The End of Temptation in God’s Good Creation

Nathan Rinne

The notions of desire, temptation, and sin go hand-in-hand (James 1:14-15). And yet, even Christians who have the most severe understanding of original sin, with the attendant concept of concupiscence, recognize good desire as well, in line with a popular definition: “a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.” We might say that the best of human nature, though fallen by sin, nevertheless, at some level, desires good relationships, long-term-pleasures as opposed to mere fleeting enticements, a proper appreciation of creation’s gifts, and fulfillment, finding its intended purpose and meaning. Christians in particular might think of David saying “delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4) or “at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11), or even “my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you” (Psalm 63).

Man should not operate according to the flesh, which “is human existence opposed to the Holy Spirit… cooperat[ing] with the devil and the world in opposing God and His will”.¹ Instead, man should operate according to the spirit, which is “that part of human existence belonging to God” that “understands itself as sinner justified before God”² and has desires in accordance with God’s eternal will³. It is true that even the good actions of Christians, driven by good and godly desires, are tainted with sin. And yet, such imperfection is covered by Christ’s blood in His gift of new creation. For even as our sinful nature or flesh remains active in the Christian, he, as a new creation in Christ, does not want, identify with, or even want to be associated with the flesh and its temptations (Romans 7).

In his efforts to alienate us from God and His creation – that is to get us to embrace and become “the world” instead – Satan appeals to our fallen flesh with subtle lies, or “re-framing actions”, about God, His good creation, and the good desires that are meant to accompany it. Desires that are by nature good, that are in line with God’s plans and purposes for creation, become inappropriate (as they are wrested from their proper context), excessive (going beyond what is intended), and, as evil grows ever more rebellious, even “unnatural”. And yet, when Christ returns to establish His new heavens and earth, the Tempter will meet his end, and not only will we fear, love, and trust in God above all things, but, unmolested by the world, the flesh, and the devil, all our desires will once again be in full conformity with the good purposes of all that He has created.

I. The Battle Versus Temptation is at the Heart of Man’s Existence in a Fallen World

In his 2011 book Tempted and Tried, the well-known Southern Baptist theologian, intellectual, and now political activist Russel Moore said something very insightful and powerful that even his most vigorous opponents today would undoubtedly agree with:

Temptation is by definition, subtle and personality specific, with a strategy to enter as larvae and then emerge in the fullness of time as a destructive animal force. This is why James uses embryonic language to speak of the ‘lure’ of desire: ‘Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death’ (James 1:14-15)

You are being watched. The demonic powers have had millennia to observe human nature. But that’s not enough. As the farmer-poet Wendell Berry notes of livestock husbandry, a competent famer must know not just the nature of species and breeds of animals but also ‘the animal’s individuality.’ The spiritual powers out there are expert cosmic farmer-ranchers and are customizing a temptation plan that fits with the way your desires, particularly, work. They notice what turns your heard, what quickens your pulse. Like the Roman guard feeling around, with a spike in one hand, on the Lord Jesus’ arm, seeking his vein under the skin, the demonic beings are marking out your weak points, sizing you up so that they might crucify you. They’ll find what you want, and they’ll give it to you…

The issue isn’t whether you’re tempted, but whether you’re aware of it and striking back. You are on the verge of wrecking your life. We all are. Forces are afoot right now, negotiating how to get you fat enough for consumption…⁴

Moore goes on to speak about how even as Christians often talk about doors that just seem to open up to them, they ought to consider that even as God leads us, there is also one who would subtly lead us to death (see the foolish son in Proverbs 7). He also argues elsewhere that since Satan could not destroy the Son of God, he focuses on destroying not only Christians, but all those who are made in God’s image.

Martin Luther could certainly address the matter of the devil and his desires in ways that even non-believers could understand: “Satan is by nature such a wicked and poisonous spirit that he cannot tolerate anything that is good. It pains him that even an apple, a cherry, and the like grow.”⁵ Nevertheless, he, for one, is not concerned to teach those who love the world about temptation but the “aliens” of this world, Christians, who must always take courage and stand their ground (see Ephesians 6, for example).

In his own very practical approach to the Lord’s Prayer in his Large Catechism⁶, he states that in this “vile world” we pray that “[God] would not suffer us to relapse and yield to trials and temptations”, that is, where we “become weary and faint” and “relapse into sin, shame, and unbelief”. “This, then”, he continues, “is leading us not into temptation, to wit, when He gives us power and strength to resist the temptation, however, not being taken away or removed” (LC).⁷

One can perhaps be pardoned for feeling confusion here: Why then do we actually pray “Lead us not into temptation” in the Lord’s Prayer? A Christian, after all, is one who has begun to not only trust in the Lord but to love Him, and, insofar as he is a new creature, wants neither the sin nor the temptation to sin to chip away at or destroy the connection he has with his Savior.⁸ More will be said about the full elimination of temptation later on, but for now we note that Luther, while acknowledging that “God tempts no one”, is also keen to address in his explanation the fact that God indeed uses temptation in the life of the Christian. And while he does essentially seem to say “Lead us not into sin in the midst of temptation…” even this is not exactly right. For while God would indeed choose for us to face temptation at times, He does not desire that we be led more deeply into temptation such that sin overcomes us, but rather that with Him we deal with temptation in short order and overcome it. Hence, in his shortest summary of the matter, in his Small Catechism, Luther masterfully sums up the matter this way:

God tempts no one. We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory (SC).

And what does it mean to insist that “God tempts no one”? Note, for example, that even if 2 Thes. 2:11 says that God will send men a “strong delusion” in the latter days (see also 2 Chronicles 18:7,22; I Kings 22:22), here they have already, as in Romans 1, fallen into temptation and rejected the truth. Furthermore, to say that “God tempts no one” does not mean that God tests no one. He tests us all the time as He did men like Abraham, even by permitting the devil to tempt us as Satan did with Job. God cannot be tempted, and God does not desire us to fall into any temptation (Matthew 26:41-42), that is, where we stumble into it unawares and then give into it. For, as we should always know, the primary goal of the Tempter is to get us to succumb to sin and to ultimately turn from our Lord. Christ’s goal, on the other hand – even using temptation for His own advantage and for our sake – is that with Him we face evil manfully when it comes as it must (Matt 18:7), and that we overcome it. This means that we overcome evil, that we overcome the Evil One, and that we finally win the victory, bringing glory and honor to God among all His offspring, the nations (Acts 17).

Again, this means that even though Satan might be permitted to tempt us – and God desires that we be challenged this way on earth – He never means for us to be led more deeply into temptation, to be led into sin by giving into it. To be sure, even though they are easily confused and sometimes even used synonymously in common speech, temptation and sin are indeed two different things. After all, our Lord Jesus talks about sin and the temptation to sin: “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!” (Matt 18:7)⁹

II. Contemporary Confessional Lutherans’ Temptations to Misunderstand Temptation

As Moore suggested, temptation in its most fundamental form is extremely subtle and designed to prepare us for the slaughter (see Proverbs 24:11¹⁰). The Tempter will therefore often, through his crafty “re-framing” actions, manipulate a desire for what is by nature good. More specifically, he will twist and warp things, inciting certain feelings and also offering or even putting into us outright false thoughts (deceptive and entrapping “teachings”, “suggestions”, “advice”, etc). All of this ends in death.

How to counter this onslaught? Sometimes, the example of Canadian Mounties knowing the genuine article of money so well that they are immediately able to recognize counterfeits is used in reference to Christians knowing the right doctrine and immediately being able to recognize heresy. This is a good illustration, and can also be extended to the Christian knowing what is good. When the Christian increasingly comes to love what is good, true, and beautiful, he will all the more easily be able to recognize, in whatever context, those things that are not of God – and be better prepared to resist temptation.

Interestingly, we can see in his Large Catechism that when Luther talks about the temptations the world poses to the Christian he doesn’t focus on how the world tempts the Christian per se but rather how the Christian is tempted to respond badly to the world he sees as evil and corrupt, a world that “offends us in word and deed, and impels us to anger, and impatience.”¹¹ Clearly, the Christian is able to recognize the evil in the world and to resist the same! Hence Luther will also tell us – seemingly related to what we see in James 1:14¹² – the following in his Large Catechism: “…to feel temptation is therefore a far different thing from consenting or yielding to it… For if we did not feel it, it would not be called a temptation. But to consent thereto is when we give it the reins and do not resist or pray against it.”

Again and again he therefore urges the Christian to call out to God, to speak to Him from the heart, so that “you will see that [the temptations] must desist, and finally acknowledge themselves conquered” (LC).

