Humanity/Sinlessness of Christ Pt2

The truth of Christ's humanity, and I never really finished it, so I want to finish it again today.

But if you remember how we started, we started to talk about, okay, what are the characteristics of humanity?

And we think of some things, yeah, that there's a sense of being tired and hungry and thirsty and those physical needs that come upon us.

And then we talked about some of the other needs of being tempted, and that's the distinction, right?

In all Christ's humanity, being fully man as well as fully

God, that the one exemption or the one thing that was never, never affected him was the fact that he was sinless.

And I'm going to try to tie in this morning, not only the fact of his humanity, but his sinlessness, because that's the other part of the truth.

And if you remember, I read a quote from Arthur Pink, and I just want to read it again because I thought it was pretty much spot on, because he said this about the humanity of Christ.

He said, the humanity of Christ was unique. History supplies no analogy, nor can his humanity be illustrated by anything in nature.

It is incomparable, not only to our fallen human nature, but also to unfallen

Adams. The Lord Jesus was born into circumstances totally different from those in which

Adam first found himself. But the sins and the grease of his people were on him from the first.

His humanity was produced neither by natural generation, as is ours, nor by special creation, as was

Adam's. The humanity of Christ, under the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit, supernaturally conceived.

It was prepared of God, yet made of a woman. And I thought that part about what he said about Adam was particularly good, in the sense that when we think about Adam, he was made from art, the dust of the earth.

So he didn't even, in that sense, come as all others have come since him, right?

Since Eve began to bring forth children. And in that sense, it is unique in his humanity, because it wasn't as if, although he did come from Mary's womb, absolutely, but he was conceived of the

Holy Spirit, and that is absolutely unique. No one has ever been in that way brought into life, not even

Adam, because he was formed in the very beginning. And then we began to look at some scriptures about it, and also said, just to kind of get us rolling a little bit, it's one thing if people don't understand his humanity, or his, or the reality, let's say, of the

Trinity. It's one thing when someone doesn't understand it. It's another thing when someone openly rejects it and seeks to confound it, right?

And that's a characteristic of the cults, right? The main denominator, if you will, throughout all the cults, throughout all history, in all cultures, in all times, in all places, is that they misrepresent, in a,

I believe, in a conscious way, the person of Christ, right? They either deny his deity, or they'll deny his humanity, or they'll come up with some alternative thought that is so far extreme that you can't help but think that they have ignored the absolute clearness of the scriptures.

So, like I said, we began to look at a couple of, we'll just go back, and let's start in Galatians chapter 4, and just kind of set our minds again to what we have been saying, that he is both fully

God and fully man. And it's kind of interesting that Brother Keith, this morning, is going to talk about John 6, where it says

Jesus walked on the water, and certainly that is a demonstration of what?

His deity. And yet, as we looked at last week, when he was in the boat, he fell asleep because he was what?

Tired. And I also wanted, and I'm not sure I said this last week, part of this humanity that we talked about, he was a man of sorrows, wasn't he?

And that certainly is a characteristic of humanity, in a world that is under the judgment of God.

The sorrow, interesting in Revelation, right? What does it say in the New Heavens and the New Earth?

There is no more sorrow, among other things, right?

And so, as we think about that, it's fairly important for us to do. But anyway,

Galatians chapter 4, and very familiar to us, but, now

I say that an heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ from, at all, from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the

Father. Even so, when we were children, we were in bondage under the elements of the world, but when the fullness of time had come,

God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

It's kind of hard to think about how people cannot look at verse 4, when the fullness of time had come,

God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, and yet denied that He was a man. Right? Again, as long as we understand that uniqueness of Christ being conceived by the

Holy Spirit, but He most certainly was a man, right?

And we looked at it from the standpoint of what characterizes humanity, but I just don't know how you can get around this when it says that He was born of a woman.

I mean, how do you avoid that to get to the point where it says that Christ was really only like an emanation from the

Father, almost like a hologram kind of thing, and yet it's so crystal clear.

In 1 Timothy 3 .16, you don't have to turn there, but it says, God was manifest, why?

In the flesh. In the flesh. And again, people will still deny that He was truly a man, or they will admit, well,

He was somewhat, or some sort of kind of man, but not really.

But again, all those things that people bring up are just so far apart from the scriptures.

All right, let's go to Luke for a minute, Luke chapter 2. My sister, I told you about, what's her name, they lowered

Jesus to, He's a human, He's a good man, but He's a prophet, so they get rid of the godness of Him.

