Was Jesus sinless?

With this in mind let us draw your attention as to how the Lord is presented to us in Holy Scripture. As we study His life we find no trace of sin in Him, no failure in any of His actions, no blunder perpetrated by Him, no withdrawing or apologising for anything He said or did. Could this be said of anyone else? Could it be said of Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, John, Paul? He alone was the sinless One.

Further it had to be without spot and without blemish—no outward or inward deficiency. How true this is of our Lord, “He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). No one could accuse Him of sin in deed or word. Many a man sins in word, where he may refrain from sinful deed, many a man refrains from outward acts of sin, whose mind and thoughts, held from being translated into action, are sinful and evil. “In Him is no sin” (1 John 3:5); “Who knew no sin;” (2 Cor. 5:21), proves that our Lord was as pure inwardly as He was irreproachable outwardly. If there had been any flaw in Him outwardly or inwardly He could not have been our Saviour, nor, in the way we are considering, furnish any provision and help for His people as they travel in their wilderness journey.

He did no sin (1 Pet. 2:22), He knew no sin (2 Cor. 5:21), and sin was not in Him (1 John 3:5). He was the Lamb without spot and blemish (1 Pet. 1:18: Ex. 12 5; Lev. 1:3, 10), and His life was aptly symbolized by fine flour and the absence of leaven (Ex. 2:4, 5, 11).

Although this point will be clear to most readers, let us emphasise: in this matter there is no parallel to Christ. Out Lord was never defiled. His vow was never broken. His life was one of uninterrupted dedication to his God. We have already seen that Paul, Peter and John testified to His purity (2 Cor. 5: 21; 1 Pet. 2:22; 1 John 3:5). Our Lord could not sin. He was fully Man, but He had no fallen nature. He was ‘tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart’ (Heb. 4:5).

Christ did not commit any sinful action: “…who did no sin” (1 Peter 2:22) Christ did not know sin (“who knew no sin”, 2 Cor. 5:21), and There was no sin (i.e. no sinful nature) in Christ and therefore He could not sin (1 John 3:5.9).

With delight we follow the record of His blameless, spotless life as Man on this earth. He was perfectly sinless in thought, word and deed. He never apologised for anything He said or did, for there never was the slightest occasion for His so doing. He never retreated from any position He ought to have taken up. In fullest measure He ever did His Father’s will. Here was One, the like of whom before or since the world has never seen. He was “God manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). His life as Man was never in any particular in contradiction to His Godhead glory. All was in complete harmony.

During His three and a half years of ministry the Saviour lived in the fierce glare of hostile criticism. No ascetic was He as John; not in the desert was His home; He moved freely in and out amongst the people. All the facts of His life were therefore fully known. If His foes could have discovered a single flaw in Him, how it would have delighted their evil hearts! But He was God's holy One. The Paschal lamb was to be "without blemish"; only thus could it set forth Him who was at once holy in nature, and stainless in all His ways. At the end His judge had to say, "I find no fault in Him" (John 19:6) and His enemies could only find the semblance of a charge against Him by bribing men to commit perjury in their court (Mark 15:55-60).

Never once did He confess sin; never once asked for pardon, though He enjoined both upon all others. Indeed, for all others this returning as prodigal, humble and repentant, was the one way that He set forth to the peace and rest of the Father's forgiveness. Yet He never gave a hint, He never breathed a prayer, that implied that He needed this. He challenged His enemies to convince Him of sin. He declared positively that He did always the things that pleased His Father. He had power on earth to forgive sin, but needed no forgiveness Himself. — ADAPTED.

It stands out in the Epistles as a thing to be noted and cherished, that when the question of sin and the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus as our substitute in regard to it arises, His sinlessness is emphasized. 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that God made Him to be sin for us, but adds that He "knew no sin." 1 Peter 2:24 tells us that He "His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree," but assures us that He "did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth" (verse 22). 1 John 3:5 tells us that He was manifested to take away our sins, and adds, "in Him was no sin." Surely nothing could be clearer than that no sacrifice but a sinless sacrifice could meet the claims of God's holiness against sin, and if Jesus had not been sinless He could not have stood in the sinner's place; He would not have survived the judgment, and we should have had no Saviour.

Christ "was tempted in all points like as we are, apart from sin." He had no sin whatever. It was not only that He never sinned, but He had no sin; and this makes all the difference possible. He was the Holy One, and this was manifested, especially in the unparalleled temptations He endured. Assuredly He was all through the Holy One; but it was all apart from sin. In Him was no sin — not sins merely, but sin. It was not only that He did not yield to sin, but there was no sin there to yield. His nature as man had no evil to be acted on by the devil. There was evil without. He was assailed by every possible, the most subtle, effort of Satan in a ruined and wretched world. There was all that could give pain, not only in men and the Jews, but even in disciples. There was the presenting of what was agreeable to allure at the beginning of His path; there was the endeavour to alarm at the end by what was most tremendous and overwhelming in death, and, above all, in such a death as was before Him.