Thru the Bible - Questions & Answers

Host (Male): A difficult problem or question is often referred to as a chestnut. Today we have such a chestnut that has been pondered by the greatest theological minds throughout the centuries, and on this broadcast, it will not only be discussed but answered. The chestnut is, could Jesus have sinned?

We want to welcome you to the Question and Answer program with our Bible teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, and this is a ministry of the Thru the Bible Radio Network. Now normally on this program, we hear Dr. McGee's answers to three or four questions, but actually today we have only one. And it comes from a listener in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada, who says: "During a Bible study, a question was asked whether Jesus could have sinned. A local minister was cited as saying that yes, he could have sinned. What is your position on this issue?"

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now as we come to the question, of course, it refers actually to the temptation, as we call it, of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have several references to that. And I think that probably I'll turn to the one in Matthew and then the one in Luke. And the one in Matthew, beginning with chapter 4, verse 1, and I'm just going to lift out three verses here. It says, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." That is the record, the beginning of the record that you have in Matthew.

And then we have a reference to it in the gospel of Luke. And I would like to turn to Luke's account of it also. Luke gives it in the fourth chapter, verse 2. And I'll just lift out here a couple verses, maybe three. It says, "And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God."

And that by the way ought to be a good answer for a great many today that feel like if we just put bread in the mouths of people in foreign countries that we've done all that we should do. Don't misunderstand me, I'm for putting the physical bread, but may I say to you that a man doesn't live by that bread alone, but by the Word of God. That's the reason we're committed to getting the Word of God out because there are so many others, including our government, that are interested in getting the physical bread to them. And we believe that the spiritual bread, the Word of God, is needed. And the Lord Jesus gave that answer. Now I just put that in because that was the first temptation that came to the Lord Jesus, and he was able to meet it with the Word of God.

Now there are two ways in which a person can be tempted. It all goes back to the word that is used, which is the word *peirazo*. And *peirazo*, the Greek word—and I'm going to be a little technical now and theological with you because very frankly, it's so easy to give a light answer to this, and we need to have a good foundation before we say yes or no concerning this. The word actually has a twofold meaning. The first and the primary meaning that is given by Thayer in his lexicon is: to try whether a thing can be done, to attempt, to endeavor.

I know that when I was a boy, we didn't have much money to buy fishing lines. And we did want a line that would hold a five-pound catfish. And we didn't want one to hold a 20-pound catfish, but a five-pound. And some of us even used less than that. And what we did was to weight a brick and find out how much a brick weighed, and then we would tie the string to that and see whether it would hold it or not. And if it would hold it, then we had tested it, you see. We tried it. That is the one way in which the word temptation is used. It's to try something, to prove it, to prove that it can do a certain thing. We didn't put that brick on there to break the string; we devoutly hoped it wouldn't break the string.

Now there is a second meaning that is given, and that is to try or to test by an enticement to sin. That is the meaning given, to try or test one's faith or virtue or character by an enticement to sin. Now James, you remember, he made the very definite statement: "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil." That is, God would never use evil to test you, you see. "Neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." Now the reason that that man is a drunkard today, and we call him now in nice terms an alcoholic and that he's sick, his problem is that he has an old nature that he's given in to, and you couldn't hold God responsible for that. And one man gave me the argument, "Well, God made the grape and he permits it to ferment, so God is responsible." Well, God says that he never tests anybody with evil.

And so this word has two primary meanings. Now may I say that there are several subsidiary meanings under each one of these, but it's going to be technical enough without going into those. Therefore, when Abraham was tested, you remember, God tested or tempted Abraham to offer his son. Now God didn't do it for Abraham because there's some evil in Abraham to be corrected, but he did it to prove that Abraham would go all the way with God. For instance, it says in Genesis 22:12, "Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me."

Now today a Christian is to prove himself. That's one of the things that the Bible says that we're to do. We're to test ourselves. And I'm afraid that a great many of us today have got this awful hang-up that the election of God is such that there's no use giving the gospel to the non-elect, and if I have accepted Christ then I'm alright and no matter which way I go. Well, it doesn't hurt any of us every now and then to test ourselves. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?"

