Deeper Commentary

4:1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness- The Lord Jesus was led of the Spirit at His time of testing; and Paul uses just those words of us in our present experience of trial (Rom. 8:14).  His victory in the wilderness therefore becomes a living inspiration for us, who are tempted as He was (Heb. 4:15,16). Note how Mark speaks of Jesus being 'driven' at this time. Being driven by circumstances can be a form of leading- it just depends which perspective we have.

4:2 Being tempted by the Devil for forty days. And he ate nothing in those days; and when they were completed, he was hungry- Commentary on what this passage does not mean can be found in my The Real Devil.

The only other two men recorded as doing this are Moses and Elijah (Ex. 34:28; 1 Kings 19:8). The Lord chose to seek to enter into their experience; it was presumably His decision to fast for this period. And the Father responded to that by giving Him the encouraging vision of those same two men at the transfiguration. We see here how God is in dialogue with man; if we wish to identify with some Bible character, the Father will respond His side to enable us to do so yet more.

With His familiarity with Scripture, Christ would have seen the similarities between Himself and Elijah, whose morale collapsed after 40 days in the wilderness (1 Kings 19: 8) and Moses, who forfeited his immediate inheritance of the land at the end of 40 years in the wilderness. Jesus at the end of 40 days, was in a similar position to them - faced with a real possibility of failure. Moses and Elijah failed because of human weakness - not because of a person called “the devil”. It was this same human weakness, the “Satan’ , or adversary, that was tempting Jesus.

The temptations were controlled by God for the Lord’s spiritual education. The passages quoted by the Lord to strengthen Himself against His desires (“devil”) are all from the same part of Deuteronomy, regarding Israel’s experience in the wilderness. Jesus clearly saw a parallel between His experiences and theirs:

Deuteronomy 8:2 “The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments (word), or no.”	Matthew 4 / Luke 4 “Jesus led up of the spirit” “forty days” “in the wilderness”. Jesus was proved by the temptations. Jesus overcame by quoting the Scriptures that were in His heart (Ps. 119:11), thus showing it was the Scriptures that were in His heart.
Deuteronomy 8:3. “And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna... that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word...of the Lord...”	“He was afterward an hungered". In John 6 manna is interpreted by Jesus as representing the Word of God, which Jesus lived by in the wilderness. Jesus learnt that spiritually He lived by the Word of God. “He answered...it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word ...of God”.,
Deuteronomy 8:5 “Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee”	Jesus no doubt reflected on His experiences. God chastened His Son, Jesus- 2 Sam. 7:12; Ps. 89: 32.

Thus the Lord showed us how to read and study the Word - He thought Himself into the position of Israel in the wilderness, and therefore took the lessons that can be learnt from their experiences to Himself in His wilderness trials. The description of the Lord Jesus as being in the wilderness with beasts and Angels (Mk. 1:13) is another connection with Israel’s experience in the wilderness- they were plagued there by “wild beasts” because of their disobedience (Dt. 32:19-24 and context).

 

4:3 And the Devil said to him: If you are the Son of God, command these stones that they become bread- The first temptation- to turn stones into bread- would not in itself have been a sin if He had agreed to it. But it would have been choosing a lower level, by breaking His fast. But the next temptations were to actually sin. If He had agreed to the first suggestion, obedience to the next ones would have been harder. It could even be argued that to put the Lord to the test was permissible on a lower level- for passages like Ps. 34:8 and Mal. 3:10 almost encourage it for those with a weak faith. Gideon likewise put the Lord to the test and was answered. But the Lord chose the higher level: and He knew Scripture which could support it. But the fact He chose the highest level first of all, meant that He was better able to take the higher level again, and to finally overcome the third temptation, which was definitely a clear choice between right and wrong. More than this, anything other than a desire to make the highest maximum commitment can lead to failure. “The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left” (Ecc. 10:2 NIV) has been understood as referring not so much to right and wrong, good and evil, as to the highest good and lesser good (cp. how the left hand can stand for simply lesser blessing rather than outright evil, e.g. Gen. 48:13-20). The fool inclines to lower commitment. The wise will always incline to the maximum, wholehearted level.

It's perhaps noteworthy that in the wilderness temptation, the Lord responds to the "If you are the Son of God..." by quoting Dt. 8:3 "man shall not live by bread alone"- and the Jonathan Targum has bar nasha [son of man] here for "man". If we are correct in understanding those wilderness temptations as the Lord's internal struggles, we see Him tempted to wrongly focus upon His being Son of God, forgetting His humanity; and we see Him overcoming this temptation, preferring instead to perceive Himself as Son of man. The if... then structure here (a 'first class conditional') effectively means 'Because...' (See Craig A. Evans, Matthew (Cambridge: C.U.P., 2012) p. 83). In this case, we are clearly being given an insight into the internal thinking of the Lord Jesus. 'Because You are Son of God, why not...'. A truly human Jesus would inevitably have had such thoughts, and the record here makes that clear. Seeing that Mary appears to have become somewhat influenced by the surrounding view of Jesus as her illegitimate son, it's likely the Lord too had moments when He wondered whether this could all be true- whether He really was God's Son.  

