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Selfishness, Condemnation and Birth Nature
An Exploration of Certain Ellen White Statements Sometimes Misunderstood
Larry Kirkpatrick
Originally published on LastGenerationTheology.org on 2006-02-20 22:59Z
A mistaken understanding has been offered by some. They teach that, according to Ellen G. White, men are born condemned for selfishness. They quote a statement of hers from 1886:
Selfishness is inwrought in our very being. It has come to us as an inheritance (Historical Sketches, pp. 138, 139).
Alongside of this they present her statement that “selfishness is sin” (Signs of the Times, April 13, 1891). The concept is, we are born sinning.
Selfishness as an Inheritance
Let us consider such statements carefully and make an effort not to misapply them. Here it is the first one with more context:
There is a great work to be done for many of us. Our minds and characters must become as the mind and character of Christ. Selfishness is inwrought in our very being. It has come to us as an inheritance, and has been cherished by many as a precious treasure. No special work for God can be accomplished until self and selfishness are overcome. To many everything connected with themselves is of great importance. Self is a center, around which everything seems to revolve (Historical Sketches, pp. 138, 139).
What is the work to be done? “Our minds and characters must become as the mind and character of Christ.” Surely we agree that this is a work that must be done in everyone. More specifically, focus is placed on the issue of self and selfishness: “No special work for God can be accomplished until self and selfishness are overcome.”
What of the statement that “selfishness is inwrought in our very being. It has come to us as an inheritance?” First, notice that the second sentence does not stop after the word inheritance. There is more. The complete statement is, “It has come to us as an inheritance, and has been cherished by many as a precious treasure.” The statement is not dealing with selfishness alone, but with something that has been taken and cherished. We are told that self and selfishness must be overcome. So these things can be overcome. Can be and must be, during our probationary time here on earth, if we would meet our Lord in peace.
If this is talking about our birth nature, the disordered human organism (DHO) we are born with, there is a problem, for that nature is not changed until after probation closes and the arrival at last of Christ in glory.
Notice:
When human beings receive holy flesh, they will not remain on the earth, but will be taken to heaven. While sin is forgiven in this life, its results are not now wholly removed. It is at His coming that Christ is to ‘change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body.’ Phil. 3:21. When Christ shall come with a great sound of a trumpet, and shall call the dead from their prison house, then the saints will receive holy flesh. Then this mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruptible shall put on incorruption. Then Christ will be admired in all them that believe (General Conference Bulletin, April 23, 1901).
It is helpful to realize that the Indiana Holy Flesh movement, which Mrs. White is above addressing, taught a similar error to what some are today teaching. Namely, that condemnation adheres to our birth nature, and that this nature we are born with must be changed to a holy flesh in order for us to be saved.
In Indiana, the chosen method was to use music and excitement to induce an emotional experience. Worship leaders worked the assembled congregation into a frenzy until someone in the meeting swooned. The subject was then carried to the front where those leading out gathered round, laying hands on them, praying intensely. Eventually, the subject of their prayers would recover consciousness, and be told that he had received the needful experience, he had passed through the garden, he now had holy flesh and could neither sin nor die. He was ready for translation.
The basic issue was the birth nature, which was viewed as being saddled with sin and guilt. This birth nature had to be removed. Thus the ceremony, the passage through the garden, the assertion of changed nature. But inspiration says “While sin is forgiven in this life, its results are not now wholly removed.” That is reserved for the moment of glorification at the Second Coming.
Repeated statements say the same thing. “So long as Satan reigns, we shall have self to subdue…” (Acts of the Apostles, pp. 560, 561). “Appetite and passion must be brought under the control of the Holy Spirit. There is no end to the warfare this side of eternity” (Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, p. 20).
We must be overcomers, but our DHO will be with us until glorification. “Self and selfishness” must be overcome. Did you notice that although selfishness is said to be inwrought, that whatever is intended to be the meaning of inwrought, until it is overcome “no special work for God can be accomplished”? It must be then that it is possible somewhere early in the Christian experience, through the power of Christ, to overcome selfishness.
But what, more precisely, do we receive, and what, more precisely, do we develop through choice?
What Is In Man’s Nature?
In fact, the writings of Ellen White are very careful when they discuss our birth nature (what LGT often calls “Disordered Human Organism,” or DHO). She says that
The result of the eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is manifest in every man’s experience. There is in his nature a bent to evil, a force which, unaided, he cannot resist (Education, p. 29).
