Was Jesus a sinner requiring faith in God? Did Jesus Christ truly have faith in God the Father? That is not the right question; a better query is whether, as Messiah and fulness of the Godhead, whether He needed faith at all?
In part 1 of this article series titled A Deceptive Christian Teaching, readers were introduced to a recent paper I wrote titled: Jesus Had No Faith: A Biblicist Approach, which can be downloaded to any device, and for free by clicking the link.
In order to assure this article is indexed on Google, or it will never be read, I must reformat it as a blog post and not in its original form; and argumentative theological devotional (available as the above download).
The reason is "user friendliness", which Google values and formatting is huge for success in that optimization area. Furthermore, and because 76% of all who read this will do so on a mobile device, it must be broken down into smaller paragraphs.
With no further delay, here is the conclusion to Jesus Had No Faith.
Table of Contents (Part 2)
III. Pre-Fall Perfection and Foreknowledge
IV. Jesus Christ Transcends Temptation
V. Conclusion
III. Pre-Fall Perfection and Foreknowledge
Pre-Fall Adam and Eve Had No Faith
Not only did Jesus have no need for faith, but neither did Adam and Eve prior to the fall. They dwelt directly in the presence of God without a mediator. Because their flesh was untainted by sin, they could exist in God’s presence without the consequence of death (Gen. 1:28, Gen. 2:16-17, Ex. 33:20).
However, after their disobedience and subsequent judgment—along with the serpent—they were driven out of the Garden of Eden and, therefore, out of God's direct presence (Gen. 3:22-24).
This led to the faith need and mediator between humankind and God (Heb. 9:15, 1 Tim. 2:5).
Since the Godhead created Adam and Eve perfect, they did not require faith prior to becoming disobedient because faith is based on hope in something unseen (Gen. 1:31, Gen. 2:25, Heb. 1:3, Col. 1:15).
While there is no evidence that Adam, like Jesus, was endowed with supernatural authority over natural law (i.e., the ability to perform miracles), Scripture does affirm that he was granted dominion over the natural world (Gen. 1:26-28). In contrast, Jesus Christ holds dominion over both the physical and eternal realms (Gen. 1:26-28, John 17:1-5, Phil. 2:9-11).
This distinction underscores an important truth: the authority over creation granted to Adam and Jesus was predicated on a continuous sinless state of existence.
The Bible refers to Jesus as the "second Adam" for three primary reasons:
1. To restore God’s created likeness: the first Adam brought death through disobedience. The second Adam, Jesus, is necessary to bring life and restore what was lost (Rom. 5:12-14, 1 Cor. 15:21-22, 44-49).
2. To establish dominion over the new creation: while Adam was given dominion over a perfect, pre-fall creation, Jesus reigns over the new creation, which is redeemed and eternal (Gen. 2:7, Rev. 21:5, Rev. 22:1-3).
3. To restore direct communion with God: Adam and Eve, like the incarnate Jesus, were the only flesh-based beings to experience direct communion with God without sin.
They enjoyed firsthand interaction, and the followers of Jesus Christ will attain, through His righteousness, restored firsthand communion (Gen. 2:15-16, Gen. 3:8, Acts 1:9-11, Rom. 5:10-11).
The Genesis 3 narrative portrays Adam and Eve as sinless beings who, after being deceived, fell into sin and were separated from direct communion with God.
This moment marked the entry of a need for grace, a manifestation of God’s unmerited favor for fallen humanity and which could only be received by faith in a sovereign being not in need of such Himself.
Faith Predicate Manifests
Grace through faith first manifested a reconciliatory need when Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened after their disobedience. They recognized their shame and need for this blot of sin to be removed (Gen. 3:6-24).
While it is impossible to trace God’s love to a single moment in spacetime—because His love is eternal—faith can be. Unlike love, which Jesus Christ embodied even before the creation of angels, faith could not have existed in pre-creation eternity.
