Tested by the enemy
The unknown Son of God on earth, Jesus, is led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, with whom He had been sealed, to undergo the temptation of the enemy, beneath which Adam fell. But Jesus endured this temptation in the circumstances in which we stand, not those in which Adam stood; that is to say, He felt it in all the difficulties of the life of faith, tempted in all points like as we are, sin excepted. Take notice here that it is no question of bondage to sin, but of conflict. When it is a question of bondage, it is a question of deliverance, not of conflict. It was in Canaan that Israel fought. They were delivered out of Egypt; they did not fight there.
The moral order of the temptations; simple obedience to the Word of God
In Luke the temptations are arranged according to their moral order: first, that which bodily need required; second, the world; third, spiritual subtlety. In each the Lord maintains the position of obedience and of dependence, giving God and His communications to man-His Word-their true place. Simple principle, which shelters us in every attack, but which, by its very simplicity, is perfection! Nevertheless, let us remember that this is the case; for raising ourselves to marvelous heights is not the thing required of us, but the following that which applies to our human condition as the normal rule for its guidance. It is obedience, dependence-doing nothing except as God wills it, and reliance on Him. This walk supposes the Word. But the Word is the expression of the will, the goodness and the authority of God, applicable to all the circumstances of man as he is. It shows that God interests Himself in all that regards him: why then should man act of himself without looking to God and to His Word? Alas! speaking of men in general, they are self-willed. To submit and be dependent is precisely that which they will not. They have too much enmity to God to trust in Him. It was this, therefore, which distinguished the Lord. The power to work a miracle God could bestow on whom He would. But an obedient man, who had no will to do anything with respect to which the will of God was not expressed, a man who lived by the Word, a man who lived in complete dependence upon God and had a perfect trust, which required no other proof of God’s faithfulness than His Word, no other means of certainty that He would intervene than His promise of so doing, and who waited for that intervention in the path of His will-here was something more than power. This was the perfection of man, in the place where man stood (not simply innocence, for innocence has no need of trusting God in the midst of difficulties, and sorrows, and questions raised by sin, and the knowledge of good and evil), and a perfection which sheltered one who possessed it from every attack Satan could make upon him; for what could he do to one who never went beyond the will of God, and to whom that will was the only motive for action? Moreover, the power of the Spirit of God was there. Accordingly, we find that simple obedience directed by the Word is the only weapon employed by Jesus. This obedience requires dependence on God, and trust in God, in order to accomplish it.
He lives by the Word: this is dependence. He will not tempt (that is, put God to the test) to see if He is faithful: this is trust.
He acts when God wills, and because He wills, and does that which God wills. All the rest He leaves with God. This is obedience; and, remark, not obedience as submission to God’s will where there was an adverse one, but where God’s will was the one motive for action. We are sanctified to the obedience of Christ.
Satan overcome
Satan is overcome and powerless before this last Adam, who acts according to the power of the Spirit, in the place where man is found, by the means which God has given to man, and in the circumstances in which Satan exercises his power. Sin there was none, or it would have been to yield, not to conquer. It was shut out by obedience. But Satan is overcome in the circumstances of temptation in which man is found. Bodily need, which would have become lust if self-will had entered into it, instead of dependence on the will of God; the world and all its glory, which, so far as it is the object of man’s covetousness, is, in fact, the kingdom of Satan (and it was on that ground that Satan tried to bring Jesus, and showed himself to be Satan in so doing); and, lastly, self-exaltation in a religious way through the things which God has given us-these were the points of the enemy’s attack. But there was no self-seeking in Jesus.
With the remnant, and alone
We have found, then, in these things which we have been looking at, a man filled with the Holy Spirit, and born of the Holy Spirit on earth, perfectly well-pleasing to God and the object of His affection, His beloved Son, in the position of dependence; and a man, the conqueror of Satan amid those temptations by which he usually gains advantage over man-conqueror in the power of the Holy Spirit, and by making use of the Word, as dependent, obedient and trusting in God in the ordinary circumstances of man. In the first position, Jesus stood with the remnant; in the second, alone-as in Gethsemane and on the cross. Nevertheless, it was for us; and, accepted as Jesus, we have, in a certain sense, the enemy to overcome. But it is a conquered enemy whom we resist in the strength of the Holy Spirit, who is given unto us in virtue of redemption. If we resist him, he flees; for he has met his conqueror. The flesh does not resist him. He finds Christ in us. Resistance in the flesh does not lead to victory.
