Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast, making theology central. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Tuesday, February the 11th, 2025. It is currently 2.57 p.m. Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, while some of you were at chapel this morning, well, I was doing other things. I was listening to something else, and then I started working on, well, how do we truly understand this? How do we interpret this? I did finally show up to at least Bob Jones' chapel, but you were singing the last song, and then everyone walked away. I did not get there in time, but I mean, I did, after most of the chapel services were done broadcasting on the Sermons 2.0 app, I did well, do 45 minutes of teaching on what I'd been working on all morning, and I hope it was beneficial. Now, I do keep joking around about all the chapel services on the Sermons 2.0 app. Again, if you've never downloaded the Sermons 2.0 app, please go to the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store, download the Sermons 2.0 app, Download it and you'll see what we're referring to. You'll see the section that says webcast. You'll see all the broadcasting. You'll see all the people broadcasting right now, including me, and you'll see all the different broadcasters. And if you pay attention throughout the day, usually in the mornings, you'll see chapel services from Ambassador Bible College. I think sometimes you see Pensacola on there. You see Bob Jones. I can't remember some of the others. There's another one I forgot today. And I like keeping up with the chapel services. Sometimes they're interesting, sometimes they're not. But that's one of the things I keep up with. So we've been joking around because yesterday, as soon as the Bob Jones chapel service was over, I went live to talk literally about what I just heard. So I was going to kind of do the same thing today, but well, I got distracted by something else. I got distracted by a devotional message. A devotional message from, I think, a Presbyterian church. And they basically asked two questions this morning. Why was Jesus tempted? And how did he overcome it? Why was Jesus tempted? How did he overcome it? Earlier today in my teaching, for about 45 minutes, we worked on that question, why was Jesus tempted? We took what they said, expanded upon it, and I think we had a good theological discussion, a good understanding of why Jesus was tempted. I told you that I was very hesitant. In fact, I did not even allow it to play their discussion of how Jesus overcame the temptation. And the reason I didn't want to get into that is I believe the minute we start discussing how Jesus overcame the temptation, how he was able to not sin, I have my feeling is that church after church after church that discusses the temptation of Jesus, they immediately go to how Jesus overcome, how Jesus overcame, and it disintegrates into basically turning it into a formula for how you and I are supposedly to overcome temptation, overcome sin. And I think the minute that happens, it destroys the entire text from being interpreted correctly. And we are going to discuss this, hopefully, in great detail. I thought this was just going to be know, a second message on this. This may turn into three or four, but I think it's worth our time. So, I may break this into just a smaller section than trying to cover everything, but here's what we're going to do. We're going to go back to the message that we were reviewing earlier. I fast forward past the introduction, past the opening prayer, and they're going to just jump right in. Matthew chapter 4, Matthew chapter 4, he will repeat his points on why Jesus was tempted, right? Why was Jesus tempted? And I'm not going to go back and review everything we talked about in the last broadcast. You can go listen. It's already been uploaded. It's available everywhere. But we will just at least allow that to kind of set the stage. And then I'm going to ask a question that was not asked here. They asked in Matthew 4, their question was, why was Jesus tempted? How did Jesus overcome the temptation? But there's another question that I think is more important. And that has to be asked before we can even ask, why was Jesus tempted? Or how did Jesus overcome? There's another question that must be asked the second you begin to read Matthew chapter four. And that's the question we're going to work on. And I'll explain that right after we listen to just a little bit of this. Here we go. Matthew 4, Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written. He will command his angels concerning you and on their hands, they will bear you up. Lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him again, it is written. You shall not put the Lord, your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him, and, behold, angels came and were ministering to him. So why was Jesus tempted and how did he overcome? Those are our questions for today. Well, immediately