Siloam Springs Bible Church

In our December communion meditation, we looked at the importance of the Virgin Birth of Jesus. There were four reasons cited for the necessity of the Virgin Birth: 1) The doctrine of the Virgin Birth is essential to the trustworthiness of the Gospel record; 2) It gives us confidence in our Lord’s sinless nature; 3) This doctrine gives the only reasonable explanation of God’s Son taking on human flesh; and finally 4) It protects our Lord and his mother from scandal (Alva J. McClain, The Doctrines of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Unpublished class notes, Grace Theological Seminary, Winona Lake, Indiana).

Reasons two and three raise an important issue which requires further thinking. There is no doubt that Jesus is sinless, but was He able to sin or not able to sin? A lot of ink has been spilled, not always graciously, in answering this question one way or the other. In answering this question I think it difficult to ignore the apparent link of Jesus’ sinless nature to His miraculous conception. “And the angel answering said to her: ‘the Holy Spirit shall come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; wherefore also the Holy (One) which is born (of you, in some manuscripts) will be called the Son of God’ ” (Luke 1:35). Does this verse suggest that He was able to sin or that He was already confirmed in His holiness at birth, i.e., unable to sin?

Let’s look at this from the angle suggested by reason #3: the Virgin Birth gives the only reasonable explanation of God’s Son taking on human flesh. We understand that ordinarily when a child is conceived there is the creation of a new personality. But Jesus as the Son of God did not get His personality through His birth. He was Divine Person before His birth (John 1:1). So for God to bring His Son into human life, there was no need for the normal creative process. Indeed such a process would have been out of the question. The normal procreative process would have resulted in an entirely new personality! That Jesus Christ had a fully human nature is clear (Philippians 2:5-7), but He was one Person with both a human nature and a divine nature (John 8:23; 17:5; 1 Tim. 2:5; Rom. 1:3-4; 9:5).

If our understanding is correct, then we would have to say that Jesus was unable to sin. The fact is persons sin; natures do not. Every believer has both a new nature and an old sin nature. However, it isn’t the nature that sins but the person. I cannot escape my own guilt by blaming my sin on my sin nature. The sin nature may explain who I am and why I behave the way I do as a sinful human being, but the responsibility for my sin rests with me, the person. To say Jesus, Divine Person, could have sinned is to assert that God can sin. Unthinkable!

There is a very interesting verse in John’s first letter that sheds light on whether Jesus could sin: “Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God” (1 John 3:9). It’s the principle that like begets like (Zane C. Hodges, The Epistles of John: Walking in the Light of God’s Love, 140-144). If it is true that the new life of the believer does not sin because it is born of God, how much more must this be true of His Son, Jesus Christ?

This doctrine is important for the following reason: Because Jesus Christ cannot sin, we have the hope that some day we will be free of sin forever, both actual and potential. We will be like Him (1 John 3:2). What hope would it be if being like Christ meant that we could still sin? None whatsoever. The regenerating work of Christ in the heart of every believer will be fully realized one day. We will be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.
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