Jesus
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In the wilderness Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights. There is no doubt that He lost much of His body weight during that time (the typical human body cannot survive more than forty days without food), not to mention His strength. Consequently, Jesus was physically and emotionally depleted. And until that point, He had been untested, as far as we know. At His baptism, He was anointed as the new David. But just as David was hunted by Saul in the wilderness after His anointing by Samuel, so, too, the new David was being hunted by Lucifer in the wilderness.
The Greek word for “devil”58 is diabolos, and it means “accuser” or “slanderer.” Herein we discover the very nature of satan himself: to accuse, to slander, to smear. His other name, satan, means adversary. The Greek word for “tempt” also means “test.” Satan is the tempter. The first Adam succumbed to satan’s temptation. The last Adam didn’t.
The entire universe was at stake in this drama. In Genesis 1, God created Adam in the image of God and commanded him to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with God’s image. Adam was supposed to subdue the earth, which means that if things got out of line, Adam was to put them back in line. But Adam failed in his mission.
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There is a world of difference between tempting God and putting Him to the test. The former is forbidden; the latter welcomed.
—WATCHMAN NEE 63
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God made humans trustees of that portion of God’s estate called earth.59 Through disobedience, however, Adam handed the title deed to the earth over to God’s enemy. Satan (embodied in the serpent) became “the god of this world,”60 “the prince of the power of the air,”61 and “the ruler of this world.”62 This would be confirmed later in one of the temptations. This does not mean that creation is evil, but that the blood of Cain has slithered over the earth, which groans and strains from the stain and awaits its day of redemption.
Now in the wilderness, the Second Adam made His entrance. And He faced off with the same enemy to gain back the real estate that God entrusted to humans. If satan could have successfully tempted Jesus into sin, he would have won the victory, and Christ’s mission would have failed. It would have been a repeat of the drama that befell the first Adam. However, since Jesus won and kept on winning, He then proclaimed, “The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.”64 There was no ground upon which satan could operate.
THE OVERLOOKED NATURE OF SATAN’S ATTACK
A point that is often overlooked in this story is the nature of satan’s attack. Satan’s temptations toward Jesus in the wilderness were all concentrated on luring Jesus to fight satan on the divine level rather than on the human level. Only a human could rob satan of his power because it was humans who gave him the title deed of the earth. If satan could get Jesus to react to him as a divine being rather than as a human being, satan could keep the earth. Satan repeated this strategy when he returned at the crucifixion, where he tried each one of these temptations one last time (“I thirst”; “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us”; and so on).
This becomes clear throughout the temptation scene. Satan quoted from the Psalms in order to allure Jesus, while Jesus countered with quotes from Deuteronomy.65
It’s also confirmed when Jesus cast out demons. Notice what the demons said to Jesus: “What do you want with us, Son of God?”66 And on another occasion, “Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”67
The demons were challenging Jesus’ authority on the grounds that He was the Son of God. They weren’t dealing with Him on the level of a human being—the Son of man. But Jesus responded as the new Adam, a human being, who had authority over the creeping things, such as serpents and scorpions, symbols of the demonic world.68
In some ways, Jesus’ struggle with satan was not a conflict between satan and the Messiah but between Jesus and messiahship. Each one of the temptations challenged the standard idea of what the “messiah” was. And each one of the temptations invited Jesus to embrace His superpowers and divine might to bring about the expected messiahship that would seize political power from the Romans and establish Israel as a political reality.
God entrusted humans with the responsibility of enacting and enforcing God’s intentions on the earth.69 Humans guarded the garden of Eden, presumably from the impending threat of the serpent.70 The fact that God chose to deal with satan through human beings explains why the demons could say, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.”71 The demons invoked God’s authority because they assumed Jesus was acting in the capacity of the Son of God. But Jesus wasn’t. He was acting as a man anointed by the Holy Spirit.
Recall that John exhorted us to “test the spirits,” and then said every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (as a human being) is of God. And every spirit that denies that Jesus came in the flesh is not of God.72 The demons were seeking to deny Jesus His humanity, for they knew it meant their demise.
Jesus was a new creation on the planet. He was the first human incarnation, the first human being indwelled by God Himself. In His resurrection, He multiplied that new creation on the planet. This is the meaning of Jesus’ metaphor about the one grain multiplying into many grains. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”73
Jesus was the one grain. Consequently, satan knew that Jesus was something different from a fallen human being. Jesus, as it were, is an endangered species. If satan could defeat Jesus, there would be no way for Jesus to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” as the new Adam. And there would be no way for Him to take back the title deed of the earth and return it to humans.
