The Tribulation of Temptation

It's easy to think of temptation in terms of its object. The point, we assume, is that we aren't supposed to have something we want. If a Porsche drives by, we identify the automobile itself as our temptation, that somehow it is the car itself that is tempting. This is completely wrong: the temptation isn't the car, but to engage in sinful thoughts about the car, i.e., envy and covetousness.

To be mistaken on this point leads to two problems. The first is to make us think that objects themselves are bad; the second, and worse, mistake is to think that temptation itself is somehow sin, that we incur guilt when we are tempted. If this latter point were true, Christ Himself would have been guilty of sin, because He was tempted by the Devil in the desert.

This temptation of Jesus is often presented with an underlying confusion. If Christ was, by His nature, not able to succumb to temptation, why did His temptation at the hands of Satan make Him exhausted to the point that angels had to administer to Him? This confusion, it seems to me, results from the objectification of temptation.

If Christ's exhaustion resulted from His desire for what the Devil offered, His sinless nature and perpetual sinless state would be called into question. As Christ Himself points out again and again, it isn't simply our actions that implicate us, but our thoughts and attitudes as well, anything that is in opposition to God's will and Law.

On the other hand, if we take temptation to be another form of tribulation or trial, a hardship we endure rather than a desire we repress, there is no confusion. Christ was so exhausted because His temptation came directly from the Devil himself. Things aren't bad in themselves: Christ in fact received all the things the Devil offered Him, but from God not Satan.

How much more able to withstand temptation will we be if we can learn to see it as tribulation rather than simply thwarted desire? It's not that the sin we want to commit is something that actually should be desired: the point is that we endure the temptation and conquer it through Jesus' power and grace because it should not be desired. Temptation is no sin, but we must resist it so that we do not sin.