When we want a deep problem to study, let us fix our minds on the most marvelous thing that ever took place in earth or heaven–the incarnation of the Son of God. God gave his Son to die for sinful human beings a death of ignominy and shame.   Ms. 76, 1903.

The  humanity  of the Son of God is  everything to  us.    It  is  the  golden chain  that   binds  our  souls  to  Christ, and  through  Christ  to God. This is to be our study.

Christ was not in as favorable a position in the desolate wilderness to endure the temptations of Satan as was Adam when he was tempted in Eden.

The Son of God humbled himself and took man’s nature after the race had wandered four thousand years from Eden, and from their original state of purity and uprightness.   Sin had been making its terrible marks upon the race for ages; and physical, mental, moral degeneracy prevailed throughout the human family.

When Adam was assailed by the tempter in Eden he was without the taint of sin.   He stood in the strength of his perfection before God.   All the organs and faculties of his being were equally developed, and harmoniously balanced.

Christ, in the wilderness of temptation, stood in Adam’s place to bear the test he failed to endure.  Here Christ overcame in the sinner’s behalf, four thousand years after Adam turned his back upon the light   of   his   home. Separated from the presence of God, the human family had been departing, every successive generation, farther from the original purity, wisdom, and knowledge which Adam possessed in Eden.  Christ bore the sins and infirmities of the race as they existed when He came to the earth to help man.  In behalf of the race, with the weaknesses of fallen man upon Him, He was to stand the temptations of Satan upon all points wherewith man would be assailed…In what contrast is the second Adam as He entered the gloomy wilderness to cope with Satan singlehanded! Since the fall the race had been decreasing in  size  and  physical strength, and sinking lower in the scale of  moral  worth,  up  to  the  period  of Christ’s  advent to the  earth.     And in order to elevate fallen man, Christ must reach him where he was. He took human nature,  and  bore  the  infirmities  and degeneracy of  the race.  He, who knew no sin, became sin for us. He humiliated Himself to the lowest depths of human woe, that He might be qualified to reach man,   and   bring   him   up   from  .the degradation in• which sin  had plunged him. RH, Aug 4, 1874/ 1 SM 271-280, July 28, 1874

Jesus   was   sinless   and   had   no dread of the consequences of sin.  With this exception   His   condition was as yours.    You  have  not  a difficulty  that did  not  press  with  equal  weight  upon Him,  not a  sorrow  that  His  heart  has not experienced.  His feelings could be hurt with neglect, with indifference of professed friends, as easily as yours.  Is your path thorny? Christ’s was so in a tenfold sense.   Are you distressed?   So was he.   How well fitted was Christ to be an example! … It  is  not  as  a  man bending under  the pressure of age that Jesus  is  revealed  to  us  traversing the hills of Judea.  He was in the strength of His manhood.    Jesus once stood in the   age   just   where   you now stand. Your circumstances, your cogitations at this period of your life, Jesus    has had.   He cannot overlook you at this critical period.   He sees your dangers. He   is   acquainted   with   your temptations.   He invites you to follow His example.   Letter B-17, 1878

Had He not been fully human, Christ could not have been our substitute. ST, June 17, 1897

While bearing human nature, He (Christ) was dependent on the Omnipotent for His life.     In  His humanity, He laid  hold of the  divinity of God; and  this every  member  of the human  family  has  the  privilege  of doing.  Christ did nothing that human nature may not do if it partakes of the divine nature…If we  repent  of our transgression,  and   receive   Christ   as the  Life-giver, our   personal   Saviour, we become one with Him, and our  will is   brought    into   harmony    with   the divine  will.    We become partaker of the life of Christ, which is eternal.  We derive  immortality  from  God  by receiving   the   life  of  Christ;  for  .in Christ  dwells all the fullness of the Godhead  bodily. This life is the mystical union and cooperation of the divine with the human. ST 23:5, June 17, 1897

Unless there is a possibility of yielding, temptation is not temptation. Temptation comes and is resisted when man is powerfully influenced to do a wrong action, and knowing that he can do it, resists by faith with a firm hold upon divine power. This was the ordeal through which Christ passed. In His closing hours, while hanging upon the cross, He experienced to the fullest extent what man must experience when striving against sin.   He realized how bad man may become by yielding to sin. He realized the terrible consequence of the transgression of God’s law; for the iniquity of the whole world was upon Him.    MS  29,  1899,  p.4  (Manuscript Release No. 347)

Adam was tempted by the enemy, and he fell.   It was not indwelling sin which caused   him to yield; for   God made him pure and upright in His own image. He was as faultless as the angels before the throne. There was in him no corrupt principles, no tendencies to evil.    But when Christ came to meet the temptations of Satan, He bore “the likeness of sinful flesh”. ST, Oct 17, 1900

Those who claim that it was not possible for Christ to sin, cannot believe that He really took upon Himself human nature.   But was not Christ actually tempted, not only by Satan in the wilderness, but all through His life, from childhood to manhood? In all points He was tempted as we are, and because He successfully resisted temptation under every form, He gave man the perfect example, and through the ample provision Christ has made, we may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in  the world through lust.

Jesus  says, “To  him  that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am  set  down  with  my  Father  in   his throne”. Here is the beginning of our confidence which we must hold steadfast unto the end. If Jesus resisted Satan’s temptations, He will help us to resist.  He came to bring divine power to combine with human effort.  Ms 141, 1901.

In His humanity Christ was dependent upon the Father, even as humanity is now dependent upon God for divine power in attaining unto perfection of character. ST 33:422, July 3, 1907

We are not to serve God as if we were not human, but we are to serve Him as those who have been redeemed by the Son of God, and through the righteousness of Christ we shall stand before God pardoned, as if we had never sinned. ST 38: (531), Aug 29, 1911

Christ’s overcoming and obedience is that   of a true   human being.    In our conclusions we make many mistakes because of our erroneous views of the human nature of our Lord.  When we give to His human nature a power that is not possible for man to have in his conflicts with Satan, we destroy the completeness of His humanity. His imputed grace and power He gives to all who receive Him by faith.

The obedience of Christ to His Father was the same obedience that is required of man. Man cannot overcome Satan’s power without divine power      to combine with his instrumentality.  So with Jesus Christ: He could lay hold of divine power. He came not to our   world to  give  the obedience of a lesser God to a greater, but as a man to obey God’s  holy law, and  in  this  way  He  is  our  example. The Lord Jesus came not to reveal what a God could do, but what a man could do, through faith in God’s power to help in every emergency.   Man is through faith, to be a partaker in the divine nature, and to overcome every temptation wherewith he is beset.

The Lord now demands that, every son and daughter of Adam, through faith in Jesus  Christ,  serve Him in human nature which we now have.  The Lord Jesus has bridged the gulf that sin has made.    He has connected   earth    with   heaven,   and finite man with the infinite God.  Jesus, the   world’s   Redeemer, could     only keep the commandments of God in the same way that   humanity can   keep them.     (MS 1, 1892)-(BC 7:929).

E.G. White