Christ and the Christian in Temptation Council and Consolation for the Tempted by Octavius Winslow For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4 verse 15 "'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall," William Shakespeare, Preface. The design of the present volume is not to examine the various hypothesis advances to the mode by which the Son of God was hassled by Satan in the wilderness. Accepting, as the author unhesitatingly does, the received and orthodox opinion that the temptation is narrated by the evangelist is not allegorical, but what it professes to be a veritable fact. the representation not of a mythical but of an actual transaction. He finds no difficulty in presenting it in a point of light which he does not remember to have seen hitherto attempted, namely, the identity in all of its essential features of Christ's temptation and those of the Christian. Exceeding as we are bound to the inspired declaration that our Lord was tempted in all points like as we are, it follows that there must exist a corresponding coincidence in the collision of Christ with Satan, in the spiritual conflict in which every good man is engaged of the same nature and with the same foe. We do not, therefore, regard a single attack of Christ by the devil as not having its counterpart, in some degree, with the experience of every Christian. Nor can we imagine a fact more instructive and consolatory to those who, from the same source and with the same weapons, are in heaviness, through manifold temptations. in the assurance of the personal and perfect oneness of the tempted head of the church, as his grace sympathetic nerve with the tempted members of his body. The author devoutly trusts that the study of this entwined interest of Christ in his people, however imperfectly presented, may with the blessing of the Holy Spirit prove as soothing and sanctifying to the mind of the reader, as his discussion in these pages has been to his own. to the divine benediction of the Triune God, and to the gracious acceptance of the one tempted Church of Christ, he prayerfully and affectionately commends the volume. CHAPTER ONE THE TEMPTER, OCCASION AND SCENE OF CHRIST'S TEMPTATION THEN WAS JESUS LED UP OF THE SPIRIT INTO THE WILDERNESS TO BE TEMPTED OF THE DEVIL. MATTHEW FOUR VERSE TEN NOW CHAPTER OF OUR LORD'S BRIEF, YET EVENTFUL LIFE, IF WE ACCEPT THE NARRATIVE OF HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION, IS REPLETE WITH SUCH MARVELOUS INTEREST profound instruction, and rich comfort to the Christian Church. As his conflict with Satan in the wilderness, nor will this appear surprising if we weigh the fact that Christ was a representative person. In no instance of his life did he act other than in his official relation. Thus, all he taught, did, and endured had a substitutionary reference to his people. and in no instance was exclusively of a personal and private character, that our Lord's temptation was an indispensable part of His mediatorial work, that it entered essentially into the lesson of obedience He was to learn by the things which He suffered, and moreover that it constituted an absolute element of His personal fitness to succor them that are tempted, being in all points tempted like as we are, will not admit of a doubt. Yet, nevertheless, all that he taught, did, and endured was as a legal and accepted representative of his church, and in whose place, as his head, he stood. We turn now to the study of our Lord's temptation as endured not exclusively for himself, but as in his mystical union with his people. Tempted in all points, like as we are, the inspired narrative is simple and concise. The evangelist Matthew, with an inimitable simplicity, thus introduces a remarkable event. Then was Jesus led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. To be tempted of the devil, the language of the inspired narrator admits of no reasonable misconception. He speaks of the tempter in terms perfectly intelligible. There are individuals who, in their judicial blindness and supercilious self-conceit, influence, perhaps, in their opinion, in many cases, by the terror which guilt inevitably inspires, have found it convenient and soothing to ignore the positive existence of Satan altogether. affirming that there is no devil. Others, while admitting the existence of a prince of evil, whose ravages they dare not deny, whose subtlety they cannot explain, and whose malignity baffles their astutest comprehension, yet reject the idea of personality, substituting for it the vague, incoherent notion of a principle of evil, an impersonal influence, a phantom of power, that our Lord was not acted upon by an abstract principle of evil, a shadowy, impalpable foe. All the circumstances of this most wonderful transaction clearly demonstrate that the doctrine of the personality, equally as the actual existence of Satan, admits to the most rational and simple proof. among the angels who kept not their first estate, and are now reserved under chains and darkness to the judgment of the great day, Satan, or the devil must be numbered, to whose preeminent dignity and power the tall archangel of Milton was conceded by his compeers a rank and supremacy of the prince, or leader of the countless regions spoken of as the devil and his angels. It is impossible intelligently to study the agency and power of Satan. It's recorded in the Bible and yet predicate that agency and power is a mere influence or abstract principle of evil. that the personification of a principle of evil according to a well-known figure of speech may exist apart from any claim to a real and personal existence we fully concede. The Book of Job supplies numerous instances of this personification, where wisdom, height, famine, death, and so on, are thus personified, but no obscurity veils the sense in which a figure of speech is here employed. Every intelligent reader understands that the impassioned language is merely designed by the writer to impart a poetic animation and effect to his discourse. But how vastly different to style and force when Satan is a subject both of Christ and the inspired penman. Can language like this be predicated of a mere attribute, influence, a principle of evil? Satan sins from the beginning. You are for your father the devil and the works of your father you do. When he speaks of a lie he speaks of his own for he is a liar and the father of it. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Does this language of Christ and the apostles sound like a figure of speech, a principle, an influence? Or is it of a personal existence, a being of vast intellect, consummate subtlety, fiendish malignancy? clothed with power, exerting an agency and ruling over an empire, second only to God himself, of whom the sacred writers speak and against whose machinations the apostle thus warns us, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil is a roaring lion walks about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith. except a Unitarian hypothesis of an abstract principle of evil, a mere influence or attribute, is all that is meant in the Bible of the Great Tempter, and is affording a correct interpretation of these passages we have coded, proven as personality. And we have an example of reductio absurdum, of the most felicitous description. O Christian, do not forget that in the great moral conflict in which you are enlisted you are opposed by no mere principle, or influence, or phantom of evil, but by a foe possessing a distinct personal existence to whom without the slightest deification we ascribe an intelligence, power, and presence second only to the divine being himself. whose presence is everywhere, and at the same moment, who is conversant of your every action, and who reads your every thought, volition, and purpose with all the ease and accuracy of a book. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand an evil day, and having done all, to stand. Passing from this view of the tempter, let us consider the temptation itself. The occasion of our Lord's temptation was remarkably significant. It was on the solemn and holy administration of His baptism, immediately after His submission to this sacred rite, immediately following His fulfillment of all righteousness, immediately after the heavens had opened and the Spirit had descended upon Him. And the Father had testified to his divine sonship and his well-pleasing. Immediately that he had thus by his baptism inaugurated his public ministry, lo, he was driven into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. How similar and impressive this feature of Christ in the Christian's temptation! Our Lord, as a mediator of His Church, had lessons to learn which could only be learned in this fiery conflict, a fitness to be attained as a sympathizing High Priest of His people, which only could be acquired as He Himself was tempted in all points as we are. No wonder, then, that, while his robes were yet streaming with the baptism of waters and the halo of the Spirit's glory, he had encircled his head, and the cadence of his father's voice yet lingered upon his ear, that he should be led into the depths of the forest, the abode of wild beasts, to battle with the Prince of Darkness, surrounded and backed by the confederated host of countless demons. Isn't this often the experience of the believer? And nothing perhaps is the identity of Christ and the Christian more signal, have not some of our sharpest temptations and sorest trials and heaviest afflictions immediately succeeded a season of high holy spiritual exercise. After we have discharged some pious duty, have obeyed some divine command, have performed some Christian service, after a season of close communion with God and a gracious manifestation of the Savior to the soul, lo, we have descended from the mountain or led into the wilderness to be assailed and wounded by some deadly shaft of the devil. Thus was it with Paul, descending from the third heaven, glowing with its effulgence and filled with the rapture of the scenes he had beheld and the music he had heard. Lo, he is led yet deeper into the wilderness to become a shining mark for the enemy's flaming shaft, the messenger of Satan to buffet him. Be not surprised then if thus it is with you, O Christian, Never have we greater need to behold knights in our watchtower to be more strongly fortified against the assaults of the devil than when descending from the mount of transfiguration or emerging from a fresh baptism in the sea and in the cloud of God's love. Then was Jesus let up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. The relation of the Holy Spirit to the temptation of Christ, and thus his association with us and all our temptations, is a most remarkable and instructive feature. In the symbol of a dove, he had just appeared in a baptismal scene of our Lord, and now, in a not less remarkable and significant way, he appears on the field in one of the most important events of Christ's life. The forms of expression which record it vary, yet all agree as to the personal and actual relation of the Holy Spirit with the circumstance. Matthew records a more gentle influence of the Spirit, led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Mark expresses it in stronger terms. The Spirit drove him into the wilderness, impelled him, as it were, by a strong, irresistible influence. Luke says, Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, returning from Jordan, and so