Temptation


Luke 3:38-4:13
38the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
1And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’ ” 5And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ” 9And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ 11and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” 12And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” 13And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

The temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness is an interesting and rather complicated text. There is a great deal happening in these words, beyond the mere telling of a story from Jesus’ life. The three temptations are a dialog between Jesus and the devil. The only words Jesus speaks in the dialog are quotations from Scripture, specifically from the account in Deuteronomy of the wilderness testing where Israel failed to be faithful. The Word of God prevails over the lying slanderer.

The text actually begins with the last few words of the genealogy of Jesus. That list of names ends with Adam, who brought sin into the world. Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation of the evil one and ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus succeeds where they failed and does not create bread to eat from the stones. Jesus 40 days in the wilderness mirrors the 40 years of wilderness wandering done by the Children of Israel after God frees them from Egyptian slavery. Over and over during those 40 years they fail to trust God, serve Him, and live obediently to His Law. Jesus does not fall into the sin of idolatry but instead again resists temptation. The ultimate test will be at the end of His life here on earth as His own flesh (and I’m sure) Satan tempt Him to abandon the plan of salvation. He does not fall prey to that temptation either.

Finally, all three of these temptations are designed to entice Christ to gain His goals in the moment, thus ignoring and subverting God’s plan.

The devil is subtle, and he sees that his chance for victory lies in tempting Jesus to bypass the cross and reach for glory now. Each temptation attempts this: fill your belly now, if you are the Son of God; worship me, and the kingdoms of the earth will be yours now; throw yourself down from the temple, and all will see now that you are the Son of God because God will rescue you. Had Jesus succumbed to any one of these temptations, he would have reversed the order of the kingdom, placing glory before suffering. The entire rhythm of his life was just the opposite, to show that suffering must precede glory. The rejected stone is the head of the corner. And so he shows that this is the same order for us. Jesus is both the new and greater Adam and the new and greater Israel, remaining the obedient man, Son of God, and Messiah.
Just, A. A., Jr. ©1996. Luke 1:1–9:50 p. 175. St. Louis, MO: CPH.

What we know from this text is that Jesus faced the worst that Satan had to bring. Jesus knew what it meant to walk around in human flesh and face human temptations. The difference between Jesus and me is that He didn’t succumb to the temptations, thus making His death perfectly innocent and able to pay for me, the one who is perfectly guilty.

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