He starts getting cold feet: “If it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”
That is not at all necessarily doubt. Why is it not just a perfectly understandable aversion to what he knew was coming? He should have been masochistic?
The case is made in the words I quoted from the temptation and the mockers at the cross: If you are the Son of God … Satan tempted Jesus by questioning his self-understanding and daring him to put it to the test. “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” If Jesus never had a doubt about his identity, then the temptation to doubt was no temptation at all.
Likewise, the crowd surrounding the cross (like bulls, roaring lions, a pack of dogs and villains) taunted Jesus by saying, “Save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” The next words that Jesus speaks are the cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” As before, Satan tempts Jesus to doubt his identity, and the temptation had to be real for it to have any meaning. Christ resisted the doubts, but that doesn’t deny the reality that he experienced them as we do.
Devil’s words: “If you are the Son of God” (Matt. 4:3). These words place seeds of doubt in Jesus’ head. One wonders if they played like a tape in his mind at points where he suffered or experienced loss because of his ministry.
Wonderful! We are getting a lower and lower Jesus by the second. Now we have one which listens to the words of the devil and plays the words over and over in his head. I think I will give a pass on this religion of yours. I prefer the one told of in the Bible, where 3 temptations are answered perfectly with scripture and without hesitation.
temptation is not a sin.
Agreed. But let me remind you of Jesus’ standards with regards to sin.
Matthew 5:22 But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.
Matthew 5:28 But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.
Matthew 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
temptation is not a sin.
So I quite a agree and will add that making a mistake is also not a sin. Making mistakes is part of the learning process. Nor do I think sin is disobedience either. That is an invention of fascists and those using religion for the purpose of power. A sin is a self-destructive habit – it is doing something over again… like three times at least.
Being tempted to doubt is not doubting. "I wonder… nah!
What did he say, while on the cross?
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Luke 23:34
How is this possible? Doesn’t 100% human mean that he would curse his tormentors and tell them to go to hell? I guess we must reject this as one of the things people added to the text later because they wanted a superhero Jesus. (heavy sarcasm font)
Doubt isn’t doubt if the thought isn’t entertained. Doubt isn’t sin. Otherwise, I’ve said all I care to say. I realize this idea doesn’t fit with some folks’ conception of Jesus, but I’m not going to try to resolve that question here. Carry on.
1 Like
Agreed. But the thought can be immediately dismissed as I indicated above. Jesus was confident about who he was when he was 12, not that he didn’t have more to learn.
Shalom.
(Jesus talked about his imminent death and resurrection quite purposefully, and you might say confidently, in several places in the Gospels.)
I don’t know where you were going with that, but it widely misses the point. We were talking about Jesus’ doubting, and the point of the quote was that Jesus knew full well who he was and was not uncertain, but that the soldiers did not know who he was and that they were crucifying the Son of God.
@Jay313, @JRM: Since doubt is not a sin, then neither is being tempted to doubt a temptation to sin.
So that is not what was going on in Matthew 4. In the first instance, he was being tempted to give his hunger an unrighteous and selfish priority. That was the temptation. Neither were the second nor third instances of “If* you are the son of God” temptations to doubt who he was. They were temptations to pridefully misuse his power and to idolatrously worship the devil and to selfishly gain politically. He did not doubt in Gethsemane, he did not doubt on the cross, and it has nothing to do with being a superhero.
*The “If you are the Son of God…” could be replaced by “Since you are the Son of God…” in each case to the same rhetorical effect. They were challenges, dares, not temptations to doubt. Likewise on the cross.
1 Like
um… no.
3 Likes
@Dale
Of course it doesn’t, no more than100% human means that He would pray to God out of fear of death and torture. All Jesus’ talk that the son of man will be put to death only makes this even more unlikely, since He was clearly well prepared for that outcome. I also don’t think He had any doubt or uncertainty of who He was… OR why He was there. Even though I don’t think He had any super powers, I do think He had a solid relationship with His Father in heaven – and did so from early childhood as Dale noted. And He had knowledge from the Father about many things – he knew very well that if they put Him to death that He would be resurrected in three days John 2:19. I don’t buy the arguments of modern Biblical scholarship discounting such things any more than you do. 100% human doesn’t change any of that. And that is why I am not buying into the explanation for His prayers in the garden being that He doesn’t want to die – it is absurd to me.
What does make sense to me, is that He wasn’t completely convinced at that point that death on the cross was the best way or the only way of bringing salvation to mankind. Though I think He became convinced of this by the end of those three prayers in the garden. It tells me that Jesus’ death on the cross was not something demanded by God but rather a necessity because of the nature and extent of human sin. The whole story of the Bible from the beginning has been one of God’s disappointment not only by mankind as a whole but by many whom He had chosen with high hopes that they could do better than they did. Let us remember that Jesus was never JUST a sacrificial lamb. He was a lot more than that. He had lot to teach us and show us. I think the whole situation was much more complicated than just a divine human sacrifice.
When the incarnation of God became a fairy tale…
You are just hyping up one part of the gospels and using it to reject another part. This is you imposing your will on scripture. It says what you want it to.
Some of you might be interested in George MacDonald’s take on Christ’s interaction with temptation in his unspoken sermon: “The Temptation in the Wilderness”.
He touches on a lot of other stuff at the beginning, but toward the end, I think that he (like you, @Vinnie) sees the temptations as necessarily real ones for him, lest we empty that concept (not to mention his genuine humanity) of any real meaning.
I didn’t find the first part of this (link to George MacDonald’s unspoken sermon) very comprehensible – like some kind of mystical poetry. But the latter part was interesting though highly speculative. It fits well with my general approach to seek as much meaning in scripture as I can. Nevertheless any attempt like this to read motivations and thinking into someone which are not actually spoken of or explained by themselves must be read with considerable skepticism. Often the most we really expect of such speculations is a demonstration that explanations are possible even if we cannot be so sure what those explanations really are. In this case, we can reserve judgments about the triviality of those 3 temptations because it is quite possible that there was a great deal more going on between the lines.
You don’t know me or anything about me. So much for gracious dialogue. I’ll leave you to it.
My response was to Dale’s response to you, not to you.
Vinnie
Which part am I ‘hyping’ and which part am I ‘rejecting’?
1 Like
Thanks for the clarification. But I’d still suggest you owe @Dale an apology. We may disagree on the exact interpretation of the passages, but it’s an insult to say he’s imposing his will on scripture and making it say what he wants it to. At the very least, it violates the community standards of “imputing motives” to someone. Just my 2c.
1 Like