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“If, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we ourselves were found to be sinners, is Christ then an agent of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again those things which I tore down, then I prove myself a transgressor” (Gal. 2:17, 18 RSV)

Jesus is “the Holy and Righteous One” (Acts 3:14 RSV). “In Him is no sin” (1 Jn. 3:5 KJV). He not only “committed no sin” (1 Pet. 2:22), but also “knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). Therefore it is impossible that any sin can come from Him. He does not impart sin. In the stream of life that flows from the heart of Christ through His wounded side there is no trace of impurity. He is not the minister [the agent] of sin; that is, He does not minister sin to anybody.

If in anyone who has sought and found righteousness through Christ, there is afterward found sin, it is because the person has damned up the stream, allowing the water to become stagnant. The Word has not been given free course. And where there is no activity, there is death. No one is to be blamed for this, but the person himself.

If a Christian tears down or destroys his sins through Christ then later builds those sins back up, he again becomes a lawbreaker in need of Christ.

That which is destroyed is the body of sin, and it is destroyed only by the personal presence of the life of Christ. It is destroyed for everybody, for Christ in His own flesh has abolished the “enmity,” the sinner’s carnal mind. Our sins, our weaknesses, were upon Him. For every soul the victory has been gained, and the enemy has been disarmed. We have only to accept the victory which Christ has won. Our faith makes it real to us. The loss of faith puts us outside the reality, and the old body of sin looms up again. That which is destroyed by faith is built up again by unbelief.

This is a present personal matter with each individual.

Waggoner, The Glad Tidings, pp. 42,43

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“Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17)

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life-these tendencies to sin are in the flesh, drawing upon us. In this is the temptation. But temptation is not sin. Not until the desire is cherished is there sin.

But as soon as the desire is cherished, as soon as we consent to it and receive it into the mind and hold it there, then there is sin. And whether or not that desire is carried out in action, the sin is committed. In consenting to it we have already done the thing so far as the mind itself goes. All that can come after that is simply the sensual part, the satisfaction of the flesh.

Therefore the only place where the Lord could bring help and deliverance to us is right in the place where the thoughts are, at the very root of the sin, the point where the sin is conceived, where it begins. Consequently, when He was tempted and tried as He was, when He was spit upon, when they struck Him in the face and on the head, and in all His public ministry when the priests in their iniquity were doing everything they could to irritate Him and get Him stirred up-when He was constantly tried thus, His hand was never raised to return the blow. He never had to check any such emotion, because not even the impulse was ever allowed. Yet He had our human nature in which such impulses are natural.

Why did not these emotions manifest themselves in our human nature in Him? He was surrendered to the will of the Father. The power of God through the Holy Spirit worked against the flesh and fought the battle in the field of the thoughts. Under all these insults and grievous trials our human nature in Him was just a calm as when the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove overshadowed Him on the banks of the Jordan. Now “let this mind be in you.”

Jones, General Conference Bulletin, 1895, p. 348

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“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself” (Phil. 2:5-7, NASB)

Christ was so entirely emptied of Himself, so entirely was He from being manifested in any way, that no influence went forth from Him except the influence of the Father. No man could come to Him except the Father drew that man to Him.

That shows how completely He Himself was kept in the background, how completely He was emptied. It was done so thoroughly that no man could feel any influence from Him or be drawn to Him except from the Father Himself.

That illustrates what it is to glorify God. It is to be so entirely emptied of self that no influence go forth from the individual but the influence of God,-so emptied that everything, every word, will tell only of the Father.

When Jesus was upon earth, He was in our human, sinful flesh. And when He emptied Himself and kept Himself back, the father so dwelt in Him and manifested Himself there, that all the works of the flesh were quenched. The glory of God, the character of God, were manifested instead of anything of the human.

God was “manifest in the flesh,” in sinful flesh-not God manifested in sinless flesh, but in sinful flesh. He will so dwell in our sinful flesh today that although that flesh be sinful, its sinfulness will not cast any influence on others. In spite of all the sinfulness of sinful flesh, His righteousness, His character, shall be manifested wherever that person goes.

