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)