Faith, by its very nature, is predicated on "not seeing God yet believing in Him" and spiritual beings existing in pre-creation eternity were directly in God’s presence nullifying the faith need as with Adam, Eve, and Jesus Christ (Job 38:4-7, Prov. 8:22-30,).
Scripture teaches that without faith, it is impossible to please God, which implies that finite beings require faith to transcend their finite nature and connect with the infinite (Rom. 14:23, Heb. 11:6).
However, because God is infinite and neither bound by time nor space, He cannot be bound by faith nor experience release from its outcome, grace (Num. 23:19, 1 John 1:5).
Foreknowledge Affording Advantage
Prophetic foreknowledge gave Jesus a distinct advantage over a faith requirement as well as temptation.
He possessed a power so vast that He wrote the conclusion of history prior to creation and then also became the lamb slain from the foundation of the world which completes human history (Deut. 10:17, Matt. 28:18, Rev. 13:8).
The omniscience of the Godhead, as a defining characteristic encompasses all-inclusive knowledge (Psa. 147:4-5, John 16:30, Rom. 11:33). This means God knows everything that is possible to know.
Foreknowledge is one of the divine attributes that establishes the credibility of the Bible’s claim to God’s pre-eminence over all other "gods" (Isa. 46:9-10, Acts 2:23, Rom. 8:29-30).
It underpins His omnipotence and ability to reveal what cannot be known by those dependent on faith (Amos 3:7, Matt. 24:36, Rev. 1:1). This foreknowledge also explains why Jesus, as part of the Godhead, had no need to receive, practice, or experience a loss of faith.
Foreknowledge brings with it the omniscience and omnipotence to be the "author and finisher of our faith" (Philippians 1:6, Heb. 12:2). More plainly, just as a writer exercises sovereign control over the characters, plot, and ending of a written story or movie script, so too does Jesus over the eternal.
Human authors, who dictate the direction of their narratives, are not subject to the same limitations as the characters they create. Likewise, foreknowledge establishes an inherent power dynamic between the divine author and those bound by the constraints of the storyline.
As the eternal author, the Lord is not confined by the narrative’s twists and turns or the uncertainties faced by its “created” characters. Instead, He operates with complete understanding of every eventual outcome including the knowledge that He has overcome the world and sin (John 16:33).
Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that He is not beholden to the uncertainties faced by those subordinate to the lack of prophetic foreknowledge let alone the inability to author all universal history.
IV. Jesus Christ Transcends Temptation
Christological Transcendence
What Adam and Eve failed to do, transcend temptation in corporeal form, Jesus was able to as the fullness of the Godhead. Human existence and by extension, consciousness are encapsulated in the statement: "Jesus offers an eternally propitiatory gift for a rebellion manifest in eternity and transcended into spatial time."
This should serve as the Christological doctrine of transcendence. Every scripture, thought, or action in the biblical narrative either originates from or returns to this doctrinal imperative.
If Jesus required faith, it suggests there were moments when rebellion against the Godhead by the manifestative fullness of the Godhead (Christ) was possible.
This notion, however, is antithetical to Scripture and misinterprets His eternal attributes and challenges Christological transcendence because whether fully God or fully man, He transcends darkness which cannot exist within His fulness (John 1:32-34,1 John 1:5, 1 John 5:7).
There are several key instances where the question of temptation in Jesus’s life become more evident than others. The first is the forty-day wilderness temptation (Matt. 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13). The second is His broken-hearted response over Jerusalem (Matt. 16:21-23, Mark 8:31-33).
Finally, and most poignantly, is His request to the Godhead in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal (Matt. 26:36-46, Mark 15:29-32).
These instances highlight the Lord's humanity in experiencing the basic needs and struggles of the human condition but also illuminate the difference in His temptations which, while presented to Him as it is with others, do not constitute sinful enticement.
God Rebelling Against the Godhead
Enticement to sin suggests the possibility of failure however, it is impossible for God to be at war with Himself in the same way that the flesh wars against the spirit (Gal. 5:16-17, Rom. 7:17-24).
