Sat 31 July 2010 6:28am PST

An Analysis of Manuscript 1, 1892

Larry Kirkpatrick

Published on LastGenerationTheology.org on 2005-12-28

While working at the Ellen G. White Estate, following up questions someone had asked, I came across Mrs. White’s (partially) unpublished Manuscript 1, 1892. This document is the source for the material published in Selected Messages, vol. 3, pp. 136-141. There, certain paragraphs are left out,¹ and few of these omissions are noteworthy. Nevertheless, the manner in which this manuscript is broken up in Selected Messages has limited the helpfulness of the material. We reproduce the entire manuscript line-by-line so the entire internal context is present (See Ellen G. White, Manuscript 1, 1892).

Manuscript 1, 1892 divides into three main sections. Paragraphs 1-4 anchor the document in the overarching great controversy theme. The main interest of paragraphs 5-12 revolves around the empowerment of fallen man by the Holy Spirit. The remaining 16 paragraphs (half of the document) primarily emphasize that Jesus’ obedience was rendered “as a man,”² that He, in His earthly sojourn stood in radical solidarity with us, and that we can copy His pattern.

As we will see, some of her insights in this manuscript are among the most striking in all inspiration. These give enormous encouragement for the possibilities for obedience by humankind fallen. Note that for ease in following the discussion offered in this chapter, we have keyed our references to Manuscript 1, 1892 to its paragraphs as we have numbered them in the online document.

The Great Controversy

The document opens with the statement that Jesus passed over the ground where Adam fell by disobedience. The ground Jesus must pass over is predicated by Satan’s charge found in the same paragraph: “Satan, the fallen angel, had declared that no man could keep the law of God after the disobedience of Adam.” The claim of Satan was that after the fall of Adam, no man could obey. Because it was necessary to meet this charge, “the only begotten Son of God came to our world as a man, to reveal to the world that men could keep the law of God.” The distinct emphasis is that Jesus came “as a man.” Later in the manuscript Jesus’ humanity is contrasted with His Deity.

Satan’s charge predetermined God’s response. Fallen man cannot obey? Then I will come in fallen flesh and as just such a man I will obey!

In paragraph two, Jesus placed Himself in the sinner’s stead, and “passed over the ground where Adam fell.” He endured temptation, not less-than, but greater-than we shall ever face, and endured. “Jesus resisted the temptations of Satan in the same manner that every tempted soul may resist” (2). This was by means of trusting the Word of God. He could not be placed “in the sinner’s stead” had He not taken the sinner’s sinful flesh. He must identify fully with man in his current broken estate, but He Himself must not sin. “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” (Manuscript Releases, vol. 16, p. 182).

In paragraph three, Jesus overcame the temptations of Satan “as a man.” This is immediately followed by the assertion that “Every man may overcome as Christ overcame.” The direct connection between Christ’s incarnation and our overcoming is made especially pointed in this paragraph as we learn that His victorious life was testifying to two distinct groups of beings: (1) “all the unfallen worlds,” (2) “and to fallen humanity.” What was this precious testimony? “That man could keep the commandments of God through the divine power granted to him of Heaven” (3).

Consider the logic. If the nature Jesus assumed in His incarnation was that of Adam before his fall, or some synthetic, in-between, blended nature unique to Jesus Himself, then what is this purchased-at-so-great-price testimony to the fallen race? That He, Jesus, in a form of humanity superior to the form of everyone else living, overcame in His superior humanity, and they, in their inferior humanity, can too. Were this the kind of humanity Jesus took, then His testimony to fallen man is this: “On a theoretical basis, I assure you that you can overcome. No one in your nature has yet done it, but take My word for it, it can be done.”

But the manuscript itself utterly rules-out such an idea (3, 13, 14, 16, 17, 21-26). In fact, we learn in this paragraph that Jesus “humbled Himself,” “endured temptation,” and “overcame.” For who? “For us,” “for us,” and “in our behalf.” To show us what? “To show us how we may overcome.”

