The Third Temptation

Ee repelled, the enemy returned for the third and last time. His attack upon the physical side had resulted in the demonstration of the possibility of righteousness to a Man Whose conception of life was that bread sustenance is secondary, and the spiritual relation pre-eminent. Thus foiled, he had proceeded. to attempt the ruin of Jesus on the spiritual side of His nature, by endeavouring to interfere with the simplicity of His trust in God. Here again he was utterly defeated, and the truth demonstrated, that trust which refuses to make any unordained experiments, is proof against all opposition.

Now against this human being, in Whom the relation between body and spirit is perfectly balanced, because the whole life is lived in right relation to God, the enemy comes with a new attack, in which he attempts to work the ruin of Jesus in the sphere of His specific mission.

This is in many ways the boldest and most daring adventure of the devil. For this last attempt he casts off all disguise, and presuming upon the awful victories he has won in the history of the human race, he definitely asks the homage of Christ. Never up to that moment, in the history of the race, had any individual soul proved strong enough finally to resist this terrible foe. Through thirty years of lonely conflict, and forty days of special testing, and two fierce and fearful attacks, the Man Jesus has remained the Victor. There remains but one chance. Having failed to ruin Him in His essential manhood, it may yet be possible to lure the perfect Servant from the pathway of perfect service. Through the previous conflicts, the Victor has stripped the vanquished of his disguise, and again and again revealed the true motive and awful malice of evil, though it had been skilfully hidden behind arguments the most plausible.

Now the enemy strips himself of all disguise, ceases to make use of secondary causes, and definitely asks the homage of Christ. It is his last and most daring bid for possession of the citadel hitherto successfully held against him.

I. Here again in examining the attack of the enemy, the objective point is the first thing to be discovered.

This is no longer the ruin of the Man Himself, but the prevention of His accomplishment of that work for which He had been preparing, and for which, but forty days ago, He was solemnly anointed. As has been seen, at the passing of Jesus into the waters of baptism, He signified His consent to be numbered with the transgressors, and therefore His willingness to tread the pathway that must issue in death, in order that a new highway of life out of death might be opened for the ruined race. It is against the carrying out of this programme, and the accomplishment of this purpose, that the present temptation is directed. Having failed utterly in his attempt to ruin the Servant, he now would interfere with His service. Here, as always, there is a blindness and a folly about evil, and Satan does not seem to understand that the strengthening of the perfect Servant, resulting from His victory under temptation, is yet increased guarantee of His perfect victory in the pathway of appointed service.

Examine now the avenue of his approach. Conveying Him to some high mountain peak, he showed Him “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.”!1 What that meant, it is not easy to comprehend, and yet for a moment, think of the statement. By some strange power, at the command of the enemy, he made to pass before the vision of Christ a gorgeous and magnificent scene. He revealed to Him the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. Not merely the few and imperfect kingdoms of Palestine, but all the kingdoms of the world, the great Roman empire, Greece, Pergamos, Bithynia, the Bosphorus, Syria, Pontus, Judza, and Egypt, all the known kingdoms of the world. And yet more than this, for the statement has no such limitations as that indicated by the word made use of: “known kingdoms.” All the kingdoms of the world, the great unexplored lands with their thousand nations and tribes. Any literal interpretation contradicts the real story. Luke tells us that the devil gave Christ the vision of these “in a moment of time.”! It is evident that having taken Him to some great mountain height, where instinctively the mind would be impressed with the sense of greatness and of splendour, he flashed upon Him in one swift and supernatural manifestation, a vision of the kingdoms, and their glory. The possibility is that Christ saw more than the devil knew. Satan is not omniscient, and though in the marvellous wisdom of his created intelligence he may be able to forecast the issues of certain lines of action, beyond such forecasting, which is ever presumptive rather than positive knowledge, he is not able to go. The God-man on the other hand, while standing only in the realm of His manhood for testing and temptation, may yet have been conscious of all the prospective grandeur of these self-same kingdoms. He saw that day the glory of them as they were, the wealth, the strength, the cities where the treasures of the nations were gathered, all the resources of the far-spreading lands, the teeming populations, the scientific victories, and artistic achievements, the glory of the kingdoms of the world. It was a truly magnificent and overwhelming spectacle. I make no attempt to explain how the devil flashed the vision upon the consciousness of the Christ. That remains a mystery, but the fact is plainly stated that he showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.

