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WJ,
You perk up the Scripture verse in James concerning God not being able to be tempted by evil.
What other kind of 'temptation' is there?
Why stop short in your expansion of the verse to the full quote and then drop off.
Can one be 'tempted to do good'?
Surely, accepting a temptation means taking a shortcut towards a personal benefit. And that is always going to be bad, in the end.
If God was tempted to show His power to the Hebrews in the desert and provide them with water, thereby getting them to 'love and worship Him', surely that would have backfired at a later time.
When someone says, 'prove yourself to me and I will worship you' as Jacob did, that would be 'Testing God', 'proving God', not 'Tempting'.
With what can one tempt God? Everything is His already.
What 'shortcut to a benefit' would God gain that wouldn't end in tears?Test, not tempt.
Even God Tests man, but does not Tempt him, for all temptation is, or leads to, evil!
Quote (barley @ June 25 2010,22:03) Jesus Christ was tempted in all ways, like we are, yet without sin.
BarleyReally? So you think that scripture means Jesus was tempted with every imaginable evil of man?
Was Jesus tempted to molest or rape a child?
Was he tempted to put a dagger through someones heart from bitterness or anger?
Was he tempted to have sex with a man or beast?
Was he tempted to have sex with a dead corpse?
These are all temptations from the sickest and vilest of the human race.
Did Jesus have to be like them to save them? Did Jesus have those kind of temptations coming out of his heart?
WJ
Barley said:
Quote Jesus Christ was tempted in all ways, like we are, yet without sin.
Barley,It says that the temptation itself was apart from sin, that is, Jesus was devoid of sinful desires when He was tempted. In other words, in all the areas Jesus was tempted the desires were legitimate in themselves. Example, Jesus was hungry and He was tempted to make the stones into bread. Hunger is a legitimate human need.
He was also tempted to be ruler over the kingdoms of the world. But this was His right wasn't it?
the Roo
Quote (WorshippingJesus @ June 25 2010,15:34) Hi All Recently someone on this forum said this…
Quote OK let's do it your way. Since Jesus is not like us in every way then he cannot be tempted in all ways like us.
This is a fallacy and a misrepresentation of the scriptures, for Jesus would have to be like the rapist and the Murderer and the child molester and be tempted with every imaginable evil to be like us in every way!This is anathema because it means that they make Jesus after their own image and not the image of God!
It is an age old straw man argument by the Arians to deny that Jesus is God because they say God cannot be tempted.
Does Jesus have to be like sinful man in everyway, or is it the other way around that we should be like him?
Was Jesus tempted to molest or rape a child?
Was he tempted to put a dagger through someones heart from bitterness or anger?
Was he tempted to have sex with a man or beast?
Was he tempted to have sex with a dead corpse?
These are all temptations from the sickest and vilest of the human race.
Did Jesus have to be like them to save them? Did Jesus have those kind of temptations coming out of his heart?
These carnal men have created and serve a Jesus after their own image, and not the Jesus of the scriptures “in whom” there was no guile or ability to be tempted like the most evil of men.
The temptations of Jesus had to do with human weakness and suffering and not from wicked sin that was in him.
Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? But “those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:” These are [the things] which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. Matt 15:17-20
Which one of these things was in Jesus heart?
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: “But every man is tempted, WHEN HE IS DRAWN AWAY OF HIS OWN LUST, AND ENTICED“. James 1:13, 14
What lust did Jesus have within him to be drawn away and enticed?
Satan is the “Tempter” and came and found nothing in him.
Satan tried to “Tempt” him in all points like us. But Jesus was not drawn away by “HIS (satans)TEMPTATIONS” because there was nothing in Jesus to respond!
WJ
Now that I have the opportunity to do so, it is necessary that I expand on what I have already written.The scripture that clearly states the Jesus Christ was tempted in all ways just like we are, yet without sin is scripture. Of that I would think that we can all agree to.
However, we must look at this from a broader perspective, that is, include more of the word of God so as to help us understand what is being said. I will also introduce ideas that I cannot specifically point to one verse that teaches the idea, but I do not think that most people would disagree with what I present.
Let us consider some simple real life situations.
Can John Doe be tempted to gain something dishonestly? Fraud, stealing, lying about who owns something. Let's look at stealing.