Now every child of God, and I don't care who it is, let a man examine himself whether he be in the faith. And you remember in the prayer which says, "Lead us not into temptation." Well, that hasn't anything in the world to do with evil. I very frankly do not want God to really test me. Lead us not into testings. I don't want the Lord testing me. I don't want him to put me through the tests that he put Job through. He won't tempt you with evil, but he does test us. That is the whole thing.

Paul, you remember, recognized he had an infirmity of the flesh that God had given to him. He says, "Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation"—that is, what kind of a temptation? My testing. He says God gave me that testing—"which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus." Now may I say to you that we're promised, the church is promised they're not going to go through that great tribulation, the great testing that God is bringing on mankind, and that's a judgment.

But we're told, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it." Now the question arises now, can God be tested? Is it possible to test God? And the fact of the matter is, it is possible to do that. You remember that the apostle made it very clear in Acts 15 when the council was in Jerusalem, and it was Simon Peter talking here: "Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" It's an interesting word. You actually are testing God to see what he's going to do.

And I think there are a great many Christians today that see how far they can go in sin or live in the world before God slaps them down. In other words, they're testing God. They're tempting God. And our word here is along that line. And it's possible therefore to tempt God. Is it possible to tempt God the Holy Spirit? Well, Simon Peter again, you remember, in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, he asked Sapphira, he said: "And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?"

You can tempt the Spirit of the Lord. And believe me, you can also tempt the Lord Jesus Christ because he is God. We have the temptation now of Christ. Christ was tempted. All agree that Christ was tempted. But could he have sinned? Somebody says, "Since he's a man, why he could sin." Well, may I say to you, they seem to forget that he had two natures. He was God, he was man. He was very God of very God, and he was very man of very man. And the human nature that he had was not fallen human nature. It was the human nature that Adam had. He's called the second Adam. The first Adam fell, and he had a perfect human nature, but he did yield to temptation, and he fell. This second Adam, he had a perfect human nature, and therefore he was not just a man. He was tempted, tested, in all points like we have.

And you remember that the writer to the Hebrews says, you haven't been tested even unto blood. You and I do not know that awful temptation that came to Christ, not in the wilderness, but in the garden of Gethsemane when he sweat great drops of blood there and prayed, "Let this cup pass from me; if there's any other way, let's do it the other way." He was tested in his perfect humanity in a way that you and I could never have been tested. That's the problem with all of us is that we yield to temptation. And when we do, there's no longer the testing there. And that's the reason Paul says that he's not going to let you be tested above your able. This idea to say, "Oh, I just can't, I can't resist this; I just have to yield to it."

Well, Christ had a perfect human nature. And when you say today that Christ could have sinned, you're joining that *Jesus Christ Superstar* play that was, to my judgment, a blasphemy, and in which Mary is supposed to have said, "He is just a man." That's what you're saying. He's just a man. My Savior was a perfect man. Remember the lamb that was put up always had to be a perfect lamb. And the Lord Jesus made that so clear when he was here. He says, "I'm not of this world." And he said, "The prince of this world cometh and he hath nothing in me." He'll find nothing in me. The very night he went into the garden of Gethsemane, you see. And that very night was when the temptation—I tell you the pressure was put on him there.

And he was tested again. And you'll find this, there are several references that we could give. You remember in Matthew 22:18 he says, "But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?" He could be tested, but he resisted the testings. He was a perfect Savior. Now if there ever was a moment that he could have fallen, then you and I never had a salvation until he ascended back into heaven. He could not have sinned. And the temptations that were brought to him were the same that were brought to the first couple yonder in the garden of Eden. Same one that mankind faced at the beginning. The devil's never been original; he uses the same method and it worked with the first one, and why wouldn't it work with the second? Well, it didn't work with the second.

What is the purpose of the temptation? It's to prove that he could not sin. And let me illustrate with this very homely little story. When I was a boy, I lived in West Texas in a place that is no longer in existence. The name of the town was Burnham. And it was on the spur of the Santa Fe that came down from Amarillo to Sweetwater, Texas. And we lived in this little town Burnham and the train track, I don't suppose we lived over 100 yards from the train track. And somebody said, "Well, you were on the wrong side of the railroad track." My friend, there wasn't any wrong side of the railroad track in Burnham, for the whole town was just on one side, and that's where all of us were.

