How have Protestants explained how Jesus could be born of mankind and be sinless?

Question

Very simple question really. If the sin of Adam is passed down through the generations, so that all of us are born with a sin nature, how can it be that Jesus was born of Mary (a human being), yet sinless?

I'm from a Protestant (specifically Baptist) background, and would be interested in knowing how we explain it. Most churches have rather vague doctrinal statements that don't address subtle issues like this. So I am wondering if there are any common answers to this issue. Good answers will show that the position proposed is accepted by more than just the poster.

The only argument I've beard before is that sin is passed via the seed of man, but I find no Biblical support for this, and it sounds like an artificially constructed argument to oppose some Catholic answers to this question which may require the sinlessness of Mary (which would be contrary to the Bible from the Protestant point of view).

Answer 1

The Bible is very clear that Jesus did not begin to exist in the womb of Mary. As the Second Person of the Trinity, He exists outside of the physical universe of time, space, and matter and with the Father and Spirit created the physical world.

He is holy, was holy, and will always be holy... and sinless and righteous and pure and blameless.

When Mary conceived, the eternal Son of God became flesh and entered into the physical universe. That act did not require that He become sinful. He retained His holiness, as He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

His being born of a virgin is an important part of this, of course. The doctrine indicates that without a human father, Jesus did not inherit the sin nature.

When He was born, He was given the name of Jesus (The Lord saves) because He Himself was the Lord who was saving His people from their sins.

Answer 2

Per the Nicene Creed, He was begotten not made. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, but born of the Virgin Mary.

The idea is that since he was born of woman but not man, as God's son, he did not inherit sin. Catholic doctrine goes further, adding the idea of an immaculate conception - for Mary - that Jesus might be born sinless. ( I know, I always thought that the Immaculate Conception refered to Jesus, but it's really Mary ! )

Now, if you're saying: “but where is this in the Bible?” The answer is that it ain't! The whole idea of inherited sin is theological speculation. It's grounded in Paul talking in Romans 6 when he says, "If sin entered through one man, Adam. ..." and then proceeds to talk about how it is defeated by Christ.

Answer 3

There's one possible answer to this apparent dilemma here. I've heard this repeated on Christian radio stations by protestant preachers from various denominations.

The basic outline of the answer is as follows:

• Sinful heredity is passed through the blood.
• Since Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit, there was no corruption from the man.
• The blood of a baby in the womb does not come from, nor mix with the mother. Instead, the embryo itself generates any blood it has.
• Therefore, since there was no corruption from the seed of a human father, and no mingling of the blood with the mother, the sinful nature is not passed on.

Whether this is, in fact, the real answer is something that I don't believe we can know for sure.

What we can rely on is that this is what Scripture teaches: Jesus was sinless. The mechanism by which He is able to be sinless is not central to Christian doctrine for most denominations. The fact of His sinlessness is.

Answer 4

If you consider the original sin to be an figure to represent that we, humans, are disconnected from God's will by having our own will, and behaving on our own purpose instead of God's, then the original sin has nothing to with the physiological details on which a person was created (i.e. human blood heritage, male semen, sexual intercourse, etc.)

If you can decouple the notion of original sin from physical aspects, and see it as an spiritual condition, the idea that Jesus is the impersonated face of God and never deviates of God's plan (even in face of death, Lc 22,42 "Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.") can easily be regarded as the lack of original sin.

Every man and woman on earth inherit the original sin because no man and woman on earth had or will ever have the same full connection Jesus had with God. And Christ baptism frees us from it because there are not our sins that matters, but our good deeds.

I am very reluctant to accept such elaborated logic-dogmatic explanation to this problem, such as the catholic dogma of Immaculate Conception (and I am catholic), or that there is no corruption of man semen so there is no sin. The problem with these explanations is that they build meaningless reasoning chains on concepts that should purely spiritual, and deviates from the real meaning of the figure of Adam's sin.

Answer 5

Being born with a "sin nature" is very different from being born a "sinner." Having a "sin nature" means it is natural for you to want to sin, but being a "sinner" means you actually do it. We get tempted to sin and sometimes we fall into the temptation, other times we don't. Since we have all fallen into a temptation to sin at some point, we are all sinners. That is what separates Jesus as sinless: though he was tempted (Mt 4:1-11), he never fell into those temptations.

Answer 6

Jesus did not need to have a sinless, immaculately conceived mother in order to be perfect Himself. Otherwise, this brings the infinite regression problem. How could Mary be immaculately conceived unless her parents were also sinless? And if Mary and Mary's parents were immaculately conceived/sinless, then why not also Mary's siblings (if she had any?) Why not Mary's cousin Elizabeth, and her son John? My not trace this immaculate ancestry back to Adam's son Seth?

And, if every person going back to Adam's son Seth was immaculately conceived and born sinless, then why did we need a Savior in the first place?

Jesus loved his mother personally, as a son loves his mother, and--more than that--loved her as a Creator loves His Creation. But he did not put too much emphasis on her identity from a theological perspective; she really isn't a star character is the gospel narrative. When Jesus was told, "Your mother is here to see you" he answered, "Who is my mother? ...Whosoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother?" (Matthew 12)

Jesus referred to his disciples as his brother, sister, and mother. Elsewhere, the Church is referred to as the Bride of Christ. We are also called the Body of Christ (His hands, His feet, etc.). And Proverbs 7 says that we should call Wisdom (personified as a female) as our sister. And, Matthew 23 says "Do not say any man on earth is your father, for G-d is your Father", apparently addressing those who would call themselves priests and popes centuries into the future.

