A Sinless
Life
Personal
Testimony
What testimony is
borne concerning Christ’s life
on earth?
“He committed
no sin, and no deceit was found
in his mouth.” 1 Peter 2:22.
What is true of all
other members of the human family?
“For all have
sinned and fall short of the
glory of God.” Romans 3:23.
With what question
did Christ challenge His enemies?
“Can any of
you prove me guilty of sin! If I am
telling the truth, why don’t you
believe me?” John 8:46.
Christ’s
Humanity And Temptation
To
what extent was Christ tempted?
“For we do not
have a high priest who is unable to
sympathize with our weaknesses, but
we have one who has been tempted
in every way, just as we are
– yet without sin.”
Hebrews 4:15.
In
His humility, of what nature did
Christ partake?
“Since the children
have flesh and blood, he too
shared in their humility so that by
his death he might destroy him
who holds the power of death –
that is, the devil.” Hebrews
2:14.
How
fully did Christ share our common
humanity?
“For this reason
he had to be made like his
brothers in every way, in order
that he might become a merciful and
faithful high priest in service to
God, and that he might make atonement
for the sins of the people.”
Verse 17.
Note – Jesus
Christ is both the Son of God and Son
of Man. As a member of the human
family “it behooved him to be
like unto his brethren”
-“In the likeness of sinful
flesh.” Just how far that
“likeness” goes is a
mystery of the incarnation which men
have never been able to solve. The
Bible clearly teaches that Christ was
tempted – in all points like we
are.” Such temptation must
necessarily include the possibility
of sinning; but Christ was without
sin. There is no Bible support for
the teaching that the mother of
Christ, by an immaculate conception,
was cut off from the sinful
inheritance of the race, and
therefore her divine Son was
incapable of sinning. Concerning this
false doctrine Dean F.W. Farrar has
well said:
“Some in a zeal
at once intemperate and ignorant have
claimed for Him not only an actual
sinlessness but a nature to which sin
was divinely and miraculously
impossible. What then? If His great
conflict were a mere deceptive
phantasmagoria, how can the narrative
of it profit us? If we have to fight
the battle clad in that armor of
human freewill, what comfort is it to
us if our great Captain fought not
only victoriously, but without real
danger; not only uninjured, but
without even the possibility of a
wound? Let us beware of contradicting
the express teaching of the
Scriptures, by a supposition that He
was not liable to real
temptation.” –The Life
of Christ (1883 ed), Vol.1, p.
57.
The word phantasmagoria
means to rapidly changing series
of things seen or imagined, as the
figures or events of a dream.
Gods
Demonstration Of Victory
Where did God, in
Christ, condemn sin and gain the
victory for us over temptation and
sin?
“For what the law
was powerless to do in that it was
weakened by the sinful nature, God
did by sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful man to be a sin
offering. And so he condemned sin
in sinful man.” Romans 8:3.
Note – God in
Christ, condemned sin, not by
pronouncing against it merely as a
judge sitting in the judgment seat,
but by coming and living in the
flesh, and yet without sinning.
In Christ, He demonstrated that it is
possible, by His grace and power, to
resist temptation, overcome sin, and live
a sinless life in the flesh.
By
whose power did Christ live the
perfect life?
“Don’t
you believe that I am in the Father,
and the Father is in me? The
words I say to you are not just my
own. Rather, it is the
Father, living in me, who is doing
his work.” John
14:10.
Note – In His
humanity Christ was as dependent upon
divine power to do the works of God,
as is any man to do the same thing.
He employed no means to live a holy
life that are not available to every
human being. Through Him, everyone
may have God dwelling in him and
working in him “to will and to
do of his good pleasure.” (1
John 4:15; Philippians 2:13.)
What
unselfish purpose did Jesus ever have
before Him?
“For I have
come down from heaven not to do my
will but to do the will of
him who sent me.” John
6:38.
