The Temptation Of Jesus

By Theodore J. Jansma

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

IN THE Epistle to the Hebrews our attention is focussed on Christ’s temptation as the source of his sympathy with us. He is an high priest who understands our needs and trials not from mere observation but from actual experience of the same. We can rely upon his aid because he has endured the same conflicts and, what is more, he waged them with complete success; “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). His qualification as our sympathetic high priest consists therefore in something he has in common with us, and in something in which he differs from us — his temptation and his sinlessness.

Looking at these two qualifications we are immediately confronted with a profound problem. Christ’s sinlessness in the exercise of his mediatorial office seems to detract from the reality of his temptation. How could his temptation be the same as ours when it was coupled with absolute sinlessness, and when his victory was a foregone conclusion? The Son of God was not merely able not to sin, but not able to sin; not simply potuit non peccare, but also non potuit peccare applies to him. If he was free from the seed of corruption, and the fountain of his being was impeccably pure, what sting could temptation hold for him? Any temptation must certainly present the alternative courses of good and evil, but how can such temptation cause any tension when every inclination of the tempted is always in the one direction of good? Christ’s sinlessness was not something attained, but something native and essential. Not only was he free from every sinful propensity, but his delight was in God, and his will was in perfect harmony with God. His human nature detracted not one whit from his divine person; he always remains the second person of the Trinity, possessing entire all the perfections of Godhead.

The same problem, in some respects, arises in connection with Adam’s probation. God had created man perfect, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. And even though this was a mutable condition, we are still puzzled by the fact that a sinful propensity could and did arise in such a creature. But the mystery in the person of Christ is even more profound, for mutability can not be predicated of him. Furthermore, he was possessed of the Holy Spirit in all his fulness, and “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9).

In the attempt to solve this problem serious men have often stumbled into the heresy of denying Christ’s deity or, at the other extreme, denying his humanity. Hilary of Poitiers, in order to give what he thought the full due to Christ’s deity, maintained that his infirmities, sufferings, and temptations were only apparent but not real; that they were of the nature of adaptations and theatricals. According to this docetic view the thrust of the spear into the crucified body was similar to the piercing of water, the nature of which is such that it is not pierceable but only apparently so. Christ’s temptations were then merely adaptations or theatricals for our benefit, having no foundation in vital experience.

At the other extreme, men like Menken and Irving have exalted Christ’s humanity at the expense of his deity in order to solve the problem of the reality of his suffering and temptation. They have reconstructed a Christ who was a son of Adam like all human beings, sharing with them also original sin. On the one hand, Hilary wants to give us a god but robs us of a brother, while on the other hand, Menken wants to give us a brother but robs us of a saviour. Analysis of the person of the mediator has its place, but we need the whole person for the work of redemption. We can not pick a flower apart and retain its beauty, nor can we retain a qualified high priest if we dissect him in the way some have tried to do. We need just that redeemer who is presented in the Bible, who was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures and one divine person.

That we face here a profound mystery is not surprising, for its root is really in the mystery of the incarnation itself. What can we say by way of satisfactory elucidation of the union of the human and divine natures in the one divine person, without mixture, confusion, or transfer? How far can we penetrate into the secret of the interaction of these two natures? In the final analysis, are we not looking into the face of the eternal God who dwelleth in unapproachable light, even though he was made flesh and dwelt among us? In studying the problem of Christ’s temptation in its psychological aspect, are we not concerned with the “psychology of God”? Yet it is this very mystery which makes his suffering and temptation unique and appropriate to its design. He suffered as the God-man; he was tempted in his messianic capacity; it was part of his vicarious work. He was tempted in all points like as we are, but it does not follow that we are tempted in all points like as he was.

