Temptation

Temptation has two separate meanings. One is as any attempt to entice one into evil. The other represents a testing which aims at spiritual good (Gen. 3:5; 22:1,2).

Temptation

Temptation is the act of tempting or the state of being tempted. In the OT the specific verb indicating the act of tempting is the Piel form nissa. In I Sam. 17:39 the word is used of proving or testing armor. In Gen. 22:1 nissa characterizes God's command to Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering in the land of Moriah. A similar use of the term in application to God's testing of men is found in Exod. 16:4; 20:20; Deut. 8:2, 16; 13:3; II Chr. 32:31; Ps. 26:2; etc. Related to this sense of the term is that which is given to it when it is applied to the terrible and wonderful acts of God against Egypt (Deut. 4:34).

The same technical term is applied to those acts of men which challenge God to demonstrate his veracity and justice.

The term nissa is rarely, if ever, applied in the OT to Satan's act of enticing men to sin. Nevertheless, the essence of temptation in this sense is clearly revealed in the account of the fall and in the record of Satan's role in the affliction of Job (Gen. 3:1-13; Job 1:1-2:10). Eve tells God, "The serpent beguiled me (hissiani), and I did eat" (Gen. 3:13; cf. exapatao in II Cor. 11:3; I Tim. 2:14). Deception plays an important part in satanic temptation. Satan avoids making a frontal attack immediately on God's probationary command and its threatened penalities. Instead, he sows the seeds of doubt, unbelief, and rebellion. The temptation of Eve is typical. She is made to feel that God has unwisely and unfairly withheld a legitimate objective good from man. In Job's trials the strategy is different, but the end sought is the same, the rejection of God's will and way as just and good.

The NT reflects the translation of nissa with ekpeirazo, etc., in the LXX (Matt. 4:7; I Cor. 10:9; Heb. 3:8-9). In these passages the sinful tempting of God is referred to by way of the OT. However, the same sense is employed by Peter in connection with the sin of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:9) and the prescriptions to be given to Gentile Christians (Acts 15:10).

The additional use of peirazo and related forms is complex. The words may refer to exterior circumstances which try the believer's faith and are designed to strengthen that faith (James 1:2; I Pet. 1:6). Although these circumstances are held to be under the absolute control of God, the explicit causal ascription of them to God is not prominent. Perhaps some reasoning by analogy is permissible here. Paul, e.g., recognizes that his "thorn in the flesh" is under God's sovereign control (II Cor. 12:8-9). But the "thorn" is "a messenger of Satan" (vs. 7). The same phenomenon may be viewed from two aspects. The peirasmon is a trial of one's faith controlled and, even in some sense, sent by God. But God is not the author of the prompting to sin that such trial seems to bring with it. The believer may rejoice in trial because he detects God's good purpose in it (James 1:2-4, 12). But the subjective use of trying situations, the internal incitement to sin in connection with trials and testings, is not and cannot be the work of God Enticement to sin and to impatient rebellion is the work of Satan (I Pet. 5:8-9; Rev. 2:9; cf. I Thess. 3:5). In this he is immensely aided by the deceptive power of epithymia, lust, in the old nature (James 1:14-15). While Satan's role in temptation is usually assumed rather than stated, in I Cor. 7:5 Paul explicitly warns Christians to observe his charge with respect to marital relationships, "that Satan tempt you not because of your incontiency" (cf. Matt. 4:1; Mark 1:13; Luke 4:2).

Jesus teaches the disciples to pray, "And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one" (Matt. 6:13), and the Bible is replete with warnings to be watchful because of the ever-present danger of falling into temptation (Luke 22:40; Gal. 6:1; I Pet. 5:8-9). But the Bible assures the believer that God will make a way of escape from temptation (I Cor. 10:13), and that "the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation ..." (II Pet. 2:9a).

Jesus was repeatedly "tempted" by the Jewish leaders (Mark 8:11; etc.). But these temptations were designed either to force Jesus to prove his messiahship in terms of the preconceptions of his enemies or to compel him to show himself incapable of being a true rabbi (Luke 10:25) or to cause him to make self-incriminating statements (Mark 12:15; cf. Luke 23:2).

Very likely Jesus was subject to temptation throughout his ministry (cf. Luke 4:13; 22:28). But the great temptation is the crucial temptation in redemptive history (Matt. 4:1, and parallels). This temptation confronts one with the question, How could the sinless Son of God be really tempted? Granted that appeal could be made to legitimate desires in his human nature, what force could temptation have on a divine person who cannot be tempted? Efforts to solve the problem run the risk either of impairing the "without sin" of Heb. 4:15 or of making the temptation unreal. Our understanding of the matter is beclouded by the fact that our awareness of being tempted immediately involves us in at least a momentary inclination to yield to the temptation. This was not true of Jesus, and yet the temptation was real, so that he is able to "succor them that are tempted" (Heb. 2:18).

The necessity of the temptation in view of Adam's fall is evident. Jesus triumphed over Satan with his immediate and obedient use of the word of God. He thereby proved that he was qualified to be the "last Adam." "To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil" (I John 3:8b).

C G Kromminga
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography
L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 219-26; H. Seesemann, TDNT, VI, 23ff.; W. Schneider, et al., NIDNTT, III, 798ff.; R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the NT; P. Dobble, "Temptations," ExpT 72:91ff.; E. Best, The Temptation and the Passion; W. J. Foxell, The Temptation of Jesus; C. Ullmmann, The Sinlessness of Jesus.

Tempta'tion

Temptation.
(1.) Trial; a being put to the test. Thus God "tempted [Gen. 22:1; R.V., 'did prove'] Abraham;" and afflictions are said to tempt, i.e., to try, men (James 1:2, 12; comp. Deut. 8:2), putting their faith and patience to the test. (2.) Ordinarily, however, the word means solicitation to that which is evil, and hence Satan is called "the tempter" (Matt. 4:3).

Our Lord was in this way tempted in the wilderness. That temptation was not internal, but by a real, active, subtle being. It was not self-sought. It was submitted to as an act of obedience on his part. "Christ was led, driven. An unseen personal force bore him a certain violence is implied in the words" (Matt. 4:1-11). The scene of the temptation of our Lord is generally supposed to have been the mountain of Quarantania (q.v.), "a high and precipitous wall of rock, 1,200 or 1,500 feet above the plain west of Jordan, near Jericho."

Temptation is common to all (Dan. 12: 10; Zech. 13:9; Ps. 66:10; Luke 22:31, 40; Heb. 11:17; James 1:12; 1 Pet. 1:7; 4:12). We read of the temptation of Joseph (Gen. 39), of David (2 Sam. 24; 1 Chr. 21), of Hezekiah (2 Chr. 32:31), of Daniel (Dan. 6), etc. So long as we are in this world we are exposed to temptations, and need ever to be on our watch against them.

(Easton Illustrated Dictionary)