The Impeccability of Christ

There is a debate among Evangelicals over Jesus’ life on earth during His humiliation regarding temptations. Those who believe Jesus could have sinned if He had succumbed to the so-called temptations to sin, hold the “peccability” position. Those who believe that the God-Man was incapable of sinning hold to the “impeccability” view. Why do I hold to the “impeccability” view in this debate? For me, this issue is rather simple. After Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, He had two natures. He was truly God and truly man. He was not born with a sin nature like Adam received at the fall (when he failed the covenantal test for himself and his descendants). The miracle of the virgin conception kept Jesus from being born with legal guilt and a disposition to sin like we have. We have both a sinful nature and a sinful environment. We sin by nature and by choice because we are slaves of sin from our conception and natural birth. Once these sins become habits, they become even stronger masters. So it is impossible for us to fully grasp or even imagine what it was like to never have a powerful drive towards sin.

Adam was also created innocent and without sin. It was not until he chose for himself and the human race as the covenant representative to rebel against God that he became a sinner. We are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. Thus, we sin because we are already sinners.

However, on the issue of the nature of the God-Man Jesus, there is a very different story. Jesus’ human nature was innocent, perfect, and without any disposition towards sin. He was born outside of Adam’s line by the Holy Spirit enacted virgin conception. Joseph was his stepfather, not His biological father. Jesus' divine nature has always been incapable of sin or being tempted by sin (James 1:13). God despises sin, and it is completely contrary to His nature. This applies equally to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is God. God cannot sin. The devil formally tested Jesus as the second Adam, the covenant representative of all who would surrender to Him in repentance and believe the gospel. The devil directed these tests toward Jesus’ perfect, innocent, and sinless human nature. But that nature was and is connected to the divine nature in the God-Man Jesus the Messiah (the Greek term for Messiah is translated into English as Christ).

Is Jesus God? Yes. Can God sin? No. Can the God-Man sin? No!

Why were these tests recorded in the Bible then? Jesus was modeling how to choose the right path when tested, tried, or tempted by relying on the Holy Spirit. The Bible recorded this to teach us (sinners) lessons about fighting temptation.It was not so we would have such a high view of man that we would lower our view of God the Son, who is LORD of all. His death on the cross purchased our salvation. His entire life, lived as a holy life in our place, replaces the believer's sin record in heaven. Jesus perfectly fulfilled all the requirements of the law of God in our place.

Some Bible students forget when they are talking about the God-Man Jesus and that He is not like us in many, many ways. Sin for a innocent being is so disgusting and so revolting that it has to be masked with deception to become an enticement. Remember the innocent people in the Garden of Eden? When that innocent person is also a perfect being and is also fully God, this is not an option. No being can deceive the omniscient Son of God.

Pelagius denied original sin (legal guilt) and his view exalted men to where they could choose to never sin and enter heaven by works. Some modern-day individuals have followed his beliefs and have embraced some forms of free-will theism. They also exalt fallen man and thus lower their views of the God-Man, Jesus. They are more concerned about what is "fair" according to the humanistic worldview rather than what is "just" in God's eyes. These views work like a seesaw. If you have a high view of man, you will always have a low view of Jesus and His divine nature. If you have a high view of Jesus, you will always distrust man's ability to do good by his fallen and depraved nature. Like with a seesaw, when one side is down, the other side is up.

For the death of Jesus to pay in full for the sins of billions of sinners, it had to be the death of a perfect man who was and is also God the Son. Only an infinite person's suffering, punishment, and death could pay in full for the wickedness of so many sinners. The emphasis in the New Testament is on Jesus' deity and crucifixion, not on his so-called “temptations.”