Accepting then the mystery of Christ’s person as lying also at the heart of the problem of his temptation, we may proceed to study some of the facts revealed in Scripture.[1] The general meaning of “temptation” in the Bible is “to prove”, “to test”, “to try”. Men may test a material object for certain qualities, test themselves or other men, or even prove God. Its character varies with its source, but especially with its design. God tests men, as in the case of Abraham, in order to bring out and strengthen the work of grace in his children. This may be said even of those testings in which men fail, for so God also discovers to them the hidden depths of their depravity and the powers of sin. When Satan instigates the temptation its design is to destroy; he tries to seduce men to sin. In so far then as the temptation comes from Satan it is evil, but as God’s design is behind and above all things and as he overrules evil for good, every moral temptation is essentially a testing from God. So God overruled the temptation and fall of our first parents that the glory of his grace might appear. So God sustained his servant Job under the assaults of Satan that the strength of his grace might be revealed. So God also tried our high priest that the supreme gift of his grace might be found qualified for his redemptive task. Looking at the three Satanic temptations of our Lord from this larger viewpoint, they have been appropriately called his “Probation”.[2] Coming as they did at the beginning of his public ministry, they bear a great resemblance to the probation of the first Adam. Our champion enters the strong man’s house to bind him that afterwards he may spoil his goods.[3]

Undoubtedly, the passage in Hebrews embraces much more than the temptation of Christ at the beginning of his public ministry, and even seems to focus attention more particularly on the sufferings at the end of his earthly ministry. However, the point of the passage, that Christ’s sympathy arises from his communion of suffering and temptation, is much illuminated by the study of the Satanic assaults upon him. That the Son of God made himself of no reputation, accepting the infirmities of human existence, suffering poverty, loneliness, reproach, brings him close to us. That he was the special object of Satan’s attack and God’s testings, that he was firm and steadfast in the face of Satan’s most subtle allurements and impeccably faithful to his office even unto the shameful death of the cross, makes him the perfect object of our faith and confidence. It is such an one who can understand our temptations and strengthen us to be faithful unto death also. He not only furnishes us with the panoply of God, but also shows us how to use it unto victory.

It was immediately after his baptism in the Jordan that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. At that initiation into his ministry the voice from heaven had declared, “This is my beloved Son”, and the Spirit had descended upon him to equip him for his task. It was then at the very outset of that ministry by which he was to present the Kingdom of God in word and deed, and accomplish and announce the ruin of Satan’s kingdom, that he is engaged by the fiend. The scene of the first temptation is the wilderness (Mark adds, “and he was among the wild beasts”), a place desolate and drear, without the ordinary means to sustain man, an environment calculated to weaken and frighten. Humanly speaking, it was an opportune circumstance for Satan’s attack. In a sense Jesus is still a novice not yet having felt the real sting of Satan. He is alone, bereft of the comforting and strengthening companionship of others. He is hungry; and how often do not the demands of the body tantalize the soul? We see him suffering under infirmities imposed upon him by his incarnation, suffering as a man though divinely sustained like Moses and Elijah during their forty-day fasts. He was “an hungered”, the pangs of hunger were acute, he was starving, the body cries out on the verge of collapse.

Now Satan charges in to do battle and says to this starving man, “If thou be the Son of God, command these stones to become bread”. Satan seems to taunt him with the witness from heaven at his baptism. Some have supposed that Satan’s thrust was to raise a doubt in Jesus’ mind as to that witness, as if Satan were trying to impress upon Jesus the incongruity of his present circumstances with the declared fact of his divine sonship. To be called son and to be treated as an enemy, abandoned in a wild place and ravaged by the infirmities of fallen men, seems to be the height of contradiction. In a similar way did the serpent approach Eve, suggesting doubt and misgiving when he hissed, “Hath God said?”. In her case that was a subtle approach since God had not addressed his command to her directly. But we can detect a deeper subtlety in this address to Jesus. Rather than trying to push the divine sonship into the background, Satan seems to place it in the foreground. He seems to suggest that because of what Jesus is he need not suffer so. However much mere men may be victims of their circumstances, the Son of God is never a victim, or at least need not be, for the disposal of all things is within his grasp; one word from him and the pressing demands of his assumed human body can be satisfied. It is the voice of appealing suggestion rather than the voice of mockery, the siren song instead of the satyr smile, with which he seeks to seduce the Son of God. To undermine Jesus’ consciousness of his divine sonship would be an ambition worthy of Satan, but to misdirect that consciousness and to prostitute the powers inherent in that divine sonship is a design more appropriate to the circumstances and to the subtlety of the tempter. Should Jesus risk death when life was within his grasp? If he is going to use his divine powers for others and feed by supernatural power over five thousand hungry people, why should he not now supply the needs of his starving self? But it is this very keen consciousness of his divine sonship coupled with the pains of his suffering that fixes in Jesus also another consciousness, that of his messianic office. It is the demand of that office that he be perfected through suffering, that he be exalted and placed above all principality and power only after he has walked the sharp path of humiliation, submitted to death and burial. If he renounces that humiliation now at the very beginning of his ministry he debauches that holy messianic office and his cross becomes superfluous.

