Then Jesus was carried up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted of the devil
The heavens have just opened over Jesus at His baptism, and the same Spirit now leads Him into empty country to meet the devil. Two questions come up at once: why would God's Spirit lead anyone toward temptation, and what does "tempted" mean when the one tempted has no sin?
The order of events is not accidental. The testing comes after the public approval, and it rests on it:
The temptation in the wilderness follows the public testimony of God to His Son. It is founded on it — "If you are the Son of God" — and necessarily follows it. This is the divine order. It would have dishonoured both if God had waited to see whether His Son could stand all tests before approving Him. On the other hand, that approval was a challenge to the accuser. The Spirit led Christ in the wilderness forty days, while Satan was allowed to attack Him.
Each Gospel uses a different word for this move. Each word fits the way that Gospel shows Him:
In Mark 1:12 the Spirit "drove" Him, for Mark speaks of His servant character. Matthew 4:1 reads that He was "carried" by the Spirit (JND trans.), for Matthew views Him as King, carried like a king in triumph. But as the Man Christ Jesus He was "led," for He is here willingly dependent on the leading of His God and Father.
Whatever word a Gospel uses, it sets Him apart from every other person who has walked into testing:
Every other man is driven into the scene of temptation by his own lusts, the folly and wretchedness of his own heart. Man goes there by the very nature of what is in him, and there he is defeated, and falls. But Christ is led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness.
Here the word does not mean what it usually means for us:
In the sense we have it here, it is entirely from without. Our Lord never knew what it was to be tempted from within. He "in every respect has been tempted as we are." But the Holy Spirit qualifies this by adding, "yet without sin." He did not simply refuse to yield to sin. He never had the principle of it, never the least motion of any thought or wish contrary to God.
Adam's case makes the point clear. Being tempted does not prove anything is wrong inside:
But the Spirit of God did lead Christ into temptation — Matthew 4 and Luke 4 tell us so plainly. He was not led into any exercise of a sinful nature, but into Satan's trial of what He was. The first Adam was innocent and had no sin, yet he was tempted, and so tempted that he fell into sin. So temptation clearly does not imply existing evil, or a sinful nature.
The place matters. It is the opposite of the garden where the first man failed:
When the first man was created God pronounced all to be very good, but Satan came promptly on the scene, tempted man and ruined him. The Second Man has now appeared, and again Satan comes on the scene promptly. But this time he meets Man, full of the Holy Spirit, who cannot be touched by his tricks. When the first man fell, he knew no pangs of hunger, for he lived in the fertile garden planted by his Creator's hand. The Second Man victoriously stood, though the garden had been turned into a wilderness and He was hungry.
The wilderness was not a pause before His work. It was the right start to it:
This victory over the tempter was the righteous opening that all His works and doings needed. It was, therefore, the Spirit that led Him up to this action. As we read, "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." Before the Son of God could go out and plunder the house of the strong man, He must bind him (Matthew 12:29).
The same pattern holds for His people:
He was just baptised, sealed with the Spirit, and, above all, owned by the Father as His beloved Son. At once the Spirit led Him into the wilderness. The principle is true of us too. We are sons of God by faith in Jesus, and we know it by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We too know what it is to be tempted by the devil. Temptation is hardly the way the devil deals with his own children; but when we are delivered, such conflicts begin.
Yet Jesus never told His disciples to seek out what He walked into. Commentators note the tension with the prayer "lead us not into temptation," and answer it this way:
It expresses the necessity of being kept in constant dependence upon God, kept from Satan's power, and not treating the testings of the pathway as something to be lightly entered upon. The soul that knows humility would not seek the temptations of an Abraham or of a Job.
- Owned first. God declared His delight in His Son before any test, not after — approval came first, and the testing was built on it.
- Led, not lured. Everyone else is pulled into temptation by what is inside him. Jesus went because the Spirit led Him.
- Tested from outside. Temptation here means attack from outside, not a pull from within. Adam was sinless and still tempted, so being tempted proves nothing about the heart.
- Won in a desert. The first man fell surrounded by plenty; the Second Man stood His ground hungry in a wasteland.
