Thread by @DennyBurk

It is error of the first order to read our sinful experience of temptation into Jesus’ sinless experience of temptation. That error often emerges from an incorrect reading of Hebrews 4:15.

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The text says that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, YET WITHOUT SIN (Heb. 4:15). That last part is the key. Not only did he never commit a sinful deed, he never had a sinful thought. Nor did he have a sinful nature.

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Because Jesus has no sin nature, he never experienced the internal temptations to evil that we experience as a consequence of our sinful nature. He could be tempted from the outside (e.g. by Satan I’m the wilderness) but not from the inside (i.e. from a sinful nature).

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Heath Lambert and I wrote about this in our book “Transforming Homosexuality” in 2015.

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amzn.to/2Zg7PnX

A brief summary of the argument is here:

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dennyburk.com/is-temptation-…

Bottom line: Jesus was tempted by Satan from the outside, but on the inside he NEVER desired to do Satan’s will. Jesus only ever desired to do his Father’s will. There was nothing in him that could have tempted him to sin.

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Our experience of temptation is so very different from Jesus’ in this respect. We are often tempted by our own sinful nature. Jesus never was because he has no sin nature.

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When external temptations are presented to us, we often find that there is something within us that wants to do the wrong thing. When Jesus experienced external temptation, there was nothing in him that desired to do evil. Not even a little bit.

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To deny this is to impugn the Son of God’s impeccability and sinlessness.

That is why it is so important for us not to make the mistake of imputing our sinful experience of temptation onto Jesus’ sinless experience of temptation based on a faulty reading of Heb. 4:15.

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What we are saying here about sin and temptation applies to ALL sin, not just sexual sins.

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