Jesus, full of
the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the
desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.
(Luke 4:1–2)
As participants in a post-industrial society, we modern believers too easily fail to see ourselves in the ancient believers to whom Jesus and Moses preached. Our struggle to swim in a seemingly increasing tide of responsibilities and obligations—family, job, health, church, and community—can appear to be unique to our age. Yet the more I read scripture, the more I realize that we fail to see how our predecessors struggled with the same issues. In missing that fact, we also miss how God called them—and us by extension—to a holy life of faith and obedience quite different from what they would have otherwise known.
Our ignorance has severe consequences. Current Christian culture attaches a significance to Career, Consumption, and Family that is simply not found in scripture, to the extent that I wonder if we’ve replaced the Biblical Trinity with the gods of the land. These gods are insidious because they grow out of legitimate human concerns. Our daily priorities belie our claim to worship the true God.
One passage that may challenge our priorities is the fourth chapter of Luke, where Jesus resists the devil’s attempt to forestall his mission. Until recently, I’d read this story as a desperate tactic on the part of the devil to fend off the inevitable, but a deeper reading indicates a pattern to the temptations and to Jesus’ responses.
The three temptations are similar in that they address basic human concerns (some would say “needs”). The first temptation regards hunger; the second, power; and the third, relationship with God. Although we may not face these exact concerns and so may not relate to them personally, in fact they may be applied respectively to the more familiar concerns of career and lifestyle, family and community relations, and spiritual credibility.
These concerns, by themselves, are not temptations. Far from being sinful, they are elsewhere legitimized by Jesus when he fulfilled them in the Father’s will. Jesus appeased his hunger with bread (John 21:9–15) and moreover used it to establish a sacrament (Matt. 26:26). As for power, he testified in Matthew 28, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” And, when it came to relationship with God, the Father lifted his Son not just from bruised feet but death itself.
In other words, the devil tempted Jesus with things that Jesus could legitimately receive anyway and was even intended to receive. The scripture that the devil cleverly cited supported the legitimacy of what he was offering. With regard to content, then, the three temptations were not the sort of gross offerings of illicit relationships, stolen goods, or misbehavior with which the enemy too often and too successfully tempts us.
So, if mere possession of what the devil was offering was no sin, how was the devil tempting Jesus? Below, I examine each temptation separately.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’ “
(Luke 4:3–4)
At first glance, the devil seems to be tempting Jesus to abuse his divine power, but in looking at the source of Jesus’ response, Deuteronomy 8:3, we find that the issue is altogether different. To gain a complete perspective, it is necessary to review in its entirety this chapter, which is a central part of God’s covenant to the Israelites.
The first verse of the chapter states the main theme: “Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers” (Deut. 8:1). Material blessing is a gift by grace from God and hence is affected by the health of our covenantal relationship with him.
The gift nature of this blessing is strongly emphasized by the way that the Israelites didn’t initially have to work their land. “(It is) a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant...” (Deut. 6:10–11).
But not only was the land a gift but the wealth to be produced as a result of future labor. This is emphasized by the descriptions of the goodness of the land in vv. 7–9 and 12–13 that are prefaced by, “For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land...” God had provided a land that responded bountifully to his people’s labor.
However, the Lord was concerned that, once the Israelites established themselves, they might forget the source of their blessing.
You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my
hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it
is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his
covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.
(Deut. 8:17–18)
While ignorance of God’s grace is expected of unbelievers, the covenant introduces the following equation: keep faith in and obedience toward God, and he will care for you.
Evidence for this characterization of the covenant was the Testimony contained in the Ark of Covenant. The Testimony included two extraordinary items: the stone tablets containing the Ten Words and a jar of manna (Heb. 9:4). The tablets symbolize the peoples’ part of the covenant, which was to obey God’s commands. The manna, in turn, was proof that God provides sovereignly and graciously. The very nature of manna denies human intervention, the sort of intervention that, say, a loaf of bread suggests. In this way, the manna was in fact a precursor of the Covenant of Grace, which was revealed fully later on. All the more significant Jesus’ statement in John 6:48: “I am the bread of life.”
So, the issue of whether our material well-being is mediated by our own hands or not is secondary because, in either case, our material well-being is God’s gift.
This is a lesson the Lord loves to teach, and the main way he teaches it is by caring for his children when their ability to make a living is removed. The covenant still holds in this case, because it does not promise a living, but a blessing. From this perspective, times of privation are special, because that’s when the faithfulness of the parties to the covenant is tested and affirmed. Such testing is a secondary theme of Deuteronomy 8, stated twice (vv. 2–5, 14–16).
Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.
