The American Heritage Dictionary says that being impeccable means to be without flaw or to be perfect, to not be capable of doing anything wrong. As our sacrifice on the cross at Calvary, Christians have always maintained that Jesus was without sin. Yet, the issue with impeccability is not about whether or not He did sin. It is over whether or not He could have sinned if He had wanted to. Most individuals would quickly say that Christ did not sin. But can those individuals just as easily say that He could not have sinned? "Would not sin" and "could not sin" are different. Therefore, orthodoxy has attempted to settle this conflict in several ways. One of these pertains to whether one should consider God as the Author of sin. Another is whether Jesus, Who was and Who is God, the Second Person of the Trinity, actually possessed a sin nature.
To say that Jesus could have sinned but simply chose not to is a dangerous statement to make. Such words essentially make God out to be the Author of sin. In the sense that Jesus was born of a virgin and conceived of the Holy Spirit, He was a product or creation of God. Had Jesus been able to sin, then God would have, in essence, created Him in the flesh of God, but still as a person who could have fallen short of pleasing Him. Such an act on the Father's part would have basically been the same as having stacked the deck against His own Son, as well as the rest of us. And a God Who loves His creation would not have done that.
The second argument of orthodoxy which supports Christ's impeccability concerns His possession of the sin nature. In Genesis 3, the Bible records the Original Sin by Adam and Eve. Careful examination of that portion of Scriptures shows that Eve was deceived by Satan, while Adam, on the other hand, simply chose to do that which he knew was wrong. Hence, Eve was tricked, but Adam had sinned! Because of that, the sin nature has been passed to all generations of humanity, from that time until now, through the seed of the man, not through that of the woman. Consequently, Jesus, Who was not born of sinful man, did not have the same sin nature that all others have had. Because Jesus was man, He could experience the same temptations as others. But because He was also God, born without man's sin nature, He could not simply choose to do wrong. Jesus suffered a sinner's death, but He was not a sinner. Because He was impeccable, He could not even have chosen to be a sinner.
Tom of Spotswood "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." (I John 5:12)
Index to Selected Essays And Book Reviews
Lesson 18 - The Personality Of The Holy Spirit
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