8/3/2023
Elijah McSwain, Sr.
1 Peter 2:21-24 NKJV — For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.
According to a recent study conducted in January 2023 by Arizona Christian University called AWVI 2023 (The American Worldview Inventory), about 44% of “professing believers” who participated in the poll do not believe that Christ lived a sinless life. 1 What is alarming from this poll is that the percentage of “professing believers” who do not believe in the undefiled life that Christ lived, fail to understand a crucial and fundamental truth by which the Christian faith rests upon. The fundamental truth is that salvation is connected to, rooted in and grounded in the unblemished manner in which Jesus lived during His time on earth. Without Christ’s sinless life our salvation is null and void. Without the life that Christ lived on earth we would still be dead in sin and trespasses.
Failure on anyone's part to comprehend the life of Christ is a sad indictment against those who hold such a view because it undermines the life, the personage, the atoning work, and the resurrection of Christ from the dead that made it possible for humanity to be saved. Furthermore, it brings to the forefront a question of their profession of faith and state of spirituality since our common salvation is tied to the undefiled life of Jesus Christ.
It is sad to say, that many more people worldwide hold such an unbiblical viewpoint and an antithetical position that underscores what the Bible decrees. Such a belief is detrimental to Christianity and deserves a biblical analysis of Scripture to help unpack divine truths related to Christ and the means of salvation.
The Perfect Righteous Life Of Christ
Peter the writer of this epistle attested to the truth concerning the flawless life that Jesus lived. In 1 Peter 2:22, he declared that Christ committed no sin nor was deceit found in His mouth.
The phrase committed no sin expresses that He did not transgress the law of God. He did not violate or rebel against the commands of God by engaging in or performing any acts of wickedness.
His entire life was free from sin. There was no immorality found in Him. There were no vile passions found in Him. He was not governed by any ill-advised or sinful thoughts. There was no corrupt speech found in His mouth. There was no bitterness, envy, malice, strife, slander, pretentiousness, pride, divisiveness, contempt, deception, hypocrisy, unruliness, or mischievous behavior found in Him. He lived a perfectly righteous life. His life mirrored and resembled that of holiness as well as righteousness. His conduct was pure. His speech was free from contamination. His motives were noble and honorable.
1 John 3:5 states, "and you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin."
Jesus upheld the law of God in its entirety. Jesus perfectly obey God’s law. He fully complied with everything that God required. By keeping the law of God perfectly, Christ demonstrate that He was sinless in every way, a Lamb being without spot or blemish. During the course of time that He spent on earth, He actively obeyed God in all facets of life. Theologians refer to this as active obedience. He purposefully adhered to will of God by His lifestyle, His mindset, His speech, and His submission unto His Father.
His life brought satisfaction unto God because it was not tainted by sin through the obedient life that He lived. Jesus affirmed the magnitude of His perfect obedience unto God in the last phrase of John 8:29 where He emphasized, “for I always do those things that please Him.” Everything that He did was for the glory of God. He met the approval of God because His actions were authorized by God. The gospel of John declared this truth:
John 5:30 ESV — “I can do nothing on My own. As I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just, because I seek not My own will but the will of Him who sent Me."
He operated within the confines of His Father’s will. He did not seek to step outside of what He was commissioned to do. Peter further asserted the sinless nature of Jesus in 1 Peter 2:23 by the declaration that “when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.” Despite Christ being ridiculed, slandered, being attacked in an abusive manner, and threatened on various occasions, He did not retaliate or get even. He did not perform an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He was not vengeful toward His opposition. He was not vindictive toward His enemies. However, He committed the difficulties that He faced over to God.
“Jesus did what was right, in fact He never sinned, even when He was tempted to act treacherously against His enemies. In stead of retaliating against His enemies, He trusted Himself to God, knowing that God would righteously judge His enemies in the end.” 2
The life of Jesus demonstrated His total commitment to live after the order of His Father and to please Him by every act that He performed, every word that He spoke, and every thought that preceded forth from His mind. The way in which Jesus lived serves as a model for the rest of humanity to follow. Even though we will never be sinless like Christ, we should follow His example, thereby, learning how to sin less.