The Greek word used in the passages that some English versions translate as “temptation” also means "trial" or "difficulty." For instance, the word in Heb 2:18 most often translated as “tempt” is the Greek term peiradzo which has the primary meaning: “to learn the nature or character of someone or something by submitting such to thorough and extensive testing - 'to test, to examine, to put to the test, examination, testing'” (Louw-Nida Lexicon). Thus, the translators have to decide from the context which meaning of peiradzo is most appropriate. Translators must choose the most fitting meaning of peiradzo based on context. Some theologians argue translators should use only "trial" or "testing" whenever they translate this term in connection with the God-Man. Unlike a test or a trial, a temptation is distinct. A temptation requires a weakness in the person being enticed in order for it to be successful. A perfect person can undergo a test and still develop no weakness at all.

Consider this illustration about testing. If you give a simple test to a straight "A" student, does anyone assume she will fail it? Is it not a genuine test because everyone believes she can answer what is 10 + 12? Yet, it is an actual test if given by her instructor. The test-taker passes the test if they provide the right answer, regardless of the test's difficulty. There is no universal law that all tests must be hard for every individual. Those who get all worked up about the trials, or the so-called “temptations” being "real" are not thinking deeply or carefully. When Jesus wept outside Lazarus’s tomb, he was enduring a trial that we will also face. He fully understands our emotions. However, Jesus never faced the temptation to tell a second lie to conceal a previous lie, as He never lied.

Here is another, but not so pretty, illustration. You buy two bottles of high-quality water at Starbucks. On your way home, you completely drink one bottle in the car. You have the other bottle in your hand. When you get home, your dog runs into the bathroom and starts drinking out of the toilet. Why are you not also tempted to join the dog in drinking from the toilet? This is because you are not thirsty, you have great water in your hand, and you know the consequences of the dog’s action—sickness. So it is not a temptation to you because you have greater knowledge and a superior nature to that of a dog. Likewise, sin so utterly repulsed the perfect Son of God—even in His perfect, holy, wise, and sinless human nature so that it could never entice Him.

Most peccability adherents also deny that mankind is radically and pervasively (totally) depraved. They do not believe that when Adam fell into sin; it affected every faculty and atom of Adam and all future humans who descended from him. So when they start with a conditional depravity view—that man's reason and/or will are not fallen, other wrong views will follow. They will next deny the texts that teach the inability of every person to move towards God without God first giving new life and they end up exalting man's way above what is biblical (John 3:3, 5, 8; Rom 8:7; 1 Cor 2:14; Eph 2:1-5; 1 John 5:1). What follows is that they also end up with too low a view of God the Son. When this is mixed with humanistic reasoning on “fairness” and “equality,” it sinks even deeper into confusion and dangerous doctrine.

Wayne Grudem writes: “(1) If Jesus’ human nature had existed by itself, independent of his divine nature, then it would have been a human nature just like that which God gave Adam and Eve. It would have been free from sin but nonetheless able to sin. Therefore, if Jesus’ human nature had existed by itself, there was the abstract or theoretical possibility that Jesus could have sinned, just as Adam and Eve’s human natures were able to sin. (2) But Jesus’ human nature never existed apart from union with his divine nature. From the moment of his conception, he existed as truly God and truly man as well. Both his human nature and his divine nature existed united in one person. (3) Although there were some things (such as being hungry or thirsty or weak) that Jesus experienced in his human nature alone and were not experienced by his divine nature (see below), nonetheless, an act of sin would have been a moral act that would apparently have involved the whole person of Christ. Therefore, if he had sinned, it would have involved both his human and divine natures. (4) But if Jesus as a person had sinned, involving both his human and divine natures in sin, then God himself would have sinned, and he would have ceased to be God. Yet that is clearly impossible because of the infinite holiness of God’s nature. (5) Therefore, if we are asking if it was actually possible for Jesus to have sinned, it seems that we must conclude that it was not possible. The union of his human and divine natures in one person prevented it” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 538-39).

Therefore, because of my high view of the holy, triune Godhead and that this holiness (transcendence and purity) applies to each person equally: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, just as do as all the other divine attributes (sovereignty, immutability, omniscience, etc.); I am forced to take the impeccability side in this debate. No one at the bema seat of Christ will face rebuke for holding too high a view of God. But I do fear that many will receive a reprimand for holding too low a view of God. I don’t want to be a member of the low-view group on that day.