Will the real Jesus please...
It's the Observer's Dilemma that it isn't possible both to observe a situation with perfect objectivity and to comment on that situation (maybe in the same vein as it isn't possible to simultaneously figure the moment-velocity of a particle and its relative position. Huh.) The reason for this is that in observing the situation for a second party, the observer invariably affects the situation. With respect to social or personal commentary, the retelling of an observation always takes on the shape of the observer, and the observer-- at least in that moment-- is no longer an observer, but a teller, such that the way the observer recalls an observation always says something about the observer as well as the object (if it indeed manages to say anything at all about the object). It's no different for me in discussing the narratives about Jesus, and i suspect it was no different for the cats that wrote those narratives. In that last post on the temptation of Jesus, the conversation started sloping off in an oddly reflective direction (i.e., ca. 180 deg. from vector 1) which i thought perhaps deserved a post of its own. Talking about the temptation of Jesus has led to some brow-furrowing speculation; but more painfully it's reavealed some gaping holes in my own theology, in my view of Jesus, in my ability to evangelize, in me.
If Jesus was in fact tempted just as we are, yet was without sin, then that says something about Him and about me, respectively.
Concerning Him, in order to be tempted just as we are it seems necessary that He would have had to be equipped just as we are. This was a big part of the back-and-forth in the last conversation on temptation. To me it seems right and basic to hold that if He was tempted just as i am then (1) He must have been tempted, and (2) that temptation must have tempting for Him in very much the same way that a temptation is tempting for me.* That seems fair and in line with what scripture there is. But it turns out to be tricky to reconcile with our notion of His "being in very nature God." It's hard to gel with our idea of what it should mean for Him to have been sired by the Holy Spirit, of what it should mean that the Spirit alighted on Him, of what it should mean that He was constantly somehow aware of the presence of the Father, of what it should mean that He was apparently always just at the threshold of a transfiguration. In other words, it's hard to reconcile with all the ways in which He seems so different from us-- and there definitely are a bunch of ways in which He seems clearly beyond us. See, if He had a leg up on us with respect to temptation (and the resisting thereof) then it makes a conceptual quagmire of saying that He was tempted just as we.
For an example of an apology to that problem, the honorable brother Katinga introduced into the last conversation the idea of the impeccability of Christ (although he seems not to adhere too closely with the tenets of that idea, upon which assumption i'll abuse it roundly): namely, Jesus could be tempted just as thoroughly as you could like Him to be, but it wasn't actually possible for Him to sin--presumably even if He'd wanted to. For whatever cogency i'm able to ascribe to that (with my admittedly less-than-powerful processor and cursory understanding of the idea) it still seems stoopid az dert: if He couldn't possibly sin, what was He tempted to do? In what sense was He tempted? A subscriber to the doctrine might argue that, in fairness, He also couldn't possibly have wanted to sin, but i'd have to argue right back that, in fairness, if He wasn't able to want to sin, then He wasn't very well tempted--let alone just as i am; He'd not even have been temptable. What could a so-called "temptation" be for a given temptee if it isn't both some sort of enticement to sin and to at least some degree desirable for that temptee? Maybe Jesus was "tempted" by temptations that might have caused Him to want to sin if only He'd been someone else. [Pause here to grimace and reflect] This might be similar to saying that i've been tempted to, say, smoke crack just because someone's offered me some. It happens that of all the things i'm regularly prompted to partake of that are bad for me, crack isn't among them. So although i would be tempted were i a crack addict, were i someone other than i am, it seems silly to say that i'm being tempted just because something is being proffered me. It highlights the point that in order to hold on to a Jesus that was both tempted and completely incapable of actually sinning, that one'd have to do a slick li'l semantic magic trick on some of the terms.**