As Protestants, we don't take apostolic succession seriously; we don't say that one person took the place of another disciple, or that somebody has a legitimate claim to a throne passed down from Peter. What did Paul say about this? "It has been declared unto me... that each one of you says, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I am of Peter... seriously... knock it off" (1 Cor 1). Likewise, we don't revere Jesus' human relatives as divine or immaculate, certainly not sinless (other than by the divine decree of G-d washing away their sins... lest any man should boast). To do otherwise reeks of idolatry and paganism, and takes the rightful place of the Disciples and the Church as a whole, acting as his mother, brother, bride, etc.

Answer 7

Jesus inherited a weakened human nature from Mary, He came in a body that was weaker than Adam's, especially prior to Adam's fall into sin. This is what He inherited from Mary.

However, Jesus did not inherit a sinful human nature, an natural inclination towards sin, a trait that the rest of us inherits without choice.

Because He being God, conceived by the Holy Spirit without a second parent, inherited righteousness from Himself.

Answer 8

Both men and women are born with original sin- sin nature. But original sin- sin nature is transmitted by man only. Woman are recipient only and do not transmit original sin.

Scientific background:

i. Human has 23  pairs (n=46) of chromosomes. Receiving one set (n=23) from each parent. The 23rd pair is either a pair of XX (female) or XY(male) ii. All the cells in female body contain only X chromosomes, and no Y. While men has both X and Y chromosomes.

Virgin birth is a supernatural act of God

b. Miracle one – a virgin birth –  Biologically unfertilized egg inside Mary started to undergo mitotic–division. The process of division is supposed to undergo mitotic division only when it is fertilized. Unfertilized egg degenerates when it travels to fallopian tube from ovary and is discharged from the body through menstruation.

c. Miracle two – even if conception occurred without fertilization, because Mary’s body does not have Y chromosome, the offspring will always be a female and never a male.   d. Miracle three – Jesus having the exact same chromosomes (identical DNA coding) as Mary, should have an identical physical feature as Mary- not to mention that the offspring of a virgin birth should have been a girl.

e. Miracle four – God supplied the Y chromosomes by the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus for him to become a man (not a woman)

Origin and spiritual characteristic of Y chromosomes

2. Creation of Adam and Eve a. Gen 2:22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[h] (a part of) he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

God could have made Eve from the dust just like He made Adam but instead God made Eve from a part taken out of Adam. Eve should have identical chromosomes/DNA with Adam, this means Eve should have been a male. Science tells us that the only difference between chromosomes /DNA structure of male and female is the absence of Y chromosome in female. That leads to growing into an entirely different anatomy for female. Reading from the foot prints of God’s creation, God must have taken out the Y chromosomes from the part taken out of Adam when He made Eve.

God took out the Y chromosomes from pre-fall Adam and held it in abeyance until Jesus.

Romans 5:13 13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

Romans 4:15 because the law brings wrath. And here there is no law there is no transgression.

1 Timothy 2:14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

Romans 5:12   [ Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ ] Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned— Note; (not Adam and Eve) Romans 5:14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

Gen 3: 16 Gen 3;16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Gen 3;2 We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

In the economy of God, Adam was given the command before Eve and becomes the guardian of the command. God has also put him in charge of everything. At the fall, Adam transgressed the law of God and abdicate his responsibility as the commander in chief. The consequence given to Adam was different than that of Eve because of difference in responsibility.

Both Adam and Eve have sinned. Adam now through procreation passes/transmit his “Depravity” to his offspring. Eve has also sinned and her offspring like her has become the recipient of “depravity”. In other words, Man becomes the transmitter of sin while women are recipient and not transmitter of “depravity/original sin/sin nature”. Like man all women are born depraved, but they do not transmit the original sin. This means Jesus has to be born of a virgin birth- not known by man. Because women do not transmit sin that makes Jesus to have been born sinless.

All human comes from a single fertilized cell. Therefore in the embryonic level, Y chromosomes becomes the transmitter of original sin while X chromosomes becomes the recipient and not as transmitter of original sin.

When Mary conceived without the help of a man, the fertilized egg contain only X chromosomes and the offspring should have been a female.

Luke 1:35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadowyou. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God

Conclusion

God took the Y chromosomes He took out of pre-fall Adam and held in abeyance and now put into the egg of Mary resulting in a XY / male offspring. Since the Y chromosomes was taken out of pre-fall Adam and that XX chromosomes/woman/female do not transmit original sin therefore Jesus was born without sin.

Answer 9

He was sinless because he was born of a virgin. In other words, he was not born of sexual desire.

Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

No matter how perfect a life lived, we were all born "the wrong way". Instead of being born from God (like Jesus was), we came into the world by sexual desire, a process started in the garden of Eden when Eve disobeyed God's word.

John 3:6-7 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

Because we were conceived in sin, the perfect antidote had to be conceived without sin (born without sexual desire, i.e. a virgin birth), paving the way for us to be reborn, but this time not by the flesh, but by the Spirit of God.

Jesus was sinless because He was born of God, not of man. Joseph and Mary had nothing to do with his conception.

Mathew 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

Matthew 1:20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.