On the Temptation of Christ (IV)

I said that my last post on this passage would be just that, but I don't suppose a series of reflections on Matthew 4:1-11 would be complete without at least passing reference to N. T. Wright's historical/psychological reading of the Temptation of Christ. From his incisive and monumental book on the historical Jesus, Jesus and the Victory of God, I offer these tantalizing thoughts, with the hope that they will lure you into reading his whole treatment of this episode in the life of Jesus:

"The struggle is precisely about the nature of Jesus’ vocation and ministry. The pull of hunger, the lure of cheap and quick ‘success’, the desire to change the vocation to be the light of the world into the vocation to bring all nations under his powerful rule by other means—all of these would easily combine into the temptation to doubt the nature of the vocation of which he had been sure at the time of John’s baptism. If you are the Son of God...

"There are many different styles of career, ministry, and agenda that Jesus might have adopted. Messiahs came in many shapes and sizes. It was by no means clear from anything in the culture of the time exactly how someone who believed himself to be the eschatological prophet, let alone YHWH’s anointed, ought to behave, what his programme should be, or how he should set about implementing it. Finding the way forward was bound to be a battle, involving all the uncertainty and doubt inherent in going out to unknown territory assumed to be under enemy occupation.

"When, therefore, we ask how Jesus conceived of the battle which he claimed to have fought as an initially decisive one [here Wright is referring to Jesus’ cryptic saying about binding up the strong man], the evangelists offer us a suggestion which we cannot lightly dismiss. That the battle had been successful from Jesus’ point of view is witnessed by the fact that he had not adopted any of the “messianic” styles offered to him by his culture. We cannot doubt that Jesus was tempted to share, and act in accordance with, the mindset of most Jews of his day. He cannot have been indifferent to the plight of his fellow Jews, as they were systematically crushed, economically, politically and militarily by Rome. The temptation to be the sort of Messiah that many wanted must have been real and strong. But it was, from the point of view of his mindset, precisely a temptation. He had faced it, and defeated it in principle, and had thereby confirmed the direction for the mission he should undertake." (Jesus and the Victory of God, 458)