Christ’s Sinless Human Nature
In the last two issues of the News we presented the first two of five truths that need to be believed about Christ’s human nature. We have looked at the wonderful teaching that He has a real and complete human nature. This time we turn to the important truth that Christ had a sinless human nature.
That He is sinless is taught in Hebrews 4:15 (“in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin”). It is also taught in Isaiah 53:9 (“he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth”), Luke 1:35 (“that holy thing which shall be born of thee”) and II Corinthians 5:21 (“who knew no sin”).
Hebrews 4:15, however, raises the question whether it was possible for Christ to sin, since He was “in all points tempted like as we are.” Does the sinlessness of Christ mean only that He did not sin, or does it mean that He could not sin?
It must be emphasized, in spite of what some have taught, that it was not possible for Him to sin. Some have said that His temptations could be real “only if it was possible for Him to sin in His human nature.” That He did not sin was only because He was also God.
We must remember that it is not a nature that sins but a person, and Christ is only one person—the Son of God. As such He could not sin.
This, we believe, is one of the things taught in II Corinthians 5:21, which says that He “knew no sin,” and in Hebrews 7:26, which says that He is “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.”
That Christ was without sin also means that He was without original sin—the sin we have from Adam (Rom. 5:12-14). In this respect, too, He was undefiled. The virgin birth of Jesus and the fact that God was His Father also guaranteed this.
His sinlessness was also that, during His whole life, from the time He was born, He never broke God’s commandments, never erred in the least thing, never spoke an idle word that did not glorify God. He was perfect.
In sum, therefore, His sinlessness means that He was without original sin, without actual sin and without the possibility of sin. This, as Hebrews tells us, is the reason He could be our Saviour.
As a sinless one He did not need to offer sacrifice first for His own sin but was able to offer on our behalf a perfect sacrifice (Heb. 7:27). He was made sin in our place that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (II Cor. 5:21).
His sinlessness is, then, the guarantee that His righteousness is perfect and that it is for us. All that He merited by His death He did not need Himself but earned it for us who are in such great need of it. Rev. Ron Hanko
The Elect in the Judgment Day
“For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Eccl. 12:14).
“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isa. 43:25).
There is, in these verses, a seeming contradiction. The passage in Ecclesiastes speaks of the judgment day when every work shall be judged, while the passage in Isaiah speaks of the fact that God forgets all sins. How is it possible that our sins will be brought to light in the judgment day if God forgets them?
The passage in Ecclesiastes does indeed speak of the judgment day which comes after this life, and it says that then all the deeds of every single person will be revealed. Not only will his outward deeds, the acts which everyone could see, be revealed, but even every secret deed will be revealed. Every thought, every desire, every inward activity will be revealed. Nothing will remain hidden. Even those deeds which a man does not know himself will be made manifest.
This will happen publicly, before the eyes of all. When I think of this, it is reason to fear. I sometimes, when thinking about it, hope that every other person will be so preoccupied with his own sins that he will not have time to notice mine.
On the other hand, it is also true that God does not remember the sins of His people. How can that which is not remembered nevertheless be manifested by God in the judgment?
It is important to remember, first of all, that God’s judgment upon men does not wait for the final judgment day. God passes sentence upon a man and upon all that he does every moment of his life. Every man knows, every moment, whether God approves of him or disapproves. God’s curse is upon the wicked here in this life (Prov. 3:33). That curse they know.
But likewise God’s favour is upon His people, for although in sin, when they confess their sins, they are forgiven and experience God’s love.
Judgment is also expressed at the moment of death, for at the moment of death God’s people go to heaven and the wicked go to hell—even though their bodies go to the grave.
So, at the end of the world judgment is expressed in the resurrection, for the bodies of the people of God are raised to be like the body of Christ, while the bodies of the wicked are fashioned for eternity in hell.
The purpose of the great judgment is theodicy—that God may be justified and glorified in all He does—in the salvation of His elect people and in the just judgment which comes upon the wicked.
The sins of the wicked must be revealed, therefore, so that it may be apparent to all that they go to hell justly.