This said, some Christians will often give the impression that even doing this is not beating temptation in a real sense! For many, the matter of temptation and sinful desire is quite muddy. For example, in a number of older Issues ETC programs dealing with the topic of temptation, host Todd Wilken at the least gave every impression that he was unable to conceive of temptation apart from sinful desire. Wilken’s reasoning, which has now changed¹³, was that if one experiences temptation, this necessarily means one is being tempted because they have sinful desire. Otherwise, why would one be tempted at all?:

…we can say without any doubt that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, as I am, as you are, without sin. But I cannot — I don’t think you could either… — say that I am ever tempted without sin. I may not give into the full-blown prospect of the temptation, whatever it may be, but the simple fact that I find it appealing and something I might think about doing maybe not now but maybe later, that is still an inclination to sin (emphasis his).¹⁴

Wilken’s former faulty approach here has direct consequences for the Christian’s life in the world, for it is important that we sharply distinguish between what are in fact desires that are in accordance with His plans and purposes in creation, and the sinful motivations and inclinations that infect, to various degrees, these good desires and accompany them. For example, I recently heard someone say something like this: “People say ‘Be careful you don’t idolize marriage. Your country. Your family. Your job. Your vocations.’ The introspection that results makes people think their natural desires are evil. They worry that desiring anything pertaining to this life is wrong. It leads to quietism and nihilism.” Regarding the claim that “The introspection that results makes people think their natural desires are evil”, I believe a proper response is to say: “Yes, just because our every desire is infected by sin doesn’t mean that a desire itself, its form, is evil…” In other words, again, before we talk about the infection of our desires by sin, we must say that these desires, in accordance with God’s good gifts, are by nature good.

In like fashion, I remember a pastor I know rightly balking when I claimed – in the interest of finding reconciliation in a marriage – that there was always something that one of the involved parties could apologize for, even when guilt clearly lay on the other side. I was basing this on the idea that even if we thought the desires behind certain words we had spoken were aimed in a good direction there nevertheless had to be something of sinful motivations and intentions in them as well! Well, even if this is true, how significant should it really be?!

The indirect result of believing what Wilken says here is that a general kind of paralysis results on the part of conservative Lutherans who are nevertheless highly concerned to avoid appearing (worse!) or avoid being (better, but still misled!) self-righteous. Hence, when they hear something like “[o]ur very intention to be virtuous may be as motivated by our sinfulness as anything is” conveyed in weighty tones, as if to put everything into proper perspective, the game is often over. Really, even if this can be true, it needs to be put in its proper place, and not drive the show in theological reflection. What do I mean by driving the show? In his piously-titled 2004 book, The Gift and Task of Lutheran Higher Education, the ELCA intellectual Tom Christenson not only said the previous statement about trying to be virtuous, but also introduces us to a false theological idea that “drives the show”: “For Lutherans… sin is not a moral category but an ontological one. It is how we now are, not what particular thing we have done or not done. We do not avoid sin by being good, because our every effort to be good in itself is sinful.”¹⁵

Should Christians not, guided by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, try to live in the love of Christ which fulfilled God’s law on our behalf? Should they not, deeply aware of the intentions of the Maker before Whom they stand, attempt to live out their lives in just this kind of Spirit-wrought thankfulness and loyalty? Why would Christenson desire to take the opposite approach? Other than, that is, to lament “[h]ow much evil in the world has been done by people trying desperately to establish their own righteousness!”?¹⁶ The following quote from his book can perhaps give us a good idea of why he does what he does:

We may say about an unmarried couple living together that they are “living in sin”. A reflective Lutheran should not talk that way because, from a Lutheran point of view, we are all living in sin, whether we are married, single, sexually active, or celibate. Our sexual situation or orientation or practices do not make us more or less sinful. Any relationship may be self-serving, harmful, abusive, careless, and hateful. We are certainly not rid of all that simply because we have enjoyed a church wedding.¹⁷

Obviously, Pastor Wilken did not want to go here with his old way of thinking, but how do thoughts on temptation like those he had not go here, even if in an indirect fashion? Having had conversations with seemingly quite conservative higher administrators in LC-MS institutions who voiced concerns exactly like those of Christensen, I can see how all of these things often play out. At the same time, it might seem that there is also a sense in which Wilken – clearly a highly capable and trained theologian – was in his older view on some solid ground that we still must address. For even though Luther will point out that the devil will slip into small openings with his serpent’s head and shoot “fiery darts” “most venomously” into our hearts such that we “can scarcely stand” (LC), we all know that he also rightly speaks of a kind of temptation that originates within man, even in the believer, in his weaker moments.

As Luther puts it, “My own worst enemy is closest to me, I am carrying him in my breast. Therefore, if God does not help me with His Holy Spirit, I am lost. I cannot govern myself for a solitary hour.”¹⁸ In sum, as he puts it in the Large Catechism, the old Adam we carry about our neck in the flesh “exerts himself” and “incites us daily” to “all manner of evil lusts which cleave to us by nature” (LC). Truly, this kind of temptation would simply be the beginnings of actual sin, with the flesh, or the sinful nature, already operating with evil intent in order to tempt the Christian into greater sin!¹⁹

Furthermore, even as he was clearly mistaken in his past comments, there is another element of Wilken’s former confusion that appears quite relatable. Sure, Luther seems to be talking about how the feeling of temptation is not yet evil desire, but just what is such a feeling, this feeling, which, as he puts it, “can harm no one” “as long as it is against our will and we would rather be rid of it” (LC)? Again, what is the nature of such a feeling? And how, more specifically, would it be against our will?

While this article is not necessarily able to answer all these questions, it does make an effort to get us to some more clarity here.²⁰ And in order to do this, it is helpful to take into consideration Luther’s own more complete view of anthropology, as it helps us to better understand why any particular Christian may react to temptation in the manner that he does.²¹ Before we get to that however, more ground needs to be covered. In particular, it is important to see what else Luther has to say about the nature of the temptations that come to us from the outside. While Satan’s “incit[cements] and provo[actions] in all directions” have already been touched on, the reformer also speaks to us about how temptations can come in the form of specific persons that are operating contrary to God’s will: “…the evil lusts which cleave to us by nature… are [also] incited [in us] by the society, example and what we hear and see of other people, which often wound and inflame even an innocent heart…” (LC)

Luther hits the nail on the head. As much as we need to be concerned about the evil in our own hearts, we also cannot be overly individualistic, and ignore the social and political aspects of our lives. As the Apostle Paul puts it succinctly: “Bad company corrupts good character”. To the persons mentioned in Luther’s statement we might also consider the places, things, and various activities that we encounter. Along with the devil and people, these too could be used in this or that circumstance to share and/or incite thoughts (words, statements, images), and/or feelings (impressions, moods, tunes) that mitigate the clear word and will of God.

The devil will use all of this to his advantage. Luther scholar Heiko A. Oberman once wrote, “..if I were to cut out the pages in the Weimar edition of Luther’s works in which he mentions the Devil more than twice, I would be left with perhaps two and a half volumes.”²² We should not think that the devil and his demons are idle as regards us nor be unaware of their tactics, as Luther reminds us as he discusses the tragedy of Genesis 3, the Fall:

Therefore Satan here attacks Adam and Eve in this way to deprive them of the Word and to make them believe his lie after they have lost the Word and their trust in God. Is it a wonder that when this happens, man later on becomes proud, that he is a scorner of God and of men, that he becomes an adulterer or a murderer? Truly, therefore, this temptation is the sum of all temptations; it brings with it the overthrow or the violation of the entire Decalogue. Unbelief is the source of all sins; when Satan brought about this unbelief by driving out or corrupting the Word, the rest was easy for him… The chief temptation was to listen to another word and to depart from the one which God had previously spoken (italics mine).²³

Indeed. Bad Company corrupts good character but Jesus Christ is always the Good Company that we need! We want to flee to where He is at and, more specifically, where He is at and has promised to meet us for our forgiveness, life and salvation. And thereby, listening to our Shepherd’s voice, to walk in all the holy, righteous, and good paths in which He takes and leads us. He, the Way, always has the ways forward and the ways out (of temptation!) that we need.

III. What We Can Learn About the Nature of Temptation From Our Lord Jesus’ Experience

There is also more that must be said here though, particularly for the Christian as he reflects on the fact that his Lord Jesus Christ is also said to have been tempted in every way that he is tempted! Initially, this might be very difficult to understand, for our Lord not only had a new man, but, like Adam and Eve, was completely a new man without any old man at all! Not only this, but our Lord and Savior not only had a sinless, “very good” human nature, but a Divine nature as well! So what this means is that there were absolutely no evil desires or inclinations in our Lord Jesus, not even anything lying latent. So how could our Lord and Savior possibly be tempted?

The answer to this question will show us that how the word temptation is specifically defined is important. And here, as implied earlier, this issue rises to the fore: the fact that even good things can be temptations when they are not being experienced and used in the proper context. First of all, it is important to highlight that temptation is not only something subjective, something we experience in ourselves. It is not only, for example, our perhaps feeling somewhat inordinately curious about, and then, finally, really feeling drawn towards evil. Temptation is also something that exists outside of us in particular.