4:4 And Jesus answered him: It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone- The Lord overcame all His temptations by quoting from Deuteronomy, showing that His mind was seeking strength from the words of the Angel leading Israel through the wilderness. There are clear similarities between the Angel's leading of Israel through the wilderness and the Lord's experience in the wilderness:

 

Thus the Lord Jesus surveyed His own experience in the wilderness, and saw that He could take to Himself personally the lessons given to Israel. The Angel led Israel through the wilderness "to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no" (Dt. 8:2). God Himself knows anyway, so this must be regarding the Angel, seeking to know the spiritual strength of Israel, as Job's Satan Angel sought to know Job's strength. Similarly, the Lord's  Angel led Him into the wilderness, suffering Him to hunger, to humble and  prove Him, to reveal His real attitude to the word of God. His quoting of the word to answer the temptations surely proved this to the Angel, especially since the Lord showed Himself so capable of thinking Himself into Scripture, and therefore taking the lessons most powerfully to Himself. The Lord was made to realize the importance of His memory of the word, as He would have later reflected that this was the only way He had overcome- that man spiritually lives by "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God". As a result of their wilderness temptations, both Israel and Christ were led to "consider in (their) heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God (the Angel) chasteneth thee". The chastenings of the Lord spiritually in  the  wilderness  were therefore arranged by the Angels. There did not have to be Angels actually tempting Christ in the wilderness temptations- because they can act directly on a man's heart, they can lead us into temptation. The fact we pray for Him not to implies that He does- through the Angels, as He Himself tempts no man (James 1:13), although the Angels tempted Abraham, and Israel among others. Thus the Angels may arrange an external stimulus, e. g. the fruit of the tree of knowledge, knowing it must produce certain internal desires within us which tempt us. Note how the temptation to throw Himself off the top of the temple was a temptation to misuse Angelic care. He answered it by a quotation which has an Angelic context: "You (Jesus) shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted Him in Massah" (Dt. 6:16). At Massah the Israelites put the Angel to the test by questioning whether He could provide water (Ex. 17:2-7).

4:5 And he led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time- This was surely a vision or imagination of the Kingdom, when "the kingdoms of this world" becomes those of the Lord Jesus. It can hardly be that a fiendish being took the Lord Jesus literally up the highest mountain (Everest) from where He could see all the world. Nor would being up a tall mountain enable the Lord to see "the glory of them". Surely a non-literal event is implied here- within the Lord's mind.

The temptations are hard to take literally:

- Matthew 4:8 implies that Jesus was led up into a high mountain to see all the kingdoms of the world in their future glory, “In a moment of time”. There is no mountain high enough to see all the world. And why would the height of the mountain enable Jesus to see what the world would be like in the future? The earth, being a sphere, there is no point on its surface from which one can see all the parts of the world at one time.

- A comparison of Matthew 4 and Luke 4 shows that the temptations are described in a different order. Mark 1:13 says that Jesus was “in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan”, whilst Matthew 4:2,3 says that “when he had fasted forty days... the tempter (Satan) came to Him...”. Because Scripture cannot contradict itself, we can conclude that these same temptations kept repeating themselves. The temptation to turn stones into bread is an obvious example. This would fit nicely if these temptations occurred within the mind of Jesus. Being of our nature, the lack of food would have affected him mentally as well as physically, and thus his mind would have easily begun to imagine things. Just going a few days without food can lead to delirium for some (cp. 1 Sam. 30:12 ). The similarity between rolls of bread and stones is mentioned by Jesus in Mt. 7: 9, and doubtless those images often merged in his tortured mind - although always to be brought into swift control by his recollection of the Word

- Jesus probably told the Gospel writers the record of His temptations, and to bring home in words the intensity of what He underwent, He could have used the figurative approach seen in Matthew 4 and Luke 4.

- It seems unlikely that several times the devil led Jesus through the wilderness and streets of Jerusalem and then scaled a pinnacle of the temple together, all in view of the inquisitive Jews. Josephus makes no record of anything like this happening - presumably it would have caused a major stir. Similarly, if these temptations occurred several times within the forty days as well as at the end of that period (which they did at least twice, seeing that Matthew and Luke have them in different order), how would Jesus have had time to walk to the nearest high mountain (which could have been Hermon in the far north of Israel), climb to the top and back down again, return to the wilderness and then repeat the exercise? His temptations all occurred in the wilderness - He was there for forty days, tempted all the time by the devil (he only departed at the end). If Jesus was tempted by the devil each day, and the temptations occurred only in the wilderness, then it follows that Jesus could not have left the wilderness to go to Jerusalem or travel to a high mountain. These things therefore could not have literally happened.