after Jesus was baptized by John and was consecrated and anointed by the Holy Spirit as our Messiah, he's led by the Spirit into the desert wilderness where he fasted for 40 days and was tempted by the devil. That is a rough start to a ministry. There's so much we could discuss about Jesus' temptation, but right now let's focus on two questions. Why was he tempted and how did he overcome? Jesus was tempted in our place as our Savior for three main reasons. First, so he could fulfill all righteousness for us and earn a perfect human righteousness for us. Second of all, so he could suffer while tempted, and become a merciful and sympathetic high priest for us. And third, it was to be the new Adam, the head of a new humanity that would be redeemed in him. you go. He goes through those at lightning speed. Lightning speed. If you did not get those, why was Jesus tempted to fulfill all righteousness on behalf of us? He was tempted. He did not sin in order to keep the law and earn an active righteousness, an active obedience that is imputed to us by faith alone. So in Christ, Christ's obedience to the law, Christ not sinning, all of that is accredited to my account. I stand before God perfect, holy, and obedient, even though in practice I sin, I do not keep the law, I do not obey the law, and I'm in a perpetual state of sin just like you are. but I am declared righteous because of what Christ did in the temptation. He fulfilled all righteousness for us. Second, to become a merciful and sympathetic high priest. We don't have a high priest who doesn't know what it's like to be tempted. He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. So now why do we need a high priest? He's our high priest. He's our advocate. He's our intercessor. When you sin, because you're going to sin. See, if we could just stop sinning, if somehow Matthew 4 gives us the secret to stop sinning, then we don't need a high priest. We don't need an intercessor. We don't need an advocate. We just follow the template and we can stop sinning. No, we still sin, but you know what the good thing is? What we should learn is we have someone who's at least somewhat sympathetic and understanding because they've been tempted as we have. So we can then go to them, not run from them, all right? And then number three, to succeed where Adam failed, Adam did not obey, Israel did not obey. No one, no one in humanity has ever obeyed. Christ obeyed. He succeeded where Adam fell, so he could, in a sense, be the second Adam and a head of redeemed humanity. We talked about all three of those points, and the last episode, all right? Please go back and listen. Now, so why was Jesus tempted? There's your answer. Now, he's immediately going to go into, how did Jesus overcome this temptation? Now, I almost want to insert my question here, but I'm just going to let you hear where he goes Because this is going to be a discussion for the next day or two. I don't know. We'll see how long it takes. But I'll let you hear it. But immediately when he starts talking, I see a problem. And you can tell me if you see that. Maybe you don't see the problem, but I see the problem. And it may not even be so much in what he says. It's what everyone does with, well, what he says. Because he gives an answer that everyone would typically give. Let's just hear it. Listen carefully. It goes by fast. Jesus had to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law to the fullest extent, which required him to face trials just like we do. He was tempted in every way, just as we are, and yet without sin, Hebrews 4.15 says. In doing so, he earned a perfect righteousness. He entered into our trials and our suffering. He passed a more severe test than Adam. Failed. Thus fixing Adam's fall by reversing the curse of the Garden of Eden. And how did he do it? As our Messiah who was fully man, Jesus overcame Satan's temptation by reliance on the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. How did he do it? Now, please note, you've got to catch, I know you, like, if you're just listening out for your morning devotional, you didn't even catch it. He immediately emphasized Jesus' humanity. He didn't even mention Jesus' deity. He did not even mention Jesus not having a sinful nature. He's like, in his humanity, how did he do it? By relying on the Holy Spirit and the scriptures. relying on the Holy Spirit and the scriptures. Now let's see what he says after that. I mean, he said it so quickly. Most of you probably didn't even catch it, but he stressed Jesus being a man. He didn't mention anything about Jesus' deity at all. And then he just stresses the humanity of Jesus and that he overcame by reliance on the Holy Spirit and the scriptures. Let's see what he says here. This was empowered by the Holy Spirit and he quoted scripture to the devil. using the sword of the Spirit to fight the enemy. Now think about this. If Jesus needed the power of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures, how