“Christ was perfect because he wanted to be. It
is important to remember that Jesus was capable of sinning, that he could have
succumbed, that the plan of life and salvation could have been foiled, but that
he remained true. Had there been no possibility of his yielding to the
enticement of Satan, there would have been no real test, no genuine victory in
the result. If he had been stripped of the faculty to sin, he would have been
stripped of his very agency. It was he who had come to safeguard and ensure the
agency of man [hence] He had to retain the capacity and ability to sin had he
willed so to do…..He was perfect and sinless, not because he had to be, but
rather because he clearly and determinedly wanted to be. As the Doctrine and Covenants
records, “He suffered temptations but gave no need heed unto them (D&C
20:22).” (Teachings of Howard W. Hunter,
p 4; see also Jesus the Christ, p 134)
I am constantly amazed by the difficulty of
Christ’s life long before the cross and the garden’s gate. Here is the reality
of that: “He was called upon to choose the right in the hardest and most
difficult situations ever imposed upon mortals…..That His temptations were over
and above those of any other person is shown from the Messianic prophecy: “Lo,
he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue,
even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death” (Mosiah 3:7). (Bruce R.
McConkie, The Mortal Messiah, p 418).
We might argue that because of His divine
nature it was easy for Him to resist His temptations but that is not so. Every
temptation has to equal the spiritual stature of the man, otherwise it is not a
temptation. It has no substance if it does not carry with it potential power. The
Saviour’s three greatest temptations are
proof of this.
At the onset of Christ’s ministry, during His
40 days of fasting in the wilderness, the Saviour enjoyed intense communion
with His Father which confirmed His Messianic role (JST Matthew 4:1,2; Talmage,
Jesus the Christ, p 128,9). Each of the Temptations of Christ, were tailored
as a challenge to His divinity. Satan tempted Him with each one to prove that
He really was the Son of God, and disprove the Father’s confirmation of the
same during His wilderness experience. The second temptation is the one that, in
my mind, proves this the most. When the spirit took Him to the pinnacle of the
temple (JST Matthew 4:5a), Satan tempted Him to cast himself down in the midst
of the worshippers below and fulfil the Messianic prophecy that angels would
‘bear him up’. What a beginning to His ministry that would have been! It would
have insured public recognition of Jesus being superior to mortals, “the fame
of which would have spread as fire in the dry grass; and all Jewry would have
been aflame with excitement and interest in the Christ” (Jesus the Christ, p
131). This would have been His great hour! (see Bruce R. McConkie, The
Mortal Messiah, p 414-5).
The restraint that the Saviour exercised not to
use His godly powers whilst in mortality deserves our greatest admiration. His
determination and resistance to sin of any proportion that He might fulfil His
responsibility to save us, deserves our utmost gratitude. He accepted it all
and suffered it all that He might succor us in our extremities (Hebrews
2:17,18) and pave our way to salvation and eternal life.
I gave you my all:
My heart, my body, my soul.
I paved the way
And conquered death.
I wait for you to come
Into the shadow of my wings;
I have paid the price: come unto
Me,
Your God and Your King.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Wounded for our Transgressions by Greg Collins)
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