Luke 4:2, commentary and pictures

Led by the Spirit after His baptism to commune with God and prepare for His mission, He spent forty days and nights in the desolate wilderness tempted of the devil and eating nothing, and when the days ended He hungered with keen, real hunger, left weak, emaciated and fainting. The conflict was personal and unbroken with Satan himself, who came disguised as an angel of light pressing Him with the fiercest temptations and staking his kingdom on the outcome. Hunger made appetite the first great test, where He stood where Adam stood to bear what Adam failed to bear, though Adam fell with every need met in Eden while He fasted in a barren wilderness with wild beasts and nothing done to ease the trial. He conquered through self-denial and firm principle, meeting every temptation with It is written and relying on earnest prayer and full submission to His Father's will. His denial of appetite broke its enslaving power and won an infinite victory as man's representative, so that fallen humanity united to His might can resist and overcome in His name.

Wilderness Setting and Fast

After His baptism at Jordan, full of the Holy Ghost, He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be alone and commune with God and to prepare by fasting and prayer for His mission and its suffering, not to seek temptation. The Spirit prepared Him for that special scene of fierce temptations, and after the Father's glory departed He faced temptation continually while preparing for His work as humanity's deliverer. Satan saw the wilderness as the best time to approach Him.

For forty days and forty nights He was tempted of the devil and ate nothing, and when the days were ended He afterward hungered with real and keenest hunger. The place was desolate, lonely, barren and repulsive, with wild beasts and everything from which human nature would shrink, and the fasting and suffering left Him weak, emaciated, pale, fainting and apparently near death. His visage was marred more than the sons of men, and the glory reflected from God's throne at His baptism when heaven opened and the Father acknowledged Him was gone. This testing was not accidental but a necessary part of the plan of salvation.

He felt hunger only after the forty days ended, because during that time He was absorbed in earnest prayer to the Father for strength and assurance of grace for His work on humanity's behalf. His soul was nourished by the truth He would share to free people from Satan's temptations, as He envisioned His ministry of healing, comfort, hope, and preaching the gospel to the poor.

His forty-day fast without food or drink differed from Moses' occasional forty-day fasts on special occasions. Moses was sustained above the human by God's enveloping glory and did not feel hunger's pangs, nor was he harassed by such a vile and powerful foe. Christ went without food while facing the devil and afterward experienced the pangs of hunger under temptation from a powerful adversary.

When the forty days ended Satan left Him for a season, and angels ministered unto Him, imparting grace and strength from God. The conflict left His human nature fainting and apparently near death from hunger and from warfare with Satan, so angels lifted His fainting head and served Him with nourishing food. His Father's blessing then rested upon Him. Though He appeared to be alone, angels were around Him and ministering during the enemy's assaults, watching with intense interest a long fast of far greater significance than darkened human senses can comprehend.

The verse belongs to the three-fold temptation of Christ in the wilderness at the beginning of His public ministry, endured on behalf of those He came to redeem. It is part of an important but neglected subject in Christian theology, carrying practical lessons on Christian temperance and revealing the great work of the Redeemer in carrying out the plan of salvation.

Tempter and His Tactics

The forty days were an unbroken, personal conflict with Satan himself, the author of sin, not a distant or general trial. He had once been an honored covering cherub, next in power to Christ, who through ambition and envy of Christ lifted himself against God, led angels in rebellion, drew sympathizers with him, was cast out after war in heaven, and determined to set up a kingdom on earth by winning man to his side. For forty days and forty nights with no human voice and no food Christ was pressed with unbroken strain, weakened by fasting and by mental suffering that made the ordeal most severe. Demons surrounded Him under deceptive pretensions as angels from heaven, pressing wily, artful sophistry against God to undermine confidence, destroy faith and trust, and keep the mind on constant strain.

Satan concealed his real character throughout, coming disguised as an angel of light and as a Heaven-sent friend. He used most seducing attractions and constant watching as if reading unuttered thoughts, seeking one clue to allure Him into controversy as with Eve and our first parents. By every means he could devise he sought to overcome the Redeemer, offering Him an easier way to gain His object than the path of trial and suffering He had entered. His fiery darts were surely aimed and never more fearful, yet they found no lodgment, and not one word could be obtained from Christ to lead him on.

He even quoted and used Scripture in the attempt to overthrow Him, presenting it so as to appear persuasive, good and trustworthy. That use could win confidence while serving deception and error, disguising temptation as good and himself as humanity's friend rather than its enemy. In this way he brought every force and artifice at his command to tempt Him and draw Him from allegiance to God. For forty days he pressed Him with manifold, fiercest and most subtle temptations, afflicting Him to rob Him of integrity as the Son of the Infinite, yet Christ repulsed him in every conflict.

The stakes were decisive, for the outcome would determine whether Satan's power over the world was broken and his kingdom brought to an end. Satan regarded success in tempting Christ as victory over the entire human race that would establish his life, kingdom and dominion. Failure would leave his cause hopeless, ending his power and glory and bringing retribution for the sins and misery he had brought upon man. He knew from prophecy that the predicted Saviour's kingdom would not come with earthly triumph, worldly honor and display, but would be established by the Prince of Heaven to embrace all the kingdoms of the world.

The temptation was adapted to His weakened, suffering condition and greatest physical need. Pale and emaciated by fasting in the desolate place, He was urged when hunger commenced to turn stone into bread as proof of His divine identity. The appeal was also to ambition, offering worldly kingdoms in exchange for worship and homage, which He refused rather than surrender integrity for earthly advantage. Such temptation may offer an apparent good as a bribe, and in daring blasphemy Satan demanded homage, bore Him to the mountain summit and the pinnacle of the temple, and urged Him to cast Himself down from the dizzy height.

Appetite Test and Adam

Hunger made appetite the point of the first great temptation, for Christ entered the very test of appetite that Adam failed to endure, standing where Adam stood to bear what Adam failed to bear and winning in humanity alone and without help the victory human beings cannot win by themselves. He met the fiercest assault of Satan on that point and overcame on behalf of the human race, proving that man may overcome, and His victory shows that appetite can be met without yielding when met as He met it with God's word. The temptation appealed to physical appetite when He had reached great weakness through fasting, a channel used to weaken mental and moral powers, showing that temptation can be fiercest when people are weak.

Unlike Adam who stood in beautiful Eden with all needs met and God's light and love on every side, Christ fasted forty days and forty nights eating nothing in a barren, desolate wilderness surrounded by wild beasts and everything repulsive to human nature. The plan of salvation removed temptation as far as possible from Adam when he was tested, but nothing was done to remove it from Christ, who met the contest at disadvantage with strength reduced until He was emaciated, felt the keenest hunger, and His visage was marred more than the sons of men. He had pledged as Son of God to be man's surety if man was overcome, stepping from His royal throne as Prince of heaven and clothing Himself in humanity to be tempted on every point on which man would be tried, standing in Adam's place as both human and divine.

The terrible fast of nearly six weeks measures and exposes the controlling power, strength and sinfulness of debased, indulged appetite over the human family since Adam yielded and all was lost. Appetite had grown powerful through the generations since Adam's sin until indulged appetite and unholy passion had grown stronger with every generation and the race was too feeble in moral power to overcome in human strength. He faced this lonely test in place of fallen humanity and succeeded where Adam had failed, showing self-denial, perseverance and firmness of principle stronger than gnawing hunger and even death, to break Satan's power and redeem the race from the disgrace of the fall. As the first parents fell through appetite, He began redemption where ruin began through self-denial, and His victory breaks appetite's power and makes human victory possible through the strength He imparts.

During the trial the weight and guilt of the world's sins pressed His soul with unutterable sorrow and anguish, with a realization of the woe deluging the world, and the glory reflected from God's throne at His baptism when heaven opened and the Father acknowledged Him was gone under that burden. His suffering was made far more severe by that guilt resting on Him as He bore sin despite being sinless, suffering on account of humanity beyond human comprehension. His anguish was not so much from the pangs of hunger as from His sense of the fearful result of indulgence of appetite and passion upon the race, knowing appetite would become man's idol, make him forget God, and stand directly in the way of salvation.

Though abundantly able and emaciated by hunger, He refused to use divine power to provide food for Himself when Satan used His hunger to urge Him to turn stone into bread as proof of divine identity. Doing so would have gone against His mission and the Father's plan, since in earthly life He used miracles for the good of others and not for His own benefit. The Father's declaration that He was His beloved Son sustained Him, so He did not need to prove His authority to Satan but answered from Scripture that life depends not on bread alone but on every word of God. He remained obedient and loyal, refusing to depart from His Father's will even to obtain food, and His example shows that appetite can be brought under control and that obedience must not yield to desire for food.