Right, the deity of Him. Yeah, and again, that's the, there's ditches on both sides of the truth, right, and some will deny

His deity, some will deny His humanity, and again, there's others that will try to combine it and almost have like a,

I don't even know what to explain how they come up with certain things, but, so go to Luke chapter 2 for a minute, and I think these are texts that we can certainly depend on to teach the humanity of Christ, and so in verse 39,

I remember this is when they had gone to the feast, and they had performed, in verse 39, when they had performed all things according to the law of the

Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city Nazareth, and look what it says now, and the child grew and became strong in spirit and filled in wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

Well, there's a bunch of things, right, that will definitely help us understand that He was truly a man.

Well, He grew, I mean, it's not something that is outside the realm of normal humanity, is that there's growth,

He became strong, not only that, He was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him.

Now, you could misconstrue that and say, well, if He was, if He grew in wisdom, that means

He wasn't, He wasn't God, right? But, and again, we talked about this, because remember we talked about the subordination of Christ, and that He willingly, in agreement, in the counsels of God, agreed to put

Himself under the will of the Father, and to accomplish salvation, and so, again, these are certainly things that we can look at and depend on.

And then it says, His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the

Passover, and when He was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the

Feast, and when they had finished the days, as they returned, the boy Jesus was lingered behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother did not know it.

And so, we know this section, and it talks about how Jesus responded and said,

Do you not know I need to be about my Father's business? But, my whole point in using this scripture is to support the fact that He was truly man.

In chapter 3, right next to it, it says that Christ went around preaching, right?

And it says in verse 3 of chapter 3, it says, And He went around the region, around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance, and a remission of sins, as it is written in the book of Isaiah the prophet.

And it's talking about John the Baptist, but it's still all flesh. Look at it.

All flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Again, people have misinterpreted or misrepresented or consciously sought to entangle the truth that He was truly a man.

People saw Him. They touched Him. That's what John says, right? We've touched, we've handled the

Word of Life, same way as that great opening in the Gospel of John, that in the beginning was the

Word, and the Word was with God. And then it says, remember what it says in verse 14 of chapter 1? And He tabernacled among us.

He came among us. And so, again, these scriptures are proof texts. And for all of that, many people will still deny it.

Let's look at 1 Timothy. I thought this one was pretty good. I wanted to say cool, but I know

I'm not always supposed to say cool. When it comes to scriptures, it is cool.

But in 1 Timothy chapter 2, and again,

I don't know how you, unless you want to, misunderstand this. So, 1

Timothy, Paul says this. Therefore, I exhort, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercession, giving your thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all

Godliness and reference. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Now, for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man,

Christ Jesus. Right? The man. Again, how do you escape that?

How do you misunderstand that unless you have a desire to misrepresent the

Lord Jesus? So, Andy, so this is okay. My sister, I said they brought Christ down. This is them.

So, Catholics, you know, you're right. You're about a Catholic. I'm about a Catholic. They bring people up to Jesus' stature.

Right? Paul, you can pray to Paul. You can pray to the saints. Yeah. Mary, same as Jesus, you know, born sinless, all this kind of stuff.

So, they bring these people up to Jesus. Yeah. And by bringing people up to Jesus, they're really bringing

Jesus down. Yeah. Right? Because as this says, and clear as his words could be, there's only one mediator between God and man.

And then it says the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself for all, a ransom for all to be testified in due time.

My whole point in this is as we consider the humanity of Christ, and it might not be a conversation that we have all the time with people, but when we do, we should be able not only to say, yes, he was fully

God, fully man. We should be able to, in some extent, to go into the scriptures and say, well, okay, especially like with a cult kind of person tries to twist the scriptures around, that we could be able to go and say, no, let's look at this.

What do you, what is 1 Timothy 2, 5 saying when it talks about the man, Christ Jesus? Sister?

And, uh, I went to, uh, uh, Hart's nursing home. It's one of the ladies I visit over there.

And her roommate name is Anne. And they're both there because they have a lot of seizures. And, uh,

I said, uh, Merry Christmas to Barbara. And then I said, Anne, did you have a Merry Christmas? And then she went on and said, oh, that's pagan, pagan.

And I said, and I said, um, I said, that's the day that the saints will set aside.

She said, I said, I said, the Christ you have in your heart,

I said, that's a different Christ than the Christ in the scripture. No, no. She said, he's not God. I said, he is

God. And she's a jovial, jovial witness. Yeah. I said, she, she is God. No, I don't want to hear it.