4:6 And the Devil said to him: To you will I give all this authority and the glory of them. For it has been delivered to me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it- The Lord knew full well that "all things" (Mt.), the Kingdom of God when the kingdoms of this world have been subsumed beneath it, could only be given to Him to God. He was tempted to play God, to assume that by His own action He could grasp it for Himself without the cross. It is perhaps to this that Paul alludes when he writes that the Lord did not consider such equality with God a thing to be even grasped after (Phil. 2:6). Again we see how the essence of the wilderness temptations returned to the Lord on the cross. For Phil. 2:6 specifically speaks of the Lord in His time of dying.

4:7 Therefore, if you will worship me, it shall all be yours- All the kingdoms of the world will indeed be the Lord's. This was the subtlety of the temptation. The question was when and how that was to be achieved. The Lord knew that the cross must come before that crown. But the temptation would have been to try to circumvent that, and this is portrayed as falling down and worshipping self.

4:8 And Jesus answered and said to him: It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve- The record of the Lord’s wilderness temptations is almost certainly a reflection of His self-perception; He spoke to the ‘devil’ / personification of sin which was within Him, He saw Himself as two people, and His spiritual man triumphed gloriously against the man of the flesh. He understood that we can only serve two masters: God or the flesh (“mammon” is another personification of the flesh, similar to ‘satan’). He saw His own flesh, His own internal thoughts, as a master begging to be served which He must totally reject. His words are a quotation from Dt. 6:13, which warns Israel to serve Yahweh alone and not idols. He perceived His own natural mind and desire as an idol calling to be served. When the Lord explained what had happened in the wilderness to the disciples and thereby to the Gospel writers, He opened His heart to them. He gave us all a window on how He perceived Himself, as He sought to explain to men the internal struggles of the Son of God. Bringing it all back home, I must ask firstly how much we even struggle with temptation? And as and when we do, would we not be helped by the Lord’s example of talking to ourselves, and personalizing Scripture as He did? ‘You don’t want to do that! Give up your place in the Kingdom, for that... drug, that girl, that job? Of course not! Come on. There is a way of escape; Paul told me God won’t try me beyond my strength, He will make me a way of escape’.

4:9 And he led him to Jerusalem, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him: If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down from here- The idea may well be that He was imagining being received into rulership of the Messianic Kingdom, and was wondering whether that would be possible through accepting 'the devil', be it His own flesh or the Jewish system, who humanly speaking seemed able to offer a path to this. Likewise 'set him' in Mt. 4:5 carries the idea of being appointed, established in authority. 

4:10 For it is written: He shall give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you- The Angels were given “charge concerning thee” (Jesus)- in the court of Heaven, God’s purpose was declared and His charge made clear concerning His Son (Lk. 4:10 RVmg.).

Presumably this was to be taken literally- the Angels physically with Him would have literally held Him under the arms if He jumped from the temple. So we see the literal physical presence of the Angels in our lives. The eyes of God, an evident reference to the Angels, are associated with the temple (1 Kings 8:29; Ps. 11:4; Ps. 5:6-8). The implication surely is that the Angel[s] specifically functioned in the temple / sanctuary. It seems that great stress is placed in Scripture on the Angels physically moving through space, both on the earth and between Heaven and earth, in order to fulfill their tasks, rather than being static in Heaven or earth and bringing things about by just willing them to happen.

The ‘devil’ of the Lord’s own thoughts tempted Him to apply Ps. 91:11 in a wrong context, and jump off the pinnacle of the temple. But if the Lord had gone on, as surely He did, He would have found the words: “You shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shall you trample under feet” (Ps. 91:13). This promise would have been of wonderful comfort, as throughout the wilderness temptations the Lord “was with the wild beasts” (Mk. 1:13). 

4:11 And on their hands they shall carry you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone- Presumably this was to be taken literally- the Angels physically with Him would have literally held Him under the arms if He jumped from the temple. So we see the literal physical presence of the Angels in our lives. The eyes of God, an evident reference to the Angels, are associated with the temple (1 Kings 8:29; Ps. 11:4; Ps. 5:6-8). The implication surely is that the Angel[s] specifically functioned in the temple / sanctuary. It seems that great stress is placed in Scripture on the Angels physically moving through space, both on the earth and between Heaven and earth, in order to fulfil their tasks, rather than being static in Heaven or earth and bringing things about by just willing them to happen (Gen. 18:10).

4:12 And Jesus answering said to him: It is said, you shall not test the Lord your God- The Greek in Matthew effectively means 'On the other hand, it is also written...'. The Lord Jesus did not try to reconcile the two verses, He accepted them as part of a dialectic whereby this verse says that but this verse says this- which is typical Hebrew reasoning. Geek reasoning would seek to explain that this verse says this, but that is qualified by this other verse, so the truth is a mixture between the two verses. The Hebrew style of reasoning leaves apparent contradictions to the Western, Greek reasoning mind. But they are not this at all, just dialectical style.

