Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You asked:

Where does the incarnation come into play in your theology. You seem to state very strongly that Eve did not have a rebellious sin nature because this was neccesary for Jesus to also not have a sin nature.( through the virgin birth with no corrupted father) But where does the fact come in that Jesus is God, and that in God there is no sin. To me he is sinless (or without a sin nature) precisely because he is fully God and he is fully human because he is born of woman (since only women can bear children)

Thanks for the questions! Jesus had two natures one as God and one as man. His nature as God came from His being God from eternity past. His nature as man came through Mary.

If Jesus as a human could be sinless because He was God then He wouldn’t be just like us. And if being God is what made Him sinless then why couldn’t He have a human father? Why must He have been born from a virgin without the possibility of a human father? This is where the incarnation comes into play with Him being fully God and fully man but without sin.

The reason why Adam and Eve were without sin in the beginning is that they were created that way by God. But since God requires a perfect sacrifice for us as the Kinsman Redeemer, the man Jesus had to take on our flesh – the flesh that came from Adam. If you make Jesus the man sinless because He is God, then that takes away His connection with us. Then He is different than us in his humanity because He has been somehow cleansed of the sin nature which we are not cleansed from. But if as I state that the sin nature comes into our world only through the man, then the virgin birth removes any barrier that would stop Jesus from being like us. He is our Kinsman Redeemer back through the lineage of Eve who came from Adam before he sinned. It gives Jesus a “natural” human existence as a sinless man just like the way that Adam was created sinfree.

The challenge to those who believe that the virgin birth was not necessary to have Jesus be a sinless human is to answer why God demanded the sign of a virgin and why He rejected a human father for Jesus. I believe that the Messiah coming through the seed of the woman which has not been tainted with the sin of rebellion assures that the Messiah will not have a sin nature. For if we believe that the sin nature comes through Adam, why should it be hard to believe that there is no rebellion that comes through the seed of the woman?

I can’t help but wonder if you are pushing your Gen 1-3 theology into the incarnation and corrupting it.

It was God who said that the seed of the woman would defeat the serpent. There is no corruption in this seed and God gives us no understanding that God would have to do something special to cleanse the seed. The woman had no rebellion to produce rebellion in her seed. If I am wrong, then all it would take is a Scripture or two that states that sin comes into the world through two or that Eve was in rebellion or anything along that line.