If all people have original sin and Jesus was a human being, then didn’t Jesus need to have had a sin nature? Before answering this question, we need to know what the term “original sin” means. It is the effect of Adam’s sin on his descendants (Rom. 5:12-32). Specifically, it is our inheritance of a sinful nature from Adam. The sinful nature originated with Adam and is passed down from parent to child. We are, by nature, children of wrath (Eph. 2:3).
Romans 5:19, “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”
Notice that Romans 5:19 states that by Adam’s sin, “the many were made sinners.” In Greek, this is the aorist, passive, indicative. Aorist means past tense. Passive means they received the action. Indicative means it is a fact. So, it is saying that by Adam’s sin, all people “were made sinners” by what Adam did.
Did Jesus inherit a sinful nature from Adam?
So, if we inherit our sinful nature from our parents, then Jesus, who had Mary as a parent, must have had a sinful nature. Right? Not necessarily. I believe that the sin nature is passed down through the father, not the mother. Let me explain. Sin entered the world through Adam, not Eve. Remember, Eve was the one who sinned first. However, sin did not enter the world through her. It entered through Adam. Rom. 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” The concept behind this is called Federal Headship. This means that a person (a father) represents his descendants.
Heb. 7:9-10, “And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, 10 for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.”
We see in Hebrews that Levi, a distant descendant of Abraham, is said to have paid tithes to Melchizedek when Abraham was the one offering the tithes, not Levi. This means that there is biblical support for the idea that the sin nature was passed down through the father. Since Jesus did not have a literal, biological father, the sin nature was not passed down to Him. However, since He had a human mother, He was fully human but without original sin. Jesus is God in the flesh (John 1:1, 14). So, He has two natures, God and man. Col. 2:9 says, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of deity in bodily form.” Jesus received His human nature from Mary, but not the sin nature since Joseph was not the literal, biological father. Therefore, Jesus had no original sin passed down through the fathers, from Adam.