With the dazzling spectacle upon the mind of the Master, the enemy uttered the actual words of the temptation, “All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.”2 Notice here particularly the claim the devil set up, and let it not be forgotten that the claim was made in the presence of Jesus. He claimed some right to the kingdoms of the world, and the claim was based upon certain unquestionable facts. These kingdoms had become what they were, largely under his control. They were at the moment submissive to his sway, obedient to his laws, being led captive by him at his will. For the larger part, the whole of them were blindly asleep in the arms of the wicked one. By the very temptation, — Satan seems to lay claim to a title, which Jesus Himself gave him incidentally at a later period, “the prince of this world.”3 The

lLuke 4. 5. 2Matt. 4. 9. - §John 12. 31.

fact of his sway is undisputed. He was then as he is to-day, exercising authority over all those who are in darkness, and he is perpetually paying his price to those who serve him. If Judas desires thirty pieces of silver, the devil will find them for him, on condition. If men will but serve him, he will give them what they ask. Wealth, fame, position, power are all in the gift of the devil. He holds them, and he actually dispenses them, in order to attain ends upon which his malice is set. What these gifts are worth, in the last analysis is another question, which will be answered in the process of this consideration.

And so in effect he declared to Christ that whether the people knew it or not, they were under his sway, that he was the prince of the world, and he offered to give Jesus the whole of the kingdoms, and the glory of them, if there on the lone mountain peak He would but render homage to him, and receive them as his gift. All other men had submitted to his direction in order to gain some imagined advantage, and now he boldly suggested to Christ that He should do the same.

The real point and force of the temptation can only be understood as the sublime and magnificent Psalm of the King is remembered. In that Psalm it is declared that God’s anointed King shall be His Son:

“Yet have I set my King
Upon My holy hill of Zion.
I will tell of the decree:
Jehovah said unto Me, Thou art My Son;
This day have I begotten Thee.”*

At the baptism Jesus was identified by the Divine pronouncement, “This is My beloved Son,”2 Reverting again to the Psalm, the promise of God to the anointed King is given:

“Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance, And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

Thus Jesus is God’s chosen King, to Whom He has promised the nations for an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a Psalm 2. 6, 7. 2Matt. 3. 17. -5Psalm 2. 8, 9.

possesssion. But He promised these to the King, when He shall ask them of God. That asking is to be along the line of a Divinely appointed approach, which includes the pathway through death, symbolised by the baptism, which had preceded the identification of Jesus as the King.

Here on a mountain peak of the enemy’s choosing, in contrast to the holy hill of Zion upon which God will establish His King, this anointed One was offered the selfsame kingdoms of the world. All that God has promised Him was here seen in the dazzling splendour of that momentary vision. There were the nations, there were the uttermost parts of the earth, the things guaranteed to the King by the covenant with Jehovah. The devil having surely understood something of the suggestiveness of the Jordan baptism, and the consequent uttering of the voice of God, now suggested to Jesus that He might miss that deeper baptism and passion, and yet possess these kingdoms. He pointed out a short cut to a Divine destination. He was willing to hand over his right and claim, if all might but be received from him, instead of from God. One act of fealty, one recognition of the devil’s ownership, one moment of bending the knee, and all the kingdoms were promised. Sometimes one wonders whether there did not lurk in the temptation a revelation of the devil’s cowardice. The fact that he revealed the kingdoms in a moment of time, may have been due to his fear, lest if this Man should have lingered to examine them, He might discover their worthlessness. His suggestion, moreover, that Christ should take the kingdoms as his gift, may have been due to dark and gloomy fear of the conflict with Him, through which Christ would yet win them. Here the very element of the primal fall of Satan flames out. Not merely for the ruin of this Man, but for the saving of himself from defeat, and the maintenance of the false position he has occupied, would he shun the terrible conflict that lies ahead.

And yet the temptation meant more to Christ than even Satan in the deepest reaches of his subtlety could possibly comprehend. The terrible nature of the suffering through which Jesus had yet to pass, could not be perfectly understood by Satan, neither did he absolutely know the measure of defeat that waited for him. Christ knew that these kingdoms were assured to Him in the programme of His Father’s will, but He knew also that in that same programme lay the unutterable agony of the immeasureable darkness, and the fierceness of the temptation lay in the suggestion that all the splendours of these possessions might yet be His, without the pathway of shame and suffering and death. Not that He entertained or meditated for a single moment the possibility of yielding to the foe, but He saw into the very heart of the meaning, and understood even as the tempter could not, the infinite cost at which He was yet to possess.:

II. Now notice the repulse of the enemy. For the first time the Master spoke to Satan in the language of His own authority. That authority had been created by the victories He had won in the previous attacks. He had in His manhood proved stronger than the strong man armed, mightier than the terrible foe of humanity, and in that manifested strength He now addressed him, “Get thee hence, Satan.”1 This was no longer a challenge. It was a command, All the effort and power of evil failed to encompass His capitulation, and now from that citadel of mighty strength He dictated terms to the enemy without the gates, and named him Satan, the slanderer, the calumniator, the liar.

