Was Christ Tempted?

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

Matthew 4:1

For because He Himself has suffered and been tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted.

Hebrews 2:18

There seems to be a misconception about how Christ experienced temptation. When Christ was tempted, we may come to believe He was inclined to sin. After all, our common experience of temptation is the desire for sin. Scripture seems to affirm this in Hebrews,

For we have not 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

Taking this passage too literally, without a clear definition of what we mean by ‘temptation,’ we end up with an erroneous view of Christology.

What is Temptation?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, temptation is,

The desire to do something, especially something wrong or unwise.

We cannot attribute this definition to Our Lord Jesus Christ. When He became man, He was born without original sin. Being God, He cannot commit or be inclined to sin.

He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips.

1 Peter 2:22

You know that He appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin.

1 John 3:5

Can we reconcile these facts with Hebrews 4:15?

To answer this, we must distinguish between external and internal temptation:

An external temptation is when someone intentionally tests you, or when something is intentionally designed to entice you. Examples of these would be someone presenting you with a chocolate cake or your social media feed being designed to make you angry (thus engaging you with the app more).

An internal temptation is when you are inclined to give in to an external temptation. This is the Oxford Dictionary definition, and it is usually what we mean by temptation. An example of this would be desiring to eat the cake while being on a strict diet for health reasons.

However, I can be externally tempted without internal temptation. Someone may tempt me with the chocolate cake, but perhaps I don’t like chocolate, or I’m too full to eat. I’d be tempted by a cake, but I wouldn’t be inclined to eat it.  

Our Lord was not affected by the inclination to sin as we are. Sin is like the chocolate cake, and virtue, love, and perfection are the foods that filled His stomach, so He never desired to eat it. Christ did experience hunger, but these hungers were never disordered as our hunger often is.

Nestorian Heresy

So, going back to Hebrews 4:15, Christ was externally tempted in every respect as we are. Money, power, and lust are external temptations, especially in the age of the internet, where promises of prosperity and sexual gratification are at our fingertips. But if Christ were incarnate today, He would not be internally tempted to give in to money schemes or pornography. Those external temptations, however, would still remain.

Those who deny this risk falling into the Nestorian heresy, which states that Christ is two persons. The reason we may fall into heresy is that in order to make sense of the idea that Christ was inclined to sin, one has to hold that it was the “human Christ” who felt these internal inclinations to sin, not the “God Christ.” See the argument below to see what I mean:

1. God’s character is perfect.

2. The inclination to sin is an imperfection of character.

Therefore,

3. God’s character does not include the inclination to sin.

4. Jesus is God.

Therefore,

5. Jesus’ character does not include the inclination to sin.

The conclusion (5) proves that Christ’s temptations were external, and never internal. The only way to deny (5) is by either denying (1), (2), or (4). Denying (1) and (4) are non-starters, as that would lead to heretical beliefs such as denying God’s perfection or arianism. If you want to deny (2) but still hold to the doctrine of original sin, it would require the burden of proving that an inclination to sin is a perfection of character.

Those who want to continue to claim that Christ was inclined to sin would have to add some premises to logically cohere with (1) – (4), such as:

6. Jesus’ human character includes the inclination to sin.

Which entails,

7. Jesus’ human character is imperfect.

However, (7) contradicts (5). So, we would have to add the caveat:

5a. Jesus’ God character does not include the inclination to sin.

Now we can consistently say that Jesus is God and that He was also inclined to sin. But in doing so, we’ve split Christ into two persons: divine and human. This is what Nestorius tried to do. The heresy he advocated was condemned by the Church in the Council of Ephesus in 431.

To read more about the Nestorian heresy, please read this article from the Catholic Encyclopedia: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10755a.htm