List of non SDA sources on Christ's fallen human nature
* Please note: None of these men believed that Christ sinned in either thought or act or that because He took man's fallen human nature He needed a Saviour.
Kenton Sparks, Ph.D., an ordained pastor and served in the pastoral staff of Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC. Currently, serves as Interim Provost at Eastern University, St. Davids, Pennsylvania. “As a rule, the fathers were not comfortable with the idea that Jesus had a fallen nature, but I find it more reasonable and more Scriptural, to affirm that Jesus was both finite and fallen, in all respects like us, “sin excepted” (Heb 4:15). This is possible because the sinful nature and sinful deeds are two different things (infants may have a sinful nature, for instance, but they are not yet “sinners”). Thus the implication of ancient orthodoxy and explicit judgment of many modern theologians is that Jesus did have a fallen nature. After all, what victory did Christ win for us if fallen flesh itself were not redeemed and resurrected?” (Source: Sacred word, Broken word, pg 25,26).
Ian A. McFarland, Professor of Systematic Theology and Associate Dean of Faculty and Academic Affairs, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, "The term "fall" (let alone "fallen nature") is not biblical, and therefore for anyone to claim that "the Bible" teaches anything explicit on this subject would be presumptuous. I argue in the book [Fallen or Unfallen? Christ's Human Nature and the Ontology of Human Sinfulness] that within the overall context of Christian teaching, it makes more sense to teach that Christ assumed a fallen nature than an unfallen one (n.b., I also argue that it is dogmatically imprecise to speak of a "sinless nature," since sinlessness is a quality of persons, not natures).1
J. David Pawson (born 1930) is a prominent Bible teacher based in Great Britain: Most conservative evangelicals will believe that Jesus took our sinful nature into Himself at Calvary - John 1:29 - "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" and 2 Cor 5:21 where Paul says "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God". He took upon Himself human flesh and emptied Himself as Philippians 2 says and experienced everything we do and was tested in all ways as we are - yet without sin. What a mystery - and we are the beneficiaries of a wonderful salvation! (The reply to us when we inquired about David Pawson's view about the human nature of Christ from John Hunmarsh, the Trust Development Director for David Pawson's Trust).
Bobby Grow, MA in Bible Studies/Theology, author of The Evangelical Calvinist, "I believe that Christ assumed the only kind of human nature available in the incarnation--a sinful human nature--but that he immediately sanctifies this nature by the Holy Spirit, and thus never sins himself".
In 1962, Harry Johnson, a British evangelical scholar, published his London University
Thomas Forsyth Torrance (30 August 1913 – 2 December 2007) was a 20th century Protestant Christian theologian who served for 27 years as Professor of Christian Dogmatics at New College, Edinburgh in the University of Edinburgh, “One thing should be abundantly clear, that if Jesus Christ did not assume our fallen flesh, our fallen humanity, then our fallen humanity is untouched by his work…Thus Christ took from Mary a corruptible and mortal body in order that he might take our sin, judge and condemn it in the flesh, and so assume our human nature as we have it in the fallen world that he might heal, sanctify and redeem it”. (Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ. Edited by Robert T. Walker. [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008], p. 62)
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Lutheran, wrote (1964): “The conception that at the Incarnation God did not assume human nature in its corrupt sinful state but only joined Himself with a humanity absolutely purified from all sin contradicts not only the anthropological radicality of sin, but also the testimony of the New Testament and of early Christian theology that the Son of God assumed sinful flesh and in sinful flesh itself overcame sin.” (L. L. Wilkins and D. Priebe, trans. Jesus—God and Man (London: S.C.M. Press, Ltd., 1968), p. 362.)
Anders Nygren, a Swedish Lutheran theologian commented: “It was to be right in sin’s own realm that the Son was to bring sin to judgment, overcome it, and take away its power. It is therefore important that with Christ it is actually a matter of ‘sinful flesh,’ of sarx hamartias. “Christ’s carnal nature was no unreality, but simple, tangible fact. He shared all our conditions. He was under the same powers of destruction. Out of ‘the flesh’ arose for Him the same temptations as for us. But in all this He was master of sin.” (Anders Nygren, Commentary on Romans (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), pp. 314, 315. See also H.C. G. Moule, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (Cambridge: The University Press, 1899), pp .138, 139.)
