“He experienced life exactly as you and I experience it, with the same weakness, desires and limitations, distinct from His divinity, yet despite all of this He never sinned. This was not because His personal divinity empowered or softened his human experience but because in His ordinary humanity He chose to submit his human will to the Father, deny his flesh and walk by the Spirit. We have received that same Spirit and can walk the same path, abiding in love, which is freedom from sin. We can abide perpetually in intimate communion with God, just as Jesus did. If we stumble, there is mercy but mercy being available doesn't mean sin is inevitable nor to be expected. Jesus proved we can and must abide in love and in doing so permanently cease sinning.”

Jesus shared our exact weaknesses.

  • Hebrews 2:14. He partook of the same flesh and blood.

  • Hebrews 5:2. He himself is beset with weakness.

Jesus shared our exact temptations by the same desires.

  • James 1:14 defines temptation as being lured by one's own desire.

  • Hebrews 4:15 says He was tempted in every respect as we are. Not some respects. Every respect. If His desires were different from ours, He was not tempted as we are, and Hebrews is lying.

    • Yes, this means Jesus actually went through puberty, had testosterone and genuine male sexual desires to resist, the same as every man.

Jesus shared our exact limitations.

  • Luke 2:52. He grew in wisdom and stature.

  • Mark 13:32. He did not know the day or the hour of His return.

  • He asked questions. He learned. He slept. He got tired. He got hungry. These were not performances. They are the normal operations of a finite human mind and a finite human body by the person of the Son.

Jesus experienced His humanity distinct from His divinity.

  • Chalcedonian Creed says. that his two distinct natures (divine and human) are without confusion, and without change. The natures do not mix. The properties of one do not leak into the other.

  • Constantinople 3 confirmed the integrity of each nature. Jesus has two wills, two operations, each nature preserving its own mode of activity. His human experience was human, experienced through His limited human mind. His divine experience was divine experienced through his infinite divine mind. They did not blend. 2 distinct concurrent perpetual experiences since the incarnation.

  • Denying this is to deny the genuine reality of His human experience

Jesus never sinned.

  • 1 Peter 2:22. He committed no sin.

  • 2 Corinthians 5:21. He knew no sin.

  • Hebrews 4:15. Yet without sin.

The explanation for His sinless life is not because “He was God”. That would be monoenergism. His personal divinity overriding or empowering His humanity which was condemned at Constantinople 3 in 681 AD (denying the reality of His humanity). His human obedience was genuine human obedience, chosen through His human will exactly how all humans obey God through the Holy Spirit.

He didn’t do this by sheer will power but because He walked by the Spirit. But the Holy Spirit didnt use His human will for Him. He synergistically operated His will with the Holy Spirit, just as we are to do. He was the blueprint for humanity.

  • Luke 4:1. Full of the Holy Spirit.

  • Luke 4:14. In the power of the Spirit.

  • Acts 10:38. God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power.

  • Matthew 12:28. By the Spirit of God He cast out demons.

  • His entire ministry, His obedience, His miracles, His knowledge, His teachings were wrought through His humanity in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, not his personal divinity.

Jesus was incarnate in ordinary human flesh (the same flesh/humanity we all have).

  • Romans 8:3. He came in the likeness of sinful flesh. (the greek says “likeness of the flesh of sin”), that is to say the same flesh we sin in, he became. Not pre-fallen flesh, not in the likeness of sinless Adam.

  • Hebrews 2:17. Made like His brothers in every respect. Not most respects. Every respect. Not made like Adam in every respect. Made like his brothers, plural. He is a fellow son of Adam. A true son of man like all of us. A descendant of David and Abraham.

  • The same flesh of Galatians 5 he had to resist by the Spirit (like all of us),

  • The same flesh of Romans 7, yet living free by the Spirit as in Romans 8, just as we are freed by the Spirit

    • Romans 7 describes a man born in our flesh devoid of the Spirit (Jesus had the Spirit from birth, so he never), but the flesh doesn’t change…he had the same flesh romans 7 describes, just united with the Spirit and bridled by the Spirit like romans 8 discusses of genuine Christians.

Jesus obeyed by the same Spirit we have.

  • Romans 8:9-11. The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.

  • Acts 2:38. You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Who is the same Spirit, not a lesser version or different person of the Spirit. The same Spirit. To live righteously and lovingly as He did.

We can obey exactly as He did, perpetually, abiding in love walking by the Spirit, free from sin.

  • We can walk just as He walked.

    • 1 John 2:6 - "Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked."

  • We can abide in Him and cease from sin.

    • 1 John 3:6 - "No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him."

  • We can practice righteousness as He is righteous.

    • 1 John 3:7 - "Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous."

  • We can walk by the Spirit and not gratify the flesh.

    • Galatians 5:16 - "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh."

  • We can abide in His love exactly as He abided in the Father's.

    • John 15:9-10 - "Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love."

Mercy is offered if a person stumbles in sin.

  • 1 John 2:1 - “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

    • Not “when” people inevitably sin. John writes so that people won’t sin at all, but if anyone does there is mercy.

He experienced life just as we all do, proving that once reconciled to the Father and united with the Holy Spirit, we too can abide in love and be free from sin perpetually, through the daily active surrender of our human will, abiding in relationship with Him by the Spirit, just as He did with the Father. He did exactly this as genuine man by the Spirit, we can too. A denial of this is a denial of the reality of the incarnation.

Every clause is grounded in scripture and protected by the ecumenical creeds. It is not my opinion. It is not my invention. It is not a novel theology. It is the faith once delivered, stated plainly, without the hedging that many traditions have layered over it that expect and excuse ongoing sin in humanity. Traditions that run from the light of the world, the light of the incarnation of the Son of God, the Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth.

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