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Joh_8:46. Groundlessness of this unbelief. Εἰ μὴ , διότι τὴν ἀλήθειαν λέγω , ἀπιστεῖτέ μοι , εἴπατε , τίς ἐξ ὑμῶν ἐλέγχει με περὶ ἁμαρτίας ὑπʼ ἐμοῦ γενομένης , ἵνα δόξητε διʼ ἐκείνην ἀπιστεῖν ; Euth. Zigabenus. Ἁμαρτία , fault, is not to be taken in the intellectual sense, as untruth, error (Origen, Cyril, Melancthon, Calvin, Beza, Bengel, Kypke, Tittmann, Kuinoel, Klee, and others), but, as it is employed without exception in the N. T., namely as equivalent to sin. Jesus boldly urges against His opponents His unassailable moral purity—and how lofty a position of superiority does He thus assume above the saints of the Old Testament!—the fact that against Him can be brought ἁμαρτίας ὄνειδος οὐδὲν (Soph. O. C. 971), as a guarantee that He speaks the truth; justly too, for according to Joh_8:44 ἀλήθεια must be regarded as the opposite of ψεῦδος , whereas a lie falls under the category of ἁμαρτία (comp. ἀδικία , Joh_7:18). The conclusion is from the genus to the species; hence also it is inadmissible to take ἁμαρτία in the special sense of “fraus” (“qua divinam veritatem in mendacium converterim,” Ch. F. Fritzsche in Fritzsch. Opusc. p. 99), “wicked deception” (B. Crusius), “sin of word” (Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 33 f.), “false doctrine” (Melancthon, Calvin), and so forth. Even in classical usage ἁμαρτία , in and by itself, would denote neither error nor deception, but only acquire this specific meaning through an addition more precisely determining its force.[34] Considered in itself it denotes fault, perversity, the opposite of ὀρθότης (Plat. Legg. i. p. 627 D, ii. p. 668 C). Comp. δόξης ἁμαρτία , Thuc. i. 32. 4; ΝΌΜΩΝ ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑ , Plat. Legg. i. p. 627 D; γνώμης ἁμάρτημα , Thuc. ii. 65. 7. Remark further, in connection with this important passage: (1) The argument is based, not upon the position that “the sinless one is the purest and surest organ of the knowledge and communication of the truth” (Lücke); or that “the knowledge of the truth is grounded in the purity of the will” (De Wette, comp. Ullmann); for this would presuppose in the consciousness in which the words are spoken, to wit, in the consciousness of Jesus, a knowledge of the truth obtained mediately, or, at all events, acquired first in His human state; whereas, on the contrary, especially according to John’s view, the knowledge of the truth possessed by Jesus was an intuitive one, one possessed by Him in His pre-human state, and preserved and continued during His human state by means of the constant intercourse between Himself and God. The reasoning proceeds rather in this way: Am I really without sin,—and none of you is able to convict me of the contrary,—then am I also without ψεῦδος ; but am I without ΨΕῦΔΟς , then do I speak the truth, and you, on your part ( ὑμεῖς ), have no reason for not believing me. This reasoning, however, is abbreviated, in that Jesus passes at once from the denial of the possibility of charging Him with ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑ , to the positive, special contrary which follows therefrom,—leaving out the middle link, that consequently no ΨΕῦΔΟς can be attributed to Him,—and then continues: ΕἸ ἈΛΉΘ . ΛΈΓΩ (Lachmann and Tischendorf correctly without ΔΈ ). Further, (2) the proof of the sinlessness of Jesus furnished by this passage is purely subjective, so far as it rests on the decided expression of His own moral consciousness in the presence of His enemies; but, at the same time, it is as such all the more striking in that the confirmation of His own testimony (comp. Joh_14:30) is added to the testimony of others, and to the necessity of His sinlessness for the work of redemption and for the function of judge. This self-witness of Jesus, on the one hand, bears on itself the seal of immediate truth (otherwise, namely, Jesus would have been chargeable with a καυχᾶθαι of self-righteousness or self-deception, which is inconceivable in Him); whilst, on the other hand, it is saved from the weakness attaching to other self-witnessings, both by the whole evangelical history, and by the fact of the work of reconciliation. (3) The sinlessness itself, to which Jesus here lays claim, is in so far relative, as it is not absolutely divine, but both is and must be divine-human, and was based on the human development of the Son of God.[35] He was actually tempted, and might have sinned; this abstract possibility, however, never became a reality. On the contrary, at every moment of His life it was raised into a practical impossibility.[36] Thus He learned obedience (Heb_5:8). Hence the sinlessness of Jesus, being the result of a normal development which, at every stage of His earthly existence, was in perfect conformity with the God-united ground of His inner life (comp. Luk_2:40; Luk_2:52), must always be regarded as conditioned, so far as the human manifestation of Jesus is concerned, by the entrance of the Logos into the relation of growth; whilst the unconditioned correlate thereto, namely, perfection, and accordingly absolute moral goodness—goodness which is absolutely complete and above temptation at the very outset—belongs alone, nay, belongs necessarily to God. In this way the apparent contradiction between this passage and Mar_10:18 may be resolved. For the rest, the notion of sin as a necessary transitional point in human development is shown to be groundless by the historic fact of the sinlessness of Jesus. See Ernesti, Ursprung der Sünde, I. p. 187 ff.
[34] Polyb. 16. 20, 6, is, without reason, adduced by Tholuck against this view. In the passage referred to, ἁμαρτίαι are faults, goings wrong in general. The sentence is a general maxim.
[35] Comp. Gess, Pers. Chr. p. 212. At the same time, the sinless development of Jesus is not to be subsumed under the conception of sanctification. See also Dorner’s Sinless Perfection of Jesus, and the striking remarks of Keim, Geschichtl. Chr. p. 109 ff., ed. 3, also p. 189 f.
[36] Any moral stain in Christ would have been a negation of His consciousness of being the Redeemer and Judge.