Luke 4:1-13

Fourth Narrative: The Temptation, Luke 4:1-13.

Every free creature, endowed with various faculties, must pass through a conflict, in which it decides either to use them for its own gratification, or to glorify God by devoting them to His service. The angels have passed through this trial; the first man underwent it; Jesus, being truly human, did not escape it. Our Syn. are unanimous upon this point. Their testimony as to the time when this conflict took place is no less accordant. All three place it immediately after His baptism, at the outset of His Messianic career. This date is important for determining the true meaning of this trial.

The temptation of the first man bore upon the use of the powers inherent in our nature. Jesus also experienced this kind of trial. How many times during His childhood and early manhood must He have been exposed to those temptations which address themselves to the instincts of the natural life! The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, these different forms of sin, separately or with united force, endeavoured to besiege His heart, subjugate His will, enslave His powers, and invade this pure being as they had invaded the innocent Adam. But on the battle-field on which Adam had succumbed Jesus remained a victor. The “conscience without a scar,” which He carried from the first part of His life into the second, assures us of this. The new trial He is now to undergo belongs to a higher domain that of the spiritual life. It no longer respects the powers of the natural man, but His filial position, and the supernatural powers just conferred upon Him at His baptism. The powers of the Spirit are in themselves holy, but the history of the church of Corinth shows how they may be profaned when used in the service of egotism and self-love (1 Corinthians 12-14) This is that filthiness of the spirit (2 Corinthians 7:1), which is more subtle, and often more pernicious, than that of the flesh. The divine powers which Jesus had just received had therefore to be sanctified in His experience, that is, to receive from Him, in His inmost soul, their consecration to the service of God. In order to this, it was necessary that an opportunity to apply them either to His own use or to God's service should be offered Him. His decision on this critical occasion would determine for ever the tendency and nature of His Messianic work. Christ or Antichrist was the alternative term of the two ways which were opening before Him. This trial is not therefore a repetition of that of Adam, the father of the old humanity; it is the special trial of the Head of the new humanity. And it is not simply a question here, as in our conflicts, whether a given individual shall form part of the kingdom of God; it is the very existence of this kingdom that is at stake. Its future sovereign, sent to found it, struggles in close combat with the sovereign of the hostile realm.

This narrative comprises 1 st. A general view (Luke 4:1-2); 2 d. The first temptation (Luke 4:3-4); 3 d. The second (Luke 4:5-8); 4 th. The third (Luke 4:9-12); 5 th. An historical conclusion (Luke 4:13).

The Temptation

We shall examine 1 st. The nature of this fact; 2 d. Its object, 3 d. The three narratives.

1 st. Nature of the Temptation. The ancients generally understood this account literally. They believed that the devil appeared to Jesus in a bodily form, and actually carried Him away to the mountain and to the pinnacle of the temple. But, to say nothing of the impossibility of finding anywhere a mountain from which all the kingdoms of the world could be seen, the Bible does not mention a single visible appearance of Satan; and in the conflict of Gethsemane, which, according to Luke, is a renewal of this, the presence of the enemy is not projected into the world of sense.

Have we to do then here, as some moderns have thought, with a human tempter designated metaphorically by the name Satan, in the sense in which Jesus addressed Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” with an envoy from the Sanhedrim, ex gr., who had come to test Him (Kuinoel), or with the deputation from the same body mentioned in John 1:19 et seq., who, on their return from their interview with the forerunner. met Jesus in the desert, and there besought His Messianic co-operation, by offering Him the aid of the Jewish authorities (Lange)? But it was not until after Jesus had already left the desert and rejoined John on the banks of the Jordan, that He was publicly pointed out by the latter as the Messiah. Up to this time no one knew Him as such. Besides, if this hypothesis affords a sufficient explanation of the second temptation (in the order of Luke), it will not explain either the first or the third.

