Thursday, June 9, 2022

Brigham Young, James E. Talmage, and Grant Von Harrison vs. the Impeccability of Jesus during Mortality

In a sermon delivered on July 31, 1864, Brigham Young that the following about the peccability of Jesus:

 

I will here say that it is a mistaken idea, as entertained by the Calvinists, that God has decreed all things whatsoever that come to pass, for the volition of the creature is as free as air. You may inquire whether we believe in foreordination; we do, as strongly as any people in the world. We believe that Jesus was foreordained before the foundations of the world were built, and his mission was appointed him in eternity to be the Savior of the world, yet when he came in the flesh he was left free to choose or refuse to obey his Father. Had he refused to obey his Father, he would have become a son of perdition. We also are free to choose or refuse the principles of eternal life. God has decreed and foreordained many things that have come to pass, and he will continue to do so; but when he decrees great blessings upon a nation or upon an individual they are decreed upon certain conditions. When he decrees great plagues and overwhelming destructions upon nations or people, those decrees come to pass because those nations and people will not forsake their wickedness and turn unto the Lord. It was decreed that Nineveh should be destroyed in forty days, but the decree was stayed on the repentance of the inhabitants of Nineveh. My time is too limited to enter into this subject at length; I will content myself by saying that God rules and reigns, and has made all his children as free as himself, to choose the right or the wrong, and we shall then be judged according to our works. (JOD 10:324)

 

JESUS CHRIST

 

Even though Jesus was the literal son of God in mortality, he was free to choose between good and evil. He was most definitely capable of sinning. He could not have satisfied the requirements of infinite atonement if he had been exempt from the capacity to sin. The following statements by James E. Talmage make it clear that Jesus was a free agent as literally as anyone else:

 

A question deserving some attention in this connection is that of the peccability or impeccability of Christ—the question as to whether He was capable of sinning. Had there been no possibility of His yielding to the lures of Satan, there would have been no real test in the temptations, no genuine victory in the result. Our Lord was sinless yet peccable; He had the capacity, the ability to sin had He willed so to do. Had He been bereft of the faculty to sin, He would have been shorn of His free agency; and it was to safeguard and insure the agency of man that He had offered Himself, before the world was, as a redeeming sacrifice. To say that He could not sin because He was the embodiment of righteousness is no denial of His agency to choose between evil and good. . . .

 

But why proceed with labored reasoning, which can lead to but one conclusion, when our Lord’s own words and other scriptures confirm the fact? Shortly before His betrayal, when admonishing the Twelve to humility, He said: “Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.” [Luke 22:28] While here we find no exclusive reference to the temptations immediately following His baptism, the exposition is plain that He had endured temptations, and by implication, these had continued throughout the period of His ministry. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews expressly taught that Christ was peccable, in that He was tempted “in all points” as are the rest of mankind. Consider the unambiguous declaration: “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” [Heb. 4:14-15] And further: “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.” [Heb. 5:8] (Jesus the Christ, pp. 134-35) (Grant Von Harrison, Understanding Your Divine Nature [rev ed.; Sandy, Utah: Sounds of Zion, 2000], 54-55)

 

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