(Deut. 8:2–5)
Note the extraordinary parallels between this passage and Luke 4:1–2. Both Jesus and the Israelites were led into a desert. Jesus spent one day there for every year the Israelites spent. Both became hungry and were tempted.
From these parallels, I would venture to say that when Jesus went into the desert, he was following a short-term instruction in which the inability to feed himself played a part. In other words, there was ordinarily nothing wrong with using his divine power to produce food, and indeed he did use his power this way on at least three later occasions (Matt. 14:19–21, 15:36–38, John 21:6). In fact, the feat of producing bread from bare ground is performed routinely by farmers and bakers—it just takes them a little more effort.
No, the temptation was for Jesus to disobey God’s desires for that particular time and to take matters into his own hands. Like many sins, it was the context, not the act by itself, which would have made Jesus’ acquiescence sinful. As Samuel stated on an occasion when King Saul failed to resist the same temptation, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams” (1Sam. 15:22). But, in a deceptively simple reply, Jesus demonstrated that he knew his mission, knew the covenant, knew the mind of his Father, and knew scripture (particularly Deuteronomy 8), and he trusted God and obeyed.
The implications for us are startling. To start with, it is incumbent on us to learn the things that Jesus knew. The covenant and Word are the straightforward part. It is knowledge of where we are to go, what we are to take, and what we are to do when we get there that most of us have not fully acquired.
Secondly, we must reckon our kingdom work more important than provision for ourselves and our families. This runs counter to the usual priorities espoused, in fact if not in word, in our Christian culture. These priorities are often rationalized under the rubrics of “getting one’s house in order” or “family values.” Although, as in Jesus’ ministry, the ability to make a living is usually included in one’s calling, we must ask ourselves what we will choose to do when God calls us to not exercise that ability. Ultimately, the important thing is not whether we are “supporting ourselves” or “living by faith,” but whether we are obeying God. I’d be very surprised if God didn’t call each committed believer to both modes of service sometime during his or her life. After all, this is how he treated the Disciples:
Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?”
“Nothing,” they answered.
He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.”
“That is enough,” he replied.
(Luke 22:35, 36, 38)
When the call to live without supporting ourselves does come, we must be faithful. Often, the way that God will provide for us is not clear in advance. That is the point God makes when he mentions that manna was not known by “your fathers.” Usually, when the call comes, there is rarely anyone to say, “Oh yeah, what God will do to sustain you is this…” One wonders whether even Jesus knew how the Father would provide for him when he said, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about,” for God’s promise is all that faith requires to pursue one’s calling.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
(John 4:31–34)
Jesus’ explanation, again, is straight from Deuteronomy 8. Our first concern should be to do God’s work. In fact, as other passages make clear (Luke 12:22–34, for example), providing for ourselves shouldn’t be a concern at all. Provision is ultimately God’s role in the covenant, and we really shouldn’t strive to usurp it.
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ “
(Luke 4:5–8)
With this temptation as with the first, it is useful to think about what the devil was tempting Jesus with. Firstly, the devil was making no idle offer, for he really did have authority over almost all the earth. The book of Deuteronomy records how the nations were apportioned:
When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.
(Deut. 32: 8–9)
“Sons of Israel” in some texts appears as “sons of God,” which can denote angels. In this case, the “For...” of verse nine makes perfect sense: God placed each nation under an overseeing spirit, but he kept one for himself.
From this perspective, one can understand why God demanded obedience and separation from his people. He wished to glorify himself; to show, by how much greater and more beautiful was his nation, how much greater was he than the other “gods.” This also explains his intense disappointment when his “vineyard” initially failed (Isaiah 5, Jeremiah 12).
Jesus testifies to the devil’s authority in John 12:31, but the same passage indicates that things were about to change: “the prince of this world will be driven out.” Jesus’ obedience to die on the cross overcame the strong man (Mark 3:24–27) on a global scale. As Paul puts it in Colossians 2:15: “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Afterwards, Jesus was awarded the devil’s authority and beyond by the Father: “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me’” (Matt. 28:18).
So, as in the first temptation, what the devil was offering was not something that Jesus wasn’t meant to possess, but the temptation was in the means of gaining possession of it. The devil was offering Jesus a way to acquire worldly power without the agony of crucifixion and accountability to the Father.
This was not the first time the devil attempted to corrupt God’s creation this way. The temptation to the first, up till then sinless man in the garden of Eden was essentially the same. “Do what I tell you,” the Serpent said, in effect, “and you will have dominion over the earth, like God.”
Another point to note about the second temptation is that authority is granted precisely by whatever powerful being we worship. No one, not even angels, can simply up and take authority. The devil and other angels received their authority from the Father. Likewise, Jesus could only receive authority from other sources: the Father or second-hand from the devil. Authority, as a gift, is only given to those who are in the good graces of the giver—worshipers or servants or fearers, in other words. This is why the devil asked Jesus to worship him before he would grant authority.
