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Ecce Deus: Essays on The Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ — Chapter V: The Inauguration, The Diabolic Phase

“This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America. Within the U.S., you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.” — books.google.com

BY JOSEPH PARKER

There was another dispensation to pass through, the dispensation of the devil. Human history would not have been what it was but for the diabolic element; it was impossible, consequently, for Jesus Christ to enter upon his work without a very demonstrative antagonism at the very beginning. With infinite propriety does the temptation follow immediately upon the Baptism. The devil had been at work before, in persecution by means of Herod, obliquely, so as to suit the less pronounced periods of the new life; but as soon as the Baptism had brought Christ the seal from heaven, and proclaimed his true relation to God and man, a more formal and critical contest became a necessity. Christ could not have passed to his work with a merely indirect recognition of the devil’s existence; the recognition must be full, emphatic, solemn. Any man who proposed to himself the fabrication of the story of the wilderness, entered upon a most perilous task. It must be difficult for human genius to contrive a consistent devil, or to maintain in dialogue the conscious power of God. On the other hand, who could historically write the account of the temptation? No one was present with pen and ink. No one overheard the interlocution. How then does it find a place in history? It must have been outlined by Christ himself in conversation with his disciples. Many a time the conversation would turn upon the devil and his kingdom; for the Christian monarchy was set up to put the diabolic monarchy down. When the conversation so turned, nothing would be more natural than that Christ should relate his experience in the wilderness, and found upon it many of his most practical directions. The account is obviously fragmentary, and in one or two points must be read figuratively, not literally. Temptations cannot be written. The process is not conducted with all the precision of a Socratic dialogue. The heart can give but a meager account of its spiritual conflicts; its wounds cannot be translated; its triumphs are too subtle for words. At the same time all Christian hearts have, according to their capacity and susceptibility, gone through the very course of temptation given in the New Testament narrative. All such hearts have been tempted to make bread in an illegitimate and forbidden manner; have been tempted to risk their lives and their destinations presumptuously; and also tempted to offer the homage of the soul as the price of secular aggrandizement. Upon such points as those the whole world has become a wilderness of temptation or a wilderness of discipline. Today the great strife of the world is proceeding upon these very issues—Bread, Desperation, Sovereignty. Man has been victimized by the sophism that it is necessary for him to live, and therefore necessary that he should make bread, either legitimately or dishonestly; but Christ alone broke through this sophism by showing from what the true life of man is derived, that there is something deeper than the sensations of the body, which cannot be a guest at men’s tables, but must feed on the very truth of God. Man has been also tempted to risks that are unlawful, especially on the pretense that he was but acting up to his faith; forgetting that there is a limit to human liberty and that a narrow boundary separates trust and presumption. Man has further been tempted to bid for great dominion, and in some cases under the glare of the delusion he has bent his knee before the deceiver. So man himself has passed through the series of temptations recorded in connection with the name of Christ, and can understand what is meant by Christ having been “tempted in all points like unto his brethren,” showing that Christ took up the very temptations which had been plaguing the world for thousands of years, and did not introduce a new and unfamiliar class of temptations which had never troubled the life of the world, and which, even when overcome, left the common temptations of society untouched. This view does two things: first, it shows the barrenness and utter poverty of the devil’s resources; stripped of all that is accidental, merely decorative or diplomatic, they really consist of one thing, namely, the exaggeration and idolatry of self: and second, this view brings Jesus Christ into very close and tender sympathy with every tempted man. They stand on the same line, they bear the same tremendous shocks; they war with the same weapons. Did Christ then merely suffer in the wilderness as any other man has done? Suffering is a question of nature. The educated man suffers more than the uneducated man; the poet probably suffers more than the mathematician; the commanding officer suffers more in defeat than the common soldier. The more life, the more suffering; the billows of sorrow being in proportion to the volume of our manhood. Now Jesus Christ was not merely a man, he was Man; and by the very compass of his manhood he suffered more than any mortal man can endure. The storm may pass as fiercely over the shallow lake as over the Atlantic, but by its very volume the latter is more terribly shaken. No other man had come with Christ’s ideas; in no other man was the element of self so entirely abnegated; no other man had offered such opposition to diabolic rule: all those circumstances combine to render Christ’s temptation unique, yet not one of them puts Christ so far away as to prevent us finding in his temptation unfailing solace and strength.

