Table Talks, Synoptic Gospels 4
Messiah on Trial
The synoptic gospels record that a great trial immediately followed Jesus’ baptism. Mark’s record (1:12–13) is brief; Matthew 4:1–4 and Luke 4:1–13 much fuller. But all agree that terrible spiritual trial followed the moment of spiritual exaltation. Even a formal link is established by two of Satan’s proposals. “If you are the Son of God” recalls heaven’s acknowledgment of Jesus shortly before: “You are my Son.” The temptations recur in one form or another at various points in Jesus’ ministry. But the narrative of the temptation is not just a dramatization by the authors of trials occurring through Jesus’ ministry. It is an actual occurrence that took place immediately following Jesus’ baptism.
The account is more than a model for dealing with temptation. We can profit from it in that way. But that is not the main purpose of the temptation. Jesus’ trials are not temptations common to mankind, but trials of the Messiah. They present an alternative to the idea of the Messiah summarized in the two Old Testament prophecies cited by the Father’s voice out of heaven. It is an alternative found in the nation Israel as Jesus begins his ministry.
Jesus went into the wilderness under the influence of the Holy Spirit to be tempted of the devil. It was under divine influence that Jesus fasted and grew hungry. The proposal to turn stones into bread was a temptation to abandon God in order to save himself, a temptation to make a break with God and to act independently.
But life depends on God—not just bread; and Jesus commits himself to trust God and to eat when God orders food (Deut. 8:3).
The next temptation arises from Jesus’ answer. So Jesus will depend upon the word of God for life? Well, we shall soon see whether God’s word can be depended upon. Jesus is challenged to endanger himself for no other reason than that God had given his word that he would protect the righteous man. Thus he could soon see whether God’s word would sustain him. It was a trial of God’s word, playing upon Jesus’ trust in that word. But Jesus saw that the experiment would not show trust in God, but the opposite, a trial of God. He would not treat God’s word as something yet to be proved. He trusted it, and would not insult God in that way.
The third temptation seems to offer what the Messiah would rightfully have, and what Jesus came to get, authority over all the world (cf. esp. Luke 4:5–8). Had not Jehovah promised his Messiah the nations for his inheritance? (cf. Psalm 2:8). It was an effort to turn Jesus aside from the way of the cross. The devil suggests that he could have the crown without the cross. Jesus could have authority over all the kingdoms of the world simply by acknowledging the devil as his overlord.
But the words quoted at the baptism, “You are my son,” were followed by others: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance” (Psalm 2:8). Furthermore, the other quotation (Isaiah 42:1), “my beloved in whom I am well pleased,” was from one of Isaiah’s great passages about Jehovah’s servant who was to be exalted, but at the cost of suffering and death (Isaiah 52:13–53:12).
Jesus refuses. The quotation (Deut. 6:13) sends the adversary away with words indicating he would not give Satan the homage that belongs only to God. He would not be Satan’s messiah. He would get his crown from God, even if it meant the cross.
Satan left, but only “for a season” (Luke 4:13). He would return. A materialistic people tries to make him a king (John 6:15). His own brothers urge him: “Manifest yourself to the world” (John 7:4). His leading disciple tries to turn him from the cross (Matt. 16:21–23). Even on the cross he is taunted: “Let him come down from the cross, and we will believe on him” (Matt. 27:42).
But the records of the temptation show that the cross was not the tragic end of some other failed mission, but itself the mission of Jesus as he understood it from the beginning. He knew the options that lay before him and made his choice at the outset. He kept to the path of the cross despite a terrible spiritual ordeal, and rejected Satan’s compromises and the false concept of the kingdom Satan had planted in the nation. He saw himself as Jehovah’s servant portrayed in Isaiah, and he knew that his destiny was the cross. He understood it from the beginning, and would not be turned from it. Not by anything Satan could offer.