foolish would we be to try to face Satan's temptations in our own wisdom, to think that we could outsmart him or outreason him? We must depend upon the Holy Spirit and we must use the Word of God just as Jesus did. Well, now let's move our attention to Psalm 7. There's no explanation there, but you see the implication. Jesus did it in his humanity. He had to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, rely on the Holy Spirit, and use scripture, and he overcame temptation. He overcame the devil. Well, Guess what? The implication is, we can overcome sin, we can overcome temptation, we can overcome the devil, if we will simply rely on the Holy Spirit and, quote, Scripture. And so what almost inevitably fails—now, this one did not expand on it, but it at least once again—and you can go listen to sermon after sermon on Matthew 4. I mean, you've got the Sermons 2.0 app, go to town, see how many pastors handle it basically taking Matthew 4 and turning it into a formula for how you can overcome sin, how you can overcome the devil, how you can basically be obedient to God. But all you have to do is rely on the Holy Spirit and use the Word of God and you can do it. You basically can be, well, I mean, I don't know, if we can do it as good as Jesus did, we should be able to be, I don't know, sinless. Now, there's all kinds of problems with this. First, again, it just completely ignored the fact that, hmm, I wonder if there's a difference between Jesus and us. Oh yeah, he's the eternal son of God. Wait, I wonder if there's another difference. He doesn't have a sinful nature. So making this parallel or trying to give some principle or formula, I think it's problematic. So here is really my question. Are you ready? So their question was, why was Jesus tempted? I love their answers to that. We expounded on it. How did Jesus overcome? They just focused on, well, he relied on the Holy Spirit, and he quoted Scripture. And basically, we do the same thing, and I guess we get somewhat similar results. All kinds of problems with that. But the way they answer that second question, there's an implication. the implication is that Matthew 4 should be interpreted as a prescriptive passage versus a descriptive passage. I will argue, and I am going to put forth my hypotheses, that Matthew 4 should not be interpreted as prescriptive. It should be interpreted as descriptive. And if you go the prescriptive route, I think you end up creating a number of problems. In fact, what you almost walk into is a Christological heresy, is almost what you walk into. It is descriptive. So we're going to talk about this, and we're going to go with my concept, my idea, all right? I believe interpreting the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4 from a descriptive rather than a prescriptive perspective is more hermeneutically sound. So what I did is I went to AI and I'm like, okay. Most everyone interprets it from a prescriptive way. A.I. agreed that that's how most sermons almost universally interprets Matthew 4 in a prescriptive way. I said, I think it's wrong. A.I. agreed that it makes more sense hermeneutically to interpret it from a descriptive, not a prescriptive. And I was like, okay, good. We're good. So A.I. gave me descriptive versus prescriptive interpretation. They basically said, let's put them in the ring together and see who wins, right? It's pay-per-view this Sunday. Descriptive versus prescriptive. Who will come out victorious? Well, I think descriptive should win when it comes to Matthew chapter 4. So, descriptive, what do we mean by descriptive? When I use the term descriptive, I mean a passage is describing what happened in a historical and philological sense without commanding or prescribing the same experience for you or me or anyone else other than maybe the original recipients. It's about what, it's describing what happened, it's not prescribing what should happen. Let me state that again. A passage that we classify as being descriptive, it is about, it is describing, let me say it this way. When we say a passage is descriptive, it is describing what happened in a historical and theological sense without commanding or prescribing the same experience for believers. Example, the temptation of Jesus is a unique event in redemptive history that describes Jesus' role as the second Adam and the Messiah. It's not prescribing, it's describing. What your church should do is just take a year, and just every time you show up, whether it's Sunday school, whether it's Sunday morning, whether it's Sunday night, whether it's Wednesday, you start in the Genesis, you work your way all the way to Revelation as a congregation, and you try to argue and fight with each other to determine which passages are descriptive and which passages are prescriptive. Now, by the end of that year, you're going to probably have a church split and you're probably going to have lost 80% of your congregation because they're like, I don't come to church