Nowhere is this contrast more evident than in the struggle of temptation (Num. 23:19, John 4:24, John 10:30; John 14:26, 1 John 1:5).
Temptation is the conscious experience of being lured away from holiness to fulfil individual desire (Jam. 1:13-15). This proclivity was first introduced through Lucifer’s desire to be like God, while third-party temptation—originating from a source other than one’s own knowledge or desire—was first seen in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1-6).
When Adam and Eve allowed temptation to morph into enticement, and then blasphemous sin, humanity was severed from direct access to God, and the necessity of faith was introduced (Rom. 5:18-21).
As the Godhead’s propitiation for sin, Jesus did not escape temptation because if something is presented to one, they are tempted but not necessarily enticed (Heb. 9:14, 1 Pet. 1:18-19).
Scripture declares that Jesus was “tempted all ways as we yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). However, because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and is fully God, His experience with temptation cannot be equated to humanity’s.
Having written history and possessing foreknowledge of all outcomes, the possibility of failure through temptation was utterly impossible (Luke 1:34-35; Rom. 8:3; Heb. 7:26).
More plainly, Jesus never experienced enticement, was never in danger of mission failure and thus could not have needed grace only available through faith.
Unlike humanity, Jesus depended on no human source for His conception. His birth, wrought through the Holy Spirit and as the Son of God, bypassed the inherited sin nature of humanity (Matt. 1:18, Luke 1:35).
Declared as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Jesus embodies sinlessness, and no darkness has ever existed within Him (Matt. 1:20-21; Rev. 13:8).
Forms of Temptation
There are two forms of testing which manifest in the life of Believers. The first is the Lord’s testing of humanity to strengthen faith and reveal character, as seen in Abraham’s test to sacrifice Isaac (Gen. 22:1-14, Heb, 11:17-19).
Next, is enticement to partake in wickedness originating with Ha Shatin, and as demonstrated in Jesus’s wilderness experience (Matt. 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13). The former is evidence of the Lord’s provision while the latter aims to weaken and distract (Jam. 1:13, 1 Thess. 3:5, 1 John 1:5).
The temptations Jesus Christ endured served one purpose: modeling freedom in the face of sinful enticement.
His example of endurance and His freeing power provides a blueprint for believers to follow and given His foreknowledge of all possible outcomes, is not meant to suggest the possibility of failure (Matt. 5:48, John 13:14-15, 34-35, Heb. 12:1-3, 1 Pet. 2:21).
Concerning and how one experiences emotion but more so response, as God’s created likeness, our response to stimuli mirrors His own. Unrighteous response to emotional stressors is the basis for sin. However, emotional response itself is not.
For example, God revealed a character attribute by naming Himself Jealous (Ex. 34:14, Deut. 4:24, Deut. 5:9). When operating in the spirit, disciples take on the same attribute which manifests emotional response, such as Paul’s righteous jealousy concerning the Corinthian church (2 Cor. 11:2).
This is crucial because whether Jesus showed anger (temple cleansing), frustration/indignation (disciple’s lack of faith), zeal (name calling of Pharisees), and even distress (Garden of Gethsemane), it could not have been enticement style temptation because in each instance, and with sovereign foreknowledge of mission success, there was no chance of sin and thereby failure (John 2:15, Mark 9:19, Matt. 23:27, Luke 22:44).
Arguably, the greatest example of the Lord possibly succumbing to either form of temptation was during a sorrowful plea to the Godhead on the night of His arrest (Matt. 26:38-42).
Jesus's prayer was the Father offering another method to complete His sacrifice, is present in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke but not in John (Matt. 26:39-44, Mark 14:35-36, Luke 22:41-42).
Furthermore, both the emotional agony and its manifestation with the Lord intensely sweating, as well as the request for another path achieving reconciliation between the Godhead and humanity cannot be viewed outside of His sovereignty (2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Pet. 2:22).
