Was Jesus really without sin?

What the Bible says

Several New Testament witnesses say the same thing. The writer of Hebrews calls Jesus our high priest.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.

Heb 4:15

Paul writes:

God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Cor 5:21

Peter says, "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth" (1 Pet 2:22), and John says, "in Him there is no sin" (1 John 3:5). The church has received these letters as from Peter and John, who had walked with Jesus.

Jesus himself asked his opponents, "Which of you can prove Me guilty of sin?" (John 8:46). His enemies tried at his trial: the Sanhedrin sought false testimony, "but they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward" (Matt 26:59-60). Pilate said, "I find no basis for a charge against this man" (Luke 23:4), and the criminal crucified beside him said, "this man has done nothing wrong" (Luke 23:41). Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus confess a sin or ask forgiveness for himself, though he taught his disciples to.

None of this means his temptation was unreal. After forty days of fasting in the wilderness he was tempted to turn stones to bread, to leap from the temple's pinnacle, and to worship the devil for the kingdoms of the world (Matt 4:1-11). Each time he answered from Scripture. In Gethsemane, in anguish before death, he prayed:

“Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done.”

Luke 22:42

Hebrews finds comfort in the reality of the temptation.

Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.

Heb 2:18

He was not untempted but tempted without sinning. Sin is a distortion of human nature, not part of it, so being without sin does not make him less human.

The church's witness

The church put this testimony into its confession. In 451 the Council of Chalcedon declared that Christ is truly God and truly man, like us in everything apart from sin The Chalcedonian Definition.

The Fathers tried to hold the reality of the temptation and the sinlessness together. Gregory distinguishes three modes of temptation: suggestion, delight and consent. We commonly fall into delight or consent; Christ did not. In Gregory's words, "He could then be tempted by suggestion; but the delight of sin never gnawed His soul" Gregory.

Augustine asks why Christ offered himself to temptation, and answers: "That He might be our mediator in vanquishing temptation not by aid only, but by example" Augustine.

Matthew Henry, on Hebrews 4:15, reasons that "the more holy and pure he was, the more he must have been unwilling in his nature to sin, and must have had deeper impression of its evil" Matthew Henry.

In the original languages

The word for Jesus' "temptation" is peirazo (πειράζω), which means both "to test" and "to tempt." In Matthew 4:1 the Spirit leads Jesus into the place of testing, while the devil is the tempter: one event, a test from God's side and an enticement from the devil's.

"Yet was without sin" in Hebrews 4:15 is choris (χωρίς) hamartias, "without sin" or "apart from sin." He went through our kind of temptation and came through without sin. The "knew no sin" of 2 Corinthians 5:21 uses "know" in the biblical sense of knowing by experience: he did not commit sin.

Common objections

"Whipping the merchants, overturning tables and cursing a fig tree are surely anger." John records that Jesus made a whip of cords, drove the animals out of the temple and overturned the money changers' tables (John 2:13-17). But not all anger is sin. Paul says, "Be angry, yet do not sin" (Eph 4:26). Mark says Jesus looked around "with anger and sorrow at their hardness of heart" (Mark 3:5). His anger here was over God's house becoming a marketplace, and the disciples remembered the zeal of which Scripture speaks (John 2:17). Chrysostom reads the act as defending the house at his own risk: "He who exposed Himself to such peril to defend the decency of the house, did not despise the Lord of that house" Chrysostom.

The fig tree is stranger still. Mark even notes that "it was not the season for figs" (Mark 11:13). The traditional reading is an acted parable about fruitless religion, set between the two halves of the temple story. Matthew Henry takes it to represent "the state of hypocrites in general" and of the Jewish nation Matthew Henry. Chrysostom calls it a miracle for the disciples' sake and says to "consider the miracle, and admire the Worker of it" Chrysostom. A tree is not a moral agent, so no injustice was done, though it remains a difficult passage.

"He ignored the Canaanite woman and called her a dog. Isn't that rude and prejudiced?" A mother begs help for her daughter, and Jesus at first does not answer a word (Matt 15:23) and then says it is not right to toss the children's bread to the dogs (Matt 15:26). It shocks a first reading. Interpretations differ. Many Fathers saw a drawing out of her faith. Chrysostom: "This was the cause why Christ was so backward, that He knew what she would say, and would not have her so great excellence hid" Chrysostom. Others see the order of salvation at work, "first to the Jew, then to the Greek" (Rom 1:16). Some note that the Greek word for "dogs" means small household dogs, though how much that softens the tone is debated. Some modern readers think her reply genuinely moved him; a truly human Jesus could be moved without sin. What is clear is the ending. Jesus says, "O woman, your faith is great! Let it be done for you as you desire," and her daughter is healed (Matt 15:28). The story ends with no dismissal and no refusal: she is healed and praised.

"If he could not sin, was the temptation fake? If he could, can God sin?" This is a real difficulty, and Christians answer it in two ways, both within the confession that Christ is one person, truly God and truly man. Most theologians through the centuries have held that he could not sin: the one tempted is the eternal Son, and any sin would be his act. Yet the pressure was real in his human soul, for a temptation's force does not depend on the possibility of giving in. Others, many of them modern, hold that in his human nature he was truly able to sin and overcame as we must, trusting the Father in the Spirit's power; they too deny that his divine nature could sin. Both confess that he did not sin and that the pressure was real. Some add that one who never gives way has borne temptation to its end.

Going further

Jesus' sinlessness is not meant merely to praise his moral excellence. It tells us that he stands where he can save us. In the Old Testament the offering had to be without defect (Lev 22:20), and Hebrews speaks of the blood of Christ, "who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God" (Heb 9:14). A person who dies for his own sin cannot carry another's. And because he was truly tempted, the one we pray to in temptation has walked the same road.

You might ask yourself: Do I believe that God knows my weakness, or do I feel that I must show him a perfect face? If I reread the story that troubled me at first, what might look different?

To read further, see Why did Jesus have to die? and Is Jesus God? Reading Hebrews 4:14-16 slowly is also a good start.