to do this. I need some. Okay. And so then they're just going to complain. And I just need a sermon. It's too academic. And they're going to make all their arguments. Okay. So you should do it, but you'll lose everyone. Okay. Because there is major problems here and how this works over and over and over. Now, so that's a descriptive. So when we say descriptive, we're talking about a passage that is describing what happened in a historical and theological sense. It is not commanding or prescribing the same experience for us. Now, when we talk about a passage that's prescriptive, it provides a pattern. It provides a command. It provides a method that believers are to follow. Some may argue Matthew 4 prescribes a model for overcoming temptation, quoting scripture relying on the spirit resisting Satan, which every believer must imitate. The issue is that many teachings wrongly assume that Jesus' temptation is meant as a prescriptive, leading to poor theology and unrealistic expectations. I think the only problem is, you take Matthew 4 and you make it prescriptive, you're going to lead to all kinds of theological issues. It just doesn't work. That's what you've got to think about. Whether you go with descriptive or whether you go with prescriptive, you've got to say, well, where does this lead us? If we go with prescriptive, what is the ultimate end result of this? Let's take it to its logical conclusion. If the logical conclusion has you driving off a cliff and you crash at the bottom and your car burst into flames and everyone dies, it's probably not a good idea to make it prescriptive. That's metaphorical. That's not a literal driving off the edge of a cliff, but you get the idea. That's the difference between descriptive and prescriptive. Let me say that again. Descriptive, a passage is describing what happened in a historical and theological sense without commanding or prescribing the same experience for believers. prescriptive a passage is providing a pattern, a command, or a method that believers are to follow. It is prescribing, this is what you should do, this is what you must do. So then this leads to the question, the temptation of Jesus in Matthew chapter 4. Is it descriptive or is it prescriptive? My argument is that the temptation of Jesus is a descriptive event. Theologically, Matthew 4, I think we should be able to say this, is describing a unique event. It is describing a unique event in salvation history rather than providing a universal method for resisting sin. It is describing a significant event in salvific history. It is not prescribing a method for you and I to overcome sin because there's just a categorical difference We are looking at what the eternal son of God, who did not have a sinful nature, what he did, and then trying to say that prescribes what me, a human, not divine, a sinner by nature, what I'm supposed to do? It's just, it makes no sense. Now, some may ask, well, then why is it descriptive? Why are you saying Matthew 4 is descriptive? Well, I'm glad you asked that question. Let's see if we can try to come up with some reasons, all right? I believe, number one, Jesus' temptation was part of his messianic mission. It was not a general Christian experience. It is showing something a part of his messianic mission, something that he was supposed to do. I don't think it's describing a general Christian experience. Jesus was led by the Spirit into this confrontation as a part of his mission. This was a unique event where Jesus, as the second Adam, faced and defeated Satan, where Adam fell. I mean, it's got very specific things. The Spirit literally leads him into temptation, directly to be tempted. He fasts for 40 days. Everything about it is not us. It's unique. And the person, Jesus, who's going there, is the eternal Son of God without a sinful nature. It's completely different. He's doing this as a unique event where the second Adam is facing and defeating Satan. For example, you can look at Romans 5. We talked about this in the last message. Romans 5, 18 through 19, for as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. He's literally demonstrating to us, see, Jesus is fulfilling all righteousness. Matthew 5, 17. In fact, let me read it, Matthew 5, 17. 