Helmut Thielicke agrees: “Here we see the secret of temptation; the tempter is already enthroned in our hearts and arouses us to murder and theft (Mark 7:21–23).” Satan is a real personality but he is not an external enemy. Satan “does not attack us from without — the attack takes place within our own breast; Antichrist and the world are within our breast…we are always in the midst of temptation and the tempter is already within our hearts. He comes not as a foe but as a friend”. This was true for Jesus as well. “It is the man in him that is tempted here ‘like unto us’ (Hebrews 4:15) …It is the human being in him that hungers and thirsts to be a Lord and God of this world”. Because Christ is a man as well as the Son of God “the human being in him feels desire and is tempted”.877
Clearly, Thielicke and Ellul believe that the experience of Jesus in the wilderness is meant to teach us a fundamental truth about our existence as human beings. They both trace the origin of temptation to the same root: “Now we understand why man is tested and tempted from the beginning: because he believes in himself”. Jesus, too, came to understand that “This wish to be free of God is the deepest yearning of man. It is greater than his yearning for God”.878 Satan, it seems, is man himself: the ahistorical, disembodied essence of humanity. But does Man, as such, exist? More to the point, did the Son of God we meet in Mark 1 become incarnate as a generic human being or as a member of a particular family, clan, tribe, nation, and race? Was Jesus tempted because he was a human being or because he was a remarkably gifted and devout Jewish holy man descended through the royal line of David from the seed of Abraham?
The Biocultural Jesus
In the late eighteenth century, the reactionary Catholic monarchist, Joseph de Maistre, exposed the fundamental flaw inherent in both the Christian and the secular brands of modernist humanism which flowered in the wake of the American and French Revolutions and which finds expression in the work of Christian writers such as Ellul and Thielicke. Criticizing the French constitution of 1795 which “like its predecessors, has been drawn up for Man,” de Maistre wrote:
Now, there is no such thing in the world as Man. In the course of my life, I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, etc.; I am even aware, thanks to Montesquieu, that one can be a Persian. But, as for Man, I declare that I have never met him in my life. If he exists, I certainly have no knowledge of him.879
De Maistre was a historicist not an existentialist. His historicist understanding of individual and group identity has one obvious application to theological anthropology and by extension to the interpretation of the temptation narratives in the Synoptic Gospels: Jesus was not born and did not live, die, or even rise from the dead as a generic human being. On the contrary, he was “the one who has been born the king of the Jews” (Matt 2:2; see also Mark 15:2, 18). Both Matthew 1:1–17 and Luke 3:23–37 provide genealogies establishing that Jesus Christ was of a royal lineage stretching back, respectively, to David and Abraham and even Adam, the son of God. Mark also identifies Jesus as the Son of David (Mark 10:47–48; 12:36–37).
Some New Testament scholars do recognize both the theological significance and the historical relevance of Jesus’ distinctively Jewish biocultural identity. They “insist that Jesus’ temptations are the distinctive temptations of the Saviour who is preparing to undertake his particular role in salvation history; on his obedience hangs the outcome of God’s saving purposes”.880 On that premise, the baptism and temptation of Christ becomes the key to the messianic consciousness displayed by the historical Jesus. In the Gospel of Mark, the voice at Jesus’ baptism (Mark 1:11) effectively recognizes Jesus as “Israel’s anointed king and God’s messiah, charged with attaining victory over the forces of evil, and the beloved, the one destined for death, and the servant who heals his people and brings justice to the nations through suffering”.881 After facing down the tempter in the wilderness Jesus knew that he was indeed the Messiah. “That meant that in his person converged the rich streams of hope which had found expression among his people for centuries. The Messiah would surely be related to all that was highest and best in the religion of Israel”.882 Armed with that confidence, Jesus emerged out of the wilderness proclaiming that “The time has come, he said. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15)
The Historical Satan in the Kingdom of God
Jesus knew that the future of the kingdom of God was “bound up in his own personal decisions”. Ben M Elrod slams the existentialist interpretation of the temptation of Jesus for failing to do justice to the “extreme intensity of the struggle portrayed in that experience”. This “was not the struggle of a man concerned only with his own problems and fate. Only the most prejudiced blindness could fail to see that he attached far more significance to his decisions than would the ordinary person”.883 And rightly so; as the Son of God and king of the Jews, Jesus could credibly claim to be the corporate representative of national Israel and the anointed bearer of its destiny.
