All right, as I said, this is
the announcement of the manner of the incarnation of our Lord. Verse 26. And in the sixth month,
the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named
Nazareth to a virgin, espoused to a man whose name was Joseph. of the house of David, and the
virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her
and said, Hail, thou art highly favored, the Lord is with thee,
blessed art thou among women. And when she saw, she was troubled
at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
or greeting this should be. And the angel said unto her,
Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive
in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name
Jesus. He shall be great, he shall be
called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David. He shall reign over the
house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no
end. Then said Mary unto the angel,
How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered
and said unto her, The Holy Ghost, or Spirit, shall come upon thee,
the power of the highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also
that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. And I would that you make a note
of those words, that Holy thing called the Son of God. And I'm speaking today on the
subject, the impeccability of Christ or the sinlessness of
our Lord. two things about this passage
of the scripture that we have read. Number one, our main emphasis
will be on that part that I pointed out, that holy thing that shall
be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And especially
the three words, that holy thing, that is, we're preaching on the
impeccability of our Lord. Number two, let me say this in
passing by, that if you do not take this passage at face value,
if you do not believe it, that the humanity of Christ was conceived
in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit of God, and
that this is an absolute and true record of the incarnation
of the eternal son of God, that this is how he was made flesh
and dwelt among men, if you reject that, Then I say, you may as
well close your Bible, quit your profession, and go dwell yonder
among the heathen. For this is the heart, and the
center, and the core, and the foundation, the ground of the
Christian faith is Christ and his person. Christianity stands
or it falls upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. If he were not born of that version
of God's choosing, then he answers not the words and the prophets
Prophecy of the Prophet. A perversion of the person of
Christ actually destroyed the foundation of Christianity. But this morning, our study concerns
one aspect of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice I emphasize
one aspect of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. For our aim
and our goal of the morning is to set forth a doctrine of the
impeccability of the Christ. And the question to consider
and the question to answer and to dwell on this morning was
Christ Jesus, the man dwelling in the flesh among men on earth,
Was he peccable or impeccable as to his person and as to his
character? In short, peccability means that
he was capable of sinning, having the ability of sinning. liable to error or to sin. While on the other hand, impeccable
or impeccability means faultless. It means irreproachable, not
capable of sinning or of doing wrong. True, you might hear the
word applied to people and to their action, the word impeccable. Sometimes we hear people say,
so-and-so dresses impeccable, or so-and-so has impeccable manners
and such like. But in theology, the word refers
to the character and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then you will meet with related
words along the way, The words impeccance and the words impeccant
and the words impeccancy might also jump out during the course. So to put the question openly
today, which one do you believe? Which one would you accept? One, that Jesus was capable of
sinning and that he might have sinned during the days of his
flesh, that he might have committed a sin. Or secondly, was he impeccable,
impossible for our Lord to sin? He was impeccable to the extent
that it was impossible for him to be brought to sin in any way. Now, please note something as
we work our way into this. The question is not Did Jesus
sin? That's not our question today.
We're not asking, did Jesus sin? However, the majority of professing
Christians, and especially those that are called evangelical,
will sometimes be heard to say, no, the Lord did not sin. But that still leaves the question,
could the Lord have sinned? Was it at all possible for our
Lord to have sinned? Pardon the personal experience.
I do not use many of them, as you know, in preaching. But I
thought this week, of years ago, I was two streets, or rather,
two houses down the street, chatting with a neighbor that we knew
well. a regular church-going sort. He and his wife never missed,
changed churches every two years to make sure they got it right.