A solution to this (and a trap i've regularly found myself "piously" falling into) is to say that whatever Jesus did was by definition not sin. His having done something--in virtue of being the Messiah, the Chosen One of God-- defined what is right and justified. This view, for me at least, is much harder to punch holes in, and it leads to the same place: namely, it was functionally impossible for Jesus to sin. In fact, it could very well be an extension of the impeccabilist doctrine. Consider how many things Jesus deemed sinful that were by no means explicitly stated in the law. Consider how many things Jesus deemed fine-n-dandy that'd long been considered unlawful. For example, He was accused of breaking the Sabbath with his disciples (by healing and shucking respectively), but rather than controvert his accusers flatly with evidence to the contrary, He just parried the accusation off into the aether with authority. The Sabbath, it turns out, was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. That probably came as a great comfort to the folks who'd been antecedently stoned and publicly derided for similar breaches of punctilio.*** It's easy to get a picture of Jesus the Christ having the power to bend the Law to fit Him just as He seemed in many other ways to be able to bend reality to His will, as with healing the very sick, walking through angry mobs, and commanding storms and jars of water and prostitutes to change their ways. It's easy to say "What if..." and to imagine a very different world with a very different moral bent if Jesus had merely worded some of the things He said differently, or (more to the point i'm trying to make) had actually taken a different view than He did. What if He'd said it's just fine to divorce and remarry just so long as you're fair and mostly nice about the whole thing? What if He'd overtly said that using musical instruments in the Worship Service is basically the same as heating up the brimstone for your place in hell, instead of making us write speculative books about why we have more than just Baptismal Motivation for a reason to separate from the denominationalists? What if He'd made some special concession for homosexuals who were born that way? The point is not that what He said was in any way arbitrary nor even that He might have worded things differently if He'd seen it in writing first, but that if He had we couldn't possibly know the difference. Against what standard could we judge anything that Christ said? With respect to His "temptation," if He had, for example, turned that stone into a loaf of bread, it wouldn't have been written of Him that He had, after all, succumbed to temptation, but that He had simply performed yet another miracle -- Forty days of fasting was up, and the Man fed himself.
"'If you are the Christ, you could command this stone to become bread.'
'Excellent point... Be thou bread!' and it was bread, and He saw that it was good and in this way proved that He was the Christ."
And then there would have only been two temptations in the desert, and those could perhaps be imagined to have been overcome in similar fashion.**** This strategy, though, falls to just the same flaw as the simpler one above (if there's any difference at all). Just as in the case that if it isn't possible for Jesus to give in to a temptation and thus sin, then it couldn't rightly be said of Him that He was tempted at all, it likewise couldn't rightly be said of Him that He'd been tempted in the case that if He had given in to what otherwise would have been a temptation, He'd simply thereby have rewritten the definitions of Right and Wrong. Once again, in what sense was it possible for Him to have been tempted? No, in order to have been tempted, it is necessary that He was tested against an unmalleable law. In this case, His conscience and the commitment He'd made were for Him law, just as Jephtha's vow was inviolable law for him earlier. It seems to be our burden to believe that if He had given in, it would be said of Him that He'd sinned; only He didn't give in, He didn't sin.
It seems much simpler and more in line with scripture to say that he was truly tempted, truly considered sinning, and then just didn't. What then (seems the next reasonable question) did His having been born by and of the Spirit affect in Him with respect to His ability to overcome temptation? Well, that's just the point i think needs to be made. Consider that His having been born of the Spirit didn't give Him one iota of power over His selfish desires or insulation from the assault of temptation than being born of the Spirit gives to you and me. Consider that Jesus was on a totally level footing with us earthlings; that, respecting His disposition to not sin, was entirely and merely human. Consider that this-- if in no other way-- might be the most meaningful way in which He "did not consider equality with God something to be grasped," and for which He cast down the golden crown of Godhood.
