The Sinless Nature of Jesus

Good Morning,

I hope that you are doing well on this Tuesday morning.  Today is definitely a great day to be alive and I hope that you feel the same way too!  I would like to talk to you about the sinful nature of man and the affects of it on Jesus.  I hope that I do not bore you by all the detail and you will keep reading through the "thickness" as sometimes studying the bible can seem to be over our heads.

I arrived at this study this morning by spending a little time in Chapter 12 of the Book of Leviticus, where it talks about the purification process of a woman after childbirth.  If you have a look at this chapter, you will find something very interesting.  After the birth of a boy or a girl, a woman was considered ceremonially unclean for 7-14 days (7 for a boy, 14, for a girl).  "On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised." (Lev. 12:3).  After the birth of a son and after his circumcision, the woman had to wait 33 days to be purified from her bleeding.  If it was the birth of a daughter, then she had to wait 14 days as she was considered unclean.  After the waiting period she had to wait 66 days before she could be purified from her bleeding.  A woman was purified by offering a sin offering and a burnt offering.  (If you recall, we did a study on the different offerings once before.  Have a look at the Sin Offering and Burnt Offering for more details).  The sin and burnt offerings were done for atonement (or the making of amends for a wrongdoing).

It is because of the original fall of man, that every baby born is born in sin.  "As wonderful as a new baby is, God wanted it to be remembered that with every birth another sinner was brought into the world, and the woman was here symbolically responsible for bringing a new sinner into the world" ¹.  Now, you may be wondering just as I did, why the big difference in waiting times for a son versus a daughter?  "The longer period of ceremonial uncleanness for the birth of a daughter should not be understood as a penalty. Instead, it is linked to the idea stated in the previous verses - that the time of impurity is for the symbolic responsibility of bringing other sinners into the world. When giving birth to a female, a mother brings a sinner into the world who will bring still other sinners into the world" ¹.  Given what you now know, how would you apply these same laws to Jesus?

For that answer, let's look at Luke 2:21-22.  There it says,

"²¹On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.  ²²When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord"^[a]), ²⁴and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: 'a pair of doves or two young pigeons.'" 

Just as the law stated in Leviticus 12, Mary and Joseph had Jesus circumcised on the eighth day and Mary followed the time for the purification process.  After that, they offered a sacrifice for Mary's atonement.  How is it that every person is born into sin and Jesus is not?  We know that Jesus is both God and man.  We know that God has a sinless nature.  We know that God cannot sin.  Pretty much this is an open and shut case and I could leave the thoughts right there, however, I wish to add a little more meat to the bone here.   In an article by Matt Slick, he says the following:

"Some Bible commentators, with whom I agree, hold the position that the sin nature is passed down through the father.  Support for this position is found in the fact that sin entered the world through Adam, not Eve.  Remember, Eve was the one who sinned first.  However, sin did not enter the world through her.  It entered through Adam. Rom. 5:12 says, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." The concept behind this is called Federal Headship.  This means that a person (a father) represents his descendants...Since Jesus had not a literal, biological father, the sin nature was not passed down to Him.  However, since He had a human mother, he was fully human but without original sin." ²

No sense, in reinventing the wheel.  I could not have said it any better than that.  I hope you caught the reasoning for Jesus not being born into sin.  It is because of sin being passed down through the father instead of the mother and if God is the Father, then Jesus had no sin - only a mother who was still considered unclean due to the blood involved in the birth.

We ended up arriving at the same conclusion that Jesus is sinless, but I wanted to understand the reason a little further.  I hope this has helped you and I pray that you have a great day. 

Be blessed gang!


¹ David Guzik.  "Leviticus 12 - Cleansing After Childbirth".   Enduring World Media.  2004.
² Matt Slick:  "Why wasn't Jesus born with original sin?".  Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry.

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Regards,
Ant  oine E. Hall

Blog:	http://toinebo.blogspot.com
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"It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect." - 2 Samuel 22:33