on. The original text, perhaps more literally and expressively, renders it. Then was Jesus carried, is by the Spirit. But whatever the force which the Holy Spirit employed, enough that he was personally connected with our Lord in his conflict with the evil one, sustaining, comforting, and crowning him with victory, descending upon him in the emblem of a dove at his baptism, he now appears in the closest sympathy with his temptation, a twofold baptism thus imparted to our Lord. the baptism of water, and the baptism of the Spirit. And thus, beloved, associated with all our temptations is the Holy Spirit our shield and comforter. Not a shaft can touch, not a temptation befall us, but the Holy Spirit dwelling in us as His temple is present to quench the dart. or if it wounds us, to heal, comfort, and sanctify. Thus in all the assaults of our great adversary the devil, every Christian has the same Holy Spirit that led Christ to the scene of His trial, to prepare us for, to maintain us under, and to bring us through the fiery ordeal, never for a moment withdrawing His presence or averting His eye from the course of the winged arrow. or the inflamed wound of the victim. The place of Christ's temptation was the wilderness. Our Lord was already upon the border of the wilderness of Judea, but it was necessary that he should be led deeper into its remoteness and solitude, a depth so profound and desolate that one of the evangelists records the fact that he was with the wild beasts, far removed from the abode and intercourse of man, the Son of God hurting, as it were, with the brute creation, the companion of the untamed denizens of the forest. O thou glorious tempted one, to what abasement did you not submit, that thus trained in a school of temptation you might be one with your saints and theirs? It is in this wilderness of the world we too find a scene of our temptation. The world itself is not the least successful agent of temptation employed by Satan to accomplish his hellish designs. The world is one of the greatest snares of the Christian. Its scenes, its grandeur, its show, its refinement, its friendship, its science, its pleasures, its wealth, its pomp, yea, its very religion, all conspire to give significance and force to the warnings of God's Word. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. and the world passes away, and be not conformed to the world, but be transformed. But, apart from the world itself, there is nothing in our individual history which Satan may not make the occasion and instrument of a temptation. Our social position in the world may be one of peculiar snare, our calling in life especially so. Our sore trials, crushing afflictions, and pressing needs all may furnish ample material for the purpose and devices of the enemy. Ye, there is nothing that may not be an instrument of sore temptation. Our poverty and wealth, our exalted position and our low estate, the publicity, the privacy of our life, our loves and hatreds, friends and foes, may all become powerful engines of evil. in the hands of our great, terrible, powerful and unslumbering enemy. The books we read, the literature we cultivate, science we pursue, the recreations we indulge, yea, the very religions we profess and the Christians' service we promote, may with all their apparent innocence and sanctity but conceal from our eye the slimy trail and the deadly venom of the serpent. Then, let us not be ignorant of Satan's devices. Settling in our individual consciousness, scripturally and honestly, the momentous question on whose side we are arrayed, that of the great tempter, or that of the great tempted one. Let us, treading in the footsteps of him who is in all points tempted like as we are, put on the whole armor of God that we may able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Therefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand an evil day, and having done all, to stand. CHAPTER 2 CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN TEMPTED TO DISTRUST DIVINE PROVENANCE MATTHEW 4 VERSES 2-4 AND WHEN HE HAD FASTED FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS He was afterward and hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If you be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Such was the first temptation of our Lord, and the intelligent reader will not fail to trace a striking analogy with the temptation presented to our first parents, both temptations having to do with appetite, both springing from the same source, and both involving an indictment of God, the one impeaching the divine veracity, the other the divine goodness. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof and did eat. And so listening to the declaration of the serpent, you shall not surely die. And yielding to the temptation, she ate of the fruit and brought death into our world, and all are woe. And thus in both cases, that of the first and that of the second Adam the temptation took to form out of an appeal to an appetite. