Luke 4:1 - Meaning and Application

The closing words of the previous chapter, that Jesus was the Son of Adam, point to him as the seed of the woman. So here, as promised, he breaks the serpent’s head, defeats the devil in every temptation, and undoes the damage done by the first temptation that overcame our first parents. At the very start of the battle, he strikes back at the enemy and defeats the one who had seemed to win before.

In this story of Christ’s temptation, we should first notice how he was prepared for it. The One who planned the test also supplied what he needed for it. We do not know what trials lie ahead of us, or what battles we may face, but Christ did know, and he was prepared. God does the same for us, and we trust that he will continue to provide what we need.

He was full of the Holy Spirit, who had come down on him like a dove. He now had a greater measure of the Spirit’s gifts, grace, and comfort than ever before. Those who are full of the Holy Spirit are well armed against the strongest temptations. He had also just returned from Jordan, where he was baptized and where a voice from heaven had called him the beloved Son of God. That kind of comfort and clear sign of God’s favor often comes before a trial. When we have felt God’s nearness most strongly, we may expect Satan to attack us, like a pirate going after the richest ship. God allows this so that the power of his grace may be seen and praised.

He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, and this was the good Spirit leading him like a champion into battle. The wilderness gave the tempter some advantage, because Jesus was there alone, without a friend nearby to help with prayer or advice in the hour of trial. A person who is alone is in a dangerous place. Satan could take advantage of Jesus’ loneliness, though Jesus knew his own strength. We, on the other hand, do not know our own weakness so well.

At the same time, Jesus also gained something from those forty days of fasting in the wilderness. We may picture him wholly taken up with holy thought, reflecting on his mission and the work before him. He spent that time in direct, close fellowship with his Father, much as Moses did on the mountain, without any interruption or distraction. Of all the days of his earthly life, these seem closest to the life of heaven. That helped prepare him for Satan’s attacks and made him strong against them.

He also kept fasting, as verse 2 says, and ate nothing during those days. This was a miraculous fast, like the fasts of Moses and Elijah, showing that he was, like them, a prophet sent by God. It is likely that this took place in the wilderness of Horeb, the same wilderness where Moses and Elijah fasted. By going into the wilderness, he showed that he was not attached to the world. By fasting, he showed that he was not ruled by the body. Satan has a harder time with people who are loosened from the world and deadened to the flesh. The more we keep the body under control and bring it into obedience, the less room Satan has to work against us.

Next, we should notice how he was attacked again and again, and how he defeated the tempter in every assault. During those forty days, he was tempted by the devil, not through inward evil desires, for the prince of this world had nothing in Christ that he could use that way. Instead, the attacks were outward suggestions, perhaps with Satan appearing in serpent form, as he had done with our first parents. At the end of the forty days, when he saw that Jesus was hungry, he came closer and pressed the attack.

The first temptation was meant to make Jesus distrust his Father’s care and take matters into his own hands in a way the Father had not appointed. The devil said, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). In effect, he was saying, “God, if he is your Father, has forgotten you. It will be a long time before he sends ravens or angels to feed you.” Whenever we begin to think we must provide for ourselves without depending on God’s care, or gather wealth by our own strength and effort, we should recognize that as Satan’s temptation and reject it. It is the devil’s counsel to live as if we were independent of God.

The devil also challenged him: “If you are really the Son of God, do it if you can. If you do not, I will say you are not the Son of God, because John the Baptist said that God can raise up children to Abraham from stones, which is greater than this. So if you cannot turn stones into bread for yourself when you are hungry, then you do not have the power of the Son of God, which is the smaller thing.” In this way, the devil was putting God to the test in the wilderness, as if saying, Can he prepare a table? Can he give bread? (Psalm 78:19, 20).

Christ did not give in. He would not turn the stone into bread, even though he was hungry. First, he would not do what Satan told him to do, because that would have made it look as if there were some agreement between him and the devil. We must avoid anything that even looks like yielding ground to the devil. Miracles were given to confirm faith, and the devil had no faith to confirm. So Jesus would not work a miracle for him. He did his signs in front of his disciples (John 20:30), and especially the first miracle, turning water into wine, which he did so that his disciples would believe in him (John 2:11). But here in the wilderness, no disciples were with him.