In that authoritative word, spoken in answer to this particular temptation, there was first the refusal of the devil’s suggestion, and then a flashing revelation of the method by which He will yet possess the kingdoms of the world. The enemy said, Pay homage to me, and I will give Thee the kingdoms. Christ virtually replied, I will obtain these kingdoms not by paying homage to thee, but by thine eviction. The devil, the liar from the beginning, was attempting to rob Christ of that which he was promising Him; was aiming, in this last desperate adventure of his malice, to cast God out of His own world. The Master’s answer was a word of tremendous authority, based upon the perfections of His manhood as against temptation, and also upon the victories to be won in that death from which the enemy dared to attempt to lure Him. From that moment in the wilderness until now, Christ has been repeating that word, by every victory won in the soul of man. By all the triumphs of the Cross among the nations, and by those victories to come in the final movements of the Divine programme, He is repeating the irrevocable edict of the wilderness, “Get thee hence, Satan.”

The order thus issued is rendered emphatic and forceful by His use of the same sword of the Spirit. Again the flash of the sword is seen as He said, “It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”1 Again He declared that He stood, in service as well as in the facts of His own being, within the will of God. He had homage for none save Jehovah, and to Him alone would He render service. How perfectly this word of the Master rebutted the argument of Satan. As in each of the previous cases so here, the command quoted had application, not to Satan, but to Himself. It was not that the Lord ordered Satan to worship God, but that He declared, in the presence of the enemy, that there was one all-sufficient reason for His refusal to render homage to him, namely that the Word of God enjoined that He should worship only God. Thus for the winning of victory in the pathway of specific service, He took His place as Man, and declared it impossible that He, abiding in’ the Divine will, should worship or serve any but God.

Notice here particularly the linking of worship and service, and see how this applies to the temptation. In the mind of Jesus it is evident that worship and service are closely identified, indeed are two aspects of the same attitude. To worship is always to serve. To pay homage is ever to recognise an obligation. The enemy said nothing in his temptation about service. He asked for worship only. Christ’s answer reveals the fact that to worship him would be to serve him. This the enemy in his terrible subtlety did not declare. He had asked for worship, promising that the kingdoms should then belong to Christ. Christ’s reply declared that promise to be a lie, in that the act of homage would issue in the fact of service, so that the supreme authority would remain that of Satan. It was the devil’s deliberate attempt to deceive the last Adam as he had deceived the first, and so to prevent the creation of the new race, as he had ensured the ruin of the first.

His answer, moreover, revealed the fact of His self-emptying, and yet His consciousness that self-emptying must issue in a perfect crowning. Not for Himself did He come to win the kingdoms, but for His Father, and yet it pleased the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell, and for a period unmeasured by human calculation, by the way of the Cross He would ascend the throne, and reign over all these kingdoms. And even when in the distant ages He finally will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, yet in His eternal association with Him, He will possess and reign over the whole territory of the kingdom of God.

Thus the anointed King utterly routs the enemy, and perfectly holds the citadel against this his last attack, and how great the victory is, and upon what infinite wisdom His choice of the Father’s pathway was based! To have received the kingdoms from Satan (even granting for the sake of argument, that which cannot be granted, that He had ascended the throne by submission to the prince of the world) would have been to have taken a position utterly worthless. The kingdoms, notwithstanding all their apparent glory and splendour, were permeated with evil. They were the kingdoms of the world, that is, of the Cosmos. The very glory of them was purely material. All the splendour manifest was that of the enthronement of things material, at the cost of the death of the spiritual. To Him, therefore, it was patent that within the splendour there lurked the shadow. The elements of destruction were surely at work. Disintegration was evident in the fact that they were kingdoms. The plurality was a proof of weakness. There was conflict, and strife, and manifestation of break-up, rather than of unity. Until this hour that fact remains, for those who have eyes to see. The world is still full of kingdoms, and these are armed to the teeth. If one shall move, the rest watch with envious eyes, and all the finest skill of the world’s statecraft is directed to selfish purposes, and the prevention of the enrichment of others. The evidence of weakness lies in the very fact that the devil showed Him kingdoms. God’s Man of perfect vision saw this, and clearly understood. He knew, too, that the glory was the glory of tinsel, rather than of gold. It was passing, fading, tarnished, even as He looked upon it. The splendour was undoubtedly great, but it was not lasting. It was that of the Cosmos only, and that ever lacked the element of permanence. He knew the truth of what John afterwards wrote, “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”!

