Reflecting on Luke 4:1-13
"The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God..." (Luke 4:3)Luke has just finished showing how Jesus is the Son of God.
Now His experience as God’s Son will be tested.
The test is the wilderness, surviving in that hard setting.
No bed, no family, no great source of food or shelter.
God is still with Him, but He is not experiencing abundance.
In a sense, it is like the forbidden fruit – to lack something.
Jesus hears the whisper of the deceiver that we all hear.
‘If you are God’s children, why is God withholding something from you.’
‘If God loves you, why is God not doing this, or helping with that?’
‘If you are God’s child, why are you experiencing this is that challenge?’
Jesus was experiencing what we all experience, in His own wilderness.
When we focus on Jesus being God, we think He has an advantage.
But Jesus was fully human, and emptied of His God-power and ability.
Jesus did nothing as God; Jesus did everything as God-as-a-human.
“Christ Jesus, Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8)
Jesus did not use His God-nature to His own advantage.
He made Himself nothing, or literally, He emptied Himself.
He fully submitted to life as a human, to go what we go through.
In this way, He was not only tempted like us, He could have been beaten.
He had no more strength to overcome this than we do.
He had what we could have: knowledge of who we are, and who is with us.
Ever since Adam and Eve’s fall, all humans have faced this same difficulty.
In our experience of life in this wild world, the deceiver deceives us too.
No human being has ever succeeded in beating the deceiver.
We are in bondage to this deception, and it is ruining our world.
All our challenges and suffering come from this ruination.
And the deceiver uses our struggles to keep us deceived about who we are.
We are confused – deceived – about Who God is, and who we are!
We therefore live in, and rule, this world, in an un-God-like (ungodly) way.
And the curse and misery continues…
In this scene, Jesus enters the ring with the deceiver, just like us.
What we are see here is Genesis 3 being replayed, with a better outcome.
Jesus does not give in to the deceiver’s tricks and lies.
Jesus passes the test that the rest of us have failed again and again.
In other words, an Adam has passes the test, and reclaims the throne.
Jesus stays true even through death, even death on a cross.
“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)
It is because Jesus beats the deceiver that God declares Him Son of God in power.
The resurrection of Jesus is the vindication and restoration of Adam.
The curse of death is broken, and humanity is restored to the highest place.
This is our hope when we are tested; not our victory but Jesus’s.
We still falter and fail in our own times of testing.
We still question and doubt and choose poorly when the deceiver whispers.
But our faith (trust, hope) is in Jesus, Who assures us He has overcome for us.
We admit our weakness, and declare our confidence in Jesus, our Saviour and Lord.
Yes, we can learn from how Jesus handled Satan’s lies.
Yes we should cling to and declare our identity, whatever Satan throws at us.
But be encouraged, even when we fail, Jesus has overcome FOR US!
He is the serpent crusher (Genesis 3:15), and we share in His victory!
When the deceiver points to our failures and whispers, ‘are you really God’s child’, we can say…
‘YES, Jesus has beaten you so that no matter what, I AM A CHILD OF GOD!
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, as I review each day with You I can see the ways that I did not always handle challenges in a Godlike way. I thought, or spoke or acted in a way that did not reflect who I am, and how I am to be like God. Thank You that my hope does not lie in my own success over Satan, but in Yours! For Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen!
When I taught students once upon a time, I would also ask where they saw Jesus today. I still ask that question myself these days. All too often I rely upon my own strength and power rather than the power of Christ within me. Jesus needs to be my pilot at all times. I need to go forward this day in His strength and Spirit to guide me. I am never alone since I am His child.
Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth His Name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.