TEMPTATION
Three different characters of temptation are presented in the Scriptures:
(a) “God tempted Abraham” when he commanded him to offer him Isaac (Gen. 22:1). With this, he put his faith to the test.
The 1960 and 1977 revisions of the Reina-Valera translate “proved” and “put to the test,” respectively. Paul speaks of his thorn in the flesh as his “temptation” (“test” in the aforementioned revisions).
(b) The Israelites tempted God. “They tempted God in his heart, asking for food according to his taste” (Ps. 78:18). They questioned whether God could set a table for them in the desert. There were other times when they said, “Is Jehovah among us, then, or not?” (Ex. 17:7).
It must be noted that when Israel put God to the test it was actually that they were being tested by Him: cf. Ps. 95:9 with Deut. 8:2 and 33:8 (where the “pious” is Israel).
The Lord Jesus Christ refused to put God to the test when he was tempted by Satan to throw himself into the void so that the angels would preserve him (Mt. 4:5-7, etc.).
Ananias and Sapphira’s sin was tempting the Spirit of the Lord (Acts 5:9).
(c) Temptation to evil. This temptation assaults man, on the one hand, from the outside. Satan, the Tempter, constantly seeks to push us into evil (Mt. 4:3; 1 Cor. 7:5; 2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Thes. 3:5); The world also displays its attractions, trying to distance the believer from God (1 Jn. 2:15-17).
The most powerful source of temptation, however, is our own flesh: “Everyone is tempted when he is drawn away and seduced by his own lust” (James 1:14).
Thus, the temptation to evil finds in fallen man an adequate echo chamber, apart from all the sinful appetites that arise from man’s fallen nature. It is not God who tempts us to sin (James 1:13).
Through temptation, Adam and Eve had the power to choose between dependence on God or acting following a will independent of and opposed to that of God (Gen. 3).
Christ himself, as the Son of Man, was faced with temptation, although, as in the case of Adam before sinning, purely external, “sinless” (Heb. 4:15); The subjects of the Millennium will also be tempted, having been sheltered from the wiles of the Tempter until the end of that period (Rev. 20:3, 8).
However, the Lord is faithful, and does not allow us to be tempted beyond our capacity, giving us with the fact of temptation the way out, so that we can endure (1 Cor. 10:13).
Faced with the great period of temptation coming upon the world, he gives believers a special promise (Rev. 3:10). In any case, the believer must watch in prayer, so as not to fall into temptation (Mt. 26:41; cf. Luke 8:13), knowing that the Lord went through bitter trials and temptations in His incarnation, being able to help us, and who sympathizes with our weaknesses (Heb. 2:18; 4:15).