Elaborating on Koukl on Jesus Lack of Sin

• John Vandivier

Greg Koukl is a solid Christian thinker and apologist who put out a video entitled, "How Did Jesus Escape from Having a Sin Nature?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRCMqBy5vI0

Koukl basically says:

  1. This is difficult because it requires us to speculate: The scripture doesn't clearly state the reason, but it does state that Jesus never sinned.
  2. Sin nature is an accidental property of humans, not a necessary property.
  3. We do know that Jesus never had a human father.
  4. It seems that Jesus escaped the sin nature because he did not have a human father.
My related thoughts:
  1. The Bible actually never states that Jesus lacked a sin nature. It states that he never sinned. Having a sin nature and yet not sinning is even more impressive than not sinning due to a lack of sin nature.
  2. If lacking a human father implies lack of a sin nature then Adam would have no sin nature, which appears to be false.
  3. I agree that sin nature may be an accidental property of humans, although this is not clear. What is clear is that humans do not necessarily sin. It is not clear that not sinning implies the lack of a sin nature.
  4. In fact, it seems that there were other characters other than Jesus which may not have sinned, although no other characters are perfect. The Bible does not equate sinlessness with perfection. Perfection is better than sinlessness and requires sinlessness, but being sinless per se can be less impressive than being perfect. Three examples I would point to include the sinlessness but possible non-perfection of babies, the man who was sinless but not perfect in Matthew 19:16-24, the possible temporal sinlessness of Job, Elijah, and Enoch.
    1. Note that even though these people are temporally sinless, they may have gone on to sin later, rendering Paul's words true, that all have sinned. The point is that having or not having sinned does not change one's status as human or not. You are not born a sinner in the sense that you have already sinned, although you may be born a sinner in the sense that you will one day sin. It is not the case that you are not human prior to sinning and it is not the case that you are only human after sinning.