But also the sins of God’s people are all revealed so that it may be apparent that Christ died to pay for every sin. And in this way it will be shown that the salvation of the elect is by grace alone.
Then it will be apparent that no one is saved by any works which he has done. It will be evident that every one fully deserves hell. God will show, unmistakably, that those who are saved are saved wholly by grace. And that will be the glory of the riches of God’s grace forever and ever.
I am sure that each one of God’s people will see his sins better in the judgment day than he has ever been able to see them while on earth. And this will be important, for it will demonstrate completely to each of us that we are saved by grace. Before the great white throne all our little pretensions, all our pride, all our hypocrisy, all our petty notions of our own goodness will be swept away forever. We will be overwhelmed, we will be amazed beyond words, with the one towering thought: We are saved by grace! Then God will be praised.
What about God “forgetting” all our sins?
“Forgetting” here cannot be taken in an absolute sense, for God is eternally omniscient. He knows all and never forgets anything.
But God does forget our sins in Jesus Christ in the sense that every sin is hidden by Christ’s blood and covered in the cross. Sins are not held against us nor remembered as grounds of punishment. They are forgiven as sins which deserve hell. Even when every sin is revealed in the judgment, it is revealed as perfectly covered by the blood of Christ.
That is why we need not fear the judgment. God loves us with an eternal love, and “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world” (I John 4:17). Prof. Herman Hanko
Is the Moral Law Permanent?
Is any part of the law of Moses permanent? Is any part of it still in force in the New Testament? These are the questions we wish to answer in this issue of the News.
We believe that the moral law, as summarized in the Ten Commandments, is permanent. The rest of the law of Moses, the civil and ceremonial law, is not. It was only a temporary application of the moral law to Israel’s life in Canaan by which God taught Israel the meaning and significance of the moral law.
Scripture clearly teaches that the moral law is permanent. Jesus says in Matthew 5:17-18, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
Note the following:
1) Jesus is speaking here of the law that is identified throughout the New Testament with the Ten Commandments (Rom. 13:8-10; James 2:8-12).
2) He makes it very plain that the law fulfilled is not the law destroyed. The fulfilling of the law does not cancel the law to pass away. This needs emphasis over against the teaching that the law has “no place in the New Testament because Jesus fulfilled it.”
3) Nor, according to Jesus, is the fulfilling of the law finished until heaven and earth pass away. In other words, even if the fulfilment of the law does cause it to pass away, that will not happen until heaven and earth pass away.
4) What is more, He says that this applies to all of the Law: to every jot and tittle. A jot is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet—just a little hook—and a tittle is a small stroke on some Hebrew letters that distinguishes one from another, like the stroke on a “Q” which distinguishes it from an “O.” Not one jot or tittle of it shall pass away. This, too, must be taught against the idea that only some of the commandments are still in force and some, like the fourth, are not.
5) Nor does Jesus change the law in fulfilling it, though He does change our relationship to the law. Some think that in the rest of Matthew 5 Jesus is “changing” many of the commandments, but verse 18, “one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass,” shows that it is not so.
The word “fulfil” only means “to complete” or even “to obey completely” as in passages like Philippians 2:2 (“Fulfil ye my joy”) and Romans 13:8 (“he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law”). In each of these passages the same word is used. Christ fulfils the law by obeying it completely. Thus He also completes it both as far as its power to curse is concerned and as far as its types and shadows, its sacrifices and ceremonies, pointed to Him.
Neither is the law something bad, therefore. Romans 7:12 and I Timothy 1:8 clearly teach this. There are bad uses of the law, but the law itself is good. It is not even against the promise of the gospel (Gal. 3:21). Indeed, in its power to reveal sin it may be said to have a necessary function in connection with the gospel.
All this must be considered in dealing with those statements in Romans and Galatians that seem to denigrate the law. The word does not set the law and grace over against each other. Salvation by law-works over against salvation by grace is what Scripture condemns. Being under the law and under grace are contrasted. We must neither “disgrace grace” nor dishonour the law by setting them against each other to the exclusion and destruction of the law. Rev. Ron Hanko
