IV.-The Wild Beasts And The Angels
“And straightway the Spirit driveth him forth into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him” (1:12, 13, n.v.).
The real nature of the sin-stricken world into which the Servant of Jehovah had entered to do in public the will of Him that sent Him is thus briefly indicated by the Evangelist. And emphasis is given to his concise statement by the dark contrast in which it stands with the verses that precede. There we read of the effulgent glory emanating from the rent heavens upon the lowly Jesus come forth from Nazareth of Galilee, of the dove-like Spirit of God anointing and sealing the Servant of Jehovah, and of the Father's voice declaring His complacency in the Baptized One, His beloved Son. Here we read of Him hurried by the Spirit into the wilderness, tempted there of Satan forty days, and with the wild beasts. From the scene of heavenly light Jesus passed immediately to encounter the power of darkness, for this He had come to do. As yet the heavens could open thus upon but One Man here below, though this transient gleam afforded an earnest of the coming day of glory for the whole earth, when the service of Jesus, which was then beginning, should be fully accomplished.
It is thus impressed upon us by the brief reference in the verses before us that Jesus was anointed to serve, not as angels do in the purity of heaven, but in a world of sin, where all creation is groaning together and travailing in pain because of present evil (Romans 8:22). The wilderness was there; the wild beasts were there; Satan was there. The whole world was in subjection to that wicked one, that arch-rebel against God and archenemy of man (1 John 5:19). But the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).
It is to be noted that in each of the three Synoptical Gospels the temptation in the wilderness is recorded immediately after the baptism and the anointing. For forty days Jesus the Christ, the Savior of men, was alone in the wilds with Satan, who is Apollyon, the destroyer of men. He who had entered the strong man's house to spoil his goods must first bind the strong man (Matthew 12:29). Accordingly Jesus, marked out of old as the Seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent's head, met the ancient adversary of man alone in the solitudes of the wilderness. Soon He would effectually annul the power of Satan, but now He withstands his subtleties, and is victorious.
In the preceding, and the succeeding, Gospels the three final efforts of the enemy at the close of the forty days' temptations are narrated in detail, Matthew placing the three in strict chronological sequence, while Luke reverses the second and third for moral reasons, consonant with the purpose of that Gospel. Mark, however, states simply, “He was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan.” He records the fact of the temptation, but states nothing regarding its nature, nor the manner in which the obedient and dependent Man overcame the wiles of the wicked one. It was sufficient here to let it be known that at the outset the Servant of Jehovah, apart from human view or aid or interference, joined issue with the enemy of God and man. The struggle was upon the question of His own personal allegiance to the One who had sent Him. But this character of the temptation is not mentioned here, nor even His victory and Satan's departure at the close. Two figures loom upon the sombre canvas—the elect Servant and Satan, with the wilderness and wild beasts in the background, while ministering angels shed light upon a scene otherwise of darkness.
Any further remarks that may occur on this passage may, for convenience' sake, be grouped under one of the following heads:-(l) The energy of the Spirit. (2) The temptation by Satan. (3) The company of the wild beasts. (4) The ministry of the angels.
(1) “Immediately the Spirit driveth him forth into the wilderness.” The phrase is one expressive of intense energy and instant action. The Father had bestowed the Holy Spirit upon Him “without measure,” and Jesus, in the plenitude of that Spirit, took the pathway which led into the wilderness. In that He was driven forth, it is proved how perfectly and fully He was possessed of the Spirit; in that this was done immediately, it is proved how swift was the Lord's response to Him by whom He had been anointed for service. There are two marks of perfection in service complete, unrestricted obedience, and also ready, unhesitating obedience. They both characterize the Lord at the beginning of His service; they are not less conspicuous at its close.
But such a quality as obedience is not appreciated in a world where all naturally are the sons of disobedience. Submission in the eyes of men is only weakness, a lack of fiber and force. Yet with what moral magnificence was the obedience of Christ invested as He, the dearly loved Son of the Father, is pleased to yield Himself up in the fullest degree to be led of the Spirit into the wilderness, as later to Calvary. It is a fruitful and practical subject for our meditation, since we are sanctified unto the obedience of Christ, and exhorted to be filled with the Spirit. And what is inculcated by precept and doctrine in the Epistles is enforced by illustration and example in the divine biography of the Gospels, where the moral glory and beauty of the subjection of Christ shine forth at every step. The life itself was for the glory of God; the record of that life is for the comfort and joy and emulation of His people.
But this driving forth of Jesus recalls, by way of sad contrast, the history of Eden and the expulsion of our first parents. Of them we read, after the fall, “Jehovah God sent him [Adam] forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and the flame of a sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:23, 24). This ejection was the penalty of Adam's disobedience; the passage from Jordan to the wilderness was the obedient act of Him who was the incomparable Servant of God, because He was His Son.
