Sinlessness of Jesus Christ

The point: If your heart does not leap at the prospect of hearing about Christ's glory, it is evidence of spiritual death or a need for revival.

A wise counselor's advice to 'take ten looks at Christ for every look at yourself' is used to set the sermon's theme of focusing on Christ's glory after a morning of self-examination.

One very wise and experienced spiritual counselor gave this advice to someone whom he was seeking to help in his Christian life.

0:04 - 0:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He Himself was holy and undefiled. The word likeness guards this truth. He was not sent in sinful flesh, but in the likeness, the likeness of sinful flesh.

Martin quotes Professor Murray's explanation of why Paul used the phrase 'likeness of sinful flesh' in Romans 8:3, clarifying that it emphasizes Christ's deep humiliation and identification with humanity without becoming sinful Himself.

I quote Professor Murray's answer to that question because it is so succinct and beautiful in its accuracy. The question is, why did Paul use the term sinful flesh when it is necessary to guard so jealously the sinlessness of our Lord's flesh? Because he is, concerned to show that when the Father sent the Son into this world of sin and misery and of death, He sent Him in a manner that brought Him into the closest relation to sinful humanity that it was possible for Him to come without Himself becoming sinful. He Himself was holy and undefiled.

12:48 - 13:29 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The third contextual element is Christ's intimate and constant contact with a sinful world and sinners, including His temptations by Satan and His association with publicans and…

The account of Christ's 40-day fast and subsequent temptation by Satan to turn stones into bread is used to illustrate the reality of His human hunger and His perfect obedience in resisting temptation.

Upon His baptism and His anointing with the Spirit, He is driven by the Spirit for what? Forty days of first-hand encounter with the fiend of hell Himself. The Scripture says He was an hungred. And after a fast of that long a time, we are told by those who fasted for great lengths of time that there are cycles when the body no longer is conscious or never doesn't send the signals of hunger.

18:52 - 19:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: We have a high priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities who does know what temptation is but blessed be God who does not know what sin is without both elements he would not be constituted a perfect inter…

The experience of inner pain when fleshly desires conflict with the will of God is used to help the audience understand the reality of Christ's suffering during temptation, even though He never succumbed.

And afterward he was in hunger. Why does God say that? Let us know that in that temptation there was real suffering. The suffering you feel when everything in your flesh is crying out for gratification contrary to the will of God and everything in you as a new man or woman in Jesus Christ is crying out to trample your flesh underfoot.

39:20 - 39:42 Read in full sermon