All the Kingdoms of the World

Welcome to Friday’s edition of Things Unseen. Today, we’re bringing to an end this week’s series of reflections on the wilderness temptations of our Lord Jesus. We’ve noticed that they’re arranged in a different order in Luke’s gospel from the order in Matthew’s gospel, and we’ve reflected on the temptation to turn stone into bread and to leap down from the temple. These are the first and the last ones in Luke’s gospel. The middle one—Satan’s bargain—it’s the climactic one in Matthew’s gospel. If Jesus will just bow down and worship Satan just once, then He can have all the kingdoms of this world.

First of all, let me try and explain Matthew’s order. One of the themes that we find at the beginning and at the end of his gospel is that while Jesus came from among the Jews, He came not just to be the Savior of the Jews, but of people of every nation. So, at the beginning of the gospel, wise men come from the east to worship him, and at the end, His disciples are sent into the world with the good news about Jesus. So, you can see, it would be natural for Matthew to climax his description with a temptation that concerned all the nations or all the kingdoms of this world.

But there’s something else here, and I think the best way to get into it is by asking this question: Why was this really a temptation? I ask that question for a fairly obvious reason. If this were you, would it be such a great temptation? I suspect many of us would think the whole thing was ridiculous. Who did Satan think he was, offering Jesus the kingdoms of this world? He doesn’t have any right to do that, does he? But you see, what Jesus understood was that this is exactly what was lost by the fall.

Adam and Eve were created to have dominion, to extend the kingdom of God to the ends of the earth. But Satan had usurped that dominion. He became the prince of this world. And that’s the reason I think, in Matthew’s gospel, this is the climactic temptation. All the kingdoms of the world are on offer. Satan is prepared to part with them if Jesus will just worship him once. And apparently, he did have the ability to make that offer.

And what really made that temptation, a very real temptation—I think this is why Matthew sees this as the climactic temptation—is that it’s exactly this that Jesus has come into the world to regain. Satan knows exactly why this temptation might find some purchase in Jesus. He’s the second man. He’s the last Adam. He’s come to regain what Adam lost, to restore what might have been, to gain dominion over the earth, and to purchase people for God from every tongue and tribe and people and nation. And in a sense, Satan is offering Jesus the very thing that God sent Him into the world to regain, and he’s offering it to Him without the pain of the coming years and the terrible climax in His cruel death on the cross.

And there’s even more here, I think. It looks as though Satan is prepared to give up his own hard-won dominion if he can only get his own back on God by diverting Jesus from God’s will. That’s why our Lord’s response here is so important. Where Adam failed, He succeeded. Where Adam and Eve listened to the serpent and disobeyed God, Jesus listened to the voice of God and obeyed Him in our place.

I said at the beginning of the week that when we read the temptation narrative, we shouldn’t in the first instance be asking, “How does this help me to overcome temptation?” because the passage is about Him, who He is, what He came to do, and what He has done. It’s not about us. But perhaps we should end the week on this note. Here’s how Jesus resisted temptation, and here’s what will enable us to resist temptation too: trusting in the One who has overcome Satan and learning to say, “I will worship the Lord my God, and Him only shall I serve,” because Satan cannot withstand the soul that is thus resolutely committed to the Lord Jesus and has experienced His salvation. I hope you have that resolution, and I hope you’ve experienced His amazing salvation. Hallelujah, indeed, what a Savior.