Jesus had 2 natures; a human nature and a divine nature as God.
His human nature could sin, but not His divine nature.
The Romans had a phrase for this:
poci non pocari, non poci pocari, which translated means:
able not to sin, not able to sin.
Hi Free, You raise an interesting point. Is it impossible for God to sin, to be evil, unjust, unfair, unrighteous?
My experience of God is not that it is impossible for God to sin, it is that He chooses not to.
He proved the point, that when as a man, everything was before Him, He chose not to sin, though He was just
like us.
God could have left us alone, in our lostness, and said we could never learn to walk righteously, we are forever
flawed, unable to have communion and fellowship with Him. But I see God said, no, my essence is stronger than
sin, able to be weak, humble, stripped of everything and still walk blamelessly without sin. In so doing our guilt
was shown, our lostness chosen by ourselves, in ignorance and confusion, but still chosen.
Now if one feels the divide between Gods nature and our nature is impossible to bridge, that God provides a
new eternal spirit within us that is perfect, and the flesh is sinful and flawed, one ends up with a gnostic gospel
and a dualistic morality. We are not guilty of sin, only our flesh, but we are spirit.
Theologically this is no minor point or in our walk. Holding the gnostic view there is no point in a holy walk,
because until we are transformed our flesh will always compromise, and our eternal perfect spirit will always
battle with it, until the Kingdom comes. My view is this is not a christian belief, and does not have the victory
of the cross at its centre, and was created by Augustine in the 4th century, and preached by Calvin etc at the
reformation. One can see repentance and confession of sin becomes meaningless, because the sin is just
the flesh.
I have met alcoholics and drug addicts whole relate to this view of life, because their addiction works like this.
Paul though says we have victory in the Spirit, and are slaves to righteousness, if we sow to the Spirit and eternal
life.
16> Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17> But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
18> You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness
Romans 6:16-18
To be a slave to righteousness literally means we have overcome the passions of the flesh, Amen.
24> Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.
25> Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Galatians 5:24-25
12> It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,
13> while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
14> who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
Titus 2:12-14
