[Who Do You Say I Am? by Edward E. Stevens]
V. Impeccability of Christ –
Could Christ Sin Or Even Be Tempted?
One person who has doubts about the Deity of Christ raised this objection, “Since Jesus was really tempted, he could not be God, because God cannot be tempted.” This is a very important observation that obviously does have a direct bearing on Christ’s Deity. In response, we must suggest that if Jesus could really be tempted, it would seemingly imply that it was possible for Him to sin. And if it was possible for Him to sin, Satan would absolutely have found a way to make him. No mere man has ever been able to resist the temptations of the flesh. Since Jesus lived sinless, it implies that it was impossible for him to sin. This is what we call the doctrine of impeccability. Christ was impeccable. It was not possible for Him to have sinned. I know how this sounds the first time a person hears it. It is startling, but nevertheless true and necessary. If Jesus was peccable (fallible, able to sin) then he was not God, and therefore was a creature prone to sin. And He certainly would have sinned like all other humans have. A sinless life speaks volumes about WHO Christ is.
The questions we need to address here are: Does man just have a tendency or weakness toward sin, or is it actually impossible for him not to sin because of the sin nature? Is it really possible for any man to completely overcome temptation and never sin, or is it guaranteed that every man will fall? How does the sin nature affect mankind? Did Jesus have a sin nature? Was He subject to this weakness to temptation and sin that all other men have?
The key factor in a study of the temptation of Christ is the virgin birth. What does the virgin birth tell us about the nature of Christ? In what way does the virgin birth define Jesus’ nature? And how does this nature affect His exposure to temptation and sin? Was His temptation any different than ours as a result of the virgin birth?
It was already predicted that Christ would overcome sin and death. He could not fail. It was impossible for Him to sin. There was never any possibility that Jesus could have sinned. Temptation did not have the same effect on Christ as it does for us, because Jesus was more than just a man. Temptation was different for Christ, because Christ was different than other men. The question is, in what way is Christ different? Is it because it was impossible for Jesus to be tempted, or is it rather because it was possible for Him to resist the temptation and refuse to be affected by it as well as completely overcome it. Which of these two ideas is the better explanation? It seems clear that Jesus was tempted, but the question is how and at what level?
Did Christ have something to overcome temptation that we did not have, or is it just that he did not have what we have (a sin nature) which makes it impossible for us not to sin? In addition to not having a sin nature Christ did have something that we don’t have. This explains why He could be tempted and yet not be affected by it. He already knew what was coming at Him and what He was going to do. But this didn’t lessen the pain He would feel. This didn’t make His physical body any stronger. His flesh was weak, but His spirit was not only willing but impeccable and absolutely in control and unable to give in, even though He felt the whole fury of it and dreaded it just like any human would. He knew what He was going to do, but that doesn’t mean He didn’t feel it in all its reality and understand what humans go through. He suffered through it. He knows what we go through. He is a God who really understands and cares. Oh, what a Savior!
Jesus had something in place of what we get from our earthly fathers. Not only did he NOT have the weak sin nature that all other men get, but He had the Divine nature that none of us have. And all because He had a Divine Father and not an earthly father. The virgin birth provides the basis for this. This explains why Jesus could not sin. Christ lacked the fleshly nature that would have made Him vulnerable to temptation, and had instead the Divine Nature which is totally impeccable and unaffected by temptation. Only a God-man could accomplish this.
