✅ He Lived: A Sinless Life in Full Obedience to God

Written By Martin Robinson

In the previous post, we learned that Jesus came, fully God and fully man. The following post will consider how Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

But what about the stuff in the middle? Why does Jesus’ life matter? Is there any significance in the fact that it was a man in his mid-30s who died on the cross rather than a baby?

In this article, we’ll explore the importance of Jesus’ life, which theologians sometimes refer to as Christ’s “active obedience” (distinct from his “passive obedience” on the cross).

But before we get into Christ’s life, we must clearly understand the problems that Christ’s life overcomes.

1.  The problem 

So, first up, the problem.

🍎 We get tempted

 Humans have this terrible habit of getting tempted. You know that moment when you see an unhelpful link pop up? Or that moment when someone sets up the perfect conditions for a joke that will be rude, crude or demeaning?

Humans have been tempted since the very first generation, when the serpent said to Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1 NIV).

 The second generation of humanity was also tempted. Cain was annoyed at his brother Abel for being more impressive. What would happen if Abel was no longer in the picture? Cain caned Abel, and Abel wasn’t able to cane Cain back.

Likewise, the nation of Israel likewise knew the reality of temptation. They constantly wondered if they could trust God (e.g., Exodus 15:22-24, Exodus 16:2-3, Exodus 17:1-7, Numbers 11:1-6, Numbers 14:1-10, Numbers 21:4-9, Deuteronomy 1:26-33, Deuteronomy 9:7-12 ). Undoubtedly, wandering in the desert for 40 years tempted them to grumble against God and rebel against him.

🙈 We disobey God

When we are tempted, we disobey God. Obviously, not all the time, but we do it often. We click on the link. We make the joke.

When they were tempted, Adam and Eve disobeyed God. They ate the fruit that God had forbidden them to eat.

Likewise, Israel disobeyed God, grumbling, rebelling against God in the desert, and attempting to overthrow the leaders he appointed and head back to Egypt.

Disobeying God is sewn into the fabric of who we now are.

🚨 We break God’s laws

When we disobey, we break God’s law. Sometimes, we think it would be easier if God wasn’t so particular about how he wanted us to live. What if he made things more simple?

Well, Adam and Eve had it pretty simple. One law: don’t eat the fruit. They couldn’t even handle that. We’ve all followed suit.

After many generations of failure, God gave Moses and the Israelites the Ten Commandments as well as the Book of the Law, which teased out the Ten Commandments. But even while God is giving the law to Moses, the Israelites start worshipping idols (Exodus 32). The rest of the Old Testament is a sad story of how they keep up the same old habit of law-breaking. You name a law, and God’s people have broken it.   

Fast forward three thousand years, and we are no better.

❌ We are unrighteous

 The reality is that we are unrighteous. As we read in Ecclesiastes 7:20, “There is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.” Not Adam, not Israel, and certainly not us.

2.      God’s solution

 Thankfully, God had a solution for us. This is where Jesus’ life kicks in.

🍎 Jesus overcame temptation ✅

 Just as Satan tempted Adam and just as Israel was tempted in the wilderness, so Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert. In Matthew 4, we read of Satan’s various tricks to lure Jesus into sin over 40 days (reminding us of Israel’s multiple temptations in their desert wanderings).

But in all this, Jesus resisted temptation, saying, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” (Matthew 4:10). 

Just as Adam was tempted in a garden, Jesus was also tempted in a garden. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was tempted to disobey God and not go through with the cross. He says, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.” (Matthew 26:39)

But, in the second half of the verse, he follows that up with, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” And then he goes through with the cross.

Jesus overcame temptation.

🙉 Jesus obeyed God perfectly ✅

 Jesus perfectly obeyed God. We see this clearly in the desert episode. We see this again in the garden.

Jesus never sinned. He “knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21), he was “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), he “committed no sin” (1 Peter 2:22), and “in him there is no sin” (1 John 3:5). Despite eventually sentencing Jesus to death, Pontius Pilate gets that Jesus is perfect. He says, “I find no basis for a charge against him.” (John 19:6)

More positively, Jesus was “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.” (Hebrews 7:26).

Unlike the first Adam, he was perfectly obedient. In Romans 5:19 we read:

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

 Philippians 2:8 tells us he was “obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross”.[1] That shows you how perfectly obedient he was.  He was obedient in his life up to (and including) the point of death.

🚨 Jesus fulfilled the law (and the prophets) ✅

 In perfectly obeying God, he fulfils God’s law. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says,

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. 

Jesus comes to fulfil the law and the prophets. He does this by fulfilling the ethical requirements of the law and the prophets, which he couldn’t have done if he had died on the cross as a baby. He needed to show in time and space that he fulfilled these requirements through his righteous life.

 He also fulfils various prophecies mentioned in the law and the prophets. While a baby could have fulfilled some of the prophecies, some are pretty incidental and/or require Jesus to be an adult.  

For example, it was prophesied that Jesus would:

 The fulfilment of these prophecies is essential for verifying that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. Fulfilling the prophecies makes it much harder for Jesus to be a fraud. Fulfilling these prophecies takes time. Fulfilling some of these prophecies would be difficult for a baby to do.

✅ Jesus was righteous ✅

All of this shows that Jesus was righteous. He was not like us. He had a perfect, blameless, spotless record. He was morally perfect and ethically flawless. He was utterly different from Adam, utterly different from Israel, and completely different from us.  

3.      Why this matters

✅ Jesus is a worthy representative

 Why does this matter? In overcoming temptation, obeying God perfectly, and fulfilling the law and the prophets, Jesus proves himself to be a worthy representative of the human race. He is the New Adam. He is the New Israel.

In Romans 5:19, we read:

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

When tempted, Adam disobeyed, which spread to the rest of the human race, rendering us “unrighteous.”

So, like Adam, when we were tempted, we disobeyed and earned the label of “unrighteous.”  

But when he was tempted, Jesus was obedient, proving himself to be “righteous”. He pulled this off for three and a half decades.

This sets the stage for the great exchange, which we’ll explore in the next post.

4.      How we should respond

 But for now, how should we respond to Jesus’ obedient life? And what about when we’re tempted to sin?

🪞Imitate Jesus’ Obedience

This brings us back to Philippians 2. In verse 5, we are instructed to have the same mindset as Christ. What kind of mindset is this? In verses 6 and 7, we see Christ’s humble mindset. In verse 8, Jesus’ obedient mindset is on show.

Like Jesus, we should pursue an obedient mindset, imitating Jesus’ mindset. We want to mirror Jesus’ attitude.

🛟 Receive Jesus’ Help

And when we are tempted, Jesus is there, ready to help us. He knows what temptation is like. In Hebrews 2:18, we read:

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Jesus knows what temptation is like, and he knows how to withstand it. Therefore, he’s able to help us.

How does he help us?

First, he models endurance and obedience in the face of temptation.

Second, he always offers a way out. As we read in 1 Corinthians 10:13,

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

 Third, even when we fail, he empathises with us. He gets what it’s like. In. Hebrews 4:15, we read:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.

Receive his empathy.

Fourth, knowing Jesus was tempted in every way yet did not sin, receive his mercy and grace with confidence. As we read in the very next verse, Hebrews 4:16:

 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

And how can we have such confidence? More on that in the next post.

Notes

[1] The NIV translates this verse as “obedient to death”, but I prefer “obedient to the point of death” as in the ESV and NASB. The Greek preposition mekri (μέχρι) means “up to and including a point”, rather than just “to”.  

Martin Robinson
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🌎 He Came: Fully God, Fully Man