The fact was, however, that first-century national Israel was of more than two minds about the nature of that destiny. In the heart and mind of the historical Jesus this circumstance inevitably gave birth to the historical Satan. In proffering his three temptations, Satan came as a friend not a foe. He became avatar and advocate for zealous Jewish patriots eagerly awaiting their political, social, and economic messiah.
Scot McKnight has shown that “Jesus’ God is the national God of Israel, not some abstract universal deity. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; he is the God of David and of the prophets; he is the God of the Maccabees and of John the Baptist”. Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God was animated not “by an abstract religious feeling but [by] a concrete realistic vision for God’s chosen nation”. It “concerned Israel as a nation and not a new religion”. Accordingly, “[w]hen Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the kingdom to come (Matt 6:10), he surely had in mind more than an existential encounter with the living God that would give his followers an authentic experience”. For McKnight, it follows that “[t]he most important context in which modern interpreters should situate Jesus is that of ancient Jewish nationalism”.884
Both John and Jesus “had one vision for their contemporary Israel, and that was for Israel to become what God had called it to be”.885 For Jesus, God was not a universal deity. Israel stood in a covenantal relationship with the Father known to no other nation. Throughout the narrative of the Hebrew Scriptures, “God never destroys his offspring…but rather pursues them in order to bring them to perfection”.886 The telos of that covenantal history was to be perfected in the Lord Jesus and the righteous remnant of Old Covenant Israel; they alone were the true Israelites, forever separated from the false Israelites when the nation faced its final judgement (Matt 13:41–43). Jesus’ messianic mission was “to lead Israel away from a national disaster and towards a redemption that would bring about the glorious kingdom”. From the time of his confrontation with Satan in the wilderness it became clear to him that he would have “to offer himself consciously and intentionally to God as a vicarious sacrifice for Israel in order to avert the national disaster”.887
But there was more than one vision of Israel’s destiny in the popular imagination of first-century Judaism. Certainly nobody, probably not even John the Baptist, perhaps not even Jesus himself prior to his encounter with Satan, expected the Messiah to arrive as the suffering servant of God (Isaiah 53:1–9). On the contrary, the messianic Son of God prophesied in Psalm 2 and cited at Jesus’ baptism was destined to rule the nations to “the ends of the earth…with an iron sceptre; you will dash them to pieces like pottery” (Psalms 2:9).888 Steeped in such chauvinistic religious rhetoric, most first-century Jews scoffed at the notion that “true Israelites” were not “destined to be part of God’s eschatological people…on the basis of heredity”. They rejected the charge made by John the Baptist and Jesus that Israel according to the flesh had “forfeited their enjoyment of covenant blessings” and was in exile “because of unfai
thfulness and sinfulness”. Certainly they did not believe that “God was forming a new people” based solely on repentance, righteous obedience, and covenant faithfulness.889
Most first-century Jews were confident that the God of Israel would rest forever in a temple made by hands in Jerusalem. Few took seriously Jesus’ warning that in their lifetime a newly-inaugurated kingdom of God would pronounce final judgement on Old Covenant Israel and throw the “false Israelites” into the flames of hell (Matt 13:40–43). Jesus knew his fellow Jews longed instead for the restoration of national Israel according to the flesh. Indeed, inspired as he was by his own national vision for Israel, he shared the messianic longing resonating within the blood faith of his people. In his heart of hearts, Jesus could not properly deny the satanic spirit of the Maccabees and the zealots a fair hearing.890 Indeed, Jesus saw that spirit at work even in his disciples, most notably on the occasion in Mark 8:31–33 when he administered the sternest possible rebuke to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan”.891
Conclusion
To put the matter plainly, it was not the man in him who tempted Jesus with bread, universal dominion, and independence from the Father. Rather, it was his inner Jew.892 It was within the breast of the historical Jesus Christ that the historical Satan makes his entrance into the divine economy of salvation. As a charismatic personality, at ease in crowds, recognized in childhood as the king of the Jews, and by the Father as his Son, Jesus could hardly fail to empathize with all but the most grandiose aspirations of his own once-holy people. No doubt covetousness coupled with a lust for power is a temptation to which all of us, individually and collectively, are prone. Ellul suggests that “because all have this inner covetousness, the whole social body exalts it”.893 But the particular forms that covetousness assumes differ markedly from one society to another. First-century Jews were especially susceptible to delusions of messianic grandeur much like those aired by Satan during his encounter with Jesus in the wilderness.
