“It’s not a sin to be tempted; it’s only a sin if you give in to the temptation.”
This is one of those axioms of the Christian faith, one of those fundamental propositions that everybody says, and we all accept, first, because it makes so much sense, and second, because it makes us feel a lot better, and we need all the feeling better we can get.
Pretty much everybody teaches this principle as axiomatic. Roman Catholics do. People in the Church of Christ do. Mark Driscoll does. Rick Warren does. Pretty much every conservative evangelical church does.
But is it true?
Well, it must be true, right? If everybody says so. And if being tempted is sinful, we’re all toast, right? What chance do we have?
I’d like to suggest that The Axiom is overly simplistic—that the biblical view of temptation is slightly more complex than we’re seeing.
Here’s why.
The key biblical principle underlying The Axiom is that Jesus was tempted, and he never sinned. Since the Scripture says that directly (Heb 4.15), it is of course true.
So it is possible to be tempted without sin. But the question for us is deeper than that. Is there no temptation that is sinful in itself? Is it only entertaining or acting on the temptation that places us in a position of sin? Is no temptation sinful?
The Bible has a lot to say about the nature and sources of temptation. Paul writes that in our lives before regeneration, we found ourselves following “the course of this world, … the prince of the power of the air, … in the passions of our flesh” (Eph 2.2-3). From there Christian theologians, beginning apparently with Peter Abelard, standardized the sources of temptation as “the world, the flesh, and the devil.”
Which of these served as the source of Jesus’ temptation? Well, in the most famous temptation event—we assume that there may well have been others—his temptation came directly from the devil (Mat 4.1ff; Lk 4.1ff). It’s important to note that these temptations originated outside of him; they were imposed on him from an outside source.
The flesh, of course, is internal to us. And John tells us that the world brings to us “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1Jn 2.16)—which sounds as though it’s at least partially internal to us as well. Did Jesus face the temptation of the flesh? Or the world, in John’s sense of “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”? We have to rule both of those out, given that Jesus, conceived without sin by the Holy Spirit (Mat 1.20; Lk 1.35), did not have a fallen, sinful nature.
But what about us? Do any of our temptations come from within us? Do we ever tempt ourselves? We certainly feel as though we do, and James seals that suspicion by telling us that “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (Jam 1.14).
I would suggest that temptation is sinful when it starts within you. It’s sinful when you do it to yourself.
And we’ve all had that experience.
There’s a part of us that rises up in rebellion against our good and kind Creator, casts aside his laws and his desires, and seeks to go our own way.
And that, my friend, is blameworthy. It’s culpable. It’s sinful.
Whether you act on those desires or not.
Now, how are we inclined to respond to that?
If I’ve already sinned in being tempted, then I might just as well go ahead and do it. Phooey.
Not so, for two reasons.
First, there are practical consequences in pursuing sinful actions, consequences that limit our future choices and which we ought to avoid.
But much more importantly, we’re God’s children; he is our father; and we ought not do those things. That is reason enough.
But all of this is overshadowed and overwhelmed by a great and glorious truth.
All your sin is obliterated. Nuked. Gone. All of it.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you.
henry shirah says
There’s that sucking sound as the O2 leaves the room. I have always figured I am responsible for all my sins and all the temptations that precede them. I control the TV remote and the login to the internet and who my friends are and what upsets me etc. The world, the flesh and the devil seem adequate as an explanation for the problem at hand. Then there are my relatives, namely Adam and Eve who gave me an inheritance not asked for. You redeemed the blog in next to the last line but the rest is “oh my, here we go again”.
Daniel Burrell says
You raise an excellent point asking if there is any temptation that is sinful in itself, but I am having difficulty moving past the “all” in Heb 4:15 – Jesus “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” The Bible seems to make it clear that our High Priest understands us and can relate to our struggles because He Himself faced all the same types of temptation but triumphed in righteousness which is all transfered to our accounts upon salvation. Christ did not have a sin nature passed down from an earthly father, but he still faced the effects of a sin-cursed world full of fatigue, pain, injustice, filthy feet, hunger, bitterness and every negative emotion. So back to the primary question, if there is a temptation that is sinful in and of itself, then how is it possible for Christ to have faced every issue we do as our perfect example in all things—yet without sin? The Bible makes it clear that He never sinned, but He accomplished this perfection while either being tempted in all points as we are or else being tempted in less than all matters of tempatation in which case doubt is cast upon His Word and He may not be able to relate to and understand us as well as we supposed. What are your thoughts Sir?
Dan Olinger says
I look at it this way. The Heb passage cannot mean that he was tempted from the same sources we are, since he had no sinful nature. What else could it mean? I’d suggest that it could, and probably does, mean that he was tempted to every degree that we are–in other words, as intensely as we are.
And that would surely be the case, because in many of our temptations we give in before the temptation is finished, thereby never experiencing it to its fullest degree. But since he never gave in, the temptation always proceeded against him until it was exhausted; that is, he always endured it to its fullest degree.
He has experienced all that we have, and then some.