Mark 1:12

‘And immediately the Spirit drives him forth into the wilderness.'

The implication behind this verse is clear. The Spirit Who has come on Him is now directing His life. His past life is over, and His new life has begun. He is now being driven by the Holy Spirit (compare Luke 4:1).

‘Drives Him forth.' the verb is strong (softened in Matthew and Luke). There is a divine compulsion. He is driven by One Whom He cannot resist.

‘Into the wilderness.' He was driven into the wilderness because He too must be a prophetic figure like John was, and in the wilderness He would meet God. John had prepared the way in the wilderness. Now He for whom John was preparing the way must go into that wilderness as He approached His future. It was to be a time of preparation and challenge. The temptations that followed suggest that a main reason for the move was to consider how He should approach His ministry. This time of pondering the future inevitably provided opportunity for Satan to introduce his false suggestions.

Others see the driving into the wilderness as being because there He could face up to all the powers of evil that some thought to be in the desert. But there is little evidence of the Jews thinking like that. The thought then would be that He went there precisely to meet them face to face. But if that were so we might have expected further reference to it somewhere. The impression given is that it was Satan alone, and his temptations, that He had to face, and that He had to face them, as it were, man to man.