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Preface

The Temptation

What does the lone traveler seek through these wastelands? Where is he headed on the way to the desert? As soon as he leaves the narrow fertile plain of the river, and as he ascends inland, he gradually and hopelessly goes deeper into an increasingly barren place. Having arrived at the summit, when he has lost sight of—faded in the distance—the memory of the last gray-green palm trees, the traveler finds himself lost in a desolate vastness of broken rocky places, whitish like abandoned ossuaries, in which not even goat herders dare to venture. An endless succession of inhospitable stony areas injured by sun-scorched gullies and blinded by dust storms on windy days. A barren plain without shelters, bristling with parched hawthorns, where scorpions survive as best they can.

With the memory of the coolness of the river still drenching his hair, the young man penetrates the ardent loneliness of that wretched place.1 In the distance he hears the howling of jackals driven mad by hunger and thirst, which wait for nightfall to descend into the valley to satiate their instincts. A bird of prey, perhaps a falcon, hovers menacingly, against the cloudless blue sky, gliding over its prey.

What does the wanderer seek where there is hardly anything? What have all those explorers, high-risk adventurers or enlightened mystics searched for in so many other deserts upon embarking on unthinkable journeys alone, testing their limits? Perhaps something more than the fascination of the unknown and its secrets of unexplored areas. Because like it or not, solitude is also the place of inevitable encounter with your own inner world, with its hidden regions, so full of surprises and dangers like the most remote corners of our planet. The desert is the unavoidable place of encounter with oneself.

Furthermore, whoever does not fear approaching the absolute, in any place, however remote, runs the risk of also encountering God, who is everywhere. For that reason, the desert, that environment where no one distracts the attention of the seeker nor can anything conceal the certainty of the unavoidable presence of the infinite, has always been the chosen place by those who feel the pressing need to withdraw themselves from the world to meditate or to pray.2

The newly baptized seeks a remote place to reflect on what has just happened to Him in the Jordan.3 A divine voice has spoken to Him, and He understands that God is calling Him to a unique task. But the voice from the sky has only said:

You are my beloved son; I feel proud of you.4

Jesus needs to hear more of His father’s voice to know what he expects of Him. The moment has arrived to discover what His mission will consist of and to decide how to undertake it.

He has left His home in Nazareth, and His family does not understand. From the time this idealist carpenter insisted on transferring the shop to His brothers and said goodbye to His family, His mother does nothing but cry. None of His relatives support Him. Some don’t cease to ridicule Him by treating Him as the enlightened one, a fanatic or a madman, and are now undoubtedly happy to lose sight of Him.5 No one, not even He, is a prophet in His own land.6

He needs an environment of serenity and calmness to reflect on His vocation and assume the risks that He shall face if He wishes to follow the voice from heaven. Here, in the silence of the desert of Judaea, He expects to find the peace and inspiration that will allow Him to hear in the depths of His heart God’s response to His numerous questions.

Nonetheless, this inhospitable wilderness is a fearful place, without water, without food, ephemeral hideout of bandits, the dwelling of hungry vermin and deadly snakes. Whoever gets lost in it knows that he must deal with any adversity and without any protection. Not in vain, the majority of human beings fear solitude and so avoid it at all cost. Moreover, a certain level of isolation becomes unbearable for whoever is afraid of his own inner emptiness, or for whoever has already sensed that undesirable presences peer out from the depths of his being.7 And even if this may not be his case, Jesus does not ignore the reality that, for many, such a desert is a sinister place, where demons are said to prowl . . .

But what real danger can there be in the desert for someone like Him? Does evil not abound more in cities? Since the most ancient times on earth, there are no remaining paradises shielded from danger, not even the most uninhabited. Because when we find ourselves completely alone, rarely are we in good company . . . There they are, lurking, whether we like it or not, our inevitable thoughts and the inescapable demands of our bodies.