Can John Doe be tempted to steal a second time if he has never stole the first time? The simplest answer is no, he cannot. What if he had been successful stealing something the first time. That is, he was not caught. Might he be tempted to steal something bigger or more valuable, etc. for his second attempt? That is definitely a possibility. If that pattern continued could he get to the point of say, armed robbery? If the pattern continued, yes.Clearly, at least I expect it to be clear to most, that giving into temptation usually starts at a small or subtil, steps. Another example, the so called white lie. A lie is a lie.
Jesus Christ being conceived by divine conception was conceived before Joseph and Mary consummated their marriage. Some, maybe most, people would have frowned on him being conceived out of wedlock. One name for this is bastard. Could some one in a fit of rage or jealousy try to provoke him by saying to him, say as a younger adult, or say a teenager, “You bastard, your mother is a whore”? Satan wanted him dead, Satan provoked Herod to murder all the children under two years old in and around Bethlehem. Why would he not try to provoke or taunt JC as he was growing up?
Along these same lines, OT scripture teaches that children are to honor their father and mother. Could this include defending the honor of the father and mother? Why not, that could conceivably be put under the umbrella of honoring your father and mother.
We can see that our adversary by instigating name calling against JC and his mother, that a temptation to retaliate could arise. However, Jesus Christ would have read Dueteronomy 32:35, God saying here, “To me belongeth vengeance and recompense.” See Romans 12:19, where the essence of this verse is quoted. Jesus Christ could have succumbed to the temptation to retaliate on his own, but he trusted God's word and there fore chose to let God deal with it. I am sure God did. Moses did not have to retaliate against Pharoah's army. You know what happened to Pharoah's army.
Let's consider a more intense version of the name calling scenario. Let us say person A did the name calling, person B who is in cahoots with A, starts taunting with, “are you going to let him call your mother a whore?” That's challenging. Same truth would handle it.
So how about some of these vile possibilities that were listed?
Let us consider a situation where some pretty young female is willing to flaunt herself and play the whore. Maybe person C and D taunt JC with, “She's yours to have, all you have to do is do it, come on, do it, you know you want to” Was Jesus Christ tempted? Yes, he was. Please, be patient here, I will get back to this point in a little bit.
Now let us consider something else. Who is it that for the most part reads the scriptures? Believers or unbelievers? People who want God in their life or people who do not want God in their life? Who do you thing God had these scriptures written for? People who want to love God and serve Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength? Or do you think that God would have all these books of the Bible written for God rejectors?
My first point is this, God had His word written for the benefit of those who want to believe, and believe rightly. See II Timothy 3:16. So, when scripture says JC was tempted in all ways like all men are, is it all men in general, including God rejectors or is it all men, (women and children included) who want to love, serve and glorify God? I present this for your consideration, maybe you can provide scripture to either deny or support this idea.
Let us also look at the mechanics of temptation by looking at Luke 4 where JC was tempted of the devil himself.
Verse 2. Being forty days tempted of the devil. Jesus Christ was tempted by the devil on a variety of fronts. Let us consider this.
Was the source of the temptation internal regarding Jesus christ or was it the source of the temptation from an external source?
This one truth here should alleviate your concerns about the sterling character of Jesus Christ. The temptations came from a source outside of himself. All temptations originate from without. If we consider them long enough, we may end up imprinting the temptation into our thinking and then the temptations become internal? Do you think Jesus Christ ever let any temptation go that far? Of course you don't. Neither do I. So he could be tempted in the most vile ways without stain at all, because he maintained his heart, soul, mind and strength to always be true to God. The temptations came from an external source. I am sure Jesus Christ avoided tempting situations, and as I Corinthians 10:13 teaches, God always makes a way to escape any and all temptations. That is a great verse on this subject to read more carefully. See, would you be tempted to rape someone if you knew better and faithfully lived up to the truth you know?No, of course you wouldn't, you would no doubt, if you are young and not married, would rather avoid premarital sex, so as not to taint your best judgement with irrelevant emotions. Did Jesus Christ know better and faithfully live the truths of God's word? Of course. But that is not satan repelant. As you read the gospels and read your own life story, you can see that satan continues to attempt to tempt.
Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he shall flee from you. Jesus Christ certainly submitted himself to God and you know what ? the devil fled from him.
So, please read this through and through, I may not have covered all points as well as might be possible for a wide audience, but I believe that the basics were covered. No doubt, details could be added, but brevity is important as well.
At this point, I think I have covered your concerns. God bless you.
