Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

3. The Temptations of the Lord Jesus

Of what character were the temptations that the Lord Jesus endured? This question arises definitely out of the fact of His sinlessness, which was our subject in the last chapter.

There are some who do not seem able to understand any other sort of temptation than the incitement to do evil, which is the modern meaning of the word, and they argue that temptation can have neither force nor meaning to a man unless there is within him the desire, or at least the liability to yield. Now we are all familiar with that character of temptation, and it is recognised in the Scriptures, where we read,

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lusts and enticed” (James 1:13-14). Yet, we are also told in the same Scriptures, “God did tempt Abraham” when He bade him offer up Isaac (Genesis 22:1). This must have been some other kind of temptation than that of which James speaks; it was certainly not an enticement to do evil; it could not have been, for it is as impossible that God should tempt a man in that way, as it is impossible for Him to lie. It was a testing of what was in Abraham; his faith was put into the crucible and it came out of it, as we know, as gold tried by the fire. And this character of temptation is spoken of more often in the Scriptures than that of enticement to sin.

The Two Kinds of Temptations

Peter speaks of both. He says, “He that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin” (1 Peter 4:1). That means that when the enticement to sin assails the Christian, instead of gratifying the desire within that answers to the temptation without, he resists it, and suffers in the flesh. He says, No, Christ suffered for my sins. I will not allow and gratify that which caused Him to suffer, the Just for the unjust to bring me to God. But in chapter 1:6-7, he speaks of “manifold temptations;” these are not enticements to do evil, but the trial of the Christian’s faith. They are tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, pain, bereavement, tears and other burdens and vicissitudes of life (Romans 8:35), by which Christians are tested, and which discover whether God is greater to them than their sorrows and adversities, and nearer to them than their circumstances, and whether they can wholly trust in Him at all times. Plainly then, temptation is often used in Scripture when enticement to do evil is not the subject at all. Enticement, if yielded to, betrays the bad that is in us, but this other kind of temptation tests us and brings out the good if we really rely upon God, or it may reveal to us our self-confidence and folly, as it did in Peter’s case.

Because people do not distinguish between these two kinds of “temptation they argue that — since the Scripture says that the Lord Jesus “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 2:18; 4:15) — He had to resist the assaults from without, and to watch a traitor within, though He ever fought this twofold battle successfully. We have heard it said by earnest though unenlightened Christians that in their conflicts with evil they have been comforted by the thought that the Lord had to struggle as they struggle, and that because He overcame in the struggle so may they hope to do. He did indeed overcome in every temptation, but the temptations were entirely from without and never from within as ours so often are; and they certainly may be more than conquerors through Him that loved them, but it will be on other ground entirely from that that they suppose.

The Lord Tempted Apart From Sin

I impugn this popular teaching; it is a lie. It means that there was liability in the Lord to sin even though He did not yield. Such a view of Him is not found in Scripture; it is false; it is derogatory to His holy person and damaging to the faith of His saints. Our Saviour, High Priest and Leader was and must ever be beyond the possibility of sin. The idea is chiefly built upon the passage already quoted from Hebrews 4:15; but there is no doubt on the part of those who are able to judge in these matters that the words, “yet without sin” in the Authorised Version, are a faulty translation and, should be “sin apart,” or “from sin.” (Those who have a Scofield Reference Bible will find it so given in the margin; see also J.N.Darby’s New Translation.) He was tried by every kind of temptation except that kind. He was never enticed as we are, for there was nothing within Him that answered to sin without, except holy suffering because of it. This is the truth that must be emphasised. From the first breath that He drew until He committed His spirit into His Father’s hands, He was holy to God; no adverse will within Him ever warred against God’s will for Him; no sinful thought or selfish desire ever spoiled the fragrance of His life; there was no fly in that sweet ointment. He was the well beloved Son in whom was the Father’s full delight, doing always the things that pleased Him. He was in the world that reeked with moral putrefaction, surrounded by sin, hated by sinners, assailed by the devil and tested by every trial and He suffered as no other man had suffered or could suffer because of it all;

“Yet spotless, undefiled and pure
  Our great Redeemer stood;
While Satan’s fiery darts He bore,
  And did resist to blood.”

The difficulty that some find of understanding any other sort of temptation than enticement to sin may be because they have known no other. Their conflicts have only been with the evil that is within them, the conflict described in Romans 7, and they have hardly started on the heavenly pilgrimage, and know little or nothing of the trials of the way: of the discouragements and difficulties of it, and the assaults of Satan in his endeavours to drive them back from it or turn them aside into an easier path. But it is this that is in view in the Hebrew Epistle where we read so much of the way the Lord endured temptation. Christians are not there viewed as struggling in the Slough of Despond, they have got beyond that, and are pilgrims, and warriors, and worshippers; partakers of the heavenly calling, leaving the world behind them and pressing onward to the city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Now Jesus is the Author and Finisher of this way of faith. He began at the beginning of it and trod every step of it to its completion, and He knows every trial and difficulty in it, and how Satan besets with many wiles and threatenings those who are following Him in it, for He has experienced them all, and was tempted in all points on that road and in that life of faith, apart from sin, and consequently He is able to sympathise with, and succour them in their hours of weakness and distress and in every time of need.

I quote from Lectures on Hebrews, by S. Ridout, “We read of one of John Bunyan’s characters that at the close of his life he said, wherever he had found the footprints of the Lord Jesus, there he had coveted to put his feet. How beautiful that! but sweeter far is the thought that our blessed Lord, when here on earth, searched wherever the feet of His weary saints would have to tread, and He not only coveted to do it, but He did put His feet just there. He has gone through all the circumstances of the wilderness, He knows what all the testing and trials of it mean in a way infinitely beyond the experience of the ripest saint, for He has passed through it, apart from the deadening, dulling, wasteful experiences of sin. We pass through the wilderness, alas, too often yielding to sin. Our blessed Lord passed through never yielding in thought for one moment to a thing that was not in accordance to His Father’s will.”

The Lord Jesus led the way in this path of faith and testing and suffering, and this is the meaning of such statements as, “In that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18). And again, “Though He were Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered” (chap. 5:8). That does not mean that He learnt to obey, He never needed lessons of that sort; His very nature was wholly subject to God, but He learnt what obedience entailed in a world that was ruled by the devil, the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. He who is the Lord of hosts, came down into a life of obedience and dependence on God and faith, and He was thoroughly tested in it. As every girder in a great bridge is tested before it is put into its destined place in the bridge, so was our Lord tested under the utmost pressure and He was never found wanting. There was no resistance to God’s will in Him, no resentment, no murmuring, no fault, no flaw; the yoke of God did not chafe His holy soul, He delighted to bear it both day and night, and having passed through every test, and graduated in the school of suffering, He has fully qualified to be the Author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him (Hebrews 5:9).

The Temptations in the Wilderness

But now leaving that phase of temptation in which we have a part and in which we may have the succour and sympathy of the Lord, we come to the great conflict in the wilderness, when He in whom was all goodness, and who was the God-ordained Leader of the forces of Light met the spirit of evil, the Prince of the powers of darkness. We may learn many lessons as we contemplate these temptations of the Lord; and as we watch His ways we may see how we may overcome, though we must always remember that if we meet Satan at all we meet a defeated foe. Jesus met him when he was flushed with four thousand years of triumph over men. But our subject is not what He was as a pattern for us, but rather what was involved in the conflict for God and men, for Himself and the great adversary.

The Lord had appeared according to the ancient word to “preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” but these whom He had come to bless were the devil’s captives. He held them as prisoners in his palace, and was “the strong man” who was determined to keep his goods from all molestation. Moreover he trusted in his armour and thought himself invincible — it is all described by the Lord in a few terse sentences in Luke 11:21-22 — for forty centuries he had bound men as captives; he had forged many weapons to effect this and apparently he had done as he wished among them, no one had appeared who could spoil him of his armour or dispute his rights to the children of men. The question had been asked by the prophet in former days, “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty? and shall the lawful captives be delivered?” so hopeless did it all seem to be. But Jehovah had answered, “Even the captive of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered … and all flesh shall know that I the Lord am the Saviour” (Isaiah 49:24-26). But this deliverance of the devil’s captives awaited the coming of the One who was “stronger than he,” and against whom his most subtly forged weapons would utterly fail. That JESUS was He, we know, but He had to prove Himself in direct conflict with the devil. Before He could do one public work of mercy or speak one public word of grace this issue had to be tried.

