And when the devil had ended all his temptation, he departed from him for a season.—St. LUKE iv. 13.
The story of the Baptism of Jesus is followed, in this Gospel, by a genealogy ascending to Adam. He who has been declared to be the Son of God, we are reminded, is emphatically the Son of Man. He is connected not merely with the family of Abraham, though His descent is traced through that. He is marked out as the Head of the race. If the ordinary succession from father to son has been interrupted, in His case, to assert a higher principle, to denote the express relation of the Lord of man to God, that succession has not been dishonoured. It has acquired a new sacredness from the interruption. Each birth into this world has a dignity which it must want, if the message at the Baptism was a fiction. If you dwell on this use of the genealogy, and compare it with the words of St. Paul, which must have been so familiar to St. Luke, respecting the first and the second Adam, you will not, I think, be disposed to occupy yourselves with minute questions about special links which may appear or may be wanting in the series. The discovery that there are difficulties in it which we cannot explain, has, I doubt not, been of great use, in forcing us to seek more for the sense and purpose of the Divine narratives. Whilst we are slaves to the letter, as I shall often have occasion to shew you in these lectures, the force of the letter escapes us; we continually pass over or pervert the plainest and broadest statements. To emancipate us from this slavery, to make us honest students of God’s Revelations, to give us some adequate feeling of their grandeur, He may use many methods. That of confounding our ingenuity, and of obliging us to see inconsistencies which we cannot account for, is perhaps the one which humbles us most, and therefore for which we have most cause to be thankful. At all events, I have no solutions to offer of any difficulties which have been raised about this list of names; if I had, I hope I should not trouble you with them, knowing that you are busy men, and have not time for trifles.
It is quite otherwise with the next passage in this record. That, I believe, you need ask no leisure to understand. Work—the commonest work—will interpret it better than leisure. You have tests by which you can try what I say of the Temptation. I trust you will apply these tests strictly, that I may not fritter away, by any theories of mine, what you and all people require for the practice of every day.
‘And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered, and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God cast thyself down from hence; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering, said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.’
What! is this a part of the Gospel which I dare to claim as belonging to the business of life, as appealing to the sympathies and consciences of human beings? Is not this just one of those supernatural additions which mingle so strangely with the common history, and which all who are trying to extricate that common history from its environment, instantly cast aside? No doubt. The Temptation is treated by a number of those who accept, no less than by most of those who reject, the Evangelical narrative, as standing outside of it—as having, perhaps a doctrinal, perhaps a traditional value, but as altogether distinct from the records of our Lord’s journeys and of His moral teaching. This separation I cannot make. I can understand no part of the subsequent history, if I omit the scene in the wilderness. All appears to me incoherent and fantastical. The Gospel loses its interest for me as a commentary on my own life and the life of my fellow-creatures. Perhaps I ought to receive it because it is written, but why it should have been written, what it has to do with us, I cannot discover. It is this preliminary struggle of the Spirit of God with the spirit of evil which shews me what our Lord’s struggle was with the Jewish people, what is the struggle of every nation and age, what is going on in every one of us.
And this has been the conviction of different periods—of those periods which have been most energetic, and have left the deepest marks of their energy on the world’s history; this has been the conviction of those men who have fought the stoutest battles, and done most for mankind. You may expect me to begin with warning you not to think of the Temptation as Dante and the men in the middle ages thought of it, or as Luther and the men at the time of the Reformation thought of it, or as Milton and the Puritans thought of it. I shall do no such thing. I believe they all thought of it imperfectly; that they impaired the beauty of the clear, sharply-chiselled marble, by colouring borrowed from their own fancy and the fancy of their times. But they have shewn with what intense reality this record has come to them in the most terrible moments of their existence. If they have seen it through a mist, it has not created the mist; it has done more than all other lights to dispel the mist. Truth and falsehood, good and evil, have stood out before them in their unchangeable opposition; not as abstractions engaged in a shadow-fight, but as powers of life and death grappling in that fight on which the condition of the universe and of each person in it depends. We may learn something from each teacher which the other could not tell us. Their mistakes may warn us of those into which we are likely to fall. If God gives us grace to enter heart and hand into the conflict which He has appointed for us and our time, we shall read this passage of St. Luke more simply than those read it who have gone before us.