Second, he worked miracles to confirm his teaching, so he would not begin miracles before he began preaching. Third, he would not use miracles to provide for himself and ease his own hunger. He came not to please himself, but to suffer grief, including hunger. And because he would not seek his own comfort first, he would rather turn water into wine for the good of his friends than stones into bread for his own need. Fourth, he would save the public proof that he was the Son of God for later. He would rather let Satan mock him as weak and unable to do it than be pushed by Satan into doing something it was not the right time to do. Later, his enemies mocked him in the same way, saying he could not save himself or come down from the cross, even though he could have done so, but would not, because it was not right for him to do it.

Fifth, he would do nothing that suggested distrust of his Father, or that he was acting apart from him, or that he had stepped outside his present condition.

Being like his brothers and sisters in every way, Christ would live, as other children of God do, in reliance on God’s providence and promise. He would trust the Father either to send food into the wilderness or to lead him to a place where food could be found, as God had often done before (Psalm 107:5-7). In the meantime, he would be sustained, even though he had been hungry for forty days.

He answered Satan with Scripture, saying, “It is written” (Luke 4:4). This is the first recorded word spoken by Christ after he entered his prophetic office, that is, his role as God’s messenger. He quotes the Old Testament to show that Scripture has authority over everything, even over Satan. Though he had the Spirit without measure and had his own teaching to give, he still set Moses and the prophets as his rule, and he leaves them as our rule too.

The word of God is our sword, and faith in that word is our shield. So we should know the Scriptures well and use them in spiritual battle. Christ answers from Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” In effect, he says, “I do not need to turn the stone into bread. God can feed me as he fed Israel with manna. A person lives by every word God speaks, by whatever God appoints as the means of life.”

How had Christ lived comfortably for those forty days? Not by bread, but by the word of God, by thinking on it, communing with it, and communing with God through it. In the same way, he could still live now, even though hunger had begun. God has many ways to provide for his people without the usual means of support, so they should never distrust him. They should trust him at all times, while walking in the path of duty. If food is lacking, God can take away the appetite, give patience, or make simple food enough, as with Daniel and his friends (Daniel 1:12-13). He can even help his people rejoice in the Lord when the fig tree does not blossom (Habakkuk 3:17).

Satan next tempted him to accept the kingdoms of the world from him, even though as the Son of God he expected to receive them from his Father, and to do homage to Satan for them (Luke 4:5-7). Luke places this temptation second, while Matthew places it last. It seems to have been the last in fact, but Luke seems to move quickly to it because it was the darkest and most forceful temptation. When Satan tempted the first humans, he first showed them the fruit as good for food and then as pleasant to the eye, and both drew them in. Here he first tempted Christ with bread, then showed him the kingdoms of the world and their glory, which were pleasant to the eye. But in both cases Christ overcame him, and Luke may have changed the order with that in mind.

Satan handled this temptation in a bold way, trying to get Christ to become his subject and receive the kingdom from him. He gave him a view of all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, like a quick and airy display meant to seize the imagination. To make it seem more real, he took him to a high mountain. Since Christ is later found on the other side of the Jordan, some think this was likely Pisgah, where Moses saw Canaan. Luke’s note that this happened in a moment of time shows that it was only an illusion. A person cannot truly survey all the kingdoms of the world at once, so Satan was trying to deceive Christ by a trick of the eyes, hoping that if Christ thought he could show all the kingdoms, he might think he could also give them all.

He then boldly claimed that these kingdoms had been given to him, and that he had power to give them to anyone he wished (Luke 4:6). Some think he pretended to be an angel of light, claiming to be one of the angels set over kingdoms, but that does not fit the way he speaks here. It is better to understand him as Satan claiming authority because people and rulers had given their power and honor to him, serving him rather than God (Ephesians 2:2). That is why he is called the god of this world and the prince of this world. God had promised the Son that the nations would be his inheritance (Psalm 2:8). Satan’s answer was, in effect, “The nations are mine, but I will give them to you if you worship me. Then you can have them as gifts from me, as others have done before you (Hosea 2:12), and hold them through me and under me.”

He also demanded worship and adoration: “If you worship me, it will all be yours” (Luke 4:7). First, he wanted Christ to worship him personally. He may not have meant that Christ should never worship God, but that he should worship Satan along with God. Satan knows that if he can get even one partner, he soon aims to rule alone. Second, he wanted Christ to leave the nations’ false worship untouched. He wanted the world to keep sacrificing to demons, as it had done before (1 Corinthians 10:20), while Satan still held the hearts, affections, and worship of people. Let others have wealth and outward greatness, Satan is satisfied if he can only have people’s hearts. If he can work in those who refuse to obey God, he has them fully in his grip.