She also writes of weaknesses and tendencies to evil:
Men that God has entrusted with noble talents will be, unless closely connected with God, guilty of great weakness, and, not having the grace of Christ in the soul, will become connected with greater crimes. This is because they do not make the truth of God a part of them. Their discipline has been defective; the soul culture has not been carried forward from one advance to another; inborn tendencies have not been restrained, but have degraded the soul. For all the natural weaknesses Jesus has made ample provision, that they may be overcome through His grace. If not overcome, the weakness will become a tyrant, a conqueror, to overcome them, and the heavenly light will become beclouded and extinguished (Testimonies on Sexual Behavior, p. 91).
They may often read humiliating lessons as they see their own imperfections reproduced in their sons and daughters. While seeking to repress and correct in their children hereditary tendencies to evil, parents should call to their aid double patience, perseverance, and love (Adventist Home, p. 173).
Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress His own character upon His church (The Desire of Ages, p. 671).
She is careful. She never says we inherit guilt or condemnation. She never says we are born condemned. Run the searches on your CDROM.
Notice further that when we study the Spirit of Prophecy writings more closely, we find that inheritance varies:
Many children have inherited selfishness from their parents, but parents should seek to uproot every fiber of this evil tendency from their natures (Child Guidance, p. 132).
“Many?” Not all? Even in the following statement we find that what is received is represented as an inclination to selfishness. “How carefully should parents manage their children in order to counteract every inclination to selfishness!” (Child Guidance, p. 133). Again, selfishness is represented as starting like a seed. But when? “In many families the seeds of vanity and selfishness are sown in the hearts of the children almost during babyhood. Their cunning little sayings and doings are commented upon and praised in their presence, and repeated with exaggerations to others” (Child Guidance, p. 140). The seeds of selfishness are sown in the hearts of children “almost” during babyhood. When? When they are old enough to speak “cunning little sayings.”
The heart of the fallen human has the bent, the weaknesses, the tendencies just as described by Ellen White. This is also one of the ways she uses the word propensities.
Satan is appealing to the lowest propensities of human nature. But these do not need cultivation, like thistles and briers, selfishness, self-love, envying, jealousy, evil surmisings, self-esteem, will grow up luxuriantly if only left to themselves. But the highest, noblest faculties need to be kept in exercise that they may be developed (1888 Materials, p. 419).
Those with a fallen nature have inwrought in themselves propensities. These propensities do not need cultivation. The propensity to selfishness “will grow up luxuriously if only left to” itself. So we have a propensity to selfishness and unless there is an intervention, a change of direction, it will grow and it will grow up luxuriously. The pictures we are seeing here begin with a small seed or a propensity, but then there is an essentially automatic growth. What was a seed becomes a full-blown tree; what was mere propensity becomes selfish character in all its maturity.
Thus we see that our inheritance of selfishness has to do with a propensity found in the disordered human nature of fallen man and women. Left to itself, our inclination apart from the influence of the Holy Spirit will be to choose to follow the clamor and pull of our nature. It will be to embrace it, to join its self-inclination, by choice to come into solidarity with our DHO.
Here is where there is a divergence between Christ and ourselves. Here is where there is a difference. Whereas Christ did not join Himself in solidarity with His DHO, He did not adopt its inclinations as His own, every other human who has become accountable to God, has. Thus Paul writes, that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We have all, by choice taken the easy route, at least for a time. We have all let the lowest propensities, like selfishness, grow up luxuriantly. We adopted selfishness as a central aspect of what we are. Christ never did.
Selfishness is Sin
What about the statement “selfishness is sin”? I have seen the statement given as “all selfishness is sin.” But that was not the statement. The actual statement has to do with how church members relate to each other.
If the love of Christ is in the hearts of the members of the church, through the abundant grace of Christ, there will be oneness, unity, among brethren. We must close the door of the heart to every suggestion that shall have the least tendency toward keeping us from this state of harmony. We must not hamper the soul and cripple its powers by the indulgence of selfishness. Selfishness is sin, and it grieves away the Spirit of Christ. When we cherish unkind thoughts, and harbor suspicions against our brethren, we are cutting ourselves off from the channel of God’s light and love (Signs of the Times, April 13, 1891).
This passage is speaking about adults, members of the church. What kind of selfishness is here in view? The cherishing of “unkind thoughts,” the harboring of “suspicions against our brethren.” These are the chosen sins of accountable people. Yes, selfishness is sin in the person who claims to be walking with Christ but still manifesting these dark works. But this selfishness is not selfishness in the form of seed or propensity; this is selfishness as a well-watered plant, a “cherished,” that is, petted, endorsed, accepted part of the character.