The fourth paragraph (missing in Selected Messages) reproduces 2 Peter 1:2-4. Here is found the very wording we saw in paragraph three, that “man could keep the commandments of God through the divine power granted to him of Heaven.” Second Peter 1:2 rejoices that “His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” As we know, that text states that by means of God’s promises we can partake of the divine nature. We can overcome the broken nature which manifests itself in warped, self-centered clamors.

Empowerment of Fallen Man by the Holy Spirit

Paragraph five commences a section expanding on the “divine power” already introduced. He will be with those who are “wrestling for victory, in demonstration of all mightiness, endowing the human agent with supernatural powers&hellip” This is how we are to overcome.

But now comes a powerful rhetorical question:

Of what avail would it have been to us that the only begotten Son of God had humbled Himself, endured the temptations of the wily foe, and wrestled with him during His entire life on earth, and died the Just for the unjust that humanity might not perish, if the Spirit had not been given as a constant working, regenerating agent to make effectual in our cases what had been wrought out by the world’s Redeemer?

“Of what avail would it have been to us,” is followed by a fascinating list; fascinating because, to many, that which is mentioned of Jesus between this and the “if,” is thought to be all of the gospel: “That the only begotten Son of God had humbled Himself, endured the temptations of the wily foe, and wrestled with him during His entire life on earth, and died the Just for the unjust…” And yet, there is everything that stands on the other side of the “if”: “If the Spirit had not been given as a constant working, regenerating agent to make effectual in our cases what had been wrought out by the world’s Redeemer.” If the Spirit had not been given to do His work within us, then the work that Jesus voluntarily did outside of us would be of no avail. You must have Jesus’ substitutionary death in your place even as you must have the Holy Spirit’s constant, inward, regenerative working.

The sixth through ninth paragraphs speak of the impartation (communication) of the Holy Spirit to God’s followers to enable them to overcome. The Holy Spirit’s working is detailed by descriptive verbs and expressions such as drawing, unfolding, opening to darkened minds, presenting before the mind, convicting, producing godly sorrow, inspiring the exercise of faith, and transforming character. Thus He brings “the awakened intelligence of the truths of eternity.”

Paragraphs ten through 12 were left aside from the Selected Messages printing. But paragraph ten suggests a way we can obtain the answer to what really is the burning question of all burning questions: “The life of Christ is to be carefully meditated upon, and to be constantly studied with a desire to understand the reason why He had to come at all.” That is, we should refuse to rest until we comprehend what are the deepest implications of our faith—where is the terminus of Adventism? Where does it take us when we follow it out all the way to the end? What is the ultimate place the experience Heaven has outlined for God’s end-time people can take us with Jesus? Why are the angel messages given to this people?

These paragraphs also highlight the conflicted state of the human agent when he rebels against God. He cannot be happy or experience real joy or fulfillment; he cannot meet the purpose of his existence. In the fifth and ninth paragraphs the “human agent,” as he co-operates with God, is transformed and uplifted by divine power, but in paragraph 12, when “the law of self is erected,” “there is a controversy between the human agent and the divine.” We can have God’s law or our law, but only one or the other.

Paragraph 11 urges us to contrast the two gardens. “The garden of Eden with its foul blot of disobedience, is to be carefully studied and compared with the garden of Gethsemane where the world’s Redeemer suffered superhuman agony when the sins of the whole world were rolled upon Him.” Jesus’ purposeful suffering in Gethsemane is contrasted with Adam’s unthoughtful disobedience that led the universe into crisis and Jesus into the nature of humanity fallen.

Positive View of God’s Law

Perhaps the most regrettable omission in the Selected Messages version of the document are the paragraphs (10-12, 20) giving insight into Mrs.ÊWhite’s positive view of God’s law and its relationship to human obedience and the obedience of Jesus in the same humanity. It shall not here pass unnoticed!

