What Is the Meaning of Jesus’s Temptation in the Wilderness?

The baptism and subsequent temptation of Jesus not only stand at the outset of Jesus’s public ministry, but as a pair of events they also seem to set the terms for it. In his baptism, Jesus is anointed for his mission, even as his subsequent temptation in the wilderness seeks to draw him away from it. Together, these events help us to understand all that follows, revealing Jesus’s relationship to the Father and the devil’s place as his primary antagonist.

The Synoptic Gospels record three distinct accounts of Jesus’s temptation (Matt 4:1–11; Mark 1:12–13; Luke 4:1–13). All three bear common witness to the fact that, after his baptism by John in the Jordan, Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days. Matthew and Luke note that he spent this period fasting. Towards the end of the period, he was tempted by the devil (named Satan in Mark’s account), after which he was ministered to by angels (in Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts).

But what exactly was at stake in each of these temptations, and what do they reveal about the work of Christ?

Old Testament background: the last Adam, a faithful Israel

Jesus’s time in the wilderness recalls several Old Testament events. In 1 Kings, Elijah fasted for forty days and nights in the wilderness (1 Kgs 19:8), after which he was commissioned for a series of tasks by the Lord. Elsewhere, in 1 Samuel, the great giant Goliath stood against Israel for forty days (1 Sam 17:16) before the newly anointed David crushed his head with a stone from his sling.

However, the events that provide a more prominent backdrop for the temptation of Jesus are the fall of Genesis 3 and Israel’s forty years of testing in the wilderness during the Exodus. The serpent tempted Eve in Eden and humanity fell by eating the forbidden fruit. The devil’s tempting of Jesus in the wilderness, especially the first temptation, provides a stark contrast: The last Adam proves faithful in much harsher conditions than those in which our first father fell.

After Israel refused to enter the promised land, they were condemned to wander until forty years had passed. Most members of the Exodus generation died out. A chief purpose of the wilderness was to teach Israel trust and obedience in God through trial. As God’s “firstborn son” (cf. Exod 4:22), Israel proved unfaithful. Yet through the bitter consequences of their failures, God taught them many lessons.

Toward the end of the forty years, Moses reminded the children of Israel of these lessons in a series of addresses recorded in the book of Deuteronomy. It is noteworthy that, as Jesus answers the temptations of the devil, he quotes from this teaching in Deuteronomy (Matt 4:4, 7, 10; cf. Deut 8:3; 6:13, 16).

Jesus recapitulates the story of Israel, undergoing the same tests and experiences, yet proving faithful where they had failed.

Matthew’s Gospel, in particular, presents Jesus as recapitulating the story of Israel. He undergoes the same tests and experiences yet proves faithful where they had failed. The baptism of Jesus recalls the Red Sea crossing, after which Jesus was “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matt 4:1), much as Israel had been led by the pillar of cloud and fire. The story of Jesus’s temptation echoes Israel’s wilderness experience, but with a Son who is obedient to his Father.

Matthew’s placing of the temptation on the high mountain—where Jesus is shown his inheritance of the kingdoms of the world—as the final in the sequence (but the second in Luke’s account) might also remind the reader of Deuteronomy 34. Like Moses on Mount Nebo, Jesus must die before he can enter the promise.

The Spirit’s role: distinct portrayals

The Spirit’s role is one of several differences between the Gospels’ accounts of the temptations. For instance, while each of the accounts tells us that Jesus went into the wilderness by the instigation of the Spirit, this fact is recorded in sharply contrasting ways.

In Matthew’s account, Jesus was “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matt 4:1). This wording recalls descriptions of the Exodus (e.g., Exod 13:18; Jer 2:6; Amos 2:10).

In Mark, the Spirit “drove him out into the wilderness” (Mark 1:12), the language of expulsion and exile. Considering Mark’s focus upon Jesus as the Son of God, the one anointed to be king, we might consider David fleeing from Saul’s court and being tested in the wilderness, where he faithfully resisted the temptation to avenge himself or to seize the kingdom before God’s appointed time (e.g., 1 Sam 24–26). Jesus, David’s greater son, is similarly tested.

Luke’s description contrasts with both: “And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit … was led by [or brought in by] the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1). This wording is not unlike descriptions of prophetic visionary journeys, such as that related in Ezekiel 37:1: “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley.” Luke’s account of Jesus’s baptism (Luke 3:21–23) already recalls the start of Ezekiel, where, in the thirtieth year by the river, the prophet saw the heavens opened and God descending (Ezek 1:1).

Satan’s 3 temptations

1. To turn stones into bread

Following Matthew’s ordering, the first temptation is to turn stones into bread. In the context, which mentions Jesus’s hunger, this temptation appeals to Jesus’s natural desire for food after forty days of fasting. While this would seem to be an entirely reasonable thing for Jesus to do under the circumstances, as he is being led by the Spirit in his fast, doing so would prioritize satisfying his intense physical hunger over pursuing his mission.