But even as Messiah bows low in his humiliation he unsheathes the Sword of the Spirit, and as if to give emphasis to the fact of his humiliation, that he was made under the law, he opens the Torah. The Sword flashes and the living Word routs the Satanic attack: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. Jesus takes a page from the history of Israel, and asserts a principle which Satan had repeatedly tried to undermine and supplant with his own principle. Moses declared to Israel, “And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live” (Deut. 8:3). God taught Israel in their extraordinary circumstances, by supplying them in an extraordinary way, that the principle of life for God’s people is his self-revelation and not the Satanic principle of human expediency. When Jacob schemed and stole the birthright and blessing from his brother Esau, he worked on the Satanic principle instead of the Godly. When Satan now comes to Jesus he proposes the good end of Messiah’s preservation, the seemingly innocent means of a miracle in itself not evil, but meanwhile very subtly he suggests his own principle that the end justifies the means, that necessity must be determined by present conditions. Jesus declares that man lives not only by the ordinary means which God supplies, but also by the extraordinary; that God’s providence is manifested not only in an ordinary way but also in extraordinary ways particularly when God imposes extraordinary circumstances; that God’s end and God’s means go together. As the true Messiah Jesus accepts his humiliation, the way of suffering, the way of submission and the cross, in order to merit exaltation. The starving man refuses bread because of a Satanic taunt and because of Satanic principle.

Now the scene shifts from the wilderness to the Holy City. While Satan had taken advantage of the circumstances created by the Holy Spirit in the first temptation, he now sets the stage himself for a new assault. By God’s leave Satan had remarkable powers by which he could bring death upon Job’s children, ruin his possessions, and corrupt Job’s body, and he is also able to transport Jesus from the wilderness and set him on a pinnacle of the temple. The drama of this historic conflict deepens. It is the absolutely holy one against the absolutely wicked one; the second Adam against the conqueror of the first Adam; the one ordained to break the power of evil against the personification of evil. It was the Holy Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness; now Satan takes the reins and leads him to the Holy City. And now we see Jesus and Satan at the temple itself, the very heart of the Holy City, that which made it the Holy City.

Now Satan, too, opens the Word of God and presumes to wield that same Sword which has just been used against him as he supports his evil suggestion with the words of Psalm ninety-one, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone”. But when Satan uses holy things he perverts them; the Word of God from Satan’s mouth is no longer the Word of God; the Sword of the Spirit in Satan’s hand is a counterfeit. The Psalm describes the happy state and security of the godly, and it is from such a context that Satan tears a word, sharpens it to make a Satanic dart, and thrusts it at the heart of Jesus. He seems to say to Jesus, “Who has more claim on this promise, who has more claim on angelic service, than the Son of God?”

“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

An evil soul, producing holy witness,

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;

A goodly apple rotten at the heart.

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”

(Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene III).

But the Psalm does not warrant such a proof as Satan suggests. It emphasizes trust in God, faith not sight, as does the whole Scripture. It declares a fact to be accepted on God’s testimony and not to be tested at the whims of man.

Jesus’ reply, both in what he says and what he does not say, exposes the Satanic perversion. It seems to be most significant that he does not even refer to Psalm ninety-one. He might have pointed out the obvious, as indicated above, that the Psalm must be interpreted by scriptural criteria. But by his very silence he seems to say most eloquently, “Satan, you have no right to quote Scripture; that Psalm belongs to me, it belongs upon my lips, not yours”. He simply refuses to dispute with Satan on the meaning of Scripture. Satan is beyond dispute; he is a completed fact, unalterably opposed to truth. But Jesus’ spoken reply is also direct and crushing. Once again he turns back the pages of the history of God’s people. Israel murmured at Rephidim for want of water and they said to Moses, “Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?” Then at God’s command Moses smote the rock and water flowed forth, “And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?” (Ex. 17:3, 7). Israel was blind to God’s favor, to his covenant with them, to his wondrous guidance throughout their history, to their recent deliverance from Egypt and their passage through the Red Sea. Israel should have said, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. .. .. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalm 91:1, 2, 11, 12). This sin of Israel was later cited as an example of unbelief and presumption (Deut. 9:22; Psalm 95:8; Heb. 3:8, 9). When Jesus replies, “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”, he asserts his perfect trust and refuses to yield to sinful presumption. He declares that the Psalmist spoke the very Word of God which is truth itself, and needs not to be put to a test. God’s faithfulness was manifest; there was no occasion for putting it to a test. To do so under these circumstances would be sheer presumption and a perversion of God’s Word.