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was afterward in hunger. Satan, with an intelligence and cunning peculiarly his own, knows how to shape his assault to the time and circumstance of the assailed. In no instance were his knowledge and subtlety more conspicuous than now, and in no instance was his shaft leveled at so illustrious a mark. It was as the physical condition of our Lord that Satan now took advantage. Forty days and forty nights abstinence from food, while the fact on the one hand demonstrated his deity, on the other it confirmed his humanity, must have produced an effect upon his bodily frame intensely exhausting. How natural, yet how artful, does Satan, a villain himself at this peculiarly trying position of Christ, should select from his quiver an arrow so singularly appropriate and so precisely aimed. And in this particular, we trace a close parallel of the Christian's temptation to Christ. In both instances, the enemy adroitly adapts his temptation to the individual circumstances of his victim. Seasoned upon our physical, mental, and spiritual condition, the infirmity of the body, the depression of the mind, and the spiritual phases of the soul, he selects the most fitting shaft. And with the accuracy of an eye that never misses, hits, the very center of its mark, the appeal of Satan, and as we've remarked, was to the physical feeling of hunger the most natural and powerful of all the animal conditions of our nature. It has exerted and vindicated its all-potent and stern authority in instances where intellect, the most commanding, and genius, the most brilliant, and heroism, the most lion-hearted, and even piety, the most fervent, have acknowledged its supremacy and kissed its scepter. And now came the battle. veiling himself of this physical infirmity, the painful, gnawing cravings of nature, the subtle foe thus approaches with his battery. When the tempter came to him, he said, If you be the son of God, command that these stones become bread. How suitable and subtle this form of temptation! His first step is to place in a questionable light the divine sonship of our Lord, if, You be the Son of God." He does not, and he dare not deny it. But investing the fact with a thin, transparent veil of reality, he would feign throw upon our Lord a proof of his divine Messiahship. For well, and disparately, did the wily demon know that Christ was the Son of God. Listen, my reader, to the reluctant yet honest confession. The unclean spirit cried out, saying, What have we to do with you, thou Jesus of Nazareth? I know you, who you are, the Holy One of God. And devils, demons, came out of many crying out and saying, You are Christ, the Son of God. Saying to lights in a shining mark, The loftier the position and the holier the employment, The greater is his malignity, and the more artful in persevering his assault. Or wherever before or since his barbed arrows hurled, As such a being as Christ. Such is the form in which he often molds his temptation of the Christian. He will set you doubting your sonship and questioning your saintship, and then set you upon a line of unscriptural, unquestionable proof which will but give countenance to his charge. It involved the fact of your conversion and a yet more impenetrable mystery. An important truth confronts us here, namely, that the devils never absolutely denied but invariably acknowledged the deity of our Lord. It was left for man, fallen, sinful man, to do what demons never attempted. to pluck the diadem of divinity from his brow, and trail it in the dust. And now, Mark, the subtle form of the temptation, if you be the Son of God, or is the original what sustained the rendering, seeing that you are the Son of God, Commanded these stones be made bread. How natural and plausible the invitation. Jesus was enduring the torturing pangs of hunger. How natural and how easy to approve his divinity by thus supplying the pressing needs of his humanity. That he could, by a single volition, have converted the stones into bread, Satan himself did not doubt. But would it have been morally right? Would he not thus have brought his miraculous power into collision with divine providence? Most assuredly, He would have performed a miracle at the expense of his father's glory. And how does our Lord quench his flaming dart of Satan? With what weapons does he foil his subtle foe? It is with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. The meaning of these words is obvious. Our Lord, as man, lived as much a life of faith on the Father as we do. We too much overlook this fact. He could not in all points have been tempted like as we are had this not been so. Oh, I love to trace this life of faith which my Lord and Savior lived, and when I am tempted and tried, when the crews of oil and a barrel of meal are well nigh exhausted, oh, it is blessed to recall the moment when He who bore my sins and His own body on the tree was unhungered and thirsted, and His man, poor, needy, and often dependent upon the bounty of others, For the holy women ministered unto him of their substance. He trusted in the providence and promise of his God. It was the taunt of his murderers when writhing in agony upon the cross. He trusted in God. Let him deliver him now if he will have him. Little thought they to what a blessed fact in our Lord's history they were unwittingly testifying to faith of Christ in his Father. To this particular assault of Satan, the Christian is constantly exposed. We have remarked upon Satan's wisdom and sagacity in molding his temptations to the circumstances of the tempted. And nothing perhaps is this more apparent than in a villain himself of times of difficulty and need to inject distrust of the divine power and goodness. But to Christian and temporal embarrassment, he will suggest a worldly mode of relief, comprising the simplicity of his faith and dishonoring the faithfulness of his Lord. command these stones that they be made bread. To a man of deep and pressing poverty, a true Christian or a worldling, he will insinuate some scheme of obtaining money of doubtful expediency, the gambling-table, the turf, the stock-exchange, or some other speculative mode equally dishonest and dishonourable, so tempting the bait and so skilful the angling. It's effectually to attract and fatally to ensnare the soul not conversant with or suspicious of its devices. It is but the old policy a thousand times over. Command these stones that they be made bread. Oh, let us