The temptation of Jesus has always raised thorny Christological problems for me. What does it mean about Jesus, as a human being, to say that he was “in every respect…tested as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15)?

Too often the presentation of Jesus’ temptations makes him superhuman, his divine strength easily overcoming the tests placed before him. But, I cannot help wondering, is a temptation with which Jesus doesn’t seem to struggle really being “tested as we are”? To what extent does Jesus’ humanity require that he face the same limitations and challenges as the rest of humankind?

Patristic theologians such as Gregory Nazianzen and Athanasius of Alexandria wrote that “what has not been assumed has not been healed” to emphasize Jesus’ unity with the entirety of our human nature. Surely Jesus assumes not only the traditional powers of human nature, such as our reason, our will, our feelings, but also the weaknesses inherent to human existence—yet, as Scripture promises and we affirm, without sin.

My favorite framing of the fallenness of creation, and one which I think sheds light on the similarities and differences between Jesus’ relationship to sin and ours, is the metaphor of sin and captivity. “We confess that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves,” as the liturgy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America puts it. Captivity under the power of sin is a result of what we call “the Fall” or “original sin” (however we draw on the metaphors and myths that attest to the captivity of all the creation). And both parts of this confession are essential for understanding our state under what Paul Tillich calls “the conditions of existence”: we are captive to sin, and we cannot free ourselves. 

Jesus, in assuming our human nature, voluntarily places himself into the fallen world, into captivity with us—but he, unlike us, is always able to free himself. To say that Jesus is “without sin” is not to say that he has avoided the captivity in which sin, as a power, holds all humanity, but rather to express that his captivity is the voluntary, chosen captivity of God, in solidarity with us, and that even in his human nature, Jesus always maintains the ability to break out of the captivity in which the rest of us are hopelessly caught—and that, in fact, he always does so. Jesus never cooperates with the captivity into which he has placed himself.

To attempt to untangle the details of what this might look like in practice, I turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which describes that, as an effect of original sin, human nature is “weakened in its powers; subject to ignorance, suffering, and the domination of death; and inclined to sin” (section 418).

Jesus does not sin, but he certainly is subject to at least some of the effects of the fall. Jesus’ passion and cross show his (willing) subjection to “suffering and the domination of death.” Opinions may differ on to what extent, if any, Jesus suffers from any inclination (never fulfilled or acted upon!) to sin. Does an inclination to sin which he successfully overcomes express the reality that he is “tested as we are”? Or do we follow a theology of sin in which even the inclination to sin is in some sense a sin? In that case we must argue that Jesus’ willing captivity does not extend to any inclination to sin.

Either way, we cannot take seriously the incarnation and simultaneously deny that it is weakness on the part of God. God makes himself subject to weakness, suffering, and the domination of death for us: this is the scandal of the cross. The question is: what does this weakness look like, and how does God’s weakness bring saving power for us?

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Part of the captivity of the fallen world, in which Jesus voluntarily participates, is the inevitability of tragic moral decisions. No matter how pure our motives or how wise our discernment (recognizing that we are never entirely pure or wise!), the simple reality of our world is that we will face situations in which there is no good or right response. What do the stories of Jesus’ temptation and sinlessness offer us in such situations?

One helpful concept, derived from psychology, is that of “moral injury.” Moral injury, defined as the psychological wound caused by “perpetrating, bearing witness to, failing to prevent, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations,” (1) is increasingly common in the understanding of the harms incurred in war (although it is more broadly applicable than that).

Moral injury is sometimes the result of sinful actions or complicity in them. Perhaps the most common discussion about moral injury, in the context of war, is soldiers grappling with atrocities they have perpetrated themselves.

But moral injury is broader than that. Sometimes it is the result of actions in which we are not complicit: in response to terrible actions that are witnessed (where we have no power to act) or to betrayal by trusted authorities. What the framework of moral injury recognizes is that there can be profound moral harm to our souls from the evil we experience even where we bear no personal sin or guilt.

In this latter sense, at least, we can suggest that Jesus may have suffered from moral injury. Jesus witnessed harms he could not prevent. Jesus was betrayed by the leaders of his own people. By placing himself into the captivity of the fallen creation, Jesus opened himself to the harm of experiencing evil.