However, Satan would contest that there was no occasion for such a proof of God’s Word. Indeed, he is subtle enough to create the occasion. It was not without reason that Satan had chosen this particular place for this particular temptation. If Satan wanted nothing else but to tempt Jesus to a presumptuous proof of God’s Word he might have taken him to any high place, some precipice, some promontory over an abyss. But why did he choose this place, a pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem? Did this environment suggest an allurement in addition to a personal satisfaction of God’s watchful care? We must remember that Satan had set the stage for this temptation. The Holy Spirit had done so in the first, and Satan had recognized his opportunity and seized it. But now when Satan leads Jesus we may be sure that he will also select the place and circumstances that will be most propitious to his design. The scene below them is alive with the very heart-throb of Judaism. In our imagination we can look from that perch into the courts of the temple. There go the priests about their various duties; a constant stream of devout people comes and goes, praising, praying, bringing offerings. There go the rich and cast of their abundance into the treasury; there comes a pauper widow to bring of her want. There, in a most conspicuous place, stands a pharisee calling on God and men to witness his superiority; yonder crouches a publican trembling before a holy and just God. These are the people who throughout their history have cherished a peculiar hope and have come to this place to keep it alive, to feed it, to strengthen it, to express it. These are the people who above all peoples of the earth have been blessed, and from whom shall come one in whom all nations shall be blessed, nay, from whom that one has already come and is even now with them though they know him not. Soon he shall weep tears over these people and this temple, and say, “O Jerusalem. .. .. how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings” (Matt. 23:37). Even as he longed for these people so with similar passionate love did one of his followers say concerning these same people, “I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:3). Now let us join that temple throng and try to share their messianic hopes and dreams. Suddenly there is a lull in the activity around us and people begin to look up. Almost simultaneously the entire crowd is transfixed by an incredible sight; there is a blinding brilliance overhead like the Shekinah upon the ark; there are angelic forms majestically descending toward us; heaven seems to be coming to earth; and in the midst of it “one like the Son of Man”. This is the very moment for which men have built this temple, for which these priests have served, for which these people have waited. And now, as if all their previous devotions have been rehearsals for this very moment, the people after the example of their priests fall upon their knees and take up a chant of recognition and adoration — “Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest”.

Do we find in this imagined scene the seductive subtlety of Satan? Was it for this that he led Jesus to a pinnacle of the temple? Does Satan show him this flock without a shepherd in order to appeal to the unfathomable love of the great shepherd? Should Jesus adopt Satan’s method in winning this people the effect would certainly be electric. It was in some such way that the Jews expected their Messiah, borne on angel hands instead of the toil-hardened hands of humble Galileans like Joseph and Mary, descending upon the temple from the very heavens instead of ascending from Bethlehem and Nazareth, acclaimed by the priests and leaders of Israel instead of the lowly shepherds and the strangers from a distant land. In short, this method promised acceptance instead of the rejection which later became his bitter experience. But now the great shepherd, although longing for this flock, sets himself against the Satanic method and the Satanic perversion of Scripture and embraces the Word of God and his method that he may win all those whom the Father has given him. The course of suffering has been ordained; his people are to be won by the cross; his flock is to be spiritual not carnal, to be won with spiritual methods; “the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep”. Not this sensational, carnal, Satanic descent to earth, but “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). The true Sword flashes once again; it blinds the prince of darkness; it cuts through all sham and pierces to the bones and marrow — “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”.

Again the scene changes as Satan takes Jesus to “an exceeding high mountain”. Men have speculated on the identity of this mountain and some have suggested a mountain prominent in biblical history, like Ararat, Horeb, or Nebo. However, although the place of the second temptation is given, and with some degree of probability we can determine the scene of the first temptation, we are not given any clue as to the location of this mountain. Even though it was a real mountain, there is an element of the miraculous in this setting that would defy our search, for there is no place on earth from whence one could survey such a prospect as is here presented to Jesus. This miraculous character seems also to be indicated by the words of Luke that Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world “in a moment of time”. It is sufficient that this setting too is suitable for the temptation.