The temptation of the Beloved Son is important as an historic fact, but infinitely more important as a doctrine giving hope to men who are tempted by the devil to some degree of the same enormities. Could Christ have been overthrown? Most certainly; otherwise his temptation has no message to man, except one of despair. Whatever is less than infinite is temptable and peccable (capable of sinning); Christ’s humanity was less than infinite, therefore his humanity might have been overthrown. Sympathy can proceed only from community of situation. To say that Christ could not have been successfully tempted, and that the result of his temptation should comfort men, is equal to saying that, because no man can blow out the sun, therefore no man can blow out a candle. The record of the temptation is an act of cruelty, if it have no bearing on human strife; but an analysis of the temptation shows that the methods of assault are fundamentally the same, and that every answer is available for every tempted man.

When, however, is it affirmed that Christ could have been successfully tempted, the words require to be carefully considered. The possibility relates, of course, entirely to the human side of his nature. So far as the weakness of the flesh was concerned, Christ was open to all the results of diabolic seduction; but there was in him that spirit of perfect trust in God, which rendered the fiercest assaults of the enemy simply futile. He did not come upon the tempter as Eve did: she was necessarily inexperienced, she could not foresee the result of disobedience; Christ had the history of the world as a living illustration of the course of diabolic policy immediately before him, so that he could give the lie to every diabolic suggestion.

A common illustration will simplify the idea that the spirit of perfect trust which was in Christ, taken in connection with the results of sin which abound everywhere, rendered temptation utterly futile. Take the most respected man of a given neighborhood, a man whose honor and integrity are known to be above suspicion; and it may be affirmed of that man that it is impossible to persuade him to defraud his neighbor of a penny. The idea of his doing so would be regarded by those who knew him best as an imputation not to be tolerated for a moment. But why? The man is only human, like other men; why then this indignation at the idea of fraud? Simply because the spirit of honesty within him is too strong to succumb to such a temptation. But increase the force of the temptation; raise it from a paltry penny to ten thousand guineas, and multiply 10 by 10, and add the assurance that no human being can ever be cognizant of the fraudulent deed; and if that amount will not reach to his full moral stature, add to it according to his integrity: and thus a tremendous rival force may be set up, with which the man may find it difficult or impossible to contend. In the case of Christ, the devil persuaded this critical course, rising from the mere satisfaction of hunger to the rule of all kingdoms. Still the Messianic spirit towered far beyond the pretentious offer. The deceiver could not attain the overshadowing height; other men had been measurable and conquerable, but this man was of gigantic structure and his shield was impenetrable. While then, looking strictly to the human side of Christ, it may be affirmed that he was exposed to all the risks of temptation, it may be affirmed with equal truth, looking at his spirit, that it was impossible that Christ could fall. There is a great truth in each representation, and the combination of the two can alone give us the reality of the case. One fact will show that the temptation of Christ was designed to be a source of strength to every tempted man: all the temptations are such as might have been addressed to a merely human being—not one of them was adapted to being believed to be divine. With a Socinian creed (professing belief in God and adherence to the Christian Scriptures but denying the divinity of Christ and consequently denying the Trinity), the devil adopted a Socinian policy. He assailed the man; he aimed no weapon at the God. He regarded him, indeed, as a man of great name and bold pretention, but a man still. The first temptation has an air of benevolence about it—“It is written (so) prove the truth of the writing!” The third is an appeal to the senses—“All these I will give thee!” Thorough this course we ourselves have been taken, and it would be a poor consolation to know that there was no point of sympathy between Christ and our souls.