4:13 And when the Devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him for a time- The essence of all the temptations returned to the Lord, particularly in Gethsemane and on the cross. Every time we discern them returning, they are at the hands of the Jews- to become king immediately in Jn. 6, to come down from the cross. Which leads us to perceive that the 'devil' in the wilderness may have been manifested through the Jewish satan; the idea of the Jewish system as the great satan or adversary to the Lord and His later work is continued throughout the New Testament.

4:14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and the news about him went out throughout all the region- This was no glorious entry into Galilee; He withdrew into Galilee (Mt. 4:12) after cleansing the temple (Jn. 2:13-22), taking the imprisonment of John as the sign to begin His ministry. He felt He was withdrawing, heavy in spirit at the loss of John the Baptist to prison, but in the eyes of the world, it was a triumphal entry (:15). "The power of the Spirit" may mean that He began doing miracles, thus accounting for news of Him spreading like wildfire, or simply that He was propelled by the leadership of the Spirit as we can be today.

4:15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all- The entry to Galilee could be that of Jn. 4:43, meaning that by this stage He had already turned water into wine at Cana (Jn. 2). The miracles had begun, but the 'glorifying' of Jesus is presented as in connection with His teaching rather than His miracles. This is an important theme- that His teaching was far more significant than His miracles. And that teaching we have recorded for us. It ought to elicit the same desire to glorify Him.

4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read- This suggests He had been a regular synagogue attender and reader, but somehow this time, as He read the Messianic prophecies, it was clear that He was the word made flesh. He was the One. He must have previously somehow contained the fact He was the Messiah, living His life of perfect obedience in a somehow obscured manner. Now, He let down the mask and revealed Himself for who He was.

4:17 And there was delivered to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written- The record is as it were of a video capture, focusing on every detail of His body language- He stood up to read (:16), the scroll was delivered into His hands, He opened it and He found the place in the scroll. All this is to present in more visual form what John states more enigmatically- the word was made flesh.

Although the Greek euangelion is not used, the LXX of Is. 40:9; 52:7 and 60:1,2 clearly envisage a Messianic figure proclaiming the "good news" of Israel's freedom from oppression and sin. The Lord seems to assume that His audience would know what 'good news' He had in view. Perhaps He was alluding to those Servant Songs in Isaiah, and saying that the good news is of "the Kingdom of God". And He goes on in Matthew particularly to explain that this good news is of the life of forgiveness and grace lived out now, under the rulership of God, and coming to its material climax in His second coming and the literal establishment of God's Kingdom on earth.

4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those that are bruised- The Lord began His ministry by proclaiming a freedom from burdens through Him (Lk. 4). And He concludes it by telling the disciples to proclaim the same deliverance (Lk. 24:47). Consider how He brings together various passages from Isaiah in His opening declaration in Lk. 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,   and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach [proclaim] [Heb. ‘call out to a man’] the acceptable year of the Lord”. This combines allusions to Is. 61:1   (Lev. 25:10); Is. 58:6 LXX  and  Is. 61:2. 
Is. 58:6 AV: “To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free (cp. Dt. 15:12 re freedom of slaves, s.w.), and that you break every yoke” is in the context of an insincerely kept year of Jubilee in Hezekiah’s time, after the Sennacherib invasion. Is. 58 has many Day of Atonement allusions- the year of Jubilee began on this feast. We are as the High Priest declaring the reality of forgiveness to the crowd. Hence Lk. 24:47 asks us to proclaim a Jubilee of atonement. The Greek for “preach” in Lk. 24:47 and for “preach / proclaim the acceptable year” in Lk. 4:19 are the same, and the word is used in the LXX for proclaiming the Jubilee. And the LXX word used for ‘jubilee’ means remission, release, forgiveness, and it is the word used to describe our preaching / proclaiming forgiveness in Lk. 24:47. It could be that we are to see the cross as the day of atonement, and from then on the Jubilee should be proclaimed in the lives of those who accept it. It’s as if we are running round telling people that their mortgages have been cancelled, hire purchase payments written off...and yet we are treated as telling them something unreal, when it is in fact so real and pertinent to them. And the very fact that Yahweh has released others means that we likewise ought to live in a spirit of releasing others from their debts to us: “The creditor shall release that which he hath lent… because the Lord’s release hath been proclaimed” (Dt. 15:2 RV).

Isaiah 61 was the Jewish synagogue reading for the Day of Atonement and especially on the first day of a jubilee year, and it could be that the Lord is alluding to this when He said that "today" those words were coming true. Perhaps that day was a day of atonement. He was the means for atonement, on which basis the Jubilee was proclaimed; the good news of Messiah was not so much a political kingdom free from the Romans, but the good news of atonement for sin.

