What I notice first about these three temptations of Christ is their modern aspect. Though the Lord Jesus had been living a trustful, obedient, and reverent life, yet, by an "if," there came a suggestion that would change everything to doubt, self-will, and pride. When to-day we discuss His divinity, we sometimes think that we are confronted by a new problem. But the entire range of this, as of other controversies, was first traveled by the Son of God Himself. No misgivings of ours are more baffling than those which He overcame. And He did not face them as we do, with millions worshiping Him as Lord. It was in the wilderness alone, with one book of the Old Testament as His support, that, so to speak, He wrestled for His Sonship. Three years later, the struggle, ever intermittent, was renewed in all its violence, for in His dying moments they hurled at Him that same " if " which He heard in the desert--calling on Him, not indeed to cast Himself from a pinnacle of the Temple, but to come down from the Cross, and so prove that He was Son of God. When He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"; when again He said, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit"--another of these texts that denote the Trinity--He gave, with His life, the final answer to those who would deny His birthright. And in thus heroically resisting the Unitarianism of His day, He fought our battle as well as His own. It is in Him that we return to our Father, and recover our place, consciously, in the family of God. He died in order to bring many sons to His own glory.
Two "Ifs"
In appealing to our Lord with an "if," the Devil was attacking One who was master of logic as of every other mental process. That little word was with Him a favorite; but where the Tempter used it to destroy, He used it to achieve. When Christ said "if," He put His foot firmly on the rung of the ladder, leaned His whole weight on it, and so mounted upwards; but in Satan's mouth that "if" was uttered in hope that the rung would break, and all that depends on it would fall to the ground. "If," argued Jesus, "I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me." It seemed a great result to follow from one single crucifixion, but history has shown that the effect has followed the cause. Jesus, lifted up, does draw all men unto Him. "If I go away," to My Father, "I will come again and receive you unto Myself." Once more, it was not obvious that His disappearance would promote that reunion, but we now see that His reasoning ran deeper than ours. Because in the Body He has gone away, therefore we are nearer to God, and He draws us thither. Moreover, He would have us be consistent, scientific in our friendship for Him. "If," said He, "ye love Me, keep My commandments"--than which no syllogism could be clearer or more challenging. Utterly different from these sayings of our Lord was the Devil's: "If Thou be the Son of God--".
From these temptations we learn that evil is strong because it is complex. The good is a trinity and so is the bad--a threefold cord, as the Preacher said, which is not easily broken. Matthew and Luke each describe the temptations, but in different orders, as if the strands of the rope were twisted, yet without losing their identity, which is eternal. At the beginning of time, Eve was tempted by the ideas that the tree was good for food, that is the flesh; pleasant to the eyes, which means the world; and flattering to the mind, which is the Devil. In the Garden of Eden, you have thus the world, the flesh, the Devil, these three, in one act of transgression. Thousands of years later, John the Apostle wrote similarly about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--again, the same three references to our bodies which feel; our circumstances which we see; and our minds in which we live. Our Lord, in His prayer, used to-day in empires wider far than Rome, opens up the same thoughts. "Give us this day our daily bread," said He; and so sustain our bodies. "Lead us not into temptation and so safeguard us in our surroundings." And deliver us from the Evil One ' who attacks and would destroy the soul. Such strange and apparently undesigned correspondences show that, in His temptations, our Lord touched the very secret springs of all human trouble. Some will fail by self-indulgence--they drink, or are vicious, or take drugs, or gamble; others exercise a rigid control over themselves in these matters, but are enslaved to the world, yearn for self-advertisement, and depend for happiness on social position; while there are others again who care nothing for creature comforts and nothing for society, but are satisfied with the final luxury of pride. They live hard and die poor, but they worship the Devil. Thus, ranged before us, rises the whole hierarchy of tempted men--first, the drunkard and the vicious; secondly, the millionaire, the monarch, the politician, the champion wrestler, the actor, the popular preacher, the great official; and thirdly, the scholar, the inquisitor, the stoic, the extremist. To us, the first class alone seems disreputable ; the second is, on the whole, envied and respected; while the last includes the saints! But, to the Lord Jesus, it was easier to deal with the publican and the harlot than with the ninety-and-nine just persons who need no repentance; while one of His most pointed warnings was against those genuinely pious persecutors who, in killing His followers, would think that they were doing God service. The Devil is always dangerous, but never more dangerous than when he appears as an angel of light.
