11 - Literalness of Christ's Temptation
CHAPTER 11.
- The peculiar work which Christ had to perform.
- The character, his humanity in which he had to perform that work.
- The difference between the first Adam and the second Adam.
- The trials of the Lord shown to be mere mental states, through which his mind passed.
FULL particulars of the trials of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness were brought to notice in the last Chapter: and the query occurred: “Are these trials to be regarded as outward occurrences that look place literally, as many believe, or are they to be regarded as figurative representations?” In connection with this query, it was stated that no passage of Scripture can be interpreted one part literally and one part “spiritually”; that is, if it is to be literally understood throughout; if it is to be “spiritually” understood, it must be “spiritually” understood throughout. A query arose out of these views, namely: “Is there any rule by which we can be guided in deciding whether any passage is to be literally or figuratively understood?” The answer was given in the affirmative, and the rule was stated to be, “That no passage of Scripture admits of a literal interpretation unless all the parts of the same admit fairly, and in accordance with common-sense, of such literal interpretation.”
It was shown in conjunction with this rule that the gross absurdities, the palpable contradictions, the positive unsuitableness to the character of Christ of many of the facts recorded, if the account be taken literally, are such as completely negative to the possibility of its recognition as a literal statement by any simple-minded and intelligent believer. The inquiry is therefore now to be made, ‘Can the same rule which, being applied, proves that the narrative cannot be regarded as literal history, be applied to justify the adoption of the view that the account is figurative?’ To answer the question and to demonstrate the affirmative, will occupy this Chapter. The narrative presents us with the fact that the Lord Jesus had just been anointed by Holy Spirit, “To preach good tidings unto the meek: he bath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound: to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified,” Isaiah 61:1-3. This was the work he had to perform. To fit him for this work he was “led,” “led up,” “driven” into the wilderness by Holy Spirit, in order that there he might contemplate carefully all the various duties, scan all the mighty difficulties which, in the performance of the office for which he was anointed, he would be called upon to perform and to teach. He went, before beginning to build that house which was to be the temple of the living God, to count the costs of the building. He went, before entering on the warfare he had to wage, into the calculation how he should be able to compete with the foes with whom he must strive.
Any prudent commercial man, before entering upon any speculation, carefully weighs in his counting-house, where he shuts himself up, all the points connected with the speculation about to be entered upon. A certain philosopher, it is recorded, before admitting any among his disciples, required that they should be tested by keeping silence for years. Every sane man carefully reflects on any course he purposes to pursue before he fixes upon the pursuit of that course.
We have every reason to believe that Jesus was led into the wilderness for this purpose; and it is not presuming too far to add, that that spirit which drove him into the wilderness might have pictured before his mind all the scenes that be would have to pass through, even to the end of his career, even to an ignominious death. For forty days he was engaged in this heavenly contemplation - embracing a view of all the duties to be performed, of all the difficulties to be realized in the development of the new law: and as Moses was forty days in the Mount Sinai, to receive the law of Sinai (and we do not hear of his eating while there), so Jesus was forty days in the wilderness to receive the view of the struggle necessary to realize the law of love. At the end of this time the natural appetite of hunger developed itself; “And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended he afterward hungered,” Luke 4:2 This appetite, which Christ possessed as a human being, and which, therefore, was naturally active after so long a fast, created an impulse within him to seek to relieve it. He was in the wilderness. There was nothing there to supply his wants. Stones, it is true, were around him. How were his wants to be supplied? This query makes it necessary to make a few remarks upon a subject over which much mystery has been thrown, and that very injuriously. I refer to the work which Christ had to perform.
