Quiet Talks about JesusGordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Religion
Quiet Talks about Jesus
Gordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Jesus Christ -- Person and offices
The temptation follows the natural lines of man's powers. Man was made
with mastery of himself, kingship over nature and all its forces, and
utter dependence, even for his very breath, upon God. While made perfect
in these, he would know them fully only through growth. He had three
relationships, to God, his fellows, and himself. His relation to God would
keep true the relation to himself, and adjust the relation to his fellows.
Keeping God in proper proportion in the perspective keeps one's self in
its true place always. Utter dependence by every man upon God would make
perfect harmony with his fellows. The dominion of nature was through
self-mastery, and this in turn would be only through the practice of utter
dependence upon God.
Now all sin comes under this grouping, the relation to God, the relation
to others, within one's self. Temptation follows the line of exaggeration,
misuse, misadjustment, wrong motive. It pushes trust over into unwarranted
presumption. Dominion over nature crosses the line into the relation to
other men. Fellow-feeling gives way to an ambition to get ahead of the
other man and to boss him. Proper appetite and desire become lust and
passion. The dominion that man was to have over nature, he seeks also to
have over his brothers, so crossing the line of his own proper dominion
and trespassing on God's. Only God is to have dominion over all men. Where
a man is lifted to eminence of rule among his fellows he is simply acting
for Somebody else. He is not a superior. He is a servant of God, in ruling
over his fellows.
John's famous grouping of all sin as "the lust of the flesh, lust of eye
and pride of life," refers to what is out "in the world." It touches only
_two_ of these three: sin in one's self and in relation to his fellows,
with the dominion line out of adjustment. Out in the world God has been
left clean out, so the phase of trust isn't touched upon by John.
Jesus' temptation follows these natural lines. Improper use of power for
the sake of the bodily appetite; to presume on God's care in doing
something unwarranted; to cross the line of dominion over nature and seek
to control men. For, be it remembered, Jesus was here as a man. The realm
of the body, the realm of religion, the realm of wrong ambition, these
were the temptation lines followed then, and before, and ever since.
The going into the wilderness was planned by the Holy Spirit. He was in
charge of this campaign of Jesus to win back the allegiance of man and
the dominion of the earth. Jesus yielded Himself to the control of the
Holy Spirit for His earthly mission, even as later the Holy Spirit yielded
Himself wholly to the control of the exalted Jesus for _His_ earthly
mission.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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