(Continued from page 171).
IV. THE OBJECT OF CHRIST’S TEMPTATION.
We have already seen why, in general, God permits the adversary to tempt His children. We are next to consider, on what account He suffered the Lord Jesus Himself to be tempted. And here first we must solemnly protest against that horribly heretical notion, that Jesus was led into the furnace of temptation, that by conflict and contest, wrestling and prayer, He might overcome, mortify, and kill sin in His own flesh! We dare not for a moment allow such a thought respecting our most holy and blessed Saviour. That God sent to us His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, we know and acknowledge; but it was in the likeness only, and not in sinful flesh itself. He was in all things made like unto His brethren (Heb. ii. 17), with the exception of one point, and that one point was sin. God be thanked that the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, is as clear upon this subject, as is the light of noon day. With the perfect sinlessness of our great Mediator, the whole fabric of evangelical hope must stand or fall. Were the white raiment of his innocence soiled with the least stain of an unholy attribute, were it possible for heaven, earth, or hell, to point out “any such thing” in his nature, then we should have nothing to do but to shut up our churches, burn our Bibles, cast away our confidence, and yield ourselves up to despair. For then could Jesus be no Saviour of men, neither could the payment he has made for us have any value whatsoever.
We have already remarked, that the temptations which came upon him were undergone entirely for our sakes; inasmuch as they were part of his vicarious and sacrificial sufferings. We have seen our first parents tempted by the serpent; and their presumption impelling them at once into the whirlwind of the abyss. The Second Adam having undertaken to retrieve our loss, was exposed to still greater temptation, which nevertheless he triumphantly resisted; the lances of our great adversary were broken, his stratagems and machinations completely defeated, and an all-perfect obedience yielded to the Father of creation and providence. The first Adam, by his disobedience, made himself and us the enemy’s lawful captives; but the Second Adam, foregoing the throne of the majesty on high, and descending into this lower world amidst evil spirits, swallowed up this death in victory. Oh, unexampled humiliation! that the Son of God should have been touched by the murderous hands of the devil! that the Heir of all things should have suffered ‘the old serpent to lurk in his path! that He, the Holy One, should have been encompassed by the powers of darkness! that the Lord of the blessed angels should have suffered his human person to be seized, carried off, and borne away by the prince of the accursed, to hear his thrice-repeated temptation unto deeds most ungodly! But while it was so admirable on the one hand, it was inconceivably fearful on the other. The children of God are of too narrow capacity, and too nearly allied to sin, to comprehend the infinite recoil of Christ’s holy soul from unholiness; and as for the ungodly and profane, they being children of the wicked one, are too congenially related to him, to dream of the intensity of our Saviour’s sufferings by temptation. Yet to such sufferings it behoved the Lord’s Anointed to submit: it behoved his holy human nature to shudder at the floods of Belial, that there he might begin to remove our mountains of guilt. And, let it be remembered, that all these assaults he had to encounter alone; without the least aid was he to persevere through conflict and warfare in doing the will of God, and to be left entirely to himself, according as it was written of him, “Of the people there was none with me;” that by an illustrious and perfect obedience entirely his own, he might cover from the eyes of Divine justice, the disobedience of Adam and his posterity.
(To be Continued).