1. The Identity of the Assault (1) Hugh Martin
The assault is carried on by the enemy because he knows that Christ is here, and it is the same assault prolonged. Against what does the enemy, with such persevering subtlety, specifically direct his attack?
It is our Lord’s Sonship. “If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread” (Matt 4:3). “If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down” (v 6). And if the Lord hath said unto Thee: “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession”; then it looks little like it if Thou hast not even Thy “daily bread”; for how then should “Thy kingdom come”? No; accept the “kingdoms of the world and the glory of them” from me (vv 8,9).
All the three shafts of Satan’s quiver are aimed against the Sonship. But it is not the Sonship absolutely considered that Satan assails; it is the Sonship as testified at Jordan. It is not the Sonship of Christ considered in His own person merely; it is His Sonship in His public character as representative, head and elder brother of all the sons of the adoption. It is the baptized Christ whose Sonship Satan assails, even as it is the baptized Christ to whose Sonship the Father has testified. By His baptism into union with you, the Son has laid His Sonship open as a fountain of adoption to you. And the Father’s approbation has been indicated. “Immediately the Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan” (Mark 1:12,13). Is it possible to doubt that the temptation is the counterpart to the baptism, and that in the temptation the Sonship is assaulted in the very relations and in the very light in which it is brought out in the baptism?
It is for your sake that Christ’s Sonship is assailed. It is because He has been baptized into you, sealed by the Spirit and witnessed by the Father as the Son, beloved and well-pleasing notwithstanding His union with you; you thereby are a son, well-pleasing and beloved. For this reason is the Sonship the object of attack. It is assailed because the Son shares it with you. It is the common Sonship which is assailed.
Satan is doubtless shrewd enough and subtle enough to know that the eternal Sonship, absolutely considered – as a relation simply of the eternal Word in the Godhead – is infinitely beyond his reach. His Sonship, as apart from you, he would never think of assaulting. Satan is also shrewd enough and subtle enough to know that any sonship of yours, absolutely considered, such as might be held to be involved in your relation simply as a creature to your Creator, is infinitely beneath his contempt. Such sonship of yours, as apart from Christ, he would never trouble himself to assault.
But sonship in Christ, as laid open to you; and sonship in you, as enjoyed in Christ; that he will assault. For the sonship of sinners is not now apparently so utterly beneath his contempt when grafted on the Sonship of the eternal Son. Nor is the Sonship of the eternal Son now, apparently, so utterly beyond his power, when loaded with the destiny of sinners. It is the baptism, it is the oneness, which induces Satan to assail the Sonship: if the Son is baptized into sinners, and sinners are baptized into the Son, may not the sin so peril the Sonship that a triumph may be neither, on the one hand, impossible, nor, on the other, worthless? And the battle is absolutely one, whether the Sonship is assailed in Christ or in you.
The enemy never thought of tempting Christ concerning His Sonship till Christ was baptized into you and acknowledged as a Son, well-pleasing, even though united to you. And he never thought of tempting you concerning any sonship of yours till you were baptized into Christ and acknowledged as a son, well-pleasing, because united unto Him. It is the oneness that causes the battle. And surely the battle is one.
Now mark how by reason of the baptism – Christ’s into you, yours into Him – the Sonship, alike in Him and in you, presents itself in circumstances that seem to render an assault upon it feasible to the foe. For it comes forward on the field in circumstances most disadvantageous, if not dangerous.
It cannot but be so, when Sonship is in any conjunction with sin. Immediately on such a conjunction, the Sonship is concealed, though not overthrown. Its fulness of grace and truth, its impregnable, inviolable security, its splendours of convincing evidence, its unsearchable riches of privilege, its incorruptible and undefiled inheritance that fadeth not away – all retire out of view and remain concealed. They may all abide most sure and full in the spiritual kingdom that transcends time and sense. But on the platform of temporal interests and things palpable to sense and reason, the evidence of the Sonship has vanished. And not only so; all that on this platform might seem relevant to the question gives an adverse testimony. The Son would appear to be treated as an outcast. Apparently He is disowned.