Then His temptation says something about me. If i were to be tempted in every way just as i, in fact, am (every 30 seconds or so), perhaps it's possible that i could resist at least some of that temptation occasionally. Only, so very often i don't resist. Often i don't even try. So often, indeed, do i fail to resist that it could be rightly said of me that one of the things i do struggle with on a regular basis is the question of whether or not what i've just done actually was a sin. And then if it was a sin, what about it exactly (i continue) made it a sin? Here you might argue that if i am seriously struggling with something i've just done, then i'm clearly aware that i'm just trying to justify some red-flagged material, and i should just get on with repentance and henceforth avoid doing what i just did; only that isn't necessarily the case. Imagine the most heinous of sins, then strip these of their label and consider that the actions, and perhaps even the states of the heart involved in making these sins sinful wouldn't be sins in a different context. Murder, for example, is always sinful; but killing someone-- even in a fit of rage-- isn't necessarily. Or consider the utterance of unclean things... Consider the near-infinite list of lesser decisions made which in a certain context, or (perhaps more importantly) with a certain motive are sinful, but with a different motive, in a different context are just the correct and noble thing to do. Consider the pursuit of money, the pursuit of career. Done with one motive these are 'greed', 'idolatry', might even fit 'witchcraft' in there if you really distill it. Done with a different motive these are the calling of a responsible husband and father. There needs be zero difference in the mode of operation: two guys wheelin' and dealin' the same goods for the same money, only one's a wholesome, respectable God-follower and one's got an Asherah pole in his garage.
So, awfully often what is a sin vs. what is not comes down to a matter of motive. That's easy enough to grasp; the New Testament presses that fairly uniformly and clearly in several places. Here's the kicker though: What does one do if they have a sinful (as opposed to, le'ssay, neutral) nature, a warped motive, a seared conscious? What then? What about the person who has no further standards binding upon his Christianity than that he fairly openly professes a belief in Christ when it comes up in conversation? Theology? That's a game for preachers. Lord's Supper? No problem. Tithing? 10%, including garden herbs if God comes and asks for it. Baptism? Why not? Help a homeless person with some money? They wouldn't be homeless if they'd get a flippin' job. Confession? Repentance? Oh yeah. Every year at the Couples' Retreat, with tears and shaky prayers all around. Let a client slide on a payment? How're you gonna make a living that way? So the trick to getting to live the good life isn't in becoming comfortable with a selfish motive, but simply to shield your motive from any exposure to the demands of Christianity (or, more appropriately, the demands of Christ) by letting it run under the insulating sub-heading "Doing What I Gotta Do To Get By." You can't very well sin against your conscience if your conscience never raises an objection.
So i wonder what would happen if i opened my motive to the conscience and motive of Christ. i wonder what would happen if i quit doing what i do because it's the rational thing to do. i guess i'm a little afraid of that. But i know without any doubt that i'm tired of living in a world that requires rationalizing. And i'm tired of rationalizing what i want to get away with by imagining that Jesus didn't have it as hard as i do. However powerful the Christ may have been while He walked among us, it no longer makes sense to me that He had some special supernatural power over temptation. i suspect that if His "being in very nature God" did anything for Him at all as a man, with respect to being tempted, it subjected Him to temptations that i can't begin to imagine.
* Importantly, that does not in any way suggest that He was tempted by the same things i am tempted by. Although it can be very uplifting and comforting to draw out the analogue between His temptations (that we know of) and ours, i fully believe that i can't really relate to what He was tempted with-- i've never been offered that kind of return on my "investment." i'm generally willing to settle for much duller trinkets for my sin than, say, world domination.
** And magic, of course, is an abomination.
*** i'm not saying that the things people were condemned for in the Old Testament --and which condemnation was praised or approved of by the writer-- were necessarily on a par with what Jesus and His followers were accused of, only it's hard to get the impression from the Law and the Prophets that the Sabbath was made for man. That was an understandably revolutionary, surprising statement by Jesus, if only because of its lack of further qualification.
****That leads to another consideration about Jesus-- something to do with the fallen nature of us humans vs. the non-fallen nature of Jesus: i don't seem to require being starved in the desert for a month and a half before i'm primed and tenderized for temptation. D'you really suppose He was 28-30ish and emaciated before He was confronted by a temptation?
