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Could Jesus Sin?

A survey of the peccability and impeccability debate and an argument that Christ could not have sinned.

13 min readEnglishPT

Abstract

The question in the title of this paper, “Could Jesus Sin?”, has been a matter of debate for theologians throughout church history. While most agree that Jesus did not sin, the question of whether Jesus could have sinned is a point of contention, even among the most orthodox scholars. This debate, often referred to as the peccability or impeccability of Christ, is the focus of this paper. It reviews the most common views on this question and provides the author’s position. The author’s stance that Jesus could not have sinned because of his hypostatic union, peccability is not innate to human nature, and temptation does not imply the ability to sin, carries significant weight in this discussion.

The question of whether Jesus could sin might sound like a heretical question. According to the Scriptures, Jesus clearly did not sin; why would someone even ask or seek an answer to such a question? It is important to understand that the debate around the peccability or impeccability of Christ, on its own, is not directly related to the sinlessness of Christ. To affirm that the incarnate Jesus could sin is not the same as affirming that he sinned. The position known as peccability (potuit non peccare) asserts that Jesus, in his incarnation, was able not to sin; in other words, He could have sinned but chose not to. Impeccability (non potuit pecare) states that He was not able to sin or incapable of sinning. Therefore, dealing with “Could Jesus Sin?” is valid but difficult.

The difficulty of this question relies on the fact that the New Testament authors do not directly address this question. According to Michael Canham, when Scripture does not clearly address an issue, we should ask ourselves what “hermeneutical and theological issues come to bear in one’s decision on that issue.”1 That is an essential consideration, given that one’s decision might not consider everything. For instance, those who support impeccability could be over-focusing on the Divine nature, and those who support peccability might be diminishing Jesus’ Divine nature. The best approach on this topic properly accounts for all relevant hermeneutical and theological issues that pertain to the Person of Christ.

This paper does not cover a defense of Jesus’ sinlessness. This essay takes the sinlessness of Christ as a fundamental truth about the Person of Christ, which is widely affirmed in the Bible by different NT writers.2 Anyone who tries to use this debate to render a position that states that Jesus is not God or that He sinned is heretical and condemned by the present author. The focus of this work is limited mainly to the different positions held under Orthodox Christology.

A quick survey of the debate

The position that Jesus could have sinned (peccability or potuit non peccare) is the preferred view of Charles Hodge, which states that the sinlessness of Jesus “does not amount to absolute impeccability” and that “temptation implies the possibility of sin.”3 For Hodge, if Jesus could not sin, his temptations would be meaningless, and He would not be able to sympathize with the people He was saving. This rationale is primarily based on Hebrews 4:15: “[…] one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”4 If Jesus was tempted as we are, he must have had the possibility of sinning, just like we do.

Millard Erickson also favors peccability. He distinguishes the “epistemic possibility of sin and the logical or metaphysical possibility.”5 In doing so, Erickson argues that “it was really possible for Jesus to decide to sin, but the divine nature precluded his actually doing so.”6 He said the temptation was genuine “as long as his divine nature did not preclude his thinking that he could sin.”7 In other words, Jesus’ temptation was real because Jesus did not know he could not have sinned; therefore, from Jesus’ point of view, He chose not to sin by resisting temptation. In developing his argument, Erickson also reasoned about the possibility of something occurring and the likelihood that it could happen, so he states that Jesus could have sinned under certain conditions. Still, it was inevitable that those conditions would never all be fulfilled.

Holding a far more extreme position, Irving defended that Jesus could have sinned, taking a fallen human nature in his incarnation.8 This position cost his ministry as he was dismissed from his church because of his teaching about the person of Christ.9 James Martineau emphasizes Jesus’s human nature by asserting, “If Jesus was human in all respects, as we assert, He must have been capable of moral failure; the temptations that assailed Him were genuine, and their reality implies the possibility of sin.”10 Herman Menken prefers to focus on Jesus genuine temptations to assert the possibility of sinning: “The real temptation of Jesus shows that He stood in a human condition where the possibility of sinning was present; thus, we cannot claim His sinlessness was guaranteed by His divine nature alone.”11 Hermann Holten has a similar view.12 Paul Pfleiderer appeals to the theory that if Jesus could not sin, his life and struggles would lack real significance.13

