Who is Jesus? This is a question that always comes up around Christmas and Easter. So, with one of those holidays rapidly approaching us, we can expect to hear all kinds of different answers. He is a myth. He was a good man. Or, as Christians throughout history have confessed, He is God in flesh. As we have looked at the Chalcedonian Creed together over the past few weeks, we have had a chance to review a classic Christian answer to the question of who Jesus is. Jesus is fully God and fully man.
When considering what it means for Jesus to be God, the Creed affirms that Jesus is without sin. That is something that most of us would quickly agree with, but what does it actually mean? The Westminster Shorter Catechism, part of our denomination's confessional standards, says "Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God" (WSC 14). Sin is when we disobey God either in the what we do or in what we fail to do. Because God's law covers all areas of life, so does sin. It includes are thoughts, desires, and actions.
When we say that Jesus is without sin, we are making a huge claim! We are saying that He never once broke the law of God. Jesus did everything He was supposed to do and He did it perfectly. We cannot say this about anyone else. Paul wrote in Romans 3:23 that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Not a single one of us can claim to be without sin because we have all broken God's commands in thought, word, and deed. But Jesus, being fully God, lived a perfectly sinless life. This is something only God could do and He did it for us.
This is good news and, in Romans 5:19, Paul tells us why: "For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous." The first man is Adam, who disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden and results were catastrophic. This was the first sin. Now, in Adam, we all die. But the story does not end there. Paul tells us there was another man who was obedient and, in Him, we will be made righteous. That man is Jesus. Because Jesus lived, died, and rose again in sinless obedience He is able to make us righteous. He is able to make us live and He gives us this new life by faith. If Jesus sinned, even just once, then all of us are still dead in our sin. But He did not. Praise God!
As we think about what we are thankful for this season, let us be thankful for the sinless life of Jesus. If your faith is in Jesus Christ, God does not count your sins against you. Quite the opposite. He counts Jesus' sinless life in your favor. We can give thanks for no greater gift than that.
In Him,
Tom