Temptation is primarily an issue of obedience & trust. We are tempted to disobey, and thus distrust, the Father at His Word. That was what happened in the Garden & what happened in the Wilderness – both for Israel & Jesus. Of these three instances, Jesus alone fully obeyed – therefore, He did not sin.
This fact is undeniable in Scripture:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15 ESV)
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)
Yet what is also undeniable is that Jesus was tempted (Heb 4:15). If God cannot be tempted, and Jesus is God, but Jesus is also fully-human … could Christ have sinned?
This has been debated for centuries within the church. One thing to note first is that although Christ fully identifies with our humanity, having faced temptations, to say that He “could have sinned” would be to completely deny his Divine Nature. To do so destroys the entire gospel, and thus Christianity. Danny Akin wrote, “If Christ could have sinned, then his human will would have been stronger than the divine will” (A Theology for the Church, 517). I would suggest Christ could not have sinned … and because of this he more fully identifies with our humanity.
Remember, temptation has to do with obedience to God & trust in God.
This was true for Christ in his temptation in the wilderness:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,
“‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:1-4 ESV)
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” (Luke 4:1-4 ESV)
Here we can see Christ’s humanity and Divinity colliding. Christ, as a human, was hungry, tempted, and full of the Spirit. Christ is also the divine Son of God (the devil knows the answer to the question, “If you are the Son of God.” It is better understood, “Since you are the Son of God.”) The temptation for Jesus was not just to eat (appealing to His human body and needs), but to access His divine powers for His own benefit.
The devil said, “Hey Son of God…” But Jesus responded, “This is how man does it – trusting in God and obeying God.”
Jesus was “led by the Spirit” into the wilderness for the purpose of being tempted by the devil. The devil is appealing to Christ’s humanity by tempting him to eat. Yet God’s purpose was to show Jesus (and us) that man doesn’t live on bread alone but on the Words of God. Meaning, man, despite any physical temptation, or “easy way out,” is to trust in God & obey His commands.
This particular temptation regarding bread – as well as the other two; testing God & gaining all the kingdoms of the world – tempted Jesus to exercise divine power and authority apart from God’s will and plan for Him to suffer.
Jesus will have all the kingdoms one day. He is the King of kings. But he had to live an obedient life for us & suffer the wrath of God for us first.
The temptation for Christ was to disobey & distrust God. “Satan could tempt Jesus to sin. The Spirit would test him for the purpose of proving his character” (Akin, A Theology for the Church, 516). His character is proven in his obedience (and dependence on the Spirit).
This was the temptation (& test) for Israel (the text Jesus quotes):
“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do (obey God), that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not (trust in God—b/c of what He’s done). And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you.” (Deuteronomy 8:1-5 ESV)
Is it not the same for us?
Sin, for us, is the easy thing to do – it appeases our human nature, appetite, and desires of the “flesh.” Wayne Grudem writes, “The temptation was to use his divine power to “cheat” a bit on the requirements and make obedience somewhat easier. But Jesus, unlike Adam and Eve, refused to eat what appeared to be good and necessary for him, choosing rather to obey the command of his heavenly Father. … Jesus rejected the apparently easy path and chose the path of obedience that led to the cross.” (Systematic Theology, 536) As a result of Christ’s obedience, we are given his divine power (the Holy Spirit) to help us with our obedience and trust:
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3-4 ESV)
Promises involve trusting God. Godliness, partaking in the divine nature, and escaping corruption in the world involve obedience to God from that trust in God.
Christ’s divine nature was like a “back-stop” preventing him from sinning. But he overcame the temptation in his humanity by relying on the Holy Spirit rather than His own divine nature as the Son of God. Therefore, Christ could not have sinned, because He is God. But he overcame sin, not by His own God-ness, but by being “full of the Spirit” (Luke 4:1); by trusting God and obeying God – no matter the path it took him (ultimately to the cross).
The question then is, “If Christ could not have sinned, were his temptations real?” Grudem plays out some great logic on this that I believe helps us understand this debacle as well as helps us see how Christ truly relates to our humanity by his not sinning:
“Were the temptations real then? Many theologians have pointed out that only he who successfully resists at temptation to the end most fully feels the force of that temptation. Just as a champion weightlifter who successfully lifts and holds over head the heaviest weight in the contest feels the force of it more fully than one who attempts to lift it and drops it, so any Christian who has successfully faced a temptation to the end knows that that is far more difficult than giving in to it at once. So it was with Jesus: every temptation he faced, he faced to the end, and triumphed over it. The temptations were real, even though he did not give in to them. In fact, they were most real because he did not give in to them.” (Systematic Theology, 539).
Christ, having overcome temptation, fully understands the weight of it. Therefore, he most identifies with out humanity, because he felt the same as we were, yet was without sin. Praise be to God that, “Although [Jesus] was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8 ESV). Praise be to God that He did so “for our sake.”
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)
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