on the other side triumphant, with this expression of His assured conviction of the
sufficiency of God.
34. Satan's 'if' was rather a taunt than a doubt. Nor could it have been intended to call in
question His ability to do miracles. Doubt on that point would already have b een a fall.
35. Deut. viii 3.
36. The supply of the manna was only an exemplification and application of the general
principle, that man really lives by the Word of God.
It cannot be despair - and He cannot take up His Kingdom alone, in the exercise of mere
power! Absolutely submitting to the Will of God, He must, and He can, absolutely trust
Him. But if so, then let Him really trust Himself upon God, and make experiment, nay
more, public demonstration - of it. If it be not despair of God, let it be presumption! He
will not do the work alone! Then God- upborne, according to His promise, let the Son of
God suddenly, from that height, descend and head His people, and that not in any profane
manner, but in the midst of the Sanctuary, where God was specially near, in sight of
incensing priests and worshipping people. So also will the goal at once be reached.
The Spirit of God had driven Jesus into the wilderness; the spirit of the Devil now carried
Him to Jerusalem. Jesus stands on the lofty pinnacle of the Tower, or of the Temple-
porch,37 presumably that on which every day a Priest was stationed to watch, as the pale
morning light passed over the hills of Judæa far off to Hebron, to announce it as the
signal for offering the morning sacrifice.38 If we might ind ulge our imagination, the
moment chosen would be just as the Priest had quitted that station. The first desert-
temptation had been in the grey of breaking light, when to the faint and weary looker the
stones of the wilderness seemed to take fantastic shapes, like the bread for which the faint
body hungered. In the next temptation Jesus stands on the watch-post which the white-
robed priest had just quitted. Fast the rosy morning- light, deepening into crimson, and
edged with gold, is spreading over the land. In the Priests' Court below Him the morning-
sacrifice has been offered. The massive Temple - gates are slowly opening, and the blasts
of the priests' silver trumpets is summoning Israel to begin a new day by appearing before
their Lord. Now then let Him descend, Heaven-borne, into the midst of priests and
people. What shouts of acclamation would greet His appearance! What homage of
worship would be His! The goal can at once be reached, and that at the head of believing
Israel. Jesus is surveying the scene. By His side is the Tempter, watching the features that
mark the working of the spirit within. And now he has whispered it. Jesus had overcome
in the first temptation by simple, absolute trust. This was the time, and this the place to
act upon this trust, eve n as the very Scriptures to which Jesus had appealed warranted.
But so to have done would have been not trust - far less the heroism of faith - but
presumption. The goal might indeed have been reached; but not the Divine goal, nor in
God's way - and, as so often, Scripture itself explained and guarded the Divine promise
by a preceding Divine command.39 And thus once more Jesus not only is not overcome,
but He overcomes by absolute submission to the Will of God.