Paul wrote in his first letter to the church at Corinth: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
Paul writes about the longing to give in when earthly desires seem too strong to bear. This is a message of grace from Christ, who was tempted but never succumbed.
How Was Christ Tempted?
Jesus was confronted with the choice to either sin or obey God, not just once but often. Matthew 4:2 tells us that Jesus “was hungry,” emphasizing the fact that Jesus was a real, mortal man.
Hunger is a normal biological reminder to give our bodies fuel. Eating was not wrong, except that Christ had entered a period of fasting as an act of obedience to God.
He would have sinned if he had used his gifts to make break materialize when it was most convenient to him and to do so at the urging of his enemy; to use his gifts for immediate personal satisfaction.
This is an example of how Satan sometimes tempts people into evil by starting with a reasonable idea and building it into something unholy.
Satan said, “Throw yourself off this cliff and the angels will rescue you. Jesus replied, “It is written ‘you shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (v. 7). God does look after his people and encourages us to pray to him when we are in need.
But the devil wasn’t urging Jesus to answer a need; he was suggesting that Jesus create a need and expect God to rescue him. That’s manipulation.
Finally, Satan tempted Jesus with power, showing him the people and the lands below them, declaring he would give them to Jesus “if you will fall down and worship me,” to which Christ replied, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (vv. 9-10).
Satan offered Jesus a gift that was not his to give. If Jesus had accepted this gift, Satan would have been Jesus’ master. As it stood, Jesus was in full control of what was going on. He told Satan to “be gone!” (v. 10), and the devil slunk off, defeated.
Dallas Willard explained that “Satan was fully aware that only Jesus could break his grip on the human world, devoted as it is to power and deceit, and only Jesus could deliver human beings from the mire of sin and evil in which they floundered. [Jesus] would set alight a new order that does not employ the devices evil persons use to try to secure themselves and get their way.”
The biggest temptation Jesus faced was to reject the cross, to say that he was not the Messiah, so he might have avoided the agony of crucifixion.
But Jesus went to his Father in prayer and said, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).
Yes, he knows how it feels to face a trial and to consider the option of avoiding it, but Jesus did not run. He knows how we are feeling, even in the midst of major crises and unbearable pain.
The Subtle Temptations
But there are many other times Jesus could have sinned and didn’t. He could have been a people pleaser but decided to tell the truth instead, like when he called the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 3:7).
He told the woman at the well “everything I ever did” (John 4:29). That included her sexual immorality. Our Savior wasn’t merely nice; he came to save lost people, and he made them uncomfortable.
They needed to hear the truth if any among them were going to be saved because first, they had to wake up to the fact that they neededsaving.
We might not think Christ ever felt rejected or isolated because we don’t see Jesus resisting the urge to spread gossip or say nice things he didn’t mean. But he didn’t do those things because he wasn’t full of malice and dishonesty.
His whole heart was full of love for us and love for God, so his response to rejection came from that reality. He told his listeners, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34), meaning that when bad things spill out, that’s because they were there the whole time.
If we fill ourselves up with redemptive thinking and God’s own words, what spills out will be full of grace, truth, and love. That’s what was inside of Jesus’ heart — grace. He said, “Forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34).
What Is Paul’s Promise from Christ?
Paul insisted that God will not allow us to be tempted more than we can endure but will always give us a kind of emergency exit. It doesn’t feel like that when we are under pressure.
When was the last time you said, “I’m never binging on cookies again!” and then had to brush the crumbs off your shirt before anyone saw them?
Or did you get involved in gossip, happy to be included, glad they weren’t talking about you, at least not for now? Maybe your temptation is a substance; perhaps it’s a pattern of thinking which promotes anger and negative assumptions about people’s motives.
Paul says God “will not let you be tempted beyond your ability,” and yet you have caved to sin over and over. What is wrong with Paul? Is he a liar? While we want the problem to rest with someone else, in reality, we’re our own worst enemies.
If temptation feels like a trap we feel powerless to avoid walking into. Paul says there is an alternative route you haven’t looked for.
God will help us to endure, but we have to know where to find the tools of endurance and escape that he has given us. There are two main tools that spring to mind:
- The Word of God
- A Desire to Follow Christ
Scripture as Weaponry
Jesus fought Satan using the Evil One’s own tactic — quoting Scripture. Only since Jesus knows God’s will and his intentions and has a relationship with the Father was he able to quote the Word accurately to the purposes for which it was intended.
Willard made it plain: “Rather than speak on his own behalf, he used the Scriptures to respond to Satan. He spoke to them directly to him, using the authority of God’s Word to defend himself against Satan’s attempted deceptions.”
Scripture is not ammunition for manipulating God or for having our own way. The Bible tells us who God is and what he wants. His heart yearns for us to stop thinking of our own wishes and follow him in better ways, even if that means we suffer along the way.
God “will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure [temptation].” Endure or hupopheró in the Greek means “ to bear by being under, bear up (a thing placed on one's shoulders); tropically, to bear patiently, to endure.” We don’t get out of suffering, but we can get away from sinning.
And what Jesus said to Satan at the moment of his distress reminds us to be ready with the Word, not merely wait for stressors to assail us and then try to be God-centered.
By all means, turn to him when tempted; even turn to him for the first time; but then remember how powerless you felt and pursue God’s instructions, promises, his character proactively because they are lovely things you want to know.
They are most effective when you lay them down foundationally before trouble starts. “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8).
A Desire to Follow Christ
Why would you bother to endure anything, though? Why not fight through it by living your best life now? By having all the fun you can, to heck with the consequences?
Why not drown your sorrows in alcohol every night? After all, follow the Father, obey him, love him, and expect to experience pain.
But we endure rather than running away because we want to follow Christ. We want to be like him, to do what he does, to feel the closeness of loving and tender relationship with the Father.
We know that, because we are in him and he overcame, we will also overcome sin and suffering and rise out of our own graves at the end of all time, into the glorious light of Christ’s Kingship. We will rise as heirs, no longer suffering, no longer tired or tempted.
How Do We Know it Will Work?
We fight temptation by placing our hope in Christ, by wanting to be like him, and by reading the Word. The best way to know what he is like and how he wants us to act is to read what he said and what those closest to Jesus said about him.
We don’t read the Bible, so we are too busy to be tempted; we read the Bible to fill ourselves up with truth and grace and to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). It doesn’t look perfect in our lives, but it’s beautiful.
For further reading:
What Is Temptation in Christianity?
Why Do We Pray 'Lead Us Not into Temptation'?
What Does the Bible Mean by 'No Temptation Has Overtaken You'?
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