Jesus’ Wilderness Temptation: Establishing humanity’s culpability for sin

Introduction

Following his baptism, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan for forty days. This account, with varying degrees of detail, is related in all three of the synoptic gospels (Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13).

Between the three accounts, we see that the Spirit leads Jesus after his baptism to head out alone into the wilderness. While we are not given a detailed accounting of his time in the wilderness, we know that Jesus spent 40 days and nights fasting and was being tempted by the devil throughout that period. At the end of this period, Matthew and Luke record the final three specific temptations the devil aims at Jesus before being sent away.

Much teaching and study of this event centers around the specific temptations, how and why they are tempting, and how Jesus stands on the firm foundation of God’s revealed word to battle against Satan’s schemes and arise victorious. Plenty has been said in addressing these issues, so I will leave that discussion to others. Instead, I want to consider the broader question of why this account overall is a necessary inclusion in the story of the Messiah.

For a little background, I originally began considering the reason for the inclusion of the story overall because of Mark’s account. While Matthew and Luke both give more detailed accounting of the three final temptations, Mark gives only the briefest of summaries: “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him” (Mark 1:12-13). I am a firm believer that nothing God has revealed in his Word is merely coincidental, but is rather truth he considered important (or essential) to share with humanity. This assumption then begs the question of these verses in Mark, “If the importance of this account is solely in the specific temptations and Jesus’ response to them, then why has Mark bothered including this event without detailing the temptations?” I believe the answer to this question is that while there is certainly much to be gleaned from the details passed along by Matthew and Luke, the event itself is an essential aspect of the overall salvation story unraveling throughout the Scriptures in that it establishes humanity’s culpability for sin.

The need to establish humanity’s culpability for sin

The idea that humanity’s culpability for sin needs to be established may seem odd given that we are operating in a biblical context and thus with a backdrop of Genesis 3, but while culpability is assumed throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, it is never fully established.

In the Genesis account of the fall, when confronted by God, Adam blames Eve for his sin (Genesis 3:12), and Eve blames the serpent (Genesis 3:13). In response to Adam’s shifting of the blame, God does not declare his culpability, but turns to Eve and asks, “What is this that you have done?” Similarly, with Eve’s redirection of blame toward the serpent, it is only the serpent to whom God directly attributes culpability when he says, “Because you have done this…” (Genesis 3:14). He does indict Adam for listening to his wife (Genesis 3:17), but the root of this first sin rests upon the serpent. It is clear from the curses leveled against Adam and Eve as a result of their sin (Genesis 3:16-19) that while God does hold Adam and Eve accountable for their sin, the serpent is the one ultimately responsible for their fall. To be clear, this is not to say Adam and Eve would assuredly not have fallen apart from the serpent’s influence, but simply that he is indeed the initiator of the fall as it played out.

While this might seem like splitting hairs, the implications of ultimate culpability are significant. If a man commits a crime, he is responsible for his actions before the law. If, however, the man’s family is being held hostage to force him to commit the crime, the law will look very differently upon him than it would if he was operating as an entirely free agent of his actions, and ultimate responsibility will rest on the hostage taker. Following this then, if Adam and Eve were under such an influence that they were not able to choose their actions as free agents, then their consequent cursing and the ultimate sentence of death which descended upon humanity as a result, would be unjust.

This is the situation we face at the close of the Hebrew Scriptures. God is holding humanity accountable for sin for which they may or may not ultimately be culpable. Unfortunately, given the sinful nature which came to rest upon all humanity as a result of the sin of our first parents, there is no other opportunity to put to the test the free agency of sinless humanity in the face of temptation as, “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21) and, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

Therefore, while God has declared humanity accountable for sin, the question looms as to whether or not this is truly a just condemnation.

It is with this context then that we come to Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.

Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness

Many have identified parallels between the temptations of Jesus and the temptation of Adam and Eve in terms of the temptation to seek their own provision, to establish the way forward by their own power and wisdom rather than God’s, etc. While some of these parallels certainly have merit, I want to instead consider a different parallelism; the situational antithetical parallelism.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are faced with truly optimal conditions under which to respond to the temptation before them. Consider the following:

• They are together
• “and she also gave some to her husband who was with her” (Genesis 3:6)
• They are well nourished
• “And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” (Genesis 2:9)
• They are in both attractive and comfortable conditions
• “And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight” (Genesis 2:9)
• “in the garden in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8)
• They enjoy the regular presence of God directly with them
• “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden” (Genesis 3:8)
• “And [Adam] said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden…’” (Genesis 3:10)
• Recognizing the sound of God walking in the garden would seem to imply this happens often enough to be recognizable.

Now consider the conditions in which Jesus finds himself faced with the tempter:

• He is alone
• “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matthew 4:1)
• “And he was with the wild animals” (Mark 1:13)
• He is hungry
• “And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” (Matthew 4:2)
• He is in a barren, hot desert
• “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matthew 4:1)
• The wilderness here refers to the Judean Desert
• He has only his knowledge of the Scriptures
• “It is written” (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10)

Everything Adam and Eve find working for their benefit, Jesus finds lacking.

