The Post-Fall Human Nature of Jesus: the Linchpin of the Gospel and the Antidote for our Sin

Jesus assumed our post-fall human nature, with its weakness, mortality, and susceptibility to temptation - identical to ours in every way - yet he did not commit sin. Through His death and resurrection, He reconciles us to the Father. Being simultaneously fully Divine and fully Human, He lived concurrently and distinctly though each individual nature sanctifying ordinary humanity. Not through Divine override, but through actively living our experience, wilfully denying his flesh and being led by the Holy Spirit just as He calls us to do. Through repentant faith, He fills us with His Spirit, empowering us to abide in love and true righteousness, mirroring Christ in this life and culminating in eternal life.

As it was for Christ, so it is for us once united to Him - sin is not inevitable nor righteousness impossible. Those abiding in Christ live loving and blameless lives before Him without limitation. To deny this truth is to deny Christ's shared humanity with us, the divinity of the Holy Spirit indwelling us, or the very power of God. He became what we are to make us what He is in this life.

The post-fall human nature of Jesus, consubstantial (identical in essence) with ours, is the linchpin of the gospel itself. It's the very intersection of God and man, our very antidote to sin. All hinges upon this point: whether he assumed our post-fall nature in common with us or some alien pre-fallen nature that doesn't touch us. This is no minor theological footnote. A Jesus who does not fully share our post-fall nature does not fully touch us in our lived humanity (because He didn't experience life as us) and cannot save us from our practice of sin. The life of such a Jesus is an unachievable ideal, not a concrete and realistic example for us.

1 Peter 2:21-24 ESV
21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Any exception between His human nature and ours undermines the very purpose of the Incarnation and portrays a semi-Docetic (super-human) or semi-Apollinarian (not quite human) Christ in principle, even if semantically denied. These heresies can functionally exist in people's theologies while being verbally rejected. Many might affirm Christ's full shared humanity with us while their actual theological positions imply Jesus was something other than what we are. Such views ultimately undermine practical holiness, excuse sin, and result in 'having a form of godliness but denying its power' (2 Timothy 3:5). At its heart is a functional denial of the incarnation itself. It's a denial that God can dwell as Man without confusion or absorption, a denial that consistent love and righteousness is compatible with our self same post-fall human nature once reconciled and united to God in this life.

The Word of God, Jesus Christ though being fully Divine in nature, consubstantial with the Father, took to Himself a created full humanity, consubstantial with our own (made up of a human body, a human mind, a human soul and a human will) and actually lived a genuine human life just like us through it. If you can't conceive of Jesus being just like every other human around you, you deny he shared our humanity. So let me ask you, Have you really seen with precision this biblical Jesus - the Son of Man as He described himself? Have you really known Him? The one the Apostles knew and attested to?

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

John 14:15-21 ESV
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 **Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

Do you need to feel the holes of His hands to believe like Thomas? Perhaps you have never thought about what Jesus is or that it really matters. As the apostle John taught, seeing Jesus as He really is empowers one to live a loving and righteous life in this present age. He warned in the very next breath of deceivers who would come denying we could walk in true righteousness as He did (1 John 3:7).

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

Titus 2:11-12 ESV
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,

The Incarnation of Jesus in our very nature and the Spirit who is by nature very God, simultaneously fill us with Divine love, liberates us from sin, and removes our excuses for it:

Romans 8:3-4 ESV
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Hebrews 2:17-18 ESV
17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

The Incarnation is the stone of David to slay the Goliath of theological dualism, the enemy of all righteousness and the mystery of lawlessness itself (2 Thess 2:7)—the gnostic idea that sin is intrinsic to human nature and that abiding in love is impossible even for those united to God. This belief is tied to the spirit of the Antichrist that undercuts the full humanity of Christ (1 John 4:3) and the power of the Holy Spirit, perpetuating the idea that sin is unavoidable, deceiving people into accepting it as normal. The Incarnation of Christ taking on our post-fall human nature defeats this deception, restoring real union with God and transforming us practically into saints from sinners. The Incarnation was not merely an external transaction; it brings with it internal transformation. Christ took on our nature to unite us to His nature through the Spirit, empowering us to abide in love and righteousness in this life. This is the heart of the gospel and the very essence of salvation.

Distinction without division, union without confusion, participation not mere imitation, the actual righteousness of God in us, not the contradictory notion of being both righteous and sinful at once. The dominant theology of the west is that Jesus became mostly like us in this life so we can at best become mostly like Him in this life, our only hope for real abiding love and righteousness is after death. Here is the gospel truth of the Incarnation: Jesus became fully human - identical to us in our post-fall human nature without exception, yet without sinning - to make us fully loving and truly righteous, mirroring Him in this life through the Spirit, eradicating sin. The incarnation was a statement not an exception, a realistic example to follow not a unachievable ideal, a genuine human life not Divine theatrics.

Is sin possible for a Christian?
Yes but possibility doesn’t imply inevitability. The cause of the universality of sin amongst men is our estrangement from God post fall (except Christ). It was possible for the holy angels to sin as many did in the past, but many remained holy. Having agency means we have the ability to sin. The ability to sin is a key component of human nature - something Christ assumed when taking on our human nature, by assuming a human will, otherwise His temptations were a sham and unrelatable, its what makes his victory so glorious.

Is sin inevitable for a Christian?
No, not once we are united with Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit (which occurs when we come to Jesus in repentant faith in this life). He testifies with our own spirit that we are born of Him, forgiven and genuinely redeemed. If sin occurs it should be an anomaly not an expectation.

Can a person be forgiven if they stumble?
Yes, upon confessing to God and forsaking the sin (1 John 2:1). For God is a loving and merciful God. Mercy is a natural outflow of love. He is patient wanting all to come to genuine repentance and walk identically to His only begotten Son through His indwelling Spirit.

Can a person abide in Christ and walk persistently in love and righteousness?
Yes. Jesus did it as our example. Love is righteousness. And to abide in love is to abide in God.

Luke 6:40 ESV
40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. 

John 14:23-24 ESV
23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.

John 3:19-21 ESV
19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

There is no other Jesus than the one who assumed our self same post-fall human nature. To deny this is to preach another Christ and another gospel, to reject the light and embrace darkness. Likely in ignorance and with the best intentions but another Christ none the less. This produces a defective gospel that saves people from the guilt of sin, but not from the power of sin itself. The full gospel does both. The Son of Man is the light of the world, don't shut your eyes to His light. For rejection of this truth leads to spiritual blindness, darkness, sin and judgment.

Acts 17:30-31 ESV
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” 

1 John 3:5-7 ESV
5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.

1 John 5:2-5 ESV
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Colossians 2:8 ESV
8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

1 John 4:1-3 ESV
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

Romans 1:16-19 ESV
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

2 Thessalonians 2:7-12 ESV
7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.