That was the intent of God from the beginning, which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jones, General Conference Bulletin, 1895, p. 368

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“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have One who speaks to the Father in our defense-Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn. 2:1,2 NIV)

When Christ came in the flesh, was there as much temptation for Him to meet, and was it as real a temptation, as though no promise had ever been made of redemption? Assuredly. If not, then He was guarded against temptation, and the conflict was not real but imaginary.

He came into the world to demonstrate the unrighteousness of that argument that Satan was presenting in the courts of God as the prosecuting attorney. It is legal all the way through. And He conquered, and became by right the Head of this dominion again, and of all who will be redeemed of it.

That word in the Greek which says that the accuser of our brethren “is cast down” conveys the idea of a prosecuting attorney who comes into court but has no case anymore, no place for argument. Now we have an Advocate in the court, Jesus Christ.

The Lord Jesus in heaven will never be in all respects as He was before. He who was in the form of God took the form of man. Thus He will bear our human form before the Father’s throne through eternal ages. He says, “The glory which You gave Me I have given them” (Jn. 17:22). Instead of Christ being lowered, we are exalted. Instead of divinity’s being lessened, humanity is exalted. Instead of bringing Him down to all eternity to where we are, it lifts us to all eternity where He is. Instead of robbing Him of His glory and putting Him where we are who have none, He laid aside this glory for a season and became ourselves, took our form forever, in order that this form shall be exalted to the glory which He had before the world was.

In what form was the contest carried on with Satan? In our human form, in my nature, in your nature.

Jones, General Conference Bulletin, 1895, p. 449

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“By grace you have been saved through faith…We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph. 2: 8,10)

You can go outside of this Tabernacle and look up at that window (referring to the window at the back of the pulpit), and it looks like only a mess of melted glass thrown together, unsightly. But come inside and look from within, and you see it as a beautiful piece of workmanship, written in clear texts: “Justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24), and the law of God written out in full.

You and I can look at ourselves from the outside and all looks dark, ungainly, as it were only a tangled mass. God looks at it from the inside, as it is in Jesus. When we look through the light that God has given us from the inside as we are in Jesus Christ, we shall also see in clear texts by the Spirit of God, “Justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). We shall see the whole law of God written in the heart and shining in the life, and the words, “Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12).

Those who accept Christ are looked upon not as they are in Adam, but as they are in Jesus Christ, as the sons and daughters of God. Are you glad for it? Let us take it in. In Him He had perfected His plan concerning us. Let the power of God work in us, raise us from the dead, and set us at God’s right hand in the heavenly places in Christ, where He sits.

In Him “we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”

Jones, General Conference Bulletin, 1895, p.368

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“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen. 3: 15)

Ever since Satan obtained control of this world and God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman,” God has been calling people from the ranks of Satan unto Himself into His dominion. And many have been coming all the time.

But Satan had been making the charge that that was not fair, arguing: “These are my rightful conquest, and You are leading them off to You. What have You done, that by right You can do, when I gained it here? Thus he was always accusing those before God day and night whom God called out of this world unto Himself. Satan declared: “These are my property , my rightful subjects; they are laden with sin and altogether wicked. Yet You call them out and justify them and propose to hold them before the universe as though they had been good all the time. That is not fair. They are sinners; they are wicked; they are just like all the rest of us over here.”

This accuser comes as a prosecuting attorney into a court. He would all these, his subjects, as slave-holders used to do under the Fugitive Slave law in the United States, and demand that they should be given up once more to his authority. And there was room for him to present that argument with a apparent shadow of right, because the contest had not yet been carried on. The battle had not yet been fought and the victory won so completely that his argument as a prosecuting attorney should be annihilated.

Now Jesus came into the world to demonstrate that He had the right to do all this and that it was fair. At the point of weakness He entered upon the contest with Satan to recover, by right, the headship of this lost dominion. The promise and the victory had to be tested in an open conflict in the flesh.