Victory Won for Humanity

Alone with none to help or comfort Him, He trod the path of temptation by Himself to wrestle with the powers of darkness, meeting the most powerful test of appetite on behalf of the race and conquering it by self-denial, perseverance and firmness of principle stronger than gnawing hunger and even death. His appearance changed under the weight of the world's sins pressing His soul with unutterable sorrow and anguish, and He became emaciated, with visage marred, feeling keenest hunger only when the forty days and forty nights of total abstinence in the barren, desolate, repulsive wilderness among wild beasts were ended. The nearly six weeks of fasting measures the strength and sinfulness of debased, indulged appetite that had grown stronger with every generation since Adam until the race was too feeble in moral power to overcome in human strength.

His humanity alone could never have endured the test, for He passed over the ground where Adam fell under a temptation a hundredfold stronger than any ever brought or to be brought upon the race. His divine power combined with humanity gained an infinite victory as man's representative, and in that character He raised humanity in the scale of moral value before God. That victory exposed the sinfulness of indulgence and showed that appetite need not rule, securing for those otherwise bound by indulgence without moral power to break its chains a chance to overcome.

The forty-day conflict was not an accidental encounter but the foundation of the plan of salvation, where anguish and suffering were endured for sinful man while Satan pressed Him with manifold temptations to rob Him of integrity as the Son of the Infinite. Humanity's salvation and destiny hung in the balance and were to be decided there, where ruin began, by whether Christ was victor on appetite and thus redeemed the disgrace of Adam's failure. If Satan had gained the victory man would have remained bound by appetite in chains of indulgence, but Christ overcame every temptation and entered human life to pass over the ground where Adam fell.

His denial of appetite broke its power and chain of bondage, breaking Satan's power and opening the way to redeem the race from the disgrace of the fall. The length and severity of the fast is the strongest evidence of the great sinfulness of debased appetite and of the controlling power it holds over the human family since all was lost when Adam yielded, yet it proves enslaved cases not irrecoverable. As Adam fell through intemperate appetite and lost blissful Eden, the children of Adam may through Him overcome appetite and through temperance in all things regain Eden, standing free from slavery to perverted appetite and passion with God's moral image restored and reconciliation made possible.

His infinite, priceless victory gives fallen man the key to overcome in His name and the strength to overcome, with strength provided in the all-powerful name of the great conqueror. That victory will benefit no one unless he also gains the victory on his own account, for all are personally exposed to the same temptations Christ overcame and all must individually overcome for themselves, though many fall where Christ overcame. Each person must fight this battle personally, for others can pray but cannot do the work, and the victory is gained for them who realize it. This is not a common warfare between two kings with no bearing on personal life, but a trial watched with intense interest by holy angels that leaves men without excuse.

Because He repulsed the fallen foe at every point and was not overcome, though Satan remains the unwearied adversary of every person to the end of time with power unweakened and tempts fallen humanity more readily, human weakness united to His enduring might can resist the strongest temptation in His all-powerful name and overcome as He overcame. In His strength people need not be overcome, for He came to help human weakness so that through the power He brings and the divine grace and strength He imparts they can overcome appetite and passion and gain victory. No one can be overcome without his own consent, for Satan may distress and cause agony but cannot control the will, force sin, contaminate or defile, and His victories make it possible for followers to conquer sin and Satan.

How Christ Resisted Temptation

Christ met every temptation with the single argument It is written, answering only with quotation of His own inspired words given through holy men of old rather than meeting logic with logic or eloquence with eloquence. Through all the great leading temptations wherewith man is beset — appetite, presumption, love of the world and desire for honor — He spoke Scripture alone, even when answering Satan's own use of Scripture with Scripture while weakened and suffering in human condition. Arguments and human reasons are of no use against Satan, but It is written puts feet on solid immovable rock, because all written in the law and in the prophets is true and carries proof in itself. His victory over the devil's strongest temptations in the wilderness demonstrates the power of God's word as the only weapon that will repulse him, and Satan's fiery darts, though surely aimed with wily artful sophistry and constant watching for unuttered thoughts as with Eve, found no lodgment and drew not one word to lead him on.

Those tempted must learn the lessons of the Word and hang them in memory's hall, so they are ready to meet Satan as He did. Spare time is to be used to commit Scripture to memory rather than reading foolish trifling stories, and temptation is to be met with the written Word and with words spoken in season to those around. This baffles the great enemy, brings strength, and perfects character for transfer to the future immortal life where there will be no danger of being overcome by a tempting devil.

