Shedd on Jesus' impeccability and temptation

[chuckd]

I was reviewing some past threads on Jesus' impeccability and how we can say he was truly tempted if he did not have the ability to sin. On one of the threads Ed Walsh posted the section in Shedd's Dogmatic Theology where he discusses Christ's impeccability. Below he answers an objection that if we can talk about other limits and weaknesses of Jesus' human nature, why can we not talk about peccability?

But it may be asked: If the properties of either nature may be attributed to the person of the God-man, why may not both peccability and impeccability be attributed to the person of the God-man? We say that Jesus Christ is both finite and infinite, passible and impassible, impotent and omnipotent, ignorant and omniscient, why may we not also say that he is both peccable and impeccable? If the union in one person of the two natures allows the attribution of contrary characteristics to the one God-man in these former instances, why not also in this latter?

Because, in this latter instance, divine nature cannot innocently and righteously leave human nature to its own finiteness without any support from the divine, as it can in the other instances. When the Logos goes into union with a human nature, so as to constitute a single person with it, he becomes responsible for all that this person does through the instrumentality of this nature. The glory or the shame, the merit or the blame, as the case may be, is attributable to this one person of the God-man. If, therefore, the Logos should make no resistance to the temptation with which Satan assailed the human nature in the wilderness and should permit the humanity to yield to it and commit sin, he would be implicated in the apostasy and sin. The guilt would not be confined to the human nature. It would attach to the whole theanthropic person. And since the Logos is the root and base of the person, it would attach to him in an eminent manner. Should Jesus Christ sin, incarnate God would sin, as incarnate God suffered when Jesus Christ suffered.

I find this answer lacking as I feel it simply describes the problem in more detail. If the person Jesus is impotent, is God responsible for that impotency? If Jesus learns, do we charge God with ignorance?

I've been thinking on this problem and I think I have a much more fundamental answer. Humans being finite, passible, impotent, ignorant are all part of our nature. That's how we were made.

However, sin is contrary to our nature. Sin corrupted our nature. I think that's the fundamental difference between the two spheres of weakness that Shedd highlights. And Jesus never had a sin nature, or a corrupted nature. In a sense, he was truly human.

 

[chuckd]

Obviously too many d's in the title, but I don't see how I edit it.

 

[fredtgreco]

It seems to me the difference is that when the human nature learns, that does not implicate God is sin - i.e., ignorance is not sin. But for the human nature to be involved in sinning, that necessitates the divine being involved in sinning, which cannot be.

 

[chuckd]

It seems to me the difference is that when the human nature learns, that does not implicate God is sin - i.e., ignorance is not sin. But for the human nature to be involved in sinning, that necessitates the divine being involved in sinning, which cannot be.

But I see that as comparing apples and oranges. When the human nature learns, it doesn't implicate God is sin, but it does implicate God is ignorant, which equally cannot be.

 

[Taylor]

We cannot go about discussing the impeccability of Christ in the same way we discuss the communication of attributes in the two natures of Christ. This is primarily because persons sin, not natures. So the very question of whether Christ's human nature can sin is not a valid one. Robert Dabney elaborates on this and other points. Sorry for the long quote, but it is helpful:

The old doctrine of the Reformed Churches asserted not only the actual sinlessness, which none but violent infidels impugn, but the impeccability of our Redeemer. In recent days, some of whom better things should have been expected, deny the latter. They concede to the God-man the posse non peccare: but deny to Him, or at least to the humanity, the non posse peccare. Their plea is in substance, that a being must be peccable in order to experience temptation, to be meritorious for resisting it, and to be an exemplar and encouragement to us, who are tempted. Thus argue Ullman, Farrar, the author of “Ecce Deus,” Dr. Schaff, and even Dr. Hodge; while Dr. Dorner, in his “History of Protestant Theol.,” revives the Nestorian and Pelagian doctrine, of a meritorious growth or progress of Christ’s humanity from peccability to impeccability, by virtue of the holy use of His initial contingency and selfdetermination of will.​

