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WHEN THE NEW TESTAMENT SPEAKS OF THE ETERNAL Son’s assumption of our humanity—his Incarnation, or “enfleshing”—the event is described in terms of a lessening, the embracing of limitation, even a self-emptying. In witness to this conviction, a primitive Christian hymn, partly preserved in the epistle to the Philippians, declared that Jesus Christ
being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be seized, but emptied himself [heavton ekenosen], assuming the form of a bondservant. (Philippians 2:6–7)
From the beginning, Christians believed that God’s Son “lessened” himself by becoming human. He “was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death” (Hebrews 2:9). The act of becoming a human being necessarily imposed limits on his condition and experience. Paul described this “limitation”—consequent to the Word’s enfleshing—with a metaphor of wealth and poverty. Thus, he told the Corinthians:
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For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)
Servanthood and poverty are metaphors of limitation.1 They assert that God’s Son really did become “one of us.” This term, “one of us” (heis ex hemon), was favored in the fifth century by Cyril of Alexandria, who used this expression often in his sermons and commentaries on the Gospels, to speak of Jesus’ total solidarity with all human beings by reason of the Incarnation.
When we inquire what sorts of limitation God’s Son assumed in the Incarnation, it is clear to nearly all readers of the New Testament that certain physical limitations were included. That is to say, if Jesus did not grow tired, how was it he fell sound asleep in the boat? If he did not become thirsty and exhausted, what prompted him to sit down at a well and ask a Samaritan woman for a drink?
These limitations included a range of psychological discomforts. At the death of a beloved friend, for example, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Faced with the sustained and repeated infidelities of Jerusalem, “He saw the city and wept over it” (Luke 19:41). Some experiences left him with the feelings of utter exasperation: “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” (Mark 9:19). At the worst experience of all, he cried out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).
If the eternal Word’s taking of our humanity made him vulnerable to emotional pain, it also rendered him susceptible to temptation. When, after fasting for forty days, he grew hungry, it is hardly surprising that an early first temptation was related to food (Matthew 4:3; Luke 4:3). Adequate attention to Jesus in the flesh can hardly omit those temptations to which the flesh is heir. Holy Scripture, at least, does not omit them.
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This aspect of the Incarnation was nowhere more emphatically asserted than in the epistle to the Hebrews, which says of Jesus:
Therefore, in all things he had to be made like his brothers, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in the things of God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. For in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:17–18, emphasis added)
For the earliest Christians, the temptations of Jesus were at once the expression of his full humanity and the encouraging evidence of his ability to sympathize with the trials faced by those who put their trust in him:
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in everything tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15, emphasis added)
MARK
The temptations Jesus faced, however, were not simply based on his being human. They came also from demonic intrusion, like the temptations of other human beings.
It is not known when (or if) a narrative of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness became a standard part in the narrative sequence of the apostolic proclamation—it is not mentioned, for example, in the Acts of the Apostles—but we do find it in its earliest literary form, namely, the gospel of Mark. Immediately following Jesus’ baptism, Mark informs us,
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The Spirit drove him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him. (Mark 1:12–13)
Even these few details of Mark’s brief narrative convey a considerable amount of its theology:
First, the Holy Spirit, who has come down upon Jesus at his baptism, now “drives” him into the wilderness. As we shall observe, all three accounts of Jesus’ temptation include this detail about the Holy Spirit. All of them agree that his experience of the Holy Spirit prompted Jesus to go into the desert to face “the Tempter”—ho Peirazon (Matthew 4:3).
Second, for Mark there was a pastoral significance in the fact that Jesus’ trial in the wilderness followed immediately on his baptism. That significance arose from the recognition that Christians, in their baptism, enacted a ritual replication of Israel’s passage through the Red Sea in the Exodus. After that “baptismal” passage, the Israelites experienced various temptations in the wilderness. The apostle Paul, speaking of those ancient partakers of the Exodus, wrote that “all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized with Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Corinthians 10:1–2).
After that Exodus baptism, Paul went on, those primitive forefathers journeyed out to the wilderness, where they experienced temptation. The apostle, reminding his readers that the Israelites did not fare well in those temptations (1 Corinthians 1:5–10), proceeded to draw a practical lesson for the Christian life:
Now these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. (1 Corinthians 10:11, emphasis added)
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That is to say, after their baptisms, Christians—and particularly the Corinthians!—were also going to be tempted. They must expect it, but they must also be assured that
no temptation has overtaken you except what is human; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. (1 Corinthians 10:13, emphasis added)
Paul insists here that Christians must not imagine they will escape the experience of such temptation that is “human”—anthropinos. (The fact that temptation is demonic does not make it less human.) The apostle is speaking of struggles common to all people.