The problem we must face is, if Jesus COULD sin, He most assuredly would have. No mere human subjected to temptation has ever been able to resist. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Temptation reigns in that area. No man has escaped. But since we know Jesus did not sin, the only logical implication is that He was not exactly like us in every respect, especially in the are of our sin nature. There was some way in which He was different (Heb. 4:15; John 14:30), because if He was like humans in every respect and was nothing more or less than human, then He WOULD have fallen prey to the full effects of human temptation (sin). No mere human is able to resist it. But all of us would agree that Jesus was not just a mere man. We all know He was different. The question is in what way? But, one does not have to sin or even be able to sin in order to feel the force of temptation. The word translated temptation just means to test or try. Just because an army is unbeatable doesn’t mean it won’t be tested. And there would be fools who would try to tempt/test/try Jesus to see if they could make Him stumble. Not only Satan, but the Pharisees, Sadducees and rulers and the people of the Jews were constantly testing Jesus, even though He knew what they were thinking and what they were up to. There was never the slightest chance of Him giving in. But just because He could not sin doesn’t mean He could not feel the heat of their incessant and intense testing. His fleshly body sweat drops like blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, and felt the slice of the whip, the sting of the slap, the blows to the body, the sleeplessness, the torture of the crucifixion and the ridicule of the crowds. God can feel all those things, but He is not overcome by them the same way we are. Jesus knew what He had to do. His flesh may have been just as weak as any man’s, but His Spirit was more than just willing, it was overwhelmingly invincible and impeccable, because His Spirit was not just a mere human spirit.
These two passages clearly affirm that Jesus was sinless:
(Heb. 4:15) For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
(John 14:30) "I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me;
And these passages show why Jesus could live a sinless life and did:
(John 5:19) Jesus therefore answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.
(Acts 2:24) “And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.”
If Jesus was truly only following exactly (“in like manner”) what He saw “the Father doing,” and doing “nothing of Himself,” then He could not sin. But what mere man or created being could do that? Only someone who had the same nature and attributes as God could live sinlessly like that. It was “impossible” for Hades to hold Jesus because He was sinless – it was impossible for Him to sin.
The term “impeccability” of Christ refers simply to the inability of Christ to sin. The doctrine of impeccability teaches that Christ lived a sinless life in the flesh because it was impossible for Him to have sinned. He was impeccable. Aside from the significant amount of scripture which teaches it, there is a strong and well-developed belief in Christ’s impeccability throughout the early church. But it is not uncommon for saints today to be confused on this issue, so it doesn’t surprise me when I receive letters from those who deny the Deity of Christ asserting that Christ was able to sin. Their argument is basically as follows: (emphasis mine, ees) –
We know God cannot sin, so if Jesus is God, he could not have sinned. We know he didn’t sin, but that doesn’t tell us whether it was possible for him to sin or not. If it was possible for him to have sinned, then he could not be God, because it is impossible for God to sin. So, the Deity of Christ turns on whether it was possible for Christ to have sinned. And it seems like Jesus must have been able to sin, because the Gospels do record a temptation of Christ by Satan. How could Jesus be tempted in any real sense if it was impossible for him to sin? He must have been able to give in to that temptation, or it would not have been a real temptation. Since we know he was really tempted, he must have been able to sin, and therefore could not have been God (since God can neither sin nor even be tempted).
This argument sounds good at first hearing. And it does pinpoint one of the crucial issues involved in the Deity of Christ. If it could be proven that Jesus was able to sin, the doctrine of the Deity of Christ would indeed have to be reconsidered. But on the other side of the coin, if it can be proven that Christ could NOT have sinned, then He has to be God (since God is the only one who cannot sin, man is NOT impeccable). So, the Deity of Christ does indeed turn on this issue. And, fortunately there is a lot of Biblical material to help us in our examination of it. It is an undeniable Biblical fact that Jesus did not sin. This necessitates the idea that He therefore was unable to sin.