This is temptation. It is the essence – it is the great and all-embracing case – of temptation. To be truly a son of God and yet to have no evidence of it within the sphere of sense and time and reason; but everything in these categories rather contradicting your claim – this is what Satan malignantly uses against you.
Into this very position the Eternal Son was pleased to enter, when He brought His divine Person and eternal Sonship into our service and was baptized into union with us, most sinful aliens. His Sonship remained. The descending Spirit sealed it and testified with His spirit that He was the Son of God. Indeed the Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted. And “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” – a truth holding good pre-eminently of Him who is the first-born among many brethren, the Son in His own eternal right. And the Father bore witness of Him as the Son: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”.
His Sonship remained. And the Spirit sealed it. And the Father witnessed to it. But, in the region of the things that are seen and temporal, all proof of it vanished. Hence Satan’s hope. And hence the style of his assault:
(1) What! The Son of God? And no bread for Thy hungry body? Thy Father, who placed His son Adam amidst plenty and in the garden of delights, gives Thee a stone when Thou needest bread? And yet He can turn these stones into sons – sons to Abraham! Is this dealing with Thee as if Thou art a Son? But Adam was sinless then; and Thou hast cast in Thy lot with the fallen sons of fallen Adam. And Thy Sonship Thou hast perilled for them. Behold then what ruin hath happened to it. Thy Father treats Thee as an outcast now. Not in words, but in strongly-speaking deeds, in systematic dealings. He disowns Thy Sonship now.
(2) What! The Son of God? And yet despised and rejected of men? Above all, rejected by the sacred people? Can the Son of God not compel their astonishment, veneration and acceptance? Cast Thyself down from this pinnacle of the temple into the holy city. Thy Father’s angels will charge themselves with Thy safety and rejoice to see Thy glory. Shall they not be a lifeguard, a bodyguard of honour, to the Son of the King of kings? And the people shall impatiently make Thee a king.
(3) What! The Son of God? And no inheritance? No kingdom in the world? No glory? And yet the oracle said, “Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee” (Ps 2:7). And it promised Thee an inheritance for the asking: “Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession” (v 8). And behold, nowhere to lay Thy head, nor hast Thou any kingdom of any kind here, save what Thou mayest consent to receive from me? Such havoc has Thy baptism of lost aliens into Thyself made of Thy Sonship, and of Thine inheritance as the Son!
But, firstly, My Sonship appertains to a world far above that of sense and time, a realm whose verities neither bread nor stones can prove nor disprove. I will seek the evidences of My Sonship in the kingdom to which it belongs; where the evidence, all-sufficient, is My Father’s Word. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Nor, secondly, because I claim to live as the Son of God in a realm transcending earth and reason, will I burst all laws and bonds and limits imposed on those who sojourn here below. Dwelling with men, in this lower realm – the Son of God from the higher world – I will dutifully observe all this world’s constitution and arrangements, appointed by My Father. I will not cast Myself down. I will not tempt the Lord My God.
And, thirdly, though I look for a kingdom in this very realm of sense and time, it is no such kingdom as the god of this world could give. It can accrue to Me, and be acceptable to Me, only by the powers of the unseen, spiritual, eternal realm – the kingdom of heaven – sanctifying the kingdoms of this world and embracing the realm that can be recognised by the senses into the realm of the spiritual and heavenly and holy. “Get thee behind Me, Satan.”
I content Myself with the proof of My Sonship which the heavenly realm affords. I content Myself with the appointed subjection to the laws and limits which My presence in this lower realm imposes. I content Myself with waiting for the time when the higher realm, with its holy powers, shall penetrate and pervade the lower, and when heaven shall sanctify for Me a kingdom on the earth. Meantime My Sonship and My inheritance are safe. “Get thee behind Me, Satan.”