THE FIRST TEMPTATION
The evil archangel approached a hungry, starving man. Jesus was thin and weak. His skin was blistered by the scorching wilderness sun. He probably looked as if He had not bathed in weeks.
Using the Lord’s hunger as a point of temptation, satan said to Him, “If You really are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread and eat.”74
Notice that the temptation was to lure Jesus into drawing on His divine power. Consider Jesus’ response: “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that God speaks.”75
Look at the dialogue carefully. Satan said, “If You’re the Son of God . . .” Jesus responded with the word man, as if to say: “I am a man. I am the real human—the new Adam. And by being a real human, I will defeat you. For Adam, who was also a man, was defeated by you. I am man; and as a man, I live by God’s words, God’s life, God’s Spirit. This is what is written in the Scriptures.”
As Paul put it, Jesus laid aside, or emptied, Himself, of His divine power, but took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.76 We need to pause for a moment to grasp what is happening here. Humans, we are told, were made a little lower than the angels.77 Jesus is the Son of God. But He laid aside His divine powers to live as a human being without divesting Himself of His divine nature. Jesus did not take advantage of His full equality with God the Father while He lived on earth. While He still had access to His omniscience and omnipotence, He limited Himself and refused to draw on those powers. (Therefore, when Jesus said He didn’t know the timing of His second coming in Mark 13, He wasn’t bluffing.) Jesus rejected being a Muscle Messiah. Instead, He truly became human and participated in the limitations and frailty of our humanity. Even to the point of death.
The temptations that satan leveled against Jesus in the wilderness were targeted at obliterating His true humanity and His solidarity with humans. Jesus was tempted to betray His mission, to abandon His vocation, to “be His own man” and be the divine being He was, thus inaugurating the kingdom of God not by suffering and death but by politics and economics.78 If Jesus had taken the bait and drawn on His div
ine powers as the Son of God, He would have ceased living as a human being. And He would have ceased being the Second Adam, “Adam-gone-right.” Satan wanted Jesus to dedicate His ministry to changing the world, not saving the world. Jesus could inhabit His divine self to save people from their hungers. Or He could inhabit His human self to save people from their sins.
Satan is an angel. As an angel, his particular life form is higher than that of human beings. But Jesus was living as man anointed by the Spirit of God and living by God’s words and God’s life. In these words, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,”79 Jesus gave us an insight He would repeat over and over again: that He was a man who was living by the indwelling life of His Father—the very thing Adam was called to do by eating from the Tree of Life in the garden.
THE SECOND TEMPTATION
The second temptation began. Jesus was standing on the highest point on the temple, where the ram’s horn was blown. The Lord of creation, now in the form of a human being, was under great distress. Satan taunted Him to show His stuff and jump: “If You really are the Son of God, then jump, and Your heavenly messengers will protect You as promised.”80 Satan was challenging Jesus to survive capital punishment, which is death by stoning, with the one being “stoned” often hurled off a high precipice onto the stones below.
Once again satan refused to acknowledge the humanity of Jesus. Instead, He appealed to His divinity as the Son of God. Jesus responded with words that were given to mere mortals: “It is written again, ’You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’”81
The man, Jesus, won the second battle against the fallen angel.
THE THIRD TEMPTATION
Then satan brought forth the third and final temptation in the wilderness. It seems that satan realized he was unsuccessful at getting Jesus to do battle on the basis of His divine nature. So he quit this strategy and tried to tempt Jesus with His humanity.
The third temptation brings us back to the garden itself. In Genesis 3, Adam violated his trustee relationship with God by bowing his knee to Lucifer instead of obeying God. Satan wished to hand it all back to a human, the Second Adam, if He would simply worship him in return.
We don’t know what this scene looked like, but in some mysterious way, satan was able to display to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world with all their glory. His offer: “I won them in the garden, and I own them now. But I will give them all to You. And You will rule the earth. I will hand the kingdoms of the earth back over to You if You will only bow down and worship me.” Ever wonder how important worship is? Ask satan. So highly does satan value worship that he was willing to give up everything if Jesus would worship him: “Fall down and worship me.”82
Even Herod, who wanted to kill the Christ Child, pretended that he wanted to worship Him. Pretenders are the modern Herods. Pretension is one of the church’s greatest threats.
Jesus never disputed that satan owned the kingdoms of the world. Instead, He seemed to acknowledge that they belonged to him when He called satan “the ruler of this world.”83
What was Jesus thinking at that moment? Perhaps He was thinking, No suffering. No cross. No death. But instantly, I can sit on the throne. Instantly, I can receive the glory of the world. Instantly, the kingdoms of the earth will be Mine.
