1For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. 2For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, 3if indeed being clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened, not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit.
6Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; 7for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him. 10For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
11Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are revealed to God, and I hope that we are revealed also in your consciences. 12For we are not commending ourselves to you again, but speak as giving you occasion of boasting on our behalf, that you may have something to answer those who boast in appearance and not in heart. 13For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. Or if we are of sober mind, it is for you. 14For the love of Christ compels us; because we judge thus: that one died for all, therefore all died. 15He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.
16Therefore we know no one according to the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no more. 17Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. 18But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation.
20We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21For him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus Christ was fully God and fully human and these facts raise the question of the potential for sin in the life of Jesus. Since Jesus was fully human, does that mean there was a sinful nature? The issue of the possibility of Jesus Christ yielding to temptation and sinning deals with the theological terms peccability and impeccability and come from the Latin word peccare, “to sin.” If one holds to the peccability of Jesus, then their position is that Christ could sin, but didn’t do so. If one argues for impeccability then the position is that Christ could not sin. The discussion is one regarding the phrases “able not to sin” and “not able to sin.”
In accordance with the teaching of Scripture, both views acknowledge that Christ’s temptations were real (Heb 4:15), Christ experienced struggle (Matt 26:36-46), and Christ did not sin (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 7:26; James 5:6; 1 Pet 2:22, 3:18; 1 John 3:5). Those who argue that Christ could sin contend that it is a logical deduction that if and since Christ was tempted, He could have sinned. To say that He could not sin is to say the temptations were not real and that ultimately He cannot truly sympathize with humanity. They also contend that if the possibility of sinning did not exist then Jesus did not have freedom of the will.
In response, the fact that Jesus could be and was tempted does not mean that He was susceptible to sin. By analogy, we note that just because an army can be attacked, that does not mean that the army can be conquered. Because of Christ’s unique nature (without a sinful nature), that which applies to us (temptation and susceptibility) does not necessarily apply to Christ. Christ can understand and sympathize with human suffering and temptation because although His temptations were not always exactly parallel to those that we experience, His human nature was tried. The temptations of Christ were in every way like ours except that they did not originate in Himself; He was tempted from without, not from within. Jesus Christ manifested His free will by not sinning. Although tempted like us, Jesus never sinned. Because Jesus uniquely had two natures, fully divine and fully human, those natures existed and functioned simultaneously. Had his human nature existed independently then theoretically Jesus could have sinned. However, it did not exist as such. Both the human and divine natures existed fully in Jesus from the moment of conception. Had Jesus sinned, the act would have involved both natures and Jesus would then not have been truly God. Our conclusion must be therefore that it was not possible for Jesus to sin. The temptations of Jesus were real because He did not give in to them. We must always remember that when thinking about issues such as these we are dealing with Jesus as fully God and fully human—something that never has been and never will be true of anyone else. It is also something that we are unable to fully comprehend. We must affirm the teachings of Scripture and do so knowing that our understanding of them is true but incomplete.