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| 'Original Sin' in Jesus Christ |
but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."
Hebrews 4:15.
An old heresy in Christianity teaches that Jesus was born without 'original sin'. It teaches that His virgin birth prevented His inheritance of Adam's 'sin', and this misrepresentation eventually came to teach that even His mother Mary was born without 'sin' so as to be able to provide Him with a body that did not carry Adam's 'sin', so He did not feel temptation as we do.
effect of this misrepresentation/deception is that it blinds us to Christ's real identification with us in order to be our real Substitute before God in both His Atonement and in His continuing Advocacy for us before the Throne on High. It is therefore important to reacquaint ourselves with the corrective teaching of God's Word.
The first error that needs correction is the character or nature of 'original sin'. The Bible indicates that this is the natural state of all Creation as a consequence of Humanity's failure in Adam, and teaches clearly that Jesus became part of this inadequacy during His life on earth.
"...in the days of His flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and having been heard for His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been made perfect, He became unto all them that obey Him the author of eternal salvation; named of God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek." (Hebrews 5:7-10) |
"For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." (Romans 8:20-22). |
Note below: the human feelings of despair in the words of the Messiah/Christ, prophesied to us by Isaiah in 49:4-7, indicating His human/inadequate psychological state during His time as God's 'Suffering Servant': |
| "But I said, 'I have labored in vain; I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely My right is with the LORD, and My recompense with My God'." |
| (Isa.49:4 ESV). |
natural despair which the Christ experienced in His real humanity, and through which He triumphed, makes that which was accomplished in Him awesome beyond description!
As a human being, Jesus learned His obedience to God. It did not come instinctually. For this reason it had merit as righteousness. It was neither inherited nor automatic, which deserves no reward as it is not personally achieved.
His obedience to God required His choice in contradiction of His natural human instinct toward selfishness – that instinct which had started out in Adam as a survival instinct and which had become twisted by the fall, so that in human nature it always presses for its own sense of well-being – or self gratification.
Unfortunately, the mythical Jesus presented in church tradition is not fully human, so that even His mother is somehow free from original sin in her own flesh so that she provides a body for the Christ that is free from the weaknesses of the Adamic character in which we all share.
"...in the days of his flesh, ...named of God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek."
The phrase – 'the order of Melchizedek', simply
means (in contrast to the inherited Jewish priesthood of Aaron) an earned priesthood. Christ's priesthood is by a divine recognition which He personally merited, as the priesthood of ancient king Melchizedek was recognized by Abraham. It was specifically because of the character of Christ's human life ('in the days of his flesh') that He deserved to be recognized by God as representative priest before
the Most High. (See also 'For Melchizedek's
Sake').
Neither holiness nor ungodliness can be inherited.
Moral character requires responsibility – the ability to respond, to choose!
may inherit predispositions toward actions and attitudes in the instincts of our flesh, but these are always without moral character (without guilt or merit), until we are able to choose to correct them (consciously or not) or otherwise. Hence, hostilities between animals, and all the attributes of selfishness that we may observe in our pets, has no moral character whatsoever. (Puppies do not need baptism). Even a human court of law recognizes this principle of accountability.
The Apostle Paul wrote of his childhood experience in growing up (in contrast to that of the child Jesus) to an age of accountability, as being –
"I was alive apart from the law [Ten Commandments] once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died;
and the commandment, which was unto life ['Thou shalt not covet', v.7], this I found to be unto death:
for sin, finding occasion, through the commandment beguiled me, and through it slew me."
and the commandment, which was unto life ['Thou shalt not covet', v.7], this I found to be unto death:
for sin, finding occasion, through the commandment beguiled me, and through it slew me."
What 'sin' was it then that abused the holy command – 'thou shalt not covet'?
It was what is often called 'original sin'; that fallen human nature, which we all share through our great ancestor Adam: this self-preservation instinct in all creation which by his disobedience became dominant in all his descendants – including even Jesus according to the flesh. This Jesus overcame from the first waking moment of His mind.
From the Spirit of God (by Whom His human flesh was conceived in Mary), His awakening mind pleased
Him from whom He had come even though He did not knows this then. The Bible helps us to understand how. Christ's complete submission to the Spirit of God is beautifully expressed by Isaiah's prophecy of His coming –
"He will come like a rushing stream, which the Wind (Ruach/Spirit) of the Lord drives."
Jesus did not come from God with self-sufficiency. In humility, He came as-dependant-as-we-are, yet He did not sin, for He chose the way of the Lord from the first waking thought of His child mind.
Jesus deserves special honour because He earned it!
Having come in our place, by His obedience He therefore qualified to represent us before God. Then, and only then, as our sinless representative, He accepted the full sin of this world which to His horror filled Gethsemane's 'cup' of death.
Until, on the cross, He drank that 'cup', taking our blame before the Most High and was cut off from His Father. He suffering the infinite spiritual rejection that no words can ever describe. As the Bible itself says – He became sin for us (2 Cor.5:21).
Jesus alone
is therefore our Saviour.
'sin' is no quasi-material substance added to Jesus in His atonement, as some strangely seem to teach. Nor can it later be transferred to Heaven and then to Satan for him to carry away as our scapegoat, as Seventh-day Adventism's prophetess taught. Sin is any condition of conflict with the moral character and mind of the Most High.
More, it is anything less than the perfection of God's original design for us!
expressed nothing less than His indescribable experience of the immeasurable trauma of complete immersion into our just condemnation by God.
this, the knowledge of its purpose in divine love toward us was taken from His mind, so that there was no comfort or strengthening from God of any kind. Not even a residue of His life-long relationship to the Father. Nothing!
that is not all! He did this so that –
'ημεις γενωμεθα γινωμεθα δικαιοσυνη θεου εν αυτω' – 2 Corinthians 5:21 – 'hemeis genometha dikaiosune Theou en auto'
"...we might become the righteousness-of-God in Him." |
