The temptation in the desert: Could Jesus have sinned?

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zro_x said:
Doesn’t this mean that it would have been contrary to our nature to sin, just as much as it is against God’s nature?
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No. It is never contrary to our nature to choose to sin. We are not Divine.
 
No. God doesn’t sin.

Human being sin, but they don’t have to. They sometimes choose to in violation of their own best interests.
 
bilop said:
The Devil had no knowledge of Christ’s true nature. He would have no way of knowing if Christ was fully God or not. The Devil is not omniscient.

God Bless
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I’d also throw pride in as a reason as well.
 
PRmerger said:
No. It is never contrary to our nature to choose to sin.
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Then why did God make us so that it would be contrary to our nature to sin? It is obviously possible without throwing out free will, as in the case of Jesus.
 
PRmerger said:
I answered this already. Because we aren’t divine.

There is only One God.
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so… the only way we could have a nature which both restrained us from sin and allowed us to have free will is to be devine?
 
zro_x said:
so… the only way we could have a nature which both restrained us from sin and allowed us to have free will is to be devine?
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No. That’s not what I said.

The Godhead are the only Persons who could have sinned (as in was able to) but could never have sinned (as in, is contrary to divine nature).

The rest of creation has free will and can sin. And thanks to Original Sin, it’s in our nature to choose to sin.
 
PJM said:
how do I sign up for your blog?:o
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:extrahappy:

Just click on the icon below my signature that takes you to my blog, 3 Minute Apologetics, and then, I think, you just click on “join this site” on the right hand side.
 
PRmerger said:
No, it does not. Because someone never sins does not = no free will. He just exercises his free will in choosing not to sin.

Imagine a woman living in a cabin in the woods on a hill. From her elevated position she can see the origin of a river. A town is dumping sewage into the river. Downstream there is a family living near the river. From their position they cannot see that a town is dumping sewage into the river, so they drink from that river.

However, the woman, from her vantage point, can see that the river is polluted--and while she certainly has the free will to drink from the river–has no desire to do so.

That, I think, is a wonderful way to portray the fact that there is no contradiction between having free will and never sinning.
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I like that analogy! 👍
bilop said:
The Devil had no knowledge of Christ’s true nature. He would have no way of knowing if Christ was fully God or not. The Devil is not omniscient.

God Bless
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Good point! 👍
zro_x said:
But the woman, if we are drawing analogies to God, Can’t go drink from the water, even if she wanted to.
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The point is, that she could, she just didn’t want to. Think of the grossest thing lying on the ground that you would not want to go near it or touch it, like a dead bird or something. You would have the capability and the free will to touch it, but the thought of touching it would gross you out so much that you couldn’t touch it even though you are able to and have free will to. Sin is repulsive to God and Jesus. Therefore He has free will and ability to sin but at the same time the thought of it is so repulsive to Him that he could not. Just like how I could not eat raw meat without gagging, even though I have free will and ability to eat it the thought of it is so gross that I could not get it down. I just can’t, even though I have the ability and free will to. I can but I can’t at the same time.
zro_x said:
sorry, I think I misinterpreted what you were saying. Are you saying that Jesus could have sinned if he had wanted to? Did he feel the desire to sin? i.e. temptation?
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That’s the thing, He did not want to. Nothing could make Him ever want to sin. It repulses Him.
zro_x said:
If you look at it that way, why didn’t God create each of us with a non-sinning nature?
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Because then we’d be pre programmed robots! Who would get any fulfillment from a programmed robot’s love? 🤷
 
zro_x said:
Couldn’t God have sent Jesus down from heaven and given us a non-sinning nature?

Doesn’t the bible say that adam and eve walked with God in the garden of Eden?
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A nature without the ability to choose to sin would make humans no more than programmed robots.
zro_x said:
Doesn’t this mean that it would have been contrary to our nature to sin, just as much as it is against God’s nature?
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Sin is not natural and man is acting contrary to his nature when he sins. We humans were not made to do some of the things humans do. Humans chose to override what’s natural for us and do things contrary to our nature.
zro_x said:
Then why did God make us so that it would be contrary to our nature to sin? It is obviously possible without throwing out free will, as in the case of Jesus.
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Because without that ability to choose we would be programmed robots. 🤷
 
I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t make any sense. Jesus could sin, but he couldn’t? The idea I keep hearing is that though Jesus had free will, it is against his nature to sin. Why didn’t God create all of us with free will, and for it to be against *our *nature to sin? If this makes us programmed robots, than Jesus was a programmed robot. I’m also hearing that Jesus finds sin so repulsive that he just chooses not to do it. Why didn’t God create us to find sin just as repulsive?