If Jesus was in fact tempted just as we are, yet was without sin, then that says something about Him and about me, respectively.
Concerning Him, in order to be tempted just as we are it seems necessary that He would have had to be equipped just as we are. This was a big part of the back-and-forth in the last conversation on temptation. To me it seems right and basic to hold that if He was tempted just as i am then (1) He must have been tempted, and (2) that temptation must have tempting for Him in very much the same way that a temptation is tempting for me.* That seems fair and in line with what scripture there is. But it turns out to be tricky to reconcile with our notion of His "being in very nature God." It's hard to gel with our idea of what it should mean for Him to have been sired by the Holy Spirit, of what it should mean that the Spirit alighted on Him, of what it should mean that He was constantly somehow aware of the presence of the Father, of what it should mean that He was apparently always just at the threshold of a transfiguration. In other words, it's hard to reconcile with all the ways in which He seems so different from us-- and there definitely are a bunch of ways in which He seems clearly beyond us. See, if He had a leg up on us with respect to temptation (and the resisting thereof) then it makes a conceptual quagmire of saying that He was tempted just as we.
For an example of an apology to that problem, the honorable brother Katinga introduced into the last conversation the idea of the impeccability of Christ (although he seems not to adhere too closely with the tenets of that idea, upon which assumption i'll abuse it roundly): namely, Jesus could be tempted just as thoroughly as you could like Him to be, but it wasn't actually possible for Him to sin--presumably even if He'd wanted to. For whatever cogency i'm able to ascribe to that (with my admittedly less-than-powerful processor and cursory understanding of the idea) it still seems stoopid az dert: if He couldn't possibly sin, what was He tempted to do? In what sense was He tempted? A subscriber to the doctrine might argue that, in fairness, He also couldn't possibly have wanted to sin, but i'd have to argue right back that, in fairness, if He wasn't able to want to sin, then He wasn't very well tempted--let alone just as i am; He'd not even have been temptable. What could a so-called "temptation" be for a given temptee if it isn't both some sort of enticement to sin and to at least some degree desirable for that temptee? Maybe Jesus was "tempted" by temptations that might have caused Him to want to sin if only He'd been someone else. [Pause here to grimace and reflect] This might be similar to saying that i've been tempted to, say, smoke crack just because someone's offered me some. It happens that of all the things i'm regularly prompted to partake of that are bad for me, crack isn't among them. So although i would be tempted were i a crack addict, were i someone other than i am, it seems silly to say that i'm being tempted just because something is being proffered me. It highlights the point that in order to hold on to a Jesus that was both tempted and completely incapable of actually sinning, that one'd have to do a slick li'l semantic magic trick on some of the terms.**
A solution to this (and a trap i've regularly found myself "piously" falling into) is to say that whatever Jesus did was by definition not sin. His having done something--in virtue of being the Messiah, the Chosen One of God-- defined what is right and justified. This view, for me at least, is much harder to punch holes in, and it leads to the same place: namely, it was functionally impossible for Jesus to sin. In fact, it could very well be an extension of the impeccabilist doctrine. Consider how many things Jesus deemed sinful that were by no means explicitly stated in the law. Consider how many things Jesus deemed fine-n-dandy that'd long been considered unlawful. For example, He was accused of breaking the Sabbath with his disciples (by healing and shucking respectively), but rather than controvert his accusers flatly with evidence to the contrary, He just parried the accusation off into the aether with authority. The Sabbath, it turns out, was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. That probably came as a great comfort to the folks who'd been antecedently stoned and publicly derided for similar breaches of punctilio.*** It's easy to get a picture of Jesus the Christ having the power to bend the Law to fit Him just as He seemed in many other ways to be able to bend reality to His will, as with healing the very sick, walking through angry mobs, and commanding storms and jars of water and prostitutes to change their ways. It's easy to say "What if..." and to imagine a very different world with a very different moral bent if Jesus had merely worded some of the things He said differently, or (more to the point i'm trying to make) had actually taken a different view than He did. What if He'd said it's just fine to divorce and remarry just so long as you're fair and mostly nice about the whole thing? What if He'd overtly said that using musical instruments in the Worship Service is basically the same as heating up the brimstone for your place in hell, instead of making us write speculative books about why we have more than just Baptismal Motivation for a reason to separate from the denominationalists? What if He'd made some special concession for homosexuals who were born that way? The point is not that what He said was in any way arbitrary nor even that He might have worded things differently if He'd seen it in writing first, but that if He had we couldn't possibly know the difference. Against what standard could we judge anything that Christ said? With respect to His "temptation," if He had, for example, turned that stone into a loaf of bread, it wouldn't have been written of Him that He had, after all, succumbed to temptation, but that He had simply performed yet another miracle -- Forty days of fasting was up, and the Man fed himself.