But how exactly should we describe it? How should we define it? This is an absolutely critical step, for we certainly know that some of the world’s ideas about it, seeing it merely in terms of “a cause or occasion of enticement” or in terms of short-term pleasures overwhelming long-term goals, are grossly insufficient. Most specifically, temptation is any activity – or any feeling or thought about an activity – that, due to the attraction it holds towards men, might lead them astray from God’s purposes in the case of wrongly used good (more subtle, improper context or excessiveness), or, as good desire becomes even “unnatural”, might even lead them to directly rebel vs. God’s purposes in creation (more overt). The second one would be an effort to get us to not even hit the target, while the first one would at least attempt to get us to miss the bull’s eye, a biblical understanding of sin (Romans 3:23).

To be more specific, even as the early church fathers, for example, would speak of fasting from non-sinful things (and realizing how even good desires drive us!) in order to learn how to fast from sinful things²⁴, one is nevertheless not necessarily tempted when it comes to making a choice between things that are good and things that are best (see I Cor. 7). It is certainly true that in specific vocations, God calls particular Christians to particular duties which are not to be neglected, omitted – even when pursuing other good things. For example, the married man who chooses to meet with his friends less often in order to attend to his wife and family wisely practices love which “does not seek its own way”. In like fashion, it is also true that in specific circumstances, God may call us away from certain good things (that are perhaps, for example, things which are too easy) towards better things which are more challenging. Nevertheless, in general, because certain things align with God’s design and purposes in creation, we simply assert that some deeds are naturally good in the right contexts — with the potential for naturally good desires that are increasingly pure to also accompany such deeds more and more. For example, the desire of a man to be united with a woman in holy matrimony and to have a family with her is an example of this. Now, again, some individuals may be given something that in this fallen world is even better — that is the ability to remain single and to be single mindedly devoted to gospel proclamation — but these are certainly the exceptions to the rule. As the Apostle Paul makes clear, because of the temptations to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

And as Luther reminds us, there are indeed external temptations that appeal to our flesh, and these, at the very least, will attempt to lead us to misuse a good thing, action, institution, etc. And here, upon experiencing these external temptations, one may be internally tempted at some point as well, as good desire is twisted in the process of temptation and evil desire is either born (as with Adam and Eve) or kindled, re-activated (as with us). Hence, for example, the Apostle Paul writes to Timothy that “those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction”. The old King James version says, “they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare” because the first Greek word translated “desire” here, βούλομαι, can and often does indicate a desire that one is determined to fulfill – and therefore plans for with full resolve. Note, however, that the Apostle Paul does not say this desire for wealth, success, material riches is sinful or even, surprisingly, a temptation in itself! This, unless coveting is involved, is in fact a good desire, as the scriptures make clear elsewhere when they speak of this kind of blessing. That said, Paul nevertheless appears to know that this desire that is otherwise good by nature will inevitably go wrong due to the exigencies of life in the fallen world, and therefore issues his wise warning – even as elsewhere he extols the virtue of those who work so as not to be dependent on others – and so that they themselves might have wealth to share with those who have less!

In like fashion, while certain situations or contexts might tempt us, and while encountering certain people or things or activities in the wrong contexts might tempt us, there is nothing wrong, for example, with beautiful and attractive things! A Christian man, just like any woman, might well notice that a certain woman is particularly beautiful and attractive, even finding himself drawn to her, wanting to engage with her, desiring to be closer to her, without necessarily entertaining sinful lust or sinful fantasy. Of course, that would not be the case though if one had a lustful intent in speaking with the woman, seeking or even just, at some point, considering the possibility of seducing her towards sexual activity.

Yet another good example is from the first temptation man ever experienced. The problem with the promise to be like God was not that Adam and Eve were not to grow more like God, but that Satan lied about how this was to be accomplished. Relatedly, the problem with the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not that it was good for eating and that it could draw one’s attention! Rather, it may very likely have been the case that this fruit was meant to be used in a certain way, in a certain context, at a certain time, but a false statement caused it to lure and entice into misuse, as evil desire not in full conformity to created order and design, was formed… For whatever reason, Eve appears to have thought about what the serpent said, and then eventually, finally, consented to his words, believing his lie. Satan uses the same tactics today, with his tired but effective “Did God really say?”

As many of us learned from our teachers, all believers can fight temptation, as just because the birds fly over our head we need not allow them to make a nest in our hair! We, however, will fail at this time and time again, and here there is something that we must remember above all things: As our spiritual father Martin Luther repeatedly taught us, we should not dwell too long on or beat ourselves up over our failures, but rather look with confidence to the grace of Jesus Christ. Whether the devil was involved in firing sinful thoughts and even feelings into our hearts or these things came from our own foul well from which we draw, the grace of God for weak and fallen man is always to remain our strength! When we fall we get up again because He calls us to rise again, by the power of the blood of Christ! Hence, Luther consistently talks about the most serious temptation from the devil being the temptation to not believe that Christ’s forgiveness really applies to us or can really set us at peace with God!²⁵

This is all possible because Jesus Christ is the man who trusted and obeyed God completely on our behalf, who also was tempted but without sin. During His temptation in the desert, for forty days and forty nights, He was externally tempted to eat nourishing food, trust God in a risky situation, and rule the nations — all good things in their proper context! — but in ways that actually abandoned God (note the final over-the-top temptation to worship Satan!) or at least abandoned the good purposes He had for Jesus. Our Lord does not seem to have even thought about what Satan had to say, but Hebrews might make us pause in regard to that conclusion: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need….”

Was Jesus only externally tempted? If He was tempted in every way we were yet without sin, it means that to some degree He must have dealt with thoughts or feelings of temptation, even as these feelings and thoughts could not be identified with actual sin – even the beginnings of any actual sin. Again, this is perhaps more easily understood when we think about it along with some of our examples above. Jesus wanting to eat nourishing food, trust God in a risky situation, and rule the nations would never be bad things at all in the right contexts, but things He certainly should have desired and did desire! Therefore we can say, on the basis of passages like Hebrews 4:15, that Jesus indeed even experienced a process of internal temptation… yet without any consent to the twisted framing of the Evil One – the wicked thoughts and perhaps even feelings Satan had introduced…

What this suggests is that the beginnings of temptation for Eve in the Garden of Eden – one also without sin – may have followed a similar path. And again, today, even in the fallen world – the same might also hold true for us and some kinds of circumstances – as we remember that Christ’s blood covers the sin which remains in the good actions of a Christian.²⁶ For a jarring but highly practical and relevant example, consider what the writer Matt Cochran says about sexual fantasy:

…it’s not an accident that God made sex pleasurable. We ought to enjoy and appreciate our spouses sexually, and it’s not as though one’s desire for that only kicks in after the ceremony. If there’s no eagerness, no anticipation, no imagination, and no curiosity about sex with a future spouse, then you shouldn’t even consider marrying one in the first place. Such a one wouldn’t even be able to fulfill his marital duties…

If that all sounds just completely wrong to you, I encourage you perhaps lay off the St Augustine and to pick up Cochran’s entire article!²⁷ Someone with the rare gift of celibacy, those who today call themselves “asexual”, would not be able to identify with this.

IV. Unlike Jesus’ Temptations, Some Temptations are Always Sinful in Themselves, Even More Dangerous

All this said, on the other hand, some acts are by definition sinful — regardless of the circumstance. Temptation towards these acts will always necessarily coincide not only with evil desire, but with things of which we should neither think nor speak (Eph. 5:12).

In other words, evil desire will necessarily coincide with temptation towards actions which not only twist nature’s good designs and purposes, but that actually work in a manner completely contrary to the fundamental designs and purposes of nature. The desire of a man to be sexually active with another man, for example, is an example of this. This is abandoning nature, abandoning the natural function or use of the woman, as Paul says in Romans 1.

In November 2023, the conservative Presbyterian Rosaria Butterfield, the author of Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age, spoke publicly at a convention about four “heretical lies” that are being spread by several popular evangelical ministries:

1) “Same-sex attraction is a sinless temptation, and only a sin if you act on it?”

2) “People who experience same-sex attraction are actually gay-Christians called to life-long celibacy?”

3) “People who experience same-sex attraction, rarely, if ever, change, and therefore, should never pursue, heterosexual marriage.”

4) “Sex and gender are different, and God doesn’t care if men live as men or if women live as women, because all you need to do is grow in the fruit of the Spirit, as if the fruit of the Holy Spirit can grow from sin.”

She ended by saying:

Choose this day whom you will serve, the lies of our anti-Christian age, the idol of LGBTQ+, or the God who made you male and female, image-bearers all, divinely patterned for the purpose of building strong Christian marriages, families, churches, communities; and calling those outside of Christ to repent of sin and to come in, where even in suffering, it is safe, and good, and purposeful. So, it is my question to you, choose this day whom you will serve. Thank you.²⁸

What to make of things like this? Does the LCMS need to be concerned as well? Recently, I learned that some LC-MS pastors²⁹ evidently not only believe that desires for things like homosexual activity, prostitution, and even bestiality are not sinful in themselves, but also that Jesus Himself must have been tempted to homosexual activity.³⁰ One’s mind reels at such blasphemy! For, contrary to Martin Scorsese’s fever dreams expressed in his 1988 film, The Last Temptation of Christ, we are never even told that Jesus Christ sought marriage even for a moment! Rather, He was, like Paul’s blessed celibate in I Corinthians 7, single-mindedly and wholly devoted to His Father’s will!