And I asked him during our conversation, I said, do you believe that Jesus
could have sinned while he were upon the earth? And his answer
was very flippant. Sure, if he wanted to, he said,
he could have seen him. Then how could he want to? He
is a lifelong Baptist, that man, and an Armenian by profession. Now, again, when we had the radio
broadcast on Sunday morning, it was amazing to me that I got
more opposition. I heard more criticism and opposition
from preaching on the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ than
any other subject. It is an offense unto many that
call themselves Christian to claim that Christ is their Lord
and their Savior, to hear that he was actually impeccable. They seem to prefer to view him
as a potential or a possible sinner, though not an actual
one. And they are comfortable with
the idea that the incarnate Christ could have been tempted to sin
during his time upon the earth. So it is probably true. If we
were to take a poll today among the churches and those that call
themselves Christian, could Christ or could Christ not have sinned
in the days of His flesh? Don't be surprised if the majority
answer, yes, He could have sinned, but He did not while He were
upon the earth. And no doubt, there would be
those who would hear us and would argue back. The question is moot,
M-O-O-T. That is, it has no significance. It is only a hypothetical question. Since the Lord did not sin, why
raise the question then after the fact? But the question, I
think, still is relevant. Why did the Lord not sin? Christ did not sin, but why did
the Lord not sin? How is it that He lived 33 years
among sinners and yet did not sin? What's more, while here
He received sinners and He ate with them, He went to be a guest
in their home and kept their company, men like Zacchaeus in
Luke 19 and 7. Remember that woman who came
one time behind him and washed the feet of our Lord, using her
tears for water and her hair for a cloth towel to dry them
away, and anointed the feet of our blessed Lord with ointment,
Luke chapter 7 and verse 39. She was known by reputation as
a great sinner. She was known as a sinful woman. And yet our Lord felt no sin
at all in what the action of this woman. You have to remember
what Paul said, evil communication corrupt good manners. 1 Corinthians
15 and verse 33. And our Lord was tempted by the
master tempter, Satan himself, and yet did no sin or acted any
disobedience unto God whatsoever. So we will concede some of the
religious leaders among the Jews of that day charged the Lord
with being a sinner. They were not bashful to call
him a sinner and to charge him with such. They called him, for
example, a blasphemer in John chapter 10 and verse 33. In John chapter 9 and verse 24,
Some Pharisees said concerning the Lord Jesus, we know that
this man is a sinner because he gave sight to a man on the
Sabbath day. But now, let's launch out into
the deep and consider the matter at hand, the impeccability of
our Lord Jesus Christ. that not only did he not sin,
but that it was impossible that he should sin in any manner or
in any degree. because sin found nothing in
him to make an appeal to, no lust or desire to make him covet. There was no power to pull him
into sin, nothing in him for sin to respond to or him to respond
to sin, nothing in our Lord at all of sin that it might work
upon or that might be a temptation unto him. Let's begin here at
the person of Christ and the constitution of the person of
the God-man, the Son incarnate in the flesh. Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, what the church has called the God-man, the one person
with two natures, the God-man, and the impeccability of our
Lord's Christ. Now I'm quoting William G.T. Shedd from his chapter on the
impeccability of our Lord. Quote, the doctrine of Christ's
person is not complete without considering the subject of impeccability."
Now you think about that for a moment. The person of Christ,
the doctrine of Christ, is not complete until we have considered
and settled the matter of his impeccability. How so? In that, one might say or confess
that Jesus, the very Son of God, He is. They may confess, yes,
I believe very strongly in the virgin birth. I believe that
He is God come in the flesh. I believe that he died, I believe
that he was buried, I believe that he rose again, even that
he was holy, and that he lived a sinful life. One may confess
all of that, and yet not come up and spoil it all by saying
that in spite of all of this yet, he might have sinned. That it was possible that he
could sin, just that he did not sin, they say, and that's the
important thing, that's all that matters. What is the reason we
could give why the God-man could not and did not sin? I guess we might reduce it down
to two answers, possible answer. Number one, was it because our
Lord loved God, loved His Father, was wholly devoted unto Him,
practiced the life of sanctification and was careful to avoid all
things sinful and tempting. Maybe we could say this personal
resolve of our Lord, personal dedication. Could we lay it there
that our Lord did not sin? But this did not work for Paul.