When temptation pressed most fiercely He relied on God, seeking strength through earnest prayer, committing Himself to God and submitting fully to His Father's will, and through this dependence He conquered. The forty days of fasting and prayer prepared Him for His mission and the conflict ahead, for He entered the wilderness to be alone and commune with God, not to seek temptation. During that time He did not feel hunger because He was absorbed in earnest prayer to the Father for strength and assurance of grace for His work on humanity's behalf, His soul nourished by the truth He would share to free people from Satan's temptations in healing, comfort, hope and preaching to the poor. He felt hunger only after the forty days ended, when weakened and emaciated He faced continual temptation.

With will fully submitted to the Father's will He yielded not for a moment, though tempted in every way more strongly than any of His disciples have ever been tempted. When the forty days ended Satan left Him for a season and angels ministered unto Him, imparting grace and strength from God. This is the pattern for followers: buffeted by Satan for a season, if they resist him and keep the will yielded to God, those seasons will be followed by grace and strength imparted by His angels.

He remained obedient and loyal, refusing to depart from His Father's will even to obtain food, showing appetite can be brought under control and obedience must not yield to desire for food. Though He faced real hardship and hunger when the fast ended, the enemy could wound His body but could not turn His mind from that loyalty.

He had perfect confidence that the Heavenly Father would not allow Him to be tempted above the strength given to endure but would bring Him off conqueror if He patiently bore the test. He had not placed Himself in danger by His own will but God had suffered Satan to have power over Him for the time, and as representative of the race in humanity He knew an angel would be sent to relieve Him if He preserved His integrity and there was no other way. His example calls people to reject the enemy's suggestions and offers rather than accept them. Meditation and prayer preserve them and help them avoid dangerous situations that give Satan an advantage, for claiming God's promises while recklessly entering danger or disregarding prudence is presumption, not genuine faith. When temptation stirs the feelings, His example teaches to keep from speaking even in response to provocation and to look to Jesus, meeting the tempter with It is written.

Conflict Beyond Wilderness

The wilderness was the first great struggle with the tempter, in which the destiny of the human race was at stake and Christ was conqueror. Satan spent the three years of Christ's ministry preparing to return for the last fearful struggle in Gethsemane. On that Gethsemane struggle turns whether the kingdoms of the earth finally become Christ's, with Satan bound and cast out and overthrown, or the earth remains Satan's kingdom and the race remains forever in his power. The wilderness temptation also stands as parallel to Satan's later attempt to turn Him from His appointed work.
Satan's complete failure in the wilderness, where he prevailed nothing despite strongest efforts and most powerful manifold temptations, disappointed and enraged him but did not end his hope of success at some future time. He withdrew only for a season, for a little season, to try his power and artifices again during Christ's ministry. He turned from open conflict to strategy, seeking through human agents to hinder Christ's work and lead people to reject Him. He held council with his angels to blind the understanding of the Jews and fill their hearts with envy, jealousy, hatred and unbelief that Jesus is the promised Messiah and Redeemer, to make His life as bitter as possible, discourage Him in His mission, prevent faith in Him, and secure the Jews as His agents. That same unsleeping malice hunted Jesus from place to place, contested every claim put forth by the Son of God, employed men as agents to fill His life with suffering and sorrow, opposed His work by sophistry and falsehood, brought cruel accusations against One whose life was of unexampled goodness from deep-seated revenge of envy and malice, and at last prompted priests and people to reject His love and cry Crucify Him. This cruel warfare upon the world's Redeemer unmasked the character of the great deceiver before heavenly angels and the whole loyal universe, uprooting him from their affections and exciting amazement and indignation.

Having in His own person conquered the prince of the power of darkness, the arch-enemy, in the wilderness and taken ground from him, He met the same evil spirit again in different form. The same conquered enemy that tempted Him there met Him again in the possessed man in the Capernaum synagogue, in the demoniac at Capernaum, and in the men from the tombs, though assuming another form and using different devices. For Satan to lose ground there would be to give Jesus another victory. He did not flee but stood calmly, stopped their advance, and by authority met and conquered the prince of darkness again, wresting the writhing captive from Satan's grasp and setting the captives free. This later face-to-face conflict with Satan's power over the demoniac followed His forty days of temptation by the devil and conquest of Satan there. He also worked through the Jews who rejected Christ, disguising their motives with an appearance of piety and learning.