The dreadfulness of the desert is that it forces us to assume what we truly are, without external help, and unable to feign or escape. There, we are really ourselves. The desert is, so far an obligatory place of passage for those who seek to find themselves, the par excellence environment of the test, because we must always make the most difficult decisions in the insulated stronghold of our inner solitude. The desert is, consequently, a dangerous battleground against invisible enemies.8

The contrast between this desolate wasteland and His previous experience cannot be greater. Upon the sublime moment Jesus feels embraced by the love of the Father in the coolness of the water in the middle of the river, He is stricken by the ardent solitude of this wilderness. Several hours of traveling have sufficed to make him go from communion with God through the open heavens to the painful sensation of desertion, and, what’s worse, to the absolute conviction of the presence of enemies lying in wait.

Jesus senses that He is not alone. He perceives the proximity of hungry beasts and evil spirits. He finds himself lost between the subhuman and the suprahuman, with no more company than his vulnerable humanity and the dark world of the shadows.

In this manner, forty days.9

Forty nights debating in doubt, unable to communicate with anyone, defenseless in a harsh and merciless land, and under a sky that seems infinitely distant . . .

When His desertion becomes more hurtful, when He fears fainting from starvation and anxiety, at the brink of delirium, He notices that someone approaches. The biblical passage calls this intruder by the generic name of peiradson, “the Tempter.” But Jesus does not yet know who it is. Soon, He will realize that His worst enemy is stalking Him.

But how can someone as spiritual as Jesus be tempted? Someone like Him who seeks communion with God should not run that risk . . .

Completely false.

In this world, the path of the believer necessarily passes, time and time again, through the desert of temptation. To be tempted is the price of being free, of being able to choose between various options and of running the risk of making a mistake. That freedom and that risk are the characteristics of human nature.10

To Jesus, assuming our condition represents having to confront, necessarily—as Adam and Eve, as the Israelites in the Exodus, as each one of us—decisions that often hide menacing risks. It is in our own being, at the core of our free will, where they attack with greater treachery and where we must face the forces of evil.

This young man, idealistic and generous like no other —when seeking divine answers to His human concerns has just responded to the call of God by completely surrendering to His will now that he is making concrete plans to dedicate his life to Him—finds himself abandoned in the agonizing desert of the test.

“Can it be,” He asks himself, “that God is telling me that I am mistaken?”

His doubt-stricken soul will end up learning through its own experience that “Never does one leave the ranks of evil for the service of God without encountering the assaults of Satan.” 11 Himself included or, rather, He more than anyone.12

The tempter, the treacherous peiradson, is very clever. He will not allow himself to be so easily recognized. He knows that, in order to convince someone, he has much greater assurances of success if he disguises temptation as necessity, if he turns it into an emergency or passes it off as something licit. Therefore, following his artful tactics, perfected after millennia of success, he begins by insinuating in the mind of the tempted a thought that is logical, a desire that seems legitimate . . . a voice that can recall that of an angel.

Every true temptation sooner or later gives rise to an inner, profound, subtle, struggle camouflaged as good excuses, disguised as laudable reasons, and nuanced by all extenuating factors and all possible justifications. That is how the tempter presents himself to Jesus, like the voice of a celestial messenger who comes to help Him.

Jesus has gone forty days without eating.

He is not fasting for the purpose of carrying out a purifying sacrifice or a meritorious exercise, and much less with the intention of undergoing a weakening diet to make everything “even more difficult,” as in a risky circus act. No. His fasting, learned in the Holy Scriptures,13 is the harsh collateral effect of the total availability that His intense inner struggle requires. He finds himself so immersed in prayer, so focused in His search of the divine will that He refuses to be distracted by anything else, and renounces, until able to get out of His trance, the search for food. However, like every man in similar circumstances, He feels hungry. His need for food is pressing, real, inevitable. In His exhausted body, the instinct of survival is thrown into despair.

The enemy is awaiting that moment at which the imperious need to survive, to which our mortal body is subjected, offers no way out: the banal desire to eat has turned into a matter of life or death.