- Bound, then plundered. Jesus had to tie up the strong man before He could empty his house. This victory opened the way for all His work.
and having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he hungered.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And the tempter coming up to him said, If thou be Son of God, speak, that these stones may become loaves of bread.
God has just called Jesus His beloved Son. Now, hungry after forty days in the desert, He hears a suggestion that opens with "if" and sounds harmless.
One writer puts the two moments side by side:
The devil always sows doubts of the Divine Word. Compare Matthew 3:17 with Matthew 4:3 and 6, and see how clearly this comes out. God has just said, "This is My beloved Son." At once the devil says twice over, "If You are the Son of God." The little word "if" is a great favourite with the devil!
Satan uses the same tactic on believers, and it can hide behind humility:
Whatever Satan's aim may be, this is one main part of his tactics. He slips in a doubt — a doubt about our own relationship with God. "If You are the Son of God." Now, search the word of God as you may, never will you find His Spirit leading a soul to doubt... it shows how deeply subtle Satan is. He has made God's own children his instruments. They allow doubts in themselves, and they also help to raise doubts in others. They often excuse it by saying that a lack of confidence with God is a sign of humility, but that plea is mistaken.
That word "if" works in two directions:
You may look at that word "if" in two ways. It casts a doubt on His relationship to God. Or it gets Him to act on the fact of that relationship... "If you are really God's Son, command this stone to become bread." That is: God has kept you hungry. Now your opportunity has arrived. Take yourself out of God's hand, for you are able to make those stones into bread and satisfy yourself. As far as we can tell, the Lord Jesus had performed no miracle up till this moment, but Satan had a true idea of who He was.
Nothing in the suggestion looks wicked:
The power was His. The need was real. The hunger was sinless. Why, then, should He not use His power and make the stones of the ground supply His needs? The suggestion is so simple and plausible. It seems to fit so well with the truth of what He was. And it is so natural for us to use what power we have to meet our own needs. So to any of us it might naturally seem to be no evil suggestion at all — no temptation. But it was.
Satan asks Him to command. His refusal rests on the place He had taken as man:
What subtlety! For did He not have divine power and the right as the Son of God to use it? But He had become man, and man's place was to obey... He might have said, "I am God." Then no rebel creature would have stood up against Him. But there would have been no example for us. He overcame by keeping the place He had taken as man, and that was to obey.
His obedience was not grudging:
He never had a will to wish to go the other way... It was as though He said, No, I am a servant, I cannot command, I obey... The Father's will was His motive for everything.
The attack came from outside Him. There was nothing inside to answer it.
He had no sin whatever. It was not only that He never sinned, but that He had no sin; and this makes all the difference possible... In His nature as man there was no evil for the devil to work on. There was evil outside Him.
Two earlier tests stand behind this one. The first is Eden:
Satan tried to triumph over the Seed of the woman as he had triumphed over the first man. But he found that He was quite another kind of Man... the garden of Eden was very different from the desert in which Jesus was hungry after fasting forty days. Adam ate of forbidden fruit to be as gods, Jesus refused to satisfy His hunger without a word from God.
The second is the nation fed daily in the desert. His reply reaches back to that history:
Our Lord refers to Deuteronomy. He points to the manna, the daily food of Israel, which meant depending on God... He had brought them out into the wilderness as His firstborn son. There He put them to the test. The test was this: were they content with God, and with the food He provided for them day by day? Sadly, they were not!
- Doubt first. The tempter opens with "if," aimed at a relationship God had just announced. He uses the same word on believers.
- Doubt aims at independence. The invitation is to step out of God's hand and meet a real need by feeding Himself.
- Independence hides in harmless things. The hunger was sinless. The power really was His. That is why the suggestion looks like no temptation at all.
- Obedience answers it. Having become man, He would not command where His place was to obey. The Father's will decided everything.
- Victory where others fell. Adam failed in a garden of plenty. Israel failed on daily manna. The Second Man, hungry in a desert, would not move without a word from God.
But he answering said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which goes out through God's mouth.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.