And so the east fork of the Brazos also went right near our little town. We had a lot going for us there. And in the wintertime when we had the rains and the spring, the rains, you could float a battleship in that river. It'd just spread out everywhere. But in the summertime it dried up and you couldn't rust a shingle nail with the waters in that river. Well, anyway, we had a flood one time and it washed the railroad bridge out. It was an old wooden bridge anyway. So the railroad came in and put up a steel bridge.

And then they brought two locomotives, two old steam locomotives, put them on the bridge and tied the whistles down. Well, all of us that lived in Burnham, we rushed down; we'd never had that much noise and excitement at one time, and we all rushed down there. And when we got down there, there were these two locomotives on that new bridge. And we couldn't imagine why they would do that. When one of the more outspoken members of our citizens went up to the man that, one of the engineers there, and said to him, he says, "What are you doing?" He said, "We're testing the bridge." "Oh," he says, "you going to break it down?" And the engineer looked at him with disdain and disgust and said, "Of course not. We're just proving that the bridge won't fall down this time."

Well, you see, it was tested. It was a temptation, but it wasn't given with the idea of breaking a bridge down; it was to prove it couldn't break down. And my Savior was tested, he was tempted, but he was not tempted in order for him to yield to temptation or because he could yield. He was tested to prove that he could not fall. This is a very important issue today, friends, and especially now when there's an attempt to tear down his deity and to make him not only a man, but to make him less than a man. And therefore it behooves us to defend the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and his sinlessness.

And I feel like I should add something because the questions that will come, I'm sure, will be: well, what about what is said in Hebrews? For instance, Hebrews 4:15: "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Now I think we need to recognize that what the writer here is trying to say to us is that the Lord Jesus Christ is our great high priest today. And all other priests were but shadows of him. And he's able to sympathize with the children of God who are likewise tested because he was himself in all points tested as they are. But we're told here, "yet without sin." That means that he was not tested with the tests that come to a fallen sin nature, because he didn't have a fallen sin nature.

Now we need to defend him from that, because as our great redeemer, he could not himself be involved in the distress and the fallen nature of man which he came to redeem us from. And if he had the slightest taint of sin in his life, then he wasn't able to redeem us; he needed a redeemer. And he could say as we indicated before, "The prince of this world cometh, he hath nothing in me." And the Lord Jesus Christ therefore was tested as a man like Adam was, but he didn't have the human limitations and the human fallen nature that we have.

Now again, there's another scripture that we need to back up to, and it's Hebrews 2:17-18: "Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tested, he is able to succor"—or to help—"them that are tempted." Now this reveals, I think, the wonderful mercy of God and the grace of God that he came down here in man's sphere and he was tested. And it reveals that he is competent as our Savior and that he is therefore able to save us to the uttermost that come unto God through him.

And Christ was tested in the world; men knew nothing of the trial which his holy character endured. I think that's what the writer to the Hebrews is saying over in Hebrews 12: "For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not resisted unto blood, striving against sin." I think here that it's implied that Christ's testing called for a resistance unto blood. And there in the garden of Gethsemane, he fought the battle that Adam lost in the garden of Eden. The Lord Jesus won it there because of who he was.

Host (Male): Well, as we said at the beginning of this program, we only had one question to deal with, but we trust that it was obvious this was certainly a very important one to be asking and answering in a day when men and women are no longer holding to the basic Christian doctrines. We hope that this issue has now been made clear to you and that you've gained an understanding of his doctrine. If you'd like more information on other doctrinal issues, then we suggest that you order Dr. McGee's booklet, *Doctrine for Difficult Days*. It's a comprehensive, easy-to-understand guide that explores biblical doctrine, giving you not only a fuller comprehension of scripture, but also a foundation upon which to build a life of obedience to God.

To order your copy, contact our offices for more information when you call, write, or visit us online. The best way to understand doctrine is to understand the whole Word of God, and we'd like to help you do that by encouraging you to join us every weekday on the *Thru the Bible* program heard on this station. During his study, Dr. McGee will teach through the whole Bible in five years, chapter by chapter and book by book. To be added to our mailing list for notes and outlines, ask about the book or any of our other resources, call 1-800-65-BIBLE, Monday through Thursday from 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time, or write to Questions & Answers in the US, Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. For those in Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. You can also find us on the internet when you visit our site at TTB.org. Our website has a link to our bookstore, free downloads, Facebook, Twitter, and our iPhone and iPad apps. Now until this same time next week, we pray that our God will answer all your questions and solve all your problems.

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