Micah McCormick stated, "Jesus Christ came as the incarnated divine Son to live a human life of perfect obedience and submission. While we are unable to live a life without sin, Jesus was our representative and lived a perfect life on our behalf, a life attested to throughout the Bible. This obedient life fulfilled the expectations of the prophets of the Old Testament, who expected God to both send a Messiah to rescue his people and to provide a sufficient sacrifice for their sins; Jesus was both of these. As the second Adam, he came to provide his righteousness for his people who had inherited the unrighteousness of Adam." 3
The Work Of Christ In Connection With His Life
In this epistle, Peter associates the life of Christ with the work of Christ. The fact that Jesus lived a sinless life displayed that He was the personification of a Lamb without spot or blemish to take away the sins of the world. Historically, in the Old Testament an animal without spot or blemish would be offered by the high priest to atone for the sins of the people. The sacrifice of a spotless animal signified its innocence. Through the process of atonement, the sins of transgressor of God's law would be transferred upon an innocent animal to bring satisfaction or reparation for an offense that was committed.
“In His act to restore His people, God viewed the blood of bulls, goats, etc. as a sufficient sacrifice to cover the depravity of the Israelites to appease His displeasure of wickedness……God’s satisfaction was mollified by inflicting the innocent party with the punishment that should have been imposed upon the actual guilty party for their wrongdoing. The sacrificial act symbolized that the punitive actions for disobeying God had been transferred upon the sacrifice instead of the transgressor. Hence, this transference of punishment served as the means that unagitated God’s position toward immorality.” 4
Peter acknowledged this same substitutionary atonement undertone in 1 Peter 2:24 where He declared that Jesus “Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.” In that Christ bore our sins, He was held under the divine wrath of God to suffer punishment for the sake of others.
His atoning and sacrificial work at the cross made it possible for the loss to be redeemed from sin, forgiven of sin, cleansed from sin, pardon or acquitted of sin, released from the bondage of sin, given newfound life, positioned eternally with God, and transitioned to be in place of spiritual good standing before God.
Drawing the parallelism to the Old Testament practice of atonement, Christ’s substitutionary death appeased the wrath of a holy God as to what was deemed satisfactory unto God the Father for the payment for sin. Jesus' active obedience unto the Father gave way for His passive obedience, that is, He alone was able to pay the steep price for the penalty of our sins. He alone could change our spiritual condition through His gruesome death at the cross.
“The active obedience of Christ exemplifies His passive obedience to suffer on our account. By His untainted nature toward sin, Jesus was able to provide atonement through His penal substitutionary death. Christ by His own will, became submissive to death, thus, receiving the penalty for sinners that the justice of God could be ushered in. Jesus was chastised of God receiving the most disgraceful and humiliating retribution for us”. 4
The fact that He willingly and voluntarily gave His life through death as a covering for sin and was resurrected from the dead, empowers repentant and believing sinners to live in the newness of life. The newness of life is a result of repentance, belief, and confession in the salvific work of Jesus, whereby, we live for righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21 declares, "for He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
Grant Richison alluded to the notion that, “the antithesis of sin is righteousness. Jesus was made the Sin-Bearer. God declared the Christian right before Himself; that is, God treats the believer as righteous, and he is righteous because Christ paid for his sin. Christians are completely free from the penalty of sin. Christ suffered condemnation so that we might be declared righteous. This is not experiential righteousness but judicial righteousness. Because of the death of Christ, God is just in forgiving sin and declaring those who believe to be as righteous as He is righteous positionally. They are righteous in God’s eyes. God imputes His very own righteousness to the believer. “Righteousness” is the gift of a right relationship with God. Christians acquired that relationship by believing that Jesus took their sin on Himself on the cross. God adjudicated our situation because of the cross. The “righteousness of God” is the reason that Christians have the kind of salvation they do.” 5
The writing of Isaiah expresses this truth:
Isaiah 53:3-10 NKJV — "He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand."
“Through the wounds of Christ at the cross, believers are healed spiritually from the deadly disease of sin.” 6 At the cross, Christ intervened on our behalf to suffer for our sins that we may be healed spiritually of the infectious plague of sin. The brutal punishment of being beaten, nailed to a cross, mocked, scourged, despised and rejected enabled believers to be released from spiritually bondage and restore from a state of condemnation.
The atoning work of Christ as being the propitiation or satisfaction for sin showed forth the plan of God through Christ to change our spiritual trajectory for those who would believe.
His sinless life is vital to the work of salvation.
References
The Grace And Truth Study Bible
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/obedience-sinlessness-christ/
Elijah McSwain, Sr. The Great Debate Over The Doctrine Of Salvation
Grant Richison. Verse By Verse Commentary
The MacArthur Study Bible