"'If you are the Christ, you could command this stone to become bread.'
'Excellent point... Be thou bread!' and it was bread, and He saw that it was good and in this way proved that He was the Christ."
And then there would have only been two temptations in the desert, and those could perhaps be imagined to have been overcome in similar fashion.**** This strategy, though, falls to just the same flaw as the simpler one above (if there's any difference at all). Just as in the case that if it isn't possible for Jesus to give in to a temptation and thus sin, then it couldn't rightly be said of Him that He was tempted at all, it likewise couldn't rightly be said of Him that He'd been tempted in the case that if He had given in to what otherwise would have been a temptation, He'd simply thereby have rewritten the definitions of Right and Wrong. Once again, in what sense was it possible for Him to have been tempted? No, in order to have been tempted, it is necessary that He was tested against an unmalleable law. In this case, His conscience and the commitment He'd made were for Him law, just as Jephtha's vow was inviolable law for him earlier. It seems to be our burden to believe that if He had given in, it would be said of Him that He'd sinned; only He didn't give in, He didn't sin.
It seems much simpler and more in line with scripture to say that he was truly tempted, truly considered sinning, and then just didn't. What then (seems the next reasonable question) did His having been born by and of the Spirit affect in Him with respect to His ability to overcome temptation? Well, that's just the point i think needs to be made. Consider that His having been born of the Spirit didn't give Him one iota of power over His selfish desires or insulation from the assault of temptation than being born of the Spirit gives to you and me. Consider that Jesus was on a totally level footing with us earthlings; that, respecting His disposition to not sin, was entirely and merely human. Consider that this-- if in no other way-- might be the most meaningful way in which He "did not consider equality with God something to be grasped," and for which He cast down the golden crown of Godhood.
Then His temptation says something about me. If i were to be tempted in every way just as i, in fact, am (every 30 seconds or so), perhaps it's possible that i could resist at least some of that temptation occasionally. Only, so very often i don't resist. Often i don't even try. So often, indeed, do i fail to resist that it could be rightly said of me that one of the things i do struggle with on a regular basis is the question of whether or not what i've just done actually was a sin. And then if it was a sin, what about it exactly (i continue) made it a sin? Here you might argue that if i am seriously struggling with something i've just done, then i'm clearly aware that i'm just trying to justify some red-flagged material, and i should just get on with repentance and henceforth avoid doing what i just did; only that isn't necessarily the case. Imagine the most heinous of sins, then strip these of their label and consider that the actions, and perhaps even the states of the heart involved in making these sins sinful wouldn't be sins in a different context. Murder, for example, is always sinful; but killing someone-- even in a fit of rage-- isn't necessarily. Or consider the utterance of unclean things... Consider the near-infinite list of lesser decisions made which in a certain context, or (perhaps more importantly) with a certain motive are sinful, but with a different motive, in a different context are just the correct and noble thing to do. Consider the pursuit of money, the pursuit of career. Done with one motive these are 'greed', 'idolatry', might even fit 'witchcraft' in there if you really distill it. Done with a different motive these are the calling of a responsible husband and father. There needs be zero difference in the mode of operation: two guys wheelin' and dealin' the same goods for the same money, only one's a wholesome, respectable God-follower and one's got an Asherah pole in his garage.
