Featured Hebrews 4:15 vs. My Skeptic Friend

I'm not sure if I get the whole point....

Your friend is asking you to prove from the bible, something which never happened?

 

The onus would first be upon the friend to prove his starting premise....Jesus' wife, the church, MUST HAVE experienced Him being unfaithful to her ???

Tell him - Prove that, then we talk. Otherwise it's speculative nonsense


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Couple of huge problems here:
1.) Jesus was tempted in all ways, just as we are, yet did not indulge in or give into temptation to sin. Therefore, Jesus did not experience His own sin - since He did not sin - so there is no opportunity for anyone to experience the effects of sin from Jesus. Temptation and sin are NOT the same thing at all.
2.) Christ's relationship to the church is illustrated by the bond of marriage between a man and woman, but it is not the same thing. An illustration is not the reality.
3.) This is an opportunity to talk to your friend about the difference between temptation and sin. He may be honestly misunderstanding the Christian message or deliberately distorting it. You'll find out rather quickly.
4.) If your friend is deliberately and maliciously distorting the Christian message, he is bringing even more judgment upon himself. He needs your prayer and concern.

As someone who has a number of atheist friends, I tell them up from that I will discuss spiritual things with them, but I will not tolerate them treating the things of God casually - not because I might be offended, but because it is dangerous to them. I would rather shut down the conversation with them with a blessing of grace than throw pearls before swine. This is not a technique for winning an argument, but rather an expression of love and concern. I tell them that I would rather not win an argument if it does something to harden them toward God.

In a surprising way, I find that it civilizes the discussion and they will continue to engage me in meaningful ways. And yes, I have seen one come out of the willful position of disbelief. Unfortunately, most are still in that position.

 

Your friend appears to be making the most common mistake made in regard to understanding temptation. He doesn't understand himself and the nature of his temptation, how can he understand the nature of Christ and His?

We cannot assume that our lusts are good. They are not. They are corrupt. Adam and Eve could look upon one another without shame being naked, because they had not yet been corrupted, and none of us can even imagine that kind of existence. I cannot imagine that Eve was not a beautiful and irresistibly attractive woman (irresistible from the reference of our fallen existence that is), perfect in proportion and unblemished. But to look upon one as such and not feel the pull of the lower nature? No one can imagine. Yet Adam did not.

So the temptation to be unfaithful in that regard is not real temptation. That's just the corrupt affections at work, and learning to mortify our corrupt affections (that is, the flesh) is a daily discipline of the Christian. And what is unfaithfulness really but disobedience?

The real temptations to disobey come for some at the point of a gun, for others injustice from corrupt magistrates. The threat of ruin and the loss of status, and many other forms of persecution are always present even in free nations. Christians are slandered, denied position and rank, denied jobs, and even today unjustly arrested and imprisoned and fined for refusing to serve Sodom a wedding cake, or to grant her a license.

Those are the types of temptations of which the Apostle speaks, and Christ was slandered, abandoned, betrayed, falsely accused, falsely arrested, beaten, tortured and killed, yet without sin.

 

:thumbs: Outstanding post Aaron.

 

A good place to start would be in the temptations of Christ:


Matthew 4

King James Version (KJV)

8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.


The imagery of the Wife/Bride (Israel/the Church) in Scripture is the basis for your friends' analogy and search for contradiction and error on this matter. He may think himself clever in his rationalization, but the truth is that his inexperience and unfamiliarity with the Word of God will always be, and in fact already is...his downfall.

The imagery demands devotion and fidelity, and had Christ yielded to this temptation we would have the equivalent.

We cannot put such a picture or concept as presented in the Bible into physical terms, which makes the question moot to begin with.

You have no burden to find Christ sinning, but only that He was tempted like as we.

The verse makes it clear that He did no sin, which should have been a good reason for your friend to think this through a little further. Being tempted with sin is not a sin...unless it is carried out.

So go back and set your friend straight, lol, and my hat's off to you for having an acquaintance willing to discuss these issues with you, this would seem to be a testimony to your character.


