The Sinless Man, or was he?

Heyo,

So as I was attempting to go to sleep last night, I got this thought in my head. We teach constantly that Jesus was a sinless man, and make the claim that His sinlessness is necessary for salvation to work. If he wasn't sinless, then His work on the cross had no purpose and accomplished nothing for us. That is what we are taught. Well, as I thought about it, I couldn't immediately think of a passage in the Bible that said "Jesus never sinned."

Sure, there was the part at His crucifixion where Pilate "could find no fault in Him," but that doesn't mean He was necessarily sinless, just that He hadn't broken any laws that would constitute crucifixion, or even legitimate punishment by Roman standards. We know the Jewish leaders were mad at Him for claiming to be God, but if that's true, it is not a sin. But that doesn't make Him sinless just because He was telling the truth there.

So I have decided to embark on a several week process of studying the New Testament and the life of Jesus to discover what the Bible really says about the sinlessness of Jesus. I am not trying to say He was not sinless, but I want to have my faith in Him be based on Scripture, not what I've grown up hearing. I want them to line up, and be able to distinguish what is true about what I learned growing up, and what may not actually be backed up by Scripture. So here we go...

Break for time of study...

Okay, so this kind of embarrassing. I very quickly discovered how much evidence there is supporting Jesus' sinlessness in the Bible. Here we go:

Romans 8:3 - "For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering." Paul very carefully distinguishes between being a sinful man and being in the likeness of sinful man.

John 8:46 - "Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me?" Evidently no one was able to prove anything.

Matthew 27:4 - "'I have sinned,' he [Judas] said, 'for I have betrayed innocent blood.'" Judas admits his own sin and describes Jesus as innocent by comparison.

John 8:29 - "The One who sent me is with me; He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases Him." We hear in Matt. 3:17 that God claims Jesus as His Son, with whom He is well pleased. And hear Jesus claims to ALWAYS do what is pleasing to God. Not sometimes, but always.

1 Peter 1:19 - "...but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect." There was nothing wrong with Him, no fault found with Him.

1 Peter 2:22 - "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth." Getting a little more pointed here, a direct claim that He did not sin.

2 Corinthians 5:21 - "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." This verse not only claims His sinlessness, but also suggests that it was His sinlessness that made it possible for Him to pay for ours. This idea is far more heavily laid out in Hebrews.

Hebrews 4:15 - "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin."

Hebrews 7:26 - "Such a high priest meets our need - one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens."

Hebrews ultimately lays out the whole parallel between the sacrificial customs of Jewish culture as found in the Old Testament and what Jesus did for us on the cross. He acted as the sacrificial lamb which atoned for our sins, and in order to be that lamb, he had to be blameless, without defect, without blemish, without sin. He had to be perfect so as to be able to take upon Himself the sin of us all. He went through temptation, just as we do, and He overcame it. Every time. The Bible is actually a lot clearer on this than I had remembered (can't trust my memory ever, it seems), and very directly depicts Jesus as sinless and without fault. So not only did He not break human laws and regulations, but He didn't break God's Laws either. And it was because of this sinlessness that He was able to take the mantle of Savior of the world.

tl;dr Jesus was indeed sinless, and His sinlessness allowed Him to die for our sins. He did what we could not do, and saved us when we could not save ourselves.