I have had conversations over the years where there was a constant wrestle with trusting Jesus with the details of life because He seemed so disconnected. “How can someone so perfect and great, care and understand my personal flaws, pain, and issues?” It can be difficult for us to understand how God can be so great, and yet trust Him to participate in the granularities of the human details. One of my favorite quotes is from Jackie Hill-Perry's book, "Holier Than Thou."

“If God is holy, then He can't sin. If God can't sin, then He can't sin against me. If He can't sin against me, shouldn't that make Him the most trustworthy being there is?”

-Jackie Hill-Perry

God and human. Human and sinless. Sinless and trustworthy.

Christ is fully God and fully human; God in spiritual essence, but human in physical nature. Christ is found as the perfect mediator between the Father and humanity — between God and man. In this, it is understood that Jesus was sent from the Father to be the propitiation for humanity and to give his life as an atonement for the sins of the world. In other words, we could only be connected back with God through a means that was connected to both divinity and humanity. This could only be accomplished through the work of a sinless and divine life. 2 Corinthians 5:21 states, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

A sinless Jesus was the remedy to a sinful world.

This raises a question that is worth inquisition. How is Jesus enveloped in human flesh, but without sin? The purpose here is to confront the humanity and the sinlessness of Jesus. If Jesus is fully God, but also fully human, then there must be a distinction between our human nature and his own incarnation.

The Reality of Mortality

What first should be considered is the reality of Christ’s human nature. In the understanding of Christ’s nature, it is made known that Jesus was wrapped in the same mortal flesh as we. Born from the womb of a virgin, he would be as tempted, emotional, tired, hungry, agitated, as all of the rest of humanity. In spite of these conditions, he was without sin.

An emphasis must be placed on the actuality that Jesus Christ was a human being.

Theologian J. Rodman Williams writes, “Jesus was man in every dimension of his human nature: body, soul and spirit.”[1] There are examples of Christ’s human nature in Satan’s tempting of him in Matthew 4:1-3, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” In his humanity, he was prone to human weakness.[2] Even bigger than his reality of mortality was his inability to sin. Jesus did not inherit the fallen nature of humanity as his birth was not initiated by human means. “…while [Mary] was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18). Jesus found himself in a unique position of being unfallen and sinless — God and human. [3] Again, this does not mean that he did not experience the same human experiences. Being of mortal flesh, he was susceptible to the same vulnerabilities. Theologian Donald MacLeod writes further, “Nothing that was human was alien to him. He was liable to all the miseries of this life; he was vulnerable to all its darker emotions; he was destined to lose communion with God; and he was mortal.”[4]

Inability to Sin

            In spite of Christ’s mortality, he did not hold the ability to sin. There would be no way for Christ’s divine essence to be separated from his physical body. In this sense, if Christ were to sin, then this would mean that God could sin. Due to the holy nature of God, there is no sin in him (1 John 3:5). It was impossible for Christ to sin. MacLeod writes, “God cannot in any situation or for any purpose commit a transgression of his own will. He absolutely cannot be guilty of lawlessness.”[5] What is even more, Christ did not even mention or seemed to be conscious of sin in himself. Due to his inability to be less than holy, he had no ability to comprehend sin within himself as there was no necessity. Sin is of a result of corruption. In other words, Christ is unable to be corrupted. Theologian Stephen J. Wellum states, “The human nature created by the Spirit of God was made for the glory-presence of God himself. Not only does God not create in corruption, but he cannot dwell with or in what is corrupted, defiled, or sinful.”[6] However, this does not negate or reduce the impact of Christ’s human incarnation. Christ was still prone to dealing with the effects of temptation, pain, and suffering. His lack of a sinful nature does not mitigate the reality of His human experience. Although He did not experience the pain of performing sin, He was still subjected to the effects of others’ sin towards Him.

One Like Us

Humanity has been redeemed by the sinless life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Father sent his Son to dwell with humanity in flesh. Philippians 2:6-8 states,

“who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

To understand that Christ emptied himself to be one like us in order to redeem our connection with the Father, allows for an encapsulation of our heart in Him. There is often an emphasis on His divinity, but I believe that there should also be a magnification of his mortality. Just as much as Christ was fully divine, he was also fully human. I do not believe that we can fully understand the impact and power of Philippians 2:6-8 if all of Christ is not respected. God is not a condemning and disconnected God, but a God who empathizes and sympathizes with us in our pain. Hebrews 4:15 reminds us,

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

Christ did not suffer as sinful, but chose to suffer with the sinful and for the sinful. There was no sin in Him, but because of his propensity to love, He joined us in our humanity. Why is this important? In the moments when we feel alone and that no one understands how we feel, we have an ever-present Father who has always seen us, always heard us, and has always been beside us. God is not a lofty, unapproachable, distant being that does not know what or how we feel. He joined us in our suffering, triumphed, and empowered us, so that through Him, we can experience victory just the same. This is why He is the most trustworthy being there is.

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Bibliography

[1] J. Rodman Williams, Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology from a Charismatic Perspective (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2007), 336.

[2] Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 226.

[3] Ibid., 226.

[4] Ibid., 229.

[5] Ibid., 230.

[6] Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate - the Doctrine of Christ (Crossway Books, 2016), 239.

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