Quote (barley @ June 29 2010,12:20) Quote (WorshippingJesus @ June 25 2010,15:34) Hi All Recently someone on this forum said this…
Quote OK let's do it your way. Since Jesus is not like us in every way then he cannot be tempted in all ways like us.
This is a fallacy and a misrepresentation of the scriptures, for Jesus would have to be like the rapist and the Murderer and the child molester and be tempted with every imaginable evil to be like us in every way!This is anathema because it means that they make Jesus after their own image and not the image of God!
It is an age old straw man argument by the Arians to deny that Jesus is God because they say God cannot be tempted.
Does Jesus have to be like sinful man in everyway, or is it the other way around that we should be like him?
Was Jesus tempted to molest or rape a child?
Was he tempted to put a dagger through someones heart from bitterness or anger?
Was he tempted to have sex with a man or beast?
Was he tempted to have sex with a dead corpse?
These are all temptations from the sickest and vilest of the human race.
Did Jesus have to be like them to save them? Did Jesus have those kind of temptations coming out of his heart?
These carnal men have created and serve a Jesus after their own image, and not the Jesus of the scriptures “in whom” there was no guile or ability to be tempted like the most evil of men.
The temptations of Jesus had to do with human weakness and suffering and not from wicked sin that was in him.
Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? But “those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:” These are [the things] which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. Matt 15:17-20
Which one of these things was in Jesus heart?
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: “But every man is tempted, WHEN HE IS DRAWN AWAY OF HIS OWN LUST, AND ENTICED“. James 1:13, 14
What lust did Jesus have within him to be drawn away and enticed?
Satan is the “Tempter” and came and found nothing in him.
Satan tried to “Tempt” him in all points like us. But Jesus was not drawn away by “HIS (satans)TEMPTATIONS” because there was nothing in Jesus to respond!
WJ
Now that I have the opportunity to do so, it is necessary that I expand on what I have already written.The scripture that clearly states the Jesus Christ was tempted in all ways just like we are, yet without sin is scripture. Of that I would think that we can all agree to.
However, we must look at this from a broader perspective, that is, include more of the word of God so as to help us understand what is being said. I will also introduce ideas that I cannot specifically point to one verse that teaches the idea, but I do not think that most people would disagree with what I present.
Let us consider some simple real life situations.
Can John Doe be tempted to gain something dishonestly? Fraud, stealing, lying about who owns something. Let's look at stealing.
Can John Doe be tempted to steal a second time if he has never stole the first time? The simplest answer is no, he cannot. What if he had been successful stealing something the first time. That is, he was not caught. Might he be tempted to steal something bigger or more valuable, etc. for his second attempt? That is definitely a possibility. If that pattern continued could he get to the point of say, armed robbery? If the pattern continued, yes.Clearly, at least I expect it to be clear to most, that giving into temptation usually starts at a small or subtil, steps. Another example, the so called white lie. A lie is a lie.
Jesus Christ being conceived by divine conception was conceived before Joseph and Mary consummated their marriage. Some, maybe most, people would have frowned on him being conceived out of wedlock. One name for this is bastard. Could some one in a fit of rage or jealousy try to provoke him by saying to him, say as a younger adult, or say a teenager, “You bastard, your mother is a whore”? Satan wanted him dead, Satan provoked Herod to murder all the children under two years old in and around Bethlehem. Why would he not try to provoke or taunt JC as he was growing up?
Along these same lines, OT scripture teaches that children are to honor their father and mother. Could this include defending the honor of the father and mother? Why not, that could conceivably be put under the umbrella of honoring your father and mother.
We can see that our adversary by instigating name calling against JC and his mother, that a temptation to retaliate could arise. However, Jesus Christ would have read Dueteronomy 32:35, God saying here, “To me belongeth vengeance and recompense.” See Romans 12:19, where the essence of this verse is quoted. Jesus Christ could have succumbed to the temptation to retaliate on his own, but he trusted God's word and there fore chose to let God deal with it. I am sure God did. Moses did not have to retaliate against Pharoah's army. You know what happened to Pharoah's army.
Let's consider a more intense version of the name calling scenario. Let us say person A did the name calling, person B who is in cahoots with A, starts taunting with, “are you going to let him call your mother a whore?” That's challenging. Same truth would handle it.
So how about some of these vile possibilities that were listed?
Let us consider a situation where some pretty young female is willing to flaunt herself and play the whore. Maybe person C and D taunt JC with, “She's yours to have, all you have to do is do it, come on, do it, you know you want to” Was Jesus Christ tempted? Yes, he was. Please, be patient here, I will get back to this point in a little bit.
