Question:  Dear Greg,

            I would appreciate it if you could throw some light on this issue.  I was in a Systematic Theology class and the issue came up about the nature of Christ as both fully human and God.

            The question is could Christ have sinned (since the Bible said he was tested in all ways, yet did not sin)?  Are there scriptural references that would throw more light on this issue?

            Thanks,

            Samson

Answer:  Dear Samson,

            Your question about the incarnation and how Jesus, the God-man, existed as both human and divine, is addressed by the Athanasian Creed.  This creed builds upon the earlier Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed, and is often called the creed to end all creeds.  Athanasius, as you may know, opposed Arius—Athanasius insisting upon what he saw as the biblical teaching of the full divinity of Christ.  Arius, however, taught that Jesus was something less than fully God and is considered the father of cultic teachings that devalue the divinity of Christ, called Arianism or Semi-Arianism.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the groups that continue to teach this ancient heresy.

            The Athanasian Creed fully develops Trinitarian teaching as well as the nature of Jesus in the incarnation, which is perhaps the most profound teaching of all biblical truth.  The God of eternity enters our time and space, the second person of the triune Godhead comes to us in the flesh while never ceasing, of course, to be God.

            Just as the trinity requires us to think of the complexity and the paradox of the one true God—God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit—yet there are not three Gods, but only one.  So, too, the incarnation presents us with a paradox, that there is a plurality in the midst of unity.  Jesus is very God and very man.  Truly God and truly human.  Yet he is not two persons, but one.  These two natures, the divine and the human, according to the Athanasian Creed, are united in the person of Jesus in such a way that they do not mix, contaminate (only, of course, in the case of human contaminating divine) or change the other.  Oil and water is often used as an analogy—they may occupy the same space in a glass or bowl, but they do not mix, they each maintain their own distinct properties.

            The Athanasian Creed explains that the New Testament shows that Jesus has always been God and that he always will be—but he was not always human.  He begins his humanity at a specific point in time—from that point Jesus is human and divine, united forever in a single person—for though his body was crucified and buried, his body is resurrected to eternal life.

            The Athanasian Creed says, in part, “he is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human, with a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity.  Although he is God and human, yet Christ is not two, but one.  He is not one, however, by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God’s taking humanity to himself.  He is not, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but the unity of his person.  For just as one person is both rational soul and flesh, so too the one Christ is both God and human.”

            To your specific question—and there are many questions as we struggle with the reality of the One and Only Unique Son of God, the incarnation, God in the flesh—“Could Christ have sinned?”  In a word, no.  No, because he was and is divine and God does not sin.  Hebrews 4:14-15 says he was tempted as we are, yet without sin.  Romans 8:3 notes that Jesus was in the likeness of human flesh.  That is, Jesus was human, in real human flesh (John 1:14, 1 Timothy 3:16).  But Paul does not say, as he often does in speaking of human nature, that Christ had sinful human nature, for Christ had no sin (Hebrews 4:15, 1 Peter 3:18 and 1 John 3:3).

            Some Christian scholars who are orthodox in faith and practice, do argue that Christ could have sinned because he had the power of free choice and because he was human.  That view is not the majority view, is not the teaching of historic Christianity, and does not seem to have the support of the New Testament teaching about the incarnation.

            Jesus did not have to have the “ability” to sin in order to give his life and death meaning.  After all, he came to rescue us and to save us, to be one of us that he might accomplish this, to be our atonement.

            Hope this is a start for you.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht