Luke 4:13

And when the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him for a season.

Chaplain Branham of the U.S. Army had a favorite sermon that he liked to preach from this text, entitled "The Devil's Vacation." Satan does not assail mortals with a state of constant, invariable pressure, but varies it in order to achieve advantage through surprise.

Departed from him for a season ... These words actually mean, however, "until a season," that is, "a favorable season." Many have referred this to the hour in Gethsemane. Dummelow said:

The conflict foretold so precisely can be none other than Gethsemane. "This is your hour and the power of darkness," Jesus said at that very time (Luke 22:52); and a few moments before, he had said, "The prince of this world cometh" (John 14:30).[13]

This does not mean, of course, that Christ was free of temptation except for the two crisis temptations here and in Gethsemane. Temptation came again when the multitude tried to crown him king by force, and upon many other occasions. Nothing in the New Testament would limit the temptation of Christ to the events here and in Gethsemane. He was tempted "in all points" (Hebrews 4:15). Spence said that the words rendered "every temptation" would have been more accurately rendered "every kind of temptation."[14] Nevertheless, the event recorded here by Luke was the decisive battle between Christ and Satan. These three temptations in their basic appeal to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16), repeated the pattern of the temptation of the first Adam, and are, in essence, the sum of all temptations. By his magnificent triumph over Satan in this confrontation, Jesus made certain the final victory. When all the keys of a piano have been struck, the total capacity of the instrument is revealed; and when every note in the chromatic scale has been sounded, its total content is presented; and, in the same manner, when Satan tested Jesus in the three basic areas of temptation, his true character was fully revealed, with no necessity whatever for every conceivable instance of temptation to have been confronted by him. In testing a piano, there is no need to play every conceivable melody upon it; just strike all the keys; and, here, Satan struck all the keys of temptation.

[13] J. R. Dummelow, Commentary on the Holy Bible (New York: Macmillan Company, 1937) p. 745.

[14] H. D. M. Spence, The Pulpit Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), Vol. 16, Luke, p. 88.