The question can be framed like this: Was Jesus Christ, according to his human nature, capable of sinning, though in fact he did not? I start by outlining two positions.
1. Theoretically he could have sinned, but did not.
a) Charles Hodge says: ‘The sinlessness of our Lord does not amount to absolute impeccability. As a true man, he must have been capable of sinning. That he did not sin under the greatest provocation, that when he was reviled he blessed, that when he suffered he threatened not, that he was dumb, as a sheep before its shearers, is held up to us as an example. Temptation implies the possibility of sin. If from the constitution of his person it had been impossible for Christ to sin, his temptation was unreal and without effect, and he cannot sympathise with his people.’
b) This would fit in with the parallel with Adam. Adam had a sinless nature, but not one which had been confirmed in sinlessness. It would seem appropriate for the last Adam to have the same nature. Hebrews 5:8,9 might suggest that Christ was only confirmed in sinlessness at the end of his obedience, as indeed Adam would have been had he continued to obey.
2. The union of the human nature with the divine nature meant that he could not sin, though he could battle with temptation.
a) This is the mainstream Reformed position. Dabney says that it is only Christ’s human nature that could be considered capable of sinning, but his humanity never existed apart from its union with the divine. He says: ‘It is impossible that the person constituted in union with the eternal and immutable Word, can sin; for this union is an absolute shield to the lower nature, against error.’
b) Couched in the terms he uses, this may appear to prove too much. The eternal and immutable Word is immortal, yet Christ died. We do not hesitate to sing: ‘’Tis mystery all; the Immortal dies.’ If he had not been capable of dying, he would not have been able to save us.
c) Though we might say that it was his human body that died, that is clearly not enough. ‘Christ died for our sins’, it was ‘the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me’. The union of the two natures in one person goes beyond our ability to penetrate and understand.
d) It might be argued that the cases are different in this respect: immortality is not, in itself, a moral attribute; but for Christ to be capable of sinning would compromise his moral perfection and that is inconceivable.
e) A further point is that to argue, as Dabney does, from the union of the human with the divine might actually mean that Christ could not be tempted. James 1:13 tells us explicitly that God cannot be tempted with evil. One might think that Dabney’s words ‘an absolute shield to the lower nature’ imply the same. In fact, Dabney’s words are rather unusual in themselves, but we can ignore that.
f) The problem, however, is compounded because some people do actually believe that Christ could not be really tempted. A visitor to our congregation who came one Sunday when I was preaching on the temptations said to me afterwards that temptation had no more effect upon Christ than electricity on cork. It is possible for evangelical Christians so to emphasize the deity of Christ that they lean towards aspects of docetism – the belief that Christ’s human body was not real, he only appeared to be human.
g) One further point; I remember reading somewhere that the first people to assert that Christ was impeccable were the Monophysites. They believed that Christ only had one nature, i.e. a divine nature. These believed that the divine nature had, as it were, absorbed the human: ‘as a drop of honey mingled with the ocean.’
3. I believe that we can state confidently that Christ was actually tempted and felt the full force of temptation in a way that is beyond anything we could experience, but that he had to face temptation as a man. It was the person who was tempted and who resisted temptation, but he had to use only the resources that belonged to him as man.
a) I have said that he had to resist temptation as a man. That is how he had to live while he was on earth; he might use his divine power to help others, but he could not do that for himself. Donald Macleod, while discussing particularly the question of Christ’s knowledge, says: ‘The other line of integration between the omniscience of the divine nature and the ignorance of the human is that just as Christ had to fulfil the office of Mediator within the limits of a human body, so he had to fulfil it within the limitations of a human mind. Part of the truth here is suggested by the first of the three temptations in the desert: “tell these stones to become bread” (Mt.4:3). The essence of the temptation was that the Lord disavow the conditions of his incarnation and draw on his omnipotence to alleviate the discomforts of his self-abasement.’ Later he summarises: ‘Omniscience was a luxury always within reach, but incompatible with his rules of engagement. He had to serve within the limitations of finitude.’ So with the temptations; he had to resist them as man. This, of course, was the whole point of the incarnation. If he could have done what was needful for our salvation as God, there would have been no need to come into the world as man.
b) While he had to resist temptation as man he nevertheless had the resources that are open to man to assist in the battle. In particular he had the presence and grace of the Holy Spirit to empower him, and he had the Word of God to instruct and guide him – and he used this to great effect.
c) If we consider carefully his need to resist temptation as man it might be possible to reconcile the two points of view in this way. According to his human nature Christ was capable of sinning, but because of the unity of his person this could actually never happen. In other words if he had ever proved incapable of resisting temptation as a man, his divine nature would have prevented him from actually sinning. However, if that was the case he would have failed in his mission to obey as man, just as it would have been so if he had come down from the cross to prove he was the Son of God. Would such a failure itself be possible?
4. In order to estimate the situation aright we might consider the Adam/Christ parallel a little further.
a) Hodge, in the quotation given, speaks of Christ’s sinlessness as man. This, however, is a very inadequate description of the situation. Adam was made in the image of God, he was holy and righteous, and had open and full communion with his Creator. The remarkable thing was that the devil was still able to find a way to tempt him into sin at all and that he rebelled so tragically. So Christ was not simply sinless – he was holy and righteous; as man he was in the very image of what he was as God. And, until the cross, he had full and unrestricted fellowship with his Father.
b) I think we are in grave danger of viewing this far too theoretically and possibly putting it into quite the wrong terms. We ask, ‘Was Christ capable of sinning or not?’ Immediately we have reduced a complex situation, which we can scarcely begin to understand in any case, to a crude question about one point, focussing on the theoretical question of possibility, whereas the important thing is that Christ proved utterly decisively by his obedience that he was gloriously capable of resisting temptation and never sinning under the most testing conditions that ever existed or could be imagined.
c) For balance I add that Christ was actually, in some respects, in a far worse situation that Adam and Eve were. Firstly, Christ was made ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Romans 8:3). In other words he did not have a body which was ‘very good’, as Adam had, he had a body which was subject to all the non-moral weaknesses and illnesses of the post-fall situation. Secondly, he was in a world under the curse, not paradise, and he was surrounded by the consequences of sin in terms of suffering, illness and death. Thirdly, he was also surrounded by sin and evil, with evil people on every hand. The conditions in which he was tempted were far worse than Adam’s.
5. Summing up:
a) I personally am unhappy with people who too easily and dogmatically take either position. This suggests to me that they have not carefully thought through the issue.
b) It is certainly true that the union of the two natures meant that it was impossible for Christ to sin, but if we believe in the two natures united in one person, as we must, then we are considering someone who is utterly unique and we are faced with mystery that we certainly are not capable of understanding, at least at present. The fact that Christ could not sin does not, I believe, answer all the questions, but it does set a parameter within which these have to be considered.
c) A little earlier I raised the question whether Christ could fail. To me this is the more fundamental question and I think the answer may be both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. Think of it like this. Could Christ have died at birth, given its circumstances? Could Herod have killed him if Joseph had been slow to obey the angel? Would he have died if the Nazarenes had been able to throw him off the cliff? Could he have saved himself if he had come down from the cross? There are doubtless many other, perhaps better, questions that could be asked. This is surely a higher and more mysterious example of the sovereignty/free agency debate. Objectively speaking there were many hazardous moments in the life of Christ, times when the purposes of God seemed to hang by a thread. But God’s sovereign purpose was nevertheless always going to be fulfilled, even through the free wickedness of evil men; and supremely through Christ’s own free and willing actions as the man Christ Jesus.
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