It did not work for others. And it does not work for us,
that we can be so devoted and so dedicated to God that we actually
do not sin. Doesn't work that way. Secondly,
that he could not sin by reason of who and what He was by reason
of his nature and the constitution of the theanthropic person of
the Lord Jesus Christ. As I said, that he was one person
and with two nature, those natures being a divine nature and a human
nature. that he was not just an ordinary
man. He was not conceived or born
after the normal fashion. He had no earthly biological
father. His humanity, as we read, was
conceived by the Spirit of God, yet he's never considered the
Son of the Holy Spirit but the very Son of God in Scripture. And coming to the impeccability
of Christ, we can see it. It stands not alone or apart,
but it has a relationship and a connection to the biblical
doctrine of Christology, and especially under two things. Number one, his deity, and number
two, his uni-personality. As we just said, two natures
in the one person, human and divine. But first of all, we
consider his deity. He is very God. He is not and was not a mere
man. He is very God. And that by his own claim while
he were here in the flesh. Remember John 10 30? I my father
are one and when the Pharisees heard our Lord say that they
understood that he was making himself to be equal with God
and it offended them Robert Dabney wrote The divinity of Christ
is a prime article of revealed theology." So that any who deny
the divinity of our Lord are no Christian. Any who deny that
he is God, that he has deity, is no Christian or, if at best,
sadly, sadly mistaken. The best we can accord them is
to be a deist, but not a Christian. For to deny the deity of the
Lord Christ, or to deny His eternality, is also to fracture the Trinity. Think about that for a moment. For one cannot be a part of the
Trinity who is not eternal, or who is a created being. or who
has no divine attribute or any part in creation. That one cannot
be a part of the Trinity. But secondly, the impeccability
of the Lord's Christ also stands in connection to his unipersonality. That is the fact that he is both
God and man. that He had both a divine and
a human nature, and that in the incarnation, in coming among
men, the Son did not put off either His deity or His divine
attribute. He did not exchange his divine
nature for a human one. He was not just a man. He assumed human nature in union
with the divine nature in that one person so that the word was
made flesh and dwelt among us We beheld his glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father. John chapter 1. 1 Timothy
3 verse 16. God was manifested in the flesh. God manifested in the flesh in
the person, of course, of Christ. It was necessary for him to redeem
his children that he be or have a special kinship under them,
that our Lord take a special kinship under those that he was
to save. You have that in Hebrews 2, 14
through 17. that he partook of flesh and
blood, and that he took hold of the seed of Abraham. Hebrews 2 and 16, very interesting
statement. Now the word, which is a description
of the Son, the word, the Son, was not changed into flesh. It did not change from the word
into flesh, which is to say, he did not cease being what he
always was when he assumed human nature. He did not cease being
the eternal, divine Son of God. There's an old-timer I like to
read. Some people called him a stinking antinomian when he
set forth the gospel of our Lord. That would be William Huntington. He was a vile, vile, wretched
sinner until he was saved by the grace of God and made a minister
of the gospel. And he wrote this, and I quote,
the Son of God took a whole human nature in union with his divine
person." And Huntington is very adamant that this included a
human soul in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ as the Son of
Man had a true human soul, without which the body is dead, we read
in the book of James. He became a true man, though
not a sinful man, when He became incarnate, to be our Redeemer,
for absolute divinity has no blood to shed for the remission
of sin. So a body hast Thou prepared
Him And in that body he bled and died. But was it not clearly
revealed in the Old Testament prophets and scripture that Messiah
was to be a man? Was that not clearly made in
the Old Testament? He was to be, Genesis 3.15, the
seed of the woman. Who would bruise the serpent's
head he was to be of the house and of the loins of David psalm
132 verse 11 acts chapter 2 and verse 30 romans 1 and verse 3
the son of a virgin isaiah 7 and 14 and said paul Galatians chapter
4 verse 4 made of a woman and made under the law thus rather
than shed his divinity he assumed a real human nature and partook
of flesh and and of blood and is called the God-man or the
man Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse
5, the man Christ Jesus. And that speaks of him by the
way in heaven as an intercessor for a mediator between God and
men must be a true partaker of the nature of both of them in
order to mediate their reconciliation. But we now turn to the transition
