God the Son, Student Workbook, SW10

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G O D T H E S O N

Could Jesus Have Sinned?

In a discussion on the humanity of Jesus, it became clear in an adult Sunday School class that real confusion reigned concerning Jesus’ ability or inability to commit sin as a human being. Those who said that it was possible argued that, in light of the numerous verses that suggest that Jesus was like us in every way except without sinning , he had to be able to sin (if he were truly like us ). Others argued that, given his divine nature and holy nature, Jesus could not have sinned because he was God in the flesh, and since it was impossible for God to sin, neither could Jesus (being himself God ). How would you have sought to settle their discussion on this critical theological question? In discussing Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom present in his person in Mark 1.14-15 and other texts, some students raised the question of whether or not this interpretation was defensible in light of the actual problems and situations that the world was undergoing. “If the Kingdom in some sense has already come in the person of Jesus, then why are things so bad, why are so many innocent people suffering in the world today, and why doesn’t he stop all the mayhem and cruelty on earth?” If the Kingdom really was inaugurated in the announcement of Jesus at his sermon at Nazareth, then why don’t we see more signs of its presence in the midst of the earth today? How would you answer these and similar questions about Jesus as the Inauguration and Proclaimer of the Kingdom of God in this age? Much of today’s current teaching tends to practice a kind of selective hermeneutic regarding the meaning of Jesus’ ministry for us as the Suffering Servant of Yahweh. With boldness and courage, many television evangelists and religious broadcasters have crafted a well-articulated scheme of “health and wealth” which tends to define Christianity as a means of receiving prosperity and blessing in light of the correct and ongoing applications of “laws” of prosperity. In many ways, the images of Jesus as Suffering Servant are replaced with ideas of “storehouses of blessing,” of “confessing until the blessings come,” and related phrases all focused on the individual coming into a knowledge of God’s principles of blessings, and applying these laws so the attached and associated gifts of grace would manifest themselves. It Doesn’t SEEM Like the Kingdom Is Present The Head and Not the Tail

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