CHRIST-APP by philtierneyblog

Deception Dynamics: Lessons from a Biblical Tale 2

Now let’s consider the second story. It’s the story of Jesus in the Wilderness.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    and they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.“All this I will give you; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” (Matthew 4: 1-9)

More often than not this story has been interpreted literally, but there are many who prefer to understand it allegorically, instead. Where your interpretation starts influences where it will end.

Let me explain something from the outset. The term ‘Son of God,’ among the Jewish people back in Jesus’s time, was and alternative term for the title Messiah, מָשִׁיחַ Mashiach. It literally meant the Anointed One or king appointed and anointed by God to save the people and restore Israel. Jesus is sometimes called the ‘Son of God’ in the gospels, as in this story. Back then, that term was synonymous with the titles messiah or one chosen and anointed by God. Since then, in the epistles and virtually all Christian denominations, it has come to mean the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, God.

It seems unnecessary to dwell at much length on such questions as how Jesus actually experienced what’s described in this story. Let’s just say that the conversations Jesus described in this story, while he was alone in the wasteland, may have been experienced in any of a number of ways. They may have been physical or spectral encounters with a spiritual force that rebels against God, aka, encounters with the devil. They may have been interior debates with himself. They may have been visions, dreams or hallucinations. Remember that Jesus also told His closest disciple, Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” (Mark 8: 33)

The medium isn’t important. After all, how could Jesus be physically present in a remote wasteland full of rock and shale and then be on top of a turret of the temple in Jerusalem?  For most of us notions that we may count as temptations take the form of internal thoughts and feelings within our own minds or suggestions by others that we entertain in our own minds. They’re usually triggered by internal drives and/or external stimuli. We can relate to that medium more readily than other possibilities. Imagining that they took place by physical flight, astro-projection, telepathy or hallucination are just that, our imaginations at work. And imagination, while a marvelous capacity, does not automatically mean inspiration, particularly divine inspiration. Let’s just say, then, that Jesus had the experiences described in the story.

It seems to me that the more important question is why they seemed sufficiently compelling to Jesus that he should recount them to his associates as real experiences and that they should find their way into three of the gospels. It’s not only important to be honest with ourselves about how we understand a story and why, but it’s always important to take everything in the Bible in context. If you want to understand a word, consider it in the context of the verse. If you want to understand a verse, consider it in the context of the passage. If you want to understand a passage or section of the Bible, consider it in light of what’s gone before in the text and its historical and cultural context.

There’s way too much cherry-picking of verses or prophecies from the Bible by American Christians, these days. Christians, especially Christian leaders, altogether too often pick at random whatever verses or passages they happen to wish and apply them to the present. I knew a prominent minister, once, who spent more than twenty years and 1,000 sermons preaching from one book of the Bible, John’s Gospel, just because it was his favorite.

The pastors and preachers of many American churches choose for themselves the portions of the Bible from which they want to preach. That predisposes them to preach and teach only about what they already believe or how they already happen to think. Neither they nor their congregations tend to grow beyond their preconceptions when that happens. Growth more often comes when a preacher and congregation have to grapple with texts that challenge preexisting beliefs. Cherry-picking verses from the Bible can be deceptive when they confirm bias.

There’s another problem that’s widespread in American churches. Altogether too many American Christians read the meanings they want to find in the Bible. It’s a way of confirming personal biases. Exegesis is a fancy term for learning what messages in the Bible originally meant. It involves understanding the original words as the original writers meant by them and understanding their historical and cultural contexts. It seeks to uncover what it meant. Conversely, Eisegesis is another fancy term for reading into biblical verses and passages what you want them to say to support your doctrines, dogma and personal wishes or views. That’s often called, proof-texting. It seeks to find what you want in the Bible.

Altogether too many Christian leaders in modern America seem to focus on proving what they want in the Bible and on finding verses to support their personal ideas rather than understanding the original meaning of those verses. Part of the problem in this regard is that too many American pastors and preachers, especially in non-denominational churches, are not accountable to anyone else but themselves and their own personal images of God. They will too often select the biblical passages, verses and words they want to preach or teach about. Too often, in the process, the motive is to confirm previously held or biased beliefs and ideas or to prove them to others. Then they read in to the text what they want to find, often to promote personal theological and social biases. Understanding context is essential for understanding the messages of the Bible.

Here’s the historical and cultural context of this story about Jesus’s wrestling with deceptions in the Wilderness. In Jesus’s time, the Jewish people, once again, found themselves under the control of hostile pagan government forces, as they had for almost 600 years. This time it was the Romans. Prophecies of a Messianic Kingdom had not been fulfilled. Many of the Jewish people were impatiently yearning for God to send the promised Messiah, who would liberate Israel and establish God’s Kingdom.

Their vision of the Messianic Kingdom was detailed. They craved freedom. They craved justice. They craved righteousness. They craved faithfulness. They craved security. They craved prosperity. They yearned for God to take control and make their kingdom the greatest kingdom in the world. Their cravings constituted their understanding of the prophets, who foretold of the coming of God’s Kingdom.

You can understand how compelling their vision was to them or might be to any people. Nevertheless, time and time and time again, the hopes of their dreams coming true were dashed. They were dominated by an uninterrupted succession of pagan empires – the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks and then the Romans. They impatiently awaited the promised Messiah, who would set them free.

A prophet-like figure came out of the wilderness to call the Jewish people to repentance in order to prepare the way for the Messiah to come and establish God’s Kingdom. People went to the Jordan River to hear what John, “the Baptist”, had to say. He told them to repent and to be immersed in water as a sign of cleansing, thereby purifying themselves to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.

Jesus also came to the Jordan River to listen to John. He was baptized, demonstrating his cleansing and commitment to God’s Kingdom. In the process, Jesus heard a voice. The voice said, “You are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased…” Jesus was immediately compelled to go into the nearby wastelands to fast, pray and be alone with God.

What was on his mind beside putting himself in the position of being alone with God? Put the two together. At the baptism, he heard, “You’re my son.” In the wilderness he heard, “If you are the son of God…” Serious questions came to Jesus’ mind during his wilderness wanderings. They were questions about identity, role, mission and methodology.

This begs the question of the nature of Jesus’s self-awareness, the degree of his kenosis (Philippians 2:7). ‘Kenosis’ was a Greek word that’s been translated ‘self-emptying.’  Christians believe that Jesus is completely human and completely divine, that he’s totally human and totally God. The question has always been to what extent Jesus’s divinity influenced his humanity and to what extent his humanity affected his divinity. In other words, how empty of divinity was Jesus during his physical life? For example, was Jesus omniscient? Did he know everything about himself and his mission all along? Did Jesus have any prior life memories or not? Had he already known he was God’s Son or not? What did that mean to him, back then?  The questions he wrestled with, the ones we’re privy to in this story, had to do with identity as well as his needs, role, mission and methodology.

Notice that the adversary he encountered in the story (that’s what the word Satan literally meant) appealed to different needs. Like the story in Genesis, the questions addressed different orders of needs. One need was physiological, food to counteract starvation. “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Both identity and food presented themselves simultaneously as issues to be addressed. If you are the Son of God, you can turn stones into bread and sustain yourself. Some say there’s a suggestion that he could feed everyone else, too, in order to gain their allegiance to him as Messiah. Jesus discerned the deception in the proposal by reflecting on a verse from the Bible that said that humans aren’t sustained only by food, but by God’s communications. On the basis of that recollection, Jesus dismissed the notion of trying to turn stones into bread just because he was starving.  

Then came another, frankly rather odd, notion. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down (off the Temple). For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Notice the same lead in – “If you are the Son of God…” It was a test to confirm identity as the Messiah. But why did he think of jumping off the top of the Temple in Jerusalem?  Would that serve to confirm to himself or to someone else that he was the Son of God, the Messiah?  Think about it. Jerusalem was usually full of people, especially in and around the Temple. This may have been a proposal to prove to himself that he was the Messiah, but it also may have been a way to make a spectacle of himself to show others that he was the Messiah.  It may have been both.

Deceptions often have more than one objective. The compulsion to jump off the top of the Temple could be a way to meet either the need for self-esteem or self-actualization and to draw attention to himself in an apparently miraculous way to prove to others that he was the Messiah, the Son of God.  Notice, in this instance, how the deceiver used the Bible to try to lure Jesus. Noticing that Jesus refuted the first deception with the Bible, the deceiver used the Bible for the second deception. One prophecy about the Messiah was that God’s angels would protect him from harm. Jesus’s response was to turn to the Bible and quote Deuteronomy 6:16, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test…” Jesus usually turned to the Bible to discern deception.

Ones who deceive may well believe in God. They may know the Bible and its contents very well and may claim to represent God. Belief isn’t the issue; deception is. The Bible can be twisted and used to deceive. Beliefs can be twisted and used to deceive. Faith can be distorted and used to deceive for other purposes. Just because quotations from the Bible or religion are used as to rationalize actions doesn’t mean they’re not deceptions.

The third and final attempt at deception seems to have been focused on self-actualization or achievement of mission. It was a potential way to accomplish the goals of Messiah. Jesus could expedite and expand his mission to bring the people of Israel, but also of the whole world, into God’s Kingdom by taking all the power and wealth in the world to control the world and make people behave the way God wanted. There was one little hitch. He could accomplish God’s mission, but he had to give the credit, give the honor, to someone other than God.

Jesus could accomplish what God ultimately might have wanted, God’s kingdom, if only he gave the credit to and revered someone else. Wouldn’t that have been worth it? I mean what’s a little credit, a little admiration expressed to someone, if it results in the salvation of the world and the expansion of God’s Kingdom on earth? Jesus saw that as a deception, though, and rejected the quid pro quo proposal by rejecting the one who wanted the honor and the credit. The deception failed because Jesus was accountable to a higher power. He replied, “Away from me, Satan! It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”

The character who was trying to deceive Jesus was persistent. Whether you call that character Deceiver, Tempter, Antagonist, Adversary, Accuser, the Devil or Satan is unimportant. As I always used to say to parents and godparents in preparation for baptisms, “It’s certainly not my job to get you to believe in the devil. You can consider it the devil, the dark side of the force, Voldemort, Saruman or nothing personified at all. But do you renounce evil on behalf of your child?” It’s not my role to advertise the devil. Nevertheless, that character is certainly featured in this wilderness story.

Please notice a few points in the approach of Jesus’s adversary in this story. First, it appealed to basic human needs to introduce deceptions. Some of the needs that were featured were food, identity, attention, purpose, mission and how to achieve God’s Kingdom in the world. Second, its deception appeared to side with Jesus. It appeared to advance Jesus’s best interests – to not starve; to confirm his identity; to advance his fame; to accomplish his mission and the spread of God’s Kingdom. Third, it seemed to be on the side of good. There was nothing inherently wrong with the ends – food, fame, power in service of God. Fourth, it quoted the Bible and used religious language to advance its proposals. Fifth, it claimed to be in charge of the world and was not contradicted by Jesus. And sixth, the nature of its deception was to gain influence for itself by trying to use Jesus’s faith and by insinuating wrong means to achieve otherwise good ends.

The dynamics of deception are subtle and require discernment. The objectives of deception often come in the form of what seems to be good or desirable or even claims to be from God, but deceptions are counterfeit. How can deceptions and counterfeit objectives or methodologies for accomplishing God’s will be discerned? Jesus said this: “Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7: 20)