The Temptation of Jesus: Three Offers and Three Refusals

Jesus comes from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. John protests: he should be baptized by Jesus, not the other way around. Jesus answers: Let it be so now, for it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. John consents. Jesus comes up from the water, the heavens open, the Spirit of God descends like a dove, and a voice from heaven says: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

Immediately the Spirit drives him into the wilderness. Forty days — a number that resonates with Moses' forty days on Sinai, Israel's forty years in the wilderness — and at the end of them he is hungry. The tempter comes.

The first test attacks the simplest need: If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Jesus answers with Deuteronomy: It is written: a person does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. The hunger is real; the refusal to use divine power for personal relief is deliberate.

The second test is spectacular: the devil takes him to the pinnacle of the Temple and quotes Psalm 91 — He will command his angels to guard you; they will lift you up — and says: if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. Let God prove his protection. Jesus answers with Deuteronomy again: It is written: you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. To demand a miraculous rescue would be to distrust; distrust would require the test; the test itself would be the failure.

The third test is honest in its ambition: the devil shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and offers them — All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me. Jesus answers a third time from Deuteronomy: Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only. The tempter leaves. Angels come and minister to him.

Each test is a shortcut to something real: bread for genuine hunger, proof for genuine faith, the kingdoms for a genuine mission. Each refusal says that the real thing cannot be obtained by the shortcut. The wilderness testing mirrors Israel's wilderness failures — and succeeds where Israel failed.