Christ had to reconcile man to God. He had, in so doing, to restore in his humanity the image of the divinity, which mankind had lost. He had to demonstrate the problem that man can, as a man, be obedient to the law of his Maker. To do this, Christ could seek no aid from his divine side, except in the character of a man, nor could he derive any advantage in the contest on the score of his relationship to God, except that which was his duty, as a man, to take. Hence we find Christ praying to the Deity: a fact which many have ridiculed as God praying to God: but Christ in praying to the Deity was performing a man’s duty; a duty essential to enable a man to obey the law of God: and had not Christ prayed to the Deity he could not have gained the victory over death and Hades. Christ, therefore, in the struggle which he had to go through, had to go through the struggle in his humanity: and he was: to have no aid but that which came to him through the character of his humanity. His divine power (bestowed at his baptism) as a prime party in the contest was to be laid aside, so to speak: he was to fight the battle in his humanity, and, by fighting it successfully, demonstrate that man, aided by God (that aid being sought in the way God has appointed), can and did obtain the victory and resist the evil. One of the conditions, therefore, was not to use his divine power in relation to himself and in support of himself, but to rely solely on his humanity, aided by the help obtained from the Deity in the way in which every man must obtain aid from God. This view will unfold the nature of the trials through which Christ passed; it will help to the understanding of the figurative meaning of the trials under consideration. In regard to the first trial. The self-principle, the desire-principle in the Christ, when he felt hungry, suggested at once what was a truth, surely, “seeing thou art Son of God, command that these stones be made bread,” Matthew 4:3. That is, the self-principle, awakened by the natural and proper appetite suggested a means by which the appetite could be satisfied, and that in a way which demonstrate Christ to be the noble and exalted individual he was. Here then the self-principle sought to violate the compact, the condition; sought to bring a new element into the matter, which would have spoiled the whole. The self-principle wished to bring in the divine power to get out of a natural difficulty-this state of mind (a state in which God, as the promised provided for the wants of his children, would have been accused by the supposition that He, who has promised his aid, would not aid His Son) was the devil, or the false-accuser, that tried Christ. The self-principle, the epithumia, the desire-principle, was to get the bread in a way not authorised: this was the desire: but in Christ it was not embraced; it did not conceive; it did not bring forth: he was tried in all points like as we are, but without sin. His answer was, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4. So that Christ, instead of having the devil talking with him, is represented in this account as having something passing through his mind: a state which all have, and he, to repeat, was tried in all points like as we are: he had a desire: he had a power to satisfy that desire in a miraculous way: but his object was to gain the victory over all his desires through his humanity and by means in accordance therewith, and therefore he did not gratify his desire, but, as a man, waited for deliverance from the Lord. The suggestion was a very natural one. It needed no Devil. It needed only the natural desire acting with the intellect and will. “Seeing I am Son of God, what more easy than for me to make the stones bread, and realise at once the gratification of my appetite? and in the gratification thus obtained demonstrate my Sonship.” In other words, Jesus had a desire for food; that desire called into activity the knowledge which he possessed, namely, that he was Son of God with, power: these two, acting together, suggested the obtaining of the end by a way which would have swallowed up the humanity in the divinity; would have a practical denial to the belief in the superintending providences of God, in the providences of Jehovah, by obtaining that by his divine power which he should obtain by his human dependence on Divine aid. Jesus was tried by his desire: but he did not embrace it, and therefore it was not sin; no, he met, the falsely-accusing state by a truth: he demolished the rising selfish state by a truth, the fruit of the higher love state. The first Adam was actuated by the desire of knowledge; that desire conceived and brought forth the eating of the forbidden tree-that is, the violation of the command of God. The second Adam, Jesus, was tried by the sensual principle, the adversary, and the seduction was through knowledge, acting through want in the first instance; through a truth in the second; and Christ’s knowledge overpowered the adversary.
What, then, is the interpretation? Jesus, fatigued by the long-continued meditations on the duties of his office, had come into that condition of mind which leads a person in difficulty to receive suggestions as to deliverance from the same from sources which may be perfectly good in themselves, but which are not good in their individual application. Thus, that state of desire for relief, a selfish state of mind suggested to Jesus’ mind those passages of Scripture which favoured the gratification of that selfish state. But as the proposed use of such passages would have implied a doubt of the promises of God, which would have been a falsely-accusing state (diabolos), the Saviour resisted the trial, and, by the sword of the Spirit, conquered the foe. Such was the first trial. The second trial represents the progress of his mind in contemplating the means by which he must proceed in performing his mission in demonstrating himself to be the Christ. The natural self-love suggestion is this, Is there no plan by which I can at once effect my purpose: some decisive act which will at once settle the question, even to the most incredulous? This state directed his intellectual powers to search, and this falsely-accusing state immediately discovered a plan: a plan which, at first, appears quite suited to demonstrate that he was the Christ: “Seeing thou art Son of God, cast thyself down,” Matthew 4:6. This plan would have been seeking to attain the elevation promised to him by a course inconsistent with the principle regulating the struggle, namely, that he was to struggle as a man and not to use his divine power in matters in which his humanity was the element of the contest.
