the baby Jesus

In that case it wasn't a temptation, was it?

 

The whole entire point of temptation is that you are TEMPTED. To be tempted means you feel the pull to do something you should not do. If Jesus' human nature did not feel that pull, then Jesus was not tempted. If His human nature DID feel that pull, then the potential was real that He could have sinned. The point was that He didn't. He was obedient to the Father.

We see this same thing in the Garden of Gethsemane: "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done." Two different wills in opposition. Only one can be right. Jesus had a human side which could be tempted. The wonder and the joy is that He refused to give into it, thus becoming the perfect sacrifice able to simultaneously 'pay' for our sins and 'take' the wage of death our sins had earned. Use whichever picture you like.

But there was a human nature there different from the divine nature. And different from divine is ALWAYS less. And we read in the Bible that Jesus LEARNED obedience (Hebrews 5:8). His human nature had to be taught. And it had to be taught via suffering -- the same as you and me, except we give in to temptation tons of times, saved or not!

If He had not had some part of Him that WANTED to give into temptation, it would not have been temptation. For instance, after the extended fast in the wilderness, He was HUNGRY! So Satan first approached Him on that point. "You know you are hungry, Jesus. And you know you are divine, too. So go ahead, abandon your humanity and turn these stones into bread." Now I know you don't read all of that, but that is what was meant.

The night before His crucifixion, sweating blood in agony in the Garden -- why? Because He didn't WANT it! There was, evidently, a real temptation to get out of it. But, NEVERTHELESS, "Not my will, but THINE be done."

The temptations were real. They were real because He could sin. The added glory to our Lord is that He didn't.

 

I'm laughing. I've often wondered about Jesus as a child. The only clue we really have except for the Temple incident (when his mother scolded him, remember?), is that fact that his townspeople figured Him too normal to be a prophet, let alone the Messiah. That doesn't mean his boyhood was mischievous, or even that he ever misbehaved -- some kids are easier to raise than others (my oldest was a 'dream child' to raise. We made up for that with a few others... ). Was He curious? Adventurous? Studious? I think we each like to think of Him in terms of the kind of child we prefer! So I have no idea, really. At least we know He wasn't rebellious!

Regarding His responses to the temptations, a couple of thoughts are in my mind (which means nothing is at all for sure yet, but just bubbling around).

We don't know the timing of what was said. Was there a long pause between temptation and response? We really don't know.

Jesus had been bar mitzvah'd. That meant He was required to know the Hebrew Scriptures and had already read in front of the synagogue as part of His being accepted into manhood.

The rather startling response about being about His Father's business that He gave His parents when He was 12 does indicate He was very serious about knowing the Scriptures and listening to discussions about them.

He had already been baptized by John and the Holy Spirit had already descended upon Him, so His responses may well have been directed or at least brought to mind at that point by the Holy Spirit as well. (I am sure that Jesus was one person who knew He could ask the Father for wisdom!)

There are probably lots of other thoughts that could be added here, but it is now after 11 here on the Pacific Coast and I'm sleepy!

Thanks for the thinking time! God bless.

 

Aaron,

Since when is being hungry a sin? Is wanting to not suffer excruciating pain a sin?

Secondly, I have wrongly punished children at times when they were younger. I remember once when one son took the hit for his little sister who had drawn on the bathroom wall. He was thinking he should protect her!

Did Adam and Eve have carnal minds at the point of the first temptation? Did Satan have a carnal mind when he first succumbed to pride?

There is a lot more to temptation than having a carnal mind!

[ October 30, 2002, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: Helen ]

 

Preach, it is a lie to call it a temptation if it was not. The Bible is not Satan's word, but God's. So I ask again, since when is being hungry (especially after fasting for so long) a sin? Since when is wanting to avoid horrid pain a sin? These are not 'emotional' arguments on my part, by the way.

It is not a sin to be tempted. It is a sin to give in to it.

The struggle in Gethsemane is evident in the text. The fact that the struggle had to do with TWO wills is evident by "Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done."

That is not an emotional argument on my part, either.

There was a will, somewhere there, in opposition to the Father's, or Jesus would never have said that; never had to struggle.

Then, also, we have Hebrews 2:17-18:

For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way in order that he might become a merciful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

The Bible speaks for itself. No emotional arguments are needed. If the fact that I try to connect what I read with my own experiences bothers you, I apologize. However Jesus also connected spiritual truths with the everyday experiences people had, such as sowing seed, and looking for lost things. None of these are emotional arguments.

