Luke 4:1-13

D. The temptation of Jesus 4:1-13 (cf. Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13)

Luke stressed how the Spirit who had come upon Jesus at His baptism guided and empowered Him in His temptation and how Jesus, God’s approved Son, pleased His Father by His obedience. Jesus overcame the devil, who opposed God’s plans. This story is also edifying because it helps believers understand how to recognize and overcome Satan’s attacks. We do so as Jesus did by obeying God’s will as revealed in Scripture. Jesus drew His responses to Satan from Old Testament passages that relate to Israel in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 8:3; Deuteronomy 6:13; Deuteronomy 6:16). Jesus succeeded, in the wilderness no less, where Israel had failed. [Note: See R. T. France, Jesus and the Old Testament, pp. 50-53; G. H. P. Thompson, "Called - Proved - Obedient," Journal of Theological Studies NS11 (1960):1-12; and B. Gerhardsson, The Testing of God’s Son.]

Luke recorded the same three temptations as Matthew did, but he reversed the order of the second and third incidents. Apparently Luke rearranged the order to stress Jesus’ victory in Jerusalem. Luke viewed Jerusalem as the center toward which Jesus moved in this Gospel and the center from which the gospel radiated to the uttermost part of the earth in Acts (Acts 1:8). Matthew, on the other hand, concluded his account of the temptation with a reference to the kingdom, his particular interest.

Greek readers had an interest in the idea of the Son of God, explicitly present in two of the temptations. They also had an interest in miracles, which appear in one if not two of them, and Satan, who appears in all three.