The Temptation: The Testing Of The Incarnation

In order to see just what the incarnation is, you must turn to Galatians 4:4–7, “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ,” a joint heir.

The Preparation For The Incarnation

There are four things that come out of that Scripture, which I can just mention. First, preparation for the incarnation, “When the fulness of time was come.” All through the ages, God’s purpose ran, and the climax of that purpose was the incarnation of Christ. Second, the effect of the incarnation, “God sent forth his Son.” This time in the Gospel of John, our Lord says that he came down from heaven. Christ was not a product of the age in which He lived, but from another world, He came into this world for a purpose that marks Him out as unique from all the heaven that He might lift Earth up to heaven. Third, the process of the incarnation, “Made of a woman, made under the law.” It is rather remarkable that the conflict should be raging in recent years around the virgin birth of Christ. I believe that He was born of a woman, made under the law; and when we surrender the virgin birth of Christ, we have really surrendered the incarnation. I do not see how we can contend any uniqueness in the incarnation of our Lord if we give up that teaching of the New Testament. Fourth, the purpose of the incarnation, “To redeem them that are under the law,” the single purpose—redemption.

Redemption And Adoption

In this redemption we have three couplets of thought: Redemption and adoption linked together, “To redeem them that are under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Redemption universal; adoption limited. “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world.” The sacrifice of Christ is great enough for the salvation of the whole world, sufficient for all, efficient only for those who believe. Redemption is absolutely universal; but the adoption is limited to those who accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. “To redeem them that are under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”

That word “adoption” means more than simply picking up a waif child on the street, and by a process of law bringing it into your family. I think it can be translated, “That we might receive the son experience,” born of God, product of the divine nature, the very nature of God. This redemption is that we may receive the experience of sons and daughter in the Lord.

We love to sing that hymn, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea.” I wish someone would write another one, “There’s a narrowness in God’s mercy like the narrowness of the ship on the sand.” If we commit ourselves simply to God’s mercy we are like the man who commits himself to the sea without the ship, he will never get across. If we should commit ourselves to the justice of God, it would be like the man who commits himself to the ship without the sea, he certainly could never start; but it is on the ocean of God’s mercy that the ship of His justice floats; it is by committing ourselves to God’s mercy which has satisfied His justice in Jesus Christ, that we are carried into the haven of everlasting rest. Redemption and adoption.

Possession And Expression

The second couplet of thought is possession and expression. “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” You possess the Spirit. Every child of God has the Spirit in his heart. I think there is a difference in the Spirit in us for life, and the Spirit upon us for power; but here is the possession of God Himself in the soul; and the expression of that possession is in crying, “Abba, Father.”

The Spirit of Christ within us expresses Himself in the language of the nursery, in the prattle of little children, for that word in Hebrew means about what our “papa” and you English folks’ “daddy” means on the other side. It is really a little word for the children when the children and the father and mother are together and the child is just talking out its heart, “Abba, Father.” You receive the Spirit, expressing itself in familiar intimacy, loving fellowship, the relation of the little prattling child to the loving parent. Now we are to have that Spirit.

I have been impressed beyond measure with the reverential spirit of English, and especially Scotch congregations, and I confess I felt a trifle perplexed at first when they got up and went out and did not say a word. That is what they did. Nobody said a solitary word to me or anybody else after I preached my first sermon. I thought they were all mad. I was not sure anyone would come back, but they came and they came without clatter and without visiting, and they sat there in a worshipful spirit before God, and I find when they have been worshiping the Lord and received His Word in their hearts they don’t want man’s words to come through. They want to walk quietly home. Yes, we ought to have that spirit of reverence and adoration, but the Spirit expresses itself also in the child-life, the familiarity, the closeness, the intimacy of the family circle, and while we have this reverence toward God, we may have the spirit of the Christ crying, “Abba, Father.”