The first Adam, failure; the last Adam, the Conqueror of Satan
Jesus conquered the strong man and then spoiled his goods; but it was in temptation, obedience, having no will but that of God, dependence, the use of the Word, abiding in subjection to God, that Jesus gained the victory over him. In all this the first Adam failed. After Christ’s victory, we also, as servants of Christ, gain actual victories, or rather the fruits of the victory already gained in the presence of God.
The Lord has now taken His place, so to speak, for the work of the last Adam-the man in whom is the Spirit without measure, the Son of God in this world by His birth. He has taken it as the seed of the woman (nevertheless, conceived of the Holy Spirit); He has taken it as the Son of God perfectly well-pleasing to God in His Person as man here below; and He has taken it as the conqueror of Satan. Owned to be the Son of God, and sealed with the Holy Spirit by the Father, heaven being open to Him as man, His genealogy is, however, traced up to Adam; and, the descendant of Adam, without sin, full of the Holy Spirit, He conquers Satan (as the obedient man, having no motive but the will of God), and sets Himself to accomplish the work which God His Father committed to Him in this world, and that as man, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The return to Galilee in the Spirit’s power
He returns, in the power of the Spirit, into Galilee,1 and His fame spreads through all the region round about.
(1. And here note, as anointed with the Holy Spirit and led by Him, He goes to be tempted, and returns in the power of it. None was lost, and this power was as much shown in the apparently negative result of overcoming, as in the miraculous manifestation of power afterwards on men.)
The announcement of the fulfillment of God’s promises in grace and blessing
He presents Himself in this character: “The Spirit of Jehovah is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted . . . to preach the acceptable year of Jehovah.” Here He stops. That which follows in the prophet, respecting the deliverance of Israel by the judgment which avenges them of their enemies, is omitted by the Lord. Now Jesus does not announce promises, but their fulfillment in grace by His own presence. The Spirit is upon this man, full of grace; and the God of grace in Him manifests His goodness. The time of deliverance is come; the vessel of His favor to Israel is there in their midst.
The examination of the prophecy renders this testimony so much the more remarkable, that the Spirit, having declared the sin of the people and their judgment, in the chapters that precede these words, speaks (when introducing the Christ, the Anointed) only of grace and blessing to Israel: if there is vengeance, it should be executed upon their enemies for the deliverance of Israel.
The perfect manifestation of grace rejected; the result
But here it is grace in His Person, this man, the Son of God, full of the Holy Spirit, in order to proclaim the mercy of a God who is faithful to His promises, and to comfort and lift up the bruised and the poor in spirit. Blessing was there, presenting itself before them. They could not misunderstand it, but they do not recognize the Son of God. “Is not this Joseph’s son?” We have here the whole history of Christ-the perfect manifestation of grace in the midst of Israel, His land, and His people; and they knew Him not. No prophet is accepted in his own country.
But this rejection opened the way to a grace which went beyond the limits that a rebellious people would set to it. The woman of Sarepta and Naaman were testimonies of this grace.
Wrath fills the heart of those who reject grace. Unbelieving, and incapable of discerning the blessing that had visited them, they will not have it go elsewhere. The pride which rendered them unable to appreciate grace would not hear of its communication to others.
They seek to destroy Jesus, but He goes on His way. Here is the whole history of Jesus among the people traced beforehand.
The acts and cures characterizing the Lord’s ministry of grace
He went His way; and the Spirit preserves to us the acts and the cures which characterize His ministry in the aspect of the efficacy of grace, and of its extension to others besides Israel.
Power was in Him whose grace was rejected. Acknowledged by devils, if not by Israel, He expels them by a word. He heals the sick. All the power of the enemy, all the sad, outward effects of sin, disappear before Him. He heals, He withdraws; and when entreated to remain (the effect of His works that procured Him that honor from the people which He did not seek), He goes away to labor elsewhere in the testimony committed to Him. He seeks to accomplish His work, and not to be honored.
He preaches everywhere among the people. He casts out the enemy, He removes sufferings, and proclaims the goodness of God to the poor.