Most
debates over peccability are couched in terms of whether he was able to sin but
did not, was able to not-sin and did not, or not able to sin and therefore
could not. Certainly, he was able to not-sin and did not, which is clear from
Scripture (Isa 53:9; 2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:22; 1 John 3:5). What is in
question is the Son’s ability to sin, not his ability to avoid sinning, for
that is clearly established in Scripture. There are some good reasons to think
that Jesus had libertarian freedom with respect to sinning. The correlation the
apostle Paul makes between Adam and Christ seems to suggest that he could, for
it is grounded in the similarity of situations and callings, but dissimilarity in
outcome. That is, if the Son could not have done otherwise and therefore had to
be obedient, then the contrast between his success and Adam’s failure seems
vacuous. Similarly, Jesus’s perfect fulfillment of the Law and his genuine
temptation seems diminished if he could not have chosen to disobey. Still, his
deity mitigates against the suggestion that he really could have sinned, and
there is no necessary connection between temptation and ability to act (even if
one is implied or suggested). At the end of the day, an important distinction
needs to be made: to say that he could sin is not the same as to say
that he would or even might. May fear that it is a claim that
Jesus really might have sinned or spurned the will of the Father, but that is
another matter. (John Laing, “Determinism and Human Freedom,” in Calvinism:
A Biblical and Theological Critique, ed. David L. Allen and Steve M. Lemke
[Nashville, Tenn.: B&H Academic, 2022], 418 n. 57)
