Luke 4:1-15
There is a saying that the very worst lie has a kernel of truth. Now a lie is something that is completely untrue; so the most deceptive form of this has at its core a truth that has been manipulated to mean the opposite.
This is how the devil lied to Jesus and how we too, are lied to.
As we read Luke’s version, I think a helpful way to do so is to view this passage as two competing narratives. The first story line is the story that Jesus draws on in order to resist the devil and successfully navigate the lies told to him.
The second story line is the narrative the devil presents. From the text, we see that he is bold, cunning, clever, and powerful. It is the devil who tempts, not God.
Now Luke’s account uniquely characterises frames this event by the work and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, which brackets the whole passage in verses 1 and 14.
Let’s look at the context first. Jesus has not yet started his earthly ministry, yet Luke has already identified Jesus as the Son of God and the Son of Man.
Jesus has just been baptised, God himself spoke saying “You are my Son, the Beloved,” just as he would later say (as we heard last week) on the mount of Transfiguration for the benefit of Peter, James, John and the future Church.
Luke has also traced Jesus’ genealogy all the way to Adam, confirming he is not just the prophesied Son of God, but also the ‘Son of Man.’ This will become important very shortly, I hope.
Now this story, this narrative, takes place in two significant locations: the wilderness and Jerusalem.
Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, where he faces temptation by his adversary, the devil. The location of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness reminds us of the narrative of God’s rescue of Israel.
And Jerusalem, the city of David, is the centre of Jewish power, identity, and worship. It is also where God had made his dwelling place.
Most of the story takes place in the dialogue between Jesus and the devil after Jesus had fasted 40 days.
But all through those days of fasting he was being tempted by the devil, not just after forty days, but for the whole time. The account here is of the final three temptations that Jesus encounters at the end of those 40 days, we aren’t told what all the other temptations were.
In these competing versions of the truth, the devil offers a storyline of self-indulgence, (make yourself bread from stones), self-aggrandizement and power (all the nations of the world will belong to you if you worship me), and self-serving religious identity (you are like God aren’t you? Throw yourself down from the top of the temple, your angels will save you.)
Now back to Adam. Adam in Hebrew simply means man. Paul calls him the first Adam, or first man, and Jesus he calls the second Adam or second, perfect man. Now while the devil is seen to be clever, cunning and powerful, he lacks imagination.
These finals temptations laid before Jesus are exactly the same in substance as those the devil, in the form of a snake, successfully tempted the first man and woman.
Firstly the temptation of material bodily comfort. To Adam and Eve he also offered food. This perfect, luscious, piece of fruit was just hanging there, but God had told them there is plenty of other wonderful food to eat here in Eden, just don’t eat that one, otherwise you will know evil.
The devil says, “did God really say that?” So she eats it. Jesus, the second, perfect man, when tempted also by food (stones into bread), calls out the lie of the Devil.
Secondly the temptation of what the apostle John in his first letter calls the false desires of our eye. The first man looked at what was forbidden him and saw that it was very pleasant to his eyes.
Both Adam and Eve gave into this false view and ate the forbidden fruit. The devil showed Jesus, the new Adam, all the grand and opulent kingdoms of the world and offered them to him – far more tempting than a piece of fruit, but the perfect man again called out the lie of the devil.
Finally, the worst and last temptation of them all, that the first man could actually become God himself. The big lie of the devil was that if you have knowledge of good and evil, you will be like God, with all the wisdom of God.
Who wouldn’t want to be wise? The devil implied to Jesus that if you don’t have the trust in God to jump off this high building, worship me and you will have power to do just that. Jesus again calls out this lie.
Now this shows the devil’s lack of imagination. The apostle John writes that these three areas are same areas where we as humans fall today. He lists them in 1 John 2:16.
Firstly, the desires of the flesh - things to satisfy our body. The false desires of the eyes, what we see in the world that fills us to covet and envy. Andy finally and most dangerously, pride - when we believe the lie that we are our own gods.
The lie goes like this, “All I am and are and have comes from me, not God. I am the master of my destiny. I am, in fact, my own god.”
So the lies accumulate and what starts as something seemingly innocent, eating a bit of fruit, ends up in the temple of God in Jerusalem, God’s very dwelling place, looking at it, then deciding to reject it.
Jesus rejected everything the devil said by quoting Scripture – from Deuteronomy. But the devil also quoted Scripture, from Psalm 91. So it is not enough to be able to know a verse in Scripture if we have not sanctified that word in us by our faith.
Scripture must be read rightly, in light of God’s nature, and the life envisioned for God’s people and revealed in us by the Holy Spirit.
The same Holy Spirit that led Jesus, as Son of Man to the wilderness; who enabled him for forty days, and equipped and empowered him to start his wonderful ministry on earth.
We are part of that same ministry, what Paul calls the ministry of reconciliation, filled with the same power of the same Holy Spirit. To live a life equipped to do what God has planned for us to do – absolutely rooted in God’s narrative of deliverance and redemption and a response of faithful obedience to God rather than in self-reliance, which is the devil’s story.
The temptations of Jesus are Satan’s attempt to side-track Jesus before his earthly ministry has even begun. But these temptations are very similar to the ones all believers face – temptations to seek our identity in places other than in Jesus Christ.
Like Christ though, we too resist in the power of the Holy Spirit through the guidance of the holy word of God – the Scriptures. Let me pray...