1st, That man hath a better life to secure, than that which is maintained by bread, to wit, the life of the soul: thus it is said, A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth, Luke xii. 15. If we take it in this sense, it is as though he he should say, If I comply with this temptation, I should sin against my own soul; and, by using unlawful means to support my natural life, should lose that spiritual life, which consists in the divine favour; or rather the meaning is,
2dly, That it is by the word of God’s power that our lives are upheld; which power, though it be ordinarily exerted in the use of means, by applying that proper food, which God gives us; yet this power can sustain us without it, when we are called, in an extraordinary manner by him, to depend upon it, and have ground to conclude, as our Saviour now had, that our dependence should not be in vain. Hitherto he had depended upon it, for almost forty days, since he was first brought into the wilderness; and therefore he concluded, that it was his duty to exercise the same dependence, so long as he was there.
Secondly, The second temptation was that, in which Satan endeavoured to persuade him to cast himself down from a pinnacle of the temple, expecting that God would preserve him safe from danger; pretending that he would give his angels charge concerning him, and in their hands they should bear him up, lest, at any time, he should dash his foot against a stone. This was a snare laid by the subtle adversary, for his life; and herein we may observe,
1. That as, in the former temptation, he solicited him to distrust the providence of God, and our Saviour’s reply to it, contains an intimation of his firm resolution to depend upon it, for his farther preservation, though without the necessary food of life; now he tempts him, since he is resolved to depend upon the power and providence of God, to do it, in an unlawful way, which is no other than a presuming on the divine protection, without a sufficient warrant.
2. He tempts him to the sin of self-murder, which would be the consequence of his presumption; for, if providence did not preserve him, which he had not sufficient ground to conclude that it would, when engaged in an unlawful action, such as throwing himself down from the temple would have been, this certainly would have proved his death. And the tempter had something farther than this in view, namely, to put a stop to the work of our redemption, and defeat the great design of Christ’s coming into the world; for, if he had died this way, by his own hands, he would have contracted guilt, and brought a dishonour to the divine name, rather than have given satisfaction to divine justice, and finished the work he was sent into the world about.
3. In this, Satan tempts him also to a vain-glorious, and fruitless action, which was far from answering any valuable end: his throwing himself down from the top of the temple, among the people, who were gathered together in that public place of resort, might, it is true, have amused them, when seeing a person flying through the air; but it would not have been an expedient to confirm their faith, since there was no explicit appeal to this miracle for the confirmation of any contested doctrine; and therefore it would have contradicted the general design of his working miracles, and, in that respect, been unlawful. Had he been, indeed, at this time, at the bottom of the temple, disputing with the Jews about his mission, and offering to confirm it, by such a miracle as they should chuse; and, had they insisted on it, that he should go up to the top of the temple, and cast himself down amongst them, and signified that this miracle should decide the controversy, for their conviction, I don’t apprehend that it would have been unlawful for him to have done it; nor would it have been an instance of presumption for him, to expect the divine protection in so doing. But the case was otherwise circumstanced at present; the devil, who was assaulting him in the wilderness (as was before observed) was no proper subject of conviction; and none of his people were present, to desire that this miracle should be wrought, that they might believe.
Having thus considered the matter of the second temptation in general, it may not be amiss for us to enquire into the meaning of those words, in ver 5. which are generally considered, as preparatory to it: thus it is said, The devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple. The most common opinion of those, who give their sense of this scripture, is, that the devil had power over the body of Christ, to carry it from place to place; which they reckon not to be an improbable supposition, from the account that some give, who write on the subject of witchcraft, of persons being so carried by him in a preternatural way: but these relations have not much weight in them; and many persons of judgment question the truth thereof; but whether they be true or false, it makes nothing for this purpose, for which they are brought. We do not question, but that the devil, by divine permission, might carry persons, by a violent motion, from place to place; but whether our Saviour was carried by him from the wilderness to the top of the temple, is the question to be debated. They, who suppose this to have been really done, either think that Christ went there together with, and at the instigation of the devil, without any thing preternatural in his being conveyed there by him; or else, that the devil carried him there from the wilderness through the air; the latter of which is the most commonly received opinion: but we cannot see sufficient reason to acquiesce in either of them.
(1.) As to the former of these opinions, I cannot think it lawful for our Saviour to go from the wilderness to the temple at the instigation of the devil, for that would be to go in the way of temptation, without a divine warrant. Had the Spirit of God carried him thither, and encouraged him to throw himself down from thence, it had been his duty to have done it, as much as it was to abide in the wilderness, being led there by the Holy Spirit: But as it would have been unlawful for him to come into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, so it would be no less unlawful to go from thence to the temple, at his desire.
Moreover, it may be greatly questioned, whether our Saviour was fit to take so long a journey, as from the wilderness to the temple, after he had fasted forty days, and, it may be, his strength impaired thereby. And, indeed, when we read, Luke iv. 14. of his return out of the wilderness into his own country, it was by the power of the Spirit, which supplied his want of strength, for so great a journey; therefore, as his coming there was by the Spirit, his safe conduct back again was by the same Spirit. And we cannot suppose that he went out of the wilderness till the Spirit carried him out into his own country; therefore it does not appear that he went to the temple by the solicitation of the devil, to be tempted by him there, and afterwards returned to the wilderness, to submit to his last temptation.
(2.) We cannot altogether give into the other opinion, which, as was before observed, is the most common, namely, that the devil was permitted to carry our Saviour through the air, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, (which seems to be the more direct and literal sense of the words of the evangelist, relating to this matter) for the following reasons.