Temptation As Suffering
Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.
– C. S. Lewis
It’s easy to think that because Jesus was perfect, it was easy for him to resist sin. But then we read verses like Hebrews 2:18: “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”
Do I suffer when tempted? If I don’t, it’s probably not that I don’t have temptations, but that I give in to them too easily. I fail to recognize and prepare for temptation. I lose the will to resist. I don’t ask for help, or believe that help is possible. I don’t do whatever I can to escape. I start formulating excuses in my mind even as I give in.
C.S. Lewis writes in his book Mere Christianity:
A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.”
Picture someone straining to walk against the wind: that person feels its full force and sting. They are aware of the thin spots in their clothing, the exertion of their muscles. They know more about their own weaknesses and strengths and the real force of what they face, they are making more forward progress, than the person who simply lies down and yields.
And if we’ve faced the occasional gust in our lives, Jesus’ life was one long gale, one long tempest, for he never lay down. He never gave in. Nearly everything (maybe everything) we do is tainted by sin, in motive or degree if not outright, but Jesus was utterly sinless. That is important to keep clear. Yet he was tempted “in every respect” as we are (“who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin,” Hebrews 4:15). Every respect. No exceptions. I have no idea what that would have felt like, to be perfect in every respect, yet tempted in every respect. But we are told it was suffering.
Which leaves me to ask, am I willing to suffer through temptation? Am I willing to identify and be watchful of whatever draws me from obedience to God? Am I willing to train myself, to believe I can overcome it by the Spirit’s power? When it’s not easy, am I willing to suffer? I don’t think the answer to that is ever gotten by looking at the law, but by looking at the one who yes, not only suffered, but did so for my sake. Resisting temptation is not a matter of self-control so much as love. As Phylicia Masonheimer puts it, “You are as safe from sin as you are close to Christ.” Which is a re-phrasing of how John Owen put it: “He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.”
And my great thought of God today is simply this: Jesus suffered through temptation more than I ever have or ever will. He felt its full force. He understands what it feels like, probably more than I do. And because of that, he can help me in this. I am not alone.
