Introduction

There is a distinction between temptation and sin. Temptation is an invitation to sin that comes in the form of an external suggestion or an internal desire. First John 2:16 says, “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” These are three sources of temptation. First, the flesh and its disordered bodily desires. Second, the world and its external influences. Third, the devil who suggests evil. Thomas Aquinas said, “Man is tempted by the flesh, the world, and the devil... but chiefly by the devil, who uses the other two.”¹ Temptation becomes sin when desire conceives and the will consents (James 1:13-15). Aquinas said, “To be tempted is not to consent. Temptation is not itself sin.”²

Concupiscence

The temptation to sin gains its power because of concupiscence, which refers to the disordered desires or inclination to sin that is part of human nature as a result of Original Sin. For example, a temptation to pride sticks because of a love of self-glory. A temptation to lust is potent because of the body’s disordered craving. A temptation to greed allures because of the desire to possess more than is needed. A temptation to vanity seduces because of the craving for admiration. A temptation to laziness entices because of the aversion to effort in matters of lasting value. A temptation to envy ensnares because of the sorrow of another’s good fortune.

Temptation in the Bible

The Bible presents stories of one temptation after another. Eve is tempted by the serpent to disobey God and eat of the tree. Genesis 3:6 says, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food… she took of its fruit and ate.” Cain is tempted by envy and anger after God accepts Abel’s offering but not his. God warns Cain, “Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Gen. 4:7). Cain fails to resist and murders his brother. Joseph is tempted by Potiphar’s wife, who tries to seduce him. Joseph resists saying, “How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God” (Gen. 39:9)? His resistance cost him. He was imprisoned but remained faithful. King David is tempted by lust when he sees Bathsheba bathing. He gives in, commits adultery, and then arranges the murder of her husband (2 Sam 11). Job faces the temptation to curse God when everything is taken from him. Even his wife urges him, “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9). But Job resists and remains faithful (Job 2:10). Peter is tempted to deny Christ and does so three times (Lk. 22:54-62). Ananias and Sapphira are tempted by greed and pride, so they lie about the proceeds of the land sale to appear generous. They are struck dead for yielding to the temptation of hypocrisy (Acts 5:1-11).

It’s not just individuals who are tempted. The Israelites didn’t believe that God would take them to the Promised Land (Dt. 17:7) and they departed from the life of faith that Abraham modeled for them. They persisted in unbelief (Ps. 95:5-11) and were unable to enter God’s rest (Heb. 3:7-4:13). Giving in to these temptations to sin is described as putting God to the test (Dt. 6:16; Ps. 95:9). Why does this test God? Because when God’s people give in to temptation they depart from the life of faith. They want God’s blessings while willfully entering into sin. It tests God’s grace when people seek refuge inside their rebellion.³

The Temptations of Adam and Christ

Satan tempted Adam and Eve three times. The first temptation concerned food, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat?’” The second concerned dominion, “God knows when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.” The third concerned defying death, “You will not surely die.” Satan also tempts Jesus three times (Luke 4:1-12). The first temptation concerned food (Lk. 4:3), the second concerned dominion (Luke 4:5-7), and the third concerned defying death (Lk. 4:9-11). Unlike Adam, Jesus resists, and “the devil … departed from him,” waiting until a more opportune time (Lk. 4:13). That time is the crucifixion, where Satan returns and enters into Judas Iscariot (Lk. 22:3) and attempts to sift Peter “like wheat” (Lk. 22:31). Satan’s “power of darkness” is swirling around the events of the crucifixion (Lk. 22:53). The crowds taunt Jesus three time: if Jesus is the Christ then he will save himself (Lk. 23:35, 37, 39). The reversal of Adam’s temptation is not complete at Jesus’ wilderness temptation but at his crucifixion temptation. The crowd, under the influence of darkness, tempts Jesus to come down from the cross, but the New Adam refuses to give in. Unlike Old Adam, Jesus will save his bride.

Jesus’ temptation concerned a tree, as did the temptation of Adam and Eve. Adam’s tree was the source of a fruit. Jesus’ tree was the source of a curse (Dt. 21:23; Gal. 3:10-13). Satan asked Eve, “Did God actually say?” The satanic crowds ask Jesus, “If God is your Father, where is he?” If you are the Chosen One, where is the God who chose you (cf. Lk. 22:35)? What kind of Father puts his son on a cursed beam? Who would trust a Father that forsakes his Son (Mark 15:34)?

