The Temptation of Jesus: An Exposition of Luke 4:1-13

Luke 4:1-13

Luke 4:1–13 NKJV

Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ” Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ” Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ” And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ” Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.

We now come to the first Sunday of Lent, a 40-day time, excluding Sundays, for reflection and repentance. These 40 days commemorate the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness where He would be tempted three times by Satan. It is a time where believers fast from some food or activity they enjoy and spend more time in prayer and reflection. But the spiritual disciplines we employ are a pale shadow of Jesus’s deprivation in the wilderness. Jesus didn’t even have lentil beans to eat for 40 days. And there were no off-days for Him. Lent, as it is observed gives Sundays off. Another problem with Lent is that people tend to indulge themselves prior to Lent. The day before Lent is known here as “Fat Tuesday” (Shrove Tuesday) in which fattening food is indulged. Mardi Gras, otherwise known as “Carnival” is a celebration where all sorts of fleshly appetites are indulged for several days. The word itself means “farewell to the flesh.” One should wonder whether we would be better off observing neither Mardi Gras nor Lent than to observe both. The Christian life is a marathon and not a sprint. Consistent service is to be prized.

The Christian Calendar also divides the previous passage in Luke, which is the baptism of Christ and the temptation of Christ. So when we look at this passage, we need to put the two events back together. The baptism of Jesus serves as the dividing line in Jesus’ life. It separated some thirty years of preparation and mostly private life from a life of public ministry. Pentecost serves a similar dividing line for the church. The wilderness temptation is the first event in Jesus’ ministry.

There are three accounts of the Temptation. Mark is the shortest, but provides two details which are not in Matthew and Luke. The first is that Mark uses the word “ekballo”(driven out) which gives the idea of a forceful thrusting of Jesus into the wilderness in comparison to Luke who uses a softer verb meaning “was led.” The other is that Mark mentions that Jesus was with the wild beasts. Some commentators think Mark wrote to Romans. The thought here is that Nero and later emperors during the time of persecution threw Christians to the wild beasts in the arena. This note would remind the Christians who faced this threat that Jesus knew the situation they faced. Although this is interesting, it seems to me that Mark was written before the Neronian persecution.

The accounts in Luke and Matthew are similar, although the order of the temptations are different. There has been a lot of speculation why and who changed the order. Luke admits to using and comparing other accounts. Did he know Matthew? Most scholars think Luke used Mark but most don’t see a direct use of Matthew by Luke. The trouble is that there is a lot of speculation which affects how one interprets the passage. However, I am just going to deal with the passage that is written in Luke in the order they are stated.

The Lukan text says that Jesus in His return into the land of Israel from His baptism was led into the Judean wilderness where He went without food for forty days. Israel had been in the wilderness outside the Land of Israel for 40 years, and some see the forty days reliving Israel’s stay in the wilderness. Israel had been tempted many times and failed. They constantly murmured and failed to believe God’s word. They accused the LORD of taking them out of Egypt to kill them with hunger and thirst in the wilderness, God became very angry as a result of their unbelief. He was especially aggravated when they believed the negative report of the ten who spied the Promised Land rather than the two, Joshua and Caleb, who believed. All the adults of that generation, save Joshua and Caleb, would die in the wilderness. Some theologians see Jesus as reliving the period of Israel’s temptation in the wilderness, this time choosing to believe and obey. This reliving of Israel’s history has been assigned the fancy theological title of “recapitulation.” There is probably some symbolic value in the number 40 here, but it could also be literally rendered as that 40 days without food is at the very extremity of what can be survived by the human body. At this point, if the person had not already died, would be at a time of extreme weakness and would be utterly craving food. Jesus would have been at the verge of starvation, and His human body and nature would be at the point of desperation.

The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was tempted in every way we are tempted. This is best understood that He suffered the absolute extreme of temptation, more than any one else has ever been tempted. His vulnerability was a true vulnerability. It is at this point the temptation begins.

The devil comes to Jesus and sees His depleted condition. The English uses the word “if” in translating the Greek “ei”. “If” us usually treated as a conditional word. If translated this way, The devil was trying to get Jesus to doubt who He was. The idea here would be: “If you are really the Son of God. Command these stones to become bread.” However, conditional statements usually are expressed with “ean” and the subjunctive mood. Here we have “ei” with the indicative. This is usually translated “since.” The idea here is: “Since you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” I think this is how we should understand it. Jesus was perfectly aware of His divine nature. He knew that He could speak the word and end this hunger at once. But Jesus quotes Scripture back at Him. Here it is rendered: It is written: ‘Not by bread alone shall man live.’ Matthew adds “But be every word of God” which make things a little clearer. The children of Israel in the Wilderness had not believed God’s word and had complained for bread to full their bellies. Instead, they should have trusted the LORD for food. The LORD knew His people were starving, although probably not to the extent His Son was. They should have waited patiently for this provision rather than complain.