So, awfully often what is a sin vs. what is not comes down to a matter of motive. That's easy enough to grasp; the New Testament presses that fairly uniformly and clearly in several places. Here's the kicker though: What does one do if they have a sinful (as opposed to, le'ssay, neutral) nature, a warped motive, a seared conscious? What then? What about the person who has no further standards binding upon his Christianity than that he fairly openly professes a belief in Christ when it comes up in conversation? Theology? That's a game for preachers. Lord's Supper? No problem. Tithing? 10%, including garden herbs if God comes and asks for it. Baptism? Why not? Help a homeless person with some money? They wouldn't be homeless if they'd get a flippin' job. Confession? Repentance? Oh yeah. Every year at the Couples' Retreat, with tears and shaky prayers all around. Let a client slide on a payment? How're you gonna make a living that way? So the trick to getting to live the good life isn't in becoming comfortable with a selfish motive, but simply to shield your motive from any exposure to the demands of Christianity (or, more appropriately, the demands of Christ) by letting it run under the insulating sub-heading "Doing What I Gotta Do To Get By." You can't very well sin against your conscience if your conscience never raises an objection.
So i wonder what would happen if i opened my motive to the conscience and motive of Christ. i wonder what would happen if i quit doing what i do because it's the rational thing to do. i guess i'm a little afraid of that. But i know without any doubt that i'm tired of living in a world that requires rationalizing. And i'm tired of rationalizing what i want to get away with by imagining that Jesus didn't have it as hard as i do. However powerful the Christ may have been while He walked among us, it no longer makes sense to me that He had some special supernatural power over temptation. i suspect that if His "being in very nature God" did anything for Him at all as a man, with respect to being tempted, it subjected Him to temptations that i can't begin to imagine.
* Importantly, that does not in any way suggest that He was tempted by the same things i am tempted by. Although it can be very uplifting and comforting to draw out the analogue between His temptations (that we know of) and ours, i fully believe that i can't really relate to what He was tempted with-- i've never been offered that kind of return on my "investment." i'm generally willing to settle for much duller trinkets for my sin than, say, world domination.
** And magic, of course, is an abomination.
*** i'm not saying that the things people were condemned for in the Old Testament --and which condemnation was praised or approved of by the writer-- were necessarily on a par with what Jesus and His followers were accused of, only it's hard to get the impression from the Law and the Prophets that the Sabbath was made for man. That was an understandably revolutionary, surprising statement by Jesus, if only because of its lack of further qualification.
****That leads to another consideration about Jesus-- something to do with the fallen nature of us humans vs. the non-fallen nature of Jesus: i don't seem to require being starved in the desert for a month and a half before i'm primed and tenderized for temptation. D'you really suppose He was 28-30ish and emaciated before He was confronted by a temptation?
posted by c at 2:09 AM
5 Comments:
Wow, Cody!
That was a mouthful.
I would have to agree that the majority of sin boils down to the motive behind the action. We might say that sin begins in the mind and the fruition of that sin is what we see manifested. Of course that very manifestation is itself sin - thus we find ourselves, with each sin, actually in a multiplicity of sins. As more than one scholar has enumerated, sin made itself known not just in the eating of the Apple, but in the desires of the flesh, eye and pride of Eve...and her trailing spouse.