The statement we do find with the word “all” in it, is this:
The choice we make in this life will be our choice through all eternity. We shall receive either eternal life or eternal death. There is no middle ground, no second probation. We are called upon to overcome in this life as Christ overcame. Heaven has provided us with abundant opportunities and privileges, so that we may overcome as Christ overcame, and sit down with Him on His throne. But in order to be overcomers, there must be in our lives no petting of fleshly inclinations. All selfishness must be cut out by the roots (Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1112).
Yes, during this life all selfishness must be cut out by the roots. And yet, we will have our DHO all the way until the moment of glorification. The selfishness that must be cut out by the roots is selfishness that has been adopted into the character. The fallen humanity remains, its lowest propensities remain, but in the end, through the Holy Spirit we will have chosen to fully embrace unselfishness. There will be no foothold left in our character that appreciates and embraces selfishness. The selfishness discussed in the Spirit of Prophecy that must be “cut out by the roots” is the selfishness we have chosen and is not the propensity, the tendency, the inclination to selfishness inwrought in our birth nature.
Thus we begin to see how well intentioned parties have misapplied the writings of Ellen White. Isolated statements are used to teach concepts never endorsed by inspiration.
Problems in Method
One might ask, why all this focus exclusively on the writings of Ellen G. White? We agree with the concern. There are those today who, rather than starting with the Bible go straight to Ellen White. She would never have had it this way. Often they bypass deep insights from Scripture. Sometimes without a good understanding of the broader testimony of the writings of Ellen White, they run searches and pull isolated statements off the CDROM. Yes, there are enormous insights to be gained by the study of the writings of Mrs. White—but those insights will be gained as we seek them in harmony with the intended testimony of those writings, which may have to be gained by more extensive study.
Some make an appeal to simplicity. They want no close explorations of what God has revealed, but insist on retaining an understanding they already held. A statement will be laid side by side with another statement, often while the broader context of those statements is ignored, or other statements that bear on the very point are ignored. We are all for simplicity, and yet simplicity cannot mean indifference to other inspired facts. Our study should be deep. We should go to the bottom of the topic if time and opportunity allow, and thus be best fitted for rightly dividing the Word (2 Timothy 2:15) we are studying. Then the results of our exploration can benefit every soul exposed to them.
Conclusion
What is the testimony of the Spirit of Prophecy? Are we born selfish, born condemned for selfishness? We are born with a nature that has propensities to selfishness, and as the child proceeds in the development of character, he will join character to nature. Unless the Holy Spirit intervenes, he will make the selfishness of his DHO his own selfishness. He will become a rebel by choice, an enemy of God. He will condemn himself by joining in solidarity with his DHO.
But it must also be clear that if we choose to go in God’s way, lifelong obedience is possible.
Men and women frame many excuses for their proneness to sin. Sin is represented as a necessity, an evil that cannot be overcome. But sin is not a necessity. Christ lived in this world from infancy to manhood, and during that time He met and resisted all the temptations by which man is beset. He is a perfect pattern of childhood, of youth, of manhood (Manuscript Releases, vol. 18, p. 331; The Faith I Live By, p. 219).
We are ever to be thankful that Jesus has proved to us by actual facts that man can keep the commandments of God, giving contradiction to Satan’s falsehood that man cannot keep them. The Great Teacher came to our world to stand at the head of humanity, to thus elevate and sanctify humanity by His holy obedience to all of God’s requirements showing it is possible to obey all the commandments of God. He had demonstrated that a lifelong obedience is possible (Manuscript 1, 1892).
He [Christ] passed through the experience of infancy, childhood, and manhood without a stain upon His character. He consecrated Himself to God that He might benefit and bless others, to show that in every period of life the human agent can do the Master’s will (Review and Herald, October 24, 1899).
Wherever we are in our life when we accept Christ as our Personal Savior, from that point we are called of heaven to cooperate with God, to permit Him to work and to cut away selfishness to the roots. There it must be cut out.
In the end, the DHO remains, but the character is free. We have become like Christ in our sphere. Unselfishness has been perfectly reproduced. We are not condemned for our birth nature, for our birth nature is not in control; nor are we any longer controlled by the fleshly traits that we had nurtured that had made our life a billboard advertisement for Satan’s kingdom of sin. God gave repentance; we accepted it. God offered transformation; we said yes! He patiently led us to the place where at last we understood the power of the will He purchased for us and of His strength offered us from on high. In their combining, all glory accrues only to our God. LGT