Christ means 'Messiah', the  anointed one. He was anointed in order "to preach the Gospel"; and we too have been anointed insofar as we are in Christ, the anointed one (2 Cor. 1:21). Therefore as He was ordained a preacher of the Gospel to the world, we too share that honour (as we do all His honours, to some extent). He was anointed (‘oiled’) by God in order to give the oil of joy to His people; He shared His experience of anointing with us, and we must go out and do likewise (Is. 61:1,2 cp. Lk. 4:18).

4:19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord- See on :18. To preach [proclaim] the acceptable year of the Lord (Lk. 4:19) is thus parallel with “You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants” (Lev. 25:10). Likewise there are to be found other such allusions to the proclamation of Jubilee: “We as workers together with him, beseech you also that you receive… the grace of God… a time accepted… in the day of salvation [the Jubilee] have I succoured you: behold, now is the accepted time” (2 Cor. 6:1,2) “Repentance and remission of sins should be preached [proclaimed, s.w. 4:19] in his name among all nations” (Lk. 24:47).

4:20 And he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him- “The word was made flesh” in daily reality for Jesus. The extraordinary connection between the man Jesus and the word of God which He preached and spoke is reflected here, as noted on :17. Here we have as it were an exquisite close up of Jesus, His very body movements, His handling of the scroll, and the movement of the congregation's eyes. Notice that at this stage He had only read from the scroll, and not yet begun His exposition of what He had read. The impression I take from this is that there was an uncanny connection between Him and the word of His Father. The Son reading His Father’s word, with a personality totally in conformity to it, must have been quite something to behold. He was the word of God made flesh in a person, in a way no other person had or could ever be. See on Lk. 4:36; Jn. 14:10.

4:21 And he began to say to them: Today has this scripture been fulfilled in your hearing- It was fulfilled "today" in that it was on that day that He chose to remove the mask He had worn before His neighbours, and reveal Himself for who He was- the Messiah.

Some prophecies are fulfilled according to the acceptance of their fulfillment by believers, and therefore have their fulfilments in different ways at different times. Thus for those who received it, Malachi’s ‘Elijah’ prophecies were fulfilled in John the Baptist, for those who accepted him (Mt. 11:14). The implication is that for those who didn’t, those prophecies weren’t fulfilled. He didn’t mean that His reading those words in a synagogue had fulfilled them. He speaks of “your ears” or "hearing" as standing for ‘your correct perception / understanding’ in Mt. 13:16. What He was surely saying was that for those of them who perceived who He was, Isaiah’s words were ringing true. For those who rejected Him, of course, they weren’t fulfilled, and therefore their complete, universal acceptance  / fulfilment would be delayed until a future day; just as it was with the ‘Elijah’ prophecy.  

4:22 And all bore him witness, and wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said- Because of the gracious words and manner of speaking of Jesus, therefore God so highly exalted Him (Ps. 45:2). The Father was so impressed with the words of His Son. Lk. 4:22 records how people were amazed at the gracious words He spoke, as in Jn. 7:46; there was something very unusual in His manner of speaking. Evidently there must have been something totally outstanding about His use of language. God highly exalted Him because He so loved righteousness and hated wickedness (Ps. 45:7), and yet also because of His manner of speaking (Ps. 45:2); so this love of righteousness and hatred of evil was what made His words so special.  

Is this not Joseph's son?- Mary had clearly not shared with others what had happened around the Lord's conception. She had perhaps come to see Him as Joseph's son by the time she rebuked Him at age 12 in the temple, when she refers to Joseph as His father. She became influenced in her view of the Lord by the view of others. And we can take a warning from this. Such was His humanity that He appeared to have just followed the profession of His supposed ‘father’ on earth. In essence, the same is happening to Trinitarians. They just can't hack that Jesus, Son of God, perfect human being... was truly human, with a human brother, mother and relatives. And so they have stumbled off into various wrong theories and theologies about Jesus to try to rationalize and spiritually legitimise their lack of faith in Him as a human person. 

One of the most surpassing wonders of the Lord’s character was that He could live for 30 years in a small town in Galilee, never ever committing sin, and never ever omitting an act of righteousness... and yet when He stood up and basically proclaimed Himself to be Messiah, the people were scandalized. They were shocked that this carpenter’s son should think He was anything much more than them. Yet whenever we try to be a bit more righteous than our fellows, it’s always noticed and held against us. Yet the Lord Jesus was both perfect, and also in favour with men. He came over as the ordinary guy, and yet He was perfect, and the light of this world. In this there is a matchless example for us. This wondrous feature of the Lord’s achievement in His own character is reflected by the way His own brothers, who knew Him better than any, perceived Him to be just an ordinary person. When He started implying that He was the Son of God, they thought He’d gone crazy. When He declared Himself as Messiah, the people who had grown up with Him were scandalized. He was so human that even though He never sinned, the people who intimately knew Him for 30 years thought that He was truly one of them. In our making the word flesh, we tend to irritate people by our apparent righteousness, or turn them away from us by our hypocrisy. But the Lord truly made the word flesh, to the extent that the very dregs of society could relate to Him as one of them. There is a wonder in this that requires sustained meditation.