in our point to prove, and that is that even having assumed a
true human nature and a human soul, the Lord Jesus Christ was
impeccable in that in that union and in that person. That is,
not only did he not sin, but he could not sin, in large part
by the hypostatic union of the two natures in the one person
making up Christ, the Son of God. The Son, which by the way,
this union, this hypostatic union, is permanent. or his humanity
was glorified. So the question, which nature
was dominant in the incarnate Christ? Which nature had the
dominance and the preeminent? Which one sustained the other,
if we might ask the question that way? Which one was first
and was natural to his being and his existence? We read the
words of the angel Gabriel to Mary, that holy thing born of
thee. And then he adds, shall be called
the son of God. From the old Puritan Thomas Goodwin,
we can read on his being called the son of God, quote, the sonship
of the man Christ Jesus does coalesce, that is, it merges
or it fuses together in one sonship with the Son of God." Divinity
was not born of Mary, of course. That would be ridiculous. So
it's incorrect to call her the mother of God. Divinity was not
born of her. She is not the mother of God. Those words, that holy thing. For only the humanity of Jesus
was born of Mary. And yet beyond this, The union
is past finding out. It swallows us up in its overwhelming
us to know and to understand and search out the end. And yet,
beyond this, the union being past finding out. But are you
offended when you look there and you see the word thing? That holy thing, at least in
the King James, in Luke chapter 1, And verse 35, or in Matthew's
account, the word that, that which is conceived in her is
of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 1 20 referring to the
Lord of us. Now the standard rule has been,
how shall he be clean that is born of a woman? Job 15.4, 25.4, how can that
one be clean that is born of a woman? the light of Psalm 51
and verse 5 David saying in sin did my mother conceive me so
that never before the incarnation was there one born of woman that
was free of depravity and this was very firmly encoded in the
Mosaic law as seen by that law in Leviticus chapter 12 verse
the cleansing of a woman after the giving of birth there in
Leviticus 12 is a picture of Depravity we are born to pray
but that one conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit Matthew 1
20 and Luke 135, is declared to be a holy thing. The holy
thing being born. And I looked in some versions
render it that holy child, holy offspring is called holy and
is called the son of God. Though born of a woman, and I
add, a fallen woman, at that Mary. This one would be free
of depravity. It is him that knew no sin, as
we read in 2 Corinthians 5, and I believe it's verse 21. 1 Peter
chapter 2 and verse 22, who did no sin, neither was any guile
found in his mouth. Hebrews 7 and verse 26, our high
priest is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, unquote. Now, this stands in sharp contrast
to the Old Testament high priest Aaron, who even as the priest
of Judaism was a sinner. But Christ, our great high priest,
Hebrews 7, 27, needed not to offer up sacrifice first for
his own sin, and then for the sin of the people. Where you
see Aaron was required first of all to offer for his own sin
on the day of atonement, then for the people. Leviticus chapter
16 and verse 6. Christ had no such need being
holy, undefiled, and separate from sinners. I read a lot this
week on this. The Puritan John Owen wrote on
Hebrews 7 and verse 26, his nature was pure and holy, absolutely
free, from any spot or taint of our original defilement."
Notice something in Hebrews 7 and verse 26. Such a high priest
as Jesus, quote, became us, unquote. Those words became us, that is.
He was suitable to our need. He is the high priest that we
need. He fit our situation. He was me, just the sort of high
priest that we as sinners had need of. For not every sort of
priest would be able to perfect the worshipper or bring them
to God, as we learn in Hebrew. A morally corrupt priest could
never put away sin, since the priest that propitiates God in
behalf of others must himself be completely impeccable, as
well as to have a special relationship unto God. and therefore we cannot
have a mere mortal man as our high priest before our great
God. How can we say it any clearer
or how can we say it any plainer? This moral perfection in our
great high priest is absolutely necessary to him justifying us
and bringing us unto God and bringing many souls unto glory. Maybe the point ought to be made
again and again. that Christ owes his impeccability
neither in part or in whole to Mary. It is not owing to Mary
that we call our Lord impeccable. No, she was not herself immaculately
conceived. She was not a virgin all of the
remaining day of her life. She is not the mother of God. She is not ascended into heaven
bodily. She is not, as they say, quote,
a most gracious advocate, unquote, not to be prayed to. We are not
to pray to her. Some have made Mary the fourth
member of the Godhead over time as they developed that doctrine.
