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The Golden Chain - Robert J. Wieland

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e relevant to him?<br />

Was our temptation "quinine" to Christ's<br />

human nature? If so, it was no struggle for Him, no<br />

temptation. I have never had to plead with the Lord<br />

to give me strength to resist an impulse to take a<br />

glass of quinine! But Christ pleaded for "this cup"<br />

to be taken from Him. To interpret the above<br />

statement thus would be to deny the reality of<br />

Christ's temptability and destroy the completeness<br />

of His identity with us in temptation. No one is<br />

"powerfully influenced" to drink bitter quinine, yet<br />

we read that Christ was "powerfully influenced to<br />

do a wrong action.... This was the ordeal through<br />

which Christ passed." Otherwise temptation is no<br />

temptation for Him or for us (cf. 5BC 1082).<br />

But the above statement harmonizes perfectly<br />

with all that Ellen White has written if it is<br />

understood as saying that Christ perfectly resisted<br />

every temptation. He did not "possess like<br />

passions" because he did not "for one moment"<br />

yield to the temptations that produce "passions."<br />

<strong>The</strong> temptation being perfectly resisted, no<br />

90

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