Addressing the kinds of related concerns that perhaps motivate disturbing thoughts like those mentioned above with an effort to be exceptionally pastoral, I certainly think we can say this: Insofar as any temptation to sin arises partly out of a desire for real affection or lovewe would simply be fools to say that God in Christ is unable or unwilling to sympathize with our weak – and yes, evil – fallen human nature. Here, the good desire that temptation acts on would not be for any sexual relations per se, but rather that desire to give and receive love, from both sexes as appropriate, like from both a father or mother, or from a friend, spouse, or child. One is, after all, not wrong to expect certain kinds of love among one’s relations!

In the end, the Christian can indeed rejoice and take comfort in the fact that Jesus, our High Priest, was indeed tempted in every way we were yet without sin. He is the One who can sympathize with all of our weaknesses! The old Expositor’s Greek Testament puts it beautifully, unpacking Hebrews 4:15:

The writer wishes to preclude the common fancy that there was some peculiarity in Jesus which made His temptation wholly different from ours, that He was a mailed champion exposed to toy arrows. On the contrary, He has felt in His own consciousness the difficulty of being righteous in this world; has felt pressing upon Himself the reasons and inducements that incline men to choose sin that they may escape suffering and death; in every part of His human constitution has known the pain and conflict with which alone temptation can be overcome; has been so tempted that had He sinned, He would have had a thousandfold better excuse than ever man had. Even though His divinity may have ensured His triumph, His temptation was true and could only be overcome by means that are open to all. The one difference between our temptations and those of Jesus is that His were χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας. Riehm thinks this expression is not exhausted by declaring the fact that in Christ’s case temptation never resulted in sin. It means, he thinks, further, and rather, that temptation never in Christ’s case sprang from any sinful desire in Himself.³¹

And our Lord fought temptation on our behalf. In a sermon posted on his popular blog, Pastoral Meanderings, Pastor Larry Peters masterfully sums up His work for us:

Jesus did not go into the wilderness of temptation to show us the secret way to undoing temptation. He is there to undo Eden. Where Adam and Eve ate and sinned, Jesus fasts and feeds. Where Adam and Eve trusted in the lies of Satan, Jesus is the truth to untie the knots of Satan’s lies that hold us. Where Adam and Eve surrendered their souls and their children for a fake glory and a false image of freedom, Jesus surrenders His freedom and glory to rescue Adam and Eve and all their children – right down to you and me. That is what happens in the few short sentences that St. Mark devotes to Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.³²

And so we follow in Jesus’ train while Satan, of course, will not stop. Some of Luther’s words here about temptation, and Satan’s wiles when it comes to one of the more important operations he focuses on, seem appropriate:

Satan has gathered experience from the very beginning of the world and has been made more cunning by daily practice. If he finds it impossible to overcome us by the greatness of the temptation, he tries to overcome us by persevering until he has wearied us… such is the supreme wickedness of Satan. In order to overcome it we must fortify our soul with this and other passages of scripture that, as he does not weary of assaulting us, we may not weary of persevering in prayer and in hope until we gain the victory.³³

“They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy, and have no root, but for a while believe…In the time of temptation they fall away” (Luke 8:13).³⁴ The Christian, as Luther reminds us in the Smalcald Articles, should always be aware that faith can be lost, and that the most merciful God is under nothing like an obligation to renew a faith that has died. Augustine said about this topic and temptation: “In that temptation where someone is deceived and lead away, God tempts no one; however, he completely withdraws some from His noble judgment and covering.”³⁵ May it not be with me! Not be with you! May the strong delusion, sent by God’s wrath, be kept far away!

In regards to this deathly matter, Luther tells us that wholly fleeing from external enticement will not help. Rather, “renunciation is to be practiced so that the evil desires within us are mortified”.³⁶ Here, we receive shelter from God through constant prayer, for “the evil desire extinguishes no one because of the heavenly dew and rain of divine mercy; fasting and working, must keep watch, be present, and yet they are not enough.”³⁷

Because our Lord has already in a very real sense delivered us from the Evil One, we can have victory in the fight vs. temptation. As my pastor once reminded me, dealing with temptation is like dealing with the gravity that we all deal with every day. By not giving in and just laying down, we grow stronger. So, when sin crouches at our door, we can, with God’s Holy Spirit, master it. For having been given the mind of Christ we should be transformed by the renewing of our mind, cling to the Sword of the Spirit – that is His word in the Scripture – keep watch and be sober, pray without ceasing, and resist and flee evil.

We might also do some of the other very practical things Martin Luther mentions as well to counter temptation: changing the subject (“speak about the Venetians or about other matters which have no bearing whatever on your trouble”), “eat[ing], drink[ing], and seek[ing] to converse with other people”, and, importantly, utterly despising the thoughts suggested by Satan, “who can bear nothing less than being treated with contempt”.³⁸ More great practical advice regarding how to fight one of the more common temptations that Luther notes especially afflicts the young³⁹ is also available.⁴⁰

Finally, we can also look to the end with an increased vigor, something that will be covered in the last section of the paper. First however, we should look more closely at how temptation is fought by Christians through the lens of Christian anthropology.

V. Better Understanding the Battle Versus Temptation Using Luther’s Christian Anthropology

Jesus Christ does not lead us into battle alone. The Christian, insofar as he is a new man, also desires the company and encouragement of fellow saints in the battle against sin. He knows that in Christ he is a new creation – the old has gone and the new has come! Jesus Christ’s past and future is now his as well. So he – along with all his brethren – has been crucified with Christ, buried with Him in death, and raised from the dead and also to the heavens, now sitting at the right hand of God!

This means that to some very real extent all of our desires and affections are also in the process of being re-ordered such that the opportunities for sin increasingly do not have the appeal they once did (even as we also know that until death we will need to struggle with the old man that each of us carries). So Christians are eager to work with and keep in step with the Spirit, who leads and encourages us to grow in wisdom and discernment, and in the daily repentance which is the renewal of our mind in Christ Jesus. And so we gather together to encourage one another, pray, sing songs and hymns, study His word, and receive His body and blood for our continual forgiveness and hence strengthening of faith.

As this pertains to our topic, in the case where the temptation is dealt with successfully, the evil thought or feeling that one encounters will be dealt with by us in a timely fashion by God’s word. Here, the Christian is led by Christ’s Spirit to act in accordance with his new man, that part of him that is a new creation, who resists the devil so that he flees from us, the concrete Christian man. And here, as the Word of God was fulfilled in Jesus, it is fulfilled in His church: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet” (Romans 16:20).

Of course, that doesn’t mean this isn’t an uphill battle as Luther reminds us: “Eve agrees with Satan when he charges God with lying and, as it were, strikes God in the face with his fists. . . . Let these events be a warning for us that we may learn what man is. For if this happened when nature was perfect, what do we think will happen to us now?”⁴¹ Nevertheless, look up, not down! Leslie E. Dunkin gives us a very helpful and compelling illustration:

I once learned a lesson from a dog we had. My father used to put a bit of meat or biscuit on the floor near the dog and say, “No!” and the dog knew he must not touch it. But he never looked at the meat. He seemed to feel that if he did so, the temptation to disobey would be too great, so he looked steadily at my father’s face. There is a lesson for us all. Always look up to the Master’s face.⁴²

Indeed. And what the Puritan writer John Owen says here in his book about temptation complements this nicely: “When men can live and plod on in their profession [of faith in Christ], and not be able to say when they had any living sense of the love of God or of the privileges which we have in the blood of Christ, I know not what they can have to keep them from falling into snares.”⁴³

On the other hand, in the case where the temptation is given into, the Christian not only ponders the evil feeling or thought, he is not only perhaps curious to some degree about the evil feeling or thought, he not only uses his imagination in order to perhaps better understand what is involved in the evil feeling or thought (its nature, or why in particular it is “off”, or evil, and appeals as it does), but also, either immediately or in short order, consents to it. Satan wants to get us to consideration which is basically consent. Luther says once we start thinking about the temptation we are done. This can be taken to mean that once we start considering doing what the temptation is calling us to, we have fallen and given in. “[I]f the snake gets its head into a hole, it will certainly slither in with its body”.⁴⁴

This means that our Old Adam’s own evil desire or inclination – which may well have been lying latent at the beginning of the process (note that this latent desire would also be sin which damns, that is original sin, or what some earlier church fathers called concupiscence) – is now active, and working hand-in-hand with the original cause of the temptation: the directly tempting person, place, thing, or activity – or possibly an indirectly tempting situation. Again, thinking of this in terms of Christian anthropology, that is, in terms of the battle between the spirit and the flesh, there are several important things to consider here.

