Is that a really good question on the subreddit that came in? It's uh reddit.com r slash T and DH podcast. How do you use that? The conversation's been great. Um, the question goes like this is from Justin J. Coates, and the question is very simply was it possible for Jesus to fail the temptation? I'm gonna read you what he wrote because I thought it was pretty smart. Justin said, I can say up front, I think it was possible. I'm just not sure how or what the consequences of failure would have been. On the one hand, I have a hard time understanding how God could ever sin. Isn't God the standard that we use to define what sin is? It's not like there's a higher objective right and wrong that God is adhering to. In that case, that standard would be above God. So if sin is just everything that doesn't align with God's nature or will, then how would God sin? It's like asking how could light be dark? It starts to get nonsensical. On the other hand, I feel like it had to be possible for Jesus to give in to the temptation or the whole scenario becomes meaningless. If Jesus felt no real temptation, then he was just checking a box to say that he had been tempted, which feels wrong. And scripture doesn't support that anyway. Hebrews claims Jesus was tempted just like everyone else. So if Jesus was both fully God and fully human, then how do you reconcile those two things? And I've I've been seeing some of these really smart questions come in. And I have a few people in my life who I really trust and who think about this stuff, and I had my friend Aaron Utecht on the other day to answer one of these. And another person who's probably the most formative person ever in how I think about the Bible and faith and maybe the world in general is my dad. So I called him up and want to see if my dad would jump on. Dad, did it work? Are you on the phone?
SPEAKER_01I'm here.
SPEAKER_00All right, this is this is my dad. My dad's name is Rex Whitman, but I call him dad. So I'm gonna go with dad. Yeah, what do you think, dad? Could Jesus have failed the temptation?
SPEAKER_01You know, as you were talking about it, uh, that was the first time I'd heard the question. But you know, I I as you were talking, one of the things that came to mind was is it a test or um uh is it a tempting or a test? And you know, at times the same word is used in the original language. And uh I think in some ways that it was more of a testing than maybe the fullest aspect of a temptation simply because he is God, um, I think he had to confront that, but part of it was to prove that he was the Son of God. Um well I think there was an aspect of when he went into the wilderness in that whole passage in Matthew about uh the temptation in the wilderness, one of the things that you see is this contrast to uh to Genesis uh three, where there was uh a case of Adam really being in a perfect environment, in a perfect situation, um and temptation came and he failed miserably. Right. At the same point, Christ was in the desert and had everything against him and yet succeeded. And I think in a way, part of that was I think a part of the whole process of redemption, that Christ had to be sinless, and in a way, he needed to go through that testing, I think, in a sense to undo the effects of uh of the original fall. If he was going to be man and restore man to to a redeemed position, he had to be the representative who conquered the sin and the temptation. And I think in a way it's maybe a moot question as to was he really tempted or or uh or not because I think his the point there is that this is a part of of just that whole redemption process of redeeming man. If Christ had not been sinless, then the events of the cross would be meaningless. And I think that's why Matthew puts that in there.
SPEAKER_00It's interesting that that you're going with with Adam on the podcast here. Uh we've been likening Jesus passing the test or comparing Jesus passing the test with some other Old Testament characters who failed to pass the test, and we assume that we would fail to pass the test. But by going to Adam, that I mean, it it's obviously reminiscent of Romans 5, and you know what I'm gonna read, but for the benefit of everybody listening, Romans 5.12 famously says, Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, so that's Adam again, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all men, because all sinned, for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but sin is not taken into account where there is no law. And there's a lot we we'll have to unpack when we talk about this more in depth someday. But nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as Adam did, who was a pattern of the one to come. And then I just got to keep reading, I'm sorry. But but the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, Adam, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, uh, overflow to the many? And that that passage obviously goes on to unpack that even more. So but by going to Adam, I mean, you you sound like you sound like Paul, which is a compliment.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah. Paul and I hang out together a lot.
