The sinlessness of Christ is essential to the faith we put in Him. As Christians, we know that because Christ was without sin, He died a perfect sacrifice for our sins.

The question that was asked in this week’s Systematic Theology reading was “Could Jesus have sinned?”

I spiral when I go around and around with this question, because your immediate thought is either “of course he could have!” or “He was God in the flesh so He couldn’t sin!” and I like to think of both at the same time.

What I find most important in this, and what’s hard for us to understand in our own humanity, is that Jesus was both fully human and fully God. He wasn’t a mix of the two, but fully both. Ever notice how God is all of everything? He doesn’t act in half of anything. It’s all of everything at once. It’s wild and unfathomable.

While Jesus was on earth, He was tempted. He wasn’t treated fairly, and He was straight up tempted by the devil himself. The 40 days of being tempted? Even in that He did that for us. So when He says He knows what we’re going through, He means it. He lived it.

Wayne Grudem goes on for pages on this topic, but my key takeaway has been this.

Depending on God is different than using God given divine power.

A major barrier is the scripture that reads “God cannot be tempted with evil” in James 1. This is true…

While Jesus was fully God, when He was being tempted, He could have used that power, but God doesn’t give us that power – we’re not God. So Jesus didn’t use His divine power. He relied on His humanity to fight the devil. He wasn’t alone though because while, yes, He was using His human power – He demonstrated to us that we can rely on His Spirit and His Word. We, too, can overcome.

Soooooo, sure we can say that Jesus could have sinned, but we cannot say that He wasn’t tempted at all (back to the barrier of God cannot be tempted). Grudem wraps this idea up nicely when he says:

If our speculation on the question of whether Christ could have sinned ever leads us to say that he was not truly tempted, then we have reached a wrong conclusion, one that contradicts the clear statements of Scripture.

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Luke 4:1-13

James 1:12-13

Hebrews 2:18; 4:14-5:10

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What do you think about this question?

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Today’s encouragement:

• God doesn’t do anything halfway. He’s all in. 100%.
• He can truly sympathize with our struggles.
• Rely on Him in our time of need. Be rooted in Spirit and Word.
• He has already overcome.

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I hope you have a great Friday and weekend!