Jesus and Sin
Did Jesus ever sin?
Most commentaries on the subject insist that Jesus never sinned, based on a definition of sin as acts or transgressions. Using such a definition, however, runs into problems. For example, does Jesus sin if he loses his temper as he did when tossing out vendors in the Temple in Jerusalem? An arguably more accurate definition portrays sin as limitation or “falling short” or the missing of perfection. If Jesus is God incarnate, how does a theology tackle the issue of the spirit of God encased in a shell of human flesh? The shell is the problem. Inherent within the viscera of human beings is sin; the limitation imposed on human beings for survival. The need for food, shelter, water, and obviously oxygen, for example, prevents the attainment of spiritual perfection. If one or more of these elements is denied to human beings, the need drives the spirit. If a man is starving to death, for example, he will lie, cheat, steal, etc. to feed himself.
Human beings even create dysfunctional survival requirements. Drug abuse is an example of a dysfunctional survival requirement. A woman addicted to crystal methamphetamine will act on her environment based on her physical need for this drug. She will lie, cheat, steal, etc., to purchase the drug to meet her body’s craving for it. A painful but illuminating book to read on this topic is David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy that chronicles his son Nic’s methamphetamine addiction.
The above discussion focuses on obvious physical needs, both natural and maladaptive. Yet both can drive the spirit. Other visceral limitations include intelligence and temperament. Perhaps much sin is created by sheer ignorance. Cultures practicing infanticide, for example, do so largely out of tradition coupled with ignorance. Others may be limited by genetic predispositions that promote sin (e.g., crime such as stealing, murder, etc.) due to a poor goodness-of-fit with the requirements of an ever changing culture. More people are driven to crime when the economy goes south and manufacturing jobs, for example, begin to disappear. What happens if a segment of the population fails to adapt to an economy fueled by service and/or technology? In a social Darwinistic sense, this segment of the population needs to fight for survival, often resorting to crime when the culture will not or cannot offer them a role.
The most obvious physical limitation confronted by human beings is death. The human body — given its genetic makeup and nutritional intake — is limited in its duration. Ultimately, the human body shuts down and terminates. In Ecclesiastes 9:1-6, death comes to all. Death provides the ultimate ceiling of human ability; there is no way to avoid it much less transcend it.
This is what Jesus overcame. His resurrection provided the path for human beings to rise above the limitations or inherent sinfulness of the human body. That is, Jesus conquered death by coming back to life after his physical body died on the cross. The conquest of the body — organs, muscles, etc., and the limitations associated with each — lies at the heart of Gnosticism. Although dualism has problems — human beings neglecting their bodies by valuing their minds, abusing ecosystems due to separatist views of dominating instead of coexisting with the environment, etc. — its strength is delineating the limitations or inherent sinfulness endured by human beings and the conquest or transcendence of such sinfulness by Jesus Christ. As such, Jesus inheriting sin as God incarnate does not diminish Jesus at all. Instead, Christ’s ability to transcend this powerful equalizer — the physical limitation of death — is an incredible feat not to mention gift of grace to humankind. It may be that Gnosticism provides a much more powerful metaphor to explain the resurrection of Jesus Christ than offered by more traditional Christian theological explanations.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Are you new to The Divine Spark? Register and become part of the community. If your a registered member, please Login.
If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register, leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment