Tempted but Faithful (Luke 4:1–13) from South Woods Baptist Church on Vimeo.

The movement in the Gospel narratives aims to reveal Christ to us as the only Savior of sinners. While it tells a story we must remember that it’s a redemptive-theological story. So the Gospel writers don’t just pick out interesting clips from Jesus’ life that they think might fascinate us enough to keep purchasing Bibles. Instead, they weave the story of His life, selecting particular conversations, interactions, teaching, and encounters so that we might understand who He is and what He has done to deliver us from darkness and bring us into relationship with God.

As we look at the devil tempting Jesus, we’re seeing a cataclysmic encounter. The Serpent of old, the devil, the tempter, Satan who disrupted the purity, goodness, and beauty of the creation at the fall, confronts the eternal Son of God Incarnate. Why did he do it? What was he trying to do?

And from the other angle, why did God allow His Son to face the devil? Why did the Holy Spirit who led Jesus in the wilderness, lead Him into this time of temptation by the archenemy of the Triune God?

We should realize that the devil never has any good purpose in mind. Never! Whatever he suggests he does with ill intentions. He seeks to supplant, overthrow, destroy, and thwart anything that God is doing to secure a people for Himself. We mustn’t be deceived with the devil’s aims.

Before the start of WWII, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought that he could negotiate with Hitler and come to some point of understanding that would quell the Führer’s ambitions, and keep the world free from war. That didn’t go well. As many historians have pointed out, in a proverbial way, he was trying to make a deal with the devil. Hitler only saw things from his terms. The devil is far worse. He doesn’t make deals. He deceives, overthrows and destroys. He aims his temptations at Jesus.

Let’s pick up on the scene where Jesus faces the tempter.

Our Lord leaves the Jordan River valley where John had baptized Him and where the voice from heaven affirmed Him as the beloved Son of God in whom the Father is well pleased. As the Spirit leads Him toward the wilderness, Jesus has the intense consciousness of His Messianic office and mission. For thirty years, He lived in obscurity outside of that one notable visit to the temple as a twelve year old. He labored day-by-day in the carpenter’s shop, following the trade of His earthly father Joseph. He had performed no miracles, given no public talks, and made no intimations that He was the Messiah promised by God and declared by the prophets.

Then John baptizes Him, the Holy Spirit descends upon Him in some visible way, and the divine voice declares, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” No sooner had that declaration affirming Him taken place than the Holy Spirit that filled Him led Him into the wilderness for forty days. While there is some debate among New Testament scholars on whether the entire forty days He encountered temptation or whether it was only at the end, Luke’s record implies that the entire time Jesus faced an array of temptations. What he narrates in our text gives the conclusive temptations. Just as the writer of Hebrews tells us, Jesus was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin, even so a major portion of that truth took place in those days (Heb 4:15).

Here’s where we sometimes fail to see what happened. Although He is the eternal Son of God, Jesus faced these temptations in His humanity. As man He had to depend upon the same grace, the same Holy Spirit, and the same divine enabling that we do. He had to trust that same Word of God to stand against the devil’s onslaughts, as we have for the same purposes. And as one that had never sinned, and so utterly holy and pure in every respect, His sensitivity to the power of temptation was far greater than what we know. One writer explained, “. . . for in every case He felt the f[...]