This principle also means that, in the spiritual realm at least, one can get authority from only one source: “No man can serve two masters,” says Jesus in Matthew 6:24. This may be the reason why Jesus was so lenient in the case of the man who wasn’t his disciple but was nevertheless casting out demons in his name. “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you” (Luke 9:50).
In turn, Jesus takes the authority granted to him and gives it to his servants/worshipers. “And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:30). Jesus’ seizure of authority over the nations is what allowed him to issue the Great Commission, passing to his followers the same authority that the angels had been given.
From this, it is easily understood why “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12). Jesus bound the strong man and has called us to plunder his house. Of course, the servants of the strong man resist.
There are several implications of the nature of authority for believers. Just as Jesus was intended to usurp authority in the world from the hands of the enemy, so are we. Moreover, just as Jesus was tempted to acquire that authority in ways that would glorify the devil, so are we. Lastly, just as Jesus received power, honor, and glory as gifts of grace in obedience, so can we.
The temptations in the area of authority come from the corrupt way it is viewed by the world. In the world, instead of being God’s gift to a worshipper, authority comes with its being exercised or seized. This corrupt perspective is the root of many controversies over authority. For example, a man can’t simply seize authority in his home, but it is a gift from God that is ratified by his wife and family. His wife places faith in him, so he in turn must strive to be trustworthy and caring.
In exercise as in origin, godly authority is different. Instead of serving self, the purpose is to serve others. Jesus made this clear in preempting the disciples’ squabble over ranking.
Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”
(Luke 22:25–27)
Jesus calls us to be true benefactors. Benefactors are those who retain authority and continue to teach and to lead, but do so for the betterment of those for whom they are responsible. True benefactors do not serve themselves first and then others or give the minimum impression of service, but they serve others firstly and wholeheartedly. Neither do benefactors do whatever their charges wish, but they act out of their particular gifts and knowledge, in response to the one who gave them their charge. This means that benefactors may stir up even resentment as they serve the ones under their care.
In other words, the purpose of authority is to accomplish the work of God, who gives it. The primary characteristic of that work is “care,” but here each believer should carefully judge his or her success in the overriding context of mission. The emphasis I hear nowadays is, to the contrary, “care for one’s family” and other intimate relationships. Now, care for family is certainly scriptural, but we must balance our focus by remembering that God created us to care for an entire world, not just our family (Gen. 1:26–30). After all, the Person we worship called a man away from his father’s funeral (Matt. 8:21–22) and women from their families (Luke 8:2–3) to serve him. He is also the one who said:
When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
(Luke: 14:12–14)
All this responsibility over and above family concerns may seem overwhelming, especially in the face of financial difficulties, but the key is the again the principle “obedience in faith.” We see this in a story from the beginning of 2 Kings 4:
The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”
Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a little oil.”
Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”
She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.”
But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”
I like to imagine this story in our contemporary context. How many Christian wives you know would put up with the situation before the miracle? What would the members and leaders of your church have advised her husband to do before he died? It boggles my mind that the Bible doesn’t say, “He should have gotten off his mystical butt and provided his family with a decent living, complete with life insurance!” This family was four people of enormous faith, who, in faith, met all the facets of God’s calls upon their lives (one of them posthumously).
When the devil tempted Jesus—or tempts us—he tempted him in several ways: to attempt to grab power himself, to use that power according to his discretion alone, and to use that power for personal gain. But this is what Jesus did:
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!
(Phil. 2:5–8)
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ “
Jesus answered, “It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ “
(Luke 4:9–12)
For the third temptation, again, it is not obvious what the temptation is. The question centers around what kind of “test” would have been a transgression against God.
Often, the test is interpreted as any venture so risky or immoderate that we may “force” God to act. The problem with this interpretation is that an act of faith is just such a venture, with the proviso that acts of faith are properly birthed in knowledge of God and his will. Certainly, any evocation of God’s promises brings him, in effect, to the test, and he always passes! In fact, he positively enjoys glorifying himself in this way, as Malachi 3:10 shows:
“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
Another viewpoint is that the act the devil was proposing was a vain display of privilege. Now Jesus showed little reluctance to make this claim in his preaching. “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days’” (John 2:19). Still, this interpretation cuts closer to the truth.