But, because Jesus is profoundly engrossed in His search for God, the enemy will camouflage his temptation by placing it within the framework of the sublime spiritual experience that the Nazarene has gone through on occasion of His baptism:

Are you sure you heard correctly? What was the voice from heaven saying? Did it not say: “This is my beloved son?” Then, if you really are the Son of God, your Father will not allow you to die from hunger. Draw upon your divine power: the Creator of the universe can make bread even from these stones. You say that you want to be treated like any other human? All men have the right to eat when they suffer from hunger. Further, they have an obligation to do so without reaching these absurd extremes in which you placed yourself endangering your life.

Jesus knows that His destiny, and perhaps more than that, hangs in the balance of a correct decision. He also knows that upon accepting to become a man He has assumed sharing even the ultimate consequences of the vulnerable human condition.14 When we, mortals, are hungry and know that we run the risk of dying from starvation, we eat; and, if unable to feed ourselves, we faint. For that reason, when we desperately lack food, we seek it, we purchase it at whatever cost, we beg for it, we steal it . . . but we can not make bread from stones. Human beings have unavoidable limitations and Jesus has decided to live within the same limits that constrain us.

That is why, His first temptation in this desert, although it implies resorting to the power of God outside of the divine design, has the same essence as many of the temptations suffered by any common mortal, yesterday, today, and always:

You know that you should not. But if you desire it so much, do it.15

The tempter has been very cunning. He has limited himself to introducing an enormous temptation in a tiny wedge, through the word “if . . .” There is room for tremendous doubt in that conditional, minute particle: “If you were really a Son of God, he would not allow you to die like that . . .”

But Jesus replies to one word of doubt with two words of faith:

It is written: “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” 16

Jesus thus puts the word of God above the voice of His own desires.

It is as though he were saying: “God would not approve my cowardice. He has made it very clear. Human beings are not mere animals. Of course our bodies inexorably need food, but our spirits also need, in order not to be mistaken, to listen to God and pay heed to him. Divine revelation exists for that purpose: to nourish ourselves with it. If I can trust His word, I should not doubt that He can get me out of this predicament without Me having to cheat at all.”

In the face of this first failure, the tempter becomes emboldened. But in his own audacity he has shown his true colors. The perfidious peiradson, already identified as “the devil,” prepares his second assault. Now he also positions himself in the religious field, barging into the dominions of his coveted victim.

Because Jesus trusts God so much that he blindly clings to the promises of divine protection contained in the Scriptures, the devil searches for another biblical cite susceptible to manipulation, and, cleverly taking it out of context,17 he attacks his victim in the realm of His own faith, pushing Him to take a shortcut in His ministry.

If you cite the Bible, so will I. Given that you have so much confidence in your Father and in his promises, demonstrate it. There you have it, before you, the atrium of the temple.

Observe how Your people pray and implore for the coming of the Messiah around the altar of sacrifices. Go down and tell them that You are already here, that they do not need to wait any longer. Does the Bible not say that the angels will accompany You in Your glorious descent? Thrust Yourself now and end their wait; end once and for all the suffering of Your people and Your own torture.

To throw oneself through the air toward the temple is not to take a deadly leap without a net and with the parachute closed. This is not about the temptation to make a BASE jump. Jesus is tempted to make a much riskier leap. Descending in the middle of the temple carried by angels equates to presenting himself before the people of Israel as it expected that the Messiah would appear; that is, “I will fill this temple with glory.” 18

The tempter, again, is not asking Jesus to do anything bad, but rather to simply agree to appear before His co-religionists as they expect. The proposed spectacular appearance could bring Him enormous advantages at the time. If He presents himself as the expected liberator, His immediate success is guaranteed. He would be received no less as the glorious King His people yearn for.

But Jesus reflects and says to himself:

Careful. In the design outlined by God, that is not the plan for my first coming, but for the second.

The devil is proposing to Jesus that He take a shortcut to avoid problems in His salvific mission. But He, who in fact has come to this earth to give us victory over evil’s complex web, does not want to obtain such with the irresistible force of spectacular miracles but through the conversion of the heart, eternally placing Himself at the service of humanity up to the sacrifice.