17. Think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. He came to fulfill all righteousness, which he did in Matthew chapter 4. Matthew 4 is the historical evidence that Jesus obeyed, fulfilled all righteousness, and by demonstrating to us that we can believe in him because that obedience is imputed to us. His victory was representative on behalf of humanity, not merely exemplary as a method for others to copy. See, his victory, it's representative. In him, I have that victory. He's not giving me the example and how to obtain that victory. He is demonstrating. He is being my representative in it. He's not serving as an example. He's being my representative. He's representing me in that moment. In that moment, I'm in him. He obeys in him. I obey in him. His obedience is imputed to my account. He's not showing me how to become obedient. He's showing me that he was obedient and by putting my faith in him, I'm obedient in him. Okay, so I think that's very important. It was all a part of his messianic plan and that he served here as a representative, not as an example. I think another thing here that we have to see why this is descriptive and not prescriptive, Jesus' nature is not like ours. Jesus was sinless. We are sinful. This means his temptation was qualitatively different from ours. It's completely different. You can't take from Jesus some example. He doesn't have a sinful nature. It's qualitatively different. Jesus was fully God and fully man, making his resistance to sin perfect and unbreakable. He could not sin. He's God. Now I know many will argue against that, but when you start arguing against that, your understanding of Christology, your understanding of Christ, you almost start sliding over into heresy. You start separating as humanity and deity. We have to believe in a hypostatic union here. You have to understand the hypostatic union. If you don't know that, you need to look up what the hypostatic union is and you need to study it. You need to become very, because when people get into this discussion, it's almost like, even in this little devotional, I know that he didn't mean it that way, but he just said, Jesus is a man, Jesus is in his humanity. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Jesus is still God, okay? He didn't give up his deity. I think we have to constantly remind ourselves. We have to understand that believers have a sinful nature, even after our salvation. So we cannot experience temptation the same way he did. It can't be prescriptive because I'm not experiencing temptation the way he did. He was experiencing temptation with no sinful nature. I experienced temptation with a sinful nature that's already sinful. And my default is sin. So why is it descriptive? Well, because Jesus' temptation was part of his messianic mission. Because his victory, he served as a representative here, not as an example. Because his nature is not like ours. I think another thing to consider is the parallel between Jesus and Israel shows redemptive history, not a personal battle plan. Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days, okay, parallels Israel's 40 years in the wilderness. Deuteronomy is repeatedly quoted because Israel fell where Jesus succeeded. Matthew 4, 4, man shall not live by bread alone, quoting Deuteronomy 8, 3, this shows Jesus as the true and faithful Israel, not merely as an example for personal temptation. Jesus was engaging in a cosmic conflict, not a private spiritual struggle. Genesis 3.15, if we accept that as the first prophecy of the Messiah, involves a battle between the seed of the woman and the serpent, which is Satan. Revelation 12.9, Satan is described as the deceiver of the whole world, and Jesus' victory over him is a part of God's cosmic plan. The temptation narrative is about Jesus' victory over Satan, not about a believer's method for avoiding sin. It's not about us. It's about all of these theological implications. Israel, in a sense, it's a reenactment of the garden. It's a reenactment of Israel in the wilderness. They both fail. Jesus overcomes the very temptation. And between Adam and Israel, we have a representation of all of us. We all fall, we all fail, but Christ doesn't. So what do we learn? Not how we overcome sin and practice, but how in Him, We are overcomers of sin because in Christ we are perfect and His obedience is accredited to our account. If you turn this just into, hey, here's the three steps in which you can overcome sin, you're destroying the entire theological beauty of the passage. So those are some reasons why we should see it as descriptive. Now, what is wrong with a prescriptive approach? Well, the prescriptive approach to Matthew 4, I'll just say problematic. I wanna say it's spiritual malpractice, but we'll just go with problematic. You see, if we make Jesus' temptation prescriptive, we create serious theological and pastoral problems. Now, this is AI. So I asked AI, what problems do we have if we approach Matthew 4 from a prescriptive approach? And AI gave me one, two, three, four, four with a lot of sub points, problems that arises from looking at Matthew 4 from a prescriptive approach. Number one, It will absolutely, and a lot of times I paraphrase, I just like you to know when I'm using AI, but a lot of times it's AI mixed with a lot of my words. So I don't wanna be like, I'm quoting AI directly or I'm not quoting because it's always mixed together with my words and its words. But I will say it absolutely, 127 billion percent will lead to an unrealistic expectation about overcoming sin. The way it's preached is, here are the steps. Rely on the Holy Spirit. Well, how do I do that? And they'll give you some, like, two or three little things, and