And this, I submit, is why the early Christians, who believed that Jesus was God’s Son in the flesh, were also prompted to recall that Jesus, immediately after his baptism, spent some period in the desert, facing “the Tempter.” In doing so, Jesus repeated the experience of ancient Israel and provided an example for his disciples. His temptations proved his humanity as an encouragement for those resolved to follow him.
Third, as though to further emphasize Jesus’ humanity in this story, Mark mentions that during this time in the wilderness he was “with the wild beasts.” That is to say, in his experience of temptation, Jesus returned to the situation of Adam, who lived with the animals.2 Unlike Adam, however, he did not succumb to temptation.
Fourth, the period of forty days, during which Jesus was tempted, is a further correspondence to the “forty years” of Israel’s time of testing in the wilderness. (I will presently mention the primitive catechetical significance of this allusion.)
Fifth, the tempter here in Mark is called “Satan,” the demonic name derived from the book of Job. This is an important component in the story of Jesus’ temptations. Consider the correspondence with Job: God has just identified Jesus as the Son “in whom I am well pleased.” Satan heard God say this about Jesus, just as he had heard of God’s similar pleasure in Job:
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Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? (Job 1:8)
Satan, we recall, immediately challenged God on the point of Job’s good standing, and he was given permission to smite the just man with grievous afflictions.
Here, likewise, right after Jesus’ baptism—in which God expressed pleasure in His Son—Satan resolves to test the point: “Is God’s pleasure in Jesus justified? Let’s test it and see!” Satan, as we shall reflect presently, is “the Slanderer.” He wants to give just men a bad reputation with the Almighty!3
This parallel of Jesus with Job is of whole cloth with our consideration of Jesus’ humanity because Job, too, was a standard type of the human situation. Like Adam, Job was subject to temptation.
Indeed, man is the very first word in the book named after Job, ’ish haya b’erets ‘uts—“A man there was, in the land of Uz” (Job 1:1, emphasis added). Job, the child of Adam, represents man’s vulnerability in this world, where Satan is able to afflict him and put him to the test. In the story of Jesus’ temptation, Satan appears once again to repeat that test. Jesus is not only the new Adam; he is also the new Job.
In sum, Mark’s brief account of the temptations of Jesus discloses a considerable measure of Christian reflection on that event. For a more elaborate theological evaluation of it, we now turn to Matthew and Luke.
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MORE COMPLEX STORIES
Whereas Mark tells the story of Jesus’ temptations in just two verses, the other two gospel accounts of it are much longer: in Matthew eleven verses, in Luke thirteen verses.
Moreover, both Matthew and Luke describe three specific temptations by which Jesus was tried. Since the order of these temptations is not the same in both accounts, we will need to examine them separately at the point they diverge from each other.
They begin, however, very much the same way; I cite the wording in Matthew: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Slanderer [ho Diabolos]” (Matthew 4:1).
We should note how this opening differs slightly, first from Mark’s version and second from Luke’s.
First, whereas in Mark’s story the tempter is called “Satan,” Matthew and Luke (4:2) call him “the Slanderer” (ho Diabolos). This noun comes from the Greek (Septuagint) version book of Job, where the Slanderer is identical to Satan:
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and the Slanderer [ho Diabolos] came also among them to present himself. (Job 2:1 LXX)
Moreover, in both Matthew (4:10) and Luke (4:8), Jesus addresses the Slanderer as “Satan.” The early church readily identified “Satan” and “the Slanderer” (ho Diabolos) with the ancient snake that first tempted Eve: “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Slanderer and Satan, who deceives the whole world” (Revelation 12:9; cf. Mark 3:22–23).
Second, whereas Matthew says simply, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit,” Luke expands the account to read,
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Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. (Luke 4:1, emphasis added)
In the portrayal of Jesus “filled with the Holy Spirit,” we discern Luke’s particular attention to this theme. The Spirit that led Jesus into the wilderness is the same Spirit that led old Simeon to the temple (Luke 2:27) and will, in due course, guide the missionary journeys of the apostles (Acts 8:29; 16:6–7). The description of Jesus as “filled with the Holy Spirit” repeats what Luke has already written of John the Baptist (1:15), Elizabeth (1:41), and Zacharias (1:67). He will also use this expression of those in the Upper Room on Pentecost (Acts 2:4), Simon Peter (4:8), the church at prayer (4:31), Stephen (6:3, 5; 7:55), Barnabas (11:24), and Paul (13:9).
