To begin our lesson, we will address one important question: How is it that we are ‘born sinful?’
Well, we are born as a duplicate of Adam as he was spiritually, after the fall. We share his original sin and his sinful nature by genetic transmission. Thus we share his spiritual death. Adam’s sin becomes our sin; his sin nature; our sin nature, his condemnation our condemnation.
In contrast, Romans 5:14 tells us that Christ was born as Adam was created before the fall — body, soul, and spirit. Adam was created perfect; our Lord was born perfect, without the genetically formed sin nature and the corruption of Adam’s original sin.
Like all members of the human race, however, the mother of Christ’s humanity, the virgin Mary, was also born spiritually dead. She was not immaculate, sinless, or perfect. Nor was she, in the most ludicrous blasphemy of all, the mother of God. Eternal God has no source, no origin, and no mother. Mary was a sinner in need of a Savior; her body was a body of corruption; her genes and chromosomes carried the sin nature as does everyone’s. Like all of us, she committed many sins, but because fornication was definitely not among her sins, she was truly a virgin at the time of Christ’s birth.
She and her future husband were descendants from the two branches of the royal family of David — she through Nathan (Luke 3:31); Joseph through Solomon (Matthew 1:6). Both were Jewish aristocrats; both demonstrated their nobility of character in the way they handled this surprising pregnancy, which undoubtedly raised many eyebrows.
Through the centuries, religion has abused Mary, the biological mother of Jesus. Religion has elevated her far above her rightful position. She is often overrated and even worshiped as the embodiment of ideally pure womanhood. Just because religion has abused her is no reason to overlook this woman’s noble character and personal integrity. True, Jesus had to reprimand her on several later occasions (Luke 2:48-50; John 2: 3-5), and He de-emphasized her role in His incarnation (Luke 11:27-28). Yet in many ways she was an admirable woman.
Even the finest people, however, are condemned from birth, and Mary entered the world possessing a sin nature (for Mary to be immaculate herself, she too would have had to be born of a virgin; she clearly was not immaculate nor virgin-born). As a woman, she could not transmit her sin nature to her progeny. After Christ was born, she bore at least six other children by Joseph through normal procreation (Matthew 13:55-56). All were born spiritually dead, but not because of their mother’s sin nature; they received the sin nature from their father … the sin nature is passed from generation to generation through the father.
Isaiah prophesied that the virgin birth would be a “sign,” a miraculous event (Isaiah 7:14), but Mary herself was not the miracle. The miracle was that God the Holy Spirit provided twenty-three perfect chromosomes to fertilize her normal, pure ovum. She conceived apart from the contamination carried by the male sperm. Her pregnancy was, therefore, a virgin pregnancy, and the fetus that developed within her was totally free from Adam’s sin.
Even to focus on the virgin birth puts Mary too much in the spotlight; the virgin pregnancy is the true issue. The true agent in the virgin conception is the Holy Spirit.
Mankind gets no credit at any point in the Grace Plan of God. Needless to say, this principle of God’s Grace has gone unnoticed in the glare of “Maryology.”
At the instant when, in the Bethlehem stable, the fetus as biological life emerged from Mary’s womb, God the Father gave life to Christ’s soul, and breathed it into its genetically prepared home — the body of Christ. The result was human life breathed into Jesus from His Father, just as it is with each of us at the moment of our birth. Our Lord was born true humanity, therefore qualified to represent and redeem mankind before God.
At the same moment, when the justice of God would normally apply Adam’s original sin to the sin nature in a newly born infant, no such imputation was possible for Christ. Christ had no genetically formed sin nature; Adam’s sin had no home in Him. There was no affinity between Christ and Adam’s original sin because through the virgin pregnancy Christ was not contaminated by Adam’s original sin through seminal fertilization … Christ had no human father.
The birth of Jesus Christ was/is unique — He was born both physically and spiritually alive (we are born spiritually dead). The Greek word monogenism in John 3:16 is not “only begotten” Son but “uniquely born” Son. The only other perfect human beings (Adam and Eve) had been created perfect by God, but the unique Person of the universe was born perfect in the midst of totally depraved mankind. Christ was the only born free man ever to enter Satan’s world.
1). Christ was born completely free from the devil’s rulership
2). Free from the dominance of the sin nature
3). Free from the imparting of Adam’s sin by God the Father
4). Free from the condemnation of spiritual death
While the Love of God was demonstrated in the gift of the Savior, the Justice of God had to judge our sins in Jesus Christ as our substitute, and the righteousness of God had to find Him an acceptable sacrifice. Christ was perfect at birth, but He also had to be perfect when He reached the cross. Thus, our Lord could not commit any personal sins during His life on earth.
Remember that Christ in His humanity could be tempted and could have sinned. In His deity, however, neither could He be tempted nor could He commit sin. If you add up these characteristics, the God-man in perfect union was temptable but impeccable. In other words, through His human free-will (by personal choice) He was able to avoid sin when He was tempted as a man; in His divine essence, the integrity of God meant sin was completely out of the question. The Latin maxim is therefore true: “Posse non peccary, non posse peccary”; He was “able not to sin and not able to sin.”
Christ remained absolutely obedient to the Father’s Plan all the way to the cross, even knowing the horror and agony that awaited Him. What a Savior! What a God we as believers serve. Come soon Lord Jesus and take us to our Heavenly Home in your Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.
Please note:
This study is used by permission from Katie, the former artist and administrative assistant at RBT Bible Ministries.
Blessings in Fields of Grace.