God bless.

 

While I agree it is nonsense, and we know that, in view is the fact that "Christ was tempted in all points..."

The question asks "Where do we see this?"

In other words, where do we see Christ being tempted to be physically unfaithful to His Bride, which seems to be a logical point of contention thought to make invalid the truth that Christ was tempted like as we.

But as has been pointed out by several we understand the imagery of the People of God (whether that is in the Old Testament sense which was temporal in nature or the New Testament sense which is Eternal in nature) being the Wife/Bride is imagery which is not literal. In view is that Christ was tempted to be unfaithful to the very People of God by yielding to Satan's request for worship. Had He done that He would have been guilty of adultery in the spiritual sense which the very basis of the question lies...the spiritual.

And it is no less temptation to infidelity than physical infidelity and reaches into the cumulative or ultimate teaching.

And to respond to the objection that this is not the same as being tempted to cheat on spouses, we simply remind our antagonist that neither can we equate our being the Bride (and Israel the Wife) with physical adultery.

He might deny the root sin, but that would be as reasonable as trying to distinguish different "murder" and saying that killing someone with a knife is completely different than killing them with a gun or some other means. Or denying that the ultimate understanding of God is that murder is charged even for the very act of hatred without a cause.

And that is where we are in the imagery of the Bride of Christ, the ultimate understanding as expressed by God. Hidden to men like this fellow, but known unto us through revelation of the Spirit of God.


God bless.

 

I think your friend is making the same erroneous presupposition which has many Christians living under the bondage of legalism.

Sin is not "participating in certain behavior", per se.

Certain behaviors are sin, but sin is not first and foremost a behavioral issue.


The very nature of sin is to do something which is contrary to God's will. Jesus said He does nothing except for what the Father tells Him.

Concerning this matter, He was tempted in all points. Not that He was tempted to participate in every behavior known to man, but that He was constantly bombarded with opportunities to yield to His sinful flesh rather than yield to the Father's will.

 

Oui. Hallelujah. :thumbs:

 

28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Here is the physical part of the question. But Jesus was tempted as we are and did not commit sin.

So would many men have been tempted by this:

John 12:
Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. 2 There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
3 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.

So would many a man have been tempted to have a physical relationship here? If so the act of Mary would have been a temptation but Jesus did not act upon that temptation.

We see luke in this type of temptation too:

Luke 7:44 And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
45 Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet.
46 My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.


Yet He kept His focus not on the physical thing was happening but upon teaching God's word.


Tempted yet not giving into the temptation.


Many things are not even recorded for us so in some things where He was tempted and didn't sin are not recorded.

 

That's not what Jesus said.

 

Seems to me and I could be wrong but your friend is testing your Faith?... He doesn't want a direct answer he wants to question what you truly believe... That was the very first question that Satan posed to Eve... Yeah! Hath God said... The Doubt!... A friend told me one time, there is a place in the Bible where Jesus sinned?... I said where?... He said Jesus in his anger overturned the tables and threw the money changers out of the temple and said My Father house shall be called a house of prayer and ye have made it a den of thieves... He didn't show his Anger I said he showed Righteous Indignation and there is a difference... Brother Glen

 

Jesus didn't say "being tempted to sin = sinning." Lust isn't the temptation. Lust is the sin. It's your corrupt affection at work. Christ had no corrupt affections. He never looked upon a woman to lust after her.

 

The comparison is erroneous, because a man lusting after a woman is the sin.


Matthew 5:28

King James Version (KJV)

28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.


Your friend is equating temptation with sin, and that is not what Christ is doing here, but Christ states that the act of lust (sin) is equated to the physical act of adultery.

At no time did Christ entertain the thought that He would bow down to Satan, but immediately rebuked him for the temptation.

And this would have constituted "adultery," as this is simply a Bible basic seen throughout Scripture. And if God equates idolatry and adultery at their basic root, so should we. In view is being unfaithful, so we see Christ tempted to be unfaithful, and He does not.


God bless.