The querist above makes at least two assumptions which must be challenged, which are:
The basic meaning of the words translated “tempt” in the Bible is “to test or try.” In both the Hebrew (OT) scriptures and the Greek (NT) scriptures there are at least two different words which are translated “tempt.” The OT Hebrew words are bachan (usually rendered dokimazo in the Septuagint) and nasah/masah (always rendered by peirazo or one of its compounds in the Septuagint). Nasah/masah is the more common of the two which means to “test by the smell” or subject it to testing in order to try it or prove its quality or nature. Bachan similarly means to “examine, try, scrutinize.” The NT uses peiro (and derivatives) and dokimazo. Peiro is more commonly used. Its root meaning was “to pierce or search into, make an experience of, attempt.” It gradually came to mean “to intentionally try to discover what of good or evil, of power or weakness, existed in a person or thing.” Dokimazo is not always synonymous with peirazo, but it usually means “testing in order to approve.” The test or trial is given intentionally in order to “prove” the strength, quality or value of someone or something. So, it is easy to see that these words do not always (nor even mostly) mean to “lure and bait someone to do something that is wrong.” They are used more often to mean simply a “test” or “trial” of someone to discover their character or nature. The “temptation, test or trial” does not necessarily imply anything about whether something is infallible or not. So, the first assumption listed above is obviously incorrect.• The word “temptation” only has one meaning, and that meaning is to lure and bait someone to do something that is wrong.
• Temptation is not a real temptation unless the person being tempted is able to sin. If someone is really tempted, then it is possible for them to sin. If they cannot sin, they can never really be tempted.
The fallacy of the second assumption can be seen in the simple illustration of an impregnable fortress. Just because a fort is unassailable doesn’t mean no one will ever attack it and test it to see. There will always be a fool to try. So Jesus can very well be infallible, but Satan either didn’t know that, or wasn’t convinced of it, so he had to try. The purpose of the test (or temptation) is to find out the strength, character or nature of someone. It makes no assumptions about whether it will pass the test or not. The person giving the test may strongly desire his subject to flunk the test, and may even believe that the subject will buckle under trial, but that doesn’t mean the subject will fail just because someone else believes he will and wants him to. And we can safely assume that Satan tried his best to get Jesus to fall. Satan obviously believed Christ could sin, or he would not have tested him. And it is just as obvious that Satan didn’t know what kind of person and character he was dealing with. Satan tried to lure and bait Jesus into sin. Had he known that Jesus was God, he would never have tempted Him. And if Jesus was just a man or created being He would surely have succumbed to Satan’s temptation. It wasn’t just luck or an unusual amount of moral character that enabled Jesus to resist the temptation. If Jesus had not had the nature of God, He would never have been able to resist temptation. Satan threw everything he had at Jesus. So, the second assumption made by our querists above is also invalid.
But all we have proven here is that it is possible for Christ to be infallible and impeccable Deity, even though Satan will try to test Him. We still have not shown why the temptation is an argument for the Deity of Christ instead of an argument against it. Since no mere human can resist temptation, the fact that Jesus successfully resisted and overcame temptation, demands that he must be God.
And we can’t use Satan’s ignorance and delusion as evidence for Christ’s fallibility. So, the temptation of Christ was a very real attempt by Satan to lure and bait Jesus into sin, but it was an ignorant and delusionary attempt. Satan just did not understand Who he was dealing with. It was simply a testing and discovery process. Satan was trying to find out the character of the Person he was dealing with, and trying to make the Messiah sin and be under Satan’s domain.
What is interesting here is that man has attempted to lure and bait God into doing things against His will before, but from God’s perspective it was not a temptation to Him in the slightest. He cannot sin. The temptation has no effect. There is nothing that could even remotely tempt Him to change His will. But that doesn’t mean men won’t try. And just because they try doesn’t mean it is possible for Him to sin. Men have tested and tried and tempted God on many occasions, but by His very nature God is absolutely unaffected by those tests. He cannot sin. The temptations against Jesus fell flat to the ground. No mere man could have resisted, but Jesus did resist, so He must be more than just a mere man. In fact, He must be Deity in some direct sense in order to never sin.