(2) The way of service for John the Baptist brought him into the wilderness to cry to guilty Israel to repent, because the kingdom of heaven was at hand. The way of Jesus, the Servant of Jehovah, led Him into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan forty days. Misguided men have sought the wilderness to evade the power of evil. Jesus sought it with the express intention of meeting the evil one. He alone was perfect within, and while He Himself was led up to meet the tempter, He taught His disciples to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil [or, the evil one]” (Matthew 6:13). And when a self-confident apostle of His was about to venture into the midst of the temptations of the foe He made supplication for him. “Simon, Simon,” He said, “behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not” (Luke 22:31, 32).
Man always underrates the power and subtlety of Satan, but the Lord, who fully knew, and also measured by experience the strength of the “strong man,” went forth to meet him and to endure from him every form of temptation (Luke 4:13, R.V.). Though “in the likeness of sinful flesh” He was “without sin,” and “knew no sin.” The temptations, therefore, came to the Lord exclusively from without, as was also the case with unfallen Adam, though true of none on earth besides.
It was made known at the beginning that the manifestation of the Son of God would be for the destruction of the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Jehovah said to the serpent in Eden, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). In the Gospels we are shown historically that this was so. We find that when Jesus was born, Satan, using Herod as his tool, attempted to destroy Him (Matthew 2:16; Revelation 12:4, 5). Satan also sought, through Simon Peter, to stumble the Lord in the way to the cross (Matthew 16:23). For His betrayal Satan himself, not a demon or unclean spirit, took possession of Judas Iscariot (Luke 22:3; John 13:27). “This is your hour,” said the Lord to the chief priests, “and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53). And though Satan seemed for a moment to triumph in the death of the Lord, thereby bruising His heel, by that same act his own head was bruised, according to the saying of old. For the power of Satan was annulled not by incarnation, but by death, as the Scripture declares. He became flesh “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).
It is clear, from these scriptural references, that the Servant-Prophet whom Mark delineates would have in His service to meet the devil, the adversary of man, and especially the foe of Him who had come to be the deliverer of man, and to heal those who “were oppressed of the devil.” Accordingly the Evangelist records that immediately upon His baptism Jesus encountered the prince of this world, being subjected to his temptations for forty days in the wilderness. It was not consonant with the special object of his Gospel to specify in detail the three final assaults of the evil one. It sufficed to state the fact of the encounter, while the personality of the tempter is emphasized here by the use of the name, Satan, rather than the more general term, “the devil” (διάβολος), as in Matthew and Luke.
(3) “He was with the wild beasts.” While Mark omits many details of the Lord's temptation which are found in Matthew and Luke, this circumstance is peculiar to the account by the Second Evangelist. Its mention here is the more noteworthy because of the succinctness of the whole paragraph. The theorists on the subject of the origin of the Gospels find it difficult to invent a plausible theory to fit this awkward phrase on the assumption that the Gospel of Mark is an abridgment or precis of those of Matthew and Luke. Besides this phrase, there are miracles, a parable, and some incidents also, peculiar to this Gospel, and to account for the presence of these it is imagined by others that all the Evangelists compiled their accounts from an “original” or “primitive” Gospel, or that Mark's Gospel was the earliest; for when it is a question of the imagination, “historic” or otherwise, you cannot expect general agreement among the various theories advanced.
To illustrate how these various hypotheses leave one still groping in the dark, I quote from a writer of much acumen, whose remarks are based on extensive research into the subject in hand. He says: “I believe, therefore, that the compiler of the Second Gospel could not but have been acquainted with the tradition [of the temptation] recorded by Matthew and Luke, of which I look on Mark 1:13 as an abridgment. Yet the mention of wild beasts leads me to thinks that in the case of the opening, as well as of the concluding verses the abridgment was made by one who wrote so early as to be in independent possession of traditions.''
Without here discussing this theory of abridgment, it may be pointed out that Dr. Salmon admits that the presence of this phrase requires a special explanation. He suggests feebly that Mark acquired it from some independent source. How does such a supposition help us? To regard the phrase as one supplied by Mark, either from memory or from some special source of information, and that it was added here just because it is not mentioned in the other Gospels, is virtually to rob the Holy Record of all aim and purpose, and to suggest that the Evangelist was most inefficient even as a compiler! Besides, if he added the circumstance of the wild beasts, because it is not recorded elsewhere, why does he mention along with it the ministry of the angels, which occurs also in Matthew 4:11?
