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The Temptation of Christ
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by Rev Gilbert Wong It is not healthy to stay at a spiritual high because the Christian life needs to be realistically placed in the service of others. Michael Green writes positively of Jesus’ testing in these words, “And after a high spiritual experience, such as baptism undoubtedly was for Jesus, temptation frequently comes, and properly comes. It sorts out the emotional ‘high’ from the reality of spiritual conquest and growth. We are not meant to live on spiritual highs. We are meant to live on the bread that comes from God alone, even if it is bread in the desert.” I want to look at the context of the temptation and secondly to look at the three temptations in turn in order to derive some applications for ourselves. The Context of the Temptation In 4:1-2, the same Spirit who has anointed Jesus in 3:16 now leads him to the place of temptation but does not himself cause the temptation, which is attributed instead to the devil. “In the New Testament, God is always so dissociated from evil that he is never directly responsible for tempting humans (James 1:13). Yet the devil is never portrayed as an enemy equal with but opposite to God: he always remains bound by what God permits. And that means as Christians, the Spirit of God could well lead us to places of temptations. And it is a test of our loyalty to God against the attractiveness of this world. Donald A. Hagner writes that “[the] goal of obedience to the Father is accomplished, not by triumphant self-assertion, not by the exercise of power and authority, but paradoxically by the way of humility, service, and suffering.” The First Temptation (4:2-4) In 4:2-4, “The first-class conditional clause, ‘If you are the Son of God,’ does not imply any doubt on the devil’s part (c.f. James 2:19). Rather, what is in doubt is what type of Son Jesus will be.” (Ibid, p. 84). All three refutations to the three temptations are all taken from Deuteronomy. By refuting the devil, using Deuteronomy 8:3, Jesus “underscored God’s provision of manna as an alternative to the Israelites’ reliance on their own abilities to feed themselves. The principle applies equally well to Jesus’ situation and to any other context in which people are tempted to give physical needs priority over spiritual ones.” (Ibid, p. 84). Jesus always places spiritual works and needs of others before his own. You remembered that when asked about his meal, Jesus said that he had food that the world knows not of. That food obviously is in doing the will of God. He denies his bodily needs in favour of the spiritual needs of others. When it comes to serving God, some Christians are tempted to gauge life by human comforts and consumerism. The logic goes something like this: I would like to make my life more comfortable first before I am ready to serve the Lord. I have witnessed this even amongst well meaning Christians. There was one particular village in Thailand which I visited. The Christian missionary couple built a huge and posh house in the midst of poverty is a sore eye to many common folks living in the area. May be the couple meant well so that more could be attracted to their ministry. I do not know the reasoning behind such a posh house. But one thing is certain and that is more money is spend on ensuring human comfort than meeting the basic necessities of the common people. The Second Temptation (4:5-7) This time the devil asks Jesus to demonstrate miraculously God’s ability to preserve life. The devil’s mistake was to confuse the psalmist’s mist accidentally stumbling with Jesus’ deliberately jumping off a high structure. We must be careful not to test God’s faithfulness by manufacturing situation to induce God to act in certain ways. As one of my former New Testament John Nolland says that if we follow the devil’s theory there should not be [Christian] martyrs! Here we found well-meaning Christians misquoting to their detriment. Largely this maybe due to poor understanding of God’s Word exacerbated by a lack of serious engagement with God’s Word. Therefore, some Christians work on impressions rather than an accurate understanding of Scriptures. One example would suffice: “Without vision my people perish”. This is one of the favourites quoted by many Christians and preachers alike. To them, vision is meant dreams, vision, so something close to such phenomenon. But what ‘vision’ is referred to is the Word of God. And that means without the Word of God, my people perish. Some Christians misuse spiritual gifts and power for their own glory and benefits rather than serving others. The Third Temptation (4:8-10) After having tempted Jesus to satisfy a legitimate bodily appetite in an illegitimate way and then to use his supernatural power to rebel against God even while seeming to demonstrate great faith, Satan now makes the most brazen offer of all. He will give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in return for worship. Here the devil tries to seduce him with instant power, authority, and wealth apart from the way of the cross. And here we do find the danger time again to seize power by shortcuts such as equating a particular agenda with God’s will. Interesting parallels emerge between Jesus’ three temptations and those of Eve and Adam in the garden (Gen 3:6 – “good for food,” “pleasing to the eye,” “desirable for gaining wisdom”). Both of these triads seem to parallel John’s epitome of human temptation: “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16, RSV). Jesus’ temptations therefore illustrate the precious truth that he was indeed tempted in every way common to human experience (Heb 2:17-18; 4:15). Those testings will not be the same as those faced by Jesus, which relate to his unique identity and mission. But they will in principle be similar in that Christians too are called to self-sacrifice, and for them, too, obedience to the will of the Father alone is the measure of true discipleship. These three temptations in Matt 4:1-11 encompasses a remarkable amount of human experience. We are tempted to gauge life by human comforts and consumerism, to misuse spiritual gifts and power for our own glory and benefit rather than serving others, and to seize power by shortcuts, such as equating a particular political agenda with God’s will.” (Ibid, p. 86). Conclusion I am glad that at the end of the three temptations, it is recorded for our benefits in 4:11 that the devil departs but he will resume similar temptations at the beginning of the next key stage of Jesus’ life (16:21-23). The very help Jesus had rejected when it would have put God to the test now makes itself available as angels arrive to serve him. We need to know that resisting temptations is not easy we can overcome it in the power of the Spirit. After that, we should be ministered by God for the things that we do really need. Let us pray [Top] |
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Church of the Ascension, 13
Francis Thomas Drive, Singapore 359339 |