Was this narrative, then, originally nothing more than a moral lesson conveyed in the form of a parable, in which Jesus inculcated on His disciples some most important maxims for their future ministry? Never to use their miraculous power for their personal advantage, never to associate with wicked men for the attainment of good ends, never to perform a miracle in an ostentatious spirit, these were the precepts which Jesus had enjoined upon them in a figurative manner, but which they took literally (Schleiermacher, Schweizer, Bleek). But, first of all, is it conceivable that Jesus should have expressed Himself so awkwardly as to lead to such a mistake? Next, how could He have spoken to the apostles of an external empire to be founded by them? Further, the Messianic aspect, so conspicuous in the second temptation, is completely disguised in that one of the three maxims which, according to the explanation of these theologians, ought to correspond with it. Baumgarten-Crusius, in order to meet this last objection, applies the three maxims, not to that from which the apostles were to abstain, but to that which they must not expect from Jesus Himself: “As Messiah, Jesus meant to say, I shall not seek to satisfy your sensual appetites, your ambitious aspirations, nor your thirst for miracles.” But all this kind of interpretation meets with an insurmountable obstacle in Mark's narrative, where mention is made merely of the sojourn in the desert, and of the temptation in general, without the three particular tests, that is, according to this opinion, without the really significant portion of the information being even mentioned. According to this, Mark would have lost the kernel and retained only the shell, or, as Keim says, “kept the flesh while rejecting the skeleton.” In transforming the parable into history, the evangelist would have omitted precisely that which contained the idea of the parable.

Usteri, who had at one time adopted the preceding view, was led by these difficulties to regard this narrative as a myth emanating from the Christian consciousness; and Strauss tried to explain the origin of this legend by the Messianic notions current among the Jews. But the latter has not succeeded in producing, from the Jewish theology, a single passage earlier than the time of Jesus in which the idea of a personal conflict between the Messiah and Satan is expressed. As to the Christian consciousness, would it have been capable of creating complete in all its parts a narrative so mysterious and profound? Lastly, the remarkably fixed place which this event occupies in the three synoptics between the baptism of Jesus and the commencement of His ministry, proves that this element of the evangelical history belongs to the earliest form of Christian instruction. It could not therefore be the product of a later legendary creation.

Unless all these indications are delusive, the narrative of the temptation must correspond with a real fact in the life of the Saviour. But might it not be the description of a purely moral struggle of a struggle that was confined to the soul of Jesus? Might not the temptation be a vision occasioned by the state of exaltation resulting from a prolonged fast, in which the brilliant image of the Jewish Messiah was presented to His imagination under the most seductive forms? (Eichhorn, Paulus.) Or might not this narrative be a condensed summary of a long series of intense meditations, in which, after having opened His soul with tender sympathy to all the aspirations of His age and people, Jesus had decidedly broken with them, and determined, with a full knowledge of the issue, to become solely the Messiah of God? (Ullmann.) In the first case, the heart whence came this carnal dream could no longer be the heart of the Holy One of God, and the perfectly pure life and conscience of Jesus become inexplicable. As to the second form in which this opinion is presented, it contains undoubtedly elements of truth. The last two temptations certainly correspond with the most prevalent and ardent aspirations of the Jewish people the expectation of a political Messiah, and the thirst for external signs (σημεῖα αἰτεῖν, 1 Corinthians 1:22). 1. But how, from this point of view, is the first temptation to be explained? 2. How could the figure of a personal tempter find its way into such a picture? How did it become its predominating feature, so as to form almost the entire picture in Mark's narrative? 3. Have we not the authentic comment of Jesus Himself on this conflict in the passage Luke 11:21-22, already referred to (p. 210)? In describing this victory over the strong man by the man stronger than he, and laying it down as a condition absolutely indispensable to the spoiling of the stronghold of the former, did not Jesus allude to a personal conflict between Himself and the prince of this world, such as we find portrayed in the narrative of the temptation? For these reasons, Keim, while he recognises in the temptation, with Ullmann, a sublime fact in the moral life of Jesus, an energetic determination of His will by which He absolutely renounced any deviation whatever from the divine will, notwithstanding the insufficiency of human means, confesses that he cannot refuse to admit the possibility of the existence and interposition of the representative of the powers of evil.