SPEAKER_00I understand that we are of similar stature to Paul. Okay, yeah, yeah. No one will have to feel intimidated.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but but I do think there's a connection, and I think Matthew was probably making a very intentional connection to the temptation in the garden, and he was showing that this is a a new era, a new age, a beginning of the kingdom. And in order for the kingdom to begin, there had to be a victory over sin. And and so whether Jesus could or couldn't have sinned, the fact is he overcame it. And I think that's the point that Matthew is is making. I think we're maybe debating the wrong question when we start getting lost in uh what is it, pose picare and pose non picare? Yeah, all of that.
SPEAKER_00I mean, those those are but those are questions about, and for everybody listening, those are those are Latin phrases describing different possibilities about the ability of people to sin or be without sin. Could Adam have not sinned? So those are about those are about the question of human frailty and and whether we're determined to sin. And and so but the Jesus question I think I think the thing I really like the most about the question that Dustin J. Coates asks on the subreddit is like he's just getting into and to use the fancy theology term, the immutability of God. Could he change? Can God fail, or is whatever God does, does that just automatically become right when he does it? And I don't know, it's it seems like God must be, by definition, internally consistent with his own nature, but I don't know, am I overstating it?
SPEAKER_01Well, I I you know, and and I and I guess you come back to the dual nature of Christ as God and man, and I think this is part of the debate is you know, in his God nature an impossibility to sin, and yet was in the human nature was that a possibility. Now there's also the aspect that he was sinless, and and as a sinless human being, some would say, Well, the the cards are still stacked that he's really not going to sin, and he's it's it's going through the the motions. And and in that human aspect, I think, you know, it there may have been a possibility because of the dual nature what would have happened if he had. If Christ had sinned, you mean or if Adam had sinned. If if Christ had sinned, I think it would have invalidated the effectiveness of of the cross to redeem us from from sin, to even pay the price. You know, other passages of scripture indicate that that uh you know one man, particularly a sinful man, can't really save right anyone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01One perfect man and only man could only save one other man.
SPEAKER_00I think there would have been a singularity. I think there would have been like an implosion within all of the Trinity and existence because that thing which gives order and structure and moral framework to everything would would be in conflict with itself. It would break like the very thing that creates the law of binary opposition and everything that we view as making sense suddenly doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the very nature of God would have been threatened, you know, if he is truly, you know, the uh a member of the Godhead or a member of the Trinity, that would have, as you say, it would have affected the very nature of God. And uh it's sort of like uh you know, you talk about the Titanic going down, and and yet you could isolate certain uh sections and say, well, we can separate it into this section so that yeah, the water doesn't drain in and take down the Titanic. But by the way, it all happened, the whole ship went down. And I think in a way it would it would create a crisis within the Godhead, and I think it would have called into question the whole thing of the Messiah, it would have called into question the whole thing of of prophecy, uh, it would have called in the honesty and integrity of the God of the universe and the creator. Um I think it would have it would have transformed history as much in a negative way as what the cross and the resurrection accomplished in a very positive way in history.
SPEAKER_00That's well said. Well, thanks for gaming it out with me, Dad. So my dad works at a church and you guys still put that stuff online?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00We we do our service uh you know each Sunday on uh if somebody somebody wants to check in on what you do, how do they find that?
SPEAKER_01Well, they just go to firstbaptistriverton.com to see our website, or if they want to go to YouTube to join us, uh they can go to uh First Baptist Riverton on YouTube.
SPEAKER_00So you you literally stream your church service on Sunday morning. Yeah, we do.
SPEAKER_01We do. So so you get to see all my warts and you're gonna see me when I fumble and mess up and come home discouraged after Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00You put the camera at home too, so people can see you when you're discouraged.
SPEAKER_01Well, you don't see the depression, but you see me, you know, yeah, you see me faltering in the pulpit sometimes. So it's warts and all.
SPEAKER_00Whatever. I think you're great at it. I love you, Dad. Thanks for being on the podcast.
SPEAKER_01Love you too. Have a great one. All right.
SPEAKER_00I'm Matt, the Stemin and a Bible Hour Podcast. Thanks for hanging out with me and my dad. See you tomorrow.