John Stevens talks about the challenge of facing and resisting temptation and the example of the Lord Jesus
The distinction between temptation and sin itself is supremely revealed in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself.
It is axiomatic to the New Testament that Jesus, the incarnate and enfleshed Son of God (John 1:14), experienced real temptation in His human nature and yet remained without sin (1 Peter 2:22, citing Isa.53:9). He was only able to make atonement for our sins by remaining sinless, so that He could bear the wrath of God in our place as a substitute and representative (2 Cor.5:21; 1 Peter 2:24). This necessitated Him assuming a true and real human nature and entering into a fallen world where He would inevitably face temptation. He needed to live a life of perfect righteousness and obedience, which would require Him to face the full force of temptation and yet resist it. As Hebrews 4:15 assures us: ‘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.’
All three Synoptic Gospels record how Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness before He embarked upon His public ministry. Jesus defeated him by resisting his attempts to induce Him to seek the glory of the kingdom without the suffering of the cross (Matt.4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13). Jesus recapitulated the experience of Adam (and Eve) in the Garden of Eden, and of Israel in the desert, and overcame temptation when they had succumbed to it. Only in this way was He able to serve as the Saviour we need.
The temptation that Jesus experienced was not a mere transitory experience. The way the Gospel writers bracket the whole of His public ministry with reference to His temptations, starting with His confrontation with Satan in the wilderness and ending with His battle against anxiety and foreboding in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46), is intended to convey that the whole of His life and ministry was conducted under the pressure of temptation to rebel against God and take a different path than obedience to His will. In the Garden of Gethsemane He clearly felt the attraction of a salvation that did not require Him to go to the cross and bear the wrath of God in our place. There are other occasional moments during His ministry when the reality of this ongoing temptation emerges, as for example when Simon Peter questions His determination to head towards the cross and Jesus rebukes him with the words, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ (Matt. 16:21-3).
We have little insight into the inner psychological life of Jesus, but we can rightly assume that the temptations He experienced were deep emotional experiences, in which He felt the attractions of sin and the cost of obedience. This was very clearly the case in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He anticipated the great anguish of the cross and what it would mean for Him to drink the cup of wrath and be separated from the love of His Father for the first time in eternity (Matt. 26:39). Hebrews tells us that He was tempted ‘just as we are’ (Heb. 4:15), so our own experience of temptation is an accurate analogy to His experience in His human nature. The only difference is that we have never felt or experienced temptation with the intensity that He did, because we have never resisted temptation to the uttermost. Only Jesus has been taken to the full limit of temptation and felt its full power.
All too often we discount the reality of the temptations that Jesus suffered. We assume that, because He was not only human but also divine, His temptation was in some sense a virtual temptation that was less than real, and that it was impossible for Him to have succumbed. However, the New Testament will not allow us to settle for such a simplistic understanding. Jesus experienced the attraction of sin and disobedience to God’s will, and yet He never lusted in His heart, nor did desire give birth to sin in Him.
Jesus as a pattern of the normal Christian life
Whilst Jesus was unique in His sinless perfection and utter resistance of temptation, the New Testament makes clear that the distinction between temptation and sin that marked His human life will be replicated in our own experience as His disciples. The distinction that James draws in his letter between temptation and sin is spelt out in much greater detail, though different language, by Paul in his epistles, where he outlines the dynamics of the normal Christian life.
Paul sees the Christian life as a struggle between the desires of our fallen human flesh and the desires of our new resurrection life in Christ (Rom.8:1-13; Gal.5:13-26). The Christian is not freed from temptation but is subject to strong and powerful desires that must be resisted and put to death in the power of the Holy Spirit. However, he never suggests that Christians will be freed from these desires ahead of their bodily resurrection when they will be recreated to be like Christ. Once again, we see that these desires are not themselves equivalent to sin, resulting in legitimate guilt and requiring repentance. Rather they are to be overcome, such that they are not carried into action, whether mentally or physically. The proper response to temptation is resistance, but it does not require repentance, confession and forgiveness because it is not itself sin.
