The Sinlessness of Christ

Christians are called to obey those in authority except when human institutions command us to sin. This remains true even if those over us are personally unjust and cruel (1 Peter 2:18–20). We are called to this in imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose entire life was characterized by unjust suffering, and yet He remained ever faithful to His Father (v. 21). A disciple is not above his teacher, so if Jesus the Master Teacher had to suffer before entering into His glory, we should not be surprised that the same path of suffering is given to us (Matt. 10:24; Luke 24:26).

Having presented Jesus as the paradigm for suffering in a godly manner (1 Peter 2:21), the Apostle Peter spends the next few verses reflecting on the reality of how Christ suffered and what it accomplished. Peter uses Isaiah 52:13–53:12 as the interpretive lens for understanding the suffering of Jesus, and in today’s verse he echoes 53:9 in particular when he writes that Christ “committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).

Since Jesus is the example to follow in suffering, Peter wants us to imitate the Lord by not committing sin while we suffer. Given that no Christian yet to be glorified can honestly claim to be without sin (1 John 1:8–9), we know that sinlessness while suffering is an ideal that we must constantly aim at but will not reach before our deaths or the return of Jesus, whichever comes first. Nevertheless, we must pursue holiness even if we will never reach perfection in this life.

Jesus is not less than an example for us, but we know that He is also much more. The actual sinlessness of our Savior is a fact with profound consequences, for He could not have redeemed us if He had committed even one sin. We remember that according to the parallel that God established between Adam and Christ, Jesus had to succeed where Adam failed in order for those who are united to Christ by faith to receive His gift of righteousness (Rom. 5:12–21).  The blood of Jesus saves us because it is the blood of the perfect Lamb of God without blemish, who was foreshadowed in the old covenant sacrificial system (1 Peter 1:18–19; see Lev. 1:3, 10; 4:3; 6:6). Because Jesus knew no personal sin, He could become sin for us, taking our place under the wrath of God, so that in Him we are the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). Matthew Henry comments that Jesus “wrought no iniquity of any sort whatever,” and because of that He can save us from our sin.