It is true that Jesus was promised to be king of Israel. What better means to astonish the people into an acknowledgment of his right, than to throw himself from the battlement of the temple and to escape unhurt, and this too, apparently sanctioned by the promise “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.” Matthew 4:6. The Saviour soon detected the origin of the suggestion, and demolishes the whole theory by expressing his conviction that he had no right thus to test the divine power: “It is written again, Thou shalt not try the Lord thy God,” Matthew 4:7. The third trial was the third step in the progress of his mind in the contemplation of his course. Jesus was promised all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them This prospect elevated his mind: it figuratively placed him on a high mountain: and before that mind’s eye passed, with the rapidity of thought “in a moment of time,” these kingdoms and the glory of them Carefully scrutinising them, Jesus saw that the whole were in a state of direct opposition to the principles of the kingdom; that they were under the domination of the self-love, the falsely-accusing principle, figuratively represented by the devil. The thought came across the mind of Jesus - Well, what must be done? Here is a contest: I have to conquer the self-love principle by the universal love principle. Every man is against me: shall I join in with the principle that rules? Shall I flatter the Scribes, the Pharisees? Shall I make use of selfish means to gain the kingdom? Shall, I bow to the ruling power? Shall I worship it, and shall all be mine by this means? These suggestions are the natural suggestions of a human mind in such a condition. How many people now say honesty is an excellent thing but men cannot be honest; it is no use attempting it; the present state of society laughs at honesty. And thus they justify their dishonesty The devil is represented as promising to Christ the power and of the kingdoms of the earth. Now the devil could not promise; but the self-love principle detected that that was the moving power in the kingdoms of the earth; in fact, to it the whole was delivered; so to whomsoever the self-love principle may outgo the party gets the power and the glory: and thus the whole passage is merely a figurative description of the result of the mental examination by Christ of the prevalent worldly system, of the suggestions which his self-love principle made on the first examination; and then, at the conclusion, he denounces obtaining the kingdom by any worship of the self-love principle, and adds, “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve,” Matthew 4:10.
“The devil leaveth him”- that is, these states of mind ceased to trouble him; he gained the victory, and angels, i.e. messengers, came and ministered unto him. Many think that Christ was troubled no more; but it is added, “Satan departed from him for a season.” Luke 4:13. The self-love principle might make other suggestions.
Great, indeed, was this victory: a three-fold victory, embracing a view of all the trials to which a man can be exposed; for the lust of the flesh - that is, the desire after animal gratification; the lust of the eyes, the desire after elevation; and the pride of life, the desire for rule - are the three great trials of man. The second Adam went through the whole unscathed. The first Adam was tried in being induced to eat forbidden fruit; he was enticed, and sinned. The second Adam was tried by the suggestion to ‘make fruit’ in a forbidden way; he was not enticed, and did not sin. The whole account of the trial of our Lord admits of an easy, clear, and conclusive explanation when viewed figuratively as a picture of the thoughts that passed through his mind in the survey of his great struggle.
Perhaps the only objection that will be urged against this view is that such view supposes that Christ had wicked thoughts. It supposes no such thing; it supposes that he had the thoughts of a man in contemplating human things; it supposes that he must have had these thoughts to have been tried on all points like as we are; and it supposes that, having examined all his thoughts, he discountenanced all those which, if carried out, would have been falsely-accusing God, and consequently sinful.
And, let it ever be remembered, that the victory was gained through the written word; Jesus fought his enemies in the mental battlefield with the weapon, the Scriptures. May it not be suggested, as the conclusion of the examination of this most interesting mental struggle, that a similar retiring into, not an Eden, but into the wilderness of confused thought produced by the conflict of error and truth, of love and of selfishness, becomes each man, there to decide, after a calm consideration, what course to adopt; and it is to be hoped that it will be said of him what was said of Mary, “She hath chosen the better part:” If following Christ, ‘tis sure.