“Jesus Christ, if that’s who you believe in – Jesus Christ, admittedly, was not perfect when he was here on Earth. So, why are we deifying the founders of this country, many of whom owned slaves?”
Don Lemon
CNN Talk Show Sodomite
On Air Conversation w/ Roman Catholic Fredo Cuomo
Don Lemon, probably quite without realizing it, in his statement above attacked that doctrine, which without, Christianity is not Christianity. The Holy Scriptures, whom Lemon didn’t bother to consult in his statement, articulate repeatedly that Jesus Christ was in point of fact perfect. Here are but three,
“God made Him (Jesus Christ) who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
2 Corinthians 5:21
“He (Jesus) committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.” I Peter 2:22
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Hebrews 4:15
It is difficult to imagine how the Scriptures could more directly say that Jesus Christ was without sin.
Further orthodox Protestant Christianity understands that the conception of Christ by the Holy Spirit and being born of the virgin Mary are both doctrines necessary to safeguard the sinless perfection of Jesus Christ. These realities mean that Jesus, while having a human nature had a human nature because of His holy conception and virgin birth that was absent man’s sin nature. Jesus was born sinless, had no inclination to sin, and never did sin and so contra CNN’s theologian Don Lemon, was perfect.
Jesus time spent in the wilderness resisting the temptation brought by the serpent as recorded in the Gospels is recorded in the Gospels for the very purpose of demonstrating that Jesus was perfect. Subsequent to His triumph in the wilderness Jesus’ Baptism wherein we see the Spirit descending is recorded having as one of its purposes that the reader may be assured that Jesus was a set apart as the sinless one to carry the sins of His people.
The hoisting of Jesus Christ in the narrative of the Gospels is supposed to strike the reader as shocking because here we find God’s anointed perfect one receiving the treatment of the criminal sinner.
All this to say that Don Lemon knows no more about the Bible or theology than he manifestly does not know about politics and current events. Let’s just say, unlike Jesus, that Don isn’t perfect.
Having established that Jesus was indeed perfect let us spend just a little cyber-ink explaining why.
The orthodox Protestant Christian faith has always confessed that the perfection of Jesus had a purpose beyond Jesus merely having boasting rights that He alone was prefect and without sin. No, the perfection of Jesus was to a greater and grander end. In the Christian faith the perfection of Jesus has the teleological purpose of providing the perfection necessary for a human to be named, accepted, and stand in the presence of God.
The idea of Jesus Christ’s perfection is thus substitutionary. That perfection’s intent was so that those who did not have the requisite perfection required by God in order to have audience with Him, could find a way to have the perfection required by God of all mortals in order to be in relationship with Him.
The Heidelberg catechism points us in this direction,
Q. What benefit do you receive
from the holy conception and birth of Christ?
A. He is our Mediator,1
and with his innocence and perfect holiness
covers, in the sight of God,
my sin, in which I was conceived and born.2
Notice that phrase, “with His innocence and perfect holiness.” The perfection of Jesus Christ that Don Lemon denied is the only hope that any man, woman, or child, has to be owned by God.
The assumption in all this is that Don Lemon, Fredo Cuomo, the founding fathers, Bret L. McAtee and all of us are not perfect but instead are imperfect sinners through and through and that if Lemon, Cuomo, the founding fathers, and McAtee don’t find an alien perfection from somebody else standing in as our substitute our imperfection will separate us from God forever resulting in eternal torment.
So, this “Jesus being perfect” truth is a bigger deal even than being a talking head on CNN, and correspondingly the denial of it constitutes fighting words. Fighting words because first and foremost Don is calling God a liar. Fighting words because secondly, without the perfection of Jesus not only is Don Lemon definitely lost forever (yes even Don can yet be saved) but so is every human who has ever lived. Without Jesus being perfect we — each of us and all of us — are without hope and without God.
And frankly, if we are all going to be eternally damned then who cares who once owned slaves or who yet might own Don and his family in the future?
Jesus being perfect was alone able to pay the price required by a ineffably Holy God for the sins committed by those assigned for eternal life. Jesus being perfect paid that penalty — the penalty of imperfect people — by His time on the Cross. There on the cross the perfect was the substitute for the imperfect; the just for the unjust. Without the perfection of Jesus Christ being placed to the account of the Church all men within or without the church remain imperfect, having God dead set against them.
Of course, for the thinking man, what is anticipated already is the understanding of why Christians have always said that if men desire to have life beyond this life they must have Jesus’ perfection on their side of the ledger. Without the perfection only found in Jesus all men everywhere will die eternally after this life. Muslim men, Jew men, Sikh men, Hindu men, Marxist men, Taoist men, Shinto men, etc. who die without knowing Jesus die in their imperfection and sins and so are separated from God for eternity.
And now the thinking man understands why Christians have always been so earnest in telling men they must repent of their imperfection and sin and trust Christ alone in order to know God’s smile and hear the applause of heaven. Christians, loving imperfect sinners, desire them to know Christ and so at God’s behest, command all men everywhere to repent.
Even Don Lemon.
