The following excerpt is from Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, pp. 539-540.
The final conclusion from part 3: “If we are asking if it
was actually possible for Jesus to
have sinned, it seems that we must conclude that it was not possible.”
Grudem goes on to say:
But the question remains, “How then could Jesus’ temptations
be real?” The example of the temptation to change the stones into bread is
helpful in this regard. Jesus had the ability, by virtue of His divine nature,
to perform this miracle, but if He had done it, He would no longer have been
obeying in the strength of His human nature alone, He would have failed the
test that Adam also failed, and He would not have earned our salvation for us.
Therefore, Jesus refused to rely on His divine nature to make obedience easier
for Him. In like manner, it seems appropriate to conclude that Jesus met every temptation
to sin, but by His divine power, but on the strength of His human nature alone
(though, of course, it was not “alone” because Jesus, in exercising the kind of
faith that humans should exercise, was perfectly depending on God the Father
and the Holy Spirit at every moment). The moral strength of His divine nature
was there as a sort of “backstop” that would have prevent Him from sinning in
any case (and therefore we can say that it was not possible for Him to sin),
but He did not rely on the strength of His divine nature to make it easier for
Him to face temptations, and His refusal to turn the stones into bread at the
beginning of His ministry is a clear indication of this.
Were the temptations real then? Many theologians have
pointed out that only He who successfully resists a temptation to the end most
fully feels the force of that temptation. Just as a champion weightlifter who
has successfully lifts and holds over head the heaviest weight in the contests
feels the force of it more fully than one who attempts to life it and drops it,
so any Christian who has successfully faced a temptation to the end knows that
that is far more difficult than giving in to it at once. So it was with Jesus:
every temptation He faced, He faced to the end, and triumphed over it. The
temptations were real, even though He did not give in to them. In fact, they
were most real because He did not
give in to them.
What then do we say about the fact that “God cannot be
tempted with evil” (James 1:13)? It seems that this is one of a number of
things that we must affirm to be true of Jesus’ divine nature but not of His
human nature. His divine nature could not be tempted with evil, but His human
nature could be tempted and was clearly tempted. How these two natures united
in one person in facing temptations, Scripture does not clearly explain to us.
But this distinction between what is true of one nature and what is true of
another nature is an example of a number of similar statements that Scripture
requires us to make.
See also:
"The Impeccability of Christ" by Dr. John F. Walvoord (http://bible.org/seriespage/person-and-work-christ-%E2%80%94-part-vii-impeccability-christ)
**It should be noted that this is such a difficult subject that the following Systematic Theolgies did not treat this issue of impeccability:
- Robert Reymond's Systematic Theology
- Herman Bavinck's 4 volume Reformed Dogmatics
- A.A. Hodge's Outlines of Theology
- Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology
- B.B. Warfield's The Person and Work of Christ
- Gerald Bray's God is Love
- John Frame's The Doctrine of God
- Wilhelmus a Brakel's 4 volume The Christian's Reasonable Service
- Thomas Schreiner's New Testament Theology
I found your article while searching on the doctrine of impeccability. Two corrections. Both Bavinck and Berkhof address the doctrine of impeccability and do, indeed, affirm that Christ was impeccable. Bavinck puts it this way, "Scripture, however, prompts us to recognize in Christ, not just an empirical sinlessness, but a necessary sinlessness as well. He is the Son of God, the Logos, who was in the beginning with God and himself God. He is one with the Father and always carries out his Father’s will and work. For those who confess this of Christ, the possibility of him sinning and falling is unthinkable. For that reason Christian theology maintained, against Arians, Pelagians, and nominalists such as Duns Scotus, Biel, Durandus, Molina, and others that Christ could not sin. For in that case either God himself would have to be able to sin—which is blasphemy—or the union between the divine and the human nature is considered breakable and in fact denied."
ReplyDeleteHerman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 314.
Berkhof affirms Christ's impeccability when he says, "SCRIPTURE PROOF FOR THE SINLESS HUMANITY OF CHRIST. We ascribe to Christ not only natural, but also moral, integrity or moral perfection, that is sinlessness. This means not merely that Christ could avoid sinning (potuit non peccare), and did actually avoid it, but also that it was impossible for Him to sin (non potuit peccare) because of the essential bond between the human and the divine natures. The sinlessness of Christ has been denied by Martineau, Irving, Menken, Holsten, and Pfleiderer, but the Bible clearly testifies to it in the following passages: Luke 1:35; John 8:46; 14:30; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 9:14; 1 Pet. 2:22; 1 John 3:5. While Christ was made to be sin judicially, yet ethically He was free from both hereditary depravity and actual sin. He never makes a confession of moral error; nor does He join His disciples in praying, “Forgive us our sins.” He is able to challenge His enemies to convince Him of sin. Scripture even represents Him as the one in whom the ideal man is realized, Heb. 2:8, 9; 1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:18; Phil. 3:21. Moreover, the name “Son of Man,” appropriated by Jesus, seems to intimate that He answered to the perfect ideal of humanity."
L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 318–319.