Likeness of Sinful Flesh. Part 2/2

For anyone who missed the ground breaking - foundation laying part 1, here it is: https://biblicalresearchtr.wixsite.com/book/single-post/likeness-of-sinful-flesh-part-1-2

(Rom 8:3)  For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

Sector two: How readest thou?

Heretofore we have indulged ourselves with what likeness means. But now we must ask ourselves what the meaning of sinful flesh is. Many people who come across Paul's statement in Romans 8:3 read it as 'SINFUL flesh' rather than 'sinful FLESH'. Undue emphasis is laid on the word sinful and consequently, that is translated to mean that Christ had sinful tendencies. In all this, the true meaning of sinful flesh is lost. We have already established that Christ was not a man with sinful desires, He was the spotless lamb of God, otherwise His sacrifice would be of naught and He could not condemn sin in the flesh. His spirit and mind was pure. Jesus had said:

(John 14:30) Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.

""The prince of this world cometh," said Jesus, "and hath nothing in Me." John 14:30. There was in Him nothing that responded to Satan's sophistry. He did not consent to sin. Not even by a thought did He yield to temptation." - Ellen White, Desire of Ages pg. 123

So what does this sinful flesh point to? Well simply, when Christ assumed humanity he took on Him a body that had inherited 4,000 years of degeneracy by virtue of sin. It was a body that was susceptible to sickness and exhaustion. Hunger, pain, cold etc, all these He experienced....things that Adam would never possibly have experienced in Eden. It was a body that inherited benumbed spiritual capabilities compared to what God made in Eden.

"It would have been an almost infinite humiliation for the Son of God to take man's nature, even when Adam stood in his innocence in Eden. But Jesus accepted humanity when the race had been weakened by four thousand years of sin. Like every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity. What these results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors. He came with such a heredity to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life." - Ellen White, Desire of Ages pg 49

Therefore Paul writes:

(Hebrews 4:15) For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Has hunger ever tempted/tested you? what about poverty? Christ is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, all of them. And, He was tested in all points like as we are. Who is the we here? it is those who walk by the spirit, those who have the mind of the spirit and not the mind of the flesh. As discussed in Part 1, possessing the mind of the spirit means having the spirit of Christ reign in our mortal bodies, and by that reign our sinful tendencies are deactivated. We are therefore placed on a higher vantage point where we can say, He was tempted in all points like I am. Do you see it? This is why "Christ did not possess the same sinful, corrupt, fallen disloyalty we possess, for then He could not be a perfect offering.” —Ellen White, Manuscript 94, 1893 (Manuscript Releases, vol. 6, pp. 110-112). He lifts us up to the vantage ground where He stood, where our sinful desires and tendencies are no longer a factor. Then and only then can we begin building character. Any and every attempt to build character before getting onto the vantage point will lead to failure and disappointment.

“As related to the first Adam, men receive from him nothing but guilt and the sentence of death. But Christ steps in and passes over the ground where Adam fell, enduring every test in man's behalf. He redeems Adam's disgraceful failure and fall by coming forth from the trial untarnished. This places man on vantage ground with God. It places him where, through accepting Christ as his Saviour, he becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Thus he becomes connected with God and Christ” - (Letter 68, 1899).

Conclusion

"Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me" (Hebrews 10:5) God created a body for Christ to use in His earthly mission. This signaled that God was starting a new human race as the only other time He created a human body it was in the creation of Adam. No small wonder Paul calls Jesus "the second Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:47) and also "the last Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45). That body however was unlike that of Adam. It contained 4,000 years of hereditary weakness, all so that Christ could identify with our infirmities. This is what it means by sinful flesh. His body was not immaculate, it bore the effects of sin and was susceptible to the forces unleashed by sin. But His heart, His Spirit and mind were pure, and that is the vantage ground He will lift you and I if we allow His Spirit to control our spirit, connecting us with the father and the son.

Quotes

“Every day we are to become more like Jesus, learning the meekness and lowliness of Him who, though the only begotten Son of God, came to this world as our Redeemer, giving His life to pay the penalty of sin. Though hiding His divinity under the guise of humanity, He was the Mighty Counselor, the Prince of Peace” - Ellen White, Upward Look, chp 232

“The Christ typified in the former dispensation is the Christ revealed in the gospel dispensation. The clouds that then enshrouded his divine form have been rolled back; the mists and shadows have disappeared; and he stands revealed, not as the Jewish nation expected, as a powerful king who would conquer their enemies and achieve for them glorious victories, but as a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. His divinity is now hid, not under a cloud, but under the garb of humanity.” - Ellen White, Review and Herald, March 2, 1886

“Here the test to Christ was far greater than that of Adam and Eve, for Christ took our nature, fallen but not corrupted, and would not be corrupted unless He received the words of Satan in the place of the words of God.”—Ellen White, Manuscript 57, 1890 (Manuscript Releases, vol. 16, pp. 180-183)

But thank the Lord, we do not have to go this way alone. "Our old man is crucified with him." He was made "in the likeness of sinful flesh" for us. He was "in all things made like unto his brethren." He "was in all points tempted like as we are." "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." And he was crucified. He was crucified for us. He was crucified as us. He was "the last Adam." He was humanity. And in him the old Adam—the old, sinful humanity—was crucified. And "our old man is crucified with him," in order "that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." - Alonzo T Jones, Review and Herald, April 26, 1898