"I beheld till thrones were placed and one that was ancient of days did sit: his raiment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, and the wheels thereof burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment was set, and the books were opened.... I saw in the night visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."
This conception of the Messiah, coming in the clouds of Heaven, establishing the Kingdom of God by so manifest an exhibition of the divine authority with which He is endowed, that all doubt and hesitation are quite impossible, is that which took the greatest hold upon the religious imagination of Israel, and particularly of that great body of people, the heirs of the tradition of the Maccabees, inheritors of the heroism which had stood out against the persecution, whom we know as the sect of the Pharisees—men who lived in the strength of a fellowship that had behind it the greatest religious tradition in all the world, but who, because they trusted more to their tradition than to the God who inspired it, were unable to recognise the still further call of God when it came to them. The literature of the period between the Old and the New Testament shows how wide and deep was the influence of Daniel's vision upon their Messianic hopes.
At His baptism, the Lord is called to begin His Messianic work; the voice which He heard from Heaven spoke words which were by all interpreters of the time believed to refer to the Messiah:—"Thou art my beloved son; in thee I am well pleased." The Messiah will be endowed with Divine authority and power. How shall He use it? And immediately the Lord goes into the wilderness to face the temptations that arose from precisely the conviction that His Messianic work is even now to begin.
The temptation has two sides to it—an inward and an outward. As regards Himself, what does the temptation mean? Let us remind ourselves that there was apparently no one with Him in this crisis; the story, as we have it, must come from Himself. It is His own account (of course in parable form, like so much else in His teaching) of the struggle of those early days. What is meant by the parable concerning the turning of stones into bread? Surely for Himself it is the temptation to use the power, with which us the Christ of Cod He is endowed, for the satisfaction of His own needs, and that in such a way as will do no kind of harm to anybody else. No one will be the worse for his satisfying His hunger in that way. It is a self-concern from which nobody can suffer; it is perfectly innocent and perfectly rational. But no! It is not for any selfish purpose, however harmless, that the power of God is given; selfishness in its most innocent form is set aside.
How shall He set about His work? Shall He fulfil that expectation which Isaiah's vision had fostered? He looks out on the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them, and He knows that they can be His, if He will fall down and worship the Prince of the power of this world. Shall He use worldly methods to convert the world to God? No; worldliness in its most attractive form is set aside.
Or shall He fulfil the expectation encouraged by the vision of the Son of Man in Daniel, appearing with the clouds of Heaven, descending upon Jerusalem up-borne by angels, giving that sign from Heaven which the Pharisees, who particularly adopted this view of the Messiah, were afterwards going to demand so frequently? From His answer we know that this is a temptation not only to give them a sign, but to secure it for Himself, for the answer is "Thou shalt not tempt,"—that is, Thou shalt not put to the proof—"the Lord thy God." The promise of God is to be trusted, not tested. The test comes as we obey the command and in that sense every act of faith is an experiment, but there must be no test cases to see whether God fulfils His promise. Infidelity in its most insidious form is set aside.
But there is an outward aspect also to the temptations. Shall He use His power to satisfy the bodily needs of men? Shall He exert a power parallel with that of political rulers, which will coerce their conduct without first winning their free allegiance? Shall He give such proof of divine authority that any doubt, intellectual or otherwise, becomes impossible? No; not any of these. And as He leaves the temptation vanquished, what He has set aside is precisely every method of controlling men's action without winning their hearts and wills. He has rejected coercion; He has decided to appeal to Freedom.
What is left? At first, only the commission to proclaim the Kingdom; and He comes proclaiming it. All through the early part of the ministry He moves from place to place preaching or proclaiming the Kingdom of God. He does not at present announce that He is King of that Kingdom; it is the Kingdom itself on which all attention is concentrated. He has indeed the power to do works of mercy, and when with that power He stands in the face of human need, He must for very love exert the power and satisfy the need; so people come crowding around Him, attracted by His wonder-working. But that is not what He desires. The disciples are excited about it; but He has gone out a long while before dawn, and is alone in prayer; and when St. Peter finds Him, and says "All men are seeking Thee," He does not say, "Then let us go to them," but, on the contrary, "Let us go into the villages that I may preach—that I may make my proclamation—there also."[#] As the deadness, the indifference, and hostility of the people gradually shows itself to be invincible, He gathers about Him those whose hearts have been touched, and from among them chooses twelve, "that they may be with Him."[#] They are to live in His company, catching His Spirit, learning to understand Him. With them He goes on two long journeys—north-west to Tyre and Sidon, and then north-east, to Caesarea Philippi; through all those journeys they are alone with their Master, moving through country outside the boundaries of the Jewish religion, and therefore free from controversy.
[#] S. Mark i, 35-38.
[#] S. MArk iii, 14.