Stephen Charnock (b. 1628 - d. 1680)Have been blessed in revelations and insights of the Crucifixion and Atonement by a Puritan writer named Stephen Charnock in the past few weeks, while reading his book Christ Crucified.
Charnock approaches the topic from so many angles, looking chiefly at Christ as a sacrifice and how this was sufficient for the erasure of all the sins of the receiving believer.
The book looks deeply at the fulfilment of various Scriptural types in Christ's sacrifice and the implications of the atonement being carried out by someone of the Most High Divine Nature, as it was by our Lord Jesus Christ.The popular question of "could" Christ have sinned during His earthly walk, is addressed plainly and directly by Charnock; his conclusion being that God indeed cannot sin. I found this aspect of the book interesting, since many seem to go down the path of holding the possibility of Christ committing sin as something that demonstrates how wonderful His righteous life was ie; His righteousness is so much more amazing because He could have sinned but didn't.
But Charnock's perspective makes so much more sense. Jesus was truly and absolutely God - truly and absolutely Man yes - but completely divine in every way. Therefore, to say that we have a God capable of sinning: well I think you understand the implications...As a result we see that Christ's perfect righteousness and godliness was merely the expression of His nature: the hypostatic union of a perfect Divine Nature with an unblemished, undefiled and wholly consecrated Man's nature. While it may be somehow appealing to promote the idea that Jesus could have sinned but didn't, it is far more comforting to the Christian's soul to know that we belong to a God who can do anything that He sees fit, but never does anything wrong because such a thing would never be in accordance with His will.
It is wonderful to be able to read an author writing on such a central belief of the Christian faith, within a generation or two of the publication of the King James Bible. Both aged language and the centrality of Christ's vicarious death are not appealing to the flesh. But if the Christian's spirit is to be fed, the protestings of the flesh must be put to death and the timeless truths of the faith meditated upon.
2 comments:
It's an interesting question, to be sure. May I suggest this line of thinking instead.
The God/man Jesus Christ is an antinomy that only man's mind seems to want to reconcile. The Divine Christ is incapable of sinning. The man Christ was tempted as the scriptures teaches us, yet did not sin. Christ could not be man if He could not sin - it wouldn't be temptation.
We cannot reconcile this antinomy, and I'm of the belief that we're not intended to. In my mind, saying that Christ was not capable of sin is an attempt to reconcile the antinome.
One who cannot sin, by logic, cannot be tempted. Clearly, the Bible claims Christ was tempted.
May I suggest that we, as believers, not try to reconcile the antinomy of Christ's nature.
Dan Grubbs
The Portico Dialogue
Thanks Doug,
I think the union of the two natures is more miraculous mystery than an antinomy in the truest sense. It seemingly contradicts natural laws, yet God planned it from before the beginning of time.
Couldn't part of the mystery be that because Christ was God He could not sin, yet He was nevertheless able to be tested/tempted?
I note that God Himself also refers to being tempted in the New Testament: Heb 3:8-9. But we know that He cannot sin, nor be tempted with evil (James 1:13).
So I would say that in a sense Jesus was tested to see whether He would commit sin or not, but was found in every case to be perfect. Through this He is - by both natures - adequate to perform the role of High Priest for all believers (Heb 4:15).
God bless!
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