From the perspective of faith, the church answers in the affirmative that Jesus was "
was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin" (
Hebrews 4:15).
So Christians are bound by this teaching in conscience, if they intend to adhere to the central tenets of the religion.
Nonetheless, from a strictly objective and secular point of view, there are legitimate points of potential conflict with this dogmatic belief. For one, if Jesus were sinless, then why did he submit himself to the baptism of John “
for the forgiveness of sins” (
Mark 1:4)?
The earliest accounts of Jesus's life in the synoptics gospels and extra-canonical writings like the gospel of the Ebionites, appear to find this episode extremely embarrassing and problematic for their theological frameworks, such that they seek to variously bypass, undermine or point-black ignore this event in the life of Christ. It wasn't conducive to their apologetical ends.
Consequently, New Testament scholars frequently declare the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist to be one of the surest historical facts about Jesus’ life. [i.e. James D.G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, Vol. I, pages 350 (“
This is one of the most securely grounded facts in all the history of Jesus.”); Robert H. Stein, Mark, page 55 (“
Jesus’s baptism by John is one of the most certain historical facts we possess concerning the life of Jesus.”).]
If I might reference the explanation put forward by John Meier (the famous American biblical scholar and Roman Catholic priest):
A prime example is the baptism of the supposedly superior and sinless Jesus by his supposed inferior, John the Baptist, who proclaimed ‘a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.’ Mysterious, laconic, stark Mark recounts the event with no theological explanations as to why the superior sinless one submits to a baptism meant for sinners (Mark 1:4-11).
Matthew introduces a dialogue between the Baptist and Jesus prior to the baptism; the Baptist openly confesses his unworthiness to baptise his superior and gives way only to when Jesus commands him to do so in order that God’s saving plan may be fulfilled (Matt 3.13-17, a passage marked by language typical of the evangelist).
Luke finds a striking solution to the problem by narrating the Baptist’s imprisonment by Herod before relating the baptism of Jesus; Luke’s version never tells us who baptized Jesus (Luke 3:19-22).
The radical Fourth Evangelist, John, locked as he is in a struggle with latter-day disciples of the Baptist who refuse to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, takes the radical expedient of suppressing the baptism of Jesus by the Baptist altogether; the event simply never occurs in John’s Gospel. We still hear of the Father’s witness to Jesus and the Spirit’s descent upon Jesus, but we are never told when this theophany occurs (John 1:29-34).
Quite plainly, the early Church was ‘stuck with’ an event in Jesus’ life that it found increasingly embarrassing, that it tried to explain away by various means, and that John the Evangelist finally erased from his Gospel. It is highly unlikely that the Church went out of its way to create the cause of its own embarrassment.
Meier, op. cit., page 169.