then quote scripture. What do you got to do? You have to memorize it. You have to recite it. You have to resist. And they'll pull in some other scriptures, and you think, oh, I've got my three points. I got my four points. Here's my battle plan. I'm going to go overcome the sin, the flesh, the devil. I'm going to overcome everything. got my battle plan," and then smack! You get smacked in the face, you fall on your face, and you sin. And they're like, what is wrong with this battle plan? Because it's not prescriptive. It's descriptive. It leads to an unrealistic expectation. Sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon will preach that if believers will just quote scripture and rely on the Spirit, they can overcome sin just like Jesus did. No, I can't. I'm not God, okay? I'm not sinless. I'm sinful. Even if I overcome a temptation using this method, I'm still a sinner. Okay, do you understand that? Because I'm sinful and I'm guilty and Adam and I have a sinful nature. Even if I resist temptation to an external sin, I may walk away from the sin externally, but internally, I've already been guilty of what I just walked away from. I may be faced with a temptation and go, okay, I'm not gonna do it, I'm not gonna do it, I'm not gonna do it, and I don't do anything. I walk away, I turn something off, I drive somewhere else, I close the door, lock it, I close my eyes, whatever the case may be, and I'm like, yes, I overcame that sin. I did just what Jesus did. But if my mind and my desire I may be guilty of it 120 times after I didn't do anything because I think about it, I desire it, I imagine it, whatever the case may be. Oh, and don't act like you're all so godly imperfect because you do the same thing. See, this idea that if we'll just rely on the Holy Spirit and quote scripture, we can overcome sin. Well, 1 John says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. It also ignores Romans 7, where Paul describes the ongoing battle with sin in a believer's life. You get this unrealistic expectation. That's why I know it's not prescriptive, because nobody meets this unrealistic expectation. Number two, it misunderstands Jesus' entire role here, the entire point. He's the second Adam. The temptation was not about personal struggle. It was a part of Jesus fulfilling what Adam and Israel failed to do. Jesus wasn't fighting for himself. He was winning righteousness for you. When you look at that, what you see is Jesus is doing it. Yes, yes, yes. Jesus is fulfilling the law. Yes. Now, what do I do? I put my faith in him. His obedience is accredited to my account. It's not about me overcoming sin in practice. It's about me overcoming sin for good by seeing his perfect obedience, putting my faith in it, and it's imputed to my account. So it leads to an unrealistic expectation. It misunderstands Jesus' role as the second Adam. Number three, it overlooks the fact that Jesus had no sinful nature. We face temptation from external and internal sources. Jesus only faced external temptation. Teaching that we can fight temptation exactly as Jesus did, fails to account for our fallen nature. Hey, just do what Jesus did. Well, even if I do what Jesus did, I still have a sinful nature. How do preachers not understand this? Unless they're just full-blown Pelagian. If they're Pelagians, then okay. If you hold to a Pelagian view of humanity, then okay. We're never going to agree, but your Pelagius view, Pelagian view of humanity is absolutely just completely opposite of the reality you know is inside of you. A fourth problem is it typically overemphasizes human effort over Christ's finished work. If the lesson of Matthew 4 is, just do what Jesus did, then victory over sin depends on our actions rather than Christ's obedience. Colossians 2, 13-15, Jesus didn't just resist sin, He defeated it on the cross. He overcame it. He defeated it. It's in Him that we overcome. It's not that, oh, we follow Jesus as an example, now I overcome. If I could overcome it, then I don't need a high priest and I don't need a sacrifice. I could just do it. But I need the blood. I need someone interceding. I need an advocate because I still sin. We can't, we have to see this from a descriptive perspective. So can we learn? What can we learn from Matthew 4 without making it prescriptive? Well, we see Jesus' victory over sin is our victory. He conquered Satan, fulfilling God's promise. His obedience is credited to us through faith. Jesus' victory is our victory. It's not Jesus showing us how to be victorious. The text is showing us Jesus being victorious, and it's in Him that I'm victorious. I'm not in victorious and following His example and not sinning. I'm victorious in Him even if I sin. You're missing the entire point. But if it's descriptive, then you understand it. Now we may look at the text and go, well, Jesus used the, he quoted scripture and he relied on the spirit, but by no means is this telling us how to eliminate sin or how to be