If Jesus appears in the temple as the tempter implies, He is acting outside God’s plan, forcing the latter to change His plans. He would be tempting Him. In this way, He would not be answering the great challenge cast to God by fallen humanity, which has always been the same:

Come down if you are a man.

And Jesus is there, accepting that challenge until its ultimate consequences.

He therefore responds once again entrenched in his condition of man:

I am not willing to tempt God or to impose My ways upon Him. I submit to His plans, although at the moment they may seem incomprehensible and may be painful.

Jesus is being tempted to muddle up His faith with the audacity of presumption, and His trust in God with the insolence of demanding a miracle from Him, and thus disregarding His plans.

This second great temptation of Jesus, like many of ours, has, ultimately, this challenge:

Dare yourself; nothing is going to happen to you. Do whatever you feel like doing; the easiest, the most gratifying. Forget about what God says and do not think about the consequences of your actions.19

The devil bites the dust of a new defeat. But he does not give up the battle. He well knows that Jesus has come into the world in an attempt to save planet Earth from its self-destruction, and, if possible, to save each human being from that evil that kills him. For his third assault20 the enemy leads him to contemplate in His reflections, from the heights of His plans of salvation, the spiritual and historic reality of this world.

If you think about the outlook of humanity, you can already see that it is lost as a whole. Human beings have fallen into my power. They are all mine. Well, then, I will give them to you if you bow down and worship me. In other words, they can all be yours if you do as I say, that is, if you do as I do.

Jesus very well knows how the enemy has waged against humans, how he makes us fall into his clutches and separates us from God: to this effect he uses shrewdness, deceit, seduction, money, pleasure, pressure, violence, whatever, to impose upon our will.

Satan is in fact the provisional master of the world, in the sense that all human beings, upon succumbing to his will in one way or another, place themselves, without realizing it, under his dominance. Jesus comes to establish the kingdom of God, that is, to try to make good reign once again in this world and in each one of us. He knows that winning us over for God, appealing to the free choice of each one of us, knocking at the door of each heart, will take him a long time, and will eventually not be able to gain us all. And what if He were to force everyone to love, ending once and for all the human tragedy? Does God not want everyone’s salvation?21

Well, for that He would have to force human liberty, use the strength of divine power. Doing so would be possible, but it would transgress the ethics of the Creator, who wants only free subjects. It would be to succumb to the methods of Satan, upholding that he is right. It would be to acknowledge failure of the divine plan and to justify the accusations of the devil, yielding before him, which would amount to worshiping him.22

Jesus sees the cunning trap and once again replies like a man of faith:

I worship only God and I serve only Him.

The third great temptation of Jesus is the temptation we all encounter when we say to ourselves:

Obtain whatever you want at any cost. The end justifies the means.23

The three temptations attempt to make Jesus separate Himself from divine will, leaving aside His human condition, and to use His divinity for personal gain.

But the account of these decisive moments in the life of Christ clarifies what temptation truly consists of, also for us: it is the struggle with a dangerous desire that challenges us to exercise our freedom on the fringe of divine will.24 In the face of that challenge, we can resist or surrender. But to desire what is unsuitable and to be tempted is not yet to fall. To sin would be to let oneself be captivated by desire in a game of capitulations that has all the ingredients of erotic seduction, that is, one is tempted when lured and enticed by one’s own desires.25

Every temptation contains one of these elements: giving in to a compelling urge that prevails over reason, succumbing to the irresistible desire to see something improper come to fruition, or acting in a way that puts one’s will above all.26 For this, we do not need to look for occasions: they present themselves. We are at war with the worst of ourselves, in a corrupt world, and our daily life is in the middle of the greatest conflict.27

Jesus has been tempted as are the best believers,28 as a mere mortal, overwhelmed and sensitive.29 But He has overcome temptation, remembering that He is also a Son of God, and that if He seeks His help, the latter will never allow Him to succumb.30

Nothing defeats temptation better than the decision to turn to God.31 Because, at the end of the day, it is about choosing between the will of God and ours, behind which the devil always attempts to camouflage himself.

