Unitarianism’s Greatest Error

By

  Lee  

While I am in total agreement with the truth of there only being one God and that Jesus was not God my disagreement with Unitarian teaching is their teaching concerning the person of Jesus.  In the quest to prove that Jesus is not God Unitarians have gone overboard with misguided zeal.  In this paper I will attempt to prove that Jesus did indeed have Gods own nature, divine mind and character and that this was necessary for Jesus to have been our messiah.

Proof #1.  The fulfillment of the law.

Jesus came to fulfill the law and in order to do that he had to be as righteous as God.  The law was a reflection of Gods righteousness but was designed with a flaw.  That flaw was that the law did not address the thoughts and intents of the heart, the thoughts of man, mans inner spirit that is what man really is.  It is the spirits of men that will inherit the kingdom and not the flesh of men.  Man is a soul or the combination of two things, body and spirit.  It is the spirit of man that God is interested in and offers salvation to.  This human spirit became defiled and evil, we became the children of the devil and do his will and this is the nature that must be transformed by God into His own nature.  Jesus was manifested to do this very thing and was a man with the nature of God displayed to us so that when we see Jesus we see the Father.  Jesus came into a world of spiritual darkness as a great light and we should not try to call that great light darkness in any way.

The savior of man could not himself walk in darkness if he is to save those who do.  The mind of Jesus was an exact copy of the mind of God and this is how Jesus was the express image of the person of God.  Jesus had none of Gods attributes like omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience or of being eternal but Jesus did have Gods nature of righteousness, love, holiness as well as being unable to sin. Jesus magnified the law and made it honorable by making the thoughts of sin equal to the act and receiving the same punishment.  This is how the flaw in the law was corrected and Jesus had to keep this law himself in order to fulfill it.  Adam was told that if he ate from the forbidden tree that he would surely die and this because he would gain the knowledge of good and evil but lack the ability to control the knowledge and would sin and therefore die.  With out God man cannot always do good and never do evil and to know good and do it not is sin.  This is how man became defiled and why the second Adam had to come and demonstrate to us the very righteousness of God so that we might see it, and realize we are sinners in need of saving.  There is no way a son of Adam could ever keep the law let alone after Jesus magnified the law to include the thoughts and intents of the heart.  It would require a new man, a man exactly like God in heart.  This new man would be the first of his kind a new creation that never existed before.  This man would have to be the son of God.  Jesus was not a descendant of Adam according to his human spirit but only to his human flesh, his spirit was the new spirit of man created after righteousness and true holiness.

KJV Ephesians 4:24

 24.  And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

KJV Galatians 3:27

 27.  For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Jesus is the first new man and while in the flesh was the provider to us of all the things God wills for us. 

Proof #2. The testimony of the prophets

Jesus knew the words of the prophets and therefore knew that he was destined to rule the kingdom of God. The words of the prophets were Gods testimony of His son.  This means that Jesus knew that he would not be able to sin because this was against His Fathers testimony of him and would have destroyed his Fathers will. Since the foundation of the world, Jesus was the messiah and this by the will of God so how could anyone say that Jesus could have sinned and bring in doubt the faith and hope God gives to us.  Imagine David, who wrote about Jesus, looking forward to a messiah who could possibly sin, what would that do to David’s confidence in God and this future messiah?  This idea that Jesus could have sinned, in order for it to be true, would have to make prophecy an unsure word, make Gods will questionable and put all the promises to us on the gambling table.  The following scriptures would be untrue if Jesus could have sinned.

KJV Acts 2:25

 25.  For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:

KJV Acts 2:30-32

 30.  Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;

 31.  He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

 32.  This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.

Anyone that teaches that Jesus was a potential sinner is a blasphemer and a liar operating with a carnal mind needing revelation knowledge and later repenting asking God through the name they have profaned for forgiveness.

Proof 3. The resurrection of the saints

The saints are resurrected to immortality and also will be made incorruptible. Jesus, as a man, made both of these things possible and therefore had to be the first to have each.  While in the flesh the human spirit of Jesus was as ours will become at the resurrection, unable to sin, incorruptible. All Jesus needed was a glorified body for his human spirit to dwell in forever and he received this first, before us as well. Jesus did not have a human spirit with our nature but a human spirit with Gods nature because our natures are defiled by sin. The human spirit of Jesus was created after Gods own image and likeness and he, while in the flesh was the image of the invisible God but was visible to us so that we could see God in him.

Proof #4 The misunderstanding of the temptation of Jesus

KJV James 1:14

 14.  But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

Unitarians say Jesus was a man just like all men with a nature like Adams children, he was human and not only could he have sinned according to Unitarian definition, he did sin by his own definition of what sin is.

If Jesus was tempted, he had to be drawn away by his own lust and enticed just as James describes above.  Below Jesus defines sin as lust and agrees with James above.

ASV Matthew 5:28

 28.  but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (everyone includes Jesus ???)

It is plain that Jesus taught that sin begins in the heart and every man is tempted by his own lust, therefore if Jesus was tempted, as Unitarians insist, then he did sin according to his own definition.  If this is true then we have no Messiah.

Since Unitarians say Jesus had a nature just like ours, it is no wonder that he would be prone to commit sin by being tempted.  Further Hebrews tells us that Jesus was tempted and drawn away by his own lust in every point just as we are.

ASV Hebrews 4:15

 15.  For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.(How can this be)

If it was possible that Jesus could have sinned how could the above scripture in Hebrews be true, saying “yet without sin.”

How is it that even though Jesus being tempted and drawn away by his own lust could still be without sin?  Did God have to make some kind of exception for Jesus that he will not make for you and me? According to Unitarian thought, Jesus was indeed tempted, in order to be tempted you must have the desire and the ability to sin, and Jesus had both because he was indeed just a man like all men and was tempted just like all men, this is the Unitarian way of thinking.  What was the exception God made for Jesus?  For any temptation to be successful a man must lust and be enticed in his mind otherwise there would be no temptation, he does not have to commit the act only think about it.  Since Jesus was the image of God by nature of righteousness, holiness and love, there was in fact no temptation of Jesus for just as God cannot be tempted to sin neither could Jesus. After all look at the result, did Satan succeed?  No, Satan failed miserably, Jesus humiliated Satan. This shows us that we have a messiah that can indeed save us and set us free from our natures to be conformed to his nature, which is the nature of his God and Father.

If Jesus was a potential sinner he could not provide for me what he himself did not have. I would always be a potential sinner just like Jesus, never truly being free from sin, unable to sin and become like my Father who cannot sin.