She said, I'm going down to the office to see about you not coming back here. You know, she said, she had enough, she had enough of you.

And that's the problem again. I'm going to see channel four, taking her out. And that's the, that's the thing.

There's one thing if people don't understand it, there's one thing, if you can open the scriptures with them and they're willing to receive it, it's another thing when they willfully resist it.

And then they, when they willfully resist, clearly with the scripture say, and here's generally what people will also do to escape the truth as it's laid out in the scriptures.

They'll say, well, that's man's word, right? That's a, that's another excuse. That's another way to throw a bucket of cold water on the, on the truth.

But as you put all these scriptures together, you cannot deny them. Here's one in, interestingly enough, in second

John. So let's look at that. Because again, these might not be some of the scriptures that people generally go to, but they're certainly crystal clear as far as what it says.

So just, just think about how many people really read second

John or first John or third John. Probably first John is probably the one that most people read.

But looking as John writes this epistle in verse four, he says,

I rejoice greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth as we received commandment from the father.

And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I write a new commandment to you, but that which we've had from the beginning, that we love one another.

And this is love that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandments that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

Now look at verse seven, for many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess

Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver.

It's an antichrist. And again, when you begin to put the scriptures together, you cannot, unless you have a desire to misunderstand, who is the one who denies that Jesus came in the flesh?

What did first Timothy three say? God was manifest in the flesh. What did we just read in Luke chapter two?

That he grew in wisdom and stature as a man. What did we read in Galatians? That he was born of a woman, born in that way.

We've looked at Philippians chapter two, which says that he came in the form of servant as a man, right?

So what I'm trying to get us to think about is there's so much scriptures to think about.

All right. So if you wanted to, if someone wanted to entertain it from the old Testament, we could certainly go to that great chapter in Isaiah chapter 53.

Let's just stop there for a second to think about it again.

As Isaiah 53 opens up, who has believed our report? Whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

He shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry ground.

He has no form or commonness. And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him.

He was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs and carries our sorrows.

And you can continue on reading. But again, are these not scriptures that are specifically telling us that there was a man who in all cases, in all points, as it says in Hebrews, in all points, he was tempted like us yet without what?

Yet without sin. And so again, that's the great exception. And maybe we can use that as a catapult, at least for a few minutes to get into the truth of his sinlessness.

But before we do that, I just want to go back to Book of Acts for a minute, because again, people might argue and try to say, well, you can't show me the humanity of Christ from the

Old Testament, or you can't show me the humanity of Christ in the New Testament. Well, the truth is, of course we can.

It's just that you're unwilling to receive it. Just like what you were saying about that kind of a thought where, or what you were saying,

Cindy, that people just straight out deny it. They just, they refuse. And that's what, remember what

Jesus said in John 5, John 5, 40, you're, you are not willing to come to me.

It's not that they, people will say, well, man can't unless God opens his heart.

Agree? Isn't that the truth, that no man can come to God unless God gives him life?

Absolutely. But never forget, the reason why he can't come is because he won't come, because he's unwilling.

And that's what Jesus said. You will not come to me that you might have life. So in Acts chapter 2, and as Peter's preaching his first great sermon, he gets through the whole thing about what

Joel had said and how the old men will see visions and dreams and there would be an outpouring of the spirit of God upon him.

But then as he finishes that part of it, look what he says in verse 21, and it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the

Lord shall be saved. Then he says this, men of Israel, hear these words,

Jesus of Nazareth, a man, attested by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which

God did through him in your midst as you yourselves know. Him being delivered by the eternal counsel for knowledge of God, you have taken by all his hands and have crucified and put to death who

God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it.

What does it say in verse 22? A man, man fully attested.

By what? By what they saw. Isn't that what they did when they followed him? Even as Brother Keith talked about feeding the 6 ,000 and then at other times when they came to him and he said, listen, you didn't come to me because, you believe me, you came to me because you ate or you saw miracles or you did this or you did that.

So, again, all these scriptures combined make it absolutely almost impossible for someone to misrepresent the scriptures.

That doesn't mean it's not possible for them to not understand. It just means that it's the scriptures are ample in giving us the truth of the reality of Christ.

One more and then we'll go into the sinlessness. Acts chapter 17. I thought this one was another interesting one, and it might be one that people wouldn't necessarily go to to prove that he was truly man.

But it's interesting as Paul speaks to those in Athens and how they worship the unknown

God and how Paul is talking about the unknown God.

