By Martin Carey
When Jesus entered our world as a human baby, He needed all the things that other babies need from His mother. Though He was the eternal Logos, the Word made flesh, He was also fully human. As our Savior, He had to be like us in every way, and that fact raises an important question. What kind of human nature did He have—was He naturally sinless, or did He have sinful tendencies? Did His righteous nature also contain any kind of desire, propensity, inclination, or predisposition, towards sin?
We know that Jesus never sinned; the Bible is clear on that point. We also know that Jesus came into this world fully man while remaining fully God (Jn. 1:1-14). He had to be made like us to be our high priest in the heavens, as one who can sympathize with our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15). Did His similarity to us include a fallen nature, those universal tendencies and desires to sin that we inherited from Adam? Let’s look closer at some familiar texts and see what we find.
“For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh…” (Rom. 8:3).
In Romans 8 Paul provides a dramatic summary to his great gospel argument. All mankind is under God’s wrath because they do not love Him or worship Him. This condition is the original sin of Adam, not acknowledging God’s care or giving Him thanks. But now through Christ’s atonement for sin, God justifies all those who believe in Christ. Not only that; believers have the blessings of full acquittal and acceptance beginning right now.
The new life in the Spirit brings freedom from the “law of sin and death,” our bondage of sin. Paul also calls that law “the flesh,” that part of us that resents and resists God’s rule and righteousness. If we live according to the flesh, we will die (vs.13). If we are in Christ, we are ruled by a new law, the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” The Spirit is the presence of Christ in our Christian life who keeps our faith grounded in what He has done for us.
What did Christ do? He came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” as an offering for sin, our substitute and representative, and condemned sin. The law couldn’t do any of that for us. The law cannot even “condemn sin,” as it states earlier in the verse. The law is weak; it can criticize sin and arouse guilt, but it can’t do anything about it. Sin requires God’s full condemnation as in His wrath He acts as judge, jury, and executioner, just as He did against the body and soul of Jesus. When Christ became sin for us, God brought full condemnation against Christ the sin-bearer.
Now, what does Paul mean by “the likeness of sinful flesh?” Does he mean that the Son of God had sinful tendencies and desires, just as we do? Many have argued that is what it means—that it was necessary for Jesus to share our fallen human nature to be our perfect example. If Jesus had a sinless human nature, without our sinful tendencies and desires, then He had an unfair advantage over us in overcoming sin. We could never equal His sinless life, and He could not be our example for overcoming sin. Because His sinful tendencies and desires did not lead Him to commit sinful thoughts or deeds, they argue, He remained sinless.
The belief in Jesus’ sinful human nature has an ancient pedigree going back to the early church fathers. Regarding Jesus’ human nature, fourth century Archbishop Gregory of Nazianzus said, “That which is unassumed is unhealed” (Luke Stamps, You Asked: Did Jesus Assume a Fallen Human Nature? https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/you-asked-did-jesus-assume-a-fallen-human-nature/). He meant that any part of our humanity that Jesus did not assume into Himself could not be healed or redeemed by Him. More recently, 20th century theologians Karl Barth and TF Torrance taught this idea, along with Seventh-day Adventist theologians.
Ellen White, the founding prophet of Seventh-day Adventists, wrote statements affirming both sides of this question, and Adventist scholars still debate this question today (Denis Fortin, Ellen White on the Human Nature of Christ, https://www.andrews.edu/~fortind/EGWNatureofChrist.htm). Jesus’ having a sinful nature is important to White’s end-time theology, where a remnant of Sabbath-keepers must prove that God’s law can be kept perfectly, just like Jesus did.
If Jesus became like us in all things, just how human was He? If He was human enough to sympathize with all our weaknesses, wouldn’t that sympathy include our natural desires to sin? There are Scriptures that indicate that our Lord was very human, and that He was tempted to sin, as we are:
“Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God” (Heb. 2:17).
Scripture is clear, however, that Jesus was without sin in every way. To resolve this question we can rely the texts that directly speak to it:
“He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God ” (2 Cor, 5:21).
“For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens” (Heb. 7:26).
“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person… when had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3).
A sinful nature in the Lord Jesus is an idea that fails in several important ways.
Firstly, “Fallenness is not a part of humanity that needs to be healed. It is a condition of moral corruption and a propensity toward sin” (Luke Stamps, You Asked: Did Jesus Assume a Fallen Human Nature? https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/you-asked-did-jesus-assume-a-fallen-human-nature/). For Jesus to represent us, He needed to take on authentic human nature, not fallen human nature. Our sinful flesh is not truly human, as a part of God’s good creation.