sinless because we are going to continue to sin. So even if you see, ooh, it mentions scripture, it mentions the spirit, I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, you know what that means? Even with scripture, even with the spirit, you still sin. and to think otherwise, you're out of your ever-living mind. You're living and you're delusional. I think a third thing we get from this is Jesus is our representative and our high priest. Hebrews 2.18, because he himself, because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. That's Hebrews 2.18, Hebrews 4.15-16. We have a high priest who has been tempted as we are, yet without sin let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace. Jesus' experience means he can sympathize with us, but he is not just giving us a battle plan. Jesus was my representative. Jesus is my high priest. I think another thing is this shows us victory over sin comes through union with Christ, not imitation of Christ. I want you to write that down. Your victory over sin does not come through you imitating Christ. It comes through your union with Christ. We always talk about imitating Christ. No, I just need to make sure I'm unified with Christ. Victory comes through union, not imitation. Victory comes through union, not imitation. We are free from sin not because we follow a method, but because we are united to Christ's death and resurrection. A descriptive interpretation is the correct hermeneutical approach to Matthew 4. Viewing it prescriptively creates bad theology, false expectations, and spiritual discouragement. Now, I want to get more into, I have here, I've got pages here. Hang on, let me see if I have them all here. Yeah, I got a number of problems with the way this is typically approached. I got major problems, and I really, and I wanna get into this, and we'll do this next time, because we're already at 40 minutes. If I try to do this, this'll go an hour and a half. I could rush through it, but I don't want to. I wanna get into this whole idea. So wait a minute, when we talk about Jesus being tempted, do we so separate His humanity, like, hey, Jesus was just being tempted as a man and he overcame it as a man. I think this is a problem, right? I think this becomes a problem. Let's see if I can pull up the, let's see here, if I can pull this up. Let's see here. Yeah, we could get into kenosis here, which is a major problem. So we could get into, so let me ask you this, let me ask you this, I'll state it this way. I was gonna do, see, I'm trying to stop myself here. When we look at the temptation of Jesus, if you just say, well, Jesus was simply tempted as a man and overcame it as a man, and the way he overcome it, I can overcome sin the same way he did. Well, first of all, it's already problematic. Because even if you just say Jesus overcame it as a man, Well, the only problem is he's a sinless man with no sinful nature. So it still does not correlate to me, even if I go with that. But if you so look at him just as doing this in his humanity, are you not going with this kind of kenosis heresy, this idea of a, you know, if we go to kenosis, It's this idea—see, this is the—well, we could be called canonic theology, which attempts to understand the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity in light of the kenosis of Philippians 2.7. It aims to solve some of the paradoxes arising from Jesus having a divine nature and a human nature. So, it tries to—then what happens is it begins to separate the human from the divine, and then this becomes majorly problematic. So it's like, well, see, Jesus emptied himself, and so he basically handled this completely as a man. And this happens in a lot of Pastors sometimes will talk about, basically, Jesus did everything as a man through the power of the Holy Spirit, and I can do everything Jesus can. Well, again, even if you go with this concept to some level, you're already in a problem because the difference is Jesus is not a man like I am a man in this sense. He had no sinful nature. That's the whole point of the incarnation, the virgin birth. I may be a man like, Jesus, we're not talking about our humanity. The difference between my humanity and his humanity is I have a sinful nature. So when you get to this subject of the temptation, if you so emphasize his humanity here and you forget his deity, forget that he had no sinful nature, you kind of start sliding, or at least getting close to this kenosis, kenotic theology, kenotic heresy, kenosis heresy, where you basically You're basically destroying the hypostatic union. So we'll get into that a little bit more. Yeah, I mean, hmm. Yeah, there's a lot here we could get into. I kind of just want to jump into it, but again, we're at 43 minutes. So here's the thing I want you to get. When it comes to the temptation of Jesus, it is descriptive, it's not prescriptive. And if you try to go take these principles, give them to people and say, you can overcome sin, you know