Did Jesus Consider Himself Sinless? (Part One)

Did Jesus Consider Himself Sinless?

(Part One)

Brett A. Todd

For decades I have had this question lurking in the back of my mind unanswered, “Did Jesus consider himself sinless?  This is a very different question from “Does the Bible consider Jesus sinless.”  Certainly, there are passages in the Bible that express his sinlessness.  A couple that comes to mind are 2 Corinthians 5:21 where the author states, “For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin…” and Hebrews 4:15, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”  But neither of these verses is a statement from the lips of Jesus.  

More interesting is when we look at the Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the four Gospels, where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist whose baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.  If Jesus was sinless, why was he baptized by John the Baptist?  

Certainly, I am not the only person who has asked this question, in fact, as we begin to compare the other three later Gospels with the Gospel of Mark, we can see where they made some additional statements to eliminate the need for such a question.  For example, in the Gospel of John, he adds the words to the story of Jesus' Baptism by calling Jesus, the Lamb of God (a lamb without a spot or wrinkle?), “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). 

John is not the only one of the four Gospels to make these kinds of changes.  In Matthew, the author adds these words to also eliminate the need to question Jesus’ sinlessness.  This is what he said, “John [the Baptist] would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’  But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.’”  In other words, for the author of Matthew, he wanted his readers to understand that Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist was not a baptism of repentance from sin, but to fulfill all righteousness (God’s plan).

What about the Gospel of Luke?  The author of Luke stays pretty true to the Gospel of Mark except for Jesus' birth story.  The author of Luke tells his readers that the angel Gabriel told Mary that Jesus would be called “holy”.  Of course, one could surmise that if Jesus was holy, he would also be sinless.  I’m not so certain this is really a strong argument.  Nevertheless, again, this is not Jesus speaking, it is only a narration.  Jesus never said that he was sinless.

Did Jesus consider himself sinless? More than likely not.  But does the Bible consider Jesus to be sinless?  Yes.  Most certainly, early on, the belief that Jesus was sinless became a very important feature of early Christian doctrine.

In our next study, we continue to look at the question, “Did Jesus consider himself to be sinless?”