First, again, even if a person is undergoing temptation internally, that does not yet necessarily mean they are sinning. “Internal temptation” does not yet necessarily equal sin. Being tempted is what comes before sin, and the devil in particular is a master at tempting us, even putting into us evil thoughts and feelings, shooting his fiery darts into our hearts and minds. The other morning, as I got up and was praying, all of a sudden an old pop song came out of nowhere into my head, which I started humming to. Did I do that? Or was that a flaming arrow? Regardless, many of the things that we think about, or are tempted to think about, are not necessarily evil but frivolous, and they will keep us away from more important things like meditation on the word of God and prayer. And with less meditation on the word of God and prayer, there will certainly be less good action – and most certainly less better actions (I Cor. 7) – on the part of the decreasingly Spirit-led Christian! Again, even as we can see that Martin Luther was not one to downplay the sinful nature in man, he devoted a surprising amount of time to talking about this reality.

Second, unlike the unbeliever, the Christian, being a new creation, indeed has the beginnings of true spiritual impulses to fear, love and trust God and so, when growing in the Lord, is generally not incited to sin by God’s commandments.⁴⁵ In I Corinthians 15:56-57, the Apostle Paul talks about how the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, going on to thank God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Luther explains this by saying that our enemy death holds the spear of sin and the law sharpens the tip of the spear. Then, even as it is with this sharp tip that we are poked and made aware of the presence of sin and its punishment death, all of this is finally swallowed up in the vortex of Christ’s resurrection! For while “the great mass of people neither feel nor heed what sin or death is [and do not feel and fear death either] but go their way unconcernedly until they go to hell suddenly and before they are aware of it” – and hence do not get this language – the Christian is different: “The Christian… must learn this language [about] themselves as people who daily feel what sin and death are and what power they possess.” The Christian is concerned about what the law, sharpening sin’s sting, uncovers, and unlike the unbeliever, they are not aroused to embrace death-deserving sin more (see Romans 7:5)! – but rather embrace the Gospel and the fight against their sin.⁴⁶

Third, the key thing for the Christian trying to understand the nature of temptation is to realize that when external temptations hit us, they hit us either according to our old man or our new man. If, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian is exercising himself in accordance with his new identity, his new man, that new man and his corresponding good desires will have more strength than the old man, and the temptation will be firmly dealt with. As Martin Luther put this in the Smalcald articles: “Paul, Rom. 7:14-25, [shows] testifies that he wars with the law in his members, etc.; and that, not by his own powers, but by the gift of the Holy Ghost that follows the remission of sins. This gift daily cleanses and sweeps out the remaining sins, and works so as to render man truly pure and holy” (FC SD II, 34).

On the other hand, if the old man is exercising more strength than the new man, the temptation will be given into, creating a sinful desire, even if it does not ultimately result in a sinful thought, word, or deed! What this means is that even as a maturing Christian’s new man increasingly pushes out the old man throughout one’s life like this:

⁴⁷

…this also does not mean that there are moments, even in the life of the increasingly mature Christian, where the old man within us will not temporarily gain the upper hand. As Galatians 5 and Romans 7 indicate, this battle between the “flesh” and the spirit is a lifelong battle.

In spite of moments where the old man does indeed get the upper hand, in a maturing Christian, a faith-filled and fighting Christian, the new man tends to be on the upward trajectory, pushing the old man out, this happening with increasing frequency. None of this happens with the Christian seeking to be justified, but rather acting as such because he is justified. If one believes the former, one is succumbing once again to the sin of the opinio legis, the “opinion of the law”, the evil and false teaching that sinful man can be justified before God by his [pathetic] works. To say the least, let us not be tempted to believe it is we who are just good and earnest people trying to be good while God is the one who is perhaps attempting to tempt us and lure us to be bad!

Fourth, we should also note here that even if the new man deals with the temptation successfully, this only means that more good desire, deriving from the new man God has created, has overpowered the old man’s evil desire, with all its latent concupiscence, or original or “nature sin” (that is the good which has been corrupted and infected by sin). All of this original sin – as well as any active sinful desire which remain present in the action – is actively covered by the blood of Jesus, which means we who believe are the perpetual recipients of His justification and are seen as being completely pure in God’s eyes: We are God’s precious, trusting child. The Christians’s identity as child of God, at peace with Him like an infant with His nursing mother, is absolutely secure in the work of Christ – secure by virtue of our being baptized into Him. It is not so much that the Christian was baptized, but that he is baptized.

Finally, we remember that God means for us to fight this battle with others who will always encourage us, and others He will lead to see things we do not see. True spiritual strength and maturity comes by the grace of God and humbles us always. “When I am weak, then I am strong.” Our brother in Christ Pastor Rolf Preus reminds us:

Our confidence in our own spiritual powers is trusting in a lie. I have seen Christians fall into soul-destroying sin and then deny the faith. I gave them Communion. I absolved them of their sins. Then they fell from grace. Why? Because they weren’t as spiritually strong as you and I? No, they fell because they were proud. They thought they could stand. They couldn’t. When we are weak – that’s the best condition for us to be in – when we are but beggars. When we are weak we can seek God’s word, hear God’s word, rely on God’s word, and find in God’s word the victory of our Savior against every spiritual enemy that would assault our souls. He provides the way of escape. It is always the same. He reminds us that we are saints. Our sins are washed away by Jesus’ blood. God, in his word, confirms to our doubting hearts that we really are forgiven. We really are saints. This is how we escape temptation and stand confidently before our God as his dear children.⁴⁸

Even if good habits and practices have been formed in us, we dare not rely on ourselves or our own powers as we “walk in danger all the way.” Again, although his prescriptions were often lacking, the famed Puritan John Owen was not wrong when in his own work on temptation he said, “The ways of our entering into temptation are so many, various, and imperceptible, the means of it so efficacious and powerful, our weakness, our unwatchfulness, so unspeakable, that we cannot in the least keep or preserve ourselves from it. We fail both in wisdom and power for this work.”⁴⁹

We remember that Peter, in great self-confidence, first said “Even if all fall away on account of You, I never will… Even if I have to die with You, I will never deny You” …even as later he, a bit older and wiser, would point out how all of us, “shielded by God”, should “pass the time of their sojourning here in fear” (1 Pet. 1:5,17). Only He is our protection and strength.

Albrecht Peters states that “when we live more and more consciously of the total dependency of our whole person on God, we leave the active offenses against the Second through Tenth commandments a little ways behind us. All the more painfully we become conscious of our original enslavement in the dimension of God”⁵⁰, helpfully adding that “our salvation does not lie in us ourselves; only prayer guides us to this genuine Helper. Every thought about some particular merit for the free will cooperating with God’s will is completely excluded.”⁵¹ For “the three Reformation solas– Christ alone, only out of grace, only through faith–emit a fourth sola, only through prayer, ‘sola oratione.’ The Lord’s Prayer encompasses more than the whole world…” ⁵² Our salvation, considered as a whole and not only in terms of justification, is by Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, and prayer alone, with the Lord’s Prayer as our ultimate guide, a guide whose deep meaning in the sixth and seventh petitions will be looked at now.

VI. Looking Forward to Perfection, Praying for the End of the Tempter

Indeed, there is yet more to the matter here! The church historian Albrecht Peters, in his commentary on Luther’s Catechisms, contends that the aorist form of the verbs in the final double petition of the Lord’s prayer (“lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”), along with the singular form of the object, indicate that “in view here is not the in reality small temptations and help over the bumps in our daily life, but instead the being protected in the ultimate final battle between God and Satan, between Christ and the Antichrist.”⁵³ He goes on to say “the double petition shows that the band that calls on God as their heavenly Father casts itself on account of the destructive attacks into the protective hand of Him who can pull them out of and through into his coming kingdom.”⁵⁴ Peters then quotes Lohmeyer, who goes so far as to say: “the community prays not for its existence, but instead for God’s presence, never for the overcoming of the evil one, but for the deliverance from the evil one.”⁵⁵

No wonder, as Peters points out, Luther pleaded for the “beloved Last Day” and uttered many prayers for the “dear judgment Day”!⁵⁶ And no wonder he prayed, “O Father, you are in heaven, while I, your poor child, am in misery on earth, far away from you, surrounded by many perils, in need and want, among the devils, the greatest enemies, and in much danger.” (WA 2:83.30 [see also AE 42:23]).⁵⁷ In other words, “Lord, give me courage to fight – for here on earth it is considered despicable for a man to retreat to a place so he does not need to fight! – but nevertheless please come ever more quickly, I pray!”

All of this points to how the matter of temptation in the Lord’s Prayer has to do with the fact that this most practical of prayers – our battle cry on earth – primarily has to do with future expectation. More specifically, it has to do with the certain Hope, the Eschatological Hope, that God’s will will be done and His Kingdom will come. This will and Kingdom will come to earth as they are in heaven. For we all will ultimately be delivered from the Evil One only to know a life without thorns, tears, sadness, and death.

Without temptation!