Because of His Divine conception and virgin birth, Christ did not have a sin nature. He was not vulnerable to Satan’s temptations. Or, as Christ Himself said it, “...for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” (John 14:30, emphasis mine, ees) Satan had no way to get inside Christ. All temptations of Christ merely bounced off on the outside. They never touched Him inside like they do to all other humans (cf. Jas. 1:13-15). This must have been very bewildering to Satan. This was the first human being he could gain no mastery over. And you can guarantee that if Jesus was able to sin Satan would have found a way to bait and lure Him into it. Jesus had fasted for forty days, during which time Satan had already been constantly tempting Him. At the end of that period, just when Jesus was at His weakest and most vulnerable time physically, Satan threw out the most powerful and compelling temptations a man could ever face. Jesus didn’t hesitate, or have to think about it and get back to Satan – He immediately composed His rejections of Satan’s offers in scripture quotations. There was never the slightest hint of hesitation or of being influenced by Satan’s bait. Satan had no advantage over Him whatsoever (John 14:30). No man can make that same claim. Jesus was definitely different.
But, it was a real temptation from Satan’s perspective. Satan made a real effort to lure Jesus into sin. And Jesus’ humanity made it possible for Him to feel the temptation on the outside without being affected by it on the inside. Jesus’ lack of a sin nature and the advantage of a Divine Nature enabled Him not to be vulnerable to Satan’s lures, and totally able to remain sinless. It was impossible for Christ to sin because it is impossible for Him to be tempted on the inside like we are. There was “nothing” inside Christ that Satan could leverage against Him.
Robert Bowman had this to say about Jesus’ temptation: “...Jesus was tempted. But Trinitarians do not believe that his temptation derived in any sense from his divine nature, but rather was a result of his living as a human being in a corrupt world where temptations abound. Thus God, as God, cannot be tempted: but Jesus, who is both God and man, as man and living in a fallen earth, was tempted.” (Why You Should Believe In The Trinity, by Robert M. Bowman, Jr., Page 75)
The passages which say “no one has seen God at any time” (John 1:18) and “no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven” (John 3:13) state very clearly that Jesus is the only one who has done those two things. This not only affirms a pre-existence with the Father, but necessitates the idea of pure sinlessness in order to be in the presence of God originally and in order to ascend back into the presence of God after His incarnation. Only God has that kind of sinlessness and holiness. Yet Jesus was worthy! (cf. Rev. 5) Jesus was impeccable just like His Father.
The Day Satan Met Jesus – Summary of the Book
One of the best and briefest treatments of the doctrine of the impeccability of Christ is found in the book, The Day Satan Met Jesus, subtitled “The temptation of Christ – cast, action and effects of the wilderness drama,” written by William L. Banks. Below I have summarized some of the more relevant material in the book.The Devil’s Description from Scripture
Satan is a real person and is a deceiver, provoker, enticer, adversary, enemy, opponent, resister, accuser, tempter, etc. He really exists. But he is not omniscient, nor is he on a par with God. He is just a creature, finite and limited. He knew no more about the redemptive plan of God than the Jews did. There is no proof Satan understood the nature of Jesus. He did not understand who he was dealing with.The Devil’s Intentions
Satan was not trying to keep Christ from the cross, but rather was trying to put Christ on it. He thought by killing Christ one more son of David would die childless without fulfilling the Davidic promises. But God used Satan’s desire to kill Christ to accomplish the plan of redemption. Satan didn’t realize the cross would defeat his own cause. From the Garden of Eden he had known there would be a seed of woman who would defeat him. Satan never forgot God’s promise to crush his head, but he evidently never quite grasped just how God would do it. Every time a likely “seed” appeared on the scene, Satan immediately sought to either corrupt or kill him. From the way he went about having Cain kill Abel and throwing stumbling blocks in the way of the rest of the Messianic seed line to make them sin and fall, it is apparent that Satan knew some things about what God was trying to do. But how much did he know?Satan knew that a Holy God had to punish sin, and so if he could make men sin he could at least slow down or hinder God’s plan of redemption. He opposed God’s plan all the way through Biblical history. And he must have suspected something related to the scheme of redemption was happening when virgin Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. But evidently Satan did not understand the nature of the virgin born Son of God. He knew Jesus was to be the Messiah, but how well he understood what the nature of that Son of God was to be is not so clear. This was a new unique thing. Nothing like Christ had ever appeared before. Satan did not know who he was dealing with. And it must have confused him when Jesus didn’t fall for fleshly and materialistic temptations like all of David’s other sons had. Satan’s intentions were always to hinder the plan of God to restore man back to His fellowship. But just how ignorant of God’s real intentions and methods was he?
