The Temptations of Christ

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- by Dan W. Dooley

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You can not fully know the extent of the temptations I may be going through. What may be a temptation to me may not be for you. I can not fully know the extent of temptations you are going through. What may be a temptation to you, may not be for me. Surely God who can know no sin can not know the extent of the temptations you and I face. How can God know what I feel? After all, He is so far beyond our human limitations, that there is no way He can actually understand.

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin." Heb 4:15 NIV

The Scripture says, He was tempted in EVERY WAY. Tempted just as I am tempted. If I can grasp the reality of the words in their most literal sense, I can understand just how human the experience was for Christ. Why is that important? If I make it a super spiritual or mystic experience then it's out of my realm of knowledge and experience and such a great gulf exists between what Jesus experienced in His temptation and what I could ever experience, that I am back to the doubt that He can really understand my earthy weaknesses. Consider the Scriptural accounts of His Temptation. Luke begins the description this way:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread."

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'" Luke 4:1-4 NIV

We've all seen the paintings and illustrations of Jesus in the wilderness with Satan peering over His shoulder whispering in His ear. "Look, you're the Son of God. You can make rocks turn into bread."

Does that sound like any sort of temptation you've ever faced? Me neither. I can not in my wildest imagination see it happening just like that with Jesus either. The Scriptures never said that I am tempted just like Jesus was. They say that He was tempted just like I am. So I believe His temptation unfolded just as if it had been my temptation. But, you will protest, Jesus could have turned stones into bread. You can not. True! What Jesus could have done which would have been giving into sin is not as important as the fact that He was tempted to do it, and did not. He was tempted with something which was within His ability to do. If it is not possible for you to do it, how can you be tempted to do it? I'm tempted with things which are within my ability to do. Sins which I am capable of doing are the sins I am tempted to do.

Jesus had just been baptized by John in the Jordan River. That was undoubtedly an event of particular significance to Him as it began His earthly ministry. If we can put it in our terms, it would be akin to the times in our lives where we feel the closest to God in our spirit. He was compelled to get away from the distractions of the world about Him and spend the time in communion with God. That's not unlike the desire we often feel to shut the hustle and bustle of the world out for it distracts us from fully experiencing the presence of God which we can only feel in quiet solitude. He wanted to shut out all distractions and be alone with His Father.

I believe that He loved the desert country. I like to imagine that He loved to set on a flat, comfortable rock ledge, perhaps high up on the side of a hill overlooking distant valleys with fields of grain, vineyards and pastures spotted with grazing sheep. Off in the far distance, the sun glinted off of a sliver of silver which would be the Jordan River. If the light was right and the air was clear, the city of Jerusalem could be seen just before the horizon. At his feet, a small lizard scurried about in its pursuit of an insect. A bird lighted on a branch of a small shrub to one side of where He sat, and broke out in song. A gentle breeze wafting about the hillside carried on it the subtle fragrance of newly blossomed desert flowers. A bee harried a small patch of clover in search of nectar. Certainly He would have taken note of these things and reveled in the drowsy passing of the day. I would have. Time would seem to stand still as nothing around Him changed. Just He, His thoughts, and God.

We don't know how long He sat like that. Certainly some time passed. The Scripture says that He was there for some time. Probably forty days in all, though that common term "forty days" was used more to imply "a long time" than a literal count of forty. It doesn't matter. The fact is, after awhile he grew hungry. Had He simply failed to bring food with Him? Had He stayed longer than His original intent? We are not told all of the details. He was in the flesh a man and required nourishment just like the rest of us. Now though, some time has passed and He is without food of any kind. It's a long way back to the city and He is not yet ready to depart the intimate fellowship with His Father. The hunger pangs now have His attention and are a bothersome distraction.

Who knows when it first caught His sight? It had been there all along of course, but something odd about the shape of that rock lying on the ground now catches His attention. It is a familiar shape. Round. Flat on the bottom and rounded gently and smoothly on the top. The color could have been right too. It certainly looked a lot like a loaf of bread there on the ground.

How easy it would be. He is, after all, God. One simple word and it is a loaf of bread. He can almost taste it now. Even the fragrance of warm freshness from the oven. Yes, it would be so easy.

We picture Satan as a figure standing there verbally taunting Him with the suggestion. But if it's not through a thought that entered His mind as His own imagination, then His temptations were not like my temptations. Satan is after all, the author of temptations but it is through our own thought processes and imaginations that they come. He whispers his suggestions so subtly that we recognize them only as being our own thoughts. Jesus undoubtedly heard them the same way, but He of course recognized the source of those tempting thoughts and countered them in the same we should: By the weapon of the Word.

We will never overcome our temptations by our own strength or argument. Jesus gave us the model. He countered with the Word. "It is Written." We have the same weapon at our disposal. When we are overwhelmed with temptations which would lead us astray and damage our relationship with God and even with others, we have only to remember that He too suffered the same and He knows what we are going through. He's been there Himself.

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Dan W. Dooley is husband, father, grandfather, and creator and owner of Dooley's Treasure Chest and Treasure Chest Ministries. He is an ordained minister in affiliation with United Christian Faith Ministries (UCFM).