02/26/24 DON'T BE SURPRISED

02/26/24 DON'T BE SURPRISED

Blasphemy aimed at children. This excerpt is taken from a children's book. It tells children that Jesus had sinned.

However, I constantly hear and read the same lie, that Jesus sinned, taught by people who claim to be Bible believers.

FOR INSTANCE... People say that when Jesus was praying in the garden, prior to His crucifixion, He prayed to escape or avoid the cross. That is not true. Jesus did not pray to escape or avoid the cross. In fact, it appeared that He was about to die in the garden, therefore He prayed not to die in the garden, but to make it to the cross.

The Bible says Jesus was heard and His prayer was answered because of His piety. Since His prayer was answered and since he made it to the cross, then His prayer was not to avoid or escape the cross, but rather that He would not to die in the garden, but actually die on the cross, as His plan and commitment had been throughout eternity and His earthly life.

He did not cower in the garden, He did not seek deliverance from pain, or shame or death of the cross. He pursued the cross in the garden as He had during His three years of ministry; as He had throughout His earthly life; as He had planned for all eternity. Remember, Jesus said that He came for the purpose of dying on the cross. Jesus did not fear the cross, He did not cower in the shadow of the cross, He did not want, or hope for a way to avoid the cross. He was about to die and wanted to make it to the cross, but if the Father willed for Him to die in the garden, He (Jesus), was willing. Nothing in His nature, the history of salvation, the promises of God, or the Divine record indicates that Jesus feared the cross or sought to escape or avoid the cross.

Though no one has ever faced the suffering Jesus faced on the cross, mortal men, saved and unsaved, have willingly embraced untold suffering in order to accomplish much lesser goals. If mortal men have willingly embraced and suffered for their causes, then it is only reasonable that Jesus, God in the flesh, the Lamb of God, Who always intended to die as our sacrifice, knowing He would rise again and knowing He would redeem all those who receive Him as Lord and Savior, would not ask the Father to diver Him from the cross. Such an act of Jesus diminishes Him to less than mortal men who have made the supreme sacrifice for less worthy reasons.

Actually, for Him to seek an escape from the cross would be willful disobedience and a moral failure on His part. To have sought escape from the cross would have been sin, since that is what the Godhead had always decreed and He had always promised to do. His prayer for the Father's will was His willingness to accept physical death in the garden, if it came to that. He would not die in rebellion to the will of the Father, whether on the cross or in the garden.

We are entering into the season of the greatest event that every happened: the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. People refer to this season and event by the pagan name, "Easter," which is also crude, errant and blasphemous. Along with folks using the name of a pagan goddess to designate God's atonement event, we will hear folks talk about Jesus trying to escape or avoid dying on the cross. Jesus fulfilled the promises and the plan of salvation by dying on the cross and being raised from the dead physically.

ALSO... The Bible says, "He who knew no sin became sin for us...."
At least that is the translation we usually read. And with that mistranslation we are also told that Jesus actually became sin; we are told that Jesus, who was the Divine Sacrifice for sin, actually became the sin or took the place of the sinner (a murderer or an adulterer or a pedophile or a Sodomite or whatever kind of sinner you can imagine). It is claimed that Jesus became sin. WRONG.

The "sin sacrifice" does not become sin. The sin sacrifice suffers and dies so that the sinner may live. The sacrifice is the substitute in the fact of death. This is not the same as saying that the sin sacrifice is actually guilty of the sin. In fact, the sin sacrifice must be without sin. This is not the same as saying that the sin sacrifice becomes the sinner. The sacrifice is offered as a propitiation, a satisfaction, an atonement for the sinner. The sacrifice satisfies the requirement, which says that death is the cost for sin. The sacrifice takes away our sin but does not become unholy in the act or process.

Jesus became the "Sin Sacrifice," as the verse should be translated. In fact, the same terminology and usage is translated in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) as "sin sacrifice.". "Sin" and "Sin Sacrifice" should be used according to the context. We should read, "He Who knew no sin, became the sin sacrifice...

To say Jesus became sin is not consistent with the rest of Scripture. Jesus never became sin and He never became a sinner. To say that Jesus became the "sin sacrifice" is not only consistent with other passages, it is the express purpose for the incarnation and the plan of salvation.

Jesus never was sin, either as the Second Person of the eternal Triune Godhead, or as the incarnate Savior Who takes away the sin of the world, Who came into this word as, "God with us" and as, "The Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world," or as the crucified and risen Savior, Who knew no sin.

Some people carry the lie that Jesus became sin or became the sinner to the next level, saying that Jesus' resurrection from the dead was His own new birth. They say Jesus was the first person to be, "born again." There is no end to the errors, which follow the idea that Jesus became sin, or Jesus became a sinner.

My point in the post is that the nature, dignity, fitness, holiness of Jesus Christ is assailed by any view which states or implies that Jesus ever sinned or Jesus was ever a sinner. Jesus came into the world to save sinners, by dying for sinners and rising from the dead. He did not come to become sin.