Adam and Eve are together while Jesus is alone. We know that relationship/community is God’s design for humanity (Genesis 2:18), and also that togetherness can act as a bulwark against temptation (Galatians 6:1). If either Adam or Eve is succumbing to Satan’s lies, the other should be available to call them back to faithfulness and remind them of the person and character of God. Jesus lacks this provision of community.

Adam and Eve are well nourished and comfortable while Jesus is hungry and uncomfortable. The more physical privation we face, the less prepared we are psychologically to handle difficult or stressful situations. Psalm 104:15 even declares that it is food that strengthens man’s heart, yet Jesus has sustained a consistent fast for 40 days and 40 nights, all the while wandering the desolate, scalding hot, Judean desert. So while Adam and Eve have every shady tree to eat from as they please while they wander through their lush garden in the cool of the day, Matthew’s declaration of Jesus that, “he was hungry” (Matthew 4:2), is probably one of largest understatements in Scripture.

Finally, Adam and Eve enjoy the personal presence of God in the garden while Jesus is armed with only the Scriptures. The fact that Adam and Eve recognize the particular sound of God walking in the garden (Genesis 3:10) strongly implies that this is not an isolated event. Prior to the fall, Adam and Eve had regular, direct contact with their creator. When the serpent brings forth his accusations against God, they are accusations against the character of one they know and interact with directly. When Jesus responds to the devil’s temptations, he relies on the revealed truth of God’s Word to combat the temptation. This is in no way intended to downplay the power or authority of the Scriptures, but between the personal presence of God and his Word, his direct presence should carry greater weight.

On the whole then, we find that in every area in which Adam and Eve were primed for success in standing against the lies of the serpent, Jesus was primed for failure, or at least left at a serious disadvantage in comparison, and yet what is the result? Jesus leaves the wilderness victoriously sinless. The question which has been looming since the initial fall of humanity in Genesis 3 finds its answer in Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness: Yes, the serpent influenced Adam and Eve to turn from God and sin, but they could, in fact, have resisted. If Jesus, when alone, hungry, hot, and armed only with the Scriptures is able to stand against the temptations of Satan, then Adam and Eve, when together, well fed, comfortable, and armed with the personal knowledge of God himself could indeed have stood against the temptations of the serpent.

Jesus proves that Adam and Eve, and thus all of humanity, are in fact ultimately culpable for their sin.

Could Jesus have succumbed to the temptation?

Were Jesus any other man who had been created without a sin nature, we could stop here and be done, with God’s just condemnation of humanity and thus the need for the cross firmly established. However, Jesus is not simply any other man, he is God incarnate (John 1:14), which leads to the question, “Could Jesus have even fallen to the temptation in the first place?” Because if not, then his victory in the wilderness says nothing about Adam and Eve’s failure in the garden.

So given that Jesus is God, was it a foregone conclusion that he would not succumb to Satan’s temptations, or was it possible for Jesus to sin?

In short, Jesus could indeed have sinned.

This is an immense topic with much already written on it, and while it is essential to the argument put forth here, it is not the point of this paper, so I will give a quick explanation here but will in no way attempt to be exhaustive.

To begin with, we read from Paul in his letter to the Philippians of Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). So while, yes, Jesus is God, he also emptied himself of his godly attributes for the sake of identifying with humanity. To what end did he empty himself? The author of the letter to the Hebrews says, “he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:17-18). The author continues with this theme in Hebrews 5 focusing on the necessity of a high priest to be able to relate to those he represents before God. And so in order for Jesus to become a perfect high priest, able to represent the “ignorant and wayward” (Hebrews 5:2), he himself must also be beset with weakness (Hebrews 5:2). This does not mean that Jesus must have sinned in order to relate to humanity as a perfect high priest, but rather that he must have been beset with the same weakness, the same ability to sin, or else he would not be able to stand in that role as high priest.

Much more could be said on this topic, but since the primary argument is for the necessity of the wilderness temptation narrative, I will consider this basic explanation to suffice and commend you to others for a more detailed examination of this particular question.

Conclusion

While it is undoubtedly clear throughout the Hebrew Scriptures that God holds humanity accountable for their sin, it is never fully established within them that humanity is the culpable party. Blame for humanity’s sin could always be shifted, whether legitimately or illegitimately, onto the serpent, leaving the question of the justice of God’s condemnation of humanity for sin on the table.

When Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness after his baptism, it is to prove, once and for all, that humanity is ultimately culpable for their own sin. When he stands firm on the Word of God against temptation and sends Satan away, Jesus establishes that Adam and Eve were not compelled to sin, and God truly is just to condemn fallen humanity for its rebellion. And as Jesus leaves the wilderness and returns to Galilee, it is to initiate his campaign to save, by his blood spilled at Calvary, the very people he has just proven are rightly condemned.

Thank you Jesus for the cross.