Sonship And Heirship

The third couplet is sonship and heirship. “Thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” “If a son, then an heir.” So that the heirship is dependent on the sonship. The sonship is the absolutely unchangeable relation. Once a son, forever a son. You can never “unson” a son, never in the world. If you make his heirship depended on his sonship, you are committed for eternity. God makes our heirship dependent on the sonship. “If a son, then an heir through Christ,” and my heirship depends upon the fact that I have been born from above. I am a son in the family of God, and He has promised that to every son the inheritance shall come.

The Testing Of The Incarnation

That brings us to the study of the testing of the incarnation. We could read from Matthew or Luke or Mark. Perhaps we had better read in Matthew the fourth chapter and take that as the lesson. “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

“Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.”

The testing was three-fold. First, through the physical nature of Christ; second, through His spiritual nature, and third (I think we will see a distinction and a difference), through His moral nature. The first temptation held to the physical, the second to the spiritual and the third pre-eminently to the moral.

Physical Testing

Christ was hungry. There is no harm in being hungry. Hunger is a sign of health. I pity anyone who never gets hungry. He will die unless that sign of health shall return; it is only a matter of time. It was right to be hungry, and it was right to satisfy that hunger. Now Satan asks Christ to satisfy His hunger by the display of His miraculous power. He wants Christ to do right on the wrong side. He wants Christ to do right in obedience to him, to move from the circuit of His own will into the circuit of Satan’s will along the plan of the physical nature even in right doing. Moses did wrong on the right side. In defense of liberty and his own people he killed an Egyptian and hid him in the sand, and the next day, he tried to do right on the right side and he failed. He tried to settle a quarrel between two men and they remembered his act of the day before and he had no influence with them. The devil wants us to do one of the two, either do wrong on the right side or right on the wrong side, and he doesn’t care much which. If he can induce you to do wrong on the right side in defense of your liberty, your family, or your country, he will be satisfied. If he can induce you to do right on the wrong side in obedience to him, he is satisfied.

“Command that these stones be made bread.” There is a necessity, and that is the devil’s argument everywhere. That is the argument of ninety-nine percent of the saloonkeepers of Chicago today. They sell liquor because they must support their families, they must live. I am not quite so sure about that. A man need not always live in the sense of keeping his life in the body, or there would not have been any martyrs to righteousness and truth. There is something more glorious than simply preserving the physical life, and it is better for a man to die on the right side than to live on the wrong side. I would rather die and go to heaven than live and go to hell.

“Command that these stones be made bread.” Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” He can exist by bread alone, but if he lives, he must have another part of his being satisfied, “But by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Existence is not life, bear that in mind. I can imagine this stone existing a million years under certain circumstances, but it was just as dead then as now. Existence is not life. Immortality is not eternal life. Perpetuity of existence is not eternal life. “This is eternal life, that ye know God and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent.” “Man shall live by the word of God.” They can exist upon bread. They must live in the knowledge of God, and eternal life is knowing God in Christ on this side of the grave and the other side.

There is a teaching regarding immortality founded on that sophism that eternal life is simply perpetuity of existence, and therefore eternal death is ceasing to exist, and the wicked will cease to exist. That is not true. Eternal life is not perpetuity of existence. It is knowing God in Christ, and Jesus gives us a hint of this. “Man shall...live...by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Spiritual Testing

Then the appeal of His spiritual nature. The devil taketh him up to the top of the temple, the pinnacle as it is called, in the holy place, in the midst of holy associations in the holy city, and he Him to do a very holy act. “Cast thyself down, for it is written,” proving by Scriptures now that Christ ought to do this holy act in this holy place.

Did he quote it correctly? Let us see. “He shall give his angels charge concerning thee. In their hands they shall bear thee up lest haply thou dash thy foot against a stone.” Turn to the 91^st Psalm and you will find what he left out. “He shall give his angels charge over thee in all thy ways.” He shall give His angels charge over thee, not to obey sin, not to follow Satan’s way, not to do right at Satan’s command, on his side. “He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways.”

Then Christ replied, “It is written again.” The misquotations of the devil are met by God’s “agains.” The wresting of Scripture from its true meaning can be met by analogy of Scripture. We are to put God’s words together and learn from the whole of the teaching what He means. Satan’s principal treatment is to magnify the good, the fine, the holy, and wrest it out of its place. If you will turn over to 2 Corinthians 11:13–15, “Such are false apostles, deceitful workers. For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light: therefore it is no great thing if his ministers be transformed as the ministers of righteousness.”