resist the devil that he may flee from us. But, beloved, has your Heavenly Father ever given you reason to distrust His providence, to doubt His love? You have often felt the pressure of need, it may be, the gnawings of hunger, the weight of trouble, has he not as often appeared for your relief? The temptation, perhaps, has been set to you upon debating the fact of your divine sonship, and consequently to distrust your divine father. And thus, doubting your filial relation to God, in calling in question the reality of your conversion to Christ, you have equally doubted God's paternal care of you, Satan, well knowing that he has shorn the locks of your strength. has lessened your moral power and weakened the only and all-powerful motive to a loving, childlike reliance upon the providential care of your Heavenly Father, thus setting you upon a vain, God-dishonoring task of satisfying the gnawings of hunger by converting stones to bread. But how are you to resist a temptation and foil the tempter with a weapon wielded by your Lord? the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. It is an interesting fact that the only offensive part of the Christian armor is the Sword of the Spirit. All other parts of the panoply are defensive. With this we are to oppose, and with this we vanquish our foe. Faith, grasping the weapon, it is written, renders the soul invulnerable to the most flaming darts, and the wickest combatant invincible to the most subtle foe. We have nothing to lean upon but the naked word of God, nor do we need more. Our blessed Lord summoned no angels to His rescue, neither did He draw upon the infinite resources of His Godhead both He might have done. But to teach his saints in all ages and under all temptations that by the word of God alone they were to conquer, he met and repulsed every assault of Satan by the words, It is written. Are we tempted to distrust the providence of God in a time of pressing need, prompted by atheistical unbelief? Are we resorting to unscriptural and unlawful means, commanding the stones? Did they be made bread? Let us pause in our folly and sin and fix the eye upon those divine magic words. It is written, dwell upon them for a moment. Are you in trouble? It is written, call upon me in a day of trouble and I will deliver you. Are you in want? It is written, My God shall supply all your need according to His riches and glory by Christ Jesus. Are we cast down with overwhelming care? It is written, Be careful for nothing, but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make known your request unto God. Are you painfully conscious of the power of indwelling sin? It is written, Sin shall not have dominion over you. Are you assailed by the ungodly world? It is written, In this world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world, measuring the faithfulness of God by the inconstancy of man. Are you tempted to believe that the divine faithfulness and power and love of God will finally fail you? It is written, let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have. For you said, I will never leave you nor forsake you so that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Are your sins many? And is scarlet, your sense of guilt, heavier than you can bear? It is written, the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. In a word, are you in pressing need? Wanting bread? Pinched with hunger? It is written, he shall dwell on high. His place of defense shall be the munitions of rock. Bread shall be given him. His water shall be sure. Enough. It is written, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away, but, O infinitely beyond the wants of the body, are the needs of the soul. It is written, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God does man live. This is the bread by which we really live, Christ Jesus, the bread of life. I am the bread of life. O you who are striving and toiling for the bread that perishes, remember the words of God. Man does not live by bread alone. This is not your life. This is not your true bread. The body will resolve itself into its original element, in earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. will be its final condition, but the soul, immortal as its sire, will live on through the endless cycles of eternity. For this, our present and future state, God has provided by the gift of his beloved Son the bread that comes down from heaven. which gives life to the world. By this bread alone you really live. The soul has needs that God only can meet hunger. That Christ alone can supply yearnings that eternity alone can compass. Oh, starve not your soul for the body. Rob not your higher, nobler, and more enduring nature to meet the appetites and demands of a nature fleeting, transient, and perishing, and which soon will perish. It is written, What will a profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? O feed not your soul on ashes. Turn from the husks of worldly wealth, carnal delight, human ambition, political place and power, and heed the wants and respond to the claims and satisfy the yearnings and aspirations of the soul destined to live in heaven or hell forever. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God does man live. End your ear to his gracious but most solemn words. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Lord, evermore give me this bread. Bread of heaven on thee I feed, for thy flesh is meat indeed. Evermore my soul be fed with his true and living bread, day by day with strength supplied through the life of him who died. Vine of heaven, thy blood supplies, This vast cup of sacrifice, Tis thy wounds my healing give, Tis thy cross I look and live, Thou my life wilt let me be, Rooted, grafted, built on thee.