--[ Introduction ]--------------------------------------------------------------
== Hebrews 4:15 == NASB 2020 ==
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses,
but One who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin.
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--[ The Argument from Jesus's Divine Nature ]--
Scripture clearly shows us that Jesus is Almighty God, our awesome Elohim. And
we know for a fact that God cannot, under any circumstances, be tempted in a
way that would cause Him to sin. As James 1:13 tells us, God cannot sin. We
could easily just stop the debate right here, wrap things up, and declare that
since Jesus is God, He simply could not have sinned. To borrow Augustine's
phrasing, He possessed non posse peccare.
--[ The Argument from Jesus's Human Nature ]--
At the same time, we know that Jesus was just as vere homo as He was vere Deus.
But that raises an important question: what was Jesus's human nature actually
like? In the book of Romans, Paul describes Jesus as the Second Adam. For Jesus
to redeem us, His human nature had to be exactly like Adam's before the Fall,
since the work of redemption is carried out through His humanity. Unfortunately,
we are stuck experiencing Adam's posse peccare in the most practical, painful
ways today. We see it every time we look out the window at geopolitical
conflicts, read the news about terrible diseases spreading around the globe,
or confront the moral frailty that every human being is born with.