what? They're not gonna overcome sin. And I know Christians get mad at me saying this. Let me state it for the 19,000th time. You are in a perpetual state of sin. You are always in sin. So even when we describe as overcoming sin, not sinning, it's all so subjective because we are ignoring the reality. Bible says, be holy as he is holy. You have never been as holy as he is holy. You never will be. Not for one second. Not for one second from this point of your salvation all the way till glorification. You never will meet that. That's a law that shows you you can't. That's why you need Christ. And Christ, you're as holy as God is holy, because the holiness of Christ is imputed to your account. In practice, you are a sinner. When Jesus says, Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect, you cannot do that, you never will do that. When He says, Love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, you never can, you never will. Love your neighbor as yourself, you never will. Do all things without complaining and grumbling, you never will. I can go on and on and on and on and on and on and on. You are in a perpetual state of sin, because anything that falls short of perfection is sin, and that is all of us 24-7. So if you hand someone some supposed model to overcome sin, what are they going to have to do? They're going to have to reduce what sin really is to just some external practices. They'll make a list of the really bad ones and say, well, I don't do this and I don't do that and I don't do this. See how Jesus changed me? And completely ignore the reality of their sin, which leads to legalism, self-righteousness, and a condemning attitude, which is what happens. And we get this pharisaical form of Christianity. they all pretend, we're good and they're all bad. We're good and they're all bad. No, we're all bad. We're all lawbreakers. We're all sinners. We're on a perpetual state of sin. Our hope is not in us stopping sinning. Our hope is in Christ who overcame sin perfectly, overcame the devil perfectly, and in him, his victory is mine. It's about victory in my union with him, not victory in following his example. Now, I know that ruined every sermon you've ever heard on Matthew 4. I know that probably makes you feel really bad that you've taught Matthew 4 wrong in church, but I believe it's wrong, and I believe what you've done is spiritual malpractice. And I'm not saying that in a judgmental way, because guess what, ladies and gentlemen? I taught Matthew 4 wrong for most of my Christian life. and I believed it wrong, thinking, oh, if I can just follow this formula, if I can just follow this formula, and you know what I finally figured out? I can't, because I misunderstood the entire point of the passage. All right, now, next time, we'll talk a little bit more about this. We'll talk about how he did it, and we'll see, well, we can't, and I think I've kind of already given it away, but we'll talk, and maybe we'll go into a little bit more about canonic, kenosis. I always wanna, yeah, get into a whole history with it, but yeah. All right, we'll stop there. So for now, thank you. Have a good Tuesday evening. It is February the 11th. I hope things are going well this week. I hope you have a good week, and yeah. And meantime, if you are looking at the Sermons 2.0 app today, If you're looking at the Sermons 2.0 app, there are four live webcasts going on. We're one of them right now. I told you Waynesville, that Waynesville Church in North Carolina, they've been broadcasting like around the clock. They just not uploading anything. I don't know why they're not uploading it. You may want to keep up with what they're doing tonight. They're having some like Jubilee, I think is what they're calling their meeting. I wish it would be uploading the messages. I may strongly disagree with them, but I'd like to see them. Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church in Michigan. I think it's been broadcasting for like, I don't know, 15 hours, but I don't think there's anyone there. Hang on, let me see here. I'm playing the video. Yeah, it's just a black screen. I don't know what they're doing. They just have an eye. And then we have a church in Northern Ireland, and then, of course, Theology Central, and we're about to end our broadcast. So, go jump into one of those others, or just go to Discovery, New Sermons, and look at all the new sermons that have been added today. Or, Or, or, or, or, take the Sermons 2.0 app, go to the search bar, Matthew 4, or Temptation of Jesus. Start listening to sermons and see, do they go with descriptive, prescriptive? Go listen to the other perspectives. I just offered the alternative of the alternative of the alternative because I guarantee I'm in the minority of the minority of the minority. The only person who agrees with me is not a person, it's AI. No, there's probably other people who agree with me, but all right. Thanks for listening. Everyone have a great night. God bless.