And immediately the Spirit drives him out into the wilderness.
The Gospel of Mark gives the temptation almost no space — one verse to get Jesus there, one to sum up forty days. Yet Mark uses the strongest verb of any Gospel: heaven has just opened, the Father has just spoken, and the Spirit pushes Him out into the desert.
The single word "immediately" runs through this Gospel, and this verse is where it starts. Commentators tie it to the character of a servant, who obeys without delay.
The Spirit's first action in His case comes before us in verses 12 and 13. He comes out to serve the will of God, so He must be tested, and the Spirit thrusts Him out to this. Here for the first time we find the word "immediately," which occurs so often in this Gospel. If service is done rightly, it must be marked by prompt obedience. So we see our Lord as One who never lost a moment in His path of service.
Three Gospels describe this one moment with three different verbs. One writer reads each choice as deliberate.
Mark 1:12 says the Spirit "drove" Him, because Mark speaks of His servant character. Matthew 4:1 reads that He was "carried" by the Spirit, because Matthew presents Him as King, carried along as a king in triumph. But as the Man Christ Jesus He was "led," for here He is willingly dependent on the leading of His God and Father.
"Carried" follows an older translation; the ESV has "led up by the Spirit" in Matthew 4:1.
Not every writer accepts the harsher English word. One asks whether the same Greek verb, used elsewhere in Mark, will carry that much force.
To translate the Greek word ekballo here as "drives" seems to go beyond what the context requires, and the context always decides how strong a word is. It is usually translated "cast out," but not always: Matthew 9:38 has "send forth." In this very chapter, did our Lord, "moved with pity" (verse 41), then "drive" the cleansed leper away in verse 43? Why then "drives" in verse 12?
The strong verb raises a question: whose urge was this? One writer rejects the idea that Jesus rushed at His enemy out of His own eagerness.
Some have spoken as if our Lord was eager to meet the enemy, that old serpent the devil, who has the power of death and whom He had come to destroy. But that cannot be. If our Lord Himself had rushed impatiently to meet the adversary, He would have been the tempter of the evil one. It was not His own spirit that drove Him; the Spirit carried Him into the wilderness. It was the Holy Spirit who took Him to meet the enemy.
Why was the first act after the anointing a march into the desert? One writer answers from the Servant's first task.
That word "drives" is a very strong word. This is the only Gospel where it is used about the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? For this reason: the first great work and service of our Lord Jesus Christ as the prophet-servant in this world was to destroy the works of the devil.
The same strong verb returns in what He told His disciples to pray.
You find this very same word in Matthew 9, where the blessed Lord says to His disciples, "pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" — the word there means to drive or thrust them out. There it plainly means the service of His servants in this world. The identical word is used in Mark for His first meeting with Satan and conquering him, and for what they were to pray: that God would send out workers into His harvest in His own power.
The place matters. The first man and woman fell in a place full of good things; Christ met His test where nothing grew.
The temptation of our first parents in a garden of delights brought out their weakness, and by that weakness Satan overcame them. The temptation of our Lord, in a wilderness, became a witness to His infinite perfection, and by that perfection He overcame Satan.
The Father had just declared His delight in Him, before any public work. One writer reads the sending to Satan as an act of confidence, not doubt.
The Holy Spirit, just come on Him, the seal of that divine delight, carries Him up into the wilderness. Why there? "To be tempted by the devil." God says, "This is My beloved Son." I know Him; I can trust Him; I can rest all My glory safely in His hands. Take Him away; try Him; do what you please with Him; and see whether He is not worthy of My delight.
- Immediately — this word opens the verse and sets the tone of the whole Gospel: a Servant who never lost a moment.
- Driven — Mark's strong verb fits the Servant; Matthew has Him carried as King, and as Man He was led, dependent on His Father. Commentators differ on whether "drove" is too strong.
- By the Spirit — the push came from the Holy Spirit who had just rested on Him. It did not come from any eagerness of His own to face Satan.
- Into the wilderness — a bare place, the opposite of the garden where the first man was tested and fell.