The whole manuscript contains 28 paragraphs. The radically positive view of God’s law found here is of interest to us because the same document contains a very high ratio of obedience-related words, of which there are many more than just the 108 we have noted below.

• 1 commandment
• 2 kept
• 3 overcometh
• 12 commandments
• 6 law
• 1 overcoming
• 1 commands
• 2 laws
• 1 patience
• 11 disobedience
• 19 obedience
• 1 resist
• 1 disobey
• 4 obedient
• 1 resisted
• 2 disobeying
• 9 obey
• 3 serve
• 1 endure
• 1 obeyed
• 1 transgressing
• 3 endured
• 1 observe
• 2 transgression
• 8 keep
• 4 overcame
• 2 victory
• 1 keeping
• 4 overcome

Manuscript 1, 1892’s emphasis on obedience is striking. Virtually every phrase and sentence in the whole document has actually to do with the very topics these core-idea words touch. In this great controversy-centered document so powerfully treating the humanity of Jesus, there is one overarching concept: God’s law is good and we can obey it just as Jesus obeyed it .

In fact, from these paragraphs we derive the following points concerning God’s law and our relationship to it:

• The consequences resulting from disobedience opened the floodgates of woe to our world (10, 11, 12).
• The virtues of obedience include protection and keeping from evil. We are designed to render implicit obedience of the human will to the divine will. God’s commandments are no arbitrary authority over man, but are an aid in fitting us for participation in the heavenly family (12, 18).
• The primary significance of sin is in its broader denial of God and His government (12).
• Man’s happiness is found in his obedience to the laws of God (12).
• As we see the footprints of Jesus, and step in them, in thus following Him there is love and power (20).
• The peace we have comes when, having unmistakably heard Jesus’ voice and obeyed it, we allow every murmuring thought to be repressed (20).
• The commandments of God are His expressed character flowing out of a heart of love and His thoughtful plans to preserve man from every evil (18).
• Man, as God designed him, cannot be happy and depart from God’s specified requirements, and set up a standard of his own to follow. The result would be human, rather than divine, government. A “law of self” would be erected and the human agent would operate guided by its own, fallen promptings, resulting in a controversy between man and God (18).

There is a direct psychological relationship between, in our obedience, meeting the purpose of our design, or, in our disobedience, our living out a destructive and temporary experience of woe. Obedience itself is protective in nature as we place our trust in a greater Being than ourselves, who created us to be holy and happy (Steps to Christ, p. 9).

We are created “By Him, and for Him [Jesus]” (Colossians 2:16). We were created for God’s pleasure (Revelation 4:11). In His supreme unselfishness, God wished to share this goodness in a community of free moral intelligences. People are not ultimately free to be immoral, but free to choose to be moral. We are free to hold our breath, stop breathing, and die. But to do so would be a poor use of our freedom.

Heaven’s plan that the human will shall render obedience to the divine will is not only built-in to the human psyche, but produces happiness and peace in the human agent. Obeying God’s law is the same as putting our feet into the footprints of Jesus and following His steps. Every footfall is a step of obedience. This law is His expressed character, flowing out of a heart, not only preserving man’s opportunity to choose between good and evil, but endeavoring to persuade man to live so that he is preserved from evil.

Disobedience is a manifestation of broader human denial of God. When fallen men seek to set up their own principles to guide themselves, the inevitable result is disagreement with God as faulty human promptings produce a course of human actions that cannot meet Heaven’s purpose in our creation. Ellen G. White’s—and the early Adventists’—view of God’s law was notable for both its realistic and positive appraisal. In fact, the “new” view of the nature of Christ that rose in our midst in the 1950s³ could not rise until this historically positive Seventh-day Adventist view of law had long been in decline.