Mark, of course, tells us only that Jesus allows Satan to tempt him while he is in communion with God in the desert for forty days. Such a sparse account lends itself readily to an existentialist exegesis, even by an accomplished biblical historian. NT Wright, for example, tells us that the road that led Jesus into the wilderness “precisely because he is God’s dear son, is the road that leads through the dry and dusty paths, through temptation and apparent failure. So it will be for us as well”.894 But existentialism and historicism are not always set in opposition to each other. When situated in its historical and scriptural context, Mark 1:12–13 becomes a short story about the existential crisis, not of an individual, but of a nation. Mark’s account is at once a narrative and a prophecy. Mark 1:13 exudes a calm confidence in the fulfilment of prophecy, relegating the overly zealous tempter so familiar to his first century audience to the sidelines of the new creation. The eschatological hope contained in that messianic vision of Paradise Restored remains essentially national in character; it is the hope of Israel. By its very nature, the historically unique, divinely-ordained telos of Old Covenant Israel can never be shared by any other nation. But by crucifying the Messiah, national Israel fulfilled its divinely-appointed purpose in salvation history. The old heaven and the old earth were destroyed, as prophesied, when the Jerusalem temple was destroyed in AD 70.
What, then, does the baptism and temptation of Jesus mean for us? The most important lesson to be drawn from these stories is that the meaning of temptation depends upon who we are. Susan Garrett suggests that Jesus and the Gospel writers expected the new creation to be “a house of prayer for all nations” (Mark 11:17). According to her, Mark believed that the church would be “the place where God’s faithful people may be found”. One would expect to find many peoples of God represented in a house of prayer open to all nations. It is axiomatic for Garrett that Mark expects followers of Jesus “to undergo times of testing”. Such testing is demanded of all Christian believers. Whoever and wherever we may be, and whatever our race, ethnicity, or gender, we can be sure “that our difficult times are nothing less than a test of our fidelity, or singlemindedness”. In such Christian existentialist interpretations of Mark, it is in the very nature of our existence as individual human beings that we come to be tested by God.895 By contrast, a historicist reading of Mark suggests that the most demanding and dangerous, but perhaps also the most fruitful tests will be those undergone by Christian families, tribes, and nations.
Jesus knew that the telos of Israel’s covenantal history could be realized only if true Israelites were ready, willing, and able to “[b]e perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48). He spoke to his audience not as if they were a random collection of atomized, deracinated individuals but as a fellow member of a highly ethnocentric, ancient, and holy nation. The temptation of Jesus provides every Christian nation — past, present (if only), and future — with a warrant to perfect its own distinctive telos in the face of the ever-present temptation to deviate from the straight and narrow path. That story’s place in the covenantal history of national Israel also sounds a warning to every Christian nation beguiled by historical Satans turning its primal myth to their ungodly ends.