The impeccability of Christ (non potuit pecare) is the view most orthodox scholars and theologians hold. Those who hold to this view usually point out that if Christ could have sinned, God could also.14 Bavinck suggests that the divine nature holds Christ impeccable, and his human nature makes him open to temptation.15 Willian G. T Sheed explains the impeccability of Christ by affirming that the divine will is superior to his human will, so even if human nature was open to temptation, the theanthropic person could not sin, i.e., Christ could not yield to any temptations because his divine will would not allow him to sin.16 Gerald O’Collins proposes that “Jesus could be truly tempted and tested, provided that he did not know he could not sin.”17 For Jonathan Edwards, Jesus couldn’t sin as “his holy behavior was necessary” and “it was impossible that the Messiah should fail in persevering in integrity and holiness, as the first Adam did.”18

Bruce Ware has an alternative proposal that Jesus was genuinely impeccable because, in his incarnation, he was joined “with the immutable and eternally holy second person of the Trinity.” He resisted temptation not by his divine nature but through the resources given to him as a human, i.e., he could not Sin because he was God, and he did not sin because the Holy Spirit empowered him.19

Michael Canham summarizes the debate well by pointing out the three main arguments of each position.20 A simplified version of the arguments summarized by Canham on the peccability view is listed below:

  1. The full humanity of Christ: If Jesus was fully human, he must have had the ability to sin.
  2. The temptability of Christ: The ability to be tempted implies in the potential or the ability to sin.
  3. The free will of Christ: As Adam, Christ had a free will, which implies peccability.

The main arguments for the impeccability view, according to Canham, are the following:

  1. The Deity of Christ: Christ is God, and his personality resides in his deity.
  2. The Decrees of God: Since God had already ordered that Jesus could not sin, nothing he could have done would have changed that.
  3. The Divine Attributes of Christ: If Jesus could have sinned while on earth, he could have sinned now, given that he is immutable.

Upon reviewing the debate, Canham prefers a middle ground. He believes that the best answer to the question is that “Christ in His incarnation was both peccable and impeccable, but in His kenosis, His peccability limited his impeccability.”21 He argues that Christ’s kenosis allowed him to be both peccable and impeccable and that this is an antinomy, i.e., only an apparent contradiction that humans cannot fully grasp.

An answer to the question

In this section, an answer to the question is proposed. In summary, the author’s response to such a question is based on three concepts: (1) the hypostatic union of Christ, (2) the fact that the ability to sin is not innate to human nature, and (3) temptation does not imply peccability.

Donald Mcleod defines the term “hypostatic union” as follows:

The term ‘hypostatic union’ encapsulates three truths: that Christ is one person; that the union between his two natures arises from the fact that they both belong to one and the same person; and that this one person, the son of God, is the Agent behind all of the Lord’s actions, the Speaker of all his utterances and the Subject of all his experiences.22

As such, one cannot separately reason about Jesus’ human or divine nature in the debate of peccability vs impeccability.23 We should not ask, “Which nature did this?”. Whenever we refer to Jesus Christ, we must understand that he is the son of God. Jesus Christ would not be Jesus Christ, the incarnate son of God, without his human nature. Likewise, he would not be Jesus Christ, the son of God, without his divine nature. Whenever one of Jesus’ natures is over-emphasized, there’s a high risk of yielding an unbiblical argument. Therefore, the question of whether Jesus could have sinned must be responded to considering Christ’s hypostatic union, and in light of that, the answer is clearly no: Jesus could not have sinned. This is a position supported by Macleod.24

A second argument favoring impeccability is that the ability to sin is not innate to human nature. Adam was created without sin but could sin (preffalen humanity). However, it’s hard to build a biblical argument to say that Jesus’ human nature was precisely the same as Adam’s or, even worse, that his human nature was a fallen one like Irving did. Shedd argues that Christ “while having a peccable human nature in his constitution, was an impeccable Person.”25 While holding to an impeccable view, Shedd assumed that the human nature that Christ took was the same as Adam. That does not seem to be how the NT writers present Christ through the several parallels between Adam and Christ. Christ is referred to as “the last Adam.” 1 Cor 15:22 says, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” It does not seem that Adam’s human nature was up to the same standards as Christ. Even though Canham holds a mixed position, he correctly pointed out that “Christ is the one in whom the ideal man is realized.”26

