I never cease to be amazed by the popular ongoing debates among Christianity.
Some topics/concepts seem so obvious, but I realize the Truth of Scripture is not obvious to all as many do not have Spiritual Discernment. The notion that Christ was incapable of sin floors me. When we understand the true magnitude of the Gospels, and what Christ (God) accomplished in the flesh, it becomes impossible to consider that Jesus may have been incapable of sin.
The entire point of the accomplishments of Christ, and His overcoming sinful flesh and defeating death, all rests upon the foundation of His vulnerability and weakness living as a mortal man in a flesh body. Hebrews tells us that He lowered and humbled Himself in order to take on a flesh body and to become obedient. None of that is possible, nor makes any sense at all, if Christ was incapable of sinning.
It is the devil's style to come down from upon high and perform miracles and gain a following all while being incapable of failure. That is the polar opposite of what God Almighty would do. God humbled Himself to a degree that we cannot imagine, entered into sinful, fallible, vulnerable flesh and overcame every single temptation and desire common to man, and even some that would only apply to God, and annihilated the curse of original sin, blazing a permanent path for all men to follow who would ever come to love and desire God. To claim that Jesus was incapable of failure is to rob Him of all that He accomplished, all that He sacrificed and all the love that He poured out for fallen man.
It is literally offensive to those who understand the profound nature of God's humility to even consider that He did not put Himself into a position where He could fall short. The very glory of God Almighty in the flesh rests upon the accomplishment and sacrifice of His willingness to subject Himself to such misery and abuse all for the sake of His beloved people. If He were not able to fail, then He didn't give up anything at all and He was never in any danger of any kind.
If Jesus' glorified body is now incapable of sin, then what was its condition prior to His death and sacrifice on the Cross? We can see through the Scriptures that we will be transformed into sinless glorified bodies only after we have accomplished our life of endurance and following Christ's ways. Thirty three years is not a very long life in man's experience, but to live that long completely without the slightest sin, even accidentally, is an absolute miracle and a wonder that only Christ could accomplish in the flesh - it is also one of many proofs of Jesus being God.
We steal God's glory when we claim that He wasn't capable of failure. That is a prideful show that only the devil would put on to bask in his great power and might. Everything that Jesus did was a testament to purity, honesty, selflessness, righteousness and perseverance. All of those qualities are stripped of Christ when we say that He had no ability to have sinned at any given moment of temptation.
The devil would not have tried so hard to tempt Christ in the wilderness, nor would he have specially tailored the temptations to Christ's desires, if Christ was incapable of sinning. Unlike us, Christ was tempted to turn a stone into bread at a moment of extreme hunger and fatigue. None of that would have taken place if Christ wasn't truly and sincerely in the thick of the battle to fight off the temptation to sin.
Christ showed us exactly how we are to live and fight against sin in our lives and we are to look to our Champion in order to remember His great accomplishments and find the strength to do so ourselves. There is no rational possibility that He could have been immune to sin in the flesh. If that had been the case, there would have been no purpose whatsoever to incarnate and He would never have realized any of His glorious accomplishments for all mankind.
Some topics/concepts seem so obvious, but I realize the Truth of Scripture is not obvious to all as many do not have Spiritual Discernment. The notion that Christ was incapable of sin floors me. When we understand the true magnitude of the Gospels, and what Christ (God) accomplished in the flesh, it becomes impossible to consider that Jesus may have been incapable of sin.
The entire point of the accomplishments of Christ, and His overcoming sinful flesh and defeating death, all rests upon the foundation of His vulnerability and weakness living as a mortal man in a flesh body. Hebrews tells us that He lowered and humbled Himself in order to take on a flesh body and to become obedient. None of that is possible, nor makes any sense at all, if Christ was incapable of sinning.
It is the devil's style to come down from upon high and perform miracles and gain a following all while being incapable of failure. That is the polar opposite of what God Almighty would do. God humbled Himself to a degree that we cannot imagine, entered into sinful, fallible, vulnerable flesh and overcame every single temptation and desire common to man, and even some that would only apply to God, and annihilated the curse of original sin, blazing a permanent path for all men to follow who would ever come to love and desire God. To claim that Jesus was incapable of failure is to rob Him of all that He accomplished, all that He sacrificed and all the love that He poured out for fallen man.
It is literally offensive to those who understand the profound nature of God's humility to even consider that He did not put Himself into a position where He could fall short. The very glory of God Almighty in the flesh rests upon the accomplishment and sacrifice of His willingness to subject Himself to such misery and abuse all for the sake of His beloved people. If He were not able to fail, then He didn't give up anything at all and He was never in any danger of any kind.
If Jesus' glorified body is now incapable of sin, then what was its condition prior to His death and sacrifice on the Cross? We can see through the Scriptures that we will be transformed into sinless glorified bodies only after we have accomplished our life of endurance and following Christ's ways. Thirty three years is not a very long life in man's experience, but to live that long completely without the slightest sin, even accidentally, is an absolute miracle and a wonder that only Christ could accomplish in the flesh - it is also one of many proofs of Jesus being God.
We steal God's glory when we claim that He wasn't capable of failure. That is a prideful show that only the devil would put on to bask in his great power and might. Everything that Jesus did was a testament to purity, honesty, selflessness, righteousness and perseverance. All of those qualities are stripped of Christ when we say that He had no ability to have sinned at any given moment of temptation.
The devil would not have tried so hard to tempt Christ in the wilderness, nor would he have specially tailored the temptations to Christ's desires, if Christ was incapable of sinning. Unlike us, Christ was tempted to turn a stone into bread at a moment of extreme hunger and fatigue. None of that would have taken place if Christ wasn't truly and sincerely in the thick of the battle to fight off the temptation to sin.
Christ showed us exactly how we are to live and fight against sin in our lives and we are to look to our Champion in order to remember His great accomplishments and find the strength to do so ourselves. There is no rational possibility that He could have been immune to sin in the flesh. If that had been the case, there would have been no purpose whatsoever to incarnate and He would never have realized any of His glorious accomplishments for all mankind.
But that is for another time .