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Now, none will say that the second Person, as eternal Word, was, or is peccable. It would seem then, that the trait can only be asserted of the humanity. But, 1st, It is the unanimous testimony of the Apostles, as it is the creed of the Church, that the human nature never had its separate personality. It never existed, and never will exist for an instant, save in personal union with the Word. Hence, (a.) Since only a Person can sin, the question is irrelevant; and (b.) Since the humanity never was, in fact, alone, the question whether, if alone, it would not have been peccable, like Adam, is idle. Second: It is impossible that the person constituted in union with the eternal and immutable Word, can sin; for this union is an absolute shield to the lower nature, against error. In the God-man “dwells the fullness of the God-head bodily.” Col. 2:9; Col 1:19. Third, this lower nature, upon its union with the Word, was imbued with the full influences of the Holy Ghost. Ps. 45:7; Isaiah 11:2, 3; 61:1, 3; Luke 4:21; and 4:1; Jno. 1:32; 3:34. Fourth, Christ seems to assert his own impeccability. Jno. 14:30. “Satan cometh and hath nothing in me.” So Paul, 2 Cor. 5:21, Christ “knew no sin;” and in Heb. 13:8. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and forever.” Jno. 10:36. “The Father hath sanctified and sent Him in the world.” Fifth: If this endowment of Christ’s person rose no higher than a posse non peccare, it seems obvious that there was a possibility of the failure of God’s whole counsel of redemption. For, as all agree, a sinning sacrifice and intercessor could redeem no one. There must have been then, at least a decretive necessity, that all his actions should be infallibly holy.​

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The pretext for imputing peccability to the Redeemer has been explained: it only remains to prove it groundless. He was certainly subjected to temptation, and was, in a sense, thus qualified to be a perfect example to and sympathizer with us, in our militant state. But this consists with his impeccability. These writers seem to think that if, in the hitherto sinless will of Jesus, there had been no contingency and self-determination when He came to be tempted, He could have had no actual realization of spiritual assaults, and no victory. Does not this amount to teaching that a rudiment at least of “concupiscence” in Him was necessary to this victory and merit. Then it would follow that we shall hold, with Pelagius, that concupiscence is not sin per se; for that cannot be sin per se, which is essential to right action, under a given condition assigned the responsible agent by God’s own providence.​

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In fact, the supposed stress of our opponents’ plea is dissolved, when we make the obvious distinction between the act of intellection of the natural desirableness seen in an object, and a spontaneous appetency for it apprehended as unlawful. It is the latter which is the sin of concupiscence. The former is likely to take place in any intellect, simply as a function of intelligence, just in proportion to the extent of its cognitive power, and is most certain to take place, as a simple function of intelligence, as to all possible objects, in the infinite mind of the holy God! So far as intellectual conception goes, none conceive so accurately as God, just how “the pleasures of sin which are but for a season,” appear to a fallible creature’s mind. To say that God feels the sin of “concupiscence” would be blasphemy. This distinction shows us how an impeccable being may be tempted. While the human will of Jesus was rendered absolutely incapable of concupiscence by the indwelling of the Godhead and its own native endowment; He could doubtless represent to Himself mentally precisely how a sinful object affects both mind and heart of His imperfect people. Does not this fit Him to feel for and to succor them? And is His victory over temptation the less meritorious, because it is complete? Let me explain. We will suppose that the idea of a forbidden object is suggested (possibly by an evil spirit,) before the intellect of a Christian. One of two things may happen. By the force of indwelling sin the presence of that idea in conception may result in some conscious glow of appetency towards the object; but the sanctified conscience is watchful and strong enough to quench this heat before it flames up into a wrong volition. This perhaps is the usual case with Christians. And there, our opponents would exclaim, is the wholesome self-discipline! There is the creditable and ennobling warfare against sin! Let us now suppose the other result; which, in the happier hours of eminent saints, doubtless follows sometimes: that when the tempting idea is presented in suggestion, the conscience is so prompt, and holy desires so pre-occupy the mind, that the thought is ejected before it even strikes the first spark of concupiscence; that the entire and immediate answer of the heart to it is negative. Is not this still more creditable than the former case? Surely! If we approved the man in the former case because the state of his soul’s moral atmosphere was such, that the evil spark went out before it set fire to the stream of action; we should still more approve, in the latter case, where the atmosphere of the soul was such that the spark of evil was not lighted at all. Will any one say, that here, there was no temptation. This is as though one should say, there was no battle, because the victory was complete and the victor unscathed.​

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—Robert Lewis Dabney, Syllabus and Notes of the Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology Taught in Union Theological Seminary, Virginia, 2nd ed. (St. Louis, MO: Presbyterian Publishing Company of St. Louis, 1878), 470-472.​