Sabbathians – Adventists Christ and the tendency to sin
His Holiness Pope Shenouda addressed in this lecture the question whether Christ inherited an inclination to sin or not, and criticized opinions that say He took our corruptible nature but remained without sin by personal effort.
He pointed out that this proposition contradicts the angelic announcement to the Virgin in Luke (1:35) which proclaims that the newborn will be holy and the Son of God, meaning he was born holy and not that he became holy by effort.
He mentioned that Christ’s sharing with us in everything does not include sin, and that the presence of an inclination to sin in His nature nullifies His sufficiency for salvation and renders His name “Savior” meaningless.
He questioned the role of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin’s conception: was His work merely the formation of a body or did it also include sanctifying that vessel so that it would not inherit sin? He affirmed that the Holy Spirit’s work included sanctification as well.
He noted that this issue is a problem for some groups (like the Seventh-day Adventists) and the books that justify that Christ possessed a nature prone to sin but did not sin by effort.
He concluded by affirming that the Church’s doctrine acknowledges that Christ was born without sin with a natural holiness from conception, and that the salvation of humanity is linked to Christ’s complete work, not to the hypothesis of an inclination to sin in His nature.
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