Jesus and Sin; Describing the tenets of Sin!

The Reality of Sin: Sin is present in human history; any attempt to ignore it or to give this dark reality other names would be futile. To try to understand what sin is, one must first recognize the profound relationship of man to God, for only in this relationship is the evil of sin unmasked in its true identity as humanity’s rejection of God and opposition to him, even as it continues to weigh heavy on human life and history. (CCC 386).

Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.” (CCC 1849).

“It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate’s cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas’ betrayal - so bitter to Jesus, Peter’s denial and the disciple’s flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world, the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.” (CCC 1851).

Following his baptism, Jesus was led by the Spirit Into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. The tempter approached him and said to him, “if you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” He said in reply, “It is written; one does not live on bread alone, but be every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” (Mt 4: 1 - 4).

Here we are at the very question that unbelievers will attest to saying, “If Jesus was the Son of God how could the devil induce the Christ to sin by tempting him to reject his Father’s plan to redeem humanity?” And going further in the mission of Jesus, they’ll say, “ that he couldn’t sin because of his divinity?”

The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is a result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. (CCC 464).

Because human nature was assumed, not absorbed, in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ’s human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body. In parallel fashion, she had to recall on each occasion that Christ’s human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it. Everything that Christ is and does in this nature derives from “one of the Trinity.” The Son of God therefore communicates to his humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity.” (CCC 470).

Back to the two questions unbelievers may throw out to deny this Hypostatic Union. When Jesus was tempted, it was both natures that were put to the test and his response was that of the God/Man. He was hungry and yet it wasn’t a matter of divine nature throwing this off. The next question unbelievers will utter is if Jesus was man as well as God were temptations similar to humans not realistic since the divine nature could excuse their offerings and he couldn’t be tempted as in sexual temptations Jesus was 100 % human as well as 100 % divine. As a human any normal temptations we receive could in fact be similar to Jesus. The difference was that he rejected these, not using divine capabilities but a strong belief in his faith as a man. We must not confuse the one-time event where two natures could and indeed were united as Christ absorbing humanity to his divine nature.

One last answer; Jesus as the Son of God could have succumbed to the temptations in the desert. And as the Son of God could also have been tempted and succumbed to sexual temptations since he was a man. He did neither and set the perfect example for all of us.

Ralph B. Hathaway