I'm really, really not trying to beat a dead horse here, but I find I can't let this comment go without saying something. Please indulge me for a moment. I do not accept at all the idea that in order for Jesus never to sin that he somehow had to "subordinate" his human will to his divine will. That would be a kind of "cheating". Why would scripture state he was tempted in all parts as we are yet he was without sin? He was/is fully human and fully divine and the fact that he lived a perfect sinless life was why his sacrifice on the cross was for our sins. He had no sin to make payment for of his own. He was the spotless lamb of God.
I also disagree that Jesus only gave us a peek at his human nature from time to time (like at the "passion"). He was hungry, he got tired and weary, he cried, he needed to eat, he got thirsty, he slept. He also performed miracles, he knew people's thoughts and schemes, he knew of future happenings. He was both human and divine.
And Markbsnr, I agree with you that I do not believe that we as humans on earth will ever truly understand. Presumably we will understand after our own resurrection, else it will not matter to us then. For now, we have God in incarnate form, called Jesus, reaching down to man on his own level. See I can be reasonable. :o)
Since you asked, gladly. Coming from a Protestant, what you say doesn't surprise me, and I don't mean that as a personal insult. Your phronema or mindset is so legalistic that your concept of sin and salvation is incompatible with that of the Apostolic Church—well, at least the Eastern Church with some notable exceptions in the Western Church—for almost 2,000 years.
That's why your comment doesn't disappoint me, but Mark's does, assuming I understood it correctly, because it reminds me how much his Church has changed.
To you not only is sin no different than driving 55 in a 35 mph zone (breaking the law), but in your mind all your sins, past, present and future, have already been redeemed and you owe nothing. You are free to be exactly the way you want to be. You are "saved" because someone paid your bill and the Judge is "satisfied".
In the East, sin means missing the mark (Greek: hamartia). The "mark" is Christ. Sin, therefore, is failure to conform to Christ. Conversely, salvation is being conformed to Christ (theosis—being god-like, being restoried to the likeness of God).
Santification is a process of becoming God-like by grace ("become therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect"; the verse in original Greek is in the future tense), and salvation—again, by grace—is achieving it.
That which is God-like, in God's image and likeness, will be with God, united with God in spirit and in deed. In your world, on the other hand, things are reversed: you are "saved" first then sanctified, whatever that means.
Being God-like means acting, thinking, wishing, willing, etc. according to God's will, an not your inclination, tendencies and urges. The reason why Jesus is perfect in his humanity is because he perfectly conformed his human inclinations to his divine nature.
Blessed Mary is the highest of all saints because the Church teaches that she chose not to do anything against God's will. In other words, she conformed her will to God's will willingly and perfectly and achieved theosis in her lifetime. Perfect obedience means following someone else's will.
Why would scripture state he was tempted in all parts as we are yet he was without sin?
Because in his humanity he was subject to temptation, as we all are. Being tempted is not a sin. Giving in to temptation is. Would God want you to give in to temptation? Therefore conforming your human will to God's will is the only assured way not to sin.
I also disagree that Jesus only gave us a peek at his human nature from time to time (like at the "passion"). He was hungry, he got tired and weary, he cried, he needed to eat, he got thirsty, he slept.
Passion(s) means not only suffering pain, and death, but hunger, thirst, sorrow, etc. When the Old Testament assigns these passions to God they are called anthropomorphisms, i.e. human-like characteristics ascribed to God for us to be able to relate to God in imperfect human terms, the way we are, what we feel, etc.
But the way the Church understands God, he is not subject to passions (pain, suffeirng, death, anger, envy, pride, etc.), which are an indication of our corrupt nature and ill will, which is to say decay or mortality. Corrupt will acts against God and leads to death (sin).
The Church understands that separation from the source of life, indeed Life itself, God, is sin and sin is death because there is no Life (God) in it. So, if we willingly live in sin we live in death. Therefore the only way we can be in communion with God, and have life, is if we conform our will to his will.
He also performed miracles, he knew people's thoughts and schemes, he knew of future happenings. He was both human and divine.
Apparently he did not know of all future happenings, as he himself admits. He was perceptive and smart, but not clairvoyant. He appears to have had revelations, but the pre-risen Jesus was in every way human, and his body fully subject to corruption, like ours are, according to Gospel accounts.
He walked on water because he had perfect faith, not because he was divine. Peter walked on water, but he was not divine, while he had faith and sank when he lost it.
The apostles preformed miracles too, because they were empowered to do so. That doesn't make them divine. Even Pharaoh's sorcerers performed miracles...
Jesus died in in his humanity but not in his divinity. He didn't swoon, he didn't fake it according to the Gospels. He really suffered and died, but only in his human nature, bodily.
In his divine nature, he neither died nor suffered passions, nor did he bleed nor feel pain, hunger, fear, temptation, nor did he have a body.
Jesus of the Gospels is not a schizophrenic multiple-personality case of the Protestant world. He wasn't divine on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and human the rest of the week. The Church proclaimed its faith in Christ by asserting that his natures are inseparable, but his wills are separate and distinct; one divine and the other human.
In his divine nature he is a spirit without a beginning and without an end; in his humanity he is flesh, with a human spirit, "born of a woman, made under the law" (Gal 4:4).
His natures are not mixed or intermingled, or confused, nor competing against each other, but in perfect harmony.. Hence his human will never opposes his divine will in perfect obedience because the divinity does not conform itself to humanity.