The temptation of Jesus was different from ours. His temptation did not come from within, but from without. Whereas we fail, he was successful. That’s why we need a sinless Savior outside of our fleshly desires, that is, a righteous Christ in whom we place our faith, rather than supposed sinful similarities between the flesh of Christ and our own.

Another way of calling into question whether or not SSA is morally culpable sin is by re-envisioning how Jesus Christ must have experienced temptation to sin. Did Jesus ever desire something contrary to the will of God? What of the time Jesus spent in the Garden of Gethsemane in Luke 22:42, when he prayed, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done”? Nowhere in this request is there the slightest indication that Jesus is ever tempted to go against or to go outside of God’s will, much less does this request come anywhere close to providing a proof text to support the erroneous contention that Jesus could have been same-sex attracted. Jesus requests a change in God’s will, if that be possible, which request is not in itself sinful. But Jesus never goes against God’s will, as that is simply not his desire. Jesus explicitly expresses his desire, “not My will, but Yours be done.”

Jesus wished to escape his suffering if he could do so according to the Father’s will, but certainly not outside of it. A desire to escape suffering is not, in and of itself, sinful. So Christ’s desire was not an inward enticement toward sin. We are reminded in Acts 2:23, “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” Christ’s death would constitute the gravest injustice ever carried out in the history of mankind, and yet, it was the Father’s will. Far from fighting against the Father’s will, Jesus was appalled by the people’s will. In all of this mystery, his will was in perfect submission to the will of God which was for him to die. Jesus did not experience internal temptation to sin, he experienced internal submission to God’s will, just as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did in Daniel 3:17-18 when they prayed, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” That is, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Thus, the ‘temptation’ in the Garden of Gethsemane is altogether different from our own internal temptations to sin.

Moreover, Christ’s temptation was wrought from without, for it is still true that the enemies of Christ in the Garden and on Golgotha came at him from the outside, not from the humanity of Christ, and not from God. As we read in Psalm 22:12-13, “Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They open wide their mouth at me, As a ravening and a roaring lion.” Attempting to use Gethsemane as an excuse for homosexual desire is ad hoc at best. In Gethsemane we do not see Jesus Christ desiring sin, but desiring the will of God.

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