Monday Meditation
January 18, 2016
From the desk of A.J. Higgins
He Knew No Sin
” … Who knew no sin that we might
become the righteousness of God in Him”
2 Corinthians 5:21
What does it actually mean that the Lord Jesus “knew no sin?” We are familiar with the teaching Peter, the man of action says that “He did not sin;” and that John the intimate disciple wrote that “in Him is no sin.” And it is Paul the intellectual who writes here that He did not even “know sin.”
But what does it really mean that “He knew no sin?” Adam learned good and evil from the tree. He learned good and evil by opting for evil. He learned good from the wrong side – from the failure to perform it. He knew and experienced sin. Adam was created in innocence, not holiness. The Lord Jesus Christ, in contrast, did not even know sin. It was not ignorance; it was absolute, impeccable holiness.
Sin never was even a possibility for Him. When we are faced with a choice, we, at times, struggle to do right. We view our ability to overcome the flesh as a “triumph,” a mark of spiritual progress. But we are faced with the struggle. Evil tempts us and we have to make a choice. The struggle is very real. There was never a struggle in the mind or heart of the Savior. He did not know sin in that sense. There was never a moment’s hesitation to do the right thing. No possibility of sin ever entered His mind. Sin was foreign to His thinking. His mind – intelligence, will, and emotion – never entertained the thought of sin.
The skeptic might conclude that this was robotic-type behavior; a mere programming of a being to do the right thing; a mindless, amoral decision-making automaton. Absolute holiness, however is far different. It is not the absence of a free will; it is the presence of an absolutely pure and holy will. We cannot conceive of absolute holiness in that sense. It is a mind into which the possibility or temptation to sin has never entered.
Not once, whether we trace Him as a boy in Nazareth, a carpenter in His work-life, or His years in His public ministry did He ever entertain a thought that was not in total harmony with the mind of God. Tempted by Satan, baited by His foes, misunderstood by friends and family, forsaken by His disciples, and brutally treated by His captors, never once did He struggle to do the righteous and holy thing! He faced every possible test, in principle, and yet He “knew no sin.”
Yet it was this holy mind, this holy Man, who “knew no sin,” Who would have to know the full righteous judgment of God against sin that we might have a righteous standing before God eternally. Though the possibility of sin never entered His mind, the penalty for sin would crush Him. Though He never struggled with the thought of sin, He suffered for us who were “alienated and enemies in our minds” (Col 1:21) against God.
Thus, “He knew no sin,” was not the absence of a will, but the absence of any weakness in His will, and its absolute holiness and harmony with God.
Consider
1. Think of what the exposure to sin, the charges of being a sinner, the atmosphere of a sinful world, and finally the suffering for sin must have meant to an absolutely holy Man.
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