The Impeccability of Christ

All Christians agree that the Lord Jesus did not sin while He was on the earth, but sooner or later most Christians face the question "Could He have sinned?" This is an important question and, as we consider it, reverence reminds us that "the place on which [we] are standing is holy ground". There is no more sacred subject than God's beloved Son.

What is Temptation?

The issue of whether or not the Lord Jesus could have sinned goes hand-in-hand with the issue of temptation. When the Bible tells us that Christ was tempted (Heb 4:15), what does it mean? It is at this point we encounter our first danger: we must be very careful that we do not impute to Christ the experiences and feelings we have as fallen creatures. Too often when considering this issue men start not with the Bible, but with their own personal experiences with temptation (as fallen men!) and reason back to Christ. This is the course of disaster.

The word used of the temptations of Christ means "to make proof of, attempt, test, tempt". This word is frequently used of the Pharisees' testing of Christ (Mt 16:1), of Israel's testing of the LORD (Heb 3:9) and of God's testing of Abraham (Heb 11:17). These are external temptations - they come from outside of ourselves. External temptations are the tests that others can make of us. Most of the instances of the word for "temptation" in the Bible refer to external temptations - tests or trials that a person is put through by others.

But there is another kind of temptation with which we are all too familiar: internal temptation. This is a desire in our hearts to surrender to the pressures brought to bear upon us. The first kind of temptation comes from the outside; the second from the inside. An example may help. The advertising world all around us is constantly tempting us to buy various products. We may see fifty ads a day that offer us external temptation. But not all of those ads produce internal temptation because not all of the products actually appeal to us. External temptation is constant but it can only affect us if there is internal temptation to respond to it.

This is where we must keep in mind our warning not to assume that just because we experience something as fallen human beings therefore Christ experienced it too. Sadly, in our lives external temptation and internal temptation are usually partners. This can cause us to automatically assume that all temptation is internal. As soon as someone says they were tempted, we assume they mean that they felt an inner desire to surrender to the pressure to sin. So it follows that when we read that Christ was tempted we might jump to the conclusion that this is a reference to internal temptation. But we have seen that the Bible frequently (in fact, usually) uses the word temptation in the external sense - to describe the trials and tests a person is put through, not to describe their inner feelings in response to those tests. When Israel tested God, when God tested Abraham, when the Pharisees tested Christ - all refer to external temptation.

So it is with the temptation of Christ. Our Lord was tested by the devil and tested by the Pharisees but there was never anything in Him that answered to those temptations. In fact, Hebrews 4:15 tells us that the temptations that Christ experienced were "without" or "apart from" sin. This doesn't only mean that Christ didn't sin, but that the temptations themselves had nothing to do with sin. Our Lord Jesus can sympathize with our non-sinful infirmities (hunger, weariness, thirst, etc.) but certainly not with an inner struggle or desire to give in to sin! It is not possible that our Lord would have experienced inner temptation for He Himself made it clear that the inner desire to sin is sin, in and of itself! Remember the Sermon on the Mount? In it the Lord said that not only is adultery sin, but a desire, however fleeting, to commit adultery is sin; not only is murder sin, but even a passing malicious thought is sin. Not only our actions but also our inner desires are sinful. Man may look on the outside but the Lord looks on the heart. And when the Father looked on the heart of the Lord Jesus He saw perfection.

Was this not the Father's testimony concerning His Son? "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased" (Mt 3:17). And is it not significant that the very next words are "then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil"? The Father declared His complete satisfaction in His Son and then He sent His Son into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. The Father declared that Christ was the Son of God and then the devil tested Him to see if it was so. And so the devil began his tests with "If You are the Son of God...". But in spite of the devil's motives for the tests we see the Father's motives clearly enough. The Father wasn't "experimenting" to see if Christ was capable of sin. The Father was demonstrating to everyone that Christ is the Son of God and that God's delight in Him was completely justified. This is the significance of the testings of Christ: they proved that He was who He claimed to be. Just as a jeweler may scratch what he knows to be a diamond across glass to prove to others that it is a diamond, so the Father sent His beloved Son to be tested by the Enemy in order to manifest His Son's perfection to all.

Let us then be very clear from the start: our glorious Lord knows the full extent of external temptation as the devil and men tested Him in every way they could devise. But Christ has never experienced internal temptation and never will. There was never anything in Christ that could possibly respond to the testings and enticements of the Enemy. Is this not exactly what He said? "For the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me" (Jn 14:30). When the Enemy comes to tempt us, there is something in us that he can grasp. But when the Enemy came to tempt the Lord Jesus, he discovered that there was absolutely nothing in the Savior that would respond to him.

"But He was a real man!"

At this point some object and maintain that Christ could have sinned because "he was a real man!" While defending the humanity of Christ is a commendable exercise, it does not require us to believe that Christ could have sinned. Is Christ a real man today? Yes! And yet we all agree that it is impossible for Him to sin today. Furthermore, will we be real men when we get to glory? Yes! And yet we all agree that it will be impossible for us to sin in glory. From this we see that the ability to sin is not a necessary part of begin human.