Again, in the Lord’s Prayer we pray “lead us not into temptation.” Now, even if in this world we should be eager for challenges and even tests from our Heavenly Father – all with an eye to give Him glory and proclaim His Name – why, really, should we ever be eager to deal with, to do battle with, the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy us?⁵⁸ In James 1:2, where we read, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds”, we note this is indeed a trial actively, directly, given by God and not Satan! Likewise in I Peter, where we read the challenging words: “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.”

The Christian should never want to flee from the Lord’s discipline (even as they also consider the import and significance of special promises like those the Lord made first to the church in Philadelphia in Revelation 3:10 that “since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth”) but should always flee from temptation.

Don’t ever think that your Lord would take joy in the very particular and real temptations you face from Satan to sin against and ultimately fall away from your gracious Heavenly Father! For that, again, is the purpose of the Evil One who tempts us. But should we not also be eager to say “because our Lord desires it, we are eager to fight the demonic for Him, and He will have the glory!”? I submit it is one thing for my pastor-exorcist friend to boldly face Satan as he, through the power of Jesus Christ, releases those captive to demonic oppression and even possession. That is something he was made for and called to! At the same time, it would be a mistake to think that any Christian should be eager to do battle with him when that Destroyer’s main goal is to tempt us in particular.

Again, as Christians, we should always face temptation boldly and with confidence, as we turn away from evil, cry out to, and cling to the Only One Who is Good ever more fiercely. That said, we must also be wise – with an eye to the end – for even if we at times do experience the joy of living in “our Fathers world”, Luther was also not wrong when he spoke of our war-torn and selfish world as vile! After all, we also should know that the psalmist prays that those who do evil would not be permitted to molest and entice Israel – and even that they would be finally removed from her presence (Psalm 125)! In like fashion, why should we not long for the day when God would see fit to lead us out of temptation completely? That we would not only be taken out of the fallen world – but taken out of that world which never was that which the new creation will be!

Christians who insist that we should not pray for an end to our struggle with temptation or that we should not believe that “a life without temptation would be better” might sound pious but are missing the larger picture. Russel Moore goes so far as to say that such a mind-set “entails surrender to each of the temptations [Jesus faced] – to provide for my own needs, to protect myself from danger, to exalt myself as lord.”⁵⁹ Yet why should we not be more than eager to see that day when He would ultimately no longer see the need to permit temptation to come to us… such grave trials involving such a horrifically Evil Foe to come to us… but that we might rather be made wholly mature and be perfect as He is Perfect – that is, the One who is Constant Love and is without the sufferings and passions that are so characteristic of us changing creatures! – inconstant sufferings and passions that are so unlike our Maker… For even when He took on human flesh He was the One who is Love, constant.

Truly, while we are to be fully engaged in this world, always in but not of it, some of our greatest temptations are, indeed, also to grasp for this life, to not hold onto it lightly, to faithlessly be anxious about tomorrow, and to find our Hope in this life, even as this world is not our home… Nevertheless, as I noted in my piece at the online journal American Reformer, we unashamedly, in the Spirit’s power, should look to provide for ours and others’ earthly needs, to protect ourselves and those under our care from danger, and to seek to guide and rule well with godly power as we are given the responsibility and authority to do so. True, Christians might be “no earthly good” to the world’s would-be-controllers, but it is slander to say that Christians have brought no earthly good. For this world that would make us dependent on them is in fact dependent on the One whom the church extols, the Lord of the church, the Christ in whom we live and move and have our being! So, no, contrary to the “so heavenly minded, no earthly good” trope, when one gets the heavenly things right, the earthly things will fall into place as well!

So, I heartily suggest we can indeed, and should, unashamedly, pray like this:

Lord, do not lead me into temptation but lead me out of temptation! Do not lead me deeper into this world that is not my home – now even corrupt and broken and disintegrating – but lead me unto the kingdom of heaven, with the joyous new heavens and earth! The True Land flowing with milk and honey! Oh just let me be a doorman in your house, for at your right hand are fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore!

Do not lead me deeper into the challenges that the fallen flesh, the world, and the devil present, but ultimately, even now, lead me out of and away from such things! O, come Lord Jesus! Come now! That it may be on earth as it is in heaven!

Then, the earthly good will certainly follow. Still, even if we might pray this way, God, in His perfect wisdom, at this or that time, wants to let us experience temptation on earth He knows that we can handle as He tests and refines our faith, of greater worth than pure gold. For even if we would, quite understandably, feel led to pray to avoid temptation altogether – to be led out of it into an (or the) ultimately better place – temptation need not inevitably lead us into the sin which destroys and damns man. Instead, our Lord will indeed bring us through it, and will use it for His glory and our good. For Luther reminds us also that God’s ways are higher than ours: “God loves and hates temptations. He loves them when they provoke us to pray to him and trust in him; he hates them when we despair because of them”.⁶⁰

Our Lord loves temptations? Where “our grim foe and all his horde, would vex our souls on every hand”?⁶¹ Not for their own sake! But because He eagerly anticipates, expects, and guides our growth in Him, as we achieve the fullness He has planned for us. So let us, rooted in the One who Overcame Temptation, fight on towards that Heavenly Home – and that corresponding maturity – He has ordained us for!

Does not the Apostle Paul agree?:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking (Eph. 4:11-17).

The mind we have in Jesus Christ is not futile because He is King of the Universe and Lord of the nations. All authority on heaven and earth has been given to Him and is given to His church also, and so we can confidently pray, “on earth as it is in heaven”. He commands us to not let our hearts be troubled or afraid, for He promises not the world’s peace to us but His own. In the world we will have tribulation, but we “take heart, for [He] has overcome the world” (John 16:33). We simple jars of clay, who have surpassingly great power from God inside, give thanks to Him, “who always leads us triumphantly as captives in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him.” (2 Cor. 2:14).

So let us run the race, as we continually gaze upon the One who has been lifted up in the wilderness, disarming the evil foe, and bringing us healing forever in Him! We need not fall into the revelry and idolatry of worldly leaders, but know that with Christ by our side we can overcome such temptations (see I Cor. 10:1-22, particularly v. 12-13). With His good commands and even better promises – and with our new priorities in order – let the Church go forward boldly in all our stations in life and say indeed, “May God bless me, my family, my nation”…beginning with all matters as locally as we can, and first in our own hearts.

FIN

1Also, the “struggles of the flesh [occur] within the soul and [are] ‘spiritual’ in the sense that the body need not be involved.” In David Scaer, “The Concept of Anfechtung in Luther’s Thought,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 47, no. 1 (1983): 20.

2Scaer, “The Concept of Anfechtung in Luther’s Thought,” 15-30.

3Or the Lex Aeterna, which I defined as “God’s law, in line with his holy character, sums up his will that his creatures dwell in harmony with him and his creation, fearing, loving, and trusting in him and what he commands above all things; and, to paraphrase from the Small Catechism, that we do not despise or anger him, but honor him, serve and obey him, love and cherish him (see the explanation of the fourth commandment). Clearly, something like this is at the heart of God’s will and is therefore not merely temporal” in: Nathan Rinne, “Paradise Regained: Placing Nicholas Hopman’s Lex Aeterna Back in Luther’s Frame,” CTQ 82 (2018): 67.

4Russell D. Moore, Tempted and Tried : Temptation and the Triumph of Christ. (Wheaton IL: Crossway, 2011).48, 59.

5Martin Luther, A Commentary on Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1990), p. 219, quoted in Howard Griffin, “Martin Luther’s Doctrine of Temptation”, Reformed Faith & Practice 4, no. 3 (2019): https://journal.rts.edu/article/martin-luthers-doctrine-of-temptation/

6Albrecht Peters points out in his commentary on Luther’s Catechisms that in his explanation of this petition of the Lord’s prayer, Luther follows in the train of ideas from church history, from men as various as Cyprian, Augustine, Abelard, Thomas, and Peter Lombard.

7All quotes from the Large Catechism from the translation by F. Bente and W.H.T. Dau, published in: Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church, The Lord’s Prayer in the Large Catechism

(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), found in: https://www.projectwittenberg.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/catechism/web/cat-12.html

8As the Lutheran pastor Paul McCain put it some years ago, perhaps at times the prayer can also be understood to mean that we ask God to keep us from the possibilities of temptation. Todd Wilken, host, “0582. The Lutheran Confessions: Luther’s Small Catechism, The Lord’s Prayer, ‘Lead Us not Into Temptation” and “Deliver Us from Evil’ – Pr. Paul McCain” Issues ETC.(podcast), February 27, 2019, accessed Mar 13, 2024, https://issuesetc.org/2019/02/27/0582-the-lutheran-confessions-luthers-small-catechism-the-lords-prayer-lead-us-not-into-temptation-and-deliver-us-from-evil-pr-paul-mccain-2-27-1/

9The 1998 CTCR document Ministry to Homosexuals and Their Families agrees, though seemingly for different reasons than mine. Unfavorably citing Greg Bahnsen’s old Concordia Publishing House book, Homosexuality: A Biblical View, the CTCR emphatically states that the distinction between temptation and sin is very important when “dealing with homosexuality from a Lutheran perspective” (30). Elsewhere, it basically says that there are sinful desires that arise from our sinful flesh and there are also desires for homosexual activity that are distinct, different (16). Willing engagement with these unwanted desires is willful and deliberate sin but the desires themselves are not said to be that. Since the desire is seen to be unwanted at some level, the impression is given that it does not qualify as sin. At least two consequences logically arise from this: 1) On the one hand, one would also have to say the same about heterosexual desires for sexual activity with someone other than one’s spouse. 2) On the other hand, there is no reason to say anything different about the desires for sex with children or animals as well (see footnotes 28, 29, and 30).

