why christ’s humanity had to be perfect
On City of God in the course of a discussion on the ethics of homosexuality, Matthew made this comment:
“Christ was capable of sin in his humanity but not in his divinity. Therefore, his temptation was real, because he was tempted in his humanity, but not in his divinity. However, Christ was not perfect in his humanity until after the resurrection. Nonetheless, he remained perfect in his divinity throughout his time on earth.”
I thought more about this and disagree. Christ had to have been perfect in His humanity. I came to this conclusion:
Perfection essentially means to be without flaw. Fair enough?
Now, Christ was a sacrifice for sin and we can learn about what was required of Him for this role by examining that which foreshadowed Him — Old Testament sacrifice. Now a lamb chosen for sacrifice had to be blemishless — without flaw, that is, perfect. Since lambs don’t have souls, what had to blemishless was its body. That is, the part of the lamb that could be sacrificed needed to be perfect.
Now, come back to Christ and continue the logic: whatever part of Him that could be sacrificed needed to be perfect. We know that His Divinity was not what sacrificed. It was distressed and removed from the Father, yes, but his Godhood did not die. Of course His body died, however, the component of Christ that was truly crushed for us was the entirety of His humanity. Christ’s humanity was sacrificed. In order for Christ to be a viable sacrifice for sin, the part of Him that could be sacrificed — His humanity — needed to be perfect.
Given His sacrificial role, Christ being perfect prior to crucifixion was far more necessary than for Him to be perfect afterward.
Also consider that Christ is referred to as the second Adam, and we know that Christ did not have a sin nature. Christ’s human life was the result of God’s creation, not human sexual activity — like Adam. So whatever conclusions we come to about Christ’s humanity hold true for Adam’s.
tags: Christ, humanity, perfection, sacrifice
Ben,
A lamb “without blemish” is not the same as a perfect lamb. Depending on how you feel about the notion ideal forms a perfect lamb may even be a nonsensical concept. Not only would a perfect lamb have to free from whatever sort of defect was considered a “blemish,” it would also have to have perfect proportions, symmetry et cetera. It does not follow that a lamb without blemish is a “perfect lamb” and it isn’t obvious that a perfect lamb can even be thought to exist.
I agree that “perfect” is a hard concept regarding something like a lamb, or anything for that matter. I simply meant “as perfect as it could possibly be.”
The “best we can do” is find a lamb without blemish. That is the closest to perfect that is conceivably possible — but that’s fine: this is simply foreshadowing Christ who was actually perfect.
It isn’t really fair to change the definition of a word when you are responding to something I said. I had already claimed that Christ lacked all flaws in his humanity. Perfection (as I was using it) did not mean “without flaw”. Instead, it means “unable to improve further”.
Goodness means without any flaw, lacking nothing as regards oneself. Christ in his humanity was always good. He was not always perfect. It was only after the resurrection that he was unable to sin in his humanity. That is an improvement. Therefore, he was not perfect in his humanity before. QED.
Jesus Christ (God’s only son) was and still is perfection. Some may think he didn’t but he died for all our sins and not his. He has so much love for all of us for God’s word says: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever belives is him shall not perish but have eternal life! (John 3:16)
I didn’t think I was changing a definition, I thought I was clarifying one. Apologies.
I agree with this definition.
But on City of God you said:
1) As you said, free will means the possibility of sinning necessarily exists. I think you would agree that Christ has free will (see point 3). Therefore, the possibility must still exist that Christ could sin. If, Christ having free will, the possibility of sinning still exists, then He is essentially the same as He was prior to the resurrection regarding His perfection.
As far as I can tell, the reason He was sinless on Earth and will forever remain sinless is because of the presence of His Divinity, giving fidelity to His humanity. If He was human alone, as was the case with Adam #1, He would have in all likelihood fallen. It was Christ’s Divinity that maintained His sinlessness, in which case, His humanity has seen no effective improvement (as sin potential still must exist in no different a way than it did prior to the Crucifixion).
If He’s seen no effective change then He is as He has always been. Thus, if He is perfect now, He has always been perfect.
2) God resides outside of time. Therefore, true perfection is not momentary and must extend throughout time infinitely. If Christ was perfected upon the Resurrection, then this perfection would have necessarily been made manifest before the Crucifixion in order to truly be perfection (because post resurrection the “past-Christ” would have been imperfect thus keeping “present-Christ” imperfect). Thus, Christ would have been perfect before the Crucifixion.
3) Even on Earth Christ said that He has no will except that of the Father, which would seem to preclude the possibility of Christ sinning even prior to the Crucifixion, in which case, He would still have seen no improvement post-resurrection.