He gave Satan a sharp refusal and rejected the offer with disgust (Luke 4:8). “Get behind me, Satan,” he said, as if to say, “I cannot even bear to hear this. Worship the enemy of God, whom I came to serve, and of man, whom I came to save? Never.” A temptation like this was not something to debate. It had to be thrown out at once with one word, “It is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

So Christ would not worship Satan. And when the kingdoms of the world are given to him by his Father, as he soon expected to receive them, he will not allow any part of the devil’s worship to remain in them. No, he will root it out completely wherever his gospel goes. He makes no agreement with Satan. As Christ’s kingdom rises, polytheism, the worship of many gods, and idolatry, the worship of images or created things, must fall. People must turn from the power of Satan to God, and from the worship of devils to the worship of the one living and true God.

This is the great divine law Christ came to restore among people. By his holy religion, he brings people back to the obedience that says God alone is to be served and worshiped. So anyone who sets up any creature as an object of religious worship, even if it is a saint, an angel, or the virgin Mary herself, directly works against Christ’s purpose and falls back into heathenism.

Third, Satan tempted him to become his own murderer, trusting in God’s protection without any true promise to support it. Notice what Satan wanted in this temptation: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down” (Luke 4:9). He wanted Christ to seek a new proof that he was God’s Son, as if the Father’s voice from heaven and the Spirit’s descent on him were not enough. That would have dishonored God, as if he had not chosen the best way to identify his Son. It also would have shown distrust in the Spirit living in him, which was the strongest proof to Christ himself that he was the Son of God (Hebrews 1:8-9).

Satan also wanted him to use a new way to announce himself to the world. In effect, he was saying that Christ had been acknowledged as God’s Son in an obscure place, among ordinary people who came to John’s baptism. But if he would stand on the temple’s highest point, in front of the religious leaders and other important people, and then prove himself by throwing himself down unharmed, everyone would quickly accept him as a messenger from heaven. Satan wanted him to seek honor on his own terms, instead of receiving the honor God had already given him. He also wanted him to make himself known in Jerusalem’s temple, though God meant him to be more openly known among John’s repentant hearers, who would receive his teaching more gladly than the priests would.

It is also likely Satan hoped that, if he could not harm him by throwing him down, Christ might still be killed by his own fall. Then he would have removed him from the way.

Satan backed up this temptation with Scripture, saying, “It is written” (Luke 4:10). Christ had used Scripture against him, and Satan tried to answer with Scripture too, as if he could match him verse for verse. Heretics and deceivers have often twisted Scripture this way, pressing holy words into the service of evil. Satan quoted the promise that God would give his angels charge over him, and that they would carry him up in their hands. Since Christ was on the temple’s highest point, Satan said, he could especially expect angelic help there. If he was the Son of God, the temple should be the right place for him, and if any place under the sun had a constant guard of angels, it would be that place (Psalm 68:17).

The promise is real, but it is meant to encourage trust in God, not to encourage testing him. God’s promise of angelic help goes as far as his promise of presence goes, and no farther. The angels will keep you when you walk on the ground, where your proper path lies, but not when you recklessly decide to fly in the air.

Christ defeated this temptation by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (Luke 4:12). He means that we must not demand a sign to prove God’s revelation when God has already given enough proof. Israel did this in the wilderness when they tested God and said that, although he had given them water from the rock, could he also give them meat? Christ would have done the same thing if he had said, “God proved I am the Son of God by sending the Spirit on me, which is the greater sign, but can he also give his angels charge over me, which is the lesser?”

In the end, our victorious Redeemer held his ground and came away as a conqueror, not for himself only, but for us also. The devil used up every weapon he had. Christ let him say and do all he could against him, and still he defeated him. Christ suffered under temptation until every test was finished, and we should expect to pass through all our trials too, all the way through the appointed hour of temptation.

Then Satan gave up the field and left him. He saw that attacking Christ was useless. There was nothing in him for Satan’s fiery darts to stick to, no weak place, no open side in the wall. So Satan abandoned the fight. If we resist the devil, he will flee from us.

Still, Satan kept his hatred. He left, but only for a time, until the proper season came when he would be allowed to attack again. Then he would not come as a tempter, trying to lead Christ into sin and strike at his head, which was his present aim and in which he was completely defeated. He would come as a persecutor, using Judas and other wicked agents to make Christ suffer and bruise his heel, as was foretold in Genesis 3:15. That would still mean the breaking of Satan’s own head. He left until that later time came, which Christ calls “the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53), when the prince of this world would come again (John 14:30).