This Material Has Not Been Edited For s2

THIS MATERIAL HAS NOT BEEN EDITED FOR

SCRIPTURAL ACCURACY, SPELLING, OR GRAMMAR

LUKE

CHAPTER 4

Luke 4:1-13

Satan Tempts Jesus

(Mt 4:1-11; Mk 1:12, 13)

4:1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. 3 And the devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."

4:4 But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.'"

4:5 Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7 Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours."

4:8 And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"

4:9 Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. 10 For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,

To keep you,' 11 and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"

4:12 And Jesus answered and said to him, "It has been said, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'"

4:13 Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.

NKJV

HISTORICAL OUTLOOK

Chapter Three - In Galilee at the Time of our Lord

"If any one wishes to be rich, let him go north; if he wants to be wise, let him come south." Such was the saying, by which Rabbinical pride distinguished between the material wealth of Galilee and the supremacy in traditional lore claimed for the academies of Judaea proper. Alas, it was not long before Judaea lost even this doubtful distinction, and its colleges wandered northwards, ending at last by the Lake of Gennesaret, and in that very city of Tiberias which at one time had been reputed unclean!

Assuredly, the history of nations chronicles their judgment; and it is strangely significant, that the authoritative collection of Jewish traditional law, known as the Mishnah, and the so-called Jerusalem Talmud, which is its Palestinian commentary, should finally have issued from what was originally a heathen city, built upon the site of old forsaken graves. But so long as Jerusalem and Judaea was the centre of Jewish learning, no terms of contempt were too strong to express the supercilious hauteur, with which a regular Rabbinist regarded his northern co-religionists.

The slighting speech of Nathaniel (Jn 1:46), "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" reads quite like a common saying of the period; and the rebuke of the Pharisees to Nicodemus (Jn 7:52), "Search, and look: for out of Galilee arises no prophet," was pointed by the mocking question, "Art thou also of Galilee?"

CHAPTER FOUR

HISTORICAL OUTLOOK

It was not merely self-conscious superiority, such as the "towns-people," as the inhabitants of Jerusalem used to be called throughout Palestine, were said to have commonly displayed towards their "country cousins" and every one else, but offensive contempt, outspoken sometimes with almost incredible rudeness, want of delicacy and charity, but always with much pious self-assertion.

The "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men" (Lk 18:11) seems like the natural breath of Rabbinism in the company of the unlettered, and of all who were deemed intellectual or religious inferiors; and the parabolic history of the Pharisee and the publican in the gospel is not told for the special condemnation of that one prayer, but as characteristic of the whole spirit of Pharisaism, even in its approaches to God.

"This people who knoweth not the laws (that is, the traditional law) are cursed," was the curt summary of the rabbinical estimate of popular opinion. To so terrible a length did it go that the Pharisees would fain have excluded them, not only from common interrelation, but from witness-bearing, and that they even applied to marriages with them such a passage as Deut. 27:21.

THE TEMPTATIONS OF OUR LORD.

It is well known that the order of the temptations in the Gospel of Matthew is not the same a found in the Gospel of Luke. Commentators and Harmonizers have assumed that the one is right, and that the other is of course wrong; and have then proceeded to change the order of the one into the order of the other to make both agree with each other.

But an examination of the combined accounts of Matthew and Luke, giving due weight to the words and the expressions that is used, will explain all the differences and will show that both Gospels are absolutely correct; while the differences are caused by the three temptations being repeated by the devil in a different order and time, thus making six temptations instead of just three. Both Mark and Luke agree in stating that the temptations continued all the forty days (Mark 1:13; Luke 4:2); they are described as follows:-

1. (Luke 4:3, 4) “The devil (ho diabolos) said to Him, ‘Speak to the stone (to litho touto) that it become a loaf (artos).” This appears to be the first temptation: and there is no reason whatever why it should not have been repeated in another form; for it no-where stated that there were only three temptations.

2. (Luke 4:5-8) “And the devil, conducting (anagagon) Him, showed to Jesus all the kingdoms of the inhabitable world, or land (Greek oikoumene –the world as inhabited), in a moment of time.” Nothing is said about “an exceeding high mountain,” we find that Lachmann brackets the words “into an high mountain,” and Tischendorff, Tregelles, Alford, and the Revised Version completely omit them.

Note: The devil claims to possess the right to the kingdoms of the world, and the Jesus does not dispute it. Satan says “To Thee will I give this authority (exousia) and all their glory, for to me it has been delivered, and to whomsoever I wish I give it. Therefore, if Thou wilt worship before me, all shall be Thine.”

Nothing is said here about “falling down,” as in the Gospel of Matthew. Here only “authority” is offered; for all the critical Greek texts read the word “pasa” (not “panta”) which is the fem. Greek which would agree with the word exousia [authority].

The Lord did not say, “Get thee hence” (as in Matthew 4:10), but “Get thee behind Me,” which was a very different statement. Satan did not depart then, any more that Peter did when the same was said to him by Jesus (Matthew 16:23).

CHAPTER FOUR

THE TEMPTATIONS OF OUR LORD

3. (Luke 4:9-12) “And he conducted (egagen) Jesus to Jerusalem, and then set Him upon the wing (or battlement) of the temple, and said to Him, ‘If Thou art the Son of God, cast Thyself down hence, for it is written, that to His angels he will give charge concerning Thee, to keep Thee (tou diaphulaxai se)”, &c. There is nothing said bout this “keeping thee” as found in Matthew; moreover, it is stated that having finished every form of temptation, “he departed from Him for a season.” Note that the devil departed (apeste) of his own accord in Luke 4:13, while in Matthew the Lord summarily dismissed him, and commanded him to be gone (Matthew 4:10).

