TEMPTATION OF ALL MANKIND

THE TEMPTATION OF THE IMPECCABLE JESUS.

It has become common to promote a “man-centered” Christ above a “God-centered” Christ. I have noticed the trend of pastors, seminarians, and counselors that emphasize the therapeutic approach to biblical counseling rather than the nouthetic model. Repentance, not Therapy, is the primary answer to be free from enslavement to sin. It was for freedom that Christ set us free. We then abide in the Redeemer for sustaining freedom. 

 

The movement is to make Jesus the ultimate empathizer to the sinner. The effort is to display a Christ who was tempted with every single sin to which mankind has fallen. If the counselee is tempted with homosexuality, then the counselor brings Christ down to level of the homosexual – encouraging him to not feel so alone since Jesus was tempted with homosexuality. If the counselee is tempted with lust, fornication, or adultery, then the counselor presents an empathizing Christ who was tempted in “like manner”. All this to make Christ more appealing to the sinner that he is in good company with Christ who struggled to resist the same sins. Somehow, this is to make the struggling sinner struggle less with his sin; or, rather, to make him feel more normal since the Son of God struggled with it, too: "He gets it". This is what happens when we manipulate the morality of Christ and degrade his sinless humanity rather than manifest the holiness of Christ. To be like Christ to the contemporary biblical counselor is to be content in sin. 

 

TEMPTATION OF ALL MANKIND

I confine the temptation of Jesus to all points, or in “like manner” as mankind to the following three core temptations found in 1 John 2.15-17:

 

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

For all that is in the world, 

1. the lust of the flesh and    (The “FEEL IT” sins)

2. the lust of the eyes and    (The “SEE IT” sins)

3. the boastful pride of life, (The “BE IT” sins)

is not from the Father but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

 

Note the format and similarities of 1 John 2.15-17 with the temptation of Adam and Eve:

 

TEMPTATION OF ADAM AND EVE

Gen 3.6

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food,         (Lust of the Flesh)

and that it was a delight to the eyes,                                      (Lust of the Eyes)

and that the tree was desirable to make one wise,                 (Boastful Pride of Life)

 

she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

 

Note again the format and similarities of 1 John 2.15-17 with the temptation of Jesus…

Satan was tempting Jesus in the same manner in which he tempted Adam and Eve...to cause “the last Adam” to fail in every point as the first Adam had failed:

 

TEMPTATION OF JESUS

 

Lk 4.2-3 Lust of the Flesh

And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He became hungry. And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Lk 4.5 Lust of the Eyes

And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. (Displayed for Him to See)

Lk 4.9 Boastful Pride of Life

And he led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here;”

 

Note the tactic: “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here;… he will command his angels concerning you to guard you…’

(YOU ARE SOMEBODY! – You are THE Son GOD! Abort your mission Phil 2.5-9)

 

Satan offered Jesus “these things” (the things of the world) in His momentous temptation, but Jesus did not love the world. “These things” are what is in “like manner” to mankind.

So, that is it. Jesus was NOT tempted with every single, sordid, possible sin known to mankind. He was tempted only at the level of these three core sins. This is what it means to be tempted in like manner: He had a human nature and was exposed to the same core sins as the first Adam and all mankind. Jesus was tempted from without, NOT from within.

 

I would further say that I believe that the victory Jesus had over His temptation with satan did not end the assault of temptations throughout His life to the cross. The three core temptations continued to assail Him at every opportunity but to no avail. He continued to be victorious at every turn, never yielding, never falling. His victory against the three core sinful temptations was the barricade to cascading sins that only a sinful human nature would know. He did not love the world nor the things of the world.

 

He can and will only sympathize with our state as far as His own sinless experience.

His experience was “in like manner to our nature - human nature – not to our fallen nature”, NOT in like manner to our depravity. 

 

Another point to make regarding the empathy that Christ had for sinners’ references Heb 4.15, 

 

Hebrews 4.15: For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

 

The last part of this verse describes a limitation of His temptation. Man’s temptations come in most cases from previous sin – there is nothing new under the sun. Mankind suffers the burden of multiple, cascading sinful passions because he yielded in one of the three original core sins: lust of the flesh, eyes, and boastful pride of life. It goes downhill from there.

Not so for Jesus. Jesus had no previous sin from which to be tempted. He did not fall to either of the three original core temptations. He was unaffiliated from any lure of inherent sinful tendencies or experiences. He had no track record or reservoir of sinful behavior in which the rest of all mankind does dwell.

 

Typical and despot temptations experienced by all mankind had necessarily no place in Christ. He was tempted as we are, which means - sharing our nature or in our likeness, yet with this exception, that there was no sin in Him to become the spring of trial for a much deeper trial. There was no shadow of sinfulness in Him that cast a darker trail into deeper temptation. Though His temptation was vastly fiercer and deeper, it was not more complex. It was fiercer because He never yielded – He withstood it until it resolved in righteous triumph. It was deeper, for instance, when He was tempted to make the stones a loaf of bread, He had not eaten for 40 days. It was not more complex because He had no sin from which to rehearse due to previous failures.

 

What does temptation look like to the spotless Son of God? So much of what I experience by temptation is a rerun of previous temptations which have actually lapsed into sin. 

I have fallen in various areas, so when I am tempted by those areas again, I am tempted to do more or worse than what I know I have already done and to which I have already succumbed, and I usually pick right back up at the place I left. But Jesus has never succumbed to temptation. Jesus was GOD with a sinless human nature. He was Impeccable.

 

For Jesus to be tempted in like manner or in our likeness only: only means that HE WAS HUMAN when he was tempted. There was no time during his temptations that Jesus did not understand about human frailty, weariness, fatigue, hunger, stress, desertion and loneliness, and all conditions that mankind could experience in the daily grind of living. 

 

For Jesus to be tempted in like manner as we, does not mean that he was titillated with every single sinful lust and desire as we. As the incarnate God the Son, he was now able to be tempted in a manner that fallen human nature is tempted.

 

Jesus was the SECOND ADAM; thus, it is my surmise that Jesus was only tempted and victorious in the foundational, or core temptations that the FIRST ADAM was tempted when he was sinless. Again, it does NOT mean that since he was human that he was tempted in all manner of reprobate sins that all mankind is tempted. He was not seated at a smorgasbord of evil delights from every tantalizing arena bubbling out from the abyss. To NOT be tempted add-infinitum with every possible sinful thought of all time from every square inch of the globe does not disqualify Him from being tempted in like manner as all mankind. 

 

D.A. Carson expresses his idea of normal human travail, “Our physical and personal discomforts are often used by the Enemy of our souls to make us, in the first instance, doubt God, doubt his love for us, doubt his care for us, and doubt his provisions. 

It’s relatively easy to trust God when everything is going well. Then, get a four-month backache, and if somebody tells you, “Curse God and die,” you’ll be tempted to do it.”

 

So, I am sorry, Mr. Progressive Evangelical, Mr. Soft Peddler of Righteousness, and Mr. Emotive Counselor, Mr. Counselor to the "Gay Christian", the Temptation and nature of Jesus cannot be used to coddle and comfort the sinful nature of mankind.