Satan no longer taunts Jesus with “If thou be the Son of God”, but engages him with a new subtlety. He sets before him a breath-taking view of glory and empire, and says, “All this will I give thee”. This time he strikes at his vesture and thigh whereon is written a name, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords”, and offers him a throne. But with a holy impatience and a laconic, ῞Τπαγε, Σατανᾶ the King of Kings refuses a throne.

Again the devil has set the stage carefully. It is not with a vision or fantasy but with an ocular experience that he entices Jesus. It seems rather futile to try to limit this experience in the interest of historical realism, as some have tried to do. The record of the evangelists can hardly be condensed into a view of the promised land of Palestine nor the pagan world of the Roman empire, neither the throne of David nor the throne of Caesar. “All the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them” indicates something sweeping and inclusive whether we think of κὁσμος (Matthew) or οἰκουμένη (Luke). We need not hesitate to accept what is plainly written that Satan, too, has supernatural powers so that he can transport Jesus miraculously from wilderness to temple, and from temple to mountain, that he can show Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world” and that “in a moment of time”.[4]

It is a pleasing aspect of this domain which Satan displays, not the corruption, sin, suffering, and misery. It is a timed exhibit not intended for long contemplation. It is a sudden, fleeting, breath-taking moment calculated to arouse the keenest curiosity and an overpowering desire. It stirs the imagination, stimulates the aspiration, and draws the affection with the suddenness and force of an explosion. Here Satan casts his golden apple upon the course to dazzle, arrest, defeat.

Satan lays claim to all the world, a claim which he supports with the right of a grant, which involves also the right of disposal at his pleasure. Jesus himself calls him “the prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), and Paul calls him “god of this world” (II Cor. 4:4), and describes his sovereignty when he writes “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). Neither is Satan’s dominion merely of an external kind, but he reaches into the very hearts of his subjects so that they serve him willingly. His rule is not one of compulsion which breeds hatred even while it produces submission, but he is like a father, an object of love and devotion to his own (cf. John 8:44). It is a rule which is in rebellion against God even though it exists by the sovereign will of God. It was born of Satan’s sin of rebellion in the heavenly hosts, it is maintained and extended in irreconcilable rebellion, it will issue in the rebellious antichrist. Satan is not making any unfounded claim when he says to Jesus, “that is delivered unto me”. Even if that authority and kingship is temporary and under the ultimate control of God, it is, nevertheless, a real authority which Satan possesses.

When Satan offers to abdicate in Jesus’ favor he is also appealing to a legitimate and profound desire in Jesus, namely, his desire for the messianic throne. Thrones and dominions shall be subject to him and every knee shall bow before him; the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, and he shall rule for ever and ever. But has Satan the right to give it to whomsoever he will? Is his right in the kingdoms of this world of such a nature that it also involves the right of disposal? This claim of Satan seems preposterously presumptuous and untrue, and is just that in the present universe. This is still God’s universe in an absolute sense, although Satan has his throne in it. But if Messiah falls, if Jesus is defeated, then is Satan God, and Jesus Satan’s Messiah. Then “all authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth” will be the declaration of a Satanic Messiah and exercised in rebellion. Then

“Truth forever on the scaffold;

Wrong forever on the throne”.

Then Jesus will be Satan’s vicar and not Satan’s destroyer. The precise issue here upon the mountain is whether God shall be God or Satan shall be God; whether Jesus shall be the Christ of God or of Satan.

This issue lies on the surface of this temptation, but there may be an element of subtlety under the surface in the Satanic proposal. It may be that the price which he demands of Jesus is not an act of worship. In the Greek Old Testament, at least, προσκυνεῖν has sometimes a weaker meaning which amounts to that respect which men show to persons of superior rank, the oriental salaam.[5] Is it possible that Satan wanted to give the impression that he asked no more than the common oriental token of respect? Was it to claim such a token that he declared his greatness in the kingdoms of this world? Are we perhaps justified in connecting his demand with his claim as well as with his promise? Is the force of “therefore” confirmatory and continuative rather than, or as well as, illative in this instance?[6] In any case, Satan does not demand a life-time of service, but only a momentary obeisance. It is apparently a small price, indeed, a most insignificant price if the above suggestion has any truth.