The temptation of Christ in the wilderness not only reverses Adam’s failure but is a model for believers. Christ was tempted so we could learn how to resist: through Scripture, obedience, and dependence on the Father. Jesus’ obedience in the face of temptation is the ground of our obedience in the face of temptation. Augustine said, “The devil tempted Christ, not to conquer Him, but to be conquered by Him.”⁴ Just because temptation is inevitable doesn’t mean that sin is. Jesus could have doubted his Father’s goodness when they put him on the cross, or when they crowned him with thorns, or when they served him sour wine, or when they mocked him. But he didn’t. In the face of temptation, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34). It’s not just that God’s people should resist temptation. It’s that in Christ they can resist temptation.

Resisting Temptation

Faith in God means trusting that Satan and his temptations are no match for God. We pray, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Mt. 6:13). Christians possess every spiritual resource necessary to resist every temptation. There is always a way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13). We watch and pray so we won’t enter into temptation (Mt. 26:41). Jesus said, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (Jn. 10:28f). God keeps us in Christ while we look to him (1 Pet. 1:5-9). The author of Hebrews promises, “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:18).⁵

Does God Tempt?

Jesus taught us to pray that the Father would not lead us into temptation and that He would deliver us from evil. Then James writes that God doesn’t tempt anyone because God is free from evil (James 1:13). But God does “test” his people (James 1:3), which includes trials. And the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness “to be tempted” (Mt. 4:1). This raises questions. Does God tempt or doesn’t He?

The answer is yes and no. God “tempts no one,” because God’s character is free from evil (James 1:13), thus, God doesn’t tempt in the sense that he is capable of wanting his children to choose evil. Temptations are not aimed at the increase of sin but at faithfulness. But God’s Spirit does take Jesus in the wilderness to be tempted. Time spent in the badlands has a purpose, namely, that Jesus—the True Israel—should withstand Satan’s temptations better than Old Testament Israel. Israel’s wilderness wanderings were a test and a temptation against obedience, “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” (Dt. 8:2). Thus, God does tempt in the sense of testing. Tempt, it seems, has a spectrum of meaning.

James clarifies that tests are not enticements for wrongdoing, as if people can blame God when they fall. “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by how own desire” (James 1:14). When God permits a person to be tempted, He is not an accomplice in the person’s downfall. It is rather like supposing that a doctor, by ordering an X-ray, secretly desires to see the patient die. The test is not treason. The trial is not a plot. When a bridge is shaken by the winds, it is not that the architect wishes the bridge to fall; it is that he wishes the bridge to be seen standing while the squall roars.

Thus we can say this: Temptation is not the invention of evil, but the revelation of it. It is the clanging hammer upon the iron, not to destroy it, but to discover whether it is steel or straw. Men imagine that temptation creates disaster. On the contrary, it is often the discovery of a disaster that has long since been hidden in the heart. This is God’s mystery of mercy. The assault is allowed so the cracks can be revealed and repaired. Augustine explained it this way, “Our pilgrimage on earth cannot be without temptation… None can be crowned unless he has conquered; and none can conquer unless he has fought; and none can fight unless he has had an enemy and temptations.”⁶ Or as James puts it, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life” (James 1:12).

Tests, trials, and temptations, therefore, are a necessary part of growing into maturity. Israel experienced the tests but they hardened their hearts and failed to enter God’s rest (Heb. 4:5-7). Jesus experienced the tests. He obeyed the Father and “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). Now God gives His people, the church, “The Spirit of his Son” (Gal. 4:6) who, among other things, leads us into the valley of temptation, where we, like Christ, can walk in the Spirit rather than the flesh (Gal. 5:16-23). Just like the market economy has troughs that follow peaks, so does the spiritual life. The troughs consist of difficult temptations. The peaks consist of triumphant obedience. When God puts devils and dangers in your way, remember, this is for your good.

Conclusion

“For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (2 Cor. 5:2-5).

Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of the books The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.

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Footnotes

¹ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Bros., 1947), I, q. 114, a. 2.

² Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Bros., 1947), I–II, q. 74, a. 1.

³ Mark Jones, Faith. Hope. Love: The Christ-Centered Way to Grow in Grace (Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2017), 83.

⁴ Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament, Sermon II, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 6, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. R.G. MacMullen (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004).

⁵ Mark Jones, Faith. Hope. Love: The Christ-Centered Way to Grow in Grace (Wheaton, ILL: Crossway, 2017), 84.

⁶ Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm 60, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. A. Cleveland Coxe (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004).