Secondly, the very possession of a fallen human nature makes us guilty before God. Our guilt is more than just our behavior; we are guilty because of our natures, by our desires, by what we love; that is what offends God. It is what we are in our deepest selves that draws His wrath, not just what we do. We are all “by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3) (Stamps, Ibid.).
Without Christ’s blood, our corrupt natures condemn us to death before a holy God. Jesus was the spotless Lamb of God.
He told the Pharisees, “The ruler of this world is coming, and He has nothing in Me” (Jn. 14:30). There was absolutely nothing in Jesus’ nature to defile or corrupt Him. He didn’t have a secret place in His soul that Satan possessed or could use against Him. Jesus did not harbor resentment or rebellion against His Father, and there was nothing in Him that offended or clashed with His own divine nature. He was holy, innocent, and undefiled.
Jesus did suffer the effects, the weaknesses and afflictions caused by sin, for “urely He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Is. 53:4). He knew the painful experience of our “fallenness,” the crushing weight of our fall on our physical bodies and our human souls, without actually having a fallen nature. Sin was foreign to His divine nature. “He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God ” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Jesus knew no sin in His perfect human soul. He kept the law of God perfectly in all its infinite depths. The perfect transcript of God’s character is a person named Jesus.
That brings us to the first and great commandment. The Pharisees wanted to test Jesus and find fault, and they asked Him this question:
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” Matthew 22:36-38
This was a trick question. If you were asked to pick the greatest of all of the 613 commandments, without knowing the right answer, which one would you choose? How about one of the Ten Commandments, such as, “You shall have no other gods before Me”? Or maybe, “Remember the Sabbath Day…” Jesus’ answer was not a command for or against our behavior, but about what is in our hearts and minds—what we are at the deepest level. The great commandment tells us what is most important to God, and much about our human condition.
“And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment” (Matt. 22:37-38).
Jesus called the religious leaders pretenders, hypocrites, because of their heartless, false obedience:
“This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men (Matt. 15:8-9).
Jesus sought out a teachable and humble student, the Samaritan woman of Sychar, and told her the very essence of true worship:
“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth” (Jn, 4:23-24).
Loving God with our entire being, without hesitation or reservation, is more important to God than anything else about us. If you love anything else, even your own children, more than God, it is disobedience (Matt. 10:37).
“But,” you might answer, “we love God by obeying His commandments. After all, Jesus said, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ (Jn. 14:15). Isn’t keeping God’s commandments how we love Him?”
No, that is confusing love with its result. His words here tell us that the second thing, keeping commandments, is dependent on the first thing, loving Him. If we don’t love Him, we cannot obey Him in anything else—love is the first and primary obedience.
To have a pure nature is to love and desire the most pure and lovely object possible, God Himself. A corrupt nature is not naturally drawn towards God, and any desire we have for Him is compromised or tainted. The great commandment reminds us that genuine love and worship are founded upon the desires of the heart. If we go through the motions while any part of us is grudging our love, we give something less than full obedience. A man with a fallen nature, even filled with the Spirit, is simply not capable of loving God perfectly, all the time, with all his heart and mind and soul. His love will always be diminished by sin.
Jesus’ love for His Father was never diminished. He kept the great commandment perfectly, for He loved His Father fully and without reserve. “And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him” (Jn. 8:29).
As we glimpse the depth of Jesus’ holiness and goodness, we can rejoice that He is much more than just our example. He is our Savior and substitute. We may have life because Jesus stood for us in judgment and was condemned in our place.
“The chastening for our well-being [fell] upon Him, And by His scourging ” (Is. 53:5).
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I am still officially an Adventist, remaining so basically so as not to jeapordize my church retirement funds. Years ago as a young pastor – then later as an editor – I intensively studied Ellen White’s comments on the human nature of Christ. In the end, it seemed as if some of her comments supported the sinless human nature of Christ such as Adam and Eve had before the Fall – and that other comments supported a sinful nature such as Adam And Eve possessed after the Fall. I concluded that EGW had a “wax nose” that could be bent either way. This was exceptionally frustrating and disappointing. From then on, I avoided reading or discussing the issue and just held the issue in abeyance – waiting for the answer till “the other side” in the next life. That said, I much appreciate Martin’s article here. Very clear, very helpful. Thanks much!