Satan in this age is an angel of light. He wants to give light. His business is to give light, and when you see him pictured as a monster with forked tail and horns, surrounded with fire, you may know that is not his garb today. He is a gentleman and a scholar, he lives in universities and colleges and in some theological seminaries, and he works through the daily press and the religious press, and books, and pamphlets, and other publications giving light, and his great purpose is to satisfy the world with the light that excludes the light of Christ Jesus our Lord. If he can satisfy the world with scientific light without Christ, with religious light without Christ, with educational light without Christ, with civilization without Christ, he has accomplished his purpose, and he does it by counterfeiting light.

If I had a quarter here it would pass for two shillings. If I should gild it, I could pass it for five dollars gold, but it is still worth only twenty-five cents, although I may pass it for more than it is worth. Satan’s purpose is to take the truth and pass it for all it is worth. Morality is light, and that is a good thing; but his purpose is to pass over morality for salvation and our Unitarian brethren are misled into magnifying the human attributes of Jesus. I have had my heart thrilled as they preached about the humility and the purity; but just mention the cross and they are offended. They magnify the human attributes of Christ and make them take the place of the sacrifice of Christ, and thus they counterfeit the very attributes of Jesus. The purpose of Satan is to take a truth and counterfeit that truth, and by passing it off, do his work. Now you watch him, for right there he will get you nine times out of ten. Philosophy is a good thing, and he wants you to take that for your religion. Civilization is a good thing, and he wants you to take that for Christianity. Any sort of light he will give you if you will be satisfied with that light without Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.

But here the attempt of Satan was to make Christ into a spectacular being. “Throw thyself down from the pinnacle. The Father has just said ‘Thou art my beloved Son,’ now make the people see that you are divine, give them a sign. Fling yourself down in the presence of the crowd and by that act show you are the Son of God.” And there is no temptation more subtle than just that. Satan would have us seek a sign, and “a wicked and covetous generation seek after a sign.”

I have met some brethren who say “I cannot have the baptism of the Holy Spirit unless I speak with tongues. I must have a sign, a spectacular sign to astonish the people and show them how spiritual I am and what a power I have in my life, and that I have something better than anybody else has.” “Be spiritual and do it in a spectacular way. Throw yourself from some temple and make the people realize that you are the most spiritual and powerful person in the world, and when you yield to it you will strike the ground hard sooner or later.”

Moral Testing

But in this third testing of the incarnation, the appeal to the moral nature of Christ (spirituality is the relation between God and man, and the dealing on the pinnacle of the temple was really between God and Christ, and Satan would have him deal with his fellow; that is morality, the relation between ourselves and the multitude about us in the world), he takes him up to the top of the mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them in a moment of time.

Seems to be in a hurry. It won’t do to look long, and he could show it in a flash “This is mine,” and for once I think the old “father of lies” told the truth. He did own the kingdoms of the world, and he largely owns them yet. The wars by which men and women are slaughtered are in his own line, and the kingdoms of this world are founded upon cannon and gunpowder and not upon the cross of Jesus Christ, and the kingdoms that are surrendered to Satan he could turn over to Christ, for they have been given to him and he is the prince of the power of the air and the god of this world, and now he says, “Take the kingdoms without the cross,” and the great purpose of all this testing was to keep Jesus Christ from the cross, and lead Him from sacrifice to indulgence, to indulge His physical nature, His spiritual pride, and to indulge the thirst for gold.

And now Satan says, “I will give you these things. You don’t have to go via Calvary to have the earth’s kingdoms. If you will fall before me and just acknowledge me as supreme I will turn them over to you without any cross. That is the testing of Christian heresy. Is Satan leading us to receive any kingdom from him by recognizing him as supreme in that kingdom? He will turn it over to you without the cross. If he can induce you to seek success or greatness along the line of physical indulgence or spiritual pride, he will do it; but the standard of greatness given us by Jesus is “If anyone would be great among you, let him become the servant of all.” “Except a grain of wheat fall unto the ground and die it abideth alone.” The Christly method of conquest is by way of the cross. Satan’s method is by way of earthly power, sensual indulgence, the putting of success above the spiritual life.