Jones, General Conference Bulletin, 1895, pp. 447,448

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“I went down to the potter’s house and there he was, making something at the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make” (Jer. 18:3,4)

No master Workman looks at a piece of work he is doing as it is half finished, and begins to find fault. There may be faults in it, but it is not finished yet.

And while he works on it to take away all the faults, still he looks at it in his finished purpose in his own original plan.

It would be an awful thing if the wondrous Master Workman were to look at us and say, That is good for nothing. He doesn't do that. He looks at us as we are in His eternal purpose in Christ, and goes on with His wondrous work.

You and I may look at it and say, “I don't see how the Lord is ever going to make a Christian out of me, and make me fit for heaven, or anything else.” If he looked at us as we look at ourselves, and if He were as poor a Workman as we, we could never be of any worth. No; He looks at us as we are in His finished purpose. Although we may appear all rough, marred, and scarred now, as we are here and in ourselves; He sees us as we are yonder in Christ.

As we have confidence in Him, we will let Him carry on the work. Has He not given us an example of His workmanship? God has set before us in Christ His complete workmanship in sinful flesh. Now He says to us, “Look at that. That is what I'm able to do with sinful flesh. Now you put your confidence in Me and let Me work. I will carry on the work.” It is not our task at all.

Jones, General Conference Bulletin, 1895, pp. 367,368

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“And there will be…on earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming upon the earth, for the powers of heaven will be shaken” (Lk. 21:25,26)

The Lord Jesus entered upon the open field in contest with Satan, in human flesh at the point in degeneracy when He was born into the world. Human nature will never be weaker, never reach any lower in itself, than when Jesus Christ came into the world. The only means by which man will be worse is that the same iniquity will be professing Christianity.

And that makes him worse in this respect, in that he has cut himself off from salvation by taking God’s means of salvation and making it a cloak for his iniquities. In himself, in the flesh, his own practical wickedness is not any greater: only now he is a hypocrite as well as wicked.

The world in the last days will not be any worse in itself than it was when Christ was born into the world. The only way in which it will be worse is that in having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof, it uses the profession of Christianity to cover its ungodliness. So it perverts God’s only means of salvation so as to destroy itself against all remedy.

Read the last verses of the first chapter of Romans if you wish to have a picture of the world in the last days. The one who believes in a millennium of peace and righteousness before the coming of the Lord will doubtless be shocked; but he needs to be. The seed which produces such a crop is already sown broadcast. "The man of sin…the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or is worshipped” (2 Thess. 2:3) is the strongest force in Christendom, and its power is daily increasing, by the blind acceptance of its principles by professed Protestants. The majority of Protestants follow in its train, accepting the symbol of justification by works instead of by faith.

Waggoner, Waggoner on Romans, p. 35,36

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“For we have not a 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.” “He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him” (Heb. 4:15; 7:25).

It is not enough for a Christian to become all stirred up and say a few spiteful words or raise the hand in resentment, and then say, “O, I am a Christian; I must not say this or do that.” We are to be so submitted to the power of God and the influence of the Spirit of God that our thoughts shall be so completely controlled that the victory shall be won already, and not even the impulse be allowed.

Then we shall be Christians everywhere all the time, under all circumstances, and against all influences.

The things that were heaped upon Christ, which He bore, were the very things that were the hardest for human nature to bear. And before we get through with the cause in which we are engaged, we are going to have to meet these very things that are the hardest for our human nature to bear. Unless we have the battle already won, we are not sure that we shall show the Christian spirit when it is most needed.

Now in Jesus, the Lord has brought to us just the power that will cause us to be submitted to Him, “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).

The law of God is written upon the heart. In the innermost recesses, the secret chamber of the heart, at the very root, the fountain of the thought-there Christ sets up His throne. Thus at the very citadel of the soul, the only place where sin can enter-there God sets up His throne. There He puts His law. The result is peace only, and all the time.

Jones, General Conference Bulletin, 1895, p. 348