(1.) He was led by the Spirit. That is the characteristic of the acts of the Son in all we read from this time onwards. He has been baptised with His Father’s Spirit. He is guided by that Spirit whithersoever He goes. He does not choose for Himself whether He shall be in the city or the wilderness. Here is the secret of His power. He is governed, and so exercises the highest and most perfect government. It is a mystery surely, the deepest of mysteries; but if we reflect upon it, a light will be thrown upon the mysteries of our life—upon that which makes our acts harmonious—a light that you will find nowhere else.
(2.) The wilderness into which He went was haunted, according to popular belief, by demons.’ So speaks the author of a recent ‘Life of Jesus.’ We surely do not want the authority of a learned man to endorse so very probable a statement. No doubt, popular belief filled Jewish deserts, as it fills all deserts, with demons. The curious fact is, that this being the case, the Evangelists, who are supposed to have been the victims of all popular beliefs, do not suggest the thought of demons in this desert. They say much of demons elsewhere; what they say, I hope to consider next Sunday. That which they speak of here is far more serious and awful.
(3.) Being forty days tempted of the devil. The difference is all important. We are not in the region of dark forms which haunt particular spots. We have been brought into the spiritual region. That is to say, we have been brought out of the region of things into the region of persons; out of the region of mere outsides and shapes into the region of living powers. The accuser, the slanderer, strikes at the very being of Him to whom he speaks. The desert may be the place of the encounter. It is a suitable place, because creatures of flesh and blood being out of the way, we know that the encounter itself is between spirits.
(4.) ‘In those days he did eat nothing, and when they were ended he afterwards hungered.’ Another exhaustion of outward circumstances. The taste, the appetite, has been continually represented as the cause of evil. Take away the motives which speak to the flesh, reduce that to nothingness—and then? Then, say the Evangelists, the power of the tempter may be felt as it was not felt before. Hunger may be his instrument quite as much as food. Reason and experience would say so. The Bible accords with them. It bears witness against the widely-spread, the ever-recurring, heresy which makes the animal nature the source of wrong; against the innumerable practical deductions which have been drawn from that heresy by those who have in terms rejected it. But that is not all. Men are hungry who do not deny themselves food for any purpose of mortification. Is it nothing for them to know that their anguish has been felt by the Son of Man—the King of Men? Is there no Gospel in that announcement? Has it not been felt as a Gospel by thousands? When we believe more in One who took our nature, and less in One who came to save select individuals out of the condition of their race, may it not reach millions?
(5.) ‘And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone to be made bread.’ Now we begin to perceive the principle of the Temptation, its real force. A stone may serve as the instrument of solicitation; the natural craving for food may be all that is spoken to; but this is the speech: ‘If thou be the Son of God.’ ‘The words at thy baptism cannot be true, if thou art not able to exercise this power for the relief of thy own necessities.’ He must do something of Himself and for Himself. What is His name worth otherwise?
(6.) His name is worth this:—‘It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ I claim the words because they are written of man. I claim the state of man. I am one with men. There is the King; and the King is the Son. He can depend upon the Word of God. He can trust that for Himself, and for those with whom He has identified Himself.
(7.) A King ideally, perhaps. But actually is the world His? Is it His Father’s? ’And the devil taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them, for that it is delivered to me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine. ’How was He taken to the mountain? Did He see with His eyes, or only with His mind?? My friends, I know these questions occur to us all. They have occurred to me. And I can only find this answer to them:—I am reading of a temptation presented by a spirit to a spirit. If Christ saw all those kingdoms with His bodily eye, still it must have been His spirit which took in the prospect, which took in the force of the Scripture words.. That is what concerns me—concerns me infinitely..The devil is reported to have said something which seems most plausible. All appearances in that time confirmed his words. The most religious men in times since have thought that he spoke truly. They have said that the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them are his. And I fancy they have rendered him no little worship because they have said so. They have had a reserved homage for his enemy; but they have supposed he had a title to actual homage in virtue of that great inheritance. If it is his, I am sure I shall worship him; so far as I have accounted it his, I am sure I have worshipped him. I want then to know if there is one whom I can trust who declared that it was not his, who would not do him service. I read these words:—
(8.) ‘Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.’ Is that true? Did One in human flesh indeed say, ‘Adversary, get thee behind me. All these things are the Creator’s, not thine. All these things are His who redeemed His people out of bondage, not thine. He told the Israelites He was the Lord their God. I take my place as an Israelite. I call Him the Lord my God. I vindicate that name for myself, for them. I confess Him to be the Lord, Him only.’ Is not that the word of a Man, of the Man? Is it not the word of a Son? Is it not a Gospel to us all?