Here we reach the only explanation which, in our opinion, can account for the narrative of the temptation. As there is a mutual contact of bodies, so also, in a higher sphere than that of matter, there is an action and reaction of spirits on each other. It was in this higher sphere to which Jesus was raised, that He, the representative of voluntary dependence and filial love to God, met that spirit in whom the autonomy of the creature finds its most resolute representative, and in every way, and notwithstanding all this spirit's craft, maintained by conscientious choice His own ruling principle. This victory decided the fate of mankind; it became the foundation of the establishment of God's kingdom upon earth. This is the essential significance of this event. As to the narrative in which this mysterious scene has been disclosed to us, it must be just a symbolical picture, by means of which Jesus endeavoured to make His disciples understand a fact which, from its very nature, could only be fitly described in figurative language. Still we must remember, that Jesus being really man, having His spirit united to a body, He needed, quite as much as we do, sensible representations as a means of apprehending spiritual facts. Metaphorical language was as natural in His case as in ours. In all probability, therefore, it was necessary, in order to His fully entering into the conflict between Himself and the tempter, that it should assume the scenic (plastique) form in which it has been preserved to us. While saying this, we do not think that Jesus was transported bodily by Satan through the air. We believe that, had He been observed by any spectator whilst the temptation was going on, He would have appeared all through it motionless upon the soil of the desert. But though the conflict did not pass out of the spiritual sphere, it was none the less real, and the value of this victory was not less incalculable and decisive. This view, with some slight shades of difference, is that advocated by Theodore of Mopsuestia in the ancient Church, by some of the Reformers, and by several modern commentators (Olshausen, Neander, Oosterzee, Pressensé, etc.).

But could Jesus be really tempted, if He was holy? could He sin, if He was the Son of God? fail in His work, if He was the Redeemer appointed by God? As a holy being, He could be tempted, because a conflict might arise between some legitimate bodily want or normal desire of the soul, and the divine will, which for the time forbade its satisfaction. The Son could sin, since He had renounced His divine mode of existence in the form of God (Php 2:6), in order to enter into a human condition altogether like ours. The Redeemer might succumb, if the question be regarded from the standpoint of His personal liberty; which is quite consistent with God being assured by His foreknowledge that He would stand firm. This foreknowledge was one of the factors of His plan, precisely as the foreknowledge of the faith of believers is one of the elements of His eternal πρόθεσις (Romans 8:28).

2 d. Object of the Temptation.

The temptation is the complement of the baptism. It is the negative preparation of Jesus for His ministry, as the baptism was His positive preparation. In His baptism Jesus received impulse, calling, strength. By the temptation He was made distinctly conscious of the errors to be shunned, and the perils to be feared, on the right hand and on the left. The temptation was the last act of His moral education; it gave Him an msight into all the ways in which His Messianic work could possibly be marred. If, from the very first step in His arduous career, Jesus kept the path marked out by God's will without deviation, change, or hesitancy, this bold front and stedfast perseverance are certainly due to His experience of the temptation. All the wrong courses possible to Him were thenceforth known; all the rocks had been observed; and it was the enemy himself who had rendered Him this service. And it was for this reason that God apparently delivered Him for a brief time into his power. This is just what Matthew's narrative expresses so forcibly: “He was led up of the Spirit... to be tempted. ” When He left this school, Jesus distinctly understood that, as respects His person, no act of His ministry was to have any tendency to lift it out of His human condition; that, as to His work, it was to be in no way assimilated to the action of the powers of this world; and that in the employment of divine power, filial liberty was never to become caprice, not even under a pretext of blind trust in the help of God. And this programme was carried out. His material wants were supplied by the gifts of charity (Luke 8:3), not by miracles; His mode of life was nothing else than a perpetual humiliation a prolongation, so to speak, of His incarnation. When labouring to establish His kingdom, He unhesitatingly refused the aid of human power, as, for instance, when the multitude wished to make Him a king (John 6:15); and His ministry assumed the character of an exclusively spiritual conquest. He abstained, lastly, from every miracle which had not for its immediate design the revelation of moral perfection, that is to say, of the glory of His Father (Luke 11:29). These supreme rules of the Messianic activity were all learnt in that school of trial through which God caused Him to pass in the desert.

