Could God Be Tempted?

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve lately been going through the Watchtower booklet called “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Tonight, we’re going to be looking at an argument they give to argue against Jesus’s ontological equality with God and that’s asking if God could be tempted.

The reality is that this kind of argument is so weak, that I almost hate having to write a blog on it. However, it has been included and so I will deal with it.

This one deals with the temptation. It’s asking if it really makes sense to have the temptation narratives in there since if Jesus is God, he couldn’t really be tempted. However, at this point, it is important to note that there are two kinds of temptations that exist.

Some temptations are internal. They’re based pretty much entirely on evil desires we have in us. We can think evil of things that are good and think good of things that are evil. Jesus did not have this and I believe we could say that Adam and Eve did not have this as well.

Of course, that leaves a kind that Adam and Eve did succumb to and that’s desires from without. This is the kind of temptation that the devil gave to Jesus. After all, the devil was an external agent to Jesus. We also know about these kinds of temptations. We can be tempted with greed easily when seeing a large sum of money or we can be tempted with lust when seeing an attractive person of the opposite sex. Think of the old cartoons where a little devil and a little angel appeared on someone’s shoulders. Many of us know that little devil well.

The Witnesses ask if it would make any sense if Jesus could not have given into the temptation. Whether he could have or not is a debate within Christendom. However, at this point, it is also irrelevant. Jesus was fulfilling two different roles in this case on the path to the cross.

The first role is that of the second Adam. Jesus succeeded where Adam fell. As Adam was tempted, so was Jesus tempted. We know that Paul refers to Jesus as the second Adam as well. Since Jesus is the new man, he undergoes the testings to show that as he overcame, we can overcome as well.

The second role is that of the new Israel. Matthew 2 has Jesus coming out of Egypt, as Israel did. Matthew 3 has him being baptized, as Israel was in the Red Sea according to Paul. Matthew 4 has him in the wilderness being tempted as was Israel. Finally, Matthew 5 has him climbing the mountain, but this time instead of receiving the Law, he is giving it.

Can God be tempted? No. However, no one is saying that Jesus in his deity was tempted. They are saying that Jesus in his humanity was tempted, and he passed! What does that tell us? It tells us that as Jesus relied on God and Scripture to overcome temptation, so can we.

We continue next time.