1y John 2. 17.

142 TH Bi) CRIS ES! sOR Graeere PRLS TE.

When Jesus therefore refused the offer of the devil, He refused the imperfect thing, the perishing thing; and He was able to do it because doing the will of God He Himself, in spite of the death before Him, must abide for ever, and through that death, and that alone, He was communicating imperishable force to all He gathered around Himself. By the victory of His Cross the kingdoms would be of infinite value, for being permeated with righteousness under the government of God, they would be unified, and no longer should be spoken of as kingdoms. Pass for a moment to those after-years, His victory won and He ascended, He gave to His servant in the lonely isle visions and words, declaring the last movements in the mighty programme. “The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ: and He shall reign for ever and ever.” Note carefully “the kingdom.” In the Authorised Version the reading was plural. In the Revision there is a correction which is of infinite value. “The kingdom of the world,” no longer the many, but the one, “is become the kingdom,” not many, but one, “of our Lord, and of His Christ.” And now because He has dealt with, and cast out the element of evil, disintegration is impossible. “He shall reign for ever and ever.”!

Thus Jesus chose to move towards the establishment of one throne and one kingdom. The contrast should ever be kept in mind. The devil showed the Master the kingdoms, tribes, divisions, containing the elements of conflict and of break-up. Jesus refused them. He did not desire the kingdoms. He had come for the kingdom. He refused the tarnished glory of a wrecked ideal, and chose the radiant splendour of a fulfilled purpose, even though the pathway to the goal was the pathway of the Cross.

It must also be borne in mind that the great word in Revelation “the kingdom of the world,” does not refer in the first place to the nations, but to the actual kingdom of the Cosmos. All the splendour of material things shall, under the perfect reign of God, be beautified and perfected. In the final victory, the whole creation which to-day groans and travails in pain, will be redeemed; and being restored to their proper place in the Divine economy, material things, subservient to spiritual things, shall also abide. The vision Jesus had of the issues of the Cross were far more magnificent than

*Rev. II, 15, that which the devil gave Him of the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. It was because He saw the higher that He refused the lower. Escape from the pathway of pain could at best only have resulted in the possession of the lower. Not for one single moment did God’s perfect Man hesitate. He did not pause to compare the proposal of Satan, and the purpose of God. The glorious consciousness of coming victory was the joy that was set before Him, and that joy made hell’s offer paltry, mean, blasphemous, and impertinent; and with stern and magnificent authority He commanded Satan to depart, and announced the fact of His abiding in the will of God, to Whom alone He would render worship, and Whom alone He was prepared to serve.

Thus His victory was won, not only in the realm of His personality, but also in the sphere of His official position; and the devil was routed in his attack at every point.

The triumph of Jesus was perfect in the realm of His physical life, in that of His spiritual nature, and in that of His appointed work. Let it never be forgotten that in all human nature the work is the final thing. Man was created for work. God made him that he might act in co-operation with Himself, for the fulfilment of Divine purposes. That is true in every individual. The being thus created for work, consists of body and spirit. The mind is the consciousness, which is the outcome of this dual personality. Where there is right relationship and perfect harmony between the physical and spiritual, man is equal to the work appointed. Where the instrument is injured, the work is made impossible of achievement. The enemy first attacked this second Man in an attempt to ruin Him by appealing to a necessity of His physical nature. He was utterly unsuccessful, for Jesus recognised that the essential fact of human nature is spirit, and wherever there comes the necessity for conflict between the need of the material and that of the spiritual, the former, being subservient, must minister to the latter, which is essential.

Defeated at this point the enemy then flung the force of his terrible subtlety against the spiritual nature, attempting the ruin of the entire Man, by suggesting that He should make unwarranted venture upon the basis of His trust in God. Here again he was

driven back by the quiet and splendid heroism, which refused that which had all the appearance of heroic action, but which would have been proof of fear, and lack of confidence.

Then the enemy, driven from his earthworks, stood in the open, and manifested himself in all the diabolic daring of his actual desire. He asked for the homage of perfection. Then in the open he received his final defeat, as the perfect and unharmed Man chose still only to worship and serve Jehovah, and in the might of that choosing, authoritatively commanded the enemy to depart. The second Man, perfectly balanced in body and spirit, and resolutely abiding in the attitude of unswerving loyalty to God, was invulnerable against all the forces of evil. At every point where man had ° failed He was victorious. In every weakness of man’s life He was strong, and in the great Crisis of temptation He overcame with majestic might, and so completely broke the power of the enemy, that for evermore Satan is the conquered foe of the race.