And the category of moral injury also covers those complex situations in which every choice is flawed and even the best choice is nearly unbearable. One heartbreaking example of such a situation is described by former soldier Bill Edmonds from his experience in Iraq: as an advisor to Iraqi intelligence agents, he insisted that they refrain from torture as a method of obtaining evidence—only to feel responsible when a suspect they had released for lack of evidence killed ten more people. (2) Surely his insistence on ethical treatment of prisoners was right—but this did not prevent the moral wound of the harm that followed from it.

Ethicists establish rules for such impossible situations, to make it possible to choose the “right” or “best” choice. But ethical rules do not suffice to overcome the spiritual wounds when terrible consequences follow. Priest and former soldier David Peters has written about how “just war theory”—the ancient Christian ethical framework for understanding how to wage war morally—nonetheless leads to grievous moral injury for those involved in waging war. A choice can be right, justifiable, without sin—and nevertheless terrible, producing moral injury.

Jesus, looking at a world under oppression, knows that power would make him able to do more justice. Psalm 72 petitions God to “give the king your justice.” Jesus, the just king, would surely do justice for his people. Nevertheless, he refuses to give in to the Devil’s temptation to give him power in exchange for worship. This is undoubtedly the right and good choice—but, we must reflect, a terrible one nonetheless, to leave the world even a little longer under the dominion of evil! Surely Jesus suffers, even in doing right, the injury inherent to ethical decision-making under “the conditions of existence.”

What, then, does it mean to insist that Jesus did not sin, despite suffering moral injury as we do?

H. Richard Niebuhr’s conception of ethical action as “responsible” offers one way to understand it. Niebuhr suggests that ethical action is not achieved by following the perfect universal law or bringing about the ideal good, but instead by responding to every situation in a way that is “fitting.” He writes: “The fitting action, the one that fits into a total interaction as response and as anticipation of further response, is alone conducive to the good and alone is right.” (3)

Jesus always responds to every situation and every injury in a fitting way. Jesus responds to everything as coming from God, and in his response of perfect faith always anticipates God’s further response. Niebuhr writes: “[Jesus] is the responsible man who in all his responses to alteractions did what fitted into the divine action. He interpreted every alteraction that he encountered as a sign of the action of God, of the universal, omnificent One, whom he called Father. He responded to all action upon him as one who anticipated the divine answer to his answers.” (4)

Jesus’ sinlessness is found in his faithful, fitting response to God. The ongoing dialogue of responsibility between him and the Father provided, perhaps, a step toward healing of the moral injury inevitable in existence. Jesus’ moral injury was not the totality of his story—nor are our moral wounds the totality of ours.

There is hope for us in this. If only what is assumed is healed and saved, then we trust in Jesus’ participation in the moral injury inherent to human life as an assumption of our nature, a real solidarity with us in our captivity, that makes our salvation possible. Just as Jesus’ death destroyed death, Jesus’ experience of moral injury unites him with us in the deepest places of our shame and suffering. Jesus was really human, with every weakness and every impossible choice that requires. He truly understands us.

Furthermore, in affirming Jesus’ sinlessness alongside his moral injury, we are reminded that moral injury is a wound to be healed, and that responses of trauma, even moral trauma, are not sin to be condemned.

At the same time, in Jesus’ fitting response to God, even in impossible situations, we see a picture of what the healing of our moral injury might look like—of what it looks like for life and faith and goodness to persist even in injury and captivity. God places himself in captivity alongside us and God calls us out of captivity in response. Jesus’ fitting response to all the weaknesses, temptations, and injuries inherent to existence provide us a model of faithful, joyful response to God. 
At the same time, Jesus’ true participation in our captivity, weakness, and injury make him able to really and effectively draw us to such faithful, joyful response when our own powers fail. He is not only a model of faithful response, but the one who has placed himself under captivity, yet with the power to escape it, so that he can draw us out with him to complete liberation.

1. Litz et al., “Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy,” Clinical Psychology Review 29 (2009), 695.

2. Bill Edmonds, “God is Not Here,” in War and Moral Injury, ed. Robert Emmet Meagher and Douglas A. Pryer (Wipf & Stock, 2018).

3. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Responsible Self (Harper & Row, 1978), 61.

4. Niebuhr, The Responsible Self, 164.