Forty days and nights of fasting had been spent by our Saviour in the lonely wilderness, and “he was afterward an hungered.” Then the tempter came unto him, visibly, but in disguise, probably as “an angel of light” (2 Cor. xi. 14). He appears to have had a twofold object in this attempt. First, Satan desired to ascertain whether Jesus was really the Son of God; and, secondly, in case he were, he meditated to raise up a rock in his course, upon which the precious work of redemption should be wrecked for ever.
It is quite probable, as others have thought likewise, that the tempter was yet in doubt whether this was the very person of the Messiah. Jesus, who was called “the carpenter’s son,” had lived on earth thirty years in great obscurity, probably working at the industrious occupation of his reputed father; thus irreproachably, and “in the sweat of his face,” earning his daily bread; during all which time, we are not told that he did or said any thing beyond what other children of men might have done and said; except what is recorded of him with respect to his visit to the temple, when he was twelve years old. “His” general “kinsfolk and acquaintance” probably had long begun to think of him as no more than an amiable man; and it is possible that even Mary and Joseph had considerably lowered their expectations concerning him, as all the miraculous circumstances of his life had long ago ceased; and the voices from heaven been discontinued. God veiled the peculiar glory of his Son in such a manner, that even the keen eyes of Satan might be unable to discern it in the plain “carpenter, the son of Mary” (Mark vi. 3). This great adversary, however, did not entirely overlook him. And though, among men, no one appeared any longer to imagine that the humble labourer at Joseph’s business could be God’s Messiah, yet Satan himself was wise enough not to lay too much stress upon a poor and humble exterior. He could think it possible, that this “carpenter” in all his obscurity might nevertheless be the Lord of glory. He would see nothing inconsistent or absurd in the Redeemer’s having to commence his great work in such
poverty and lowliness; and many a strange event and circumstance, which he had observed in his history from its commencement, would intimate to him too plainly that Jesus of Nazareth could be no other than the Son of God. Still however, he only conjectured this verity; he had not yet that clear conviction and assurance of it, which a fallen archangel would require; therefore he desired to obtain full conviction and certainty, that he might take his measures accordingly. Had he at present actually discerned him as the Messiah, much of his subsequent conduct towards him, would, as we shall hereafter see, be inexplicable. His first and immediate object therefore, was to ascertain this. Very prudently did the crafty spirit so preconcert his temptations, that if Jesus were really the Messiah, his work of redemption might meet, at the outset, with a shock by which it should be for ever frustrated. The ultimate object of the prince of darkness was by an adroit manoeuvre to divert the Saviour from his mediatorial career, and thus to confirm his own infernal dominion over mankind. He therefore presents himself to Jesus, as a well-wishing and kind-hearted friend. He would have it appear that he desired nothing so much as to see the great work of redemption prospered and achieved; only he professes to suggest a shorter method of accomplishing the glorious design; and he plans all with the very craft and methodical subtlety that might be expected from a being, who with the strongest natural power of intellect, had sunk into the deepest abysses of wickedness and malignity.
(To be continued.)