In further elucidation of Christ’s spirit, showing that it represented not only innocence but holiness, not a negative but an affirmative condition of soul, one remarkable circumstance should be noted. Eve and Christ returned precisely the same answer to Satanic suggestion. Eve referred to the word of God, so did Christ; Eve answered, “God hath said;” Christ answered “It is written;” yet Eve fell, and Christ stood. The strength, therefore, was not in the mere answer as containing a piece of information. Life is greater than intelligence; sympathy is more profound than obedience. The world’s first woman was necessarily inexperienced; she had no historic footprints to go by; she knew her instructions; but they were set on no background of guilt and sorrow. The world’s second Man was rich in history; he had no formal instructions, but brought with him the spirit of all caution and strength. The divine word is potential only as it represents the full consent of man’s mind, soul, heart and will. Eve gave her answer simply without doubt; Christ gave his answer with perfect faith.

The temptation was a movement towards humanity on the part of Christ. Men had lost sight of him for something like 30 years, with one exception. He was near them at his birth, with all the promise and hopefulness of morning twilight; and again he approached society when he was twelve years old; but now that he is in the wilderness he seems nearer to human hearts than before. From the baptism he went up, as it were, towards God as the “Beloved Son”; but from the temptation he comes earthward as the Son of man. The Jordan lies on the heavenly, the wilderness on the earthly side of Christ. There is a “river,” but there is no wilderness, in heaven.

The particular manner of the inauguration, so far as its demonstrativeness is concerned, seems to have been required by the protracted seclusion of Jesus Christ. It is not a little perplexing that one whose birth had been attended by such marked, such unparalleled circumstances, would have been allowed by his contemporaries to subside into obscurity for a considerable succession of years. It some respects it seems impossible. Judging by the passionate urgency which marked every great movement of today, we should think that Nazareth would have been watched day and night; that all the learning and religion of the land would have adjourned thither and impatiently demanded a decision respecting the destiny of the Child. Instead of this, the most marvelous birth of the ages is allowed to fall into partial, if not into total, oblivion. The demonstration attending the birth makes this subsidence the more remarkable. The song of angels, the homage of wise men, the sensation in Jerusalem—all increase the wonder. It is to be borne in mind, however, that by many the sword of Herod was supposed to have taken away the Child of the Star and the Song. When that Child reappeared at the age of twelve years, he did so without any of those demonstrations which had accompanied the birth, simply exciting attention by his unusual sagacity. It was a long way, too, in those days from Bethlehem to Nazareth, and in that detested Galilean town the ear of corn could die before reappearing in its multiplied form. Strange, tumultuous years they must have been, overshadowed by that mysterious Son of hers, and must have sunk under the great burden of its own reflections, had not “the power of the Highest” been her continual defense and rest.

This long seclusion seemed to require an inauguration corresponding, in some degree, with the annunciation. Instead of the Star we see the Dove; instead of the Song we hear the Voice from heaven; and instead of the flight into Egypt we have the withdrawal into the wilderness. At this point, we get another glance at the unity of the double mystery of Christ. He took the dispensations as he found them; he underwent circumcision, and gave to the Lord a pair of turtle-doves and two young pigeons; long year afterward, he found God’s purpose set forth in a particular baptism, and openly identified himself with it; then he was taken into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. Why hesitate to say so plainly, and believe so literally? A man who had not been tempted would have been of no use to men. He would have been a stranger to their mental history; only able to talk at, but never to their spirit: all his words, refined and lustrous, would never have penetrated into the deep rips and wounds of human nature. There is no need to gloss the bare and startling announcement that Christ was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. It is better to put the fact thus boldly before men.The weary, aching heart cannot feed on metaphors or the cunning sleights of rhetoric; give it a Christ tempted, yet victorious, and the fact that one man has overcome the devil will sustain its own endeavors in the same daily conflict.

