1Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness 2for forty days, being tempted by the devil. He ate nothing in those days. Afterward, when they were completed, he was hungry.
3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
4Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’”
5The devil, leading him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6The devil said to him, “I will give you all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I want. 7If you therefore will worship before me, it will all be yours.”
8Jesus answered him, “Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’”
9He led him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down from here, 10for it is written,
‘He will put his angels in charge of you, to guard you;’
11and,
‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest perhaps you dash your foot against a stone.’”
12Jesus answering, said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”
13When the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him until another time.
14Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and news about him spread through all the surrounding area. 15He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
16He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. He entered, as was his custom, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He opened the book, and found the place where it was written,
18“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to heal the broken hearted,
to proclaim release to the captives,
recovering of sight to the blind,
to deliver those who are crushed,
19and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
20He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21He began to tell them, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
22All testified about him and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
23He said to them, “Doubtless you will tell me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done at Capernaum, do also here in your hometown.’” 24He said, “Most certainly I tell you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25But truly I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land. 26Elijah was sent to none of them, except to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed, except Naaman, the Syrian.”
28They were all filled with wrath in the synagogue as they heard these things. 29They rose up, threw him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill that their city was built on, that they might throw him off the cliff. 30But he, passing through the middle of them, went his way.
31He came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. He was teaching them on the Sabbath day, 32and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word was with authority. 33In the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon; and he cried out with a loud voice, 34saying, “Ah! what have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God!”
35Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” When the demon had thrown him down in the middle of them, he came out of him, having done him no harm.
36Amazement came on all and they spoke together, one with another, saying, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” 37News about him went out into every place of the surrounding region.
38He rose up from the synagogue and entered into Simon’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a great fever, and they begged him to help her. 39He stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she rose up and served them. 40When the sun was setting, all those who had any sick with various diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. 41Demons also came out of many, crying out and saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of God!” Rebuking them, he didn’t allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.
42When it was day, he departed and went into an uninhabited place and the multitudes looked for him, and came to him, and held on to him, so that he wouldn’t go away from them. 43But he said to them, “I must preach the good news of God’s Kingdom to the other cities also. For this reason I have been sent.” 44He was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee.
Jesus Christ was fully God and fully human and these facts raise the question of the potential for sin in the life of Jesus. Since Jesus was fully human, does that mean there was a sinful nature? The issue of the possibility of Jesus Christ yielding to temptation and sinning deals with the theological terms peccability and impeccability and come from the Latin word peccare, “to sin.” If one holds to the peccability of Jesus, then their position is that Christ could sin, but didn’t do so. If one argues for impeccability then the position is that Christ could not sin. The discussion is one regarding the phrases “able not to sin” and “not able to sin.”
In accordance with the teaching of Scripture, both views acknowledge that Christ’s temptations were real (Heb. 4:15), Christ experienced struggle (Matt. 26:36-46), and Christ did not sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 7:26; James 5:6; 1 Pet. 2:22, 3:18; 1 John 3:5). Those who argue that Christ could sin contend that it is a logical deduction that if and since Christ was tempted, He could have sinned. To say that He could not sin is to say the temptations were not real and that ultimately He cannot truly sympathize with humanity. They also contend that if the possibility of sinning did not exist then Jesus did not have freedom of the will.
In response, the fact that Jesus could be and was tempted does not mean that He was susceptible to sin. By analogy, we note that just because an army can be attacked, that does not mean that the army can be conquered. Because of Christ’s unique nature (without a sinful nature), that which applies to us (temptation and susceptibility) does not necessarily apply to Christ. Christ can understand and sympathize with human suffering and temptation because although His temptations were not always exactly parallel to those that we experience, His human nature was tried. The temptations of Christ were in every way like ours except that they did not originate in Himself; He was tempted from without, not from within. Jesus Christ manifested His free will by not sinning. Although tempted like us, Jesus never sinned. Because Jesus uniquely had two natures, fully divine and fully human, those natures existed and functioned simultaneously. Had his human nature existed independently then Jesus theoretically Jesus could have sinned. However, it did not exist as such. Both the human and divine natures existed fully in Jesus from the moment of conception. Had Jesus sinned, the act would have involved both natures and Jesus would then not have been truly God. Our conclusion must be therefore that it was not possible for Jesus to sin. The temptations of Jesus were real because He did not give in to them. We must always remember that when thinking about issues such as these we are dealing the Jesus as fully God and fully human—something that never has been and never will be true of anyone else. It is also something that we are unable to fully comprehend. We must affirm the teachings of Scripture and do so knowing that our understanding of them is true but incomplete.