4. (Matthew 4:3, 4) After the “season” (referred to in Luke 4:13), and on another occasion therefore, “he who was tempting Him (ho peirazon), having come (proselthon), said, ‘If Thou are the Son of God, say that these stones become loaves (artoi).” Not “this stone,” or “a loaf” (artos), as in Luke 4:3. Moreover he is not plainly called “the devil,” as is found in Luke 4:3, but is spoken of as the one who had already been named as tempting Him (ho peirazon); and as “having come” (proselthon): not as simply speaking as being then present.

5. (Matthew 4:5-7) “Then (tote)” – in strict succession to the preceding temptation of the “stones” and the “loaves” – “Then the devil taketh (paralambanei) Him unto the holy city, and setteth Him upon the wing (or battlement) of the temple,” &c. Nothing is said in this place about the angels being charged to “keep” Him (as is found in Luke 4:10); nor is there any reason why any of these three forms of temptation should have been repeated, under other circumstances and other conditions.

6. (Matthew 4:8-10) Here it is plainly stated that the second temptation (Luke 4:5-8) was indeed repeated: for “Again the devil taketh Him unto an exceedingly high mountain, and showed to Him all the kingdoms of the world, (here the Greek word, kosmos –the world as created, ordered, and arranged) the other Greek word oikoumene being used in Luke 4:5, and their glory, and said to Him: ‘All these things, not “all this authority [power],” as in Luke 4:6, will I give to Thee if, falling down, Thou wilt worship me.”

Here, in this last temptation, the climax is finally reached by Satan. It was direct worship. Nothing is said in the Gospel of Luke about falling down. Here it is boldly and plainly said, “Worship me.” This was the crisis. There was no departing of Satan’s own accord recorded here. The moment had come to end all of these temptations by the Lord Himself. “Go!” Said the Lord (hupage), Get thee hence, Satan…Then the devil leaveth (aphiesin) Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered to Him.”

This angelic ministry marked the end of the temptation period for now. There is no such ministry mentioned at the end of the third temptation found in Luke 4:3-12; for then Satan “departed” of his own accord, returning again in (Matthew 4:3) after “a season” as recorded in (Luke 4:13) True, Jesus had said “Get thee behind Me, Satan” (Luke 4:8); but He did not, then, summarily dismiss Satan, nor did Satan depart: he continued with his third temptation, not departing till after the third had been completed

Conclusion:

I thus conclude that, while there were temptations continuous during the whole forty days period (Mark 1:13; Luke 4:2), they did culminate in six direct assaults on the Son of man, in three different forms; each form then being repeated on two separate occasions, and under quite different circumstances, but not in the same order. This accord with all the variations of the Greek words used, and will explain the different order of the events recorded in the two Gospels, and will I hope satisfy all of the conditions that are demanded by the sacred text both in Luke and in Matthew.

The two different orders found in Matthew and Luke do not arise from any “mistakes” in one or the other, so that one may be considered more correct than the other; but they arise from the punctilious accuracy of the Divine record in describing the true an correct order in which Satan varied these six temptations; for which variation, he alone, and neither of the Evangelists, is responsible. Paul the Lerner

CHAPTER FOUR

Luke 4:1-13

Satan (Luke 4:1-13)

Even the enemy must admit that Jesus is the Son of God. "If Thou be the Son of God" (Lk 4:3, 9) is not a supposition but an affirmation. It means "in view of the fact that You are the Son of God" (WUEST). In fact, the fact of His deity was the basis for the first of the three temptations. "Since You are the Son of God," Satan argued, "why be hungry? You can change stones into bread!" Satan wanted Jesus to disobey the Father's will by using His divine power for His own purposes.

Why was Jesus tempted?

1. For one thing, it was proof that the Father's approval was deserved (Lk 4:22).

2. Jesus is indeed the "beloved Son" who always does whatever pleases His Father (Jn 8:29).

3. Also, in His temptation, Jesus exposed the tactics of the enemy and revealed to us how we can overcome when we are tempted.

4. This experience helped prepare our Lord for His present ministry as our sympathetic High Priest and we may come to Him for the help we need to overcome the tempter (Heb 2:16-18; 4:14-16).

5. The first Adam was tempted in a beautiful Garden and failed The Last Adam was tempted in a dangerous wilderness (Mk 1:13) and succeeded.

We have at our disposal the same spiritual resources that Jesus used when He faced and defeated Satan: prayer (Lk 3:22), the Father's love (Lk 3:23), the power of the Spirit (Lk 4:1), and the Word of God ("It is written"). Plus, we have in heaven the interceding Saviour who has defeated the enemy completely, Satan tempts us to bring out the worst in us, but God can use these difficult experiences to put the best into us. Temptation is Satan's weapon to defeat us, but it can become God's tool to build us (see James 1:1-8, 13-17).

In the first temptation, Satan suggested that there must be something wrong with the Father's love since His "beloved Son" was hungry. In years past Israel hungered in the wilderness and God sent them bread from heaven; so surely Jesus could use His divine power to feed Himself and save His life. Satan subtly used this same approach on Eve: "God is holding out on you! Why can’t you eat of every tree in the Garden? If He really loved you, He would share everything with You!"