He's the one that he's teaching. And if you look down at verse 31, after he, as he summing it up, he said, because he has appointed,

God has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by who?

By the man who he ordained. And he has given assurance to all this by raising him from the dead.

Very clear. I mean, very straightforward as far as you don't need to know

Greek. You don't need to know Hebrew to understand what he's saying there. He says it by that man.

And by that man, again, being the only mediator, he will raise him up in that day.

All right. Now, I'm going to try to work a little bit on this because I think what goes along with that reality is the reality of not only that he was fully man, but the reality that in his humanity, he was exempted from sin.

Because again, has anyone ever read anything in that sense that denies that Jesus was sinless?

I'm going to suggest it's hard pressed to find a continuing argument about his sinlessness.

People will argue about his deity. People will argue about his humanity. But there seems to be much less concerning as he was sinless.

Now, again, I'm not saying because you've heard some of the weird stuff, right? He was a homosexual, that he was this, that, and the other thing.

And just like they've misconstrued. I mean, you think about David and Jonathan, remember how people have taken that and they said, well,

Jonathan and David were lovers. So when we come to the sinlessness of Christ, we have to fully be engaged in it.

Because the scriptures, if there's anything that the scriptures give us without any hesitation or without any qualification is the fact that he was sinless, that he was not a sinner in any way.

And that goes along with his humanity. Because again, that's why he's the only mediator, right?

Just think about it. If he wasn't a man, how could he be a mediator?

And if he wasn't sinless, how could his being a mediator be accepted, right?

If you think about that, if Christ was not sinless, then we have no

Savior. He would need a Savior. He would need a Savior. He would need to first remember what the high priest had to do.

He had to make atonement for what? His own sins. His own sins before he could make atonement for the sins of the people.

And he had to do that. And that's the hope, one of the major points in the book of Hebrews, right? He had to do it over and over and over again.

Why? Because he was sinful over and over and over again. But when it comes to Christ, he was without sin.

And therefore, I'll go back to what you were just talking about, where they talk about Mary.

In order to do that, they have to almost teach that Mary was sinless, right?

That she was able to be a co -redeemer in the same way.

Kind of weird how they make saints in the Catholic church, isn't it? You got to kind of do so many miracles and have so many, if I'm not mistaken, you have to have so many signatures.

It's almost like taking a petition. And yet the reality of their sinfulness never really enters into it.

And the scriptures are so clear. So I'm just going to look at some of the major ones that are just beyond being misinterpreted.

So if there's one that I had to go to to start the conversation about his sinlessness, it'd be 2

Corinthians 5. So let's just look there for a second. And again, this one has got to do with his humanity.

It's got to do with his deity, I believe. And it also has to do with his sinlessness.

So in verse 20, Paul says, 2 Corinthians 5,

Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God was pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

You can't. Again, unless you want to twist words and twist the meaning of words, how clear is this?

He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. Keith was talking about total depravity on Wednesday.

Wednesday, yeah. And one of the things he mentioned was that Adam, like you said, came from the dust, and Jesus came from the moist air, from the spirit.

Right, right. And so he couldn't have a man of seed. Right, right. And that gets into a whole conversation about how is the sinfulness transferred, right?

And there's a couple of different thoughts in that, and we'll probably get to that a little bit at some point if we ever get to Romans chapter 5, because that's the one that really brings in the reality of Adam's sin being passed along, right?

So, and then of Christ, again, being the second Adam. But to continue on with this thought of his sinlessness.

So, in Hebrews chapter 4, just again,

I'm picking out major ones, because those are the ones that we can quickly go to, and they're crystal clear.

And so in Hebrews chapter 4, I'll just read it from verse 14.

Seeing then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the

Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest which cannot be sympathized with our weakness, but was in all points tempted as we are, there it is, yet without sin.

And then what's the response to that, or what's the result of that? Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need, without sin.

He is the sinless Son of God, Son of man.

He's the one who can only be the true mediator between God and man.

Look at 1 Peter for a second. And again, absolutely crystal clear.

In 1 Peter chapter 3, in verse 18, it says,

For Christ also suffered once for sin, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the

Spirit. Now, people might say, well, it just says he's just. If we want to really understand, he was sinless, which is why he was the just one.

He is the one who alone is able to save to the uttermost. What does it say in Hebrews, right?

He's able to save to the uttermost those that come to God through him. Why? Because he was the only just one.

And that everyone else, just like Paul says, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

And therefore, and I want to say this as we think about it. This is in my own mind and heart.

