BIBLE QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Question: Hebrews 4:15 we read, “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 was without sin.”  Was it possible for Christ to have sinned? 

Answer: This is a very interesting question to discuss.  But, I must admit up front, that there is no biblical response to it.  Perhaps this question of whether Christ could have sinned or not have sinned is one of those mysteries that God simply did not reveal to us.  Or, perhaps, its discussion was not important to the disciples.

Let me lay the foundations for the argument that Jesus Christ was able to sin.  Throughout the history of the Church, this argument has had little following.  But it is based upon three premises:

1) The full humanity of Christ – if Christ was fully human, then He had to have possessed the ability to sin, since unfallen Adam was capable to sinning;

2) The temptability of Christ – the ability to be tempted by Satan must mean the ability to sin; d

3) The free will of Christ – a free will implies the ability to sin. (Taken from Michael McGhbee Canham’s article in the Master’s Seminary Journal, Spring 2000).

The argument that Jesus was not able to sin has been the majority view throughout the history of the Church.  It is based upon the following:

1) The deity of Christ – since Christ is God, and since God cannot sin, it necessarily implies that Christ could not sin;

2) The decrees of God – in order to accomplish the plan of redemption, Christ could not have sinned.

Now we do know that Christ faced many temptations – not only in the Judean Wilderness after His baptism, but also in the Garden of Gethsemane and upon the cross.  Satan was always there to entice Christ to submit to his plans rather than to God’s.  Yet, Christ never sinned; He always surrendered Himself to the will of God.  Why was Christ tempted?  Was it to show that He could succumb to sin?  Or, was it to demonstrate that He could not sin?  Either way you respond, the temptations were very real to Christ. 

In Hard Sayings of the Bible, the writer relates the temptations with these words: One must have experience with a situation to be helpful in the situation, but even then one will not be helpful unless the experience is successful.  A person who failed a test is hardly the one to coach another on how to prepare for the test.  Jesus took the very same test as we do, indeed, a more intense form of the very same test.  But he passed.  He “was without sin.”  He did not fail in any way. (p. 679-680).

Whether Christ could or could not have sinned becomes a question without any definitive answer.  But the Bible makes it very clear that Jesus did not sin:

1 Peter 2:22 – He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.

John 8:46 – Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?  If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?

1 John 3:5 – But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.

2 Corinthians 5:21 – God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

It is because Jesus Christ did not sin that you and I can have victory over sin in our lives.  That is the significance, I believe, of what the writer of Hebrews is trying to relate to us.  Whether Christ was “able not to sin” or “not able to sin” will be settled when we see Him.

References:
Michael McGhee Canham.  “Potuit non Peccare or Non Potuit Peccare: Evangtelicals, Hermeneutics, and the Impeccability Debate.”  The Master’s Seminary Journal, Spring 2000.

“Could Jesus Have Sinned? www.gotquestions.org/could-Jesus-have-sinned.html
           
Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., et.al.  Hard Sayings of the Bible.  InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL.  1996.

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