As a matter of fact, he did create one person this way, didn’t he? Mary. And if God could make Mary so that it was against her nature to sin, while yet retaining her free will, why couldn’t the rest of us also have that ability?
 
zro_x said:
Why didn’t God create all of us with free will, and for it to be against *our *nature to sin?
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sigh.

So He could provide for us so great a Redeemer.
Why didn’t God create us to find sin just as repulsive?
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He did. But we messed it up and chose to anyway.
As a matter of fact, he did create one person this way, didn’t he? Mary. And if God could make Mary so that it was against her nature to sin, while yet retaining her free will, why couldn’t the rest of us also have that ability?
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Because we lost that ability through Original Sin.
 
zro_x said:
I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t make any sense. Jesus could sin, but he couldn’t? The idea I keep hearing is that though Jesus had free will, it is against his nature to sin. Why didn’t God create all of us with free will, and for it to be against *our *nature to sin? If this makes us programmed robots, than Jesus was a programmed robot. I’m also hearing that Jesus finds sin so repulsive that he just chooses not to do it. Why didn’t God create us to find sin just as repulsive?

As a matter of fact, he did create one person this way, didn’t he? Mary. And if God could make Mary so that it was against her nature to sin, while yet retaining her free will, why couldn’t the rest of us also have that ability?
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Jesus was not a robot because He always had the free will to choose just like we all have free will to choose. Jesus just made the right choice and chose not to sin while humans made the wrong choice and chose to sin.
 
zro_x said:
I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t make any sense. Jesus could sin, but he couldn’t? The idea I keep hearing is that though Jesus had free will, it is against his nature to sin. Why didn’t God create all of us with free will, and for it to be against *our *nature to sin? If this makes us programmed robots, than Jesus was a programmed robot. I’m also hearing that Jesus finds sin so repulsive that he just chooses not to do it. Why didn’t God create us to find sin just as repulsive?

As a matter of fact, he did create one person this way, didn’t he? Mary. And if God could make Mary so that it was against her nature to sin, while yet retaining her free will, why couldn’t the rest of us also have that ability?
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Jesus could not sin. He does not have the choice of sinning. This makes him perfectly free. He was in NO way tempted by the devil. We can do something Jesus can’t - sin! We are less free in that way.

Think about it like this. If you had free will, why can’t you explode right now? Just will really, really hard and you’ll splat all over your monitor. But you can’t, because you aren’t able, you could say it’s not in your nature. Well Jesus can’t sin because it’s not in his nature, but since sin is evil, it is nothing, so it does not detract from his freedom in any way.

Like in heaven, we will all be ‘free’ but we cannot sin. It doesn’t make it any less free, it makes us more free.
 
Skye_Ariel said:
What I wonder about is why the devil wasted his time trying to tempt Jesus, did he really think Jesus would or could sin? That’s what I don’t get!
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The devil doesn’t have full knowledge as to who Jesus is what he can and can’t do and what his plan for salvation is. So even if Jesus couldn’t sin it is possible the devil didn’t know this and still tempted him.
 
Jerok said:
Jesus could not sin. He does not have the choice of sinning. This makes him perfectly free. He was in NO way tempted by the devil. We can do something Jesus can’t - sin! We are less free in that way.

Think about it like this. If you had free will, why can’t you explode right now? Just will really, really hard and you’ll splat all over your monitor. But you can’t, because you aren’t able, you could say it’s not in your nature. Well Jesus can’t sin because it’s not in his nature, but since sin is evil, it is nothing, so it does not detract from his freedom in any way.

Like in heaven, we will all be ‘free’ but we cannot sin. It doesn’t make it any less free, it makes us more free.
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There’s still something I don’t understand. Why didn’t God create us in such a way that it is our nature to always be virtuous? Why didn’t God make sin as repulsive to us as it is to him? We wouldn’t be robots, in fact, we would apparently be even more free! The only reason I’ve recieved so far is that God wanted us to have a less than perfect nature so that he could send us a great redeemer. But that doesn’t make any sense. In effect, it means God wanted us to sin. God never wants us to sin. Sending us a redeemer was something God had to do to compensate for our sin.

Saying that we originally had perfect natures that were corrupted by the fall also doesn’t work, because That means we originally found sin to be just as repulsive as Jesus does. Which means Jesus was just as capable and as likely to sin as Adam and Eve were.
 
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