Jesus responds to the devil by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, where Moses reminded the Israelites of the way that God taught that obedience and dependence through their hunger and his miraculous provision of the manna. Jesus was in a similar situation, and he entrusted himself to God’s care.

2. To cast himself from the temple

The second temptation, for Jesus to cast himself down from the “wing” of the temple, is a difficult one to interpret. Some commentators understand it as the temptation to perform a dramatic sign, causing people to believe in him. Attractive as this interpretation might be, I think it more likely relates to the temple as the symbol of the realm of God’s special presence amidst his people.

The temptation was a temptation to abandon the house, and Israel with it. Quoting from Psalm 91, the devil assured Jesus that God would protect him if he did so. Had Jesus not resisted it, he could have abandoned Israel and his mission of salvation. God would have protected him, and he would have saved his own skin (much as Moses could have allowed God to destroy the children of Israel and start again with him alone in Exodus 32:10), but God’s house would have been surrendered to the devil along with the people whom he was meant to save from destruction.

God’s presence is to be known in the path of his leading. Rejecting that path in order to avoid its difficulties puts God to the test.

Deuteronomy 6:16, which Jesus quoted in response, reminded Israel of Massah, where they had questioned God’s good purpose for and presence with them. Israel had rebelled against God’s leading of them into the difficulties of the wilderness, but God’s presence is to be known in the path of his leading. Rejecting that path in order to avoid its difficulties put God to the test.

3. To receive the kingdoms of the world

Like the second, the third temptation, to receive all the kingdoms of the world by submitting to the devil, offered Jesus an alternative to the cross. Instead of the way of the cross, Jesus could simply bow to the devil, receiving rule without suffering, gaining the good end of the kingdom through satanic means. We could compare this to David’s temptation to gain the kingdom by assassinating Saul in 1 Samuel 24 and 26: While he was to receive the kingdom, he had faithfully to endure suffering to do so.

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Jesus’s rejection in Nazareth: the temptation’s sequel

Luke’s account of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is followed by his rejection in Nazareth. It is illuminating to read it alongside Luke’s ordering of the temptations (where Matthew’s second and third temptations are reversed in their ordering), as there are parallels with each.

After Jesus declares the words of Isaiah 61:1–2 from the scroll, the people marveled “at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth” (Luke 4:22). When Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 in response to his first temptation in Luke’s account, the second half of the verse (“but … by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord”) was missing, but the description of the people’s response recalls it.

As Jesus declares his mission from the words of the scroll, he is showing what it means for him to live by the word of God.¹ Jesus’s food is to do the will of God, to perform the mission he is given (John 4:31–34). Like Ezekiel, Jesus has “eaten” the scroll. The words of Isaiah 61:1–2 are not mere lifeless words on a text but words that come forth from his very self.

Luke’s second temptation, to bow to the devil in order to receive the kingdoms of the world, is mirrored in the temptation the people of Nazareth would present: to serve them and the interests of his hometown over God. The Nazareth episode ended with the people trying to cast Jesus down from a cliff on the edge of their town, once again presenting him with the temptation to abandon the people he had come to save.

Luke’s account of the temptation concludes by telling the reader that Satan “departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). It seems reasonable to connect this to the passion narrative. In Gethsemane, Jesus is once again tempted to live by something other than the Word of God. He could have refused to drink the cup and avoided his suffering, yet he faithfully drinks it (Luke 22:42). He could have sought the rule of the kingdoms of the world through fleshly or satanic means, striking those who came to arrest him with the sword (Luke 22:49–53). He faced the third temptation again when, on the cross, he was mocked and told to come down and save himself (Luke 23:35–39). He could have done so, but in the process would have abandoned us.

What do we learn?

Each of the things held out to Jesus in his temptation were good things—satisfaction for his hunger, God’s protection, and the inheritance of the kingdoms of the world—but Jesus refused to seize them, as Adam had seized the forbidden fruit, outside of God’s will. Unlike our first father, he committed himself as a righteous Son to the path of obedience, firmly setting in its opening episode the course that his entire public ministry would follow.

Jesus’s three temptations are guises of the temptations of the flesh (hunger), the world (to save ourselves from the pain, persecution, and rejection that come in the path of faithfulness), and the devil (to gain power by serving something or someone other than God).

We all face temptations from these same sources, and our Savior’s example in resisting them can assure us that, by his Spirit, we can resist temptation, too. He can sympathize with our weaknesses—having encountered them in a far more pronounced form than we ever could—yet also enable us to overcome them (Heb 4:15–16; 1 Cor 10:13).

In Jesus’s responses to his temptations, he demonstrated the importance of knowledge of God’s Word as a sword with which to repel Satan’s accusations and attacks. Those who live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord have the resources they need to answer the devil’s lies and distortions.

In resisting the devil, we do not follow uncharted paths. We walk in the way of Jesus, who, as the Angel of the Lord went before Israel, can similarly lead us into—and through—our personal wildernesses of testing, and finally to enjoyment of the glorious promises that are laid up for us beyond them.

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