Andrew's Sermon
God Speaks The Truth We Need To Hear - Satan Tries To Take It From Us
Andrew said, in testing Jesus, Satan was trying to see what kind of "son" he was.This got me thinking about how closely the temptation is tied to the affirmation of Jesus' identity in the previous section. Satan is the deceiver. One of his strategies is to undermine the Truth God wants us to incorporated into our lives. e.g. - "You are loved by God - unconditionally." I say "unconditionally", because God loved us before we ever loved him - while we were still his enemies (Romans 5:10).
We need to hear these Truths. Truths about who we really are. Truths about God's promises for our future. Truth's about God's love for us. We need to hear them so we can shape our lives around them, so our lives will mean something eternally.
Satan's attack is to subvert these truths, to make us doubt them, or forget them. The Father told Jesus a great truth. This truth was tied to his mission on earth. It was the foundation of the great work he had been sent here to do. "You are my beloved Son." Satan's temptation didn't just test Jesus to see what kind of Son he was - it presented an opportunity to not to doubt - but to misuse his sonship. To build his life around a lie about sonship. To see it as a privilege to meet his own needs.
The most characteristic thing about Jesus is that he was willing to lay down his life for others. A self-serving son who used his power or status - could never have been our savior.
The Reality of Jesus' Temptation
Andrew also stressed the reality of Jesus temptation. "Jesus really was tempted." I am not sure what Andrew meant by "really was tempted" but that got me thinking about whether or not a person can be truly tempted if they are incapable of sinning.In theology, there is a debate over something called "peccability". You've probably heard of the term "impeccable" - it means "without sin". So peccability is the ability to sin, and impeccability is the inability to sin.
The debate is basically over whether Christ was capable of sinning. NOT about whether he ACTUALLY sinned, but whether he could have - had he chosen to.
The roots of this debate run deep into the theology of salvation:
The people who believe Jesus was incapable of sin, say that his death atoned for our sin because only an infinitely perfect sacrifice (Jesus = because he was God) could erase all of our sin.
The people who say Jesus was capable of sinning, but remained without sin by choice emphasize the perfect life Jesus lived as our representative as the thing that made his death a "worthy" sacrifice.
I come down on the side that says Jesus could have sinned, but lived a perfect life by choice.