Cranfield says: “We conclude that. . . is to be accepted as the most probable explanation of Paul’s use of homoi ma here, and understand Paul’s thought to be that the Son of God assumed the selfsame fallen human nature that is ours, but that in His case that fallen human nature was never the whole of Him—He never ceased to be the eternal Son of God.”
Felix of Urgel (c. A.D. 780) in Spain believed that if the atonement was to be real and valid and not a sham, Christ must have assumed the same human nature that was the common possession of mankind. (Johnson, p. 135.)
J.A.T. Robinson, Anglican, a New Testament scholar: The first act in the drama of redemption is, self-identification of the Son of God to the limit, yet without sin, with the body of flesh in its fallen state. It is necessary to stress these words because the Christian theology has been extraordinarily reluctant to accept at their face value, the bold, almost barbarous phrases which Paul uses to bring home the offence of the Gospel. (Johnson, p. 104, quoting, The Body, p. 37.)
Antoinette Bourignon (b. 1616) in France. She said, "if Jesus Christ had not been pleased to take on him our Corrupt Will he could not have suffered, because in that Case all his Sufferings would have been insensible to him." (Johnson, p. 138, quoting Antoinette Bourignon, An Admirable Treatise of Solid Vertue, p. 80.)
C.K. Barrett’s (a Methodist, and was Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham) commentary on Romans in the Black’s New Testament Commentary series. “The word ‘form’ or llikeness’ (ὁμοίωμα) has already been used several times in the epistle (i. 23; v. 14; vi. 5), and in none of these places does it mean simply‘imitation’. Compare also Phil. ii. 7, where Paul certainly does not mean to say that Christ only appeared to be a man. We are probably justified therefore in our translation, and in deducing that Christ took precisely the same fallen nature that we ourselves have, and that he remained sinless because he constantly overcame a proclivity to sin. It must be remembered that for Paul flesh (σάρξ) in theological use does not refer to material constituent of human existence but to the manner of human existence as it has, since the entry of sin, come in fact to be. It is the nature of fallen man, living in this world, to be wrapped up in himself. He is conditioned to this kind of existence by the human environment in which he finds himself. Christ found himself in the same human environment as all his fellow men and experienced the same pressures that they feel; yet he remained without sin, living a theocentric existence in an anthropocentric, egocentric, environment. It was in this environment—in the flesh—that sin had to be condemned and defeated if it was to be condemned and defeated at all.” (p147)
Karl Barth, the Swiss Protestant theologian, adds that Christ’s perfect obedience in our fallen nature means that “the commission of sin as such is not an attribute of true human existence as such, whether from the standpoint of its creation by God or from that of the fact that it is flesh on account of the Fall.” (Barth, op. cit., p. 1)
Edward Irving (August 4, 1792 - December 7, 1834), Scottish clergyman, “The point at issue is simply this; whether Christ’s flesh had the grace of sinlessness and incorruption from its proper nature, or from the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. I say the latter. I assert, that in its proper nature it was as the flesh of his mother, but, by virtue of the Holy Ghost’s quickening and inhabiting of it, it was preserved sinless and incorruptible. This work of the Holy Ghost, I further assert, was done in consequence of the son’s humbling himself to be made flesh. (Edward Irving, Sermons, Lectures and Occasional Discourses: The Doctrine of the Incarnation Opened in Six Sermons (Preface), 1828. As quoted by Strachan, 30.)
James D. G. ("Jimmy") Dunn (born 1939) was for many years the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durham. He is a leading British New Testament scholar, broadly in the Protestant tradition. Dunn has an MA and BD from the University of Glasgow and a PhD and DD from the University of Cambridge.
Gottfried Menken (b. 1768) in Germany
Colin Ewart Gunton (19 January 1941-6 May 2003) was a British systematic theologian.
Peter Poiret (b. 1646) in GermanyJohann Konrad Dippel (b. 1673) in GermanyGottfried Menken (b. 1768) in Germany
Hermann Freidrich Kohlbrugge (b. 1803) in Holland
Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann (b. 1810) in Germany
Eduard Bohl (b. 1836) in Germany
Hermann Bezzel (b. 1861) in Bavaria
Nels F.S. Ferre
Harold Roberts
Lesslie Newbigin
Herman Kohlbrugge,
E. Stauffer,
Eric Baker
Thomas Erskine
Cited
1. His reply to us when we inquired about his view.