The second and third temptations are reversed in order in Matthew and Luke. Here is says that He took Jesus to a high mountain and showed Jesus all the kingdoms on the inhabited earth in a moment of time. Satan says: “To you I will give you authority over all of them and their glory of them,” then he adds” To ME they have been delivered, and to whoever I will, I will give it.” “All you have to do is worship me, and they shall be yours.” When we look at this, we can see several lies. The big lie is that all the kingdoms of this world are his to give. He is emphatic about this. But Psalm 24:1 emphatically states “The earth is Yahweh’s and the fullness thereof. Satan is trying to give to Jesus what Jesus as Son of God already owns. Adam had been given dominion over the earth by Yahweh. When Adam sinned, he signed over his right to Satan. But Adam had a derived right of rule and not an absolute one. In the same way, Satan’s rights are derived. We even see this in the beginning of Job where He has to ask God for permission to smite Job. What this temptation tried to do was to separate Jesus’ human nature from His divine nature and absolute right to rule.

Jesus could have answered Satan and reminded him that he was speaking to the one who already had title to all by right as the Son of God. But is was necessary for Jesus to live a humanly perfect life, so He responds again by quoting Scripture. “It is written: ‘Yahweh, your God shall you worship, and to Him alone shall you offer sacred service.” Jesus did not avail Himself of His own authority, but by the authority of Scripture, the very Word of God. By doing this, He was availing Himself of the same resource and human being could use. When we consider that we do not have a divine nature, we have to rely on the resources God has given us, namely the Word of God, Jesus sets the example for the proper human response to temptation. Only Yahweh is to be worshiped and not creation.

The third temptation was the most sneaky of all. Satan leads Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple and tells Him to throw himself off. He knows Jesus had quoted Scripture in response to the first two temptations, so Satan quotes Scripture. Throw yourself down. Doesn’t the 91st Psalm promise that Yahweh will guard you with His angels lest you dash your foot against the stone?” Many see this as the temptation to live life dangerously and carelessly. After all, if you are God’s child, He will certainly protect you. Although we should not presume God’s care as a pretext for stupidity, there is actually more here. By throwing himself down, observers would see Jesus descending from heaven. When he landed on the ground safely, the observers would see that He was the Messiah. The problem is that the popular conception of the Messiah and His mission was not at all the Messiah that Jesus came to be. The idea to be the Messiah on the world’s terms rather than God’s precluded suffering and the cross. They would see His kingship and kingdom in the way the world sees it.

Jesus simply responds with: “It is written: ‘You shall not tempt Yahweh your God.” This is understandable in its normal sense. We should not tempt God like the Children of Israel did in the wilderness. But Satan was actually trying to tempt Yahweh as well. After all, Jesus is the Yahweh of the Old Testament in His Divine nature as Son of God. It could in this sense be read “stop tempting me!” and the temptations ended.

Luke adds that the Devil left until a more convenient time. Many see the Gospel of Luke as using an ancient literary device called “chiasm.” In a chiastic structure, all is arranged around a midpoint. Each side of the midpoint is paired in theme. The center of Luke is the Transfiguration, which by the way, in the passage from the Sunday before Lent. This makes the glorified Jesus being revealed in power as being the center theme of Luke. From the middle, everything works out. We see Jesus being wrapped in strips of cloth and being laid in in a stone feeding trough. This is paired with Jesus being wrapped in strips of cloth and laid in a stone tomb. If we follow this structure, the more convenient time of temptation is the one in the Garden of Gethsemane. So we should read this passage against the final temptation of Jesus there, where He is tempted not to follow the Father’s plan to die on the cross and to walk away. He was so weak as a human facing the terrible death, that His sweat was mingled with blood. This would be the more opportune time which is mentioned in Luke 4. But Jesus drank the cup of the Father’s wrath and went to the cross. This is something we should truly be thankful for. We don’t handle temptation any better than the Children of Israel did in the wilderness. We complain and grumble far too much. We are not educated in Scripture, so we cannot even throw it in Satan’s face. All the fasting and mortification of our bodies in Lent fails to improve the deficit of faith. Perhaps we would be better served in Lent in keeping in memory that the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering. He made all the right choices in our behalf. He suffered in our place. He did not just relive the history of Israel. He has relived our lives as well. God sees us in the responses Jesus made to temptation rather than ours. Our only hope is that we are united to Jesus by faith. Left to ourselves, we are most hopeless. Thinking of what Jesus has done for us, and believing that He did these things for us is what should occupy our thoughts during Lent. These thoughts will cleanse our lives and souls far more that our vows and rules.