TEMPTATION ONE—BREAD
Matthew and Luke agree that the first temptation in the wilderness was related to Jesus’ hunger. Remarking that Luke’s story is virtually identical, I cite Matthew:
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry. Now when the Tempter [ho Peirrazon] came to him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” (4:2–3, emphasis added)
The hypothesis—“if ”—posed by the Tempter is based, of course, on the testimony of the voice from heaven, “This is My beloved Son.” The Tempter is putting this very thesis to the test. If Jesus is God’s Son, let him prove it! Turning stones to bread should be a pretty simple matter, after all, for God’s Son.
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Jesus, of course, will have none of this nonsense: “Man shall not live by bread alone,” he responds, quoting Deuteronomy, “but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
Jesus’ response solicits several comments.
First, the tempting demon is not permitted to dictate what is or is not appropriate to God’s Son. The Slanderer knows nothing about it. Jesus does not argue the point with him. Eve, we recall, did argue with the demon (Genesis 3:1–5), and things did not go very well. For Jesus, this demon is not important; he is powerless, a nobody to be dismissed with a backhand brush from Deuteronomy.
Second, Jesus is no invulnerable, unthreatened superman. What authority (exsousia) and power (dynamis) he has as Son of God is for the benefit of other people, not himself. He will not “cash in” for personal advantage. We observe Jesus maintaining this rule throughout his ministry, to the very end:
Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? (Matthew 26:53)
Third, Jesus uses Holy Scripture as a weapon against temptation. This rabbinic use of the Bible—as a weapon in the hour of trial—was taken up as an ascetical practice, which passed, in due course, to the Christian church and came to the special attention of the ancient Desert Fathers.
To this very day, the repetition of Bible verses, to be invoked in the hour of temptation, is called “sword drill,” following the ancient persuasion that “the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). When believers seize hold of “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17), they imitate the example of Jesus, who also invoked the book of Deuteronomy in the two subsequent temptations.
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TEMPTATIONS TWO AND THREE
Matthew and Luke list differently the second and third temptations: Luke first speaks of a temptation on the mountain and then on the pinnacle of the temple; in Matthew these are reversed.
Although the original order of these stories is neither historically important nor theologically significant, the examination of the evidence does tell us something of the literary intention of each author. Perhaps, then, I may be granted a slight parenthesis to remark on this question:
Let us suppose that Luke’s version represents the original order, with the temptation on the pinnacle of the temple coming last. If Luke’s sequence was the original, why would Matthew change it?
There is good reason that Matthew may have changed it because the temptation on the mountain has the greater finality about it: “All these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9). The magnitude of the demon’s offense here, suggesting that Jesus submit to him, may have prompted Matthew to make this temptation final in the series.
This “final” temptation, which involves “all the kingdoms of the world” (Matthew 4:8), finds its parallel in the final chapter of Matthew, where, on “the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them,” he commissioned them to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:16–20). That is to say, if Matthew is the one responsible for putting the mountain temptation in the place of climax, it certainly fits well with the literary structure of his gospel.
But now, let us suppose that Matthew’s sequence of the temptations was the original one. If Matthew’s sequence was the original, why would Luke change the order so that the temptation at the temple comes as the climax of the story?
Actually, it is easy to see why this may have been the case because of the dominance of the temple in Luke’s gospel. Luke both begins this work (Luke 1:9) and ends it (24:53) in the temple. Luke’s infancy narrative culminates in the temple (2:46). Jerusalem, for Luke, is the place of finality. Only in Luke do we read that Jesus “steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.”4 If Luke is the one responsible for putting the temple temptation in the place of climax, it certainly fits well with the literary structure of his gospel. In short, a good case can be made either way.
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Whether in Matthew or Luke, therefore, let us look at the temptation on the pinnacle of the temple:
Then the Slanderer [ho Diabolos] took him up into the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, / Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” (Matthew 4:5–6; cf. Luke 4:9–11)
Once again, the test has to do with whether or not Jesus is the Son of God. If so, Jesus is invited to test the thesis himself. If he steps off the top of the temple, will God truly uphold him? The Tempter goes even further, proving that he, also, knows a thing or two about quoting Holy Scripture. To strengthen his temptation, he cites the promise in Psalm 91:11: “He shall give His angels charge over you.”
Jesus’ sonship, however, is not open to discussion. The Savior need not prove anything to anybody, certainly not to this arrogant demon. Jesus cites Deuteronomy again: “Jesus said to him, ‘It is written again, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God”’” (Matthew 4:7; cf. Luke 4:12).
That is to say, Jesus is God’s obedient Son. He will not force the Father’s hand. He will assume to do nothing on his own. What he does is determined entirely by the Father’s will, not his own. He will always, and solely, be about the things of his Father.
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Consequently, Jesus will not act rashly. That day will dawn—in due course and soon enough—when he will take the final leap. On that day, he will know, by experience, that God’s angels will bear him up, lest he dash his foot on a stone. On that day, he will completely let go and allow himself to fall: “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).
