Temptations of Christ

Now we get to the temptations that Christ suffered in the wilderness and at first I didn’t really understand what that was all about, but now I find it incredibly interesting. There are some serious misinterpretations in the biblical account here, starting with Matthew who says that “Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” The IM clarifies by quoting Elder Bruce R. McConkie as teaching, “Jesus did not go into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil; righteous men do not seek out temptation. He went ‘to be with God.’ Probably he was visited by the Father; without question he received transcendent spiritual manifestations. The temptations came after he ‘had communed with God,’ ‘after forty days.’” There is an excellent talk by President Howard W. Hunter entitled “The Temptations of Christ” which says, “soon after his baptism Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wild, uncultivated wilderness. There he remained for forty days and nights, preparing himself for the formal ministry which was then to begin. The greatest task every to be accomplished in this world lay before him, and he needed divine strength. Throughout these days in the wilderness he chose to fast, that his mortal body might be completely subjected to the divine influence of his Father’s Spirit.” Forty days seems to be like such a long time to fast and I’ve heard different things like “fasting meant something different in those days, it meant only eating fruit,” or “it was a fast from other people, not food.” The IM comments, “It is of interesting to note that when the number ‘forty’ is mentioned in the scriptures, it can be understood literally or figuratively. In some instances, forty days can refer to a long period of time.” We do know that Christ was sinless and half God so he was not entitled to death for sin like the rest of us, he had to choose to die, therefore he could choose to suffer for an indefinite amount of time, though he would suffer immensely, he wouldn’t die.

The biggest question of all is, was Jesus even able to be tempted, he was half God and was able to abstain from all sin, so was temptation even an option for him? Was there anything appealing at all that he wanted? In JTC we learn, “Had there been no possibility of His yielding to the lures of Satan, there would have been no real test in the temptations, no genuine victory in the result. Our Lord was sinless yet peccable; He had the capacity, the ability to sin had He willed so to do. Had He been bereft of the faculty to sin, He would have been shorn of His free agency; and it was to safeguard and insure the agency of man that He had offered Himself, before the world was, as a redeeming sacrifice. To say that He could not sin because He was the embodiment of righteousness is no denial of His agency of choice between evil and good. A thoroughly truthful men cannot culpably lie; nevertheless his insurance against falsehood is not that of external compulsion, but of internal restraint due to his cultivated companionship of the spirit of truth. A really honest man will neither take nor covet his neighbor’s goods, indeed it may be said that he cannot steal; yet he is capable of stealing should he so elect. His honesty is an armor against temptation; but the boat of mail, the helmet, the breastplate, and the greaves, are nut an outward covering; the man within my be vulnerable if he can be reached.” It’s hard for me to understand how Christ was able to resist all temptation throughout his entire life. I don’t understand how he could always know what to say and do, how to always keep all the commandments, I just don’t understand how he could do it and I can’t, and how can I be less tempted and make better decisions like He did?

He was able to be tempted effectively, but why did he even need to be tempted at all? He could have performed the atonement completely and effectively without being tempted during his mortal life, in fact, he could have just been born, performed the atonement, and then died. Why did he have to live like us, fast, pray, worship, be tempted? In “The Infinite Atonement” the author asks, “Why did the Savior confront temptation? Why so condescend? And the answer is always the same: ‘In that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.’ By doing so, he could not become out ‘advocate, who knoweth the weakness of man and how to succor them who are tempted.’ Brigham Young spoke to this same point: ‘It must be that God knows something about temporal things, and has had a body and been on earth, were it not so he would not know how to judge men righteously, according to the temptations and sin they have had to contend with.” Through the atonement, the Lord knew out pains and sufferings, but can he know our temptations through the atonement? I never thought that Jesus was really tempted, like where he had to stop and think “hmmm….” Not like we are in our lives. In “The Infinite Atonement” C.S. Lewis is quoted, and changed my perspective completely, saying, “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means- the only complete realist.” This changed my perspective on the Savior’s temptations.

It’s no accident that the Satan came to tempt Jesus while he was fasting because, as the IM points out, “Satan tempts when we are vulnerable.” In “The Temptations of Christ” President Hunter says, “When Jesus had completed the fast of forty days and had communed with God, he was, in this hungry and physically weakened state, left to be tempted of the devil… Such a time is always the tempter’s moment- when we are emotionally or physically spent, when we are weary, vulnerable, and least prepared to resist the insidious suggestions he makes. This was an hour of danger- the kind of moment in which many men fall and succumb to the subtle allurement of the devil.” I’d like to add tired, hungry, and lonely. Any time we can “see” a way out through the devil’s temptations, or just an escape, a little reprieve, is when it looks SO appealing.

With the Savior’s temptations we can see:

1. Jesus could be tempted
2. Jesus had to be tempted in order to be our Savior
3. Jesus was tempted just as much as we are but endured it longer
4. Jesus was tempted when he was vulnerable, just like us