Then further the devil had claimed the kingdoms of the world; he dominated them and arrogated to himself the right to dispose of them as he pleased, but Jesus was the destined and rightful Heir, and the devil knew it; could he outmanoeuvre Him and deceive Him and bring Him under his dominion as he had done Adam? He was to be permitted to try, and to tempt the Lord to the utmost of his power, and by his efforts bring into manifestation what was in the heart and mind and will of the Lord, and prove whether He loved righteousness and hated iniquity or not, and whether He was able and worthy to wield the universal sceptre.

And there was still another matter at issue, this second Man had come as the image of the invisible God: as His representative; could He hold the ground for God against all attacks where the first man had basely surrendered his trust? Was God to be glorified in and through man? Was He to look upon One, who would sacrifice every worldly advantage and Himself also for His will, and overcome the adversary by complete dependence and absolute, unquestioning obedience? This was a great issue, everything in the age-long conflict between good and evil, depended upon it.

In this encounter with Satan, Jesus was alone and wholly dependent upon God; no disciple was near to cheer Him and no angel ministered to Him until the fight was finished. This isolation from all aid from others is emphasised by the fact that He was carried into the wilderness by the Spirit to meet the foe: away from the abodes of men to the haunts of the wild beasts. And the fact that the temptation is recorded in the Synoptic Gospels and not in that of John, would teach us that it was in His manhood weakness and dependence upon God that the fight was waged, and not by the Godhead power that dwelt in Him; for John’s Gospel is the Gospel of His divine glory, the glory of the Son brought down into Manhood; while the Synoptic Gospels show us, the same Person, truly, but as “the woman’s Seed,” the lowly Man of sorrows, who had no resources but in God.

The First Temptation

It has often been said that in these three temptations of the Lord “all that is in the world, 1. the lust of the flesh, 2. the lust of the eyes, 3. the pride of life” appear; and have no doubt that this is true, for these three phases of the world are the weapons in which the devil trusts in his enslavement of men, and it is in this order that they are recorded in Luke’s Gospel, which gives us the moral and not the historical order of them.

In the proposal that Jesus should make the stones into bread there was a subtle suggestion of kindly interest in His welfare as well as a reflection upon God, as there had been when he tempted Eve in Eden. Are you the Son of God, and hungry? Surely God has forgotten you, or is indifferent to your need! Use the power you possess and relieve your hunger. Thus might the temptation be paraphrased. It was met by a perfect answer. “It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of GOD.” God and His word were all to Jesus, He would not use His power on His own behalf or to take Himself out of the place of dependence upon God. He could endure hunger but not independence of God. He sought no ease or comfort for Himself, His meat and drink were the will of God and to finish His work. The lust of the flesh had no place in His heart nor was there a joint in His armour where a doubt as to God’s goodness could be thrust; and where Adam and Eve were overthrown and wounded to death, Jesus stood firm and unscathed.

The Second Temptation

In the second temptation the world’s kingdoms were set before His eyes, with all the power and pomp and splendour of them, which dazzle and fascinate men, and for which they will sell their souls and deny their God. And these kingdoms all belonged to Jesus, but God’s way, and the only way by which He could secure them in everlasting righteousness was by suffering and death. “You shall have them,” said the tempter, “by an easy way. I will give them to you if you will but worship me: acknowledge me as greater than yourself and God; take them from my hand and all shall be yours.” But those glittering kingdoms had no attraction in that hour for the holy One of God. He would not take them from any hand but God’s hand, He could trust God to put all things beneath His feet when the due time came, but that time was not yet. His eyes were upon God, and He met the temptation with an uncompromising answer, “It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve.”

