The Absolute Sinlessness of Christ
Canon Liddon. John 8:38-47 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and you do that which you have seen with your father.… 1. It has been inferred from the context that "sin" here means intellectual rather than moral failure. But the word means the latter throughout the New Testament; and our Lord is arguing from the absence of moral evil in Him generally to the absence of a specific form of that evil — viz., falsehood. As they cannot detect the one they must not credit Him with the other. 2. It has been also thought that He only challenges the detective power of the Jews. But the challenge would hardly have been made unless the Speaker had been conscious of something more than guiltlessness of public acts which might be pointed out as in some measure sinful. Sin is not merely a series of acts which may be measured and dated; it is a particular condition of the will and its presence is perceptible where there is no act of transgression. Our Lord then claims to be sinless in a very different sense from that in which a man might defy an opponent to convict him in a court of law. 3. But is sinlessness possible? It has been affirmed that experience says no, as does Scripture also. But this is not at variance with the existence of an exception to the rule. And man's capacity for moral improvement leads up to the idea of one who has reached the summit. That God should have given man this capacity points to a purpose in the Divine mind of which we should expect some typical realization. Now — I. ALL THAT WE KNOW ABOUT OUR LORD GOES TO SHOW THAT HE WAS SINLESS. The impression that He was so was produced most strongly on those who were brought into closest contact with Him. 1. After the miraculous draught of fishes St. Peter exclaims, "Depart from me, for I am" — not a weak and failing, but — "a sinful man." It is not Christ's power over nature but His sanctity that awes the apostle. Again, after the denial, a look from Jesus sufficed to produce the keenest anguish. Had St. Peter been able to trace one sinful trait, he might have felt in the tragedy the presence of something like retributive justice. It was his conviction of Christ's absolute purity which filled him with remorse. 2. This impression is observable in the worldly and time-serving Pilate, in the restless anxiety of his wife, in the declaration of the centurion, and above all in the remorse of Judas, who would gladly have found in his three years' intimacy something that could justify the betrayal. 3. In the hatred of the Sanhedrists the purity of Christ's character is not less discernible. It is the high prerogative of goodness and truth that they cannot be approached in a spirit of neutrality. They must repel where they do not attract. The Pharisees would have treated an opposing teacher in whom there was any moral flaw with contemptuous indifference. The sinless Jesus excited their implacable hostility. 4. This sinlessness is dwelt upon by the apostles as an important feature of their message. St. Peter's earliest sermons are full of it. The climax of Stephen's indictment was that they had murdered the Just One, the very title that Ananias proclaimed to the blinded Saul. In his epistles St. Paul is careful to say that God sent His Son in the "likeness" of sinful flesh. St. Peter dwells on our Lord's sinlessness as bearing on His example and atoning death. In St. John Christ's sinlessness is connected with His intercession (1 John 2:1); with His regenerating power (1 John 2:29); with the real moral force of His example (1 John 3:7). Especially is this sanctity connected in the Epistle to the Hebrews with His priestly office. Although tempted as we are it was without sin. Holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. II. THIS SINLESSNESS HAS BEEN SUPPOSED TO BE COMPROMISED. 1. By the condition of the development of His life as man. (1) He learned obedience by the things that He suffered, and consequently it has been argued must have progressed from moral deficiency to moral sufficiency. But it does not follow that such a growth involved sin as its starting point. A progress from a less to a more expanded degree of perfection is not to be confounded with a progress from sin to holiness. (2) A more formidable difficulty, it is urged, is presented by the temptation. A bona fide temptation, it is contended, implies at least a minimum of sympathy with evil which is incompatible with perfect sinlessness. Either, therefore, Jesus was not really tempted, in which case He fails as an example; or the reality of His temptation is fatal to His literal sinfulness. But the apostles say, "He was tempted in all points without sin." What is temptation? An influence by which a man may receive a momentum in the direction of evil. This influence may be an evil inclination within, or a motive presented from without. The former was impossible in the case of Christ; but the motive from without could only have become real temptation by making a place for itself in the mind. How could that be while leaving sinlessness intact? The answer is that an impression on thought or sense is possible short of the point at which it produces a distinct determination of the will towards evil, and it is only when this point is reached that sinlessness is compromised. So long as the will is not an accomplice the impressions of the tempter do not touch the moral being, and it is perfectly clear in both temptations that our Lord's will throughout maintained a steady attitude of resistance. 2. By particular acts, such as — (1) His cursing the barren fig tree. But that our Lord betrayed irritation is disposed of by prophetic character of the act — the tree being a symbol of the fruitless Jewish people. (2) His expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the temple was not the effect of sudden personal passion, but strictly in the prophetical and theocratic spirit. (3) His driving the devils into the swine was an interference with the rights of property only on the denial that Jesus is God's plenipotentiary, and of His right to subordinate material to moral interests. (4) His relation to Judas, it is said, shows a want of moral penetration to say nothing of superhuman knowledge; or if not, why was He chosen? The answer is that Christ was acting as God acts in providence, not only permitting it but overruling it for final good. 3. By His denial, "Why callest thou Me good," etc. But this was merely a rejection of an offhand, unmeaning compliment. God alone is good: but the Divinity of Jesus is a truth too high for mastery by one whose eyes have not been turned away from beholding vanity. But Christ again and again places Himself in the position of this "good God," and claims man's love and obedience as such. This claim, indeed, would be unjustifiable unless well grounded. But the ground of it is His proved sinlessness, and words and works such as we should expect a superhuman sinless one to speak and do. III. THE SINLESS CHRIST SATISFIES DEEP WANTS IN THE HUMAN SOUL. 1. The want of an ideal. No man can attempt a sculpture, a painting, without an ideal; and an ideal is no whit more necessary in art than in conduct. If men have not worthy ideals, they will have unworthy ones. Each nation has its ideals, each family, profession, school of thought, and how powerfully these energetic phantoms of the past can control the present is obvious to all. There is no truer test of a man's character than the ideals which excite his genuine enthusiasm. And Christendom has its ideals, But all these, great as they are, fall short in some particular. There is One, only One, beyond them all who does not fail. They, standing beneath His throne, say, "Be ye followers of us as we are of Christ"; He, above them all, asks each generation of His worshippers and His critics, "Which of you convinceth Me of sin?" 2. The want of a Redeemer. He offers Himself as such, but the offer presupposes His sinlessness. Let us conceive that one sin could be charged upon Him; and what becomes of the atoning character of His death? How is it conceivable that being consciously guilty, He should have willed to die for a guilty world? He offered Himself without spot to God — the crowning act of a life which throughout had been sacrificial; but had He been conscious of inward stain, how could He have dared to offer Himself to free a world from sin? But His absolute sinlessness makes it certain that He died as He lived, for others. 3. As our ideal and Redeemer, Christ is the heart and focus of Christendom. (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. WEB: I say the things which I have seen with my Father; and you also do the things which you have seen with your father."