The Spirit Drives

“After all this an angel came and ministered to him.” After you have defeated Satan then the angels. Mark tells us he was in the midst of the wild beasts and angels—the beasts doubtless just as friendly as the angels—He, master of them all. Read that with what precedes, and in Mark you have what is to me one of the most remarkable statements. “The Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.” Driveth Him where the beasts are and where Jesus is to meet Satan, and He knows it and every fiber of His being revolts against the contact with the infernal being. “Drives.” Read the verse preceding and we have the nature of the driving. “The Spirit of God descended like a dove and lighted upon him,” and the Spirit driving him like a dove, but driving by the gentle influence, not of power, but of the dove-like spirit.

The leading of the Spirit is God’s light, the leading of the Spirit with the gentleness of the dove is God’s driving. That is why He drove Moses, everything in him rebelling against taking such responsibility; but He drove him. That is the way he drove William Carey from his cobbler’s stool into the regions of darkness beyond. It was the driving of the Spirit. Have you known what it is in your life to be driven of the Spirit to the place of testing? I think you have. I cannot explain why I am in London except on that ground. I hardly know why it is or how, but somehow the Spirit of God seems to have driven me by the gentle voice of the Spirit and I couldn’t help listening; and when you are driven by the Spirit, you will find when you get to the place of diving, then the battle is fiercest, but the victory is certain and all the wild beasts will be at your feet in subjection, and the Spirit will be there, at whose gentle touch you are healed.

The Spirit Empowers

Then when He returned it was in the power of the Spirit. When He came back from the wilderness, He had stood the physical test and the spiritual test and the moral test, and the standing of these tests carried with it the power of the Spirit.

Out in North Carolina a few days ago, I went to the greatest granite quarry in the world. The City Hall in New York City has great boulders which were taken from that Quarry. They were making capitals for a great insurance building in Milwaukee, those capitals twelve feet in diameter, massive granite. There was a hill there, forty acres of sold granite. Mr. Woodruff, the superintendent of the works went with me to show me how the work was done. He said, “We can lift as high as we want two acres of solid granite six feet thick, eight or ten feet square, lift it just as we wish.”

“How in the world do you do it? Granite ten feet square and six feet thick is a heavy thing; but two solid acres of granite lifted and moved!”

“Well,” he says, “I will tell you how we do it—by compressed air. We drill down and put a blast of powder down in the drills and break open a little fissure, and then with our machinery we supply the compressed air.”

What do you mean, this stuff I am moving my hands in, this gentle thing we call air, and you put that soft gentle stuff underneath that solid granite, two acres, six feet thick, and lift it just as you please?”

“That’s what we do,” he said.

I got a lesson that I would like to pass on to you. The Holy Spirit is like the breath from heaven, moves with the gentleness of a dove, but when you get linked with God, it is His gentle power that can lift. It is His gentle power that can bring down anything that opposes, it is His gentle power that can fill your life and make you successful where you would have certain failure.

Then he took me around where those great pieces of granite were being chiseled. Lifted by compressed air, when they were cut up into pieces they were put into a pipe of compressed air, and with an instrument worked by compressed air, the fine traceries, the beautiful flowers cut on them, were all done under the guidance of workmen through compressed air.

Then I said, “Oh God, I want not only to be lifted by the gentle power of thy Spirit; but I want that you shall just trace my character and mold and shape it anew by the gentleness of the Spirit, until it shall be like the character of Jesus Christ Himself.” I went out of that granite quarry with the vision of gentleness, of the invisible and the infinite taking hold of the impossible and bringing it to pass. “Let me have strength for the work that lies ahead; let me learn the lesson of Christ under the dove-like driving of the Spirit.” You can meet the devil and overcome him. If you will yield to the Spirit in all things, there is no such thing as failure.