- To conquer — the Servant's first task was to face the enemy whose works He came to destroy. The same strong word later sends His workers out into the harvest.
And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.
Mark tells the whole temptation in one sentence. What remains is a picture: a servant driven into the desert, a tempter, wild animals, and angels.
The Spirit drove Jesus out, and He went at once. One writer draws two lessons from that.
The phrase is one that expresses intense energy and instant action. The Father had given Him the Holy Spirit "without measure," and Jesus, in the fullness of that Spirit, took the path that led into the wilderness. He was driven out, and this proves how completely the Spirit filled Him. It happened at once, and this proves how quickly the Lord answered the One who had anointed Him for service. Perfect service has two marks: obedience that holds nothing back, and obedience that is ready and never hesitates.
Others have been tested, but never on ground this bare. The setting itself is part of the trial.
Satan said to God about Job, "Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side?" (Job 1:10). When Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil, there was nothing in their circumstances to test them. Our Lord's circumstances were completely different. He had "fasted forty days and forty nights" (Matt. 4:2) and He was "with the wild beasts." There was no Garden of Eden for Him, no hedge around Him as with Job. He faced the full force of Satan's attack with no shelter and nothing to soften it.
The number is not random. A Bible dictionary sums up its meaning.
FORTY = 10 × 4. Complete probation, to bring to light good or evil.
What made this stretch unlike every other is who was enduring it.
Moses, who gave the law, had been with God on the mountain forty days. Elijah the prophet had been in the wilderness with God for the same time, kept alive without human food. But what was either miracle compared with the position of Jesus? For Him, the Son, being with God was His natural place, and had been from all eternity. But now He had come down to earth, a man among men. Sin had reduced this fair creation to a wilderness, and there He is tempted by Satan for forty days.
The pressure came at Him, never from within Him.
Man always underrates the power and cunning of Satan. But the Lord knew him fully, and He measured the strength of the "strong man" by experience. He went out to meet him and to endure from him every form of temptation. Though He came "in the likeness of sinful flesh," He was "without sin" and "knew no sin." So the temptations came to the Lord only from outside. The same was true of Adam before he fell, but of no one else on earth.
Some read the animals as a danger. Commentators here reject that reading.
This is in no way as if they threatened Him. He was the Lord of nature — the Creator; and as the Second Man, all was in His hand. The angels' ministry was not, as some think, "a sustaining support against Satan and the beasts." Support against Satan would only have dishonoured Him. Support against the beasts would have meant a break between nature and Himself.
Instead, they picture the world He came into.
The wild beast is one that has thrown off the yoke and control of man. So it is not a stretch of imagination to see a picture here. Jesus among the wild beasts is a shadow of the perfectly obedient Servant of Jehovah. He came into a world of fallen men, who recognised no authority higher than the strongest or the most cunning among themselves.
The scene ends with angels attending Him.
Here we have a lovely contrast with the dark desolation of earth, in the middle of which the Son of Man is shown to us in the wilderness. The ministering spirits of heaven wait on Jesus in the place of His temptation. Though surrounded by the darkness of this world, the light of the glory above is still seen shining on Him.
And what He won there, He won for others.
He first showed our place before God, having taken it in His own person; and then He entered into conflict with the devil who held us captive. The third fact we notice is that the angels have become the servants of those who will be heirs of salvation. The appearing of Jesus as man in the flesh gives three testimonies. They are our place as sons of God, Satan conquered, and the angels our servants.
- Driven — the Spirit sent Him out at once; prompt, unreserved obedience is the first mark of a true servant.
- Stripped — no garden, no hedge, no food, no human comfort: He met the enemy with every advantage removed.
- Tested — forty days is the full span of probation. The pressure reached Him only from outside, never from within.
- Surrounded — the wild animals were no threat to their Creator. They picture a world that recognises no authority above itself, and He walked into it as the obedient One.
- Served — angels came, and heaven's light fell on the desert. His victory leaves us sons of God, Satan defeated, and angels sent to serve the heirs of salvation.