The fact that I punished a child unjustly once is only an indication that parents can do that. Jesus, as a child, may have been unjustly punished. After all, he was the one perfect, not Mary or Joseph! But yes, of course he honored his father and mother! That was never the point.

[ October 30, 2002, 11:20 AM: Message edited by: Helen ]

 

Angie, one of the things theologians -- and the rest of us, too, actually -- try to do is understand things we cannot understand. So in order to 'understand' the dual nature of Jesus, we try to say that this or that is impossible or must have been or whatever.

But we can't understand. We are finite beings with extremely finite minds.

For me, when the Bible says Jesus was tempted, and that He suffered when tempted, I -- in my finite mind -- do not see how suffering because of temptation could result from anything other than wanting what the temptation offered! That is what temptation is -- either causing you to want or playing upon a want you already have.

If Jesus had turned stones into bread in the wilderness, would that have denied His deity? I certainly don't see how -- it would have been affirming it, but at the expense of His humanity. In other words, the temptations to Jesus, from what I can see, were temptations precisely because they were tempting Him to deny His humanity, not His deity. Peter says to Him that it should never be that Jesus should be killed and Jesus looks at him and says "Get thee behind me, Satan!" It was a temptation to abandon the human, painful side and simply reclaim what He had voluntarily left behind to come to earth in His humanity.

Would that be sin? NO. There is no law that He would have broken, certainly. And that was the temptation -- to not go through with the deal.

And if He wasn't tempted where that was concerned, part of Him NOT wanting to go through with it all as a man, then we cannot say that He was tempted. The point is not that someone tried to tempt Him, but that He WAS tempted!

Now, can we honestly understand this? No, I don't think we can. And in the process of not understanding we can say that it was impossible for Him to sin, since He was God. But if He chose to do something, would it ever be sin, since, as God, He defined sin? Thus, if He had chosen to back out at that time, in essence abandoning the human side (sorry about that term, Preach, but it does make it a little more clear when I write), it would have been the right thing to do, by definition of Him being God.

Do we understand that? No. But then if that had been His choice, we might not be here to try to understand it!

Sometimes we have to let things be, because we cannot understand. But this is where trust in God comes in, and in His ability to communicate accurately with us. The Bible says Jesus was tempted, just as we are. It says He suffered as a result of these temptations, or in the midst of them. If He had been incapable of following through, and yielding to these temptations, then where does the suffering come in?

If someone presented raw liver to me and asked me if I wanted to eat it, I would not be tempted at all. I have NO desire to eat raw liver! Now, the dogs are a different story. For them, seeing it and hearing 'stay' requires an enormous amount of inward control and obedience from them, especially if they are hungry. They are tempted. I, however, am not.

There is no temptation where there is no desire.

Otherwise the word loses its meaning for us. And I remain convinced that God has communicated clearly to us in the Bible.

 

Why are you so stubborn? </font>[/QUOTE]Because I think I have a point which might even be right...

No. Not really. The Bible is God's Word, not Satan's! If it were Satan's, I could understand the idea of his intent being put down as fact, but that is not what the Bible is and not what we are reading. We are reading that Christ was tempted and suffered in association with these temptations. That means they were temptations to HIM, not simply what were intended to be temptations but weren't.

And you are also implying that after forty days of fasting, Jesus was NOT hungry and did not want to eat, so therefore it was not a temptation to Him to turn the stones into bread! I don't go for that one!

Then you most certainly are not being tempted by it, are you, regardless of any intent I might have?

So you ARE saying that being hungry and wanting to eat is sin! That should spark quite a few diets around here!

Again, I have a problem with eating because you are hungry or wanting to avoid the pain of beatings and crucifixion being called sinful.

That was a matter of bringing His human will into submission. This was the point of not succumbing to temptatons.

Then He would not have suffered due to temptations.

OK, and we can see in the Garden that this was something He at least occasionally wrestled with. But the fact is that He never did sin, and that He did keep Himself in complete accord with the Father's will.

Good, then you know temptations caused Him to suffer. Then you know there were two wills in the Garden, and that one had to be subjected to the other and that it caused Him enormous struggle.

That's why He understands us.