We know that Jesus never sinned, but we also know that He was tempted. Satan obviously thought it was possible for Jesus to sin and that’s where the 40 day wilderness story comes in. Jesus also knows the difference between good and evil, as does God. That ability was given to men when Eve disobeyed, but it was not an ability that God wanted mankind to have.
Jesus is God, but He is also a man. I’ve understood that Jesus had no sin nature and that the sin nature was passed on through generations through the man. Jesus was born by a woman, but His Father is God the Holy Spirit.
So I’m trying to wrap my mind around this and the question is: Did Jesus as fully man and fully God, have the capacity to sin?
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Good question here, “impeccability” vs “peccability”
But I’ll let the other members answer your query.
J.
This is one of those questions that has been discussed by Christians for a very long time. What has always stood out to me is that the temptations Jesus experienced were real. He was hungry in the wilderness, He experienced grief, exhaustion, rejection, and suffering.
Because of that, I find comfort in Hebrews saying that He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Whether someone believes Jesus could have sinned or could not have sinned, the amazing thing to me is that He understands the reality of temptation from the inside and can sympathize with our struggles.
That is what I find most encouraging about this topic.
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Basically, I think you are asking two things. “If Jesus couldn’t sin, was His temptation in the wilderness even real?” And, “But if Jesus could sin, does that mean God Himself could fail?”
To help wrap your mind around this, we get two main camps of thought. Both camps agree 100% that Jesus did not sin, but they disagree on whether He had the capacity to do so. Here is how the two views break down, along with a helpful analogy to make sense of the tension.
View 1: Peccability, or He could have sinned. This view argues that for Jesus’ humanity to be genuine, the ability to sin had to be there. If it were mathematically impossible for Jesus to give in, then the 40 days of temptation in the wilderness by Satan were just a theatrical performance. For temptation to be real, the exit ramp of sin has to be a real physical possibility.
Hebrews 4:15 says this.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
Jesus did not have a diseased “sin nature” as we do, but neither did Adam and Eve when they were created, and they still had the capacity to fall. Jesus, as the “Second Adam,” faced temptation in a pure human state and succeeded where the first Adam failed.
View 2: Impeccability, or He Could Not Have Sinned. This view argues that because Jesus is fully God, it was impossible for Him to sin. Jesus is not two separate entities, a God part and a man part, glued together. He is one person with two natures. Because His personhood is fundamentally divine, and God cannot sin,
“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” James 1:13,
Jesus could not sin. If Jesus sinned, God would have sinned, which is a structural impossibility. with Hebrews 13:8 stating this.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
Since God’s character is unchangeable and perfectly holy, Christ’s character could never bend toward evil. Satan may have thought he could trip Jesus up, but Satan’s arrogance doesn’t dictate reality. If you lean toward the view that Jesus could not sin (Impeccability), you’re left with a nagging question: How was the temptation real?
Theologian John Walvoord offered a classic analogy to help resolve this tension:
"Imagine an army tank attacking a small wooden fort. The fort is easily destroyed. Now imagine that same army tank attacking a massive, impregnable mountain. The tank fires its shells at the mountain with full force. Was the mountain ever in danger of falling? No. It is a mountain. Was the attack real? Yes, absolutely. In fact, the mountain withstood the full weight of the tank’s firepower without ever giving way.
When you and I face temptation, we are the wooden fort. We usually give in long before the temptation reaches its maximum strength. But because Jesus never gave in, He endured the “tank’s” firepower until it had nothing left to throw at Him. He felt the absolute maximum weight of temptation, making His experience of it far more intense than ours, even if His divine nature guaranteed He would never crack."
You mentioned that God didn’t want mankind to have the ability to know good and evil. It’s worth adding a slight nuance here: God did want mankind to know good and evil, but He wanted us to know it the way a doctor knows a disease, by observation, wisdom, and counseling. By eating the fruit, humanity chose to know evil the way a patient knows a disease, by experiencing it, catching it, and being ruined by it.
Jesus, being perfectly holy, knew evil intimately as the ultimate Physician. He saw its wreckage, felt its weight in temptation, and carried it on the cross, but He never became the patient.
Ultimately, whether you believe Jesus could have sinned but chose not to, which is how I view it, or could not sin because of who He was, the glorious punchline of the Gospels remains the same: He didn’t.
Peter
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I have to assume that as a human the nature to sin was in him. I assume he was capable. He just overcame.
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Since Jesus was fully man He absolutely had the capacity to sin but chose not to. He did what no man was able to do. (PTL!)
I don’t believe that Jesus was born with a sin nature though. God always has a plan and prepares for what He is going to do. That said, I believe it’s reasonable to assume that God purified Mary’s bloodline in advance of Jesus’s birth.
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Adam and Eve weren’t created with a sin nature, but still had that capacity to sin. It came about when the serpent (Satan) deceived Eve in disobeying God. Many say that Adam was present when this took place, but he didn’t intervene. He took the fruit and ate it knowingly, so Adam was not deceived by the serpent, but Eve was. 2 Cor 11:3
If I read it right, Adam was the only one who heard firsthand God’s command and Eve would have heard it from Adam. That likely contributed to her not getting the command completely right. She added ‘not to touch’ to ‘not to eat from’. It’s also interesting that in their punishment Eve became subject to Adam. “Her desire will be for her husband and he will rule over her.”
