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Luke 4:1–2
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.”
Christian theologians have long recognized that Jesus lived His entire earthly life for the sake of our salvation. Nevertheless, the key phase of His ministry began with His baptism, the point when Jesus was publicly recognized as the Son of God, received the Holy Spirit’s messianic anointing, and entered the period of His life and work that all four Gospels focus on. Having described the baptism of Jesus and presented His genealogy (Luke 3:21–38), Luke in today’s passage describes the first actions of Christ after His baptism as He entered the fullness of His saving vocation.
We read in Luke 4:1–2 that Jesus’ immediate postbaptism work did not involve teaching or performing miracles; rather, He went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. In so doing, verse 1 explains, Jesus was following the leading of the Holy Spirit, and Luke also says that our Lord was “full of the Holy Spirit.” We dare not overlook the significance of this double mention of the Spirit. It tells us that Jesus fully submitted Himself to God and that the Spirit thoroughly equipped Him for His calling. Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and completely obeyed the Spirit according to His humanity, establishing Him as the only man who has ever perfectly followed God (see also 1 Peter 2:21–23).
Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness without food, and the number forty often appears in Scripture. The wilderness setting suggests parallels with the forty years that Israel spent in the wilderness after the exodus (Deut. 8:2). Luke is presenting our Savior as the new Israel who will succeed where the first Israel failed. Israel grumbled in the wilderness, frequently sinning against God (e.g., Num. 14:26–27), but Jesus will not repeat Israel’s transgressions. Furthermore, Moses engaged in forty-day fasts, as did the prophet Elijah (Ex. 34:28; 1 Kings 19:8). That Jesus does the same points to His role as the ultimate Prophet and perfect revealer of God (see Heb. 1:1–4).
Finally, Jesus’ temptation points to our Lord’s vocation as the new Adam. When tempted by Satan, Adam sinned and was cast out of Eden (Gen. 3). Jesus was tempted but never sinned and ultimately ascended to heaven (Luke 4:13; 24:50–53). Ambrose of Milan, the church father instrumental in Augustine’s conversion, notes, “The first Adam was cast out of Paradise into the desert, that you may observe how the second Adam returned from the desert to Paradise.”
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Matthew 4:2 says that Jesus went without food in the wilderness because He was fasting. This indicates, Matthew Henry comments, that in the wilderness Jesus “spent all his time in immediate, intimate [conversation] with his Father . . . without any diversion, distraction, or interruption.” One reason that Jesus never gave in to temptation was that He was spending time with God. Similarly, our own praying can help fortify us against committing sin.
FOR FURTHER STUDY
- Isaiah 43:19
- Acts 1:1–3
THE BIBLE IN A YEAR
- Leviticus 13
- Matthew 26:20–56
- Leviticus 14–16
- Matthew 26:57–75