The scene in the wilderness illustrates the risks of solitude. The self-diabolizing spirit of man always reveals itself to the lonely contemplatist, either in moments of vacancy or under the stress of spiritual crises. Eve was tempted when she was alone; the suicide succumbs when he is pushed into the last degree of loneliness; the darkest thoughts of the conspirator becloud the mind when he has most deeply cut the social bond: when man is alone, he loses the check of comparison with others; he miscalculates his force, and deems too little of the antagonisms which that force may excite. All these are among the risks of solitude. The solitary man either degenerates into a misanthrope and the tool of the diabolizing spirit, or he enriches and strengthens his life by reverent and subduing contemplation. Whenever we can glimpse the course of the diabolic spirit, we are left in no doubt as to the value which he sets upon the individual heart. He teaches new doctrine in numbers. We calculate majorities by units; he teaches that the unit itself may be the majority; he counts by much, not many, his majorities being measured not by numbers but by force. The minority may be the majority. Caesar is more than all Caesar’s legions. When Eve was overthrown, a world was conquered. The persons whom the devil has elected to high offices in his government have been strongly individual in character and faculty; from Eve to Judas, the succession has been marked by the coolest subtlety or the intensest passion. As the devil won a world when he won Eve, he knew that he would have won it twice, and forever kept it, if he had subdued her Son.

But the risks of solitude, it should be added, are in proportion to its value. Man cannot reach his full stature in the marketplace, or in association with the excited throng. The wilderness must form the counterpart of the thoroughfare—great breadths of contemplation alternating with great breadths of service. This was Christ’s example, illustrated most vividly at one exciting point in his history: the disciples of John went and told Jesus that their master had been murdered by Herod; the intelligence seems to have shocked his spirit with a disappointment: sickened and saddened by this talk of blood, “he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart,” as if to average the murder upon the diabolic instigator, or to weep great drops of blood; yet we are told in the very next verse, that “Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion towards them, and healed their sick.” These were the hemispheres of his life—secrecy and publicity; praying in the desert, and healing in the city; weeping alone, and working in the presence of many witnesses. the desert was to Christ a holy place, after the initial battle; the sight of the old footmarks inspired his depressed heart; the echoes of the victorious quotations became as voices of promise. In the first instance, he was led up of the Spirit into the same wilderness to be comforted. So all through human life; recollection becomes inspiration, and Memory speaks to the soul like a prophet of the Lord.

The answers which Christ returned to the tempter illustrate the intensely spiritual nature of the temptation, and show how man is dependent upon an objective revelation in seasons of trial. Not one answer was returned from within; the soul looked out of itself for defense, yet gave the answers with the firm emphasis of perfect trust, as if their doctrine carried the entire conviction of the speaker. Man cannot do things simply because they are “written.” The action comes from the harmony which is established between what is felt and what is “written;” consciousness and revelation must be at one, and then the citation of written authority is not a sign of personal weakness, but a token of vital fellowship with God. If merely to say “it is written” were enough, then no man would fall; the point of failure is where the written Word and the life of the soul are not entirely at one. Men are not kept by revelation, but by the acceptance of the heart of that which is revealed. Yet objective revelation is of the highest consequence in human life. It stays the soul in special conflicts, and as men may feel stronger and safer in company than in loneliness, so the heart feels braver by the very presence of a written Word. A subjective revelation might have been the only revelation given, and might have been enough under primary conditions; but by so much as man fell from those conditions, he required books as well as a conscience. Nor does Christ’s example hinder this position; for throughout he combated the diabolic spirit as a man; nowhere did he launch the lightnings of his proper divinity in reply, but ever made the simple answer of a man who had the revelation of God. Other courses were open to Christ. He could have recalled the tempter’s own memories of heaven, the ancient sentence, the terrible deposition; the indwelling God might have shone through the human eyes and abashed the tempter by the light from which he had been expelled; yet all this side of defense is untouched, and the tempted man shelters himself behind the rampart of the written Word. Every assault is encountered upon the human side: to have met the tempter otherwise would have been to deflect from the only course possible to man, and to have divested the wilderness period of the Incarnation of all the features which endear it to probationary manhood.

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