SECTION IV

THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS — OUR LORD'S VICTORY OVER SATAN.

(Matt. iv. 1-11.)

The renunciation of the world, which Jesus had in spirit achieved at His baptism, must now, at the beginning of His official career, be achieved historically. His attestation by baptism, and John's acknowledgment of Him, and His perfected Messianic consciousness, appeared to direct Him to go straightway to the people. But the Holy Ghost who filled Him was directly opposed to the worldly spirit in the false messiah hopes of the Jews, and hence drove Him, by means of, in the first instance, His repugnance to that unclean spirit, in a quite opposite direction, into solitude, into the desert. Jesus had to endure here the temptation of Satan, which everywhere came across His path as soon as He thought of appearing openly among His people as the Messiah. The worldly mind of the people had given a distorted demoniac form to their view of the Messiah: they cherished an expectation of the Messiah which He was obliged altogether to refuse. But in this expectation the temptation met Him, and He had to be clear of it before He could visit His people. He had to seek a way of access to His people, without trusting Himself as the Messiah to them in a way corresponding to their expectation. He sought this entrance in the solemnization of His perfected life in the presence of the Father; in His conflict with the tempter. He passed forty days in this condition. His fasting was altogether the free result of the frame He was in, the grand unconscious expression of that renunciation of the world by which He had to overcome the intoxication with the world, the chiliasm1 contained in the Messianic expectation of His people.

At the expiration of these days He hungered, that is, the consciousness of hunger presented itself; and this was a sign that in spirit He was clear of the temptation, as on the cross He first became conscious of His thirst after He had overcome the temptation of death itself. But now Satan again assailed Him more violently than ever; he came to Him in a more definite appearance, in a succession of more definite historical acts. And this is in accordance with a fundamental rule in God's guidance. Historical experiences are prepared for by those that are inward, and inward experiences are sealed by historical, — a rule which is disregarded, to the great injury of Christian psychology and care of souls. The serpent in paradise shows that Satan needs an organ in order to work more definitely on a man. He there sought to seduce the first man to forbidden natural enjoyment, and the serpent was well adapted to be his instrument for that purpose. He here seeks to seduce the second man to the aberrations of the chiliastic fanatical lust of the world; therefore he needs organs in which this spirit is concentrated — Jewish hierarchs. Satan himself, however, is the tempting power.

The first temptation is an enticement to comply with the demands of the chiliastic hunger of this world after magic fulness, magic gold, and magic bread. With the pompus diction of an Oriental, the tempter says, 'If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.' Our Lord's answer shows how decidedly

The second temptation is enticement to a chiliastic-pompous appearance in Israel, accompanied with priestly recognition. The devil presses it upon Him, takes Him with him2 to the holy city, sets Him on a pinnacle of the temple, and again (like an Oriental courtier) says to Him: 'If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down! 'But this time he will show his request to be scriptural, as Jesus had founded His first reply upon Scripture; so he adds (from Ps. xci, 11): 'For it is written. He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee; and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.' Our Lord immediately answers with the counter-saying (from Deut. vi. 16): 'It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' It is the sin of tempting God, when a man, from his own or another's foolish conceit, enters on a path which God has not enjoined, with the fanatical expectation that God will allow Himself to be compelled to go with him — that he can at last draw God into the egoistic interest of self-will and self-assumed power. Christ could not tempt God. But His word has a general form, from which a severe spirit looks with rebuke and threatening on the tempter. The tempter has given proof that the holiest expression in the Bible can, through misinterpretation and false application, be made a means of temptation. The Bible expression, which promises the godly man the most wonderful divine protection, presupposes that he puts himself entirely under the charge of the Highest, and rests in the shadow of the wings of the Almighty; while the expression was here designed to serve for representing to our Lord a most unnatural action as His duty, and consequently for tempting God.

After this, the third and most presumptuous temptation follows, the temptation to chiliastic lust of dominion. Satan in his obtrusive manner again takes Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and shows Him (by giving pompous descriptions; in doing which he made use symbolically of a lofty mountain in the wilderness of Judea, commanding a wide prospect) all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. After this enticement, he lifts the mask: 'All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.' Our

Lord was now asked to do homage to the devil as the prince of the lust of wordily conquest and of the art of effecting it — to acknowledge him as an evil god or prince of the world, as the dark spirit of evil dominion above Himself — to pledge Himself to him, and at that price become ruler of the world. Satan often brings presumptuous temptations after crafty ones. They are calculated to break the spirit of resistance by a stroke of pretended confidence and strength. At the same time, they show the vile meanness with which the evil one always takes his departure when he is beaten. Christ's answer to this presumptuous proposal puts an end to the conflict: 'Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.' When the evil one gave proof that he was Satan, then, and not until then, our Lord rebuked him as Satan, and drove him away. It is very significant that He rebutted Satan's last attack by the first commandment (freely quoted). By His victory He proclaimed the truth, that every one arrives at his proper position, and the eminence appointed for him, only through the purest subjection to God's dominion, by the path of devotedness to Him, and rejection of all other gods or absolute lords in God's presence.

Christ's renunciation of the world was now historically achieved: first spiritually historically, and then actually historically, by an act from whose victory and blessing all following victories and blessings must be unfolded. Then the devil left Him (as the devil of chiliastic lust of the world for ever) and angels came and ministered unto Him, and that not merely for a short time, but continually (see John i. 51). After He had thus solemnly renounced the dominion of the world, and with it the ministration of men, the Father blessed Him by putting the angels of heaven at His service in heavenly appearances, visions, dispositions, occurrences, and powers. This experience of Christ is a token for His people: he who gives up enslaving men for his service shall be served by the angels of heaven.

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