4:23 And he said to them: Doubtless you will say to me this proverb: Physician, heal yourself. Whatever we have heard done at Capernaum, do also here in your hometown- The nobleman's son had been cured in Capernaum, as recorded in John. "Heal yourself" could suggest the Lord had some illness or physical weakness. The language of Isaiah 53 is full of allusion to leprosy. He may have had the appearance of leprosy, some skin condition, whilst not having leprosy itself. This would speak much of the Lord's relationship with sin.

4:24 And he said: Truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own hometown- We need to ask why this is so true. In the first century Palestinian world, a person wasn’t defined so much by ‘who they were’ as by ‘whom they belonged to and where they originated from’. Hence their problem with seeing that the Lord had access to wisdom and power which they did not have as a group. He didn’t get that from them- and this confused them and their lack of understanding it turned to anger with Him. He had become different to them, therefore He was not of them- so they reasoned. And yet He was of them- the record stresses that they were His natural patris(“country”) and oikos (“family”). This is the same problem as Trinitarians have- they can’t see that the Lord could have what He had, and yet be one of us, of our human nature. And perhaps that partly explains their frequently observed anger with non-Trinitarian Christians. This proverb is quoted again in Jn. 4:44 but in a different sense. The Lord is recorded as leaving Judea and going to Galilee exactly because a prophet has no honour in “His own country”. Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, not in Galilee. It could be that He went to Galilee from Judea because the “country” He had in mind here in quoting this proverb was Bethlehem, rather than Nazareth. And yet in Mt. 13:57 He uses this proverb about Nazareth. Perhaps this explains His deep amazement at His rejection now in Nazareth- see on Mt. 13:58.

4:25 But of a truth I say to you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land- See on James 5:16-18. We only learn of the length of the famine in the New Testament. Three and a half years is a period we often meet in the latter day prophecies- 1260 days, 42 months, a time, times [two times] and a half. This latter day period is therefore flagged up as the time of the ministry of the latter day Elijah, as an appeal for Israel to repent.

4:26 And to none of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman that was a widow- In the context of :27, the implication would be that this woman too was a Gentile. Even at the start of His ministry, the Lord stressed Gentile acceptance. This was not simply because He realized Israel would reject Him and the door thereby opened to the Gentiles; but because He understood that the good news of the Hope of Israel was in fact good news for the Gentile world if they embraced that hope.

4:27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them were cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian- When Naaman's maid asserted that Elisha could cure him of his leprosy, this was not therefore based on experience. She had not even heard of Elisha curing any lepers in Israel. But she believed it was the kind of thing he could do.

4:28 And they were all filled with anger in the synagogue as they heard these things- There is a similar account in Mt. 13:55-58. If this is indeed a later, similar incident, then we marvel at how despite this rejection, the Lord later returned to give them another chance- and was treated likewise. Anger is demonstrated here to be rooted in a bad conscience. They realized the truth of who He was, but refused to accept it. And this leads to anger. Much human anger, although not all of it, is rooted in such bad conscience. And the anger is directed at the one[s] whose words have been rejected.

4:29 And they rose up and threw him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong- This was the punishment for a heretic. They knew He said the truth, but because it demanded so much of them, they claimed He was heretical. So many cries of 'heresy' and 'heretic' are psychologically rooted in a subconscious refusal to accept the truths presented. I suggest this is why there has been such a long tradition of hatred, anger and calling of 'heretic' against those who preach a non-trinitarian Jesus. If He truly had our nature and therefore was not God, this demands so much of us. And men shy away from that and cry 'heresy' rather than be challenged as to what are the very high possibilities for we who share the nature the Lord had when mortal.
 

There may be an allusion here to Jephthah, who had been "despised and rejected of men" during the time of Israel's suffering.  In this and many other ways he is a clear type of Christ. Jephthah reminded the "elders of Gilead" who were now seeking his help, "Did not you hate me, and expel me out of my father's house?" (Jud. 11:7).  The Hebrew for "expel" is also translated 'thrust out'; Jesus was 'thrust out' from his native town as Jephthah was from Gilead, perhaps a technical term for local excommunication from the city synagogue region. It was "the elders" who were also responsible for Christ's rejection. He was despised as "the son of a strange woman" (Jud. 11:2) as the Lord was accused of being born out of wedlock (Jn. 8:41).

 4:30 But he passing through the midst of them went his way- The Lord clearly had the ability to avoid capture and death. This explains why towards the end of His ministry He was not taken and killed earlier. He gave His life, it was not taken from Him (Jn. 10:17,18). So we see highlighted the fact that He could have avoided the cross, but chose not to- the essence of His wilderness temptations.

4:31 And he came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath day- He had been there earlier (:23), and cured the nobleman's son there. But Luke is writing for Gentiles, and so he mentions where Capernaum was located.