Satan’s Ignorance
Satan is not God, so he is not omniscient. There were many things he did not understand until after they happened. Unless something was written down or verbalized or demonstrated in some observable way, Satan did not know what was going on in the heart of a man. He cannot read our minds like God can. And he certainly didn’t know what was going on in the mind and plan of God. Those things were hidden from the foundation of the world so Satan could not discover them. Only those who were taught of the Lord and who were spiritual in their appraisal of things were able to discern some of what God was doing and how (1 Cor. 2:11-16). And Peter said it was still difficult (2 Pet. 3:16). It seems certain therefore that Satan did not know that Jesus was God incarnate. It was a “mystery” (1 Tim. 3:16) neither expected nor even suspected by him. There are certain things he could probably forecast as likely, but he seems never to have suspected that he was dealing with Someone who could not sin. You would think he would have learned something from the temptation, but the text says that Satan only departed from him until another opportune time. Satan rushed headlong trying at every opportunity to kill or seduce or discredit or disqualify Christ to no avail. When enticing Christ by materialistic wealth and power didn’t work he tried to frighten Christ by the prospect of the cross. He kept on trying, believing to the very last that he could somehow trip Christ up and make Him sin. When he couldn’t make Him sin, he decided to just kill him instead. Satan was directly involved in Judas’ betrayal of Christ (Lk. 22:3; Jn. 13:2, 27). If Satan even had the slightest idea that the cross was in the plan of God he would never have set the crucifixion up. The cross must have been one of the most gleeful moments in his sadistic career, until he realized that he had “nothing” on Christ (Jn. 14:30). That meant Christ was not bound by Satan. Christ could invade Satan’s domain and rob him of everything and go right back out again untouched, taking all of Satan’s captives with Him (Mt. 12:29; Lk. 11:21,22). The death of Christ was the doorway into the strong man’s house, and Jesus plundered it all. That was definitely an enlightening event in his dark domain. He’s still reeling from the impact. He will be scratching his head for eternity trying to figure out why he didn’t realize Who Jesus was. He should have known that no mere man could resist every temptation for a whole lifetime and never sin. He should have realized it at the temptation in the wilderness. He should have realized that the only way for Jesus to have not fallen into sin was by having a Divine nature. Satan tempted Jesus, not because Jesus was able to sin, but because Satan was ignorant of how God was working out His redemptive plan.The Holy Spirit’s Role in the Temptation
The Holy Spirit was fully involved in every aspect of Jesus life from the conception in Mary’s womb (Lk. 1:35), the baptism in the Jordan by John (Lk. 3:22), to the death on the cross and the resurrection (Lk. 23:46; 1 Pet. 3:18). Luke says that after his baptism by John, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led about by the Spirit in the wilderness.” (Lk. 4:1) The spirit was with Him during the whole time during His fast in the wilderness. This was a much more direct influence on His life than the indwelling and empowering of the Holy Spirit ever was for the early church after Pentecost. The Holy Spirit had overshadowed Mary and caused her to conceive Jesus. The Holy Spirit (God Himself) was in Jesus’ life in a direct way. The virgin birth proves the power of the Holy Spirit was there in a much more direct and powerful way than anyone else ever had. And it was this fact of Jesus’ nature that made Him invulnerable to temptation and impeccable to sin. We just have the Spirit’s help to help our spirits. But Jesus’ very spirit was the Holy Spirit of God. That is the meaning of the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary in the miraculous conception. And because Jesus’ Spirit was the Holy Spirit, Jesus was impeccable just like God is. Jesus lacked the fallible and weak human spirit, and instead had the very Spirit of God.