HOW MANY TEMPTATIONS DID CHRIST FACE?
George Burnside
How many temptations do you face? One? Or a great many?
HEBREWS 4:15 Jesus was "tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin." HEBREWS 12:3 We are to "Consider Him" "lest you be wearied and faint."
HEBREWS 12:4 Jesus "resisted unto blood striving against sin." That is what our salvation cost. Too many downgrade the sacrifice of Jesus to just a few hours.
HOLINESS
HEBREWS 12:10 "That we might be partakers of His holiness."
HEBREWS 12:14 "We are to "Follow holiness without which no man shall see God." HEBREWS 12:15 "Looking diligently" lest you fail of that holiness.
“Fail of the Grace of God."
"Cheap grace" which is so popular, does not produce obedience.
OUR SAVIOUR WON GRACE FOR US
JOHN 1:17 "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Grace brings power to follow Truth. ROMANS 1:4 Jesus gives "power according to the spirit of holiness."
ROMANS 1:5 We receive "Grace for obedience to the faith." Grace enables and gives power for obedience. Of our condescending Savior we read:
HEBREWS 5:8,9 "Yet learned He obedience."
Therefore obedience must be important. As a man He “Emptied Himself." As a man He learned obedience. "By the things He suffered."
Therefore this was during His life as a man, not at His death. He was tempted in all points. Adam was tempted in only One point.
The tree of knowledge had been made a test of their obedience and their love to God. The Lord had seen fit to lay upon them but one prohibition as to the use of all that was in the garden; but if they should disregard His will in this particular, they would incur the guilt of transgression. Satan was not to follow them with continual temptations; he could have access to them only at the forbidden tree. Patriarchs and Prophets, page 52.
God would not permit Satan to follow the holy pair with continual temptations. He could have access to them only at the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 3 Spiritual Gifts, page 39.
GENESIS 2:16,17 There is a strange proof of the truth of the Bible in the fact that the story of the fall is found all over the world.
The Serpent Coils Around the World
Also the universal heathen worship of the snake. In India, Egypt, Incas, Aztec, China, Solomons, etc.
Adam's One Test. It was not:
EXODUS 20:4 Images.
EXODUS 20:7 Take God's name in vain.
EXODUS 20:12 Honor thy Father and Mother.
EXODUS 20:13 Kill, Adultery, Steal.
EXODUS 20:16 False witness against thy neighbor.
EXODUS 20:17 Covet thy neighbor's house, wife, etc.
Adam was tempted on only ONE point.
Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are.
Christ faced our sinful problem for us.
Not as sinless Adam.