And yet so many who name themselves Christian think that Christ Jesus,
while in the flesh, might have sinned. And they even think that
it must be so. They argue and they say, his
temptations were not real. He is not suited to be our high
priest if he were not able to be tempted and to sin. The question
we have for them is, why do you insist? Why would any insist
on a potential sinner to save sinners? Would God send one whom
himself might have sinned in order to save from sin? So the question is, hypothetical
one, I suppose. Just suppose, now. Suppose upon
that hypothesis that Jesus Christ had of sin. A blasphemous thought,
that is. But just suppose, to answer their
hypothesis, that he might have sinned. What would the effect
of that have been? if our Lord had sinned? Would the guilt be confined to
the humanity of Christ alone? Or would it also affect the divine
nature? For Christ is one person with
two natures, human and divine. And of course, who among us would
ever say that the divine nature of our Lord might have sinned? Christ Jesus was true God, true
man, son of God, son of man, the God-man he was, the only
one ever to exist in that state or condition. To God, The God-man
may be weak, said William G.T. Shedd, he may be sorrowful, he
may be hungry, he may be tired, he may be sleepy, he may be crucified,
he might be dead, and he might be put in the grave, but he may
not be sinful or guilty." And so we say that the impeccability
of the God-man is much more than sinlessness. I'm going to say
that again. The impeccability of our Lord
is more than sinlessness. It is not just that he did not
sin, but that he could not sin. He was that holy thing. nor must
his not sinning be accounted as a work of grace in his soul
only, but because he is the God-man. He is the repository of the grace
of God. So the question is now, did Christ
ever claim impeccability? That'd be a good point to make,
would it not? Did Christ claim to be impeccable? Let's consider, if we might,
a couple or three sayings from our Lord on this issue. There's
that verse in John 10 and verse 30. I and my father are one. He claimed an equality with God. And the reaction of the Pharisee
in verse 33 was, wait a minute, that's blasphemy. You made yourself
being a man to be equal with God. They saw him only as a man,
a man and no more. a Jew, the son of Mary and of
Joseph, a Nazarene. The same mistake, I tell you,
plagues much of Christendom to this very day. The humanity of
Jesus is emphasized to the neglect of his deity and the fact that
he's very God. Then John 8, 46, consider that. Which of you convinces me of
sin? Our Lord had a great contention
in this chapter with many of the Jew, and he said unto them,
Which of you convinces me of sin? Gil noted this was far-reaching. Which of you convinces me of
sin? convinces me, meaning not to
persuade or to convince it to be so, but to convict and to
prove it, to make it stick, because the word can mean fault, reprove,
rebuke. It is translated convicted in
John chapter 8 and verse 9, to lay something to the charge of. Gill said, which of you convicts
me of any immorality of life, of any imposter or corruption
or deceit of doctrine, unquote. He was, as George Hutchison wrote,
quote, the spotless lamb of God and infallible true in all of
his doctrine, unquote. Not one lie, not one false teaching
ever came out of the mouth of our Lord." In other words, he
was neither a sinner nor a heretic, is what he is saying to them
in that passage. He was God and he spoke only
the truth, and none could convict him otherwise. This was his claim
before men and before the bitterest human enemies that he met in
his lifetime. But he had a more devious adversary. And in John chapter 14 and verse
30, he said, the prince of this world comes and has nothing in
me. Consider that. moment this he
said as his death drew near and as the prince of the power of
the air is a designation of Satan John 12 31 16 11 Ephesians 2
and verse 2 He may lord it over the system
of the world and a kingdom of darkness and have many willing
subjects, but he will find nothing in Christ which to condemn, nothing
of sin to lay hold of in our blessed Savior. And he will make
no gain and make no inroads with Christ. The prince of this world
comes. and has nothing in me. Such is the case that a sinless
one dies for the sins of others, and by that Satan's kingdom is
spoiled by the death of the one who offered himself to God without
spot and without blemish. Now, even when bearing the collective
sin of many, the Lord was not depraved by it personally. He was made sin for us, but He
was not made sinful or made a sinner. Sin was not infused into him. Sin was imputed unto him as he
bore it away on the cross. The Holy One came, lived, in
a body of flesh, bore our sin, and yet remained perfectly, absolutely
holy. For that holy thing that was
born of her is the Son of God. So our Christ is impeccable. We thank God for that. All right,
let's bow our head, please, and seal the service with a word
of prayer, thanking the Lord for his word in every part. And the doctrine of Christ is
crowned by the impeccability. Whatever else you believe about
Christ and leave off his impeccability, you have spoiled his person and
his work.