Sermon Tone Analysis

Messianic Preparation: Resistance of Satan (4:1–13)

Jesus’ temptations serve as a major prelude to his ministry.

The account also brings together the baptism, genealogy, and the start of his ministry.

The focus is on Jesus as the beloved Son (3:22, 38), who is obedient to God in a way that other people—including Adam—are not.

Schürmann (1969: 205) points out three levels at which the account works: (1) Jesus is the pious Son who has unswerving allegiance to God; (2) the battle between Satan and Jesus will run through the entire Gospel; and (3) the success of Jesus in the wilderness recalls Israel’s failure there.

Jesus is qualified to lead the nation, and his success gives promise of ultimate success against all spiritual enemies.

The focus on Deuteronomy, the book of the nation, serves to underscore this reversal motif concerning Israel.

Jesus begins his ministry having overcome the initial onslaught of the evil one, while showing his commitment to living in a way that may not be the easiest road to travel, but is the way that most pleases God.

Another focal point is how Jesus overcomes the evil force by his reflective application of the written Scripture and its truth.

In so doing, he serves as an example of the spiritual person (Schürmann 1969: 207).

The christological note in the account is clear, since the narrative presents Jesus as one who is faithful to God—an important point in light of the possibility of perceiving his ministry as a failure because of his tragic death.

Tannehill (1986: 59) adds another important observation about the account: The temptations reveal Jesus’ approach to his mission.

Here is a man who pursues God’s call.

Jesus is dedicated to God’s mission, not his own purposes, desires, or self-advancement.

The account is, then, an introduction to how Jesus will not pursue his mission.

His goal is not to draw attention to himself, but to focus on God’s work and God’s truth, which he is called to carry out.

The next large pericope, 4:16–30, will reveal what Jesus’ mission is.

Jesus will not use his power to serve himself, but he will lift up others and minister to both their physical and spiritual needs.

Sources and Historicity

The historicity of this event has been variously approached.

Marshall (1978: 168) speaks of an inward experience expressed in dramatic form.

Fitzmyer (1981: 509) sees a qualified connection back to Jesus, but regards historicity as a less significant question than the account’s theological and symbolic value.

He suggests that Jesus spoke of this experience parabolically or dramatically.

One should not read the experience with “naïve literalism” or seek to “salvage” its historicity (p.

510).

The hesitancy to see a direct experience is hard to justify, and the separation of symbol and history is something, as seen in other accounts, that reflects a worldview judgment.

Tiede (1988: 97–98) offers a warning that interpreters should not be drawn into excessive historical or psychological speculation that reduces the account to hallucinations due to lack of food.

I prefer an approach that does not divorce symbolism from history quite so much.

To religiously sensitive eyes, history is full of symbolic import.

To say this is to acknowledge that some of these experiences may have been inward or supernatural in character (see Luke 4:8).

The account’s source ultimately must go back to Jesus himself.

It is hard to see how or even why the early church would create such an account.

There are numerous ways to show how Jesus overcame demonic opposition other than to produce a story like this one, which lacks any real parallels.

The absence of such encounters by other NT luminaries, not to mention the lack of any OT parallels, speaks against its creation by the community.

In fact, the closest NT parallel is Paul’s failure to get relief from his “harassment” by a messenger from Satan, where dependence on God’s grace is the issue (2 Cor.

12:7–10).

The closest OT parallel is Job.

But neither of these accounts is a face-to-face battle with dialogue between the combatants.

The temptation account is unprecedented, which speaks for its connection to Jesus.

The critical criterion of “dissimilarity” may apply here.

Given that the basic account has roots in Jesus, the issue of verbal agreement and divergence in the various Synoptic accounts still remains.

Mark 1:12–13 contains only a brief remark about this event and lacks dialogue and detail.

On the other hand, Matt.

4:1–11 is so close to Luke’s account that most commentators see a written source shared by Matthew and Luke (most speak of Q here: Creed 1930: 61; Luce 1933: 115; Manson 1949: 42–43; Wiefel 1988: 99; Bovon 1989: 193; Fitzmyer 1981: 507; Tiede 1988: 98; C. F.

Evans 1990: 256).

However, a key point of agreement with Mark 1:12–13—the association of testing with the wilderness and with the period of forty days—suggests that Luke is also aware of material like that in Mark.

Yet Mark’s failure to give details about this event leads some to suggest that Mark did not know the body of tradition that Matthew and Luke share.3

In fact, there are enough small, but theologically irrelevant differences between Matthew and Luke that to posit the same exact written source for both of them seems difficult.

For example, why do Matt.

4:3 and Luke 4:3 differ on the name of Satan (the tempter versus the devil)?

Or why does Matt.

4:3 work with the plural stones and loaves, while Luke 4:3 has the singular?

Why is Luke’s version of the offer of the kingdoms (4:6) much fuller than Matthew’s?

Why is Matthew’s citation of Deut.

8:3 so much longer than Luke’s (see the additional note on 4:4 for details)?

What about the differences in Matt.

