'Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted of the devil. 2. And when He had fasted forty days and
forty nights, He was afterward an hungred. 3. And when the tempter
came to Him, he said, If Thou be the Son of God, command that these
stones be made bread. 4. But He answered and said, It is written,
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 5. Then the devil taketh Him up
into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple, 6.
And saith unto Him, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down:
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. 7. Jesus said unto him, It is
written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 8. Again, the
devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth
Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 9. And
saith unto Him, All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt
fall down and worship me. 10. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee
hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God, and Him only shalt thou serve. 11. Then the devil leaveth Him,
and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him.'--MATT. iv. 1-11.
Every word of the first verses of this narrative is full of meaning.
'Then' marks the immediate connection, not only in time but in
causation, between the baptism and the temptation. The latter followed
necessarily on the former. 'Of the Spirit'--then God does lead His Son
into temptation. For us all, as for Christ, it is true that, though God
does not tempt as wishing us to fall, He does so order our lives that
they carry us into places where the metal of our religion is tried. 'To
be tempted'--then a pure, sinless human nature is capable of temptation,
and the King has to begin his career by a battle. 'Of the devil'--then
there is a dark kingdom of evil, and a personal head of it, the prince
of darkness. He knows His rival, and yet He knows him but partially. He
strides out to meet him in desperate duel, as Goliath did the stripling
whom he despised; and both hosts pause and gaze. To a sinless nature no
temptation can arise from within, but must be presented from without.
We leave untouched the question as to the manner of this temptation,
which remains equally real, whether we conceive that the tempter
appeared in bodily form, and actually carried the body of our Lord from
place to place, or whether we suppose that, during it all, Christ sat
silent, and apparently alone in the wilderness. We only divert attention
from the true importance of the incident by giving prominence to
picturesque or questionable externals of it.