4: Worship and Identity
Introduction
On 24 May 2015 at 8:45 am I attended the monthly Holy Communion service at St Peter’s church in Mount Victoria, one of the four churches in the Anglican parish of Blackheath in New South Wales. According to the plaque adorning the heavy wooden door opening into the rear of the nave this small stone church dates from 1874. As they push open the door, worshippers are greeted by two middle-aged men who hand out laminated service sheets (or prayer books if requested) together with the weekly parish newsletter.
Along the nave are two rows of moveable wooden pews. Each pew seats three adults comfortably; at a pinch, four. Nine rows are on the left side of the middle aisle. At their head, a small organ faces the right wall of the nave along which are arranged another eleven rows of pews. A small raised platform just past the organist features a small lectern and chair on the left (used by the service leader) and another on the right side from which the bible readings and the sermon are delivered. The sanctuary is located at the rear of the apse which is reached by another platform step just in front of the altar rail. The altar stands before an arched stained-glass window and is set in preparation for the Lord’s Supper later in the service. Flanking the altar are two wooden chairs, neither of which ever appears to be used. Between the altar and a chair on the right stands an Australian flag.
The service was attended by about thirty adults, mainly middle-aged and older Anglo-Australians and one older Chinese couple. Also present were two children and a boy toddler, the minister’s son. There were several empty pews near the front; otherwise the church was a bit over half-full. Apart from myself and two older men wearing jackets-and-tie (one the organist, the other man handed round the offertory bag), all the worshippers and the minister himself were casually (more or less smartly) dressed.
Movement through the various stages of the service from the gathering through the service of the word, the response, the service of the table and the dismissal was punctuated by the singing of four hymns, all of twentieth-century vintage. The couple standing in front of me for the hymns visibly (and later vocally) approved of the musical menu, the woman raising her arm in the evangelical mega-church manner as the spirit moved her.
Because most of the worshippers are well-known to each other the atmosphere throughout the service was relaxed and friendly with a touch of intimacy: the lady doing the Old Testament reading expressed relief that her passage was not as challenging as the Table of Nations that “Carol had to deal with last Sunday”. Just before the bible readings, one of the women from the congregation moved forward to sit on the floor near the organ with the three children. There, she read them a short homily and distributed some lollies. During the kiddie’s portion of the service, the minister, too, was seated on the floor with h
is young son (until the latter escaped his grasp).
The centrepiece of the service was the sermon preached on Matthew 27:1–10 in which Judas hangs himself. The lesson was about guilt and how it should be handled. Judas dealt with his guilt poorly, going to the temple leaders in Jerusalem who could not forgive his sin; as sinners ourselves, we should earnestly repent and look to Jesus for forgiveness. Only through such a personal relationship to Jesus can we secure our place in heaven.
The service of the table was accompanied by organ music, once the organist had taken communion together with the minister. (The highlight for me was receiving broken-up but tasty Wonder bread in place of the bland communion wafers on offer at the more high-toned Eucharist rituals performed in some of Canberra’s Anglican churches).
The Formation of Christian Identity
Who are the people who attended the communion service at St Peter’s? Did the service serve to create and reinforce the individual and/or collective identity of those present and, if so, by what means? An old-fashioned “church theology” presumes that the “traditional liturgical formulations” developed by the priestly order “when joined to an appropriate performance of them, may confidently be relied upon to effect their own meanings”.896 In such a highly-ritualized style of worship, the congregation plays a passive role. In the service at St Peter’s, by contrast, the congregation is actively engaged in the performance of the liturgy. The whole gathering sings hymns, and collectively recites the Nicene Creed along with several prayers. Prior to communion, a lay person standing at the lectern at the head of the nave offers an intercessory prayer on behalf of the entire congregation. Clearly then, the meaning, value, and purpose of the worship experience depends to a very large extent upon active participation by members of the congregation and their knowledgeable reception of the signals sent by the minister leading the service and preaching the sermon. Experience and teaching are as or more important than ritual performances in the St Peter’s service.897
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