The biblical understanding of sin and temptation
When we consider the biblical material as a whole, we find a consistent picture emerging. Temptation and sin are not the same, and we need to ensure that they are kept properly distinct. If this were not the case it would be impossible to maintain the twin truths that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are and yet was without sin, thus undermining the very doctrine of salvation. The apostolic instructions about the normal Christian life would also be incoherent.
The importance of maintaining a distinction between temptation and sin is well illustrated in the context of the contemporary disputes about human sexuality, especially homosexuality and same-sex attraction. Whilst the Bible clearly teaches that sex is God’s good gift to be enjoyed exclusively in heterosexual marriage (Gen.2:20-25; Song of Songs; Mark 10:6-9), it is also indisputable that a significant minority of people, including many who profess to be Christians, experience attraction to people of the same sex. Contemporary society views such experiences as evidence of a sexual ‘identity’ or ‘orientation’, whether as gay or bisexual, though this is a category that is unknown to the Bible. The question inevitably arises whether people are sinning simply because they experience feelings of attraction to people of the same sex.
Whilst the Bible is clear that engaging in physical sexual activity with a person of the same sex is sinful, as is, by extension of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, lusting after a person of the same sex, there are no grounds to conclude that a person is sinning merely because they experience unwanted and unencouraged attraction towards people of the same sex. Such ‘same-sex attraction’ properly belongs in the category of temptation and is to be resisted rather than indulged by those who experience it. The desire for a sexual relationship with a person of the same gender is a sinful desire, and not morally neutral, but a Christian is not rendered a sinner simply because they experience feelings that they fight and refuse to express, whether physically or in mental fantasy.
The experience of Christians who experience same-sex attraction provides a clear and important illustration of the distinction between temptation and sin, which can be applied to many other aspects of life where we feel attracted to disobeying God and His good will for us. Same-sex-attracted Christians who resist lust and sin, by the power of the Spirit, are some of the great heroes of the Christian faith. They are living the victorious Christian life of triumph over sin.
A potential objection to this conclusion that temptation is not itself sin is that the language used to describe these concepts in the New Testament is not consistent. The gospels and letters use terms such as ‘temptation’ and ‘desire’ but do not always mean the same thing by them, so that they can be used interchangeably. Sometimes the language of ‘desire’ can be used as equivalent to ‘temptation’, as must be the case in Paul’s explanation of life in the Spirit in Romans 7 & 8 and Galatians 5. In other places the same word can be used to describe ‘lusts’ that are intrinsically sinful and equate to what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount about sin in the heart. However, this should not be unduly concerning. The New Testament authors were not writing a logically consistent and cross-referenced systematic theology, and the precise meaning of terms needs to be determined in their specific context. It is commonly accepted, for example, that Paul and James used the language of ‘justification’ in different senses, so that the conflict between them on the doctrine of justification by faith alone is apparent rather than real.* In the same way the language of ‘desire’ must be considered in the context in which it is used to determine whether it is speaking of temptation or a mental attitude that constitutes sin in itself. Such subtlety in biblical interpretation is essential to do justice to all the biblical texts.
This chapter has sought to establish the basic proposition that temptation is not in itself sin, and that as human beings we all experience an emotional attraction to rebellion and disobedience which is not itself sin. It is, of course, all too easy for this distinction to be twisted into a justification for indulging and enjoying our desires, and for allowing ourselves to enjoy a fantasy life of virtual sin and treating it as of no consequence. However, this very real danger ought not to allow us to throw the baby out with the bathwater and fall into the equal and opposite danger of categorising all temptation as sin. Such confusion will only result in unnecessary guilt, distorted expectations of the normal Christian life, a lack of joy in the deliverance and victory that the gospel brings, and perhaps a resigned acceptance of sin in our lives rather than a vigorous determination to ensure that our temptations are put to death before they give birth to sin.
Whilst temptation is not itself sin, being tempted is the universal experience of all Christians. In the next chapter we will consider why we continue to experience temptation, even though we have been regenerated and united with Christ.
This article is an extract from The Fight of Your Life by John Stevens (National Director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches) published by Christian Focus, ISBN 978 1 527 104 273 and is used here with permission.