4:32 And they were astonished at his teaching; for his word was with authority- The synagogue minister gave the lesson or sermon, but invited members of the congregation to contribute their thoughts. The Lord's message would therefore have been brief, but so powerful that it astonished people. The Gospel records twelve times record astonishment at the Lord's teaching. How could the passage of mere ideas from the larynx of a Palestinian Jew be so utterly astonishing, no matter how profound the content of the message? The Old Testament prophets likewise spoke God's word, but they were met with cynicism and mocking. Surely there was another factor which elicited such astonishment at His teaching, and I suggest it was in the way that His person was so perfectly congruent with the amazing ideas He was teaching. He was after all the word made flesh.

His authority was based upon something. And I suggest it was not His miracles, but rather the congruence between His person and His word. The scribes indeed claimed authority. But the teaching of Jesus somehow had that authority within itself. It was not therefore just the nature or profundity of the ideas and content itself which were authoritative. He really did have authority, and He didn't need to make any claim to having it. The amazing challenge is in the parable of Mk. 13:34, where the Lord gives His authority to us His servants... We are not merely standing on a street lamely holding out tracts, offering them to anyone willing to come up and take one. We have an element of His authority if we are teaching His word in His Name; and thus Paul uses the word when speaking of his 'authority in the [preaching of] the Gospel' (1 Cor. 9:18; 2 Cor. 10:8; 13:10; 2 Thess. 3:9). And in our personal standing before the Father, we likewise have been given authority by the Lord Jesus to be the sons of God (Jn. 1:12). Paul realized we have each been given this authority, and uses the same word when warning believers not to let their "authority" (AV "this liberty of yours") cause others to stumble (1 Cor. 8:9).

4:33 And in the synagogue, there was a man that had a spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice- Notice that the man [singular] cried out in the plural ["us... we", :34], and then changes immediately back to the singular "I know you..." (:34). This is a classic case of schizophrenia- not literal demon possession.

4:34 Leave us alone! What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are! The Holy One of God!- See on :33. Notice the changes of pronouns from plural to singular. The supposedly spirit-possessed man was what we would call a man suffering from multiple personality disorder or a schizophrenic. Perhaps the dominant personality of the man was that which could say "I know who you are- the Holy One of God". "You Nazarene" may suggest this man had met the Lord previously, and was one of the few who during the Lord's carpenter years had perceived that He was God's Holy One. Despite his affliction, in his deepest heart and most fundamental personality, the mentally ill man perceived what few others did- that Jesus was the Son of God. The man's less dominant personalities feared condemnation and destruction from this Son of God, and wanted Him to leave. The dominant personality recognized Him as Son of God, and maybe we are to imagine him saying "I know who you are..." said in a totally different tone of voice, as if another person was speaking compared to the ones who feared condemnation and didn't want closer engagement with Jesus. That same struggle, in essence, goes on in the mind of every person as they come to Jesus; a desire to pull back before it gets too serious and risky, and yet another desire to accept Him for who He is, the saviour Son of God. The Lord's apparent exorcism of the other personalities therefore left the man with who he really was in his heart of confused hearts- a believer in Jesus as God's Holy Son.

4:35 And Jesus rebuked him, saying: Hold your peace and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst, he came out of him, having done him no hurt- If as suggested on :34, the man had multiple personalities, the Lord is rebuking the less dominant personality. He speaks of course in terms which the man would have related to- of demon possession. The language of "rebuke" is appropriate to rebuking a personality; for one could hardly "rebuke" a person for being mentally disturbed. That is not a moral issue.

This is recorded from the perspective of the onlooking crowd, with their beliefs and observations coloured by those beliefs. The video camera of the Gospel writer is as it were focused on them, and therefore the language of demon possession is used. The Greek for "tearing" used in Mark at this point is literally 'to make gasp'. It is appropriate to an epileptic convulsion or fit. But these incidents are not the work of indwelling demons; for they can be managed by medication today. The convulsion is described in the language of the day, as if there was a struggle within the man, and then in the man's panting afterwards we are invited to imagine a spirit departing from him. There was no actual "unclean spirit" involved; the cure was of personality, as noted on :34, it was as if one of the man's less dominant personalities now left him. And that is the kind of healing which the Lord through the Spirit can work today.

4:36 And amazement came upon all, and they spoke together, one with another, saying: What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits and they come out- See on :32. We can see here one reason why the Lord 'went along' with their misunderstanding about evil spirits. They were left with the impression, within their albeit incorrect worldview, that His teaching had the power to change radically, and to cause a spirit or mindset to depart from a person permanently. They thereby perceived that His words had power; the ideas in His teaching were of themselves powerful.

4:37 And there went a rumour concerning him into every place of the region round about- "Rumour" is literally "a noise". The word about the Lord Jesus went to "every place", every isolated dwelling. The Lord clearly used an economy of miracle, but He did so initially in order to publicize His Messianic claims and above all, His message. For we have noted above that He was using the miracles to exemplify and back up His message.