My greatest comfort can never be found in myself. Think about that for a minute.

If our comfort can be derived from within ourselves, from within anything in this world, then we are of all men the most miserable and most pitiable.

That's my great comfort, right? Is that I fall continually.

He never fell. I missed the mark continually. He never missed the mark.

I have coldness in my heart. He always did the things to please the

Father. It was his delight. Somebody's wiping their hands. But it was his delight to do the will of the

Father. And so if we can't derive comfort from that truth of his sinlessness, then

I don't know where we're going to be able to find it. So he had to be obedient also.

Obedient unto death. Yeah. Even the death of the cross. That's amazing, right? It's hard to be obedient to temptations, certain weaknesses that we have.

So in that, that's just amazing. See, how do things kind of link together?

In other words, we're talking about his sinlessness. Well, we had previously talked about his humanity.

And we had previously talked about the fact that his deity.

And you see, they're all connected. Because if you break any one of them, it's almost to me like the doctrines of grace.

Because I know we're looking at it on Wednesday night. If you don't understand total depravity, guess what? Unconditional election becomes very, very muddy.

Limited atonement becomes a real issue. Irresistible grace and perseverance.

All of it is dependent. I believe it's dependent on understanding the condition of man, right?

So when it comes to Christ as Savior, unless we understand who he is, and what he did because of who he is, we can never really understand and have what.

Because again, when Jesus said, Come unto me all you that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light. He didn't just say that as a man. He said it as the God -man.

And he didn't just say it as the God -man in that sense. He said it as the sinless one. And that he alone can come and give people rest.

So again, that's why Arminianism is so dangerous. Yeah, I think it's dangerous.

I'm not going to say, don't want to go down that road and say, if you're not a

Calvinist, you can't go to heaven. Because that would be hard. Let me shut the recording off first.

But there is a reality, I would say, that the more you understand truth, biblical truth, and you don't have to put a title on it.

You don't say Arminianism, Calvinism, Doctrines of Grace. The more you understand truth, the clearer

Christ becomes. And the clearer Christ becomes, the clearer our worship is.

It's almost like the more false understanding and false doctrines and things that are anti -scriptural, the more they're burned off, the cleaner,

I think, is the fire that's within us. And if you talk to people, sometimes they don't fully understand it.

And even in an Arminian understanding of it, again, there's a lot of Calvinists that don't know

God either. Agree? And I think Calvinism, years ago, deals with the sin issue first.

Total defraction. I mean, you've got to deal with that first. And we had something at the school a couple years ago where the kids, they all came down, and I watched it just fizzle out.

And I said, that's the result of being redeemed without repentance. And unless you repent of that total depravity, that you are a sinner, the rest of it, like you just said, the rest of it's just nothing.

It has no meaning. What need would there be to repent if you weren't in a situation where not only are you unwilling, but you're unable to come to God, right?

And that's the great, if you will, controversy in theology from it is that man has ability, and the truth is, man doesn't have the ability, nor the desire.

And again, I agree. Miss the forest for the trees, and then all you see is a blur, right?

And that's why I said it's so dangerous, because when people come down, and they think that they are good in themselves and able to come to Christ in themselves, then it makes it for easy believism to happen.

And then that happens. Then you have kids like you're talking about that aren't repentant, or grown -ups, or whatever.

And you just have this whole set of people that aren't even saved, but they think they're saved.

Yeah, and they think that they have, in some sense, added to their salvation.

And I say that with caution, but in Arminian, in his heart, if he truly believes what he's saying, he believes he's made some sort of contribution to this thing, where the clearness of Scripture is certainly, and salvation is of the

Lord. And I'm going to be rewarded one day. Yeah, right. And it's almost like what Paul talks about when he talks in Romans about it's not a grace, but it's out of debt.

And we know the truth, right? God is indebted to no one. And that, again, the reality of Christ's sinlessness is just so important, not only from a, if you will, theological standpoint, but from a reality standpoint.

You just, you cannot have a blemished, and isn't that the truth?

Why did God spend all that time, and all that energy of the people of Israel, and all those things they went through for years, and years, and years, and decades, and centuries, if you will, about having to have a sinless sacrifice?

Had to be that lamb without blemish. Was that not, again, in the fullness of time,

God progressively revealing His Son? So there's a couple more we could look at, and certainly think about it from the standpoint.

If Christ was a sinner, what does it say about God? God is a purer eyes than to behold evil.

He cannot look on iniquity. How could God be well pleased with the work of His Son, if His Son was not a sinless servant?