10“Rescue those being led away to death;

hold back those staggering toward slaughter.”

11“[…the world] offends us in word and deed, and impels us to anger, and impatience. In short, there is nothing but hatred and envy, enmity, violence and wrong, unfaithfulness, vengeance, cursing, raillery, slander, pride and haughtiness, with superfluous finery, honor, fame, and power, where no one is willing to be the least, but every one desires to sit at the head and to be seen before all” (LC).

Given that Luther certainly knew that men in the church were just as liable to such temptations as anyone, it is very interesting that he did not say the Christian is tempted by all the pleasure and perks of the world, but rather to impatience and anger towards the world’s evil and corruption! It seems to the author that church in the world is quite different today, which is why he wrote the piece that he did at the online journal American Reformer: https://americanreformer.org/2024/07/three-kinds-of-worldliness/

Albert Peters addresses this matter in an interesting way, as he touches on the things that Luther says offend and impel the Christians to anger and impatience, when he comments that “the temptation of the flesh from the Sixth Commandment transfers over into the First Commandment because in the struggle with unchastity it ultimately involves the obedience of faith, in the same way, our relationship to the world, our political existence in the broad sense of the word, also grows far beyond itself and affects the relationship to God.Of course as the whole world wishes to become highest of all, everyone wishes to place himself in the center.” Albrecht Peters, Charles P Schaum, general editor, and Daniel Thies, translator, Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer (St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House, 2011), 193

12Note that just as the word translated “temptation” can also be translated as “test” depending on the context, the word used here for desire can also have different meanings depending on how it is used. It is important to note that the word for desire used in this passage from James (Ἐπιθυμίᾳ) can indicate either an evil lust or simply a strong desire, as when Jesus tells His disciples that He has earnestly desired to eat the last supper with them (Luke 22:15).

13“My thinking has changed subtly but importantly. A Christian can, only by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word, resist temptation, refuse the impulses of concupiscence, and flee temptation. In other words, the ‘new impulses’ that the Holy Spirit produces in the Christian often replace his inborn concupiscence when encountering temptation.

This doesn’t mean that the Christian no longer has concupiscence, but that the Spirit-created ‘new impulses’ exist alongside concupiscence, and that these impulses aren’t inert, but countermand and often overcome the inbred impulse to sin (Matt. 26:41; Rom. 12:21; 1 Peter 5:8-9; James 4:7).” (email correspondence with author, May 15, 2024).

14Todd Wilken, host, “Temptation” Issues ETC. (podcast), August 4, 2010, accessed Mar 13, 2024, https://issuesetc.org/2010/08/04/6749/

15Tom Christenson, The Gift and Task of Lutheran Higher Education (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004), 43.

16Christenson, The Gift and Task of Lutheran Higher Education, 44.

17Christenson, The Gift and Task of Lutheran Higher Education, 44.

18Found in: Larry Peters, “Temptation Thoughts…” Pastoral Meanderings (blog), March 6, 2022, https://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2022/03/temptation-thoughts.html

19Among those who might insist that this would merely be concupiscence and not actual sin might be Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who in Christ the Center says “[Jesus Christ] is man as we are. He is tempted in all points like as we are, yet much more dangerously than we are. Also in his flesh was the law which is contrary to God’s will. He was not the perfect good.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), 108. This might also cause one to recall the popular ELCA Luther theologian Steve Paulson’s comment that in his cry of dereliction: “Christ comes to believe he was guilty…Confessing made it so, and thus Christ committed his own, personal sin—not only an actual sin, but the original sin.” Steve Paulson, Lutheran Theology (London: Continuum International Pub. Group, 2011), 105.

20This topic is certainly worth exploring more and demands more work. Is this possibly related to what Luther calls the “feeling of the flesh” elsewhere? (Plass, What Luther Says, number 4324) Also, Luther, perhaps surprisingly, spoke at times about the devil shooting evil desires into a man’s heart. Is this akin to saying something like “the devil made me do it?” It seems not, as he writes of this: “It is still sin nonetheless, but it is included in our common forgiveness. For we cannot live in the flesh without a great many sins and everyone must have his devil. Thus St. Paul complains (Rom. 7:17-18) about the sin that dwells in him and says he knows that nothing good dwells in his flesh….” (4319). Luther also encourages us to tear these out right away or they might make you sin voluntarily and purposely and writes elsewhere that we should not yield ground by thinking about that which the devil puts in us (4338). On the other hand, in the Garden of Eden, Satan’s temptation of Eve was itself the attempt to create the desire which then led to sin. So hearing the words of Satan, she reconsiders the fruit. This may help us understand the rebuke of Peter by Jesus. Perhaps something like: “Stop trying to create such a desire within me!” So maybe the best way of understanding the feeling Luther mentions is the feeling of being under spiritual attack. In 1519 Luther wrote “as St. Augustine says we cannot prevent offenses and temptations from coming upon us…” (4317) In the Large Catechism, he says that “as long as we live in the flesh and have the devil about us, no one can escape temptations and incitements to sin” (4318). The words “offenses” and “incitements” are very interesting here. One is reminded about how Luther says Adam would have reacted had the snake tried to tempt him first instead of Eve. Earlier in his Genesis commentary, Luther states that man, with a nature that “somewhat excelled the female” would have, in the face of the serpent’s temptation, have crushed the serpent saying “Shut up! The Lord’s command was different.” He goes on: “Satan… directs his attack on Eve as the weaker part…” (AE, 1: 151). Here, there is certain focus on an aggressively active will in Adam, motivated entirely on the basis of God’s word.

21See the post summarizing Pastor Paul Strawn’s paper on the Lord’s Prayer as a prayer of repentance as it relates to Luther’s Chritian anthropology at my blog: Nathan Rinne, “The Two Natures of the Christian” theology like a child (blog), November 11, 2014, https://infanttheology.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/the-two-natures-of-the-christian/

22Peters, “Temptation Thoughts…”, https://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2022/03/temptation-thoughts.html

23Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 1–5 (1536): vol. 1, p. 147, in Luther’s Works, American

Edition, vols. 1–30, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955–1976); vols.

31–55, ed. Helmut Lehmann (Philadelphia/Minneapolis: Muhlenberg/Fortress, 1957–1986); vols.

56–82, ed. Christopher Boyd Brown and Benjamin T. G. Mayes (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing

House, 2009–), hereafter AE.

24Jason Braaten, host, “TGC 337 – Hunger for God” The Gottesdienst Crowd. (podcast), December 6, 2023, accessed Mar 14, 2024, https://www.gottesdienst.org/podcast/2023/12/6/tgc-337-hunger-for-god

25Another temptation, however, is the one Luther identified when he said: “[Satan] plunges [your good works] into your conscience as worthless and condemned, so that all your sins do not frighten you as much as your best works, which are really quite good… He wants you to disown them as not having been done by God… to blaspheme God as well.” AE 14: 83-84. This does not touch upon justification because Luther also spoke of how hoping to become just by works is nothing but wanting to be God and aspiring to divinity” – even as he insisted that good works were necessary to, and not for salvation (“The Disputation Concerning Justification,” AE 34: 165), with the Formula of Concord simply stating that good works are necessary.

26The believer not only pleases God for Christ’s sake, because His blood covers our imperfect works, but also, as the Formula of Concord, says, “because so far as they have been born anew according to the inner man, they do what is pleasing to God, not by coercion of the Law, but by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, voluntarily and spontaneously from their hearts”! Interestingly, this point is related to the last paper I had published in CTQ, where it was later announced: “There is an error on page 79 in the article by Nathan Rinne, “Paradise Regained: Placing Nicholas Hopman’s Lex Aeterna Back in Luther’s Frame,” CTQ 82 (2018). The last sentence of the second paragraph should read, “Even if they are born of a

spontaneous love, the good intentions and works that characterize the ‘new man’ can be of a very impure love, still tainted by sin, even as that sin is covered by Christ’s blood.” See page 4 here to see that correction: https://ctsfwmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/CTQ/CTQ%2082-3%2C4.pdf Original paper found here: https://media.ctsfw.edu/Text/ViewDetails/16413. I still do not know who made the faulty change in my original paper.

