Sunday, March 20, 2005

Could Jesus have sinned?

The question was asked at my church today "could Jesus have sinned?" The first thought that came to my mind was "why?" Perhaps Jesus could drink untreated sewage but why would He? No one knew the horror of sin like He did, why on earth would He indulge in it? He saw sin for what it was, how it corrupted human hearts, the endless grief and sorrow and pain it caused, its utter ugliness in the face of the holy God, how could He choose it? With our fallen natures, our ears are tuned to Satan's voice and welcome his lie that sin is attractive, but Jesus had none of the fall in Him. He saw sin with God's eyes, and even Satan's most eloquent lies, his nearest approximations to the truth could never make it look other than grotesquely ugly. To use C. S. Lewis' magnificent mataphor in the The Great Divorce, it would be as if a female corpse, already liquid with decay, should come out of the grave, smear its lips with lipstick and attempt a seduction. Satan never had a chance.

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