Theology An examination of the question of the impeccability of Jesus Christ
Theology - An examination of the question of the impeccability of Jesus ChristThe New Testament authors had no qualms about declaring that Jesus was
truly human and telling us that Jesus committed no sin. Bible passages
such as 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 4:15, 1 Peter 2:22 and 1 John 3:5
“witness that He [Jesus] did not give in to temptation, nor violate the
moral standards of God, nor was He inconsistent with the nature of his
character.” That is, Jesus was sinless.
It is vital to our theology that Jesus was sinless. For only if Jesus
was sinless could His death have been a vicarious substitution and
fulfil God’s redemptive plan for man. If Jesus had not been sinless,
then it would mean that He died for His own sins and not those of
mankind. Had Jesus died for His own sins then His death could not have
been accepted by the Father as a vicariously substitution for the
punishment and judgement each of us are entitled to receive.
Even though there is no serious debate that Jesus was anything but
sinless, theologians have discussed the question of whether Jesus could
have sinned if He had wanted. This is called the peccability of Christ.
The opposing argument, i.e., impeccability, being that even if He had
wanted, Jesus could not have sinned. Upon first consideration, one might
view this question as being trivial; something to simply keep the
theologians “out of mischief” when they have nothing better to do.
However, there are some very appropriate reasons for examining this
issue.
The first reason to examine the issue of Christ’s
peccability/impeccability is so that we might obtain a better
understanding and a more in depth knowledge about both Jesus Christ and
God, just as God has invited us. This is the same reason that we study
Theology proper. When we arrive at an answer to this question, we will
have additional knowledge about Jesus’ preincarnate state and a better
understanding of the meaning of the statement “Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, today, and forever .”
Second, some theologians have argued that the peccability of Jesus has
a direct impact on the humanity of Christ. That is, if Jesus was not
peccable then just how “human” was he? Could he have been “true man” if
he were not able to sin like the rest of mankind? (Note: this is a
question of whether Christ could have sinned; not that Christ had to
have sinned in order to be human.) Morris indirectly asks if Jesus’
impeccability implied that he was lacking a part of the human condition
that the rest of mankind have, viz., the consciousness of past sin? If
this is the case, Christ may not have been truly human because he only
took on most of the “qualities” of human nature but shielded himself
from the consciousness...
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