After overcoming this decisive moment, exhausted, at the edge of the abyss, Jesus relishes the incomparable joy of victory over temptation: ephemeral, momentary, as all of ours,32 without witnesses, but heroic.

Having prevailed over the assaults of the enemy latched on to God, the Teacher surfaces stronger, and consequently, more capable to overcome his next assaults.33

The enemy has fled. “Now you can hear the full depths of the desert silence. It isn’t the quiet before the storm, or the silence of the end of the world, but a silence that only covers another, even deeper, silence.”34

Upon putting the backpack on his shoulder to leave the desert, headed toward other struggles, Jesus has already decided that He will be a Teacher, and that He will dedicate Himself to teaching other mortals, one by one, the difficult art of surviving in a besieged world.

He knows that, to carry out His plan, He will have to face new dangers.

What He still ignores is that His first followers are already waiting for Him.

1 . In the biblical world, deserts are places suitable for transcendental encounters. Great spiritual leaders such as Moses and Elijah spent some of the most decisive periods of their lives in the desert. Following their example, throughout history thousands of men and women have renounced the world seeking spiritual enlightenment or communication with heaven in a withdrawn life.

2 . Jesus usually withdrew himself to deserted places to pray, at times including at night (Matt. 14:23; Mark 6:46; Luke 6:12, 9:28).

3 . See Roberto Badenas, Encounters (Madrid: Editorial Safeliz, 2000, pp. 13-27).

4 . Mark 1:11; Matthew 3:17; Luke 3:22.

5 . Mark 3:20-21; 6:4; John 7:5.

6 . Luke 4:24; Matthew 13:47.

7 . Giovanni Papini, The Story of Christ, Madrid: ABC, 2004, p. 47.

8 . See, for example, the case of the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19:4).

9 . These forty days of solitude in the desert remind of other biblical periods of quarantine, always experienced as periods of test: the forty-year exodus in the desert from the city of Israel, which took it from the slavery of Egypt to the promised land; the forty days Moses waited at Sinai before receiving the revelation of the divine law (Exod. 34:28); or the forty days Elijah spent refuged in the desert until finding the strength that would allow him to face the wrath of queen Jezebel (1 Kings 19:8).

10 . Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in his parable titled “The Grand Inquisitor” acknowledges “only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom” The Brothers Karamazov, Madrid: Cátedra, 2006, p. 410).

11 . Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, Safeliz, Madrid: 2006, p. 68

12 . The account of the temptations of Jesus in the desert is found in the Gospels of Matthew (4:1-11), Mark (1:12-13) and Luke (1:1-13); but only Matthew and Luke give details about the temptations. Luke varies the order of the last two. Here, we follow the order of Matthew given that the latter was a direct disciple of Jesus, and his account presents them in a clearly progressive order. (cf. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, pp. 74-77)

13 . Regarding the meaning of the biblical fast, which does not always or necessarily imply not eating or drinking, see Isaiah 58:5-11.

14 . Regarding the incarnation of Jesus, see Philippians 2:5-8.

15 . —Well, a wallet fell on a subway seat: and with plenty of dollar bills. These rich people have money in abundance and you, poor wretched soul, breaking your back at the service of these exploiters for a wage of pittance. No one sees you. Take the money it contains, which might not be much for the owner. What’s more, it serves him well for being careless. Based on your need of this money at this time . . . who knows if it is God himself who has placed that wallet there, close at hand, in response to your prayers?

16 . Matthew 4:4, citing Deuteronomy 8:3; the verb form of the Greek perfect gegraptai denotes something that “has been written and is still in force.” Jesus nourishes his contact with God through the Sacred Scriptures. His key to defeating, his “magic formula” is: “Gegraptai: It is written, or God teaches (in the Bible).”

17 . Psalm 91:11-12.