4:7 and Luke 4:12 (see the additional note on 4:12)?

Why does Luke 4:9 alone say “from here” (see the exegesis of 4:9)?

Why does Luke omit a reference to angels in 4:13?

In this pericope Matthew and Luke are dealing with distinct yet very similar traditions (distinct versions of Q?).

Luke is probably responsible for the account’s introduction and conclusion (4:1–2, 13).

The major distinction between the accounts is the order of the temptations.

In Matthew, the trip to the mountain to see the kingdoms of the world is the final temptation, while for Luke the trip to the top of the temple is the last temptation.

Since it is clear that six temptations are not to be posited, it is also clear that one of the Gospel writers has rearranged the order for literary reasons.

The event shows that the Gospel writers are not averse to arranging materials for the sake of topical or theological concerns, a point that must be kept in mind when examining other pericopes as well.

Which writer rearranged the sequence?

Schürmann argues that Matthew rearranged the account because he develops the site of the mountain as a significant theological locale of revelation, a point that is supported by the ending of Matthew’s Gospel (28:16–20) on a mountain.

But Fitzmyer (1981: 507–8) and Schulz (1972: 177 esp.

n. 2, who also traces the debate’s history) argue more persuasively for a Lucan rearrangement.

Fitzmyer notes that Matthew’s order is a natural progression—desert, building pinnacle, mountaintop—and that the Matthean citations of Deuteronomy appear in reverse canonical order (Deut.

8:3; 6:16; 6:13).

In addition, the clearest temporal adverbs occur only in Matthew (e.g., πάλιν in 4:8, τότε in 4:10, and the summary dismissal of Satan—details that Luke lacks).

Finally, as Schulz makes clear, Luke has a theological motive for his rearrangement.

For Luke, Jerusalem is the climactic locale of conflict in Jesus’ life (19:45–24:53).

Luke’s rearrangement places the emphasis on the Jerusalem temple temptation as the decisive one.

Goulder (1989: 294) agrees, but prefers to see the phrase you shall not tempt the Lord your God as climactic, forming an inclusio on temptation, rather than seeing Jerusalem as the motive.

Most commentators accept Matthew’s order as original (Ellis 1974: 94; Schweizer 1984: 82; Hendriksen 1978: 232; Tiede 1988: 98).

Plummer 1896: 110 refuses to choose either way.

This account has caused much speculation, especially in the early church.

Hebrews 2:17–18 and 4:15 speak of Jesus’ being tempted as a high priest and perfected.

In a period of high christological controversy, the question was raised about how Jesus could be sinless and yet be truly tempted.

Some modern expositions still focus on this question, as if it were the major issue for Luke.

It must be noted, however, that Luke is not concerned with ontological questions here.

He simply presents the temptations as an event in Jesus’ life, as an important encounter in which Satan was successfully rebuffed.

Plummer (1896: 105–6) rightly notes that some questions raised by this passage are not answered for us; he also notes that to resist temptation is harder than to succumb to it.

Jesus’ achievement, as far as Luke is concerned, is that Jesus resisted giving in to Satan.

Jesus represents in his rejection of evil what a son of God in the Adamic sense is capable of when he follows God’s desire.

The second Son of God succeeds, where the first son of God failed.

There is general agreement about the account’s basic form, but not about its roots.

Bultmann (1963: 254–57) calls it a “story about Jesus” and classifies it as scribal Haggadah, since God’s Word is used to refute the devil, but he also says (p. 253) that it possesses “the rudiments of an originally detailed legend” like those about Buddha or Zoroaster, a point that Manson (1949: 45) explicitly rejects.

Bultmann goes on to argue that the text is against the selfish use of miracles, arguing that Jesus’ work can be distinguished from magic on that basis.

Because of the controversy, he sees the text emerging from Palestinian roots, but it has Hellenistic touches in that it rejects the portrayal of Jesus as a Greek miracle-working “divine man” (also Schulz 1972: 182, 187).

Rejecting Bultmann’s description as too limited, Fitzmyer (1981: 508–9) sees the unit as the work of Christian scribes to produce an account that is primarily symbolic; it cannot have been produced by the community.

The original setting is a set of parables or a dramatic depiction of experience that shows a Jesus who refuses to do signs.

Bovon similarly sees a response to Jewish critics that Jesus is a magician or a false Messiah.

Marshall (1978: 166) correctly notes, against Bultmann, that the issue is neither dialectical skill nor scribal debate.

There is no scriptural controversy here, only confrontation (see also Schürmann 1969: 209).

Rather, the issue is obedience to God’s will as recorded in Scripture.

Thus, it is right to call the account simply a “temptation of the righteous,” whose closest parallel is Job.

Whether one needs to appeal to wider polemics with Jewish or Hellenistic opponents is debatable; but it is clear that the account renounces the raw use of miraculous power for any whim.

Thus, it may explain what kind of divine agent Jesus would be: one who served others.

The account should also be read as an example of how faithfulness overcomes the temptation to sin and avoids becoming allied with Satan.

But it is not just personal temptation that is in view.