The Third Temptation

The third temptation was the most subtle of the three, and the devil backed it up by a partly quoted text. He proposed that the Lord should cast Himself down from a pinnacle of the temple, and by such an exploit gain a double advantage — Put God to the test, and prove Him, as to whether You are the special object of His care according to the word quoted, and at the same time convince the multitude in the courtyard of the temple that You are the Messiah, the Son of God. The trap was laid in vain, and His answer, “It is written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,” showed how thoroughly Jesus perceived the devil’s purpose. It was no business of His to put God’s word to the test to see whether God would honour it or not, no doubt as to it ever entered His mind, it did not need to be proved to Him; nor was it His business to vindicate Himself before the people. “My times are in Thy hands” was the whole spirit of His life and activities, and He would not take them out of God’s hands.

GOD was the answer of this ever-dependent and so ever-victorious Man. He looked to GOD for His sustenance; GOD filled His heart to the exclusion of all other glory; His whole confidence and trust was in GOD, God’s will was His law, God’s way was His delight; He set the Lord always before Him and He was not moved. It was thus that He was tested and came through the testing stronger than the foe. By resisting all the efforts of “the strong man” to turn Him from His devotion to God, He bound him fast and went forth in the power of the Spirit to make his goods His spoil; for the grace and mercy of God showed themselves in Him and He went about doing good and delivering all that were oppressed of the devil. He was in the midst of men as a living Deliverer, the Master of Satan who had oppressed them so long.

How miserable and inadequate and dishonouring to the Lord is the teaching, that He met no personal devil in the wilderness, but merely retired into it to consider various schemes by which He might press His claims upon men and prove His Messiahship to them, and that the temptations were nothing more than plans of campaign that He considered and rejected. It is by such teaching that the devil would hide from men the fact of his defeat.

The Final Temptation

But the overcoming in the wilderness was not the end of the conflict, the devil wielded the power of death and by it kept men in bondage all their life-time for fear of it. And Jesus had come to wrench that power from him, and He could only do this by dying. It was not a living Deliverer that could emancipate men from the tyrant’s power — blinded by the devil they rejected Him in that character — but a dying Redeemer. He had come to die, this only was the way, of obedience to God and of love to men. And it was as the shadow of that death crept darkly over His path that Satan returned to the attack, to tempt Him to draw back from that way of suffering. The horror and shame and woe unspeakable that lay before Him pressed heavily upon the spirit of the Lord, and He began to show to His disciples that it was to a cross and not to a throne that He was progressing. And Satan seized the occasion and using the impetuous and unwary Peter as his spokesman, he endeavoured to turn the Lord from His fixed purpose to do the will of God even to death. “This be far from Thee [pity Thyself] this shall not be to Thee.” But the Lord detected the foe in that friendly guise, and the temptation to think of Himself was met with stern rebuke, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” and then to Peter, “thou savourest not the things that be of GOD.” As in the wilderness before He entered upon His public service so now at the end of it, GOD was the sole object of His life.

It was in this same spirit of dependence and full subjection to the will of God that He went through the agony in Gethsemane, when Satan marshalled all the powers of darkness to appal Him and drive Him back from making the great sacrifice; but He came out of the trial saying, “The cup which my Father has given me shall I not drink it;” and so onward to the cross. In the days of His flesh He “offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to Him who was able to save Him out of death, and was heard in that He feared,” — or, for His piety — His whole-hearted dependence upon God and His trust in Him (Hebrews 5:7). Satan was utterly foiled, he was beaten at every point in the field, and Jesus, whom he could neither decoy nor drive from the path of God’s will, by dying has destroyed his power and has become the Author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. He went down into death, committing Himself into His Father’s hands, and the Father’s glory has raised Him from the dead, and now He can say to all who bow down before Him. “Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that lives and was dead, and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” And the devil is a defeated foe. He has no authority or power over the saints; he

“trembles when be sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.”

They have but to resist him and he will flee from them, for they are no longer his prey, but the blood-purchased possession of the Saviour who has delivered them, and they are to share in all the results of the great victory of the Lord over him for “the God of peace shall shortly bruise him under their feet” (Romans 16:20).