18 . “and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory . . .” (Hag. 2:7-8, NKJV). Divine glory in the Bible is always associated with the presence of angels.

19 . —We are alone, silly. Don’t be straitlaced. No one will enter. My wife is traveling. We crave it. Why should we rely on what some papers say to share what our bodies desire? What difference does it make that your husband believes you to be only his, if the only thing that matters in life is the present pleasure?

20 . We notice that the tempter appears in these temptations in a subtle progression, in an increasingly more personal and direct way. The first attack appears as a mere protective insinuation on the part of the peiradson, the tempter (Matt. 4:3). The second bursts in like a clear deceit from the diabolos, the infiltrated, “the one who gets in between” since that is the word’s original meaning in Greek (Matt. 4:5). His third assault will expose him as Satan, name that the Bible quintessentially gives to the enemy of God (Matt. 4:10).

21 . “The Lord [. . .] is patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9; cf. John 3:16-17).

22 . The essence of the temptations of the desert is not to make bread from stones, to plunge from the top of a tower, or to kneel before the devil, but to benefit through improper ways, to impose something on others by means of force or to yield to the corrupt methods of despots. It is more a problem of means than ends, because, as Ghandi would say, “the ends inevitably come out of the means.”

23 . The executive position that remains open in the corporation appeals to me more than anything in the world. I know very well what I can do to get my boss to give it to me. If someone finds out, maybe they will consider me a typical social climber who flatters his superiors in order to prosper. But what’s at stake is my future. This is my time, and I will not let it go to waste.

24 . Aside from these temptations that Jesus told his disciples about, we are not aware of the others, and we can only imagine. “The last temptation of Jesus” was not the one attributed to him in any film or novel, of succumbing to the weaknesses of the flesh, although he was also tempted in that. Jesus was young and he certainly did not lack charm.

25 . The apostle James (1:13-15) explains that sin is born (or is “given birth to”) at the end of a process that begins with the enticement of temptation, and it materializes in consummated facts. Given our sinful nature, the more we move closer to that denouement, the closer we are to committing the irreparable.

26 . 1 John 2:16 Calls these seductive elements “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” Innumerable forms of seduction lie in wait for us and incite us to make mistakes that distract us from what is truly important and separate us from God.

27 . “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). “It has been said that the devil’s last trick was to spread the report of his own death . . .” (Giovanni Papini, The Story of Christ, p. 50)

28 . The Bible says that Jesus was tempted in everything just as we are but that he never sinned (Heb. 4:15). Hence, we must not confuse temptation with sin.

29 . “Many look on this conflict between Christ and Satan as having no special bearing on their own lives; and for them it has little interest. But within the domain of every human heart [. . .] the enticements which Christ resisted were those that we find it so difficult to withstand [. . .] the test upon appetite, upon the love of the world and upon the love of display which leads to presumption. These were the temptations that overcame Adam and Eve, and that so readily overcome us.” (Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 68)

30 . Since we are fallen beings, our victory lies with picking ourselves up each time we fall, and better yet, in not falling again. The only way to defeat temptation is how Jesus defeated it: with the help of the divine power.“Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:18).“Jesus revealed no qualities and exercised no powers that we may not have through faith in Him” (Ellen G. White, Desire of Ages, p. 433). “For unless He met man as man, and testified by His connection with God that divine power was not given to Him in a different way to what it will be given to us, He could not be a perfect example for us” (Manuscript 21, 1895) Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary. Washington: 1955, Review and Herald publishing association. “With the same facilities than man may obtain, withstood the temptations of Satan as man must withstand them.” (Ellen G. White, Signs of the Times, June 9, 1898)

31 . “Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, ch. 11)

32 . Luke 4:13 states that the devil left him “until an opportune time.”

33 . “Temptation once resisted will give power to more firmly resist the second time; every new victory gained over self will smooth the way for higher and nobler triumphs. Every victory is a seed sown to eternal life.” (Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, 1889, p. 120)

34 . Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness, Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 2007, p. 376.