I recently posted on Jesus’ temptation in Matthew’s Gospel and argued that the event showed Satan offering Jesus means other than the cross of becoming the Messiah; signified Jesus’ overthrow of Satan; and I suggested that each temptation is developed in the rest of Gospel. I concluded that post by reminding the reader that it was both Jesus’ loving submission to the Father and self-sacrificial love for us that braced him for his messianic role. In this short post I will unpack what the temptation teaches us about Christ and the challenge it issues to us.

When I preached Matthew 4:1-11 I said that Jesus’ temptation reveals Jesus’ struggle with his mission, which was a tremendous burden. However you read Hebrews 5:7-9 one thing is certain: Jesus’ obedience to God the Father was difficult. However when Jesus was tempted by Satan, experiencing in himself our human weakness, he was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus was unswervingly committed to his task, thus he trusted his Father and gave himself up for us. To borrow an analogy from John Owen’s On Temptation: temptation pierces a vessel revealing what is within. When Jesus is tempted we are given a window into his character and what we see there is steadfast love, for his Father and those he came to save.

We are no different, for temptation peels back our pious masks and pretensions. Owen wrote, “Temptation is like a knife, that may either cut the meat or the throat of a man; it may be his food or his poison, his exercise or his destruction.” He understood that the nature of temptation is to expose our hearts and added, “[Temptation shows] man what is in him–that is, the man himself.” When Jesus was tempted he rose above it for he was devoted to God the Father. However, what temptation more often than not reveals in the Christian is a lack of commitment to God. We know from Scripture that God sometimes tempts in order to test our faith and that “temptation may proceed either singly from Satan, or the world, or other men in the world, or from ourselves, or jointly from all or some of them”. But regardless of its source – and I would encourage investigating Owen’s different categories, also see James’ differentiation between internal and external temptation – when we are enticed by evil our hearts are exposed. Jesus’ temptation reveals his deliberate and devoted commitment to God. When we are tempted, what is revealed?

I will conclude with two practical points for when we are tempted. Firstly, we must rely on God’s grace to forgive and strengthen us. Owen writes, “Until we are tempted, we think we live on our own strength,” but when we feel like giving in to temptation we are reminded of our need for Christ’s blood and the Spirit’s empowerment. As N. T. Wright says, in The Lord and His Prayer, alluding to Matthew 12, “Invoke the name of the Stronger than the Strong.” The cross has removed our guilt and the Spirit works in us to break the power of sin, when we are tempted, as for when we sin, we need look no further than our gracious God. Secondly, resist temptation, hate sin, submit yourself to God and resist the devil. John Owen has written extensively on the battle with sin, which we make meagre progress in only because we do not actively set about doing it. So when you are tempted, resist what you know will displease your heavenly Father. And let us strive after Jesus’ example, who resisted temptation until the point of death.