The Sinless Human

[netchaplain]

The Lord Jesus was fully human physically but not spiritually, that is, He had the nature of our body but not the nature of our soul (the soul being the reasoning entity of our spirit). The nature of a human soul is sinful, but the nature of Christ’s soul was sinless! Thus only Christians have two natures in their soul (old and new man)! This “new man” or new nature in those reborn is something “created in righteousness and true holiness,” and “after the image of Him that created him (it)” (Eph 4:24; Col 3:10). Man was created in God’s “likeness,” but the Son of God was incarnated after the “likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom 8:3 – “He sent His own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have” -NLT).

The word “likeness” here is in the sense of similarity, in appearance only, but not as identically the same. One (Jesus) taking on a body has the appearance of having the sinful nature, but it is common knowledge of course that the Lord Jesus did not partake of the sinful nature (“old man”) of a human. He partook of the nature of a human body (if its “infirmities” - Heb 4:15 - can be considered a nature) but not the nature of a human soul, which is sinful. After all, does not all spirit beings have their own soul, as Jesus has His own Soul.

There may be some who may think that human sin coexisted in Christ with His deity, but this is incorrect! During the crucifixion at His death, the guilt of all believers sin was “laid on Him” (Isa 53:6), but never in Him, i.e. He was made out to be sin, not actually be sin but imputatively; “to be the offering for our sin” (2Co 5:21 NLT). Not to stray too far from the subject matter, there are some (e.g. J MacArthur, R C Sproul, etc.) who believe that Christ was peccable and was capable of sinning, but this conflicts with the fact that “God cannot be tempted with evil” (Jam 1:13). Also, to sin you must have a sin nature!

The best I can say is that He did not need to partake of the nature of man’s soul to “be touched with the feeling of our infirmities”; nor could He, because the sin sacrifice required being “spotless.” Jesus was “tempted of the devil,” but He was not enticed within Himself to do evil, as a man would, He being without a sin nature.

Here (Rom 8:3) the word “flesh” is in relation to the nature of man’s spirit, which is sinful, and not in the sense of the physical body because a thing or object cannot be considered sinful, it being without spirit and soul. Things can be used sinfully but never become sinful! Therefore, the proper interpretation here for “flesh” is in reference to the nature of man’s spirit and not the body of man’s spirit. ‘Sarx’; Strong’s definition IV: “the flesh, denotes mere human nature, the earthly nature of man apart from divine influence, and therefore prone to sin and opposed to God.”

 

[netchaplain]

When Scripture writes that "God saw that it was good" it designs the intention that He foreknew He would use all for good that He created, like the Tree of good and evil, Satan and man, hell and the lake of fire. He knew all would be use for the good of His plan and pleasure. It's also a common mistake in the belief that Adam and Eve did not possess the old man (sin nature) until they partook of the Tree, but this merely manifested that they did have the sin nature prior to the temptation. They expressed possesing "all that is in the world" (1Jo 2:16) in Gen 3:6 prior to partaking of the Tree: "saw that the tree was good for food" (which God said it was in 1:12 but with man it is "lust of the flesh" or great hunger for food or anything we desire in excess relating only to this life), "was pleasant to the eyes" (same thing concerning great desire for all that is appealing to see), "the pride of life" (which Gill comments that "which above all was the most engaging, and was the most prevailing motive to influence her to eat of it, an eager desire of more wisdom and knowledge; though there was nothing she could see in the tree, and the fruit of it, which promised this; only she perceived in her mind, by the discourse she had with the serpent, and by what he had told her, and she believed, that this would be the consequence of eating this fruit, which was very desirable, and she concluded within herself that so it would be."

A human consists of a spirit, body, soul and nature. The only "likeness" that was of Christ's incarnation or humanity was His body and its "infirmities" which He endured from it. His spirit being has always existed, but His body, like ours was incarnated; and His soul and nature could ever only be Divine. Concerning that Christ "was in all points tempted like as we are" (Heb 4:15), I like how Gill's comment addresses this in Heb 2:18:

"For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted",.... "By Satan, at his entrance on his public ministry, and a little before his death; which was done, not by stirring up sin in him, for he had none, nor by putting any into him, which could not be done, nor could Satan get any advantage over him; he solicited him one thing and another, but in vain; though these temptations were very troublesome, and disagreeable, and abhorrent to the pure and holy nature of Christ, and so must be reckoned among his sufferings, or things by which he suffered: and as afflictions are sometimes called temptations, in this sense also Christ suffered, being tempted, with outward poverty and meanness, with slight and neglect from his own relations, and with a general contempt and reproach among men: he was often tempted by the Jews with ensnaring questions; he was deserted by his followers, by his own disciples, yea, by his God and Father; all which were great trials to him, and must be accounted as sufferings: and he also endured great pains of body, and anguish of mind, and at last death itself."

"A body hast Thou prepared Me," so that God could "condemn sin in the flesh (sin in the nature, i.e. not the body which has no sin within itself); for He did not desire "burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin" (Heb 10:6).