3 d. The Narratives of the Temptation.

It has been maintained that, since John does not relate the temptation, he de facto denies it. But, as we have already observed, the starting-point of his narrative belongs to a later time.

The narrative of Mark (Mark 1:12-13) is very summary indeed. It occupies in some respects a middle place between the other two, approaching Matthew's in the preface and close (the ministration of the angels), and Luke's in the extension of the temptation to forty days. But it differs from both in omitting the three particular temptations, and by the addition of the incident of the wild beasts. Here arises, for those who maintain that one of our Gospels was the source of the other, or of both the others, the following dilemma: Either the original narrative is Mark's, which the other two have amplified (Meyer), or Mark has given a summary of the two others (Bleek). There is yet a third alternative, by which Holtzmann escapes this dilemma: There was an original Mark, and its account was transferred in extenso into Luke and Matthew, but abridged by our canonical Mark. This last supposition appears to us inadmissible; for if Matthew and Luke drew from the same written source, how did the strange reversal in the order of the two temptations happen? Schleiermacher supposes and modern criticism approves the suggestion (Holtzmann, p. 213) that Luke altered the order of Matthew in order not to change the scene so frequently, by making Jesus leave the desert (for the temple), and then return to it (for the mountain). We really wonder how men can seriously put forward such puerilities. Lastly, if the three evangelists drew from the same source, the Proto-Mark, whence is the mention of the wild beasts in our canonical Mark derived? The evangelist cannot have imagined it without any authority; and if it was mentioned in the common source, it could not have been passed over, as Holtzmann admits (p. 70), by Luke and Matthew. The explanation of the latter critic being set aside, there remains the original dilemma. Have Matthew and Luke amplified Mark? How then does it happen that they coincide, not only in that part which they have in common with Mark, but quite as much, and even more, in that which is wanting in Mark (the detail of the three temptations)? How is it, again, that Matthew confines the temptation to the last moment, in opposition to the narrative of Mark and Luke; that Luke omits the succour brought to Jesus by the angels, contrary to the account of Mark and Matthew; and that Luke and Matthew omit the detail of the wild beasts, in opposition to their source, the narrative of Mark? They amplify, and yet they abridge! On the other hand, is Mark a compiler from Matthew and Luke? How, then, is it that he says not a word about the forty days' fast? It is alleged that he desires to avoid long discourses. But this lengthened fast belongs to the facts, not to the words. Besides, whence does he get the fact about the wild beasts? He abridges, and yet he amplifies!

All these difficulties which arise out of this hypothesis, and which can only be removed by supposing that the evangelists used their authorities in an inconceivably arbitrary way, disappear of themselves, if we admit, as the common source of the three narratives, an oral tradition which circulated in the Church, and reproduced, more or less exactly, the original account given by Jesus and transmitted by the apostles. Mark only wished to give a brief account, which was all that appeared to him necessary for his readers. The preaching of Peter to Cornelius (Acts 10:37 et seq.) furnishes an example of this mode of condensing the traditional accounts. Mark had perhaps heard the detail relative to the wild beasts from the mouth of Peter himself. The special aim of his narrative is to show us in Jesus the holy man raised to his original dignity, as Lord over nature (the wild beasts), and the friend of heaven (the angels). Matthew has reproduced the apostolic tradition, in the form which it had specially taken in the Jewish-Christian churches. Of this we have two indications: 1. The ritualistic character which is given in this narrative to the fasting of Jesus (having fasted); 2. The order of the last two temptations, according to which the peculiarly Messianic temptation is exhibited as the supreme and decisive act of the conflict. As to Luke, the substance of his narrative is the same apostolic tradition; but he was enabled by certain written accounts, or means of information, to give some details with greater exactness, to restore, for example, the actual order of the three temptations. We find him here, as usual, more complete than Mark, and more exact, historically speaking, than Matthew.

And now, His position thus made clear, with God for His sure ally, and Satan for His declared adversary, Jesus advances to the field of battle.