Lesson Five: Jesus Was Sinless
Pastor Jayson Combs
When I was in the eleventh grade, I did something that forever marked my life. It is something I carried around with me every day since. It took place in my sixth-hour class. I accidentally stabbed myself in the arm with a number 2 pencil. It is not like it hurt that bad, but now I have this blemish on my arm that for 20 years is still going strong. It is this little lead dot on my arm (I know it is not actually lead). If you are my age or older there is a good chance that you have one of these blemishes (if you are younger, you may not know what a pencil is).
In 1 John 3:2-6 it says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.”
It says that we who hope in Him are purified because He (Jesus) is pure. The word pure means to be “free from contamination,” to be free from blemish. Verse five goes on to say that Jesus came to “take away sins, and in Him there is no sin.” The Bible defines sin many different ways: “Whosoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23, KJV), “The thought of foolishness is sin”(Proverbs 24:9, KJV), “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin” (James 4:17, KJV), “All unrighteousness is sin” (1 John 5:17, KJV), and the “practice of sinning also practices lawlessness” (1 John 3:4).
The Word of God points out our sin. That is precisely what the Law of the Old Testament was to do. It was to show us all that we all fall short; we are all blemished. Without one who is perfect, we are all lost and condemned. There is only one who has no blemish. He is the one, and the only one, that could set us free from sin. Jesus, my Lord and Savior, is pure without blemish, in Him, there is no contamination. In Him, I have freedom and the forgiveness of sin.