SATAN IS
EVICTED
Now notice the rejection of the enemy. For the first time the Master spoke to
Satan in the language of His own authority. That authority had been
created by the victories He had won in the previous attacks. He had in His
manhood proved stronger than the strong man armed, mightier than the terrible
foe of humanity, and in that manifested strength He now addressed him, "Get thee hence, Satan." (Matt 4:10) This was no longer a
challenge. IT WAS A COMMAND. All the effort and power of evil failed to
encompass His capitulation, and now from that citadel of MIGHTY STRENGTH He
dictated terms to the enemy without the gates, and named him Satan, the slanderer, the calumniator,
the liar.
In that authoritative word, spoken
in answer to this particular temptation, there was first the refusal of the
devil's suggestion, and then a flashing revelation of the method by which He
will yet possess the kingdoms: The enemy said, “Pay homage to me, and I Will give Thee, I will obtain these the
kingdoms.” Christ virtually replied, of the world, kingdoms not by paying
homage to thee, but by your eviction. The devil, the liar from the beginning,
was attempting to rob Christ of that which he was promising Him; was aiming,
in this last desperate adventure of his malice, to cast God out of His own world.
Now that is blind arrogance. The Master's answer was a word of tremendous
authority, based upon the perfections of His manhood as against temptation, and
also upon the victories to be won in that death from which the enemy dared to
attempt to lure Him. From that moment in the wilderness until now, Christ has
been repeating that word, by every victory won in the soul of man as He leads
us towards being to faultlessness (Jude
24). By all the triumphs of the Cross among the nations, and by those
victories to come in the final movements of the Divine program, He is repeating
the irrevocable edict of the wilderness, "Get
thee hence, Satan."
The order thus issued is rendered
emphatic and forceful by His use of the same sword of the Spirit. Again the
flash of the sword is seen as He said, "It
is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve." (Matt 4:10) This is true for Me and all of My followers Satan. Again
He declared that He stood, in service as well as in the facts of His own being,
within the will of God. He had homage for none except Jehovah, and to Him alone
would He render service. How perfectly this word of the Master rebutted the
argument of Satan. As in each of the previous cases so here, the command quoted
had application, not to Satan, but to Himself. It was not that the Lord ordered
Satan to worship God, but that He declared, in the presence of the enemy, that
there was one all-sufficient reason for His refusal to render homage to him,
namely that the Word of God enjoined that He should worship only God. Thus for
the winning of victory in the pathway of specific service, He took His place as
Man, and declared it impossible that He, abiding in the Divine will, should
worship or serve any but God.
Notice here particularly the
linking of WORSHIP and SERVICE, and see how this applies to the temptation. In
the mind of Jesus it is evident that WORSHIP and SERVICE are closely
identified, indeed, are two aspects of the same attitude. To WORSHIP is
always to SERVE. To pay HOMAGE is ever to recognize an obligation. The enemy
said nothing in his temptation about SERVICE. He asked for WORSHIP only.
Christ's answer reveals the fact that to WORSHIP him would be to SERVE him. (Rom 12:1-2) This the enemy in his
terrible intricacy did not declare. He had asked for WORSHIP, promising that
the kingdoms should then belong to Christ, Christ's reply declared that promise to be a lie,
in that the act of WORSHIP would issue in the fact of SERVICE, so that the
supreme authority would remain that of Satan. It was the devil's deliberate
attempt to deceive the last Adam as he had deceived the first, and so to prevent the creation
of the new race, as he had ensured the ruin of the first.
His answer, moreover, revealed the
fact of His self-emptying, and yet His consciousness that self-emptying must
issue in a perfect crowning. Not for Himself did He come to win the kingdoms, but for His
Father, and yet, it pleased the Father that in Him should all the
fullness, dwell, (Col 1:19) and for
a period unmeasured by human calculation, by the way of the Cross He would
ascend the throne, and reign over all these kingdoms. And even when in the
distant ages He finally will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, yet in His
eternal association with Him, He will possess and reign over the whole
territory of THE kingdom of God, and not Kingdom(s).
Thus the anointed King utterly
routs the enemy, and perfectly holds the citadel against this his last attack,
and how great the victory is, and upon what infinite wisdom His choice of the
Father's pathway was based! To have received the kingdoms from Satan (even
granting for the sake of argument, that which cannot be granted, that He had
ascended the throne by submission to the prince of the world) would have been
to have taken a position utterly worthless. The kingdoms, in spite of all their apparent glory and
splendor, were permeated with evil. They were the kingdom(s) of the
world, that is, of the Cosmos. The very glory of them was purely material. All
the splendor manifest was that of the enthronement of things material, at the cost of the
death of the spiritual. To Him, therefore, it was obvious that
within the splendor there lurked the shadow. The elements of destruction were
surely at work. Disintegration was evident in the fact that they were
kingdom(s). The plurality was a proof of weakness. There was conflict, and strife and
manifestation of break-up rather than unity. Until this hour that
fact remains, for those who have eyes to see. The world is still full of
kingdoms, and these are armed to the teeth. If one shall move, the rest watch
with envious eyes and all the finest skill of the world's statecraft is directed
to selfish purposes, and the prevention of the enrichment of others. The
evidence of weakness lies in the very fact that the devil showed Him
kingdom(s). God's Man of perfect vision saw this, and clearly understood. He
knew, too, that the glory was the glory of tinsel, rather than of gold. It was
passing, fading, tarnished, even as He looked upon it. The splendor was
undoubtedly great, but it was not lasting. It was that of the Cosmos only, and
that ever lacked the element of permanence. He knew the truth of what John
afterwards wrote, “The world passes away,
and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abides forever."
(1 John 2:17)
When Jesus therefore refused the offer of the devil, He
refused the imperfect thing, the perishing thing; and He was able to do it
because doing the will of God He Himself, in spite of the death before Him,
must abide forever, and through that death, and that alone, He was communicating
imperishable force to all He gathered around Himself. By the
victory of His Cross the kingdoms would be of infinite value, for being
permeated with righteousness under the government of God, they would be
unified, and no longer should be spoken of as kingdom(s). Pass for a moment to
those after-years when, His victory won and He ascended, He gave to His servant
in the lonely isle visions and words, declaring the last movements in the
mighty program. "The kingdom of the
world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ: and He shall reign
forever and ever.” Note carefully "the
kingdom." In the Authorized Version the reading was plural. In the
Revision there is a correction which is of infinite value. "The kingdom of the world," no longer the many, but the
one, “is become the kingdom,"
not many, but one, "of our Lord, and
of His Christ." And now because He has dealt with, and cast out the
element of evil, disintegration is impossible. "He shall reign forever and ever." (Rev 11:15) Be careful which version of the Bible you study.
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