I participated in a conversation (briefly) about how Jesus had been tempted as we are. The question of whether or not that meant sexually too, is something that eventually comes up. Maybe that's because we are so bombarded every day with all things sexual. You never know now, when you're watching TV, whether you will see nudity for example, during a commercial of all things as I did unexpectedly last year.

Who knows if sexual temptations were present for Jesus the way they are for other people. If those types of temptations were present though, they did not come from within His pure heart. His flesh was not fallen, and He had no sin in Him. Such temptations were placed in His path by the enemy and his evil minions, or by other people.

In Hebrews 4:15, where it says he was; "...in all points tempted as we are." in the Greek reads, "kata panta kath homoioteta." As far as I can tell, that means, "according to every respect, or according to the likeness" of the ways in which we are tempted. So we share some commonality with our Savior in the way we are tempted, and some differences, right? I mean, He was without sin. None of us can make that remark about ourselves. So the temptations placed in front of Him never resulted in sin on His part. He was tempted, like we are tempted. I don't think though, that Hebrews 4:15 is saying that He was tempted in every way that we ourselves are, or have been.

God's Law demands absolute and perfect obedience. If I'm tempted in a different way than you are, and we both give in, the result buys us the same hideous result----sin. That means that our temptations and sin share a type of universality. They all reach toward the same self-gratifying weak and prideful desire. It isn't then, really necessary for Jesus to have been tempted with exactly all the very same temptations that all of humanity has faced at one time or another. He didn't need to do that to be our substitute on the cross.

I feel that it's safe to say that there are temptations that just weren't an issue in His society. That doesn't mean that He couldn't or can't sympathize with the folks who struggle with those sins, because those sins share that universality that I wrote of earlier. They share the common desire to order our lives ourselves, apart from God and His goodness. In a way, it's like trying to be gods ourselves, and it's the same old thing that was messing up things back in the Garden of Eden.

Jesus knew then, and He knows now, what that temptation was all about. He knows it better than any of us do, because He was offered more than anyone ever was, and He resisted it all.