When people argue that Christ could have sinned because "he was a real man", what they mean is that they think Christ was a man like us. And yet the Bible says that although Christ was and is a "real man", He is not just like us. He is unfallen. His temptations were "apart from sin". He is absolutely holy. Our understanding of what constitutes true humanity is skewed by the fact that we are fallen humans. We must avoid the temptation to conclude that everything we experience is a result of our humanity. We must distinguish between what we experience as a result of being human and what we experience as a result of being fallen. Some things (e.g. thirst, weariness, etc.) we experience because we're human. Christ shared in these. But some things (e.g. sickness, fear, desire to sin, making mistakes, etc.) we experience because we're fallen. Christ shared in none of these - not because He wasn't a real man but because He wasn't a fallen man.

But there are other reasons why we know it was impossible for Christ to sin.

It was impossible for the Lord Jesus to sin because He is God The Bible makes it clear that God cannot sin. For instance, God cannot lie (Tit 1:2; Heb 6:18). Furthermore we read in James 1:13 that "God cannot be tempted [internally] by evil". It is impossible for God to feel any desire to sin. Since "in [Christ] all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form" (Col 2:9) it is impossible for Christ to sin or be tempted (internally) to sin. Christ is not two people - a man who could sin and God who could not. In Christ we see deity and humanity united in one glorious Person.

Also, the Lord Jesus is a member of the Godhead and therefore it is impossible for Him to act independently of the Father and the Holy Spirit. He said that "the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner" (Jn 5:19). How could anyone say that Christ could have sinned when Christ said that He can only do those things which He sees the Father doing?

It was impossible for the Lord Jesus to sin because He is holy Of this we can be sure: the Lord Jesus is completely holy. As we read the Bible we see that this is the testimony of the Father, the Holy Spirit, the seraphim, angels, men and demons. Being holy means more than simply not sinning. Since Christ is holy He hates sin: "You have loved righteousness, and hated lawlessness" (Heb 1:9). Sin could not possibly appeal to Christ in any way. When God gave the Law He did not make up commandments at random. The commandments He gave flowed from His character. How could Christ possibly even desire to sin when sin is the opposite of who He is?

Acknowledging the holiness of Christ helps us to answer another question people sometimes raise: "If Adam was unfallen and he still sinned, doesn't that mean that Christ could have sinned even though He didn't have a sin nature?" This question may seem troubling at first but not when we consider the holiness of Christ. Again we must be careful to recognize that the humanity of the Lord Jesus was not like the humanity of Adam - even before Adam fell. Whereas Adam was innocent, not knowing good and evil (Gen 3:5), in our Lord Jesus we see holy humanity (Luk 1:35). Christ knew the difference between good and evil and He loathed evil (Heb 1:9). In our Lord we see humanity that far surpasses Adam's.

In fact, when we examine the two passages in the Bible that compare Adam to Christ (Rom 5 and 1 Cor 15), we note that the focus in both those passages is not the similarities between Adam and Christ but the differences! Imagine our desperate plight if the humanity of the Lord were no greater than Adam's unfallen humanity. He would still be able to sin today, and we would be able to sin in eternity for "when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is" (1 Jn 3:2).

One last warning with regards to the holiness of Christ: if even the demons testify to the holiness of Christ, we ought to be very careful that we don't call His holiness into question. It was impossible for the Lord Jesus to sin because He is unchangeable "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, yes and forever" (Heb 13:8). This tells us that since it was impossible for Christ to sin before His incarnation then it was impossible for Him to sin during His incarnation. But it cuts another way too. If Christ could have sinned when He walked the earth, then it is still possible for Him to sin since He is unchangeable! Such a thought is too terrible to countenance. It would mean that our salvation would be forever in doubt since our Savior could fail at any time. Thankfully our salvation is eternally secure since our Savior is now and always has been completely immune to sin.

Does this Really Matter?

"We all agree that Christ didn't sin, so isn't this all just hypothetical? What possible difference could this make to our daily lives?" Let me suggest a few reasons why it's important for us to stand up for the undiminished holiness of Christ. As we begin to appreciate how detestable sin is to God - so detestable that He went to the Cross to do away with it - we will also begin to appreciate what an insult it is to Him to suggest that He could ever have even desired to sin. To reconcile Christ and sin requires us to have very little comprehension about either one. Believing that Christ felt the inward desire to sin allows us to feel comfortable about our lusts as long as we don't act on them. Believing that Christ could have sinned leads us to conclude that God's entire plan of redemption was (and still is) at risk; that both God and our redemption could have failed at any time and still might. We can only have confidence in God and our salvation as we recognize that our Lord is absolutely trustworthy with no possibility of failure.

Those who suggest that it was possible for Christ to sin tell us that it ought to encourage us in our temptations to remember that Christ was "just like us". The problem is that when we're feeling tempted the last thing we need is someone who is just like us! We're the whole problem! Victory over sin in our life comes from a recognition of the supremacy of Christ. Believing that Christ could have sinned weakens us.

Our view of Christ affects our Christian walk (2 Cor 3:18). A low view of Christ will inevitably have a negative influence on our lives and it will cheapen our worship of Him. Lastly, we are all quick to defend the reputation of those we love, whether family or friends. Ought we not to be even more quick to defend the reputation of the One who died for us? There are many good reasons for defending His impeccability, but the greatest of these is love.

Written by James Martin