Editorial

HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2012 / WINTER / EDITORIAL

W I N T E R • 2 0 1 2
VOLUME 13, ISSUE 4

D E P A R T M E N T S

Editor's COMMENTS

I was sitting in my junior high Bible class at Hoodview Junior Academy in Boring, Oregon. I was an earnest 13-year-old who frequently begged God to “make me good”—to no avail. I wanted to understand “the truth”, and I wanted to be obedient. Jesus, I knew, had come to show me how to obey, and I knew that if I figured out how to pray as well as He prayed, I should be able to resist temptation.

That year, as per our General Conference-designed Bible curriculum, we were learning Adventist beliefs. Because I wanted to understand, I listened carefully as the teacher explained that after Adam and Eve sinned, Jesus begged the Father to let him come to earth and save us poor fallen humans. I absorbed the teaching that He came as a man exactly like us, with Mary’s sinful tendencies in his flesh. As a man, therefore, Jesus had to fight temptation with all the same struggles we have.

In fact, I have an indelible memory of the teacher proclaiming, “If Jesus had not been able to sin, He could not have been our Savior.”

That teaching made sense to me, given my carefully-taught Adventist worldview. If Jesus had been “super human” and somehow not able to sin and fail, He couldn’t have been our Example. He wouldn’t have been able to uphold the Law and demonstrate that we also could avoid sin and keep the commandments exactly as He did.

He was our Savior, I learned, because He emptied Himself of His “God-power” and demonstrated that God’s law could be kept by sinners such as I. In fact, He did such a good job of His demonstration that He managed to allow wicked men to crucify Him—and “He never said a mumblin’ word.”

Jesus’ example taunted me as I lay awake at night, terrified and hopeless as I continued to beg God to forgive me and to make me good.

But they were wrong! My textbooks, my Bible teachers—in spite of their utter sincerity—were wrong. Jesus never begged the Father to allow Him to come to earth; that plan was in place before creation, and Jesus did not come on His own authority: the Father sent Him (Jn. 8:42)! Jesus did not come with a fallen nature; He came sinless and spotless. He did not demonstrate how to overcome sin; rather, He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29).

Jesus did not give us an example of how to have eternal life; Jesus, the Son of Man, has life in Himself, and unless we eat His flesh, drink His blood, and abide in Him, we have no life in ourselves (Jn. 6:53-57).

Jesus did not give up His “God-power” to become a man. Rather, from the moment of His conception, all the fullness of Deity dwelt in Him (Col. 1:19; 2:9). Every attribute of God—including omnipresence and omnipotence—was in the Man Christ Jesus. Even when He was in the tomb all things were being held together in Him (Col. 1:20).

In this issue Gary Inrig teaches the truth about Jesus’ emptying Himself in an act of downward mobility that opened eternity to us. Joanie Yorba-Gray and I write about how the teachings and practices of Adventism mark its members with the wounds of spiritual abuse, and Stephen Pitcher illustrates the subtle ways Adventist doctrines are used to confuse the words of Scripture in The Clear Word. Dan Burton shares his experience of beginning to understand His wife’s journey out of Adventism, and Dale Ratzlaff delivers a Christmas gift from the gospel of Matthew. Rick Barker explores Adventism’s Fundamental Belief #4 on the nature of Jesus; Carolyn Macomber shares her reflections on Jesus’ advantage over us, and Chris Lee challenges us to celebrate Christmas every day.

This Christmas, let the Baby of Bethlehem become your Lord and King! †

Life Assurance Ministries