4:38 And he rose up from the synagogue and entered into the house of Simon. And Simon's wife's mother was sick with a high fever- The Greek literally means ‘to be on fire’. This is yet another example of phenomenological language. A high temperature was thought to be a sign that something was on fire within a person; that wrong idea is repeated without correction, just as the language of demons is. The simple point being made, time and again, is that however folk understood disease, the power of the Lord Jesus was so infinitely greater that whatever was supposed to be causing the illness effectively didn’t exist.

And they made request of him concerning her- Mt. 8:14 says: "And when Jesus had entered Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother lying", as if the Lord noticed the problem and took the initiative to assist, rather than being asked to- although Luke says they did ask Him. But they asked for what He already had noticed and knew all about. Mk. 1:31 states that “they [told] Him about her” and He responded. Surely the overall picture is that He did notice her need. But He waited to be asked before responding- not because He would not otherwise have responded, but because He wanted to pique the intensity of request and entreaty on their part. We sense the same spirit in how He appeared to be asleep on the sinking boat, and how He made as if He would go further on the way to Emmaus. And His apparent silence in our own lives is surely to provoke our prayerfulness and faith likewise.

4:39 And he stood over her and rebuked the fever; and it left her- Also the language of the day, because illness was understood as having to go somewhere when it was healed.

And immediately she rose up and served them-  Her response to her healing was to serve the Lord and His people. This should be the underlying motive why we ask for healing and good health- so that we can serve. And our response to the Lord’s touching of us can never be passive- it involves some level of active serving. Perhaps the use of diakoneo looks forward to the office and practice of women being deacons, ministers, in the early church. For the church of any age is to be an extension of the men and women who followed the Lord Jesus in Galilee.  There was a Rabbinic prohibition of women serving men at table, so this is yet another instance of the Lord and His people being driven by their desire to respond to God's grace to breaking accepted social norms about gender.

4:40 And when the sun was setting, they brought to him all that were sick with various diseases; and he laid his hands on everyone of them and healed them- The healing had been done on a Sabbath, and so they only carried their sick to the Lord after sunset. We see here the power of religious tradition and fear of religious leaders and infringement of their traditions. There would have been urgently sick people, who needed healing as soon as possible. The people believed the Lord could heal them; but their fear of infringing Sabbath traditions was even greater. And we see the same in essence today.

4:41 And demons also came out from many, crying out and saying: You are the Son of God!- The "many" had "various diseases" (Mk. 1:34). The "various diseases" demonstrated His wide ranging power; for healers tended to specialize in specific diseases, claiming power over particular [supposed] demons. But the Lord could heal all kinds of diseases. The purpose of the healings was not simply to meet human need, but to elicit a belief in Him as "Son of God". His miracles were always to back up His preaching.

But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ- "Allow / permit" is the same word translated "send forth". The idea could simply be that the Lord didn't send out these converts as 'sent forth' missionary apostles. "The demons" are put for the [supposedly] 'demon possessed' people. The focus is ultimately upon the person and not upon whatever was thought to be possessing them. Note how it was the Egyptian people who were judged (Gen. 15:14); their idols (“gods”) are used by metonymy to stand for those who believed in them. Likewise “demons” is sometimes put by metonymy for those who believed in them.

4:42 Now when it was day, he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowd sought him and came to him, and tried to keep him from leaving them- We continually notice the Lord's dislike of melodrama and large crowds. He was used to sustained personal contact with the Father, and the pressure of the crowds would have been unbearable for Him. He loved solitude with God. Many of us can relate to Him in this, and He thereby to us. But He worked with the crowds exactly because He saw their need, He as it were came out of Himself for their sakes and for the sake of God's glory.

4:43 But he said to them: I must preach the good tidings of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for this is why I was sent- He did not want to be a mere miracle man. His focus was upon preaching the Kingdom, and so He departed rather than meet all the human need which He could have done. His approach ought to be programmatic for us; and too often the focus of our ministry has either been upon purely academic pushing of Biblical ideas at one extreme, or mere do-gooding for its own sake at the other.

Comparing with :19, the preaching of the Kingdom is made parallel to preaching the time of acceptance with God and forgiveness of sins now (2 Cor. 6:2). Rom. 14:17 seems to teach that the Kingdom of God is more about "peace and joy in the Holy Spirit", both now and eternally, than physical, tangible things. Christ's parables about the Kingdom don't speak of a political Kingdom, but rather about the relationship between God and the believer in the here and now. See on Acts 8:12.

4:44 And he was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee- As with Paul's ministry, the openness of the synagogues to visiting teachers was well used by the Lord. "Went about… teaching… preaching… healing" (Mt. 4:23) is just what we read of the Lord's followers doing in Acts. The preaching of the apostles (and of ourselves) continues the personal work of the Lord in whom they lived and moved, and therefore often Acts records the preaching work in language lifted from Luke as well as the other Gospel records (e.g. Acts 4:2; 5:12-16 = Mt. 4:23).