He withstood the pressure of Adam's guilt and the guilt of his descendants and came off more than conqueror over the powers of evil, and that endurance proves Him a sure foundation able to bear the burdens of those who trust in Him. No test so severe as that which the Captain of salvation endured will ever be brought to bear upon man. Satan, who had deceived heavenly angels and drawn a third part of heaven into rebellion, was vanquished at every point by the Prince of Life, with rejoicing and triumph in heaven that Christ repulsed the fallen foe and resisted every temptation upon the point of appetite, redeeming Adam's disgraceful failure by His own triumph. If Christ had been as weak in moral power as man there would now be no salvation for the race. Christ repulsed Satan in every conflict in battles fought in behalf of humanity, and those victories make it possible for people to conquer. All who seek to follow Jesus will be brought into conflict with this relentless foe, and the more nearly the Christian imitates the divine Pattern the more surely he makes himself a mark for Satan's attacks.

Though He had Himself fasted forty days in the wilderness, He cared about the hungry people and would not let them return home without food.

Call to Temperance Living

The forty days in which He ate nothing and afterward hungered teach the necessity of self-denial and temperance, beginning with what is eaten and extending to every part of life. Appetite and passion must be brought under control and held under reason, because indulgence enervates mind and body, and through His power human weakness can overcome appetite and passion and gain victory over temptation. His long fast broke the power of appetite and showed the strength of the temptation to indulge it, overcoming the temptation through which Adam fell, so that with divine help self-control can overcome temptation as Christ overcame. His denial of appetite and victory over its power provide the example of self-control.

Intemperance and selfish indulgence weaken mental and moral powers so that people cannot value eternal things, dull perception of sacred and eternal things, and erode the soul's likeness to God. Temptation through physical appetite is a channel Satan uses to weaken those powers, appealing when the body is weakened and faint with hunger, and it can be fiercest when people are weak. The anguish of the fast of nearly six weeks reveals how strong the temptation to indulge perverted appetite is and the danger of selfish indulgence. Meeting temptation as Christ did when weak makes it possible to resist.

Control of appetite is a high attainment in Christian life, tied to the promise of reigning with Him, and overcoming as He overcame leaves without victory over appetite no hope of heaven. That victory must be gained to enter the gates of the city of heaven, for not one who declares the force of appetite cannot be broken will enter. The work before believers is to overcome as Christ overcame by welcoming trial and suffering for His sake, enduring trial, toil and conflict and sharing His sufferings, in order to be exalted to the throne of the Redeemer, for unwillingness to endure and share His sufferings leaves a person unworthy of a seat upon His throne. Strength derived from Him enables that victory, for the victory cannot be obtained alone, but petitions can go up before God to a living Saviour ready and willing to assist in resisting the power of appetite, so all can overcome in His strength. Through His name and strength and merits and grace those enslaved to liquor and tobacco can break the slavery of habit and become victors, proving cases of enslaved appetite not irrecoverable because He broke the chain of bondage.

His victory in that great trial on appetite condemns appetite-driven overindulgence and exposes the sinfulness of the very pleasures men enjoy, convicting even professed Christians of sinful indulgence. It condemns socials, festivals and picnics that tempt appetite to overindulgence and amusements that lead to levity and forgetfulness of God, leaving Christ the only safe pattern to copy in self-denial in order to overcome as He overcame. Fathers are to tell this story to their children, to call those who profess to follow Christ to labor together with God in restoring moral integrity, so that each person in his own act and on his own behalf, with divine intelligence cooperating with him, can stand in his own moral integrity free from all slavery to perverted appetite and passion and have the moral image of God restored in him. His forty-day fast does not mean believers must fast forty days; its virtue is not in repeating the fast, but in His sacrifice and blood which have power to purify and refine, and in His grace which enables people to work together with God.

His wilderness conflict teaches followers by example how to resist Satan and overcome temptation, and in His name they may have complete victory. The first great temptation was to appetite, with the leading allurements of appetite, love of the world and presumption, and His resistance shows appetite can be met without yielding and strengthens resolve to remain faithful to principle. His hunger after abstaining from food for forty days and nights was real, as real as His suffering on the cross, and Satan began tempting Him as soon as this suffering commenced. Temptation is adapted to a person's circumstances and may offer an apparent good as a bribe, but victory remains possible in Christ.