Jesus again responded on the level of a human being and uttered without reserve, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ’You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”84 God doesn’t worship God. It is human beings who are to worship God. Again, Jesus reaffirmed His humanity and responded from that vantage point. The authority He exercised over satan was the authority God gave to Adam back in the garden of Eden. Jesus exercised such authority as the Son of man (human), not as the Son of God (divine):
For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.85
When Jesus said to satan, “Get behind Me,”86 He was acknowledging that we all live with the devil. We cannot escape evil on this earth. But as long as we are in front and he is behind us, we are protected. The devil ought not to be in our line of vision but in our shadow.
After the third temptation, satan left Him. As James stated, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”87 Angels came to attend to Him. In the garden, Adam and Eve spoke the language of beasts. They lived in harmony with creation. Everything changed after the expulsion from the garden. In fact, Judaism developed extensive animal taboos. No images of beasts were allowed in the temple—only cherubim and seraphim and wings covering the ark. Animals were worshipped in the goddess cults of Asia Minor; hence, the creation of the golden calf, which when elevated meant the god was present and that sexual rioting was not just permitted but encouraged. The Jesus story countered this prevailing attitude with positive animal connections, beginning with His being born in a manger among animals, and here He spent time in the wilderness with wild beasts, along with the angels who ministered to Him.88
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We need the whole Jesus. The complete Jesus. Everything he said. Every detail of what he did.
—EUGENE PETERSON 92
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Although satan failed in the wilderness, he would return to tempt the Son of man.89 For this reason, Jesus was “in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”90 Jesus suffered temptation so He could help those who are being tempted as well.91
In other words, Jesus entered the drama of human existence and experienced the whole gamut of humanity so He could transform it. The battle between satan and Jesus continued, reaching its zenith at the cross.93
A REPLAY OF THE FIRST TESTAMENT
The temptation of Jesus was a playback of two episodes in the First Testament.
First, it’s a replay of the first temptation in the garden of Eden. John tells us that the three enemies of the Christian are “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.”94 Each of these temptations was in play in the temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden:95
• The fruit was “good for food” = the lust of the flesh.
• The fruit was “pleasant to the eyes” = the lust of the eyes.
• The fruit was “desirable to make one wise” = the pride of life.
God created the garden of Eden for humans to enjoy and eat freely. But there were limits to human freedom. Free does not mean a free-for-all or free fall.
The temptations that satan leveled at Jesus in the wilderness struck the same three chords. Here is the order presented in Luke 4 (paraphrased):
• “Turn these stones to bread” = the lust of the flesh.
• “I will give you the kingdoms of the world and their glory” = the lust of the eyes.
• “Cast yourself down from here and angels will protect you” = the pride of life.
In the garden, the first Adam ate the wrong food. In the wilderness, the Second Adam ate the right food—the Word of the living God.96
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The main line of interpretation of the Old Testament exemplified in the New is not only consistent and intelligent in itself, but also founded upon a genuinely historical understanding of the process of the religious—I should prefer to say the prophetic—history of Israel as a whole.
—C. H. DODD 100
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When the garden scene closes in Genesis 3, we are left with an angel posted at the gate, commanding the first Adam. When the wilderness scene closes in Luke 4, we are left with the last Adam commanding an angel—“Get behind Me, Satan!”97
Jesus, the one grain: Jesus, the new Adam, was now in a position wherein He could be fruitful and multiply the earth with God’s image. Three and a half years later, the new Adam died on a cross. Three days later, He became “the firstbor
n among many brethren,” bringing forth “many sons unto glory.”98 The one grain fell into the earth and died to bear many grains like unto itself.99
This is the meaning of resurrection, among other things. The ekklesia (church) will become the inheritor of the image of God on the earth. She will become the image-bearer of the Almighty, the body of Jesus on the earth again.
Second, in the wilderness temptation we see how Jesus relives the story of Israel. Jesus is not just the new Adam; He is the new Israel. Israel was in the wilderness of testing for forty years. And like Adam, they failed the test. So the forty years of Israel’s temptations in the desert incarnated in Jesus’ forty days of temptation in the desert. And for each temptation, Jesus quoted the words Moses gave to Israel when Israel was being tempted:
• “Man shall not live by bread alone; but by every word of God.”101
• “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”102
• “You shall worship the Lord and serve Him only.”103
Compare the wording of these two texts from Deuteronomy and Matthew:
Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.104
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”