Two Trinities
The trinity of evil and the trinity of good thus correspond, not by any artificial theological convention, but inevitably, by experience, by fact. When Satan urged Christ to turn the stones into bread, he denied that God, the Father, cares for His children. When he suggested that Jesus should cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple, he was denying that God the Son would be His own revelation. And when he demanded that the Saviour should worship him, he sought to expel the Holy Spirit. Of the three cardinal virtues, faith was to be undermined, hope was to be shattered, and love was to be poisoned. Nor, as we shall see, did Jesus ever forget the ordeal. I have shown how three positive petitions in His prayer recall His three temptations. So also do the beginning of that prayer and its conclusion. Worship the Devil? No, He answers; "Hallowed be Thy Name." Throw Myself from a pinnacle? No, again; let "kingdom come," as it must come, without observation. Turn stones into bread? Once more, No; let "Thy will be done." And as the prayer draws to a close, we have, as a kind of coda, a declaration that God's must be the Kingdom--the destiny of man; the power--determining his circumstances; and the glory--demanding his reverence; for ever and ever; to which He adds Amen--His sign-manual, final and irrevocable.
The temptations gain in influence because they are so plausible. If a man be the child of God, then surely he has the right to turn stones into bread when he is starving! The revolutionary women who attacked Versailles did no more than this. Nations, living mainly at a week's notice, will ever listen when the Devil talks glibly about the bread ration. We are all apt to snatch at our food; to seize the profit which is not quite equitable; to speculate; to take unfair advantages. And sometimes what we call our bread includes many other things that are not really necessary; and we perish, not for lack of food, but by dread of reduced circumstances.
Jesus knows it all. Having Himself suffered hunger He was ever kind to those in like case. When the disciples fed themselves with corn on the Sabbath day, He defended them. Twice, He was the one to provide food for the people, who fainted because they followed Him. The last of His miracles was to give a breakfast for the Apostles, who were tired with a weary night's fishing in which they caught nothing. And one of His tenderest sayings is the question whether our Heavenly Father would be so much more cruel than an earthly father as to give us stones--how it reminds us of the wilderness and the temptation!--stones for bread, or a scorpion--again the wilderness!--for a fish.
The Heavenly Bread
It was thus with full knowledge that He tells not to labor for the meat that perisheth. Men live, not merely by material bread, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, It was not a visionary who said this; the utterance came first through Moses, a practical statesman, on whom lay the responsibility for a commissariat that should suffice for an entire nation, advancing through a desert which is still almost impenetrable. And, when Jesus quoted the words, it was in no unreal sense, for He had studied the making of bread, and mentions all those orderly processes--the sowing, the reaping, the winnowing of the corn, the grinding, the kneading with leaven, and the very breaking of it with hands, at the Supper-table. And when the disciples, who had left Him wearily resting at the well of Samaria, returned to find Him refreshed, they learnt by actual observation that His meat was to do the will of His Father and finish His work. Duty did not make Him weaker, but stronger. He took no holiday, required no stimulant, was indifferent to tonics and pick-me-ups. "Master," said they, "eat" they brought Him the bread; but they never forgot how, in taking it, He spoke to them of the same heavenly food which sustained Him amid the mocking bowlders of the desert.
Men are too apt, everywhere, to regard themselves as soldiers of fortune, sent forth to forage in the world for food. Jesus teaches us that there is still manna, sent from Heaven, if we will be humble enough to gather it; there are ravens which will bring us morsels ; there is the cruse of oil that is not exhausted; there are the loaves and fishes that multiply; there are the angels that come and minister to us. He who could (but would not) turn the stones into bread to feed Himself, gave His own Body to feed the world, that we may be satisfied, not with bread alone, but with Him, as the Word, imparted to us as we need, and so received--not a portion of the Word, but all of it--every word--a complete and perfect dietary, sufficient for all life--both here and hereafter, since it proceeds for us, and only for us, direct from the mouth of God, who loves us, who knows us, who has visited us. And as He forgot His hunger in feeding others, so does He ask us, like Peter, to show our love by feeding His lambs. He asks us, not once, nor twice, but thrice, because the need is urgent. The people faint for lack of that Living Bread.