In | Workbook: Parallels Between Jesus’ Temptations, the Garden of Eden, and Moral Instruction in John 1

Grab your Workbook Journal!

[Record your answers in the workbook provided at the beginning of this course.]

Temptation is a central biblical theme. It surfaces in the first chapters of Genesis and will follow us to the last books of the New Testament. Craig Blomberg has suggested that the three temptations Jesus faces in the wilderness correspond to the temptations Adam and Eve faced in Eden and those outlined elsewhere in the New Testament as summing up human temptation. 1 John 2:16 divides temptation into three basic categories:

For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.

John mentions physical appetite, spiritual appetite and “the pride of life.” These categories seem to parallel the temptation in Eden where, “the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye,” and heard from the serpent that having eaten it, “You surely will not die.”

Jesus is tempted by the very things humans have succumbed to since the beginning, which are the same things we’ve been warned against in our own lives. This scene emphasizes the fullness of Jesus’ humanity, and in his refusal to give in to temptation he gives us hope in our own struggles. He provides an example of what when we are—as Jesus was—led by the Spirit.

1. On each line write in the temptation of Jesus that matches the temptations of Adam and Eve and those referenced in 1 John. 

Source: Craig Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey, 1997, p. 223.