And now we can also see the growing intensity in this conflict, a gradual increase in the impact of the Satanic assault that gives this third temptation a climactic force. In these three succeeding assaults the offer increases while the terms of its procurement decrease; the prospect expands while the condition of its attainment contracts. In the wilderness it is the life of Jesus for a self-wrought miracle. At the temple it is the adoration of Israel for a miracle from above. On the mountain it is the throne of the world for one salaam, or for one act of worship.

A third time the Sword of the Spirit flashes — “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve”. Again Jesus opens the Torah and this time its voice thunders forth God’s exclusive right, and man’s unqualified duty to worship and serve him alone. In the context Moses also charges Israel, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:4, 5). Whatever Satan may have wished to convey by προσκυνεῖν, Jesus tears from it any superficiality and makes it synonymous with יָרֵא, “to fear”, the worshipful disposition of the heart. So also Jesus repudiates Satan’s claim to any external token of worship or respect, for צָבר, λατρεύειν, also belongs to God.

But how could Satan expect any other response? Even if he tried to minimize the character of the obeisance (which we suggested as a mere possibility, not as a certainty), was the demand not so brazen that we should suspect him of exceedingly bad judgment? If he openly demanded an idolatrous worship could he with any Satanic logic expect it? Rather than charge him with bad judgment, it seems he used characteristically subtle, Satanic judgment. It is often the most audacious stroke that brings success where other methods have failed, on the moral as well as on the military battleground. It is also the suddenness, and the concentrated venom, “in a moment of time”, the overwhelming glamourof that moment, that makes the thrust almost irresistible. It is one of those moments that is among the common experiences of life when, for example, we buy something we really do not want. The super-salesman does not give a chance for deliberation, but by making the offer most attractive, the price ridiculously small, and the opportunity fleeting, he creates and takes advantage of one propitious moment. Was it not such a moment that Satan tried to create with one audacious master-stroke? Furthermore, is it not the deeply religious man who is the most fertile soil for the seeds of abstract “religion”? Does not the man with the profoundest “religious” feeling and inclination often perish in the mysticism which is not from the only true and living God?

For Jesus this moment, too, is filled with the beauty of impeccable holiness, while Satan thought to burst it with the laughter and mockery of hell. Jesus refuses Satan’s method and Satan’s throne while he embraces God’s throne and God’s method of humiliation and suffering. He refuses the throne offered by Satan that he may ascend the messianic throne established by God. He refuses the crown held out to him as a gift of Satan to win heaven’s crown by strong crying and tears and sweat of blood. Instead of establishing and administering a kingdom founded on sin and rebellion, he ushers in a kingdom of righteousness and peace. It will be the autocratic voice of God’s Messiah that shall one day say, “All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth”. By that authority he sends forth his disciples to announce the ruin of Satan, the spoiling of his goods, “to preach good tidings unto the meek. .. .. . to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isa. 61:1–3).

Notes

1. There are other problems of a critical nature that have arisen in connection with our Lord’s temptation at the beginning of his ministry. Did Satan appear as an historic personage? Were the localities of the wilderness, the pinnacle of the temple, and the high mountain real earthly places? What was the historic order of the temptations? These questions have been answered with considerable unanimity among orthodox scholars, and for our present purpose we shall accept the generally held opinions without discussion, since our present interest is exegetical rather than critical.
2. Geerhardus Vos: Old and New Testament Biblical Theology (Philadelphia, 1934), p. 210.
3. Idem, p. 212.
4. It might be said that the high mountain is superfluous if the experience is induced by Satan’s supernatural power. That is true; but the very mention of the “exceeding high mountain” impresses on us the ocular reality of that experience in distinction from something imagined. Dean Alford reminds us that “such natural accessories are made use of frequently in supernatural revelations” (Com. on Matt. 4:8).
5. For a thorough and scholarly discussion of the meaning and usage of προσκυνεῖν, see Oswald T. Allis, “The Comment on John IX.38 in the American Revised Version” (The Princeton Theological Review, April, 1919, vol. xvii, pp. 241-311).
6. Luke 4:7, σν̀ οὖν ἐὰν προσκυνἠσῃς. Some scholars have considered the primary force of οὖν to be continuative and confirmatory.