Not all sin can be justified by pure motives, of course. Take James Bond for instance. What he does with those Russian spies (the beautiful, female ones) can hardly be justified by saying "it's my job - for Queen and Country." Admittedly, this is a poor example; but this and keeping an Asherah pole in your garage are pretty much sin in any context. Then again, I've not meditated on this for any length of time. :)
"It seems much simpler and more in line with scripture to say that he was truly tempted, truly considered sinning, and then just didn't." True dat. Except I would not say that he "truly considered sinning." :) My guess is that he didn't consider it all. Hmmm, jump off the Temple...angels catch me on the way down....hmmmm...I don't think so....let's see...ummmm....no...definitely not.... "Do not tempt the Lord your God. Next one?"
One of the main differences in Jesus being born of the Spirit and me being born in the Spirit is that I have the whole "previous experience" thing to deal with. Someone might say, "Jesus never sinned again because He never sinned the first time." Not true for me. I've done it once. I'll do it again. (Or in my case, I've done it a thousand times, I'll do it a thousand more.) So someone may argue that Jesus was not really tempted as I am - not having that previous experience. But I wonder what is the point of making Jesus' experience more like ours? Why have a spot-less Lamb that could have been spotted? Does the fact that Jesus was different in "composition" in anyway justify our sin or belittle the sacrifice of Christ? He is still a suffering God, made flesh, being brutalized by His own peeps. More importantly, Jesus is our sacrifice. I think the point of the Hebrews writer is not to make Jesus more "human" but to demonstrate His identity as the perfect Lamb. Secondy, we could gather that the writer intended to spur the Brethren onto Christ-likeness - that is, pure living.
I thought this sentence to be very profound, Cody:
"i suspect that if His "being in very nature God" did anything for Him at all as a man, with respect to being tempted, it subjected Him to temptations that i can't begin to imagine."
Good writing. I enjoyed every word - except the reference to my post as "unclean."
Some of your other comments (the sarcastic church part) reminded me of something I read here.
jw,
In rapid and fine style you've latched one of the barbs in my li'l thought. Something that i've been wrestling with is that, without any doubt, Jesus did have a relatively easier time dealing with temptation because He was not, so to speak, a repeat offender. What i want to parse apart, though, is His ability to resist sin as a human, and as such, having been tempted in every way just as we are from the generally unquestioned notion that He additionally had some special preternatural resistance to temptation on account of His being in very nature God. i totally agree that He seems to have had the wherewithal to resist Satan that i almost categorically lack, and that that power surely came as a gift of the Spirit; but there is a huge and meaningful difference between His being empowered and comforted by the Spirit because He'd theretofore been faithful and disciplined and perfect in the hope of His purpose, and His being empowered by the Spirit because it was arranged ahead of time that He must be, such that He was practically unassailable. In other words, His not having the "previous experience" thing to deal with certainly must have been by the aid of the Spirit, and in turn it assuredly did give Him the strength to continue not sinning, but i don't believe it was a function of His being in nature God. If He didn't truly consider sinning, then in what sense was He tempted? i'm not implying that He was on the hairy edge of eating a rock or jumping off the temple; i don't mean to say that He almost sinned but (whew! luckily) didn't. i'm just saying that if He was tempted in every way just as we are, then the would-be temptation must have registered, and it must have registered in an initially desirable light.
This might sound a tiddle repetitious, but the point of "making" Jesus' experience more like ours is that His experience being like ours is the point of His coming (as far as i can tell). If He came as the Messiah, but couldn't feel pain like i feel pain, couldn't feel temptation like i feel temptation, just floated through life in a humanesque bubble that could be beaten and mocked and murdered, but under no circumstances broken; if He came without the possibility of wondering why or if God had forsaken Him, then even while He might be able to say something to us ("Hey kids, here's your free meal ticket. Welcome to Paradise.") He couldn't in the same way say something about us. Namely, He couldn't say that this is what fulfilling the law looks like and this is how it's done. He couldn't in the same way convict me that i've been fully equipped to obey, and thus convict me of my sin in having failed to obey.
More on motive when i'm not about to fall asleep.
Thanks you for the pummelling. The "Attack(!)" is on my to-read-before-i-go-toes-up list. Only ten or fifteen books to go, and i'm there.
