THE PERFECT SURETY

Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible….

MATTHEW 17:5 NKJV

While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!”

MARK 9:7

And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!”

LUKE 9:35

And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son.  Hear Him!"

Impeccable – Not liable to sin; not subject to sin; exempt from sinning.  No mere man is impeccable.  American Dictionary, Noah Webster, 1828

No Christian would ever be guilty of saying Jesus sinned.  But it is confessed by many that He could have sinned and that no temptation is real unless there is the possibility of falling to the tempter.

This makes any thought of Jesus and sin to center on the ability or non-ability to sin.  The ability of Jesus to sin would have to reside in His human nature.  It is unthinkable that God can sin.

There are three guarantees of Scripture that sin was an impossibility for Jesus.

1.   Luke 1:35  And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.  It is critical that the designation of Jesus as “that Holy thing”, be noted and understood.  Holiness is by design in Scripture separation from sin.  And when used describing God or in this instance the Son of God can mean nothing less than the absolute perfection that is God’s.  To say Jesus, the God-man, could have sinned is to say that this statement does not apply to Him as man.  This failure of perception is neither acceptable nor necessary.
2. John 14:30  I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.  Hebrews 7:26  For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens;

1.       John 14:30 “For there is Him no cause of death”.  John Calvin.  This statement of Jesus is to assure of two cardinal truths, a)  There was in Christ, nothing that defiled, he, Satan had found he could not tempt Him.  Christ claims for Himself.  “Not liable to sin”.  He was in every sense “separate from sinners”.

2.      Col. 2:9  For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;

The fullness of the Godhead is a fullness filled up by it—is that Godhead in all its native attributes and prerogatives.  And it is the whole fullness—not one cycle of Divine perfections—a single cluster of Divine properties—not a partial possession of isolated glories—nor a handful of meted and fractional resources, but the entire assemblage of all in existence and character that constitutes the divinity.  What He is, and as He is, in being, mode, and manifestation, dwells in Christ.  The John Eadie Greek Text Commentaries, Colossians page 137.   The Apostle informs the readers that all the life of Christ, with its purpose and activities is never separate from his deity.  Whatever is thought to be of His humanity must be understood in the light of fullness of the Godhead.  The radical implication of any possibility of Jesus of moral lapse is a possibility that God is also of this same nature.

3. Hebrews 1:12 Like a cloak You will fold them up,
   And they will be changed.
   But You are the same,
   And Your years will not fail.”

13:8  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

It is evident to the candid student that the author of Hebrews is stating an unchanging character to Christ as the basis of faith and a resolution to fear.  The natural application is that all that Christ has ever done for His people is a guarantee of His continuing the same promised Savior to those who believe.

But this can only be true if He is unchangeable.  If it is true that He was subject to temptation in a real sense when He was on earth, then He is still the same person.  What is the result of this?

We must constantly fear that He will change toward us or sin and fall from His position of mediator as Adam fell and sunk his posterity in misery.  But being immutable in regards to sin we need not fear this from Jesus.

Hebrews 9:14  how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?