27Matt Cochran, “Should Christians Freely Indulge in Sexual Fantasy?” The 96th Thesis (blog), July 6, 2021, https://matthewcochran.net/blog/should-christians-freely-indulge-in-sexual-fantasy/

28Jared Moore, “Preston Sprinkler Vs the Reformation, American Reformer, June 01, 2024,

Preston Sprinkle vs The Reformation

29“I’ve checked with four pastors to verify my own take…”: Gudbjorg Brek, “Fisking a Turnip Part 1: Enter the UberYude”, Operation Valkyrie (blog), May 16, 2023, https://www.operation-valkyrie.group/operation-valkyrie-blog/fisking-a-turnip-part-1-enter-the-uberyude

30“If Jesus did NOT experience homosexual sins, then Scripture is broken when it says that none of us experiences a temptation that isn’t common to man (1 Corinthians 10:13) or when it says that we have a Great High Priest who can sympathize with us because he has been tempted like us in every way (Hebrews 4:15)… [Some] preach[] that just HAVING the desire to commit [homosexual] sin is sinful. [This is] vs. Scripture…: Hebrews 4:14-16 Jesus was tempted in EVERY way w/o sin.” Brek, “Fisking a Turnip Part 3: Never Go Full AntiChrist”, Operation Valkyrie (blog), May 16, 2023, https://www.operation-valkyrie.group/operation-valkyrie-blog/fisking-a-turnip-part-3-never-go-full-antichrist

31“Hebrews 4:15, Expositor’s Greek Testament”, BibleHub, accessed on March 14, 2024, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/hebrews/4-15.htm

32Found in: Larry Peters, “Lead us not into temptation…” Pastoral Meanderings (blog), February 24, 2022, https://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2015/02/lead-us-not-into-temptation.html

33Plass, What Luther Says, number 4328, see also 4329.

34Quoted in John Owen, Of Temptation (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), 16, Found at: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/o/owen/temptation/cache/temptation.pdf

35Augustine, Sermo 57: 9 [PL 38:390], translated from the Latin and quoted in Peters,Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer, 178, footnote 29.

36Plass, What Luther Says, number 4174.

37WA 2:125.24, see also AE 42:74, quoted in Peters, Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer, 192-193.

38Plass, What Luther Says, numbers 4337, 4340, 4333.

39“Boys are tempted by beautiful girls. But when they are thirty years old they are tempted by gold, and when they are forty years old, they are tempted by the quest for honor and glory.” Martin Luther, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, ed. By Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), p. 19.

40Todd Wilken, host, “0181. Sexual Temptation – Dr. Ben Mayes” Issues ETC. (podcast), January 18, 2017, accessed Mar 13, 2024, https://issuesetc.org/2017/01/18/0181-sexual-temptation-dr-ben-mayes-11817/

41AE 1:156, quoted in Griffin, “Martin Luther’s Doctrine of Temptation”, https://journal.rts.edu/article/martin-luthers-doctrine-of-temptation/

42Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7,700 Illustrations. (Rockville Md: Assurance), 1979. See “Temptation”.

43John Owen, Of Temptation (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), 45, Found at: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/o/owen/temptation/cache/temptation.pdf He goes on to say: “The apostle tells us that the “peace of God,” φρουρήσει τὰς καρδίας, Phil. iv. 7 “shall keep our hearts.” Φρουρά denotes a military word,—a garrison; and so φρουρήσει is, “shall keep as in a garrison.” Now, a garrison hath two things attending it,—first, That it is exposed to the assaults of its enemies; secondly, That safety lies in it from their attempts. It is so with our souls; they are exposed to temptations, assaulted continually; but if there be a garrison in them, or if they be kept as in a garrison, temptation shall not enter, and consequently we shall not enter into temptation. Now, how is this done? Saith he, “The peace of God shall do it.” What is this “peace of God?” A sense of his love and favour in Jesus Christ. Let this abide in you, and it shall garrison you against all assaults whatever.”

44Edwald M. Plass, What Luther Says (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), number 4338.

45We really cannot talk about unbelievers being tempted in the same way, because they are only old creatures, not new, because they do not have a new man with new desires. For example, in Romans 7:5 we learn that those who are without Christ, those who dwell in and live from the “realm of the flesh”, are actually those for whom God’s law increases sin – not only in the sense that they become more aware of it (as is the case with the believer when he experiences God’s law at work) – but in the sense that the “sinful passions” are “aroused by the law”, with the end that they “[bear] fruit for death”. In short, the forbidden fruit always seems the sweetest to us. Even Christians, insofar as they are not made new by the gospel, will suffer from this.

In this sense, God’s law is not a cause of “temptation” for the unbeliever (or even the old man that remains in Christians), but that which shows that they cannot but be tempted to do outward evil because the commands of the law only remind them that they despise and suppress the law written on their hearts. As Luther put it:

“…when the law comes, that depraved and corrupt nature is provoked more and more, as, because it sees that it cannot deliver what the law demands, it begins to be resentful against God, to be angry, to boil with rage. And it becomes more and more wicked against God. For thus we all are by nature such, that we desire all the more the things forbidden to us, as someone said:

‘We always strive for the forbidden

and we desire what has been denied.

They do not want what you want;

what you do not want, they desire all the more.’

This is why the law is not the effective cause of sin, but it shows that nature is sinful, and by prohibiting it, arouses sin.” (Martin Luther, Solus Decalogus Est Aeternus: Martin Luther’s Complete Antinomian Disputations, trans. and ed. Holger Sonntag (Minneapolis: Lutheran Press, 2008), 182-185.

And so this shows the extent of the problem with sin the unbelieving world in particular has. For while it is true that even they, the pagans, might, at certain times, be conflicted only to choose to act in accord with the behavior God requires (which goes hand in hand with God’s purposes and desires), this is nevertheless always done without them even beginning to have true fear, love, and trust in God, in Jesus Christ. Their thoughts, words, deeds, and even desires are all done not in a context of Eternal life, that is knowing the Son of God, but in a context of a life that is already dead, a “life” that is one of complete and utter darkness. Utterly lost without Christ, they are not able to act in conformity with God’s law, particularly the first table, neither externally nor especially internally.

46AE 28: 207-210.

47Image originally from Paul Strawn’s paper, “The Lord’s Prayer as a Prayer of Repentance in the Antinomian Disputations of Martin Luther”. Find at: Rinne, “The Two Natures of the Christian”, https://infanttheology.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/the-two-natures-of-the-christian/

48Rolf Preus, “When God Tests You — Sermon by Pastor Rolf Preus” Steadfast Lutherans (blog), July 27, 2016, https://steadfastlutherans.org/2016/07/when-god-tests-you-sermon-by-pastor-rolf-preus/

49John Owen, Of Temptation (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), 37, Found at: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/o/owen/temptation/cache/temptation.pdf

50Peters, Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer, 194.

51Peters, Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer, 194. This must always be the Christian’s posture before God. And yet, while such an acknowledgment is certainly true for the individual Christian as he considers himself, more can and perhaps should be said here. When considering the good works of others, we recognize that we must draw a distinction between justification and sanctification. It is only right, proper, and salutary, to give credit where credit is due, honor where honor is due, glory or glory is due. This is not unrelated to a Christian’s choices, efforts, or will. And yet of course, while we may rightly praise and honor them for their faithful reception of and use of God’s gifts, this kind of recognition would not extend to their conversion, exemplified best in one’s baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for whom God alone is to receives the glory.

52Peters, Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer, 206.

53Peters, Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer, 175. Peters goes on to say, “here the individual petitioner does not ask primarily for the power to be able to properly lead his life in the battle with the Adversary and to resist the continual tests of faith. Here intercedes first of all the band of those that entrust themselves in Christ to the heavenly Father for ‘salvation from the forces of evil, which wish to plunge man in the end time turmoil into everlasting destruction and which it is unable to fend off.’”

54Peters, Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer, 176.

55Peters, Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer, 177.

56Peters, Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer, 206.

57Peters, Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms. Lord’s Prayer, 206, footnote 209.

58As Luther puts this we-walk-in-danger-all-the-way-aspect in his Large Catechism: “our life of such a nature that one stands to-day and to-morrow falls. Therefore, even though we be godly now and stand before God with a good conscience, we must pray again” (LC).

59Moore, Tempted and Tried, 184, 195.

60Plass, What Luther Says, number 4334.

61Quoted in, Al Berry, “What About… the Lord’s Prayer” Steadfast Lutherans (blog), https://steadfastlutherans.org/images/whatabout/wa_lordsprayer.pdf And quotations like this are, of course, not an anomaly in Luther’s corpus! Albrecht Peters says that “Luther did not shy away from saying: God himself assigns to us temptations that they may discipline us into faithful obedience.” He records Luther saying that the temptations “train mankind and make it complete in humility and patience and at ease with God as his most favorite children” (WA 2:125.37) and that “therefore our Father wills that in every moment you anticipate temptation” (WA 30.1:17.20) (quoted in Peters, 196). Going along with this, he elsewhere adds the helpful clarifying comment that “God can of course permit [temptations]; indeed He can place them on us, but He thereby does not wish that we sink into them, but instead helps us to resist them in Faith, and gives us the Crown of Life” (178).