“All this will I give you... if you bow down and worship me”
This week, we’re not so much looking at a saying of Jesus as a saying of the devil. Yes, the Word of God (in both Testaments) includes the words of Satan! This saying comes in the context of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness at the start of his ministry. The story is narrated in Matt 4:8–10 (and Luke 4):
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. ‘All this will I give you,’ 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.”’
Let’s be honest, it hardly seems likely that the Son of God would have fallen for that one. It hardly feels like some great cosmic victory over temptation. When we think about Jesus from the divine Son of God perspective, it might feel like he’s just going through the motions here—ticking off ‘Temptation’ from his “To-Do List” (like a tourist from a cruise ship with just one day in port to tick off all the “must see” sites).
But that’s a mistaken assumption. The story is not there for form’s sake, nor is it merely symbolic. We have to remember that the event is taking place in the context of the humanity of Jesus—who was “made like us in every way” (per Heb 2:17; cf. 4:15). It’s there because (a) the temptation was real, (b) the risk of succumbing was real (or else this would not have been an authentic victory), and (c) the story has something meaningful to say to us about facing equivalent temptations.
To get to what it’s about, we need to be aware of some key features in the story and the core meaning of some of the original words (which do not always come across in the translators’ choice of a single English word).
The first feature is “the kingdoms of the world.” The Greek word for kingdom is basileia, and it’s used biblically to speak of both earthly kingdoms and the kingdom of God. What we are seeing here is the contrasting of two alternative versions of, or ‘visions’ for, kingdom—a straight choice to be made between the values and means and methods of the two.
The second feature is “the splendour” of those worldly kingdoms—that which makes them great and glorious, attractive and desirable. The Greek word is doxa, from which we get ‘doxology’ (a song glorifying God) and also ‘orthodoxy’ (right beliefs, or correct opinions). There is no suggestion that those kingdoms are not in some senses ‘splendid’—otherwise they would not be tempting.
And the third feature is worship. The kingdoms of this world are on offer, says Satan, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’ It’s rather too easy to think of ‘worshipping’ Satan as singing songs to him, or joining a Satanist church, but that risks dumbing down what’s happening; not many people would do that, then or now. The temptation is far more subtle.
Although the Greek word translated here as ‘bow down’ can refer to “prostrating oneself” in a worship context (e.g. Rev 4:10), its base meaning is “to fall”—either literally (Heb 11:30), or metaphorically: falling into temptation, or falling into sin (1 Cor 10:12). And, rather than being about singing, ‘to worship’ (Greek: proskyneō) means giving deference to someone, recognising their role and position—literally, it means “kissing the hand” (or “to lick the hand like a dog”!). This is what would be happening if Jesus took up the offer of “the kingdoms of the world and their splendour.”
Why might this be tempting? Because it’s offering Jesus an alternative route to power—to bring the kingdom of God to earth at the earliest opportunity, gaining immediate control over what happens in the world.
It’s tempting because Jesus would have been pondering all the good he could do. How he could legislate for a “more holy” world—cracking down on other (clearly false) religions; promoting Jewish faith at government level (giving its institutions special funding); mandating synagogue attendance and installing the Ten Commandments on the wall of every synagogue classroom; financing a new militia to police Torah obedience; cracking down on sin; getting rid of the Romans and their ungodly foreign beliefs and lifestyles that have infiltrated God’s country … There would be no end to the good that could come out of it. Why wouldn’t that be tempting?
Might not these very worthy ends justify the otherwise imperfect means, runs the temptation? And, of course, for Jesus, there would be the added benefit of enabling him to avoid the suffering of the cross. A potential win-win scenario.
The only cost would be the need to lick Satan’s hand. We’d probably say it slightly differently nowadays: “to lick his boots” (but they didn’t have boots at the time).
It’s easy to think that the temptation is a simple choice between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world in some “believing in” sense. But that makes things rather too obvious (all Christians think of themselves, and declare themselves, to be kingdom of God people). The challenge posed by the temptation lies in its subtlety.
It’s really all about how we get to the kind of “Christian” world we want to live in—what moral and ethical compromises we’re willing to make, actively or passively, for that “greater good.” Might the benefits justify the cost? Do we say to ourselves that Satan’s not so bad after all? Nobody’s perfect, including many Bible characters. Surely there’s a place for pragmatism and compromise. We don’t want to be guilty of an unhealthy dualism, where everything about “the world” is treated as bad and wrong, and only “spiritual” things are right and good. The kingdoms of this world are not all bad. And if we’re in charge, we can make them even better.
These are the kinds of things that are tempting to dwell on, but once we start thinking in those terms, we’re giving credence to the wrong questions. Because the only correct response (as Jesus said) is “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.” For “only,” read “exclusively.” As Tertullian said, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”
There’s a not uncommon evangelical way of reading this event, which you may have heard, that runs along the lines, “Ah yes, but the kingdoms of this world were not Satan’s to give in the first place” (proof text: Psalm 24:1), “so that was a lie! Jesus realised that—which is why the temptation didn’t succeed.” That may sound persuasive at first glance, but it’s missing the point, not least because Jesus didn’t offer that as a reason, as he perfectly well could have. This is not about the kingdoms of this world in the sense of the people or the geography; it’s about the values and the systems and the aims and the worldview.
To “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matt 6:33) is to have nothing to do with the methods and means of the empires of men, because they will never truly advance the kingdom of God. To “worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” is to allow God to decide when the kingdom of God comes in its fullness and to accept its only partial fulfilment in the meantime. Our role is to pray for the kingdom of God to come (Matt 6:10), not to get into bed with the methods and means of this world on God’s behalf to make it happen more quickly. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders.” (John 18:36).
An extended quote from the Apostle Paul (2 Cor 10:3–5) is apposite (it feels like a midrash on what Jesus said):
“Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Let’s close with a few quick thoughts on what we can learn from this for today (though you may well have sensed where it’s going already).
For a long time, there has been a growing sense among conservative evangelicals that the cultural ground beneath their feet has been shifting further and faster than is comfortable, as traditional Christian assumptions about things like family, sex, gender, and biblical authority (even, “truth” itself) are no longer taken for granted. Indeed, a counter-narrative is increasingly prevailing. Many conservative evangelicals have expressly blamed this on the so-called Sexual Revolution that began in the Sixties. Their expectations of Christian “revival” would include a turning back of that tide. All this is happening against a background of church attendance that (to the objective observer) is clearly in long-term decline, however much we would wish otherwise. For conservative evangelicals, this doesn’t just feel like passing change, it feels like painful loss—loss of a society and culture that is, at least broadly, “Christian” as they want it to be.
The presidency of Donald Trump in the US looms large over this discussion, not because the US and the UK are in identical circumstances, but because the logic (or dare I say, the temptation) is comparable. Many American evangelicals supported Trump because they believed he would deliver outcomes they cared about: a conservative judiciary; enhanced protection and promotion of Christianity; and a federally empowered rolling back of a progressive/liberal (or “woke”) culture that is “the enemy.”
The dilemma facing conservative evangelicals in both countries is not whether they want a more conservative society—most undoubtedly do. The dilemma is the extent to which they are prepared to support politicians and movements whose rhetoric, methods, and moral framework (and indeed, their other policies) sit uncomfortably—even directly at odds—with Christian values and Christlikeness as biblically-framed and traditionally understood.
To what extent will evangelicals in either country be tempted to turn a pragmatic blind eye to an absence of Christlike values (“politics is never perfect”) to see conservative outcomes delivered? Evangelicals in the US are already on the horns of that dilemma; I suggest it will soon come for evangelicals in the UK.