We Are. Strangely, it has remained officially out of print throughout this century. On page 11 she says: "The Christian is to realize that … his strongest temptations will come from within; for he must battle against the inclinations of the natural heart. The Lord knows our weaknesses. ... If we could comprehend what Christ is to us. … !"
If our "strongest temptations will come from within," then it follows that Christ also battled with "temptations ... from within." It is an axiom that things the same are equal to each other.
Never did He cherish, entertain, or harbor an evil thought or purpose. And having done so, He hated iniquity," or "recoiled from evil."
So, by His grace, may we, through His imputed and imparted righteousness. "We need not retain one sinful propensity."