As the sovereign Lord, Jesus Christ knew—before the foundation of the world and even before Lucifer’s sin—that He would come to reconcile the world to Himself (John 1:29; 1 Pet. 1:19; 2 Cor. 5:21, Rev. 21:6).
Furthermore, in His sovereignty, He foreknew both the moment of agony and that He would not fail. Though He appeared to struggle with the weight of His mission, His request did not indicate the possibility of failure, in other words, the outcome was certain, and He knew it.
Humanity cannot make such a claim in any given situation outside of dependence on the providence of God (Prov. 27:1, Eccles. 8:7, Jam. 4:14).
If Jesus required dependence on anything other than His own power, the validity of the New Testament narrative is questionable for three reasons:
1. Jesus is reduced to an ambassador, as are His follower, from God and is not the Messiah resulting in Christological faith being a vain exercise (1 Cor. 15:14-17).
2. Due to the request for another way to achieve the end goal, the Lord was totally unaware that no other way existed and thus could not be either Alpha or Omega. (John 16:30, John 2:24-25, John 18:4, Col. 2:3).
3. If the foundation of the gospel is flawed, then no other New Testament book is valid (1 John 2:21, Psa. 11:2, Psa. 127:1).
V. Conclusion
There is no other way for fallen humanity to experience reconciliation with the Godhead except through grace by faith. Jesus, as the fullness of the Godhead, is not dependent on anything outside of or greater than Himself.
This truth eliminates any need for faith on His part, as faith inherently signifies a relationship between un-equals. The seven "I AM" statements of Jesus serve as eternal identifiers, directly linking Him to the "I AM" of the Old Testament.
These declarations affirm His sovereignty and demonstrate His complete self-sufficiency, lacking nothing within Himself.
Much of the confusion surrounding whether Jesus possessed faith stems from biblical passages describing Him as “faithful.” However, there is a critical distinction between faithfulness to a task and saving faith.
Faithfulness refers to dedication and loyalty to a mission, whereas saving faith involves belief in something unseen or beyond tangible measurement. The very nature of faith requires a beginning, as seen in Lucifer, Adam, Eve, and their descendants.
Since Jesus has neither beginning nor end and, in His humanity, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, He neither possessed nor required hope in the unseen.
The concept of Christological faith emerged within the confines of time and space, arising solely from the need of sinners—not from any deficiency within the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.
Before their disobedience, Adam and Eve, like Jesus, were flesh-based beings who dwelt directly in God’s presence and required no faith.
This establishes a precedent for flesh-based beings existing in temporal reality without the need for faith, which is one reason Jesus is described as the second Adam.
Adam and Eve’s disobedience disrupted this perfect state, introducing sin and separation from God’s presence. Jesus Christ, the Creator of Adam and the second Adam, holds sovereign authority over both the physical and eternal realms, restoring what was lost through Adam’s failure.
The first manifestation of grace through faith occurred when Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened after their disobedience. They recognized their shame and their need for the stain of sin to be removed (Genesis 3:6-24).
Moreover, while the presence of temptation implies the possibility of failure, it is impossible for God to be at war with Himself in the way that the flesh wars against the spirit. The mere presentation of temptation does not necessitate enticement.
Since no darkness resided in Jesus, it is accurate to say that temptation was presented to Him, but enticement to sin was never a possibility. Consequently, failure was not an option. If failure was impossible, then sin—which serves as the basis for the need for faith—could not have been a factor for Jesus.
Finally, those who argue that the sovereign Godhead could have failed undermine the entire biblical narrative. Such a view reduces the Alpha and Omega, the author and finisher of our faith, to merely another character in the story rather than its foundational premise.
If Jesus required dependence on anything other than His own power, the validity of the New Testament narrative would be called into question, as it would reduce Jesus to an ambassadorial role, thereby nullifying Christological faith.
In essence, this position declares Christianity false and devoid of credibility.
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