The ideal man is not realized in someone who possesses a peccable human nature. The perfect man will only fully be realized in glorified human bodies (1 Cor 15:35-46). Just like Christ, we will have a body that is incapable of sinning in the future. Erickson supports the idea that “our humanity is not a standard by which we measure His.”27

The final argument is that Jesus Christ’s temptation does not imply he could have sinned. According to Macleod, “He was not tempted by anything within himself.”28 Jesus had no predisposition to sin, yet he was tempted and, to some extent, like us. But it is not a mark of fallenness to feel hunger, fear, and pain, which are things through which Jesus was tempted. In that sense, Christ was tempted as we are, but unlike us, he could not have been tempted by his desire (James 1:13-14). Additionally, due to Christ’s kenosis (Philippians 2:6-7), Christ was unlikely to know he could not sin. Therefore, while it was inevitable that the temptation would not conquer Christ, Jesus was not always aware of that.

Footnotes

  1. Canham, Michael McGhee. “POTUIT NON PECCARE OR NON POTUIT PECCARE: EVANGELICALS, HERMENEUTICS, AND THE IMPECCABILITY DEBATE.” TMSJ 11:1 (Spring 2000), 93–114. ↩

  2. Some Bible references clearly state Jesus’ sinlessness: John 7:18, 8:29, Luke 1:35, 4:34, and Matt 27:19. ↩

  3. Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology Vol. II. Grand Rapids, Michigan 49516: WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING CO., 1940, 456. ↩

  4. Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible references are to the English Standard Version (ESV). ↩

  5. Erickson, Millard. The Word Became Flesh: A Contemporary Incarnational Christology. 1st ed. Grand Rapids, Michigan 49516: Baker Book House, 1991, 562. ↩

  6. Ibid. ↩

  7. Ibid. ↩

  8. Irving, Eduard. The Doctrine of the Incarnation Opened: An Abridgement with Introduction and Response. Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 2023. ↩

  9. Irving, however, never affirmed that Jesus was sinful. For Irving, Jesus’ taking up of a fallen human nature was the method he used to bring salvation. ↩

  10. Martineau, James. The Study of Religion: Its Sources and Contents. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1888. ↩

  11. Menken, Hermann. The Gospel of Jesus. London: James Clarke & Co., 1893. ↩

  12. Holsten, Hermann. Theological Investigations. Edited by Alfred Loisy. Translated by S. B. McCaffrey. London: Williams and Norgate, 1900. He states that “true temptation necessitates the potential to succumb.” ↩

  13. Pfleiderer, Paul. The Development of Theology in Germany since Kant. London: T. & T. Clark, 1890. ↩

  14. Bavinck, Herman, and John Bolt. Reformed Dogmatics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011, 314. ↩

  15. Ibid. ↩

  16. Shedd, Willian G.T. Dogmatic Theology. Vol. 2. New York: C. Scribner’s, 1888, 333. ↩

  17. O’Collins, Gerald. Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus. 2nd ed. Great Clarendon Street: Oxford University Press, 2009. ↩

  18. Jonathan Edwards, On the Freedom of the Will, III.II. See The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. I (1834), pp. 42f as cited in Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ, ed. Gerald Bray, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 229. ↩

  19. Ware, Bruce A. The Man Christ Jesus: Theological Reflections on the Humanity of Christ. Wheaton, IL, 52–62. ↩

  20. Canham, Michael McGhee. “POTUIT NON PECCARE OR NON POTUIT PECCARE: EVANGELICALS, HERMENEUTICS, AND THE IMPECCABILITY DEBATE,” 94–95. ↩

  21. Ibid. ↩

  22. Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ, ed. Gerald Bray, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 189. ↩

  23. Several biblical passages support this idea, with John 1:1–18 being a key passage on the subject. ↩

  24. Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ, 189–190. ↩

  25. Shedd, Willian G.T. Dogmatic Theology, 333. ↩

  26. Canham, Michael McGhee. “POTUIT NON PECCARE OR NON POTUIT PECCARE: EVANGELICALS, HERMENEUTICS, AND THE IMPECCABILITY DEBATE.” TMSJ 11:1 (Spring 2000), 109. ↩

  27. Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2013, 721. ↩

  28. Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ, 226. ↩