I don’t believe Jesus was born with a sin nature, just as Adam and Eve were created without that nature too. He experienced temptation so the possibility of sin was present. He was also one with God and that’s something He came to restore in us. We are one spirit with Him.
The answer to this question has been debated both ways and the arguments are convincing. Another question might be helpful. What exactly is a sin nature?
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Another good question.
(παλαιός, palaiós, “old,” “ancient”): A term thrice used by Paul (Rom_6:6; Eph_4:22; Col_3:9) to signify the unrenewed man, the natural man in the corruption of sin, i.e. sinful human nature before conversion and regeneration. It is theologically synonymous with “flesh” (Rom_8:3-9), which stands, not for bodily organism, **
**
The old man is “in the flesh”; the new man “in the Spirit.” In the former “the works of the flesh” (Gal_5:19-21) are manifest; in the latter “the fruit of the Spirit” (Gal_5:22, Gal_5:23). One is “corrupt according to the deceitful lusts”; the other “created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph_4:22-24 the King James Version). See also MAN, NATURAL; MAN, NEW.
The sin nature is a result of the Fall. When the believing sinner comes to Christ, the sin nature is made ineffective (Rom. 6:6). It will remain ineffective if the believer maintains unceasing Faith in Christ and the Cross (Rom. 6:1-14). If the believer ceases to look to Christ and the Cross, but rather makes something else the object of his faith—no matter how good the something else might be—the Holy Spirit will not function in such an atmosphere. He demands exclusively that our Faith be in Christ and the Cross (Rom. 8:1-2,11). If faith is moved to something else, the believer will find himself once again being ruled by the sin nature. That’s why Paul said, “Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin (the sin nature): but yield yourselves unto God (which refers to God’s Way, which is Christ and the Cross)” (Rom. 6:3-5, 13). Otherwise, the sin nature will rule the believer. This study guide will open this all-important subject to you the believer, which, in fact, is one of the single most important subjects for the believer. To not understand the sin nature, how it works, and how it is controlled, is to invite disaster.
Top Highlights
“‘conformable’ in the Greek is ‘summorphos,’ which means ‘fashioned like unto.’ I am to fashion my life and living according to what He did for me at the Cross, which will provide everything I need.” (Page 17)
“No! It’s not the Will of God for us to struggle against sin. That’s not ‘more abundant life,’ but rather, ‘O wretched man that I am!…’ (Rom. 7:24).” (Page 63)
“‘The husk represents the flesh and the old life. Nothing of it must remain.’” (Page 19)
“If the Believer doesn’t understand the 6th Chapter of Romans, such a Believer simply does not know how to live for the Lord. He can still be a Christian and not understand this Chapter, but he definitely cannot walk in victory, which means the ‘more abundant life’ promised to us by Christ cannot be realized.” (Page 26)
“Any doctrine, way, scheme, or direction made up by men, which means it is devised by men and not by God, is constituted by the Lord as ‘heresy,’ which is a ‘work of the flesh.’” (Page 25)
Why does so much evil exist in the world? Why do men murder? Why do countries go to war? Why do people exploit others? Why do we live in a world marked by human evil?
Foundational to answering these questions is the doctrine of original sin.
Original sin means that all human beings inherit the corruption of sin. And due to this inherited corruption, all people sin and are liable to judgment. At the most basic level, therefore, original sin describes an ongoing desire for evil that blooms into additional sins and makes one liable to greater judgment.
To understand this often-neglected doctrine better, the following article answers a number of key questions related to the doctrine of original sin.
Table of contents
Does the Bible support the idea of original sin?
Why does everyone die?
Why does everyone sin?
How does original sin affect us?
Are people born with original sin?
Does original sin make us liable for judgment?
Is original sin a sickness?
So is original sin transmitted?
How is original sin different from personal (actual) sin?
Did Augustine invent original sin?
Are there different views on original sin?
How does original sin relate to our inclination to sin (concupiscence)?
Summary
Spirit and Flesh in Paul’s Letters
In Romans 6, Paul asks a rhetorical question about continuing to sin in order that grace might be multiplied. He answers this question with another: “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom 6:2). This raises the question of why believers still struggle with sin. Are some believers somehow defective?
STEVEN E. RUNGE
John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016).
You can download the Logos Bible Software for nada, free @Bestill.
J.
Well, women do tend to embellish things at times, right? The enemy tricked her by asking something that was not so and this oppurtunity to correct him appealed to the girl’s (Eve) vanity and she instantly, wanting to sound learned added the don’t touch it.
That’s how it read to me.
I dont believe Jesus was fully man. He was God in the flesh. In my opinion
In my opinion I believe that Jesus was fully God and fully man. In this we can disagree. Thank you for sharing!
Yup. He was fully Man, flesh, Fully God, and Spirit. Three yet one. Just like us.
Peter