I asked my wife if I was missing any details. What he said came about after he asked the question "Why did Jesus use Scripture here?" (in Matthew 4:1-11). We responded "as an example for us", to which the teach replied yes, but why else?
After a short silence, he said that Jesus' use of Scriptures was a crying out to God the Father for help because He couldn't do it on his own. That there was a "barrier" between Jesus and God or something (I don't remember if he said it was between Jesus and God or Jesus and His fullness as God, or something to that effect).
You don't need to be steeped in historic Christian theology to recognize the heretical (if unintentional so) teaching within the teacher's expressions. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, as I hope he is not wedded to the interpretation he has come up with. I hope it is the result of a certain ignorance, not unlike Apollos in the NT, and he's open to correction when it is offered, ala Act.18:26. Unfortunately, the man is in a teaching position where it is generally assumed he has demonstrated his fitness for the position he holds. Many such teachers, having labored over their interpretation, prove resistant to counsel. But I hope he is open to hearing you and your concerns, and ready to value your experience and knowledge.
Let's get specific. Jesus' use of Scripture does point every ordinary man who would resist temptation to God's revelatory word, as a bulwark of truth against the lie at the core of every temptation. Ordinary people of ordinary human nature, by help of the indwelling Spirit find strength in the word. God is to be believed of both his promises and his threats. Let God be true, and every man or devil a liar. His values must be our values, if we would enjoy the life that comes from him alone.
Jesus has for himself the common human nature; but also he has (and always had) his divine nature. He also has eternally his filial relation to God the Father, and there is no barrier in the Godhead. There is no barrier between the natures possessed by God the Son; they are not confused or mixed, but one is not sealed off from the other. Otherwise, Scripture would avoid applying a characteristic of one nature to the other improperly, as is famously done in Act.20:28. Nor is there a barrier between Jesus' human nature and God the Father; this is impossible without making Jesus schizophrenic. Jesus is not first of all a man then "taken over" by divine presence and power, such an act overcoming a native concupiscence.
This idea: "because He's human that He couldn't resist the temptation on His own," is basically Roman Catholic theology. The RCC teaches that human nature in its created state, even before sin, was susceptible to corruption unless it had the needed infusion of grace, the
donum superadditum, an extra measure of divine help that raised man above his raw creaturely instincts, lusts, and passions. With the withdrawal of that grace, Adam left on his own fell into sin, inevitably and inexorably. The mystery of the fall is taken away--how someone who was holy and happy in his obedient, loving relation with God turned to his own purpose against his Maker and Lord--and is rationalized by distinguishing Adam's blessed condition from his created condition.
"Concupiscence" is the tendency in man toward sin. This tendency is not
natural, but it is sinful of itself. RC doctrine contradicts this, and teaches that bare concupiscence is natural and not sinful per se. Corruption in this view is part-and-parcel of creation. So, does Jesus born of Mary and possessing human nature have bare concupiscence? The RC has no problem asserting this, but the Protestant view says: no way. Jesus born of Mary but not of ordinary generation, has common human nature with the quality of Adam's original possession of that nature. Jesus has no concupiscence, no tendency to sin or corruption at all. Jesus is "the last Adam," 1Cor.15:45, "the second man," 1Cor.15:47.
Jesus could, and for our sake needed to resist temptation
as a man. He also was God the Son in perfect power and devotion, knew and went to the word of God for comfort, and prayed to his heavenly Father, and enjoyed the Spirit's presence without limitation. There was never any chance Satan would have a victory over the Savior of the world. But it is important to affirm that the man Christ Jesus did what the man Adam failed to accomplish. He did not succumb to concupiscence in his flesh, because there was none of it--but nor was there any of it in Adam. Jesus withstood the devil, and the devil departed unfulfilled in his ambition, but determined to return vigorously, Lk.4:13.
Jesus' victory was in the Spirit, but it was not
on account of the Spirit the way our victories are on account of the Spirit, on account of Christ's strength in us, on account of the word of God our reliance, on account of the Father's electing love toward us. Jesus has been tempted in every way like we are, yet he remained without sin, Heb.4:15. He didn't do it because of special grace he had, that we too must have in order to overcome our weakness as he overcame his weakness (our common weakness).
One more thing that may be of use. Some doubt that so powerful a resistance in Jesus, the impossibility of him sinning, means that he wasn't actually tempted, that he brushed it off, that it wasn't even an annoyance to someone like him. This idea fails to grapple with the nature of temptation. Temptation is genuine, not because it might succeed, but because it possesses the similitude of value, a counterfeit. What was tempting to Jesus was the proposal that he could have the thing he desired by a route that bypassed the express will of God--will that included suffering, trial, difficulty, fear, and deferred gratification, even death. Could he not see the attraction in skipping all that?
Of course he could. However, he was able to see through the subterfuge to remember his mission, the word of his Father, and his love for the sinners for whom he came to be obedient. In the third temptation, the devil basically offered Jesus the chance to take his place. The devil would succeed in thwarting God's design, if need be by his own self-immolation. What result could come? It mattered little, if God the Son took over from God the Father, or if everything in earth and heaven ceased, or if the devil found himself again--his hatred of God is boundless. But Jesus wasn't going to bite the hook. He set his face like flint and go to the cross. He had come to destroy the works of the devil.
He's the kind of man we always needed, the kind of Son his Father (our heavenly King) was well-pleased with, the kind of son his father Adam (according to the flesh) could admire.
