Opening: read Genesis 1:1, 26-31; 2:7-9, 15-18, 22-25; and 3; Psalms 105:37-45 and 106.
The Spirit Leads Into the Wilderness
The Spirit’s filling and leading can (and almost certainly will) take us through the wilderness trials.
This seems to be just a sampling of the temptations of the devil in the wilderness.
We have here something of a recapitulation of both Adam & Israel in their times of temptation.
‘Jesus faced the double question: what does it mean to be God’s son in this special, unique way? And what sort of messiahship was he to pursue?’ (Wright, 42)
‘The story does not envisage Jesus engaged in conversation with a visible figure to whom he could talk as one to another; the devil’s voice appears as a string of natural ideas in his own head. They are plausible, attractive, and make, as we would say, a lot of sense. God can’t want his beloved son to be famished with hunger, can he? If God wants Jesus to become sovereign over the world (that, after all, is what Gabriel had told Mary), then why not go for it in one easy stride? If Jesus is Israel’s Messiah, why not prove it by spectacular displays of power?’ (Wright, 43)
The Long, Hard Road: No Shortcuts for This Messiah
I’m struck freshly here with the fact that Jesus really goes through all the realities of a normal human life and takes the genuinely long, hard road to fulfilling God’s role as Messiah. He really could have touched down as a gloriously shining superman, or at least been born and raised as royalty, or at least have unleashed mighty signs and wonders of great display and power once he started his adult ministry. But he goes by himself into the wilderness to endure severe temptation with victory on our behalf.
The Devil’s temptations: # 1
The Obfuscating IF
First of all, note the utterly strategic and ingenious opening word of Satan’s: ‘IF’. That is the word of words to cast doubt. I actually love the word ‘if’, particularly in the construction ‘What if’: this kind of thought can ‘tempt’ belief also! It opens up possibilities, coaxes our imaginations and intellects to be bigger and to explore. But the devil’s use of ‘if’ here very subtly closes down the options and possibilities. His is a reductionistic if. It very craftily seems to speak of glorious possibilities: perform spectacular miracles and win the whole world! But really it’s calling Jesus to question God’s favour and goodness and power and plan that were just concretely affirmed to him at his baptism. This is not a thoughtful questioning like Mary’s pondering in her heart and wondering and thinking it through. This is asking him to begin toying with the possibility that God and his word are false, are less than fully reliable, that his plan is possibly not good or not the best.
Compare his temptation to Adam and Eve: ‘Did God actually say’ (Gen. 3:1, ESV). Then, ‘he knows more than you and is keeping something good from you’ and finally outright contradiction: ‘you will not die’ and the Satanic alternative: ‘you will be like God’.
We’ll see later that Jesus can miraculously provide an abundance of bread in the wilderness, so the devil’s temptation here is plausible. But the question is how will Jesus use his God-given miraculous power? Will he depend on his wonder-working or on his Father alone?
The Liberating 'It is Written'
Jesus’ replies are the brilliant opposite of Satan’s crafty ‘If’. He doesn’t argue and dialogue back and forth, point-counterpoint, with Satan. ‘It is written’ is the sword he uses to parry Satan’s tempting thrusts. There is a time to argue, especially in evangelistically and apologetically deconstructing godless worldviews, but in the midst of your own personal temptation is not the time to argue. It’s the time to rely wholly on God by trusting wholly and unquestioningly to his word. Unreservedly trusting in God’s word this way is confessing and counting on from the depths of your soul that God is good and true and faithful and wise and powerful, 100% to be trusted and relied on to graciously, kindly, lovingly, unfailingly, mightily take care of you and the world.
Notice that all his Bible quotations are from Deuteronomy, the final book of the Pentateuch (or Torah), Moses’ final sermon to Israel as they are about to exit the wilderness and enter the promised land. Jesus will have been meditating on this whole book and how it fits into God’s salvation plan, not just isolated verses here and there. That’s why he can so powerfully take his stand on concentrated gems of Scriptural power and weight and commandment and hope and truth.
What Does a Human Being Live By?
Jesus here declares powerfully that humans are more than physical entities and physical maintenance alone will never satisfy, fulfil, or complete them. That is not living; that is not life. As made in God’s image we must live by more than this—we absolutely require more than physical sustenance to be truly and fully human.
Luke leaves the rest of this quoted verse unspoken. This is almost more effective in getting us to call it to mind and contemplate it. If human beings are not meant to live by bread alone, then just what can make them live truly and fully? What we’re doing here. Relating to and with God by his loving, gracious, authoritative communication to us; relying on his truth he kindly reveals to us for our good, which is relying on him, himself, not a mere book. This is having a living, loving relationship with the living, loving God. We hear him, open ourselves to his Voice in our lives, meditate on his words to us, and obey his commands, live out his truth, trust his promises. That is the way for a human being to truly live. Then ‘bread’ will never become an idol to us that we put above God and his plans, seeking to provide it the wrong way at the wrong time for our own selfish or short-sighted purposes and plans rather than trusting to God’s timing, provision, and plan
Temptation # 2
Temptation # 3
‘Jesus is indeed to become the world’s true lord, but the path to that status, and the mode of it when it arrives, is humble service, not a devilish seeking after status and power… His status as God’s son commits him, not to showy prestige, but to the strange path of humility, service and finally death… For the moment, an initial victory is won, and Jesus can begin his public career knowing that though struggles lie ahead the foe has been beaten on the first field that really matters.’ (Wright, 44)
Looking to Jesus in Our Own Temptations
‘We are unlikely to be tempted in exactly the same way as Jesus was, but every Christian will be tested at the points which mater most in her or his life and vocation. It is a central part of Christian vocation to learn to recognize the voices that whisper attractive lies, to distinguish them from the voice of God, and to use the simple but direct weapons provided in scripture to rebut the lies with truth.
‘The Christian discipline of fighting temptation is not about self-hatred, or rejecting parts of our God-given humanity. It is about celebrating God’s gift of full humanity and, like someone learning a musical instrument, discovering how to tune it and play it to its best possibility. At the heart of our resistance to temptation is love and loyalty to the God who has already called us his beloved children in Christ, and who holds out before us the calling to follow him in the path which leads to the true glory. In that glory lies the true happiness, the true fulfilment, which neither world, nor flesh, nor devil can begin to imitate.’ (Wright, 44-45)
Like Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, we must stand firmly on the central truth in the story of God’s word (Salvation in Jesus) and resist the plausible whispers of the devil that seek to seduce us toward the opposite of God’s plan:
- What will be your central means of nourishment in life? How will you live?
- Who will be your only object of worship and service in life?
- Will you test the one you trust?
· That is, we don’t take God’s gifts of powers and abilities and use them to rely solely on ourselves to provide for ourselves, but we instead rely wholly on God in the relational-communicational terms of receiving his word as our spiritual sustenance that grounds and grows the supply of all our other human needs
· We don’t make any deals with the devil to try to secure the things of this world we desire – anything that comes along with a price tag of worshiping something other than God so that we can obtain what we want we out and out refuse because we are already wholeheartedly committed to worshiping the one true God and him alone, brooking no rivals
· We don’t try to gain our reputation in some spectacular way totally outside and against God’s way and plan, tempting or testing him to ‘deliver’ us on our own terms – instead, we trust him unreservedly to do things his way in his timing.
Lord, thank you for overcoming temptation and the Tempter. Thank you that we share in your victory by faith in you. Help us to walk like you.
Works Cited:
Darrell Bock, Luke
Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke
Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone
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