Now let us consider something else. Who is it that for the most part reads the scriptures? Believers or unbelievers? People who want God in their life or people who do not want God in their life? Who do you thing God had these scriptures written for? People who want to love God and serve Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength? Or do you think that God would have all these books of the Bible written for God rejectors?
My first point is this, God had His word written for the benefit of those who want to believe, and believe rightly. See II Timothy 3:16. So, when scripture says JC was tempted in all ways like all men are, is it all men in general, including God rejectors or is it all men, (women and children included) who want to love, serve and glorify God? I present this for your consideration, maybe you can provide scripture to either deny or support this idea.
Let us also look at the mechanics of temptation by looking at Luke 4 where JC was tempted of the devil himself.
Verse 2. Being forty days tempted of the devil. Jesu
s Christ was tempted by the devil on a variety of fronts. Let us consider this.Was the source of the temptation internal regarding Jesus christ or was it the source of the temptation from an external source? This one truth here should alleviate your concerns about the sterling character of Jesus Christ. The temptations came from a source outside of himself. All temptations originate from without. If we consider them long enough, we may end up imprinting the temptation into our thinking and then the temptations become internal? Do you think Jesus Christ ever let any temptation go that far? Of course you don't. Neither do I. So he could be tempted in the most vile ways without stain at all, because he maintained his heart, soul, mind and strength to always be true to God. The temptations came from an external source. I am sure Jesus Christ avoided tempting situations, and as I Corinthians 10:13 teaches, God always makes a way to escape any and all temptations. That is a great verse on this subject to read more carefully. See, would you be tempted to rape someone if you knew better and faithfully lived up to the truth you know?
No, of course you wouldn't, you would no doubt, if you are young and not married, would rather avoid premarital sex, so as not to taint your best judgement with irrelevant emotions. Did Jesus Christ know better and faithfully live the truths of God's word? Of course. But that is not satan repelant. As you read the gospels and read your own life story, you can see that satan continues to attempt to tempt.
Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he shall flee from you. Jesus Christ certainly submitted himself to God and you know what ? the devil fled from him.
So, please read this through and through, I may not have covered all points as well as might be possible for a wide audience, but I believe that the basics were covered. No doubt, details could be added, but brevity is important as well.
At this point, I think I have covered your concerns. God bless you.
Having read and reread and re re read the post I wrote, I realize that there are a number of statements that I could have stated better. That is to improve alignment with scripture and clarity.For instance, where I stated, satan continues to attempt to tempt. Although somewhat accurate, I considered that the idea of satan continues to present temptations to people would help fill out the needs of this discussion. Satan presents temptations. Are they temptations? Yes, when Satan presents temptations, regardless of how vile, the temptation presented is a temptation. Not all people are going to be troubled, or tempted by some temptations, but others who have let their minds degenerate over time could be tempted by the vilest of temptations. Jesus Christ never let his mind degenerate, he always upheld the standards of the scripture, in his mind and in his manner of life.
So were vile temptations presented to him? Is idolatry a vile temptation? Is worshipping the devil an vile temptation? Of course. He handled them with the word of God he knew and the temptation had to flee.
There is an interesting order to the listing of the ten commandments. First ones are related to our relationship to God, the second half are about our relationships with people. If we work on our relationship with God, our we improving our ability to handle our relationships with people? Yes, we put God first, our relationships with people improve, over all, on the average. God haters may hate us more, but lovers of God will love us much much more. Jesus Christ did keep his relationship with God perfect. So perfect, he could say of the Father and himself, I and my Father are one.
But Satan would have recognized that Jesus Christ was not a putz. Satan would have learned that subtly would be more effective. Ie, the coin with Ceasar's image on it. Was it blatantly vile? No, it was not. A man less learned in the scripture might have struggled to answer, he did not, he had an answer quickly, and the tempters were rebuked.
If we look at the temptation of Eve, we see something very important. She had a conversation with the devil. Why? Why not flee the temptation? God always makes a way to escape. That includes Eve's temptation. Always. Her downfall was directly influenced by her lack of submission to God, she did not resist the devil, she conversed with him. Did JC converse with devil? Did Eve accurately quote appropriate truths to the devil? No, but Jesus Christ did. He directly confronted Satan's temptation with truth. The right truth that was the most effective.
What a lesson to learn.
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