Jesus Never Sinned: Part One - The 10 Commandments

I think we don't completely appreciate the sinless life that Jesus lived. He never committed those "little" sins that we don't really think about or we may not even consider to be a "real" sin. Think about the most menial, tiniest, expected, common, "least-damning" (sarcastically speaking) sin you could imagine, and realize that Jesus never did it or even came close.

I was going to try and make a mini-series out of this and post in detail about one particular sin he never committed every day for one week, but that causes me to, dare I say, dive so deep into scripture that I would not come out on a timely basis. Because then I have to define each sin, find the Greek and Hebrew meaning of words and what they translate into today, find out what is and is not included in certain sins, etc. So I may not give each act he never committed its proper spotlight, but I think a list will suffice in getting my point across.

Let's start with the 10 Commandments:

No, that's not Jesus...that's Moses. But you know all those Bible characters look alike....

1. Jesus never put anything before God. Yes that sounds weird since he is God. But remember, the Bible says even when he was 12 years old, he was always "about His Father's business". (Luke 2:49). We are a long way off from this. A very long way off. The first thing I do in the morning is check my Facebook and Instagram...

2. Jesus never worshiped an idol/graven image. I wasn't sure what to say about this one, but it just occurred to me. Jesus has seen the Father. He is the only person who knows what he looks like who lived on Earth and could, in theory, erect an accurate statue or some sort of depiction of God the Father while He was here on Earth. But he didn't.

3. Jesus never misued God's name in vain. Yes, also a weird one because He is God. But if you think about it, he was human and did not give into the many temptations he dealt with. If he did, the name of Jesus would have no significance because he would have had sin in him, thereby making all of his efforts to save mankind in vain. So, by staying true to who he was and what he came to do, everything he did was not in vain. (kind of a stretch on describing this one)

4. Jesus kept the Sabbath holy. This one is interesting because the Pharisees gave Jesus grief for healing on the Sabbath, which was considered "work", but Jesus challenged their views on it and showed mercy to people any day of the week. Not much else for me to say on this one. If you want more explanation, check out http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~cmadd01/healsabb.html

5. Jesus honored his father and mother. Both his earthly father and mother, and his Heavenly Father. He never made his parents look bad. Most children begin a rebellious phase around their pre-teen years but he was in the temple teaching the teachers. That's the only written record we have of Jesus' youth, but we still know he never dishonored his parents. I wonder if he ever corrected his parents on what they thought was good advice for Him. In fact, I wonder if Mary and Joseph just stopped trying to teach him how to live because He already had his life in order.

6. Jesus never murdered anyone. Moving on...just kidding. Jesus said himself that anger with someone without cause is the equivalent of murder in God's eyes. That without cause part is important, because the first thought that came to my head was "Hey! Jesus flipped those tables in the temple because he was angry! Why can he do that?". He, of course, had proper cause to be angry. They turned His Father's house into a market. He even flipped over the money table! I'd be scared of angry Jesus...he was a carpenter! People who build things are usually pretty strong...Could you imagine? You just pissed off the creator of the universe! And he can beat you up! But He didn't...

So he was never angry at anyone without proper cause. Again, we cannot relate. If anything, we can probably instantly think of people we dislike for no apparent reason. I know I can.

The more I type all of this, the more I realize how bad we really are...

7. Jesus never committed adultery. Ahh...good old adultery. The sin that all churchgoers say "well...yeah I've done that. I think everyone has" as if that makes it any less sinful. And I'm not talking about cheating on your spouse. Of course Jesus never did that, he was never married. Im referring to "looking with lust". We know he dealt with "sinners" on a regular basis and interacted with prostitutes a few times. We can assume at least some of them were good-looking. And although its not said specifically, I doubt when Jesus told them, "go and sin no more", he was staring at their backside as they left, thinking to himself "check her out, I want me some of that...". I can safely assume this never happened because if we know that Jesus never sinned, these thoughts could have never entered his mind. Plus, would it make sense for the creator of the universe to be tempted by his own creation?

8. Jesus never stole anything. 12-year-old Jesus never stole a piece of fruit from the open-air markets. (I'm picturing Disney's Aladdin right now). We also know that we can "steal" from our employers by not doing our jobs while on the clock. So while Jesus was a carpenter, its safe to assume that he was the best employee anyone could ask for. He probably showed up on time every single day, worked his butt off, and never complained about work.

9. Jesus never lied. Every single thing that came out of his mouth was true. He made some big claims and bold statements.

10. Jesus never coveted. He never coveted the fact that maybe another carpenter in his city might be getting more business than he is. He never coveted another man's wife; he was happy being single and serving God. He knew His life was going to end in agonizing pain, separation from God and ultimately spending time in Hell. With all of this, he never coveted someone else's comparatively easy life. He did ask that there could be some other, less painful way, but in the end dealt with what he came to do.

Another way to think of this is almost the inverse. Jesus never did the things he wasn't supposed to do. But he also did everything he was supposed to do. He said that the commandments are summed up into "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself." By not doing these, we are sinning. And since Jesus never sinned, he never stopped doing these; he never stopped loving God or his fellow man/woman. Everything He did was a reflection of His love for God and a reflection of His love for us.   

I'm going to have to stop there because this could go on forever. I will do a part 2 to this topic at a later date because honestly it's kind of fun. This may have been discouraging to some because most of us have committed all of these sins, but the good news about Jesus' perfection is that he represents us when God judges us, making us perfect. But we must follow Him. More on what it means to follow Him (God-willing) in my next post. Who knows, I might feel like talking about something else, again. Just be ready to read the next post!

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Until next time. Keep on keepin' on, readers.