Again, an answer is found in the source of Jesus’ response from the early part of Deuteronomy: “Do not test the Lord your God as you did as Massah” (Deut. 6:16). Massah was the place where the Israelites demanded water, and Moses was induced to jeopardize his admission to the Promised Land. The sin at Massah was not the display of supernatural pyrotechnics, which the Lord himself commanded Moses to do, but the fact that the people questioned, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Ex. 17:7) It was as if they had said, “Unless something really extraordinary happens, we can’t admit that God’s presence is here, despite the facts that extraordinary events happened earlier this year, that he continually promises to be with us, and that we were following his direction when we entered this forbidding situation.” By such sentiments, the people who had the least reason in history to do so were in fact calling God’s character into question. In this light, it is understandable why God became so upset.
So in the third temptation, the devil was attacking Jesus’ spiritual credibility: “Is the Lord with you or not?” The temptation was either to directly doubt God by passing the question on to him or to indirectly doubt God with a display of spiritual “credentials.” Either would have been sinful just two months after God’s reassurances at Jesus’ baptism at the Jordan River.
Actually, this temptation was repeated many times during Jesus’ career, from the time John the Baptist sent messengers from prison to the time the Pharisees asked by what authority Jesus preached in the Temple. But Jesus never lost confidence or composure, and simply pointed to the evidence that everyone already had before them. “You tell me,” he said, in effect.
We, Jesus’ followers, are similarly tempted to commit these two sins of doubt. In actuality, there is no need for a believer ever to question God’s presence. Firstly, we each have the extraordinary experience of accepting God’s call to salvation. Secondly, we have his post-resurrection promises that he would be with us “always, to the very end of the age.” We need only to abide in him in continual repentance and obedience. Nor is there need for a believer to question his calling. If we find ourselves in a desert with nothing to drink, we wait in obedience to the word that sent us there.
As you may already have begun to realize, this temptation is an all too familiar one. It is the temptation to undertake some ministry, particularly a visible or successful one, as a demonstration of how close we are to God. Or to wonder, “Where are you, God?” when we have followed his instructions and have arrived at an apparent dead end. Or to think that God is only present when signs and wonders take place during worship.
As a worship leader, when I hear complaints that “the Spirit was not present,” I am tempted to believe the criticism or to “produce” God’s presence in future services. Of course, I am not so easily tempted when this criticism is balanced by someone who was “deeply touched” in the same service!
The true measure of how godly is an activity in our lives is the fruit produced by that activity, as Jesus indicated to his critics. Certainly, there is fruit of character from the famous list: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23). There is also the fruit of our actions, which can be termed “righteousness” or “holiness” or “justice.”
As for good works, we humans tend to value the actions themselves, particularly highly visible ones, more than the result of those actions. An example Jesus used was prayer: the Pharisee with the loud, extended prayer acted in obvious fashion, but saw no fruit from his action, whereas the tax collector who simply cried out for forgiveness “went home justified” (Luke 18:10–14). The one was pious, the other righteous; the one followed the letter of the law; the other, the spirit of the law.
But it is also a mistake to avoid hypocrisy by simply refusing to perform acts of righteousness. Action is still necessary to obtain the fruit of action, so we should practice good works with the goal of obtaining results. After all, the God we serve is supremely results-oriented. In the Beginning, he spoke, and it was. Similarly, when Jesus observed the Pharisees tithing the clippings from their gardens, he directed that they persist in their devotion, but expand it to include true fruit: “You should have practiced (justice, mercy, and faithfulness), without neglecting the (tithe)” (Matt 23:23). To apply this to our lives... it is good to attend every Bible study your church sponsors; the question is: How have you become more gentle or generous? Or, put another way, how has your neighbor benefited? Similarly, it is good to take a loud righteous stand, but what person who was trapped in the sin you declaimed has changed his way because you did so?
In examining each of the three temptations, we must ask, “What exactly is the temptation?” I suggest that, rather than three separate temptations, we can view Christ’s testing in the desert as one temptation in three areas: provision, authority, and spiritual credibility. The temptation was for Jesus to take matters into his own hands, to see these areas of concern as “needs” that he could legitimately act to fulfill by himself. For the unbelieving culture Jesus came from, to do so would not have been wrong, but Jesus, as someone who claimed to follow God, could not make the same response. His priorities as a believer were transformed. He had received a mission that he now needed to follow, and his “needs” he had to leave, in faith, with the Father.
I submit that we believers nowadays need to follow Jesus’ lead. Far from an isolated incident in Jesus’ life, the three temptations press relentlessly on us every day. We must look at all areas of concern and ask, “Do I worship the One I call God here?” From personal experience, I would venture to say that the answers we will find to this question are disturbing.
Interestingly enough, Jesus’ ministry ended with the same temptation he faced when he began. In the garden of Gethsemane, he instructed his disciples, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation” (Luke 22:40), but his own prayer reveals the temptation to take matters into his own hands and escape. In the face of the bleakest wilderness that any being can cross, the wilderness outside the approbation of God, Jesus yet acquiesced, “not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
©2001
Michael Richter