Now on to motive for a spell. i admittedly jumped ahead of what i was justified in jumping to in writing here-- partially because i was lazy and took some things for granted, partially because i was having a running conversation with my imaginary friend that went in so many directions i could hardly remember what the initial goal was, and partially because i actually couldn't remember which bits i wrote down and which bits i didn't.
To fill in some gaps, i believe that every sin is primarily a sin of the motive (which i think you could also fairly call a sin of the heart). That's because any sin, in order to be called a sin, has to be intentful, motivated. i don't think every unfortunate event or tragic coincidence is a sin. (Might fall under the heading of "evil" in some views, including Soloman's, i think; but not sin.) Moreover, i don't think a person can accidentally commit a sin. If you can agree with that, that sin must be motivated, intentful, and also that in the absence of intention it isn't possible to sin, then it seems at least prima facie reasonable to say that sin is for all practical purposes limited to the motive. Take an illustration from Jesus: adultery is certainly a sin; but the adultery happens before you ever get it on with what's-'er-name, the Red Harlot on the Beast. If you just look on her lustfully, you've already commited adultery. The sexual bit is only an extension of the sin that's already occured. In yer example of James Bond and the Asherah keeper you could indeed say that what they're doing sinwise-- fornication and idolatry, respectively-- would be sinful in any context. But that's because 'fornication' and 'idolatry' are terms that are understood to include the motive. James Bond's intent is to have sex with every scantily clad chick he runs across; the idol worshipper's intent is to worship the idol. You can't accidentally fornicate (that'd be rape, methinks) and you can't accidentally worship an idol. On the other hand, once you bend your intent on fornicating or worshipping something other than God, it doesn't much matter whether you actually manage to pull it off or not with respect your having sinned.
i'm not sure whether or not that has much to do with the post, or even made a decent riposte to what you said, but maybe it filled in some holes that i'd left a little too ambiguous.
"Now tell me mister 'Nezzer, now whaddaya think o' that?"
I wanted to share this story a while back, but got interrupted.
Concerning Jesus temptation:
A friend of mine just came back from Israel. She went to the area where Jesus was tempted. She said she cried and was even more touched by the 40 days of temptation. She had pictured the dessert filled with sand and cactus. But she was shocked that it was only filled with stones. Was he reminded of Satan's temptation everywhere he walked or when He stumbled over them from weakness? Or did it not cross his mind again?
I can only imagine that when Jesus was tempted he was the picture in Hebrews, that I should be. "In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplicaitons with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety." I have been reading through 1 John and John 14-18 each week. I tried to explain what I was learning to Jason, but it all came out messy, so I will not put you through that. But maybe you could read through it and the Lord can encourage your faith.
(I will say that the verse in 1 John 5:14-15, asking anything according to His will.......and we have the request that we asked for, has impacted me the most in looking at Jesus as sinless and how I should face temptation.)
Peace to you and your family.
Hey Lisa,
That's a cool picture and a very nice point. we get this image from a few examples of Jesus being tempted that He was only tempted a few times-- three or four times. That doesn't seem very realistic and it doesn't lend any credibility to His being "tempted in every way just as we are." i guess that's part of the point i'm trying to make with all my long-winded blabbing: i have serious doubts that Jesus was the video game/ Hollywood action figure we make Him out to be, who went from special mission to special mission until He faced the Big Boss at the end of the level. If i, for example, were only tempted when i set out to be tempted, and only when i'm good and psyched up for it, and i've had a month and a half of uninterrupted prayer time just for the purpose, and there were just three temptations i'd have to stand up against, then i'd have an easier time of resisting temptation too (i think). i mean, Adam and Eve only had one temptation to resist, but then it seems there was an infinite amount of time over which they could be tempted by it before they caved in and death took them. i don't have any room to talk, 'cuz i sin all the time; but it seems like i'm usually taken when i'm unprepared and just don't see it coming. (Whether i choose not to see it coming is another conversation...)
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