Third, and finally, in the temptation on the mountain the Tempter no longer even mentions the hypothetical “If you are the Son of God.” This trial has to do, rather, with a direct challenge, which touches all authority (exsousia). In describing this temptation, Luke’s wording is more ample:
Then the Slanderer, taking him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the Slanderer said to him, “All this authority [exsousia] I will give you, and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you will worship before me, all will be yours.” (Luke 4:5–7; cf. Matthew 4:8–9)
The Tempter has moved a long way from Jesus’ physical need for nourishment. Now the temptation is entirely spiritual. Jesus is presented with a demonic vision. In “a moment of time,” he sees the world as Satan does. Satan offers him authority—exsousia—over all. In making this offer, the demon usurps the place of the Ancient of Days, who alone will give exsousia to the Son of Man (Daniel [in Greek] 7:13–14).
Jesus will obtain this exsousia, not from Satan, but from the Ancient of Days—through the experience of dying and rising again: pasa exsousia edothe moi, “all authority has been given to Me” (Matthew 28:18). This temptation represents Satan’s invitation to avoid the cross. Once more citing Deuteronomy, Jesus spurns it:
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Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” (Matthew 4:10; cf. Luke 4:8)
THE PASTORAL CONTEXT
Because each of these temptations seems to be dismissed so quickly, the reader will perhaps not pause to consider that they really were temptations. That is to say, Jesus really was hungry; Jesus really did feel the attraction of worldly power. He was tempted, insists the New Testament, “as we are” (Hebrews 4:15), and the gospel accounts of his experience were written down so that we might know that our high priest “can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness” (Hebrews 5:2).
As observed earlier, Matthew and Luke describe Jesus’ temptations in a way that contrasts his obedience in the desert with the disobedience of ancient Israel. Early Christian catechesis5 regarded the time of Israel in the wilderness as of special significance, providing a pattern for the Christian experience in this world.6
Accordingly, the temptations of Jesus are told with an eye to Israel’s desert experience. Both Matthew and Luke, in spite of differently arranging their narrative sequences, apparently relied on a common source, according to which the Savior quoted the book of Deuteronomy in response to each of the three temptations. This sustained appeal to the final book of the Torah—invoked as a weapon to resist temptation—summons the memory of Israel’s moral failings during its forty years of desert wandering.
The immediate context of the two biblical accounts furthers this purpose: the parallel between Jesus’ baptism and the passage through the Red Sea is followed immediately by the correspondence between the temptations of Jesus and Israel in the desert. (Mark also adheres to this sequence.)
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For convenience, let us limit our attention to the Lukan narrative sequence:
Jesus meets the first temptation—“If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread”—by declaring, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” This verse is lifted from the middle of Deuteronomy 8:1–6, which refers to ancient Israel’s murmuring at the loss of their (alleged) better diet in Egypt (Exodus 16; Numbers 11).
Jesus answers the second temptation—the promise of world domination in exchange for fealty to Satan—by affirming, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.” This verse appears within Deuteronomy 6:10–15, in reference to Israel’s repeated disposition to seek temporary advantage by worshipping alien gods (Exodus 23:23–33; Deuteronomy 12:30–31).
Jesus responds to the third temptation—“Throw yourself down from here”—by proclaiming, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” This text, Deuteronomy 6:16, refers to Israel’s constant disposition to tempt the Lord in the desert (cf. Exodus 17:1–7).
In all his temptations, then, the faithful response of Jesus is placed in direct contrast to Israel’s infidelity during those forty sinful years of wandering. This was the “Bible lesson” that came directly out of early Christian catechesis.
AFTERMATH
Two final considerations are warranted with respect to Jesus’ temptations:
First, the demons learned something from this experience. Through these temptations, the premise of the hypothesis “If You are God’s Son” has now been established. Although the dark agencies are not really sure what this predication means, they do know it to be true.
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Thus, when Jesus begins, very soon, to exorcize them from human souls, the demons have a clearer sense of what they are up against. In Mark’s gospel, they are the first to “confess” it:
Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, saying, “Let us alone! What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” (Mark 1:23–24)
Since Jesus himself, however, was not yet prepared to proclaim his own identity in public, it was necessary for him to hush up these demons:
Then he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew him. (Mark 1:34)
Second, Luke’s account of Jesus’ temptations ends with the hint that they will be renewed in due course: “Now when the Slanderer had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13, emphasis added). This last expression, achri kairou, is not a merely chronological reference—“for a time.” Luke has in mind, rather, a specific event (time as kairos or “instance,” not chronos), a reference I suspect to mean Jesus’ agony in the garden on the night before he died. As we shall observe when we come to it, that later scene portrays Jesus’ supreme hour of trial.