Heaven called us as a people to restore the breach. “It is only as the law of God is restored to its rightful position that there can be a revival of primitive faith and godliness among His professed people” (The Great Controversy, p. 478). “An intelligent knowledge of His word has been given to prepare men and women to contend zealously for the law of Jehovah; to reestablish the holy law; make up the breech that has been made in the law of God and restore the tables of stone to their ancient, exalted, honorable position” (1888 Materials, p. 484). These ideas are, of course, rooted in Isaiah chapters 58 and 59. If Isaiah wasn’t talking about us, then who was he talking about? Did Luther, or Wesley, or the Baptists, or some other group stand in the gap and bring to the attention of the world God’s law in general and the seventh day Sabbath in particular?

Jesus’ Obedience “As a Man,” Radical Solidarity With Us, Our Copying His Pattern

Jesus’ Obedience “As a Man”

The remainder of Manuscript 1, 1892 emphasizes Jesus’ fallen humanity. Paragraphs 13-17 state over and over again that Jesus demonstrated that obedient commandment-keeping is possible for man because He showed us by His example that it is. “The Lord Jesus declares, I have kept My Father’s commandments. How? As a man.” Not as a man with extra vitality poured over into His humanity from His particular divine nature (17),⁴ or as one having “a special power which it is not the privilege of man to have” (17).

“The reason why He had to come” (10) was “not only to be a sacrifice for sin but to be an example to man in all [things], a holy, human character” (13). Thus we clearly see the sacrificial aspect, the character of Deity offered for man, and the example aspect, Jesus living in fallen human flesh and in so doing presenting to us a holy, human character.

In this way, “He spake as one having authority, and yet He invites the confidence of all” (13). As both God and man in fallen flesh, He is one fitting for us (Hebrews 7:26), who is indeed “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15), and who “in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).

Thirteen sentences without break follow in paragraphs 14-17 in which the subject includes one or more of three topics: (1) Jesus provided an example of obedience for us, (2) in light of this example, our mission is to provide that same example to others via our own lives, or (3) that Jesus kept God’s commandments as a man.

The word “represent” or “representative” shows up four times in the same paragraphs, the word “how” with equal frequency. All the “hows” refer to either how Jesus obeyed (as a man) or how we may obey. The “representative” statements have to do with God’s character being represented and with man being represented by Jesus.

Additional striking quotations include these: “The only begotten Son of the infinite God has, by His words, His practical example, left us a plain pattern which we are to copy” (14). “Not only did Christ give explicit rules showing how we may become obedient children, but He showed us in His own life and character just how to do those things which are right and acceptable with God, so there is no excuse why we should not do those things which are pleasing in His sight. 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” (16).

Paragraph 17 especially insists that Jesus made use of no special powers unique to Himself or unavailable to all other fallen humans:

We need not place the obedience of Christ by itself as something for which He was particularly adapted, by His particular divine nature, for He stood before God as man’s representative and tempted as man’s substitute and surety. If Christ had a special power which it is not the privilege of man to have, Satan would have made capital of this matter. The work of Christ was to take from the claims of Satan his control of man, and He could do this only in the way that He came—a man, tempted as a man, rendering the obedience of a man.

The passage is remarkable. And as clear as day! Jesus came as a man. As human as we are.

Jesus’ Radical Solidarity With Us

Paragraphs 21-24 echo the material just considered, but with their own expansion on the ideas. Further detail and emphasis in these paragraphs comes as the deep solidarity between Jesus’ humanity and our own is explored. “Bear in mind,” we are told, “that Christ’s overcoming and obedience is that of a true human being” (21).

Warning is given that any viewpoint which would suggest that Jesus’ humanity was not identical to our own must be suspect. “In our conclusions, we make many mistakes because of our erroneous views of the human nature of our Lord” (21). Do not fail to see that it is especially in the “conclusions” that this error manifests itself. Nor fail to see that “we make many mistakes because of our erroneous views,” specifically, “our erroneous views of the human nature of our Lord.”