The truth is that in this account, as we have it, the Evangelist wrote as “moved by the Holy Spirit,” and it is to be feared that this fact is overlooked in discussions as to “Petrine tradition” and “double” or “triple tradition.” The question of the origin of a given phrase in the narrative is altogether a subordinate and unimportant detail, when the Holy Spirit has been pleased to weave it into the fabric of the Gospel. It is possible that we may be slow to perceive its exact bearing in the scheme of the Evangelist. It is, in any case, becoming on our part to seek to learn this by patient inquiry, and by diligent waiting upon the Spirit for His illumination.
Jesus ''with the wild beasts” is a graphic touch of the inspired penman to indicate the fallen world which was the sphere of service for Jehovah's Servant. Adam was created to rule for God over the terrestrial works of His hand. All beasts of the field were subject to him, not in fear and dread as afterward was the case (Genesis 9:2). They were brought to him in the garden of Eden, and by him named (Genesis 2:19, 20). In the wilderness of Judaea, however, they were wild, needing to be tamed by the power of man, and formed in themselves so many witnesses of the desolateness of a sinful earth, utterly devoid as the whole scene was of any of those alleviating circumstances known as human comforts.
Man, by his departure from the knowledge of God, has brought himself morally to the level of the beasts that perish (Psalm 73:22; 2 Peter 2:12); and, in prophetic imagery, a wild beast is employed as the symbol of worldly power and kingdom. This is so notably in references to Gentile rule, for when dominion was taken from Israel and placed into the hands of the kings of the earth, none of them ruled in the fear of God. Nebuchadnezzar, as an example and warning to others, who, like him should, in the vanity of their hearts, forget God, was driven from men to dwell with the beasts of the field, until his understanding returned and he blessed the Most High (Daniel 4).
In Daniel's vision of the four great world-empires he saw them as wild beasts (Daniel 7), and John beheld the revived Roman Empire of a future day under the figure of a beast (Revelation 13); for, like wild creatures, none of these kingdoms carry out the will of God except under His direct coercion. The wild beast is one that has shaken off the yoke and bondage of man. It is not, therefore, a stretch of imagination to see in the picture of Jesus among the wild beasts a shadow of the perfectly obedient Servant of Jehovah come into a world of fallen men, who owned no authority higher than the strongest or the most cunning among themselves.
(4) “The angels ministered unto Him.” Here we have a lovely contrast with the dark desolations of earth, amid which the Son of man is displayed to us in the wilderness. The ministering spirits of heaven attend upon Jesus in the scene of His temptation. Though surrounded by the darkness of this world, the light of the glory above is seen still to shine upon Him. Jesus had come as the Servant of Jehovah to serve the lowliest and the wickedest of men, but the highest celestial being would find it a joy to seek Him out in His solitude to do Him homage, and to serve the One who was learning what need was, though He possessed all things.
In His subsequent pathway, others gathered round Him to wait on Him, though He Himself was among His own as One who served. The twelve were His chosen body-guard, but He did not treat them as servants knowing not what their Lord did. Martha of Bethany served Him in the house of Simon the leper. Galilean women ministered to Him of their substance. He Himself asked a woman of Samaria to supply Him with a drink of water. But was it not fitting that the first to serve the Servant of Jehovah in His public service should be those august servitors whose functions lie in heavenly courts? Indeed, it was but in accord with an ancient prophecy that when the First-begotten was brought into the world all the angels of God should worship, as well as serve, Him (Deuteronomy 32:43, LXX.; Psalm 97:7; Hebrews 1:6).
On this occasion the heavenly service was rendered in private, unseen of man. But in the coming day of glory, when the Anointed appears in His majesty, every eye shall see Him and His angelic retinue too (Matthew 25:31; 2 Thessalonians 1:7). This future attendance will be public, and unmistakeable even by unbelief. But while the service in the wilderness seems to have been personal and unwitnessed, angelic homage to Himself was announced by the Lord in the earliest days of His ministry as a form of testimony which His own should receive in the days of His flesh, the ampler witness awaiting the millennial day. To Nathanael He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, [Henceforth] ye shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John 1:51).
[W. J. H.]
(To be continued)
Mark 1:12. —To translate here ἐκβάλλω by “driveth,” appears to go beyond the due requirement of the context which in all cases is the true arbiter of its force. Suitably rendered for the most part by “cast out,” there are instances nevertheless, in our A. and R..V. where our translators have justifiably presented a more congenial rendering. Take the following—Matthew 9:38 “send forth,” Mark 1:43 “sent away” (or, “out,” R.V.), John 10:4 “putteth forth” “hath put,” R.V.), Revelation 11:2 “leave out” (or, “without,” R.V.). In this very chapter (ver. 43) did our Lord ("moved with compassion,” 41) immediately after “drive” away (!) the cleansed leper? Why then “driveth” in verse 12?