Jesus Christ

24. I would like to ask you this question hoping to receive your opinion in the light of the ‘HOLY SCRIPTURES’

A. Jesus Christ had a human nature and a divine nature as well (‘SON OF MAN and ‘SON OF GOD’)

B. As ‘Son of God’ His nature was pure therefore He was sinless.

C. As ‘Son of man’ He had a human nature and therefore He wept, He suffered, He was hungry, He slept, etc, just like each one of us.

D. Nevertheless, He was conceived by the ‘Holy Spirit’ without a natural intercourse (sexual act), therefore ‘Mary’ did not have sexual intercourse with a man (Joseph), otherwise the child would have been born with the ‘Adamic’ seed, and consequently His nature would have been corrupted.

I ask you this. According to my remarks (A-B-C-D) is it correct to say that Jesus Christ did not have a corrupted nature, considering that the ‘Scripture’ teaches us that He is without sin?

As ‘Son of Man’ (human nature), how could Jesus be tempted since He did not show those wishes of the carnal nature (Galatians 5:19 and 20)?

He was perfect in His human nature, so how could He be tempted by ‘Satan’, since He did not have this corrupted nature like all men on the earth?

E. Furthermore, since Jesus had to fulfil the plan of ‘salvation’ and He was the ‘Incarnated’ Son of God He could not fall into temptation, otherwise His sacrifice would be useless and imperfect.

Dear brother Giacinto, I haven’t said to you these things because I have doubts about them, but I wonder what is the difference existing between the temptation which overtakes a human being (CORRUPTED NATURE) and the temptation which overtook the Son of God Jesus Christ (PERFECT NATURE).

I hope there will be no misunderstandings with regard to what I have explained in this writing of mine, even though I realize that the Word of God can’t answer all the questions of men, since we will receive all the answers when we are with the Lord.

Yes, brother, it is correct to say that, unlike all other human beings, Jesus Christ did not have a corrupted human nature because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, He was born without sin, and without that inclination to do evil things which all men have since their birth. How then was He tempted? Let’s see how He was tempted by the devil in the desert. The devil spoke personally to Jesus three times, tempting Him to do certain things.

First, he asked Jesus to command some stones to become bread, secondly he asked Jesus to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, and thirdly he asked Jesus to worship him in exchange for all the kingdoms of the world and their glory that the devil had showed Jesus (Luke 4:1-12; Matthew 4:1-11). The devil, therefore, relied on – I use this verb – His desire to eat (He was hungry for He had fasted 40 days); a possible desire to perform some sensational acts in order to be acclaimed by the people, and a possible desire to become a powerful king in this world. Of course, the devil would have liked Jesus to have those desires. But Jesus stood against those wiles of the tempter, answering him with some appropriate passages of the Scripture which forced the devil to leave Jesus. There were, of course, other occasions on which the devil tempted Jesus, as it is written: “He departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13 – NKJV), but Jesus on all occasions overcame the devil. I realize that it may be difficult to understand how Jesus, who had not a corrupted human nature, could be tempted in all points as we are, but if we consider that the devil is a wicked spiritual being who is able to come personally to a person to tempt him to sin and that this is what He did with Jesus in the desert, then the difficulties disappear. However, the devil knew that Jesus Christ had a perfect human nature for He had been conceived by the Holy Spirit, so he tempted Him to do those things, in order to cause His nature to become corrupted. To explain this concept to you, I will make a comparison between Jesus and Adam, the first man. Well, as you know, God made man upright (Ecclesiastes 7:29), so man was without sin, he had a perfect human nature. No sin was in him, sin was unknown to him, he did not have a corrupted nature. But what did the old serpent do? He tempted man to sin in order to change his right human nature into a corrupted nature, and he succeeded in causing him to sin. First of all he deceived the woman into believing that if they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would not die (the woman believed the serpent and ate the forbidden fruit), and then he induced the woman to give some to her husband who ate it. Please note that Adam did not commit a sin as adultery or murder or theft or blasphemy, but a different sin, for he ate the fruit of a tree which was good for food (therefore, it was not bad in itself) but it had been forbidden by God. Here is how the first man was tempted even though he did not have a corrupted nature. A similar thing happened to Jesus, I mean that even though He was blameless and pure, without the inclination to sin, He also was tempted by the old serpent to sin, so that He might become corrupted. However, there is a great difference between the temptation of Adam and the temptation of Jesus, because the serpent won a victory over Adam, but he suffered an overwhelming defeat every time he tempted Jesus Christ. And therefore, since Jesus did not fall into any temptation, He was able to die on the cross to make atonement for our sins. Jesus knew no sin but God made Him to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21) laying on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6) so that we might be justified through faith in His name.

To Christ Jesus, the Son of God, be the glory now and forevermore. Amen.

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