(9.) ‘And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ I need not discuss the question in this case, how He was brought to Jerusalem, how He was set on a pinnacle of the temple. I should say the temptation was the most real that could be. He was actually tempted to try whether God would not bear him up if He cast Himself down. He was actually tempted by a text of Scripture to give that proof of His Sonship and of His Father’s faithfulness. Whatever were His circumstances, that thought was presented to His spirit by the evil spirit. And so we know that He was tempted like as we are. In all varieties of circumstances this thought is presented to us. Every man hears, at some time or other, a voice whispering to him, ‘Go out of the place in which you are put. Do something extraordinary. Do something wrong. See whether God will not help you. Can you not depend upon His promise that He will? Is Scripture false that He will?’ How many of those false steps, how many of those first wrong acts which have made a second, a third, a fourth necessary, have proceeded from this calculation! Whence came that voice? I accept this story. I believe that it is the voice of the tempter, the enemy of me, the enemy of man, he who is seeking to make us distrust our Father in heaven, he who is seeking to divide us from Him. And therefore, I want to know if the argument from Scripture has been answered, and how we may treat that and the like arguments. Hear and consider this: ‘And Jesus answering, said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ The Son of God once more claims the right to obey a commandment—the right to trust and to depend. Once more He claims that right for us. We may abide where we are placed, for our Father has placed us there. If He was not the Lord our God, we might make experiments on that which He would do for us supposing we broke His law. Because He is, we may submit to it, and rejoice in it.
My friends, this story has pleaded its own cause for eighteen centuries with those who are fighting a battle. I do not think it can be accepted as true—in any important sense of the word true—by any others. They may maintain its canonical authority, they may insist that it cannot be rejected without peril to their theory of the infallibility of the Bible; but though they will defend it against objectors, and for others, it will not signify anything to themselves. If it did, they would not despair of its coming with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power to any objector to any man. They would set little value on any demonstration but that. In this sense it is, I think, a most beautiful introduction to the rest of the Gospel. May a man trust the word of God to supply him with bread? Are the kingdoms of the world the devil’s, or do they belong to the Lord our God? Which is a man to worship? May a man trust God? May he tempt God? These questions were debated between the Spirit of Jesus and the spirit of falsehood in the wilderness. These were the questions which He was to debate in synagogues and in the streets, in Galilee and in Jerusalem. The Son of God was in all His acts and words to glorify His Father and deny Himself—in all His acts and words to vindicate for those whom He was not ashamed to call His brethren the right to call His Father their Father. He was to manifest the Spirit of trust, of obedience, of love, of peace, in opposition to the spirit of self-will, of division, of hatred.
(10.) We are told, that when the devil had ended all his temptation, he departed from him for a season.’ Such seasons of rest, of freedom from doubt, of joyful confidence, are, I suppose, vouchsafed to the soldiers of Christ after periods of terrible conflict, as they were to the chief Captain. But the inward battle was to prepare Him, as well as them, for battles in the world. The enemy in the wilderness must be encountered there. We read:—
‘And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way, and came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath day.’
(11.) It is in the power of the Spirit that He went into the desert; it is in the power of the Spirit that He goes into Galilee. It is of the Spirit which is upon Him that He speaks to the Nazarenes. The story of His visit to their synagogue occurs only in St. Luke. It is consistent with all that we have read in His Gospel hitherto. It prepares us for what we are to read hereafter. The writer of the Acts of the Gospel must tell us of a kingdom which conquers by spiritual might. He must tell us of a kingdom which is to set captives free. And he must warn us that the news of such a kingdom, uttered through Prophets, through Apostles, through the Son of Man, will be rejected precisely because it does address itself to spirits, and brings spiritual evidence of its reality. ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son?’ ‘Are not his sisters all with us?’ will be one form—one chief form—of the arguments by which its claims are resisted. They are those which have especial weight among the kinsmen and neighbours of the Prophet of the King. Among them, He has the first keen taste of the bitterness of the